compatibilism

[iambiguous]

I ask because you don't seem to be the type to pay any attention to the actual views of others, however much you may agree or disagree with the views.

Yeah, admittedly, I get this a lot. Only, by and large, it is from the objectivists among us. And, with them, unless you accept their own point of view, you are not paying attention to them.

I don't see any objectivists replying to you, but plenty of others make this observation about you.

Oh, they reply to me for a spell. Until, given some measure of autonomy, it begins to sink in that maybe, just maybe the following...

1] that my own existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless
2] that human morality in a No God world revolves largely around a fractured and fragmented assessment of right and wrong rooted existentially in dasein.
3] that oblivion is awaiting all of us when we die

...might be applicable to them as well. Then they either steer clear of me or they become Stooges.

Well, unless, of course, I'm wrong.

So, given a particular set of circumstances involving conflicting goods please note how they are not applicable to you.

Click, of course.

What assertions would those be?

I mean any and all points you raised about compatibilism that have no actual backing from the scientific community.

And by "support", in my view, you mean arguments defining and defending other arguments...philosophically. Up in the clouds of abstractions. Instead, as with myself and most others, all we do here is create arguments based on what we think we know about compatibilism "in our head".[/quote]

This is what I mean. You reference these 'points' that I've made, but no particular point is identified. This is just a generic utterance that you put out. What exact points do you think I have made? You don't know because you don't actually pay attention to the posts made by others.

Again, my point here revolves around the gap between the arguments that you make given what you believe is true about compatibilism "in your head" and what "empirically, experientially and experimentally" you are actually able to back up with substantive and substantial evidence.

Given your stance and your belief about compatibilism note all of the factors here that are not just philosophical assumptions made about the human brain that revolve entirely around stances and beliefs themselves.

I Okay, but over and again I note that my own views pertaining to meaning, morality and metaphysics are fractured and fragmented. In other words, I argue it is one thing to post what you believe about compatibilism and another thing altogether being able to demonstrate empirically, experientially and/or experimentally that what you believe all rational men and women are obligated to believe in turn.

Go ahead, give it a shot.

hat's four judgements made on my beliefs, not one of which you can name. This is evidence of my claim that you continuously commit the straw man fallacy. You're arguing against fictions of your own making, not against say what I actually say or believe.

Note to others:

Please cite examples of Noax backing up his philosophical assessment of compatibilism above with hard evidence. That's my point, of course. The gap between what you merely believe is true here and what you can in fact demonstrate about those beliefs. Then the part where that gap is subsumed in the far, far bigger gap between our understanding of the human condition and noting -- ontologically? teleologically? -- how that fits into an understanding -- ontologically? teleologically? -- of the existence of existence itself.

And all the more reason for objectivists to concoct one or another rendition of the One True Path. Their own, of course.

Another shot taken to these objectivists you seem to want to target. What have they done that so offends you? Why are you bringing them up in a reply to me? Can you say what they believe? I doubt it. I had to look it up myself.

Why? Because that has always been my main focus here in regard to meaning, morality and metaphysics. Given the arguments I raise here -- https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/a-man ... sein/31641 -- in particular.

Click, of course.

Pop quiz: What have you learned about my beliefs in this latest post? Did you pay attention? Do you have to re-read the post to get the answer, or will you just not get it?

There you go again. I'm less interested in what your beliefs are and more interested in how you actually do go about demonstrating them. To yourself, for example.

[Age]

Free will AND determinism BOTH EXIST.

But, then again, I do USE those words in 'the way' where they BOTH COULD EXIST, BOTH ARE COMPATIBLE, and in which BOTH WORK PERFECTLY, TOGETHER, in the G.U.T.O.E.

Whereas, and obviously, some people USE those words 'in ways' where it would be an IMPOSSIBILITY for them to exist. A bit like how the 'God' word is USED DIFFERENTLY, by DIFFERENT people, with DIFFERENT objectives, and DIFFERENT BELIEFS.

[iambiguous]

Why is Freedom So Important To Us?
John Shand explains why free will is basic to humanity.

Secondly, though, only if there is freedom to choose may anything be properly considered right or wrong, some things better or worse, some things to have a meaning because they’re more important or significant than others. So freedom of the will appears to be another necessary condition for there to be values, since only creatures with free will can choose between options of what should or should not happen. So only if there is freedom can there be both ethics and aesthetics.

In other words, because free will is so vital to us in establishing moral responsibility and beauty, that means it must be true? As though in believing this is an inherent component of the human condition that's demonstration enough that it is?

Well, without freedom we would perhaps be left with the facts of our preferences and tastes, but with no normative implication – you cannot be right or wrong in respect to them; they would simply be situations that either are or are not.

And that's where many will take this. The fact that as individuals we choose the behaviors that sustain our own personal preferences and tastes...how could that possibly be mistaken for, say, something like the Terminator? He's all machine when push comes to shove. Meaning, among other things, he is entirely amoral. Most of us, on the other hand, while functioning autonomically in so many crucial ways, are convinced all that just stops when we come to the brain. They "just know" this.

Unless, of course, those who believe this are then asked to provide us with actual definitive evidence that this is the case.

You either like cheese, or potatoes, or chicken, or you do not – there’s no point in arguing with someone that they’re not right if they don’t like what you do, or asserting that they’ve made a mistake, that they ought to like it.

Unless, perhaps, in whatever manner you do argue, you are merely arguing only that which your brain compels you to.

However, with values and meaning, there is such a point, for a (good) judgement of value or meaning follows a rational process, implying the possibility of normative judgement as to a correct or a mistaken view.

Of course, here I argue that even given some degree of free will, judgment calls of this nature are rooted existentially in dasein. So, if autonomy is proven beyond all doubt, there does not appear to be a way for mere mortals in a No God world to establish which judgment calls are in fact the most rational.

[attofishpi]

-- bla bla bla -- boring boring boring crap..

WANKA - you are doing a great job of keeping your crappy thread alive - woteva u do..don't let it sink (it will when ya DEAD tho!!)

[Noax]

What assertions would those be?

I mean any and all points you raised about compatibilism

revolves around the gap between the arguments that you make given what you believe is true about compatibilism

Given your stance and your belief about compatibilism

5th, 6th & 7th time now. So you admit making it all up since you cannot recall a single actual point made.

I'm less interested in what your beliefs are

Obviously. You cannot recall a single one of them.

As for it being backed by hard evidence, if it were thus backed, it would be science, not philosophy. It's not like your point of view is backed by science. It is rather directly denied by modern science which operates under methodological naturalism. Your view doesn't fit in that category, but it did millenia ago when science operated under methodological supernaturalism, for the purpose of herding sheep. This resulted in a complete lack of scientific progress known as the dark ages.

I don't see you backing your stance with empirical evidence.

all we do here is create arguments based on what we think we know about compatibilism "in our head".

Maybe you should stop making them up and ask the compatibilists instead.

Note to others:
Please cite examples of Noax backing up his philosophical assessment of compatibilism above

Lacking any ability to recall even one claim I've made about compatibilism, iambiguous is hoping somebody else will remind him. Saves the effort of actually reading my posts.

And then the topic degrades into plugging one's personal site that nobody reads.


Hey, look: Age seems to take on a compatibilist stance. Why not ask him?

Free will AND determinism BOTH EXIST.

But, then again, I do USE those words in 'the way' where they BOTH COULD EXIST, BOTH ARE COMPATIBLE, and in which BOTH WORK PERFECTLY, TOGETHER

It's not exactly fleshed out, but the basic assertions are there.

[iambiguous]

Why is Freedom So Important To Us?
John Shand explains why free will is basic to humanity.

Often those who are sanguine about freedom being an illusion we could happily live without, also say that accepting this position would eliminate the blame and resentment of responsibility, leading to a cooler, more rational way of dealing with attitudes and actions we take to be wrong.

Feeling sanguine yourself about...anything? Okay, then please explain what this means for all practical purposes when you were never able to opt freely to be pessimistic instead? Same with those with gloomy outlooks. If you are never able to have an upbeat attitude?

Whether it is possible or not to view people as devoid of freedom, and it is hard to see how that would be, the idea that the removal of free will from our lives would be good overlooks the other side of the coin – that it would simultaneously eliminate the praise and admiration that sometimes come with responsibility.

The idea regarding any number of things raised by philosophers is always going to be considerably problematic...until actual substantive and substantial evidence is accumulated making it considerably less problematic.

Go ahead, beyond a "world of words" note any empirical evidence that you have yourself accumulated over the years substantiating [one way or the other] how compatibilism "works" in regard to things in your own life. Like, say, posting here?

Just as freedom to choose the bad would go without free will, so would freedom to choose the good, and any sense of praiseworthy achievements for which we could be given credit and be proud. We could neither rationally be castigated for the bad we do, nor praised for the good: all would just happen, or not happen.

Then this part: for thousands of years now both philosophers and scientists have struggled to pin this down...once and for all?

And this would not just apply to moral matters. Any actions that are praised or blamed could no longer be. If a person made great sacrifices, say in order to create a great work of art that was marvelous in itself and gave comfort or stimulation to millions, or made some scientific discovery after enormous labour, no acclaim could be given, either for the result or for the effort made: it just happened. Praise would be no more appropriate than it would be if directed at the sun for coming up and combining with the weather to produce a beautiful spring morning.

Too disturbing for you? Unless, perhaps, your life is in the toilet and you can for all intents and purposes fall back on it instead?

[iambiguous]

Why is Freedom So Important To Us?
John Shand explains why free will is basic to humanity.

The denial of free will, and hence of moral responsibility, also potentially justifies the awful prospect of criminals not being held to account and punished for the wrongs they choose, but rather, being treated merely as broken mechanisms that need to be fixed (see for instance A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess, 1962).

Again, however, in a determined universe as some encompass it "in their heads" philosophically, what they believe as mere mortals in a No God world is only that which they were never able not to believe. Some will be compelled to deny free will while others will be compelled to embrace it. Similarly, some will be appalled at the "awful prospect" of eliminating human autonomy "and thus moral responsibility" given criminal activity, while others are clinging to the hope that it really is "all completely beyond my control".

Indeed, the absence of freedom from our lives, or perhaps I should say, the firm belief that we are not free, that we have no genuine ability to guide our lives through freely-considered choices – would take us to an utterly different way of living, including being stripped of all values and meaning.

The good news here [for some] revovles around the fact they actually would not have it any other way...even if they could have it another way. Why? Because even though their own life is filled with failure after failure, they "failed" only because they were never determined -- fated? destined? -- to succeed.

In other words, the part where something is deemed to be "beyond our control". And to boot by Nature and its laws themselves.

We would no more have either of those than a rock does when rolling downhill until it hits something and stops. That would indeed be full non-significance, from our birth to our death: we would just be complicated rocks rolling down a hill until we stop. Such a terrible, barren prospect is the reason freedom is so important to us.

Here, one suspects, there are any number of us who might conclude instead that, because the prospect of being wholly determined by the laws of matter is so repugnant to them, that's what makes it unreasonable.

Like -- click -- I'm being irrational myself here when I argue that human value judgments are rooted existentially in dasein. And thus that "failures to communicate" are inevitable in a fractured and fragmented assessment of good and bad, right and wrong.

[iambiguous]

Best arguments against compatibilism?
Philosophy Stack Exchange

According to the 2020 PhilPapers survey, 59.2% of philosophers are compatibilists when it comes to the free will/determinism debate.

Okay, and of them how many were/are able to demonstrate not only why this is the case for all reasonable men and women, but how, in turn, they were/are then determined to become compatibilists but are still responsible for "choosing" that.

Despite its popularity among professional philosophers, what are the strongest criticisms/arguments against compatibilism levelled by incompatibilists? Please elaborate on the criticism/argument, and cite the philosopher(s) who made it, if possible.

Well, my own set of assumptions are no less derived from what I believe is true about compatibilism "in my head" "here and now". Meaning, in other words, I am myself no more able to explain human autonomy "in reality" given The Gap and Rummy's Rule. Let alone arguing that others should think about it as I do. Let alone actually demonstrating why.

I merely note how, in my view, no one else here seems able to move much beyond their own world of words philosophical assessments.

[iambiguous]

Best arguments against compatibilism?
Philosophy Stack Exchange
Pertti Ruismäki

The best argument against compatibilism is that free will and determinism are incompatible by definition.

Then the part where some insist that defining compatibilism as we do, we are no less defining it only as our brains compel us to. As though defining something was the philosophical equivalent of establishing its bona fides. Pin down the most logically and epistemologically sound grasp of compatibilism. Then come to places like this and insist that how you define it is the philosophical equivalent of the gold standard

Either agents decide or no-one decides. Compatibilism requires redefinition of both to enable "deterministic" decision-making.

And all of this can be "figured out" philosophically? Establish the correct definition and it can then be used to sustain the most rational meaning. Then, what, just assume that how you go about this in and of itself establishes its validity?

The second best argument is that in reality there is no determinism to be compatible with. Compatibilism is a useless idea.

Right, like if we define compatibilism out of existence morally and politically, that'll stop others from insisting hard determinism is the real deal.

[iambiguous]

The illusion of free Will: https://youtu.be/2_BTVN68-ZA?si=Yu1K_ZEbv_lwl6F3

Here are many of the arguments made by those who champion the belief that free will is an illusion. In other words, they champion determinism only because they were never able not to.

But then the discussion gets around to what seems to be the most controversial consequence of determinism...the seeming inability to hold others morally responsible for "choosing" behaviors they were wholly compelled by their brain to pursue.

But then [once again] the distinction between determinism and fatalism is broached. On the other hand, how would we go about actually demonstrating that this distinction is not just one more example of our brain compelling us to make it?

Instead, we basically have to accept the assumption that "somehow" our brains did acquire autonomy and live our lives accordingly.

[iambiguous]

Best arguments against compatibilism?
Philosophy Stack Exchange
Pertti Ruismäki

The best argument against compatibalism is that our universe is not deterministic, so both hard determinism and compatibilist determinism are refuted by physics.

That'll be the day? No, seriously, if that day ever comes there will still be those who argue that this "refutation" in and of itself is just another unherent manifestation of the only possible reality.

In other words, the more astro-physicists explore the universe the more mind-boggling it seems to get: https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/spac ... s-universe
https://www.nasa.gov/specials/60counting/universe.html

The three main worldviews of hard incompatibilism determinism, compatibilist determinism, and libertarianism, are just the three most popular, they are not the only views one can have on free will.

Just what we need here...more Isms.

Compatibilist-leaners may say the world might be indeterminist, but that most of our thinking is based on reasons, so that one can approximate our willing and choices by a near-determinist compatibilist model.

Got that? Agree with it? If so, please note how this impacts your own "willing and choices" pertaining to, say, posting here. And I'm always interested in what someone who does believe this would tell Mary about her abortion.

Let's face it, if all the reasoning provided here pertaining to free will basically arrived at the same conclusion, that might be important to note. Instead, among philosophers and scientists going all the way back to the pre-Socratics, not much has changed at all. Aside from the fact that what we know about the universe here and now tends only to confirm just how much more there is to know.

This has been the response of several compatibilists I have encountered to the refutation of determinism -- basically a "near enough" pseudo-determinist plus random and pseudo-compatibilist POV.

Same thing. If this makes sense to you, note how "for all practical purposes" it is applicable either to posting here or reading the posts of others.

As Quine pointed out, there are basically infinite theories we can fit to all evidence, and one can no doubt construct all sorts of "near compatibilist" views, at least one of which has no refutations.

You tell me.

[iambiguous]

Best arguments against compatibilism?
Philosophy Stack Exchange
Dcleve

There's only one really good argument against compatibilism, and it's the claim that there is no free will.

That's what I think. Here and now. But then there are those I call the "free will determinists". Philosophers who, while seemingly defending determinism as I do myself, are still able to sneak in at least some measure of autonomy. Just enough apparently so that it turns out that their own arguments are always more reasonable "in the end".

The difference between compatibilism and no-free-will is just a disagreement over which definition of "free will" is preferable. It's not a disagreement over matters of fact.

This is yet another aspect of the debate I find rather peculiar. The emphasis on pursuing the discussion only after everyone is able to agree on how determinism, free will and compatibilism are defined. Pinning down the debate...theoretically? technically? As though there is no possibility that how we define things is also but another inherent component of the only possible reality.

Where the compatibilist sees our actions are determined by physics and chooses to define the words "free will" in such a way that it remains meaningful and compatible with this situation, the no-free-will philosopher sees that our actions are determined by physics and thinks it's better to define the words "free will" in a way that is incompatible with this situation.

Back to this: what situation?

And how does it make sense that the no free will philosophers are still able to convince themselves to "see" actions or to "think" about them in such a way that only those who don't "get it" are confused about what these "free will determinist" are saying.

[iambiguous]

Best arguments against compatibilism?
Philosophy Stack Exchange
causitive

Pros of the compatibilist definition: the term "free will" remains meaningful and usable as a way to describe the physical process of how we make decisions.

On the other hand, making it true just because it allows our decisions to be construed as meaningful and useful establishes what exactly? It's certainly not proof of autonomy. After all, what we construe here we may well have never been able to construe otherwise. Instead, we possess only the psychological illusion that we are choosing freely.

Pros of the no-free-will definition: the term "free will" remains consistent with the naive notion, which comes in handy if you're trying to explain what's wrong with the naive notion.

Consistent with the naive notion? You tell me. And how is it applicable to your own interactions with others?

There are other arguments against compatibilism. None of them are very good. Perhaps the strongest of them would be the concept that the world isn't totally deterministic, because of quantum physics.

See what I mean? Whether we like it or not the world that we live in "somehow" fits into what may or may not be the optimal manner in which to grasp interactions between the very, very large and the very, very small.

Then [of course] the part where we don't even know if the human brain is capable of grasping something that it may well be inherently a part of itself.

I suspect that is why God and religion are so widely accepted. With them things are just what they are because a God, the God created them that way.

However, compatibilists do not necessarily believe the world is deterministic! Free will in compatibilism is defined as the condition where your motivations guide your actions, with motivations corresponding to certain physical patterns, and this guidance may occur whether determinism or non-determinism is the correct physics.

In other words, back up into the conceptual, theoretical, technical clouds. Then taking our assessments/assumptions down to those in the scientific community who grasp physics...correctly?

[iambiguous]

"do determinists include their own arguments in their assessment of determinism?"

Let's run that by AI:

"Yes, according to the principle of determinism, a determinist would have to include their own arguments as being determined by prior causes, meaning their decision to argue for determinism itself is not a free choice but a result of preceding events and influences; essentially, their very belief in determinism is considered to be part of the deterministic chain of events."

This is the part I am most unable to wrap my head around. Why don't those like Sam Harris address this?

There he is up on stage defending determinism. But right in the middle of his argument it's not like he stops to remind the audience that he is himself arguing only what his brain compels him to argue. And that their reaction to his own conclusions are in turn wholly determined.

The bottom line here seems to revolve around the fact that any attempt to resolve this merely confronts us with any number truly surreal scenarios.

[Age]

IF 'these people' just came together, peacefully, and just discussed what the words 'determinism' AND 'free will' were MEANING and REFERRING TO, EXACTLY, while reaching an AGREEMENT, and an ACCEPTANCE, ON and OF the definition of those words, BEFORE an ACTUAL DISCUSSION ABOUT who is right and/or wrong, here, then what WILL JUST HAPPEN, and OCCUR, is ANY and ALL disagreement, debating, AND thus ALL conflict WILL CEASE, and FOREVER MORE, regarding this 'topic', here.

ONCE AGAIN, the IRREFUTABLE ACTUAL SIMPLICITY OF 'Life', and OF 'living', just KEPT GETTING OVERLOOKED, back in those 'olden days' when this WAS being written.