compatibilism

[iambiguous]

Click.
And then some?



Note to others:

No way I'll attempt to sustain an actual discussion/debate with him. It is always only a matter of time before he tumbles down into Stooge mode. And while I am willing to sustain exchanges with others I deem to be Stooges -- iwannaplato, phyllo, henry quirk, etc., -- with him it ever and always devolves into particularly fierce and slanderous personal attacks.

Though even here I'm willing to engage with those like him who are particularly adept at repartee. Those like Phoneutria. Alas, however, Satyr is absolutely abysmal when it comes to "quick, witty comments or replies". His own ripostes are often nothing short of excruciating.

On the other hand, if he ever is willing to discuss this part...

Now, what is still of interest to me is how AJ, Satyr and others of their ilk here would enforce [politically, legally] their own dogmatic "natural" philosophy. In other words, if they encompassed that power here in America.

Then the part where I ask him to note what Hitler got right and what Hitler got wrong regarding his own views on race.

...I'd appreciate a link. Also, if he is willing to note how, given a moral conflagration of his own choosing [click of course], the points I raise in the OPs here...

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/a-man ... sein/31641
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/moral ... live/45989

...are not applicable to him?

[Pistolero]

Oh Mary, you are trapped in a hole of your own making.
Well, obviously, Mary, Hitler failed....so he got something wrong, no?
Hitler made many strategic mistakes, Mary...one was he attacked the Soviets, before he took care of his western front.
Some say, Stalin was preparing an attack, but that hasn't been proven.
I doubt the Soviets had the power to deal with Germany, at that time, even if the US was building up her military.
But Germany needed resources....
He also made a strategic mistake in Stalingrad....wasted much time and human resources, when he could have gone around and attacked the caucuses, where there was oil.

Mary mass extermination doesn't work....I mean look what is happening in Palestine....
But Mary never uses it as an example....she only recalls the Holocaust, as she was trained to.
So, what is Israel getting wrong, in Palestine?
Extermination.....
Israel's ehtnic cleansing is bad news for Israel's future.

True diversity does not necessitate exterminations, Mary.
Each ethnicity/race, can live in accordance with its own values, in its own territory, and allow others to do the same.
Then, natural selection will determine which values are superior.
It will also test the hypothesis that race is a social construct.

But Mary, you are amoral, right, sweetie....on what grounds do you think Hitler was a bad guy?
You don't even believe in choice or free-will, so why did he have a choice to not do what he did, Mary?

[Pistolero]

Miss Mary has perfected the passive-aggressive, feminine art of condescending, patronizing, nagging.
Whomever has ever had an argument with a Karen, knows what I mean.
Mary is a "Karen" times ten....

She cannot defend her own positions....she cannot even define her own words.....and she contradicts her own positions, when she dares to make them clear.
I mean her amorality and positions on free-will are constantly contradicted by her ceaseless accusations against Nazis and Objectivists...

[iambiguous]

So -- click -- how did he do?

[iambiguous]

philosophy stack exchange
Fatalism vs Determinism vs Free-Will
Pertti Ruismäki

Determinism is an idea, that every event is completely determined by the previous event. Determinism is not a belief or a theory or a philosophical standpoint. Determinism does not describe reality or explain anything.

Determinism the idea? the theoretical construct? the philosophical concept? the analytic/epistemological contraption? the "my way or the highway" assessment encompassed in a world of words?

As for what determinism describes or explains, bring this down out of the philosophical clouds and note what it describes and/or explain regarding your own interactions with others.

Fatalism is a belief that the flow of events is being directed towards a predefined end by this mysterious force called fate.

Right, and that's the optimal or the only rational explanation or understanding of it. All reasonable people are then obligated to share it or else they are flat out wrong.

Free will has nothing to do with either of these imaginary things as both do explicitly deny free will. Free will has many definitions. Some define it as something imaginary, illogical or impossible. Some define it as something real, like the ability to make decisions. But there are no valid definitions that define free will as an open question, a subject to debate.

Definitions! As though any attempt on our part to define anything at all could never, ever be in turn an inherent manifestation/component of the only possible world. So, how is that demonstrated by those who believe it? Well, it's not. Instead, they define and deduce free will into existence in arguments basically just defending other arguments.

Then the part where the hardcore determinists point out that this too is just another intrinsic aspect of the only way the the material world can possibly unfold.

[Pistolero]

The "my way or the highway" argument seems to be central in Mary's psychosis.
She cannot compete so she tries to subvert all challengers by accusing them of fascism.
She cannot offer superior arguments, so she tries to undermine the opposition using her feminine passive-aggressive methods.
It seems that anything that challenges her views, how she believes the world "ought to be", remaining unable to justify or rationalize, is deemed to be imposing itself upon her.
infantile
As if the world outside her delusions were interrupting her subjective meditations.....forcefully intervening upon her fantasies.

She seems to be unable to comprehend how discourse works, or how 'survival of the fittest' applies to perspectives (memes) as much as it does to genetics.
Her "anti-fascism" seems to only be capable of emotionally subverting what she cannot rationally challenge, nor contradict.
Her methods are defensive.
If you've notices...Mary never constructs a thesis, she always critiques.
She's an anti-philospher...pretending she's philosophizing when she snidely comments, in that patronizing style of hers.

When women face men they cannot emotionally manipulate they accuse them of "mansplaning" or of trying to impose their opinions upon them - a sort of 'mind rape'. Without their consent they've been made aware of their own inadequacies.....that's authoritarian.
Whichever perspectives, Miss Land, is incapable of challenging, nor defend herself against, she accuses of imposing themselves upon her, against her will.....which she claims is un-free.

In nature there is no "one way".....
In all nature there is multiplicity....of objectives and methods....but not all are created equal....and that is what distresses Mary.
But there is only one way in her anti-nature, anti-philosophy womanly methods.
It seems that she is accusing her adversaries - those dreaded Nazi Objectivists - of what she is most guilty.
Unable to compete, in the field of ideas, she implies that her perspective is the only way out of mankind's predicament, which she identifies as the competition of ideas....conflicting ideals.
She wants to end conflict....by adopting her way, as the only way to eternal peace.
She wants to put a stop to natural selection.
She wants to equalize everything.....eliminate the limits on female sexuality by offering free abortions and contraceptives - both of which men invented - to all women.....so that they are never burdened by the limits nature set upon her gender's behaviors.
Convenient.

At this point she'll give us a repetition of her cut & paste defensive mantra.
Patronizing, condescending....and never direct...always appealing to the audience, like a good woman.
As if popularity is how she measures success.

[iambiguous]

Best arguments against compatibilism?
Philosophy stack exchange
Olivier5

I will try and get this ball rolling, not to be exhaustive. However, a caveat first: i don't know that we can classify any of the following arguments as "best". For one because there are very few such arguments, and for two because each of those argument is tributary to a certain world view, and doesn't work outside of it. You can't really compare them.

This -- click -- is basically my own assumption. We exchange philosophical assessments of the human brain here as though [for some] this can in fact be encompassed given the best of all possible arguments. But to the extent that the arguments revolve almost entirely around how the words are defined in the argument itself, how do we go about pinning down that, in fact, the definitions are not themselves an inherent component of the only possible reality?

As for world views pertaining to value judgments, the same thing? They are rooted existentially in dasein, in my view, but I have no capacity to actually demonstrate that this view is autonomous rather than autonomic.

Then the part where the brain is tasked with explaining itself...going all the way back to the explanation for how and why the human condition fits into existence itself.

Cartesian Dualism: the oldest argument so I will start here. Descartes believed in determinism and postulated that a machine cannot be imagined as thinking. I.e., if one imagines our brain as a machine, with cogs and wheels, nowhere can one imagine a wheel or a cog that thinks, or a material, extended machine that creates non-extensive, immaterial thoughts. Therefore we cannot think of ourselves as only machines. Hence the need for something else than the material in us: the substance of the soul.

Not unlike those who champion free will but then attribute it to...God? And since there is no way in which to demonstrate that God does not exist, all one need do is to believe that he does. Or, for others, to believe that they are in possession of free will because "in their head" that's what makes it true...believing it.

[Pistolero]

Bring it 'down to earth,' Mary.

Use words to connect to perceptible, falsifiable, independently experienced, phenomena.

Of course there are competing ideals, you sad woman....that's natural selection.
This does not mean all of them are equally probable....

How do you determine what perspective is more probable, woman?

Context:
Two friends come to you, after a fight, telling you their side of the story.....
The stories are completely or slightly contradictory.
How do you, pathetic woman, determine which story is most probably true...or closer to the truth of what happened?

[iambiguous]

Best arguments against compatibilism?
Philosophy stack exchange
Olivier5

Somewhat similar, the Jansenist argument that man is indeed a machine, chained to the wheels of determinism just like any animal is, but unlike animals man has access to God's grace that can occasionally "save" the man machine from its machinery. In this view, a compatibilist is someone who leaves no room for God in this world, who fails to see that only God can solve the contradiction between determinism and our natural sense of agency.

On the other hand, Jansenism was but one of many, many Christian denominations: https://www.logos.com/grow/christian-denominations/  

Then the part where Christianity itself is but one of countless other religious liturgies.

I am one who believes it's not for nothing that God and religion are often broached here. Why? Because in a No God universe, where are the souls which are said to be the very font for autonomy?

Finally, the part where God is deemed by many to be omniscient, yet "somehow" that itself is reconciled with human autonomy.

The indeterminist argument, primarily put forth by Popper, states that determinism is probably false, or "not even false" (i.e. metaphysical), and thus that it is unwise and unphilosophical to accept it mechanically or uncritically as is so often the case since Spinoza and Leibnitz.

At least the speculation here revolves around things said to "probably" be true or false. That's an acknowledgement, in my view, that The Gap and Rummy's Rule are such that it is very unlikely that the philosophical arguments will be able to go beyond probability. At least not in our own lifetimes.

From that perspective, the need for compatibilism does not arise. Compatibilism is just another (silly) way to accept determinism uncritically.

Again, whatever that means "for all practical purposes" given the profound mystery embedded in, among other things, the existence of existence itself.

[Pistolero]

Bring it 'down to earth,' Mary.
there is no certainty, anywhere.
All human knowledge is based no probabilities, Miss Land.

This does not make every idiotic perspective the equal to a rationally based perspective.

Men do not need to be omniscient to build knowledge and understanding on probabilities, Mary.
Disproving another perspective does not give merit to your own, simple woman.

Again...
Use your words to anchor the concepts in your tiny mind on actions that can be independently verified.

Start with 'Will.'
What does it refer to?

Then move to 'free.'
A term like all qualifiers....referring to the term it is attached to.
'Strong'....'weak'.....'good'....'bad'.....'high' ....'low'.....'power'....powerless.'''....
FREE....Unfree.
What does 'free' say about the Will?
That it is 'outside existence?
That it is outside causality?
That it is not determined by motives?


No, Mary....you may want ti to do so, but it does not.
No more than saying 'strong willed' means the will is omnipotent, or immune to gravity.

Mary....even 'morality' refers to activities....behaviors, not to books, you sad pathetic woman.
Behaviors common among many species....social species, Mary.
Love, compassion, tolerance, cooperation, self-sacrifice...the Golden Rule....
Yes Mary. Reciprocity.
Social species perform these actions.....these behaviors, without requiring a Bible, Mary.

[iambiguous]

Best arguments against compatibilism?
Philosophy stack exchange
Olivier5

The moral argument, that says in essence that compatibilism makes not enough of a difference between men and animals: the compatibilist argument could be used to prove that dogs and birds have free will.

This is where things can get particularly convoluted. As with human beings, all other animals must subsist. And in order to do so, like us, they must feed themselves, quench their thirst, secure shelter, defend themselves and, for the species itself to continue, reproduce.

And yet over and again we note that, unlike human beings, other animals are not held responsible for what they do. And certainly not morally responsible. Why? Because it is presumed that for them biological imperatives -- instincts -- are ever and always the bottom line.

Now, some of us insist that with human interactions, genes are, in turn, the bottom line. There are natural behaviors they tell us. And even though they are unable to actually demonstrate this much between their philosophical assumptions, that's all that is ever necessary to prompt some of them to start thinking in terms of, say, eugenics? Or, for others, even final solutions to weed out the inferior among us.

Thus...

But then why don't we consider dogs or birds morally responsible for their acts? They are just following their instincts, desires and fears, but we humans are supposed to do better than that: to examine our desires, to put our instincts in check, to control our fears. This is the essence of freedom, not just following our proclivities as the compatibilists argue (at least, I suppose, some of them).

And all of this may well be the case. We may "somehow" have acquired autonomy as a species. Either as a result of a God, the God, or Pantheism, or for reasons deeply embedded in The Gap and Rummy's Rule. In other words, for reasons that "here and now" neither, philosophers, scientists nor theologians are able to provide us with.

Do we "examine our desires", "put our instincts in check" and "control our fears" of our own volition? Sure, that's always possible. Given the astounding mysteries built into the very, very large and the very very small, none of us are attempting anything other than existential leaps of faith 

[iambiguous]

Pereboom's Four Case Argument against Compatibilism
at Philosophical Disquisitions

I have recently been working my way through some of the arguments in Derk Pereboom’s book Free Will, Agency and Meaning in Life. The book presents the most thorough case for hard incompatibilism of which I am aware. Hard incompatibilism is the view that free will is not compatible with causal determinism, and, what’s more, probably doesn’t even exist.

Click.

From my frame of mind "here and now", the very first thing those who argue for hard incompatibilism should acknowledge is this...that if hard incompatibilism is in fact the case, how could it not include those who argue that it is in fact the case? In other words, if someone standing right next to them argues instead that libertarian free will is inherently embedded in human interactions, they are interchangeable given the only possible reality. If neither one was ever able to freely opt to argue other than that which their brains compel them to argue...?

You do the metaphysical math. Though that effort in turn may or may not be accomplished autonomously.

That argument rests on a series of four thought experiments, each assuming the truth of compatibilism, each involving an agent making a decision, and each provoking an intuitive reaction to that agent’s responsibility. Consequently, the argument is sometimes referred to as the “Four Case” Argument against compatibilism. In what follows, I want to present the argument in as clear a way as I possibly can, and offer some critical reflections.

And yet however carefully and however clearly any arguments are made, they are still arguments that were never able not to be made. Same with our reactions to those arguments. However critically we might reflect on them, it can never be any more or less critical than our entirely material brain impels us to.

Ever and always, it comes down to the profound mystery embedded in the human brain itself. In particular, given a No God universe. The evolution of matter into minds able to grasp the evolution of matter into minds? Try to imagine it...a teleological universe?

On the other hand, for me, it always comes down to all the trials and tribulations, all the terrible pain and suffering endured by human beings day in and day out. That is apparently also embedded in whatever created and sustains the existence of existence itself.

[iambiguous]

Pereboom's Four Case Argument against Compatibilism at Philosophical Disquisitions

Compatibilism and Manipulation Arguments

Compatibilism is the view that free will exists and is compatible with the truth of determinism. In other words, compatibilists hold that whether a decision is to be judged free (or not) does not depend on whether the decision was causally determined.

But then the part where we understand this in different ways. After all, what [and how much] is encompassed existentially and experientially given a decision that was causally determined? 

How do you yourself go about making this distinction pertaining to, say, posting here? What part of that behavior is autonomous and what part is autonomic? And how would you go about demonstrating this beyond the theoretical assumptions that are made in "worlds of words" philosophically? 

This raises the obvious question: if causal determinism has no bearing on the matter, what does? The answer is that a certain type of causal sequence is associated with free and responsible decision-making. If the actual causal sequence leading up to a decision fits this type, then we are entitled to say that the decision is free.

Well, if you have convinced yourself that you are entitled to say that your decision to post here is free, you're still stuck with demonstrating this empirically, experientially and experimentally. Then those here who seem to embrace hardcore determinism but only if it can "somehow" be reconciled with their own argument being the most rational. Or, perhaps, the least irrational?

[Martin Peter Clarke]

My free willed vote: determinism.

[henry quirk]

My free willed vote: determinism.

I'm determined to oppose you, Martin, so I vote for: libertarian free will/agent causation.