The Democrat Party Hates America

[Belinda]

No, a "miracle" would be an event with a cause, but with a supernatural one. To say, "God caused..." is not to say that something happened causelessly. That much is quite obvious, surely.

However, only in a metaphorical way can we speak of mind being a "miracle." For in a very real sense, there's nothing at all unusual about "mind." As hard as the concept may be for us to fully comprehend, we all do comprehend it on an experiential level: we all both have and use minds constantly. Ironically, to deny the existence of mind requires an exercise of mind.

So even a Determinist cannot deny the experiential reality of mind. It's just not possible. It's a performative contradiction of Determinism.

So we need not refer all the way to "miracles" to consider mind. All we have to do is to consider what you and I experience every single day and every single moment of our lives, and ask, "what is going on here?"

That physics gives us no purchase on an answer is not a slander on physics: physics itself never promised us more than access to physical mechanisms and realities; it never told us it was going to be the only road to knowledge, or to deal with non-physical realities for us. It just promised to get better and better at doing what it purported to do, namely, to unpack physical realities. Whatever is super-physical, such as mind, it made us no promise to unpack. We cannot hold physics responsible for failing to do what it never promised to do at all.

And we cannot deny the existence of mind. For only a mind can do that.

A supernatural cause is above nature by definition.

Yes...and...?

Brains and minds are the objective and the subjective aspects of the same entity.

It's more complicated than that, B. Sure "brain" is physical: but a corpse has a brain, too. Yet it's missing something. You call it "subjectivity," but the truth is, that the ability to have a subjectivity is a product of mind, not a description of it: as is the ability to reason, to think, to choose, to cogitate, to perceive, to interpret, to identify, to do science and logic, and to hold an opinion.

The brain and the mind definitely interact. Nobody doubts that. But how they do...that remains much more difficult. We can, for example, track patterns of electricity shooting around in the synapses: but we can't tell from them what opinion is being formed, or how the reasoning is going, or what choice will ensue. Clearly, the physiology is not giving us the precise content of the cognition. And that's certainly super-physical, even if you don't like the term "supernatural."

See "the mind-brain" problem in philosophical research. There's a lot on it. I recommend starting with Nagel, just to grasp the issues.

The corpse's brain has no electrochemical process going on, i.e. it lacks nervous activity.The corpse is a thing not a person.

I grant you the mind/brain problem is still an issue.

[Darkneos]

I think you might be misunderstanding what I'm getting at.

The story is what made Mozart, made science what it is today, made you and me. Because without that it's JUST elementary particles and nothing more. It's like what I said about how if it's all just physics then there is no you or me (IE no soul or essence). The story isn't true, like the link I mentioned was saying:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tPqQdLC ... 2ki6sSvAxu

You want there to be people, Mozart, love, and all that stuff but there isn't. That's only in the story, not "reality", per their words. Something just being atoms means it doesn't matter, the fact that it's physical means it's meaningless. Love and joy carry the weight they do because we believe them to be more than that, which is why your heart skips a beat, because you don't see a collection of atoms but a person.

The fact that we can make things in a lab does render them meaningless, you can look at how people treat something that is readily available to see that. I even gave evidence for that.

If you want honesty, that is what it leads to. Brutal and cold and unflinching. If you want courage and care then that's "magic". What you've talked about so far is not real, it's the story. That's what every determinist and reductionist (the two often go hand in hand) says, you're arguing for something that isn't determinism but more like a mix between what religion offers along with science.

I wish determinism was like that, but that doesn't seem to bear out.

You're drawing a sharp line between the story and the substance—as if “love” doesn’t exist because it has no mass or charge. But by that standard, neither does wetness. Or color. Or music. Or pain. Are they fantasies too?

In your use of words, love doesn’t “exist.” It’s not fundamental like a quark. And sure, it’s not. But love emerges from the physical, just like wetness emerges from water molecules. Not because atoms “want” anything, not because they aim at meaning—but because, by chance, some molecules formed biology. And some biology survived. Not because it was noble, but because it happened to work. Survival of the fittest, one step at a time.

The feelings we prize—joy, connection, heartbreak—those weren’t designed by a god or woven by a soul. They evolved. They slipped through the tight little eye of evolution’s needle because they helped organisms like us stay alive, protect kin, form bonds, and reproduce. That’s not fantasy. That’s history.

So yes, love is chemicals. But it's not just chemicals. It’s the result of ancient chemistry building layer upon layer, generation after generation, until eventually you had a brain that could feel heartbreak and write poetry about it. That’s not magic. That’s nature. And it matters—because it's all we've got.

When we die, we stop. The engine shuts down. No magic. No mystery. Just the truth. And the fact that it ends doesn’t mean it didn’t matter. Quite the opposite.

In a sense, yes. Wetness, color, music, pain, love, all of that are fantasies (per determinism and by extension physicalism, which seems to be what you're arguing with the material stuff). That's the response I get when asking folks.

A lot of people I've talked to think of biology as applied physics, not sure what they're getting at there.

That is fantasy in the sense that it's treating other people as people and not elementary particles:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tPqQdLC ... 2ki6sSvAxu
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gDNrpuw ... extinction

Even just arguing for evolution does make it meaningless, don't you see? That just means you're doing it because of biological programming, there is no value or meaning to it, it's akin to some computer scanning a bar code. The fantasy comes from believing there is more than just evolutionary programming to those actions.

It matters because of "magic", because of the stories we tell, it's like that speech by Death from Discworld. Humans need fantasy to be human, else the sun doesn't rise (not literally). That's not nature, that's us making more of nature than what it is.

You are still appealing to the story, not "Reality". The reality is that it's just elementary particles and nothing more. No poetry, no love, no friends, etc. The fantasy is everything we take to have meaning in life, and that's something physicalists don't seem to reconcile along with determinists. The ones I've met at least aren't afraid to accept where their views lead, but I think you're still arguing for a mix of both. That's why I try to forget about this in order to live a normal life, David Hume had the same idea.

Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hour's amusement, I wou'd return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain'd, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.

https://www.lesswrong.com/s/6BFkmEgre7u ... pZH2hgz59x

In my view if you want the things that humans care about you'd either have to forget where determinism leads (or materialism from your arguments) or appeal to fantasy and "magic".

[BigMike]

I think you might be misunderstanding what I'm getting at.

The story is what made Mozart, made science what it is today, made you and me. Because without that it's JUST elementary particles and nothing more. It's like what I said about how if it's all just physics then there is no you or me (IE no soul or essence). The story isn't true, like the link I mentioned was saying:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tPqQdLC ... 2ki6sSvAxu

You want there to be people, Mozart, love, and all that stuff but there isn't. That's only in the story, not "reality", per their words. Something just being atoms means it doesn't matter, the fact that it's physical means it's meaningless. Love and joy carry the weight they do because we believe them to be more than that, which is why your heart skips a beat, because you don't see a collection of atoms but a person.

The fact that we can make things in a lab does render them meaningless, you can look at how people treat something that is readily available to see that. I even gave evidence for that.

If you want honesty, that is what it leads to. Brutal and cold and unflinching. If you want courage and care then that's "magic". What you've talked about so far is not real, it's the story. That's what every determinist and reductionist (the two often go hand in hand) says, you're arguing for something that isn't determinism but more like a mix between what religion offers along with science.

I wish determinism was like that, but that doesn't seem to bear out.

You're drawing a sharp line between the story and the substance—as if “love” doesn’t exist because it has no mass or charge. But by that standard, neither does wetness. Or color. Or music. Or pain. Are they fantasies too?

In your use of words, love doesn’t “exist.” It’s not fundamental like a quark. And sure, it’s not. But love emerges from the physical, just like wetness emerges from water molecules. Not because atoms “want” anything, not because they aim at meaning—but because, by chance, some molecules formed biology. And some biology survived. Not because it was noble, but because it happened to work. Survival of the fittest, one step at a time.

The feelings we prize—joy, connection, heartbreak—those weren’t designed by a god or woven by a soul. They evolved. They slipped through the tight little eye of evolution’s needle because they helped organisms like us stay alive, protect kin, form bonds, and reproduce. That’s not fantasy. That’s history.

So yes, love is chemicals. But it's not just chemicals. It’s the result of ancient chemistry building layer upon layer, generation after generation, until eventually you had a brain that could feel heartbreak and write poetry about it. That’s not magic. That’s nature. And it matters—because it's all we've got.

When we die, we stop. The engine shuts down. No magic. No mystery. Just the truth. And the fact that it ends doesn’t mean it didn’t matter. Quite the opposite.

In a sense, yes. Wetness, color, music, pain, love, all of that are fantasies (per determinism and by extension physicalism, which seems to be what you're arguing with the material stuff). That's the response I get when asking folks.

A lot of people I've talked to think of biology as applied physics, not sure what they're getting at there.

That is fantasy in the sense that it's treating other people as people and not elementary particles:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tPqQdLC ... 2ki6sSvAxu
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gDNrpuw ... extinction

Even just arguing for evolution does make it meaningless, don't you see? That just means you're doing it because of biological programming, there is no value or meaning to it, it's akin to some computer scanning a bar code. The fantasy comes from believing there is more than just evolutionary programming to those actions.

It matters because of "magic", because of the stories we tell, it's like that speech by Death from Discworld. Humans need fantasy to be human, else the sun doesn't rise (not literally). That's not nature, that's us making more of nature than what it is.

You are still appealing to the story, not "Reality". The reality is that it's just elementary particles and nothing more. No poetry, no love, no friends, etc. The fantasy is everything we take to have meaning in life, and that's something physicalists don't seem to reconcile along with determinists. The ones I've met at least aren't afraid to accept where their views lead, but I think you're still arguing for a mix of both. That's why I try to forget about this in order to live a normal life, David Hume had the same idea.

Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hour's amusement, I wou'd return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain'd, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.

https://www.lesswrong.com/s/6BFkmEgre7u ... pZH2hgz59x

In my view if you want the things that humans care about you'd either have to forget where determinism leads (or materialism from your arguments) or appeal to fantasy and "magic".

You're pointing out something real—that reductionism, when taken as the whole story, can feel like it drains the world of meaning. But that’s only true if by “meaning” you mean some external intention—a cosmic purpose, a divine will, a moral script written by the universe. And yes, determinism does nullify that kind of meaning. But not because it erases it—it’s because it was never there to begin with.

You also say determinism erodes agency and significance. In one sense, yes: we don’t have agency in this moment in the way people often imagine—some pure, uncaused freedom floating above the laws of physics. But in another sense, we are nothing but the result of causes—our histories, our experiences, our genetic inheritance, our memories—all of it shaping who we are, second by second. Learning patterns over time—observing, predicting, adjusting—is a causal, neural process that changes us. Pattern recognition is understanding. And understanding changes behavior. That’s not fantasy. That’s growth.

Now, on fantasy: you say humans need it to be human. I disagree. We used it to survive when we didn’t understand the world. But as we learn more, we replace myth with model, superstition with science, illusion with explanation. We can still dream, imagine, create—but we don’t have to lie to ourselves about what we’re made of to do it. Meaning doesn’t come from magic. It comes from being awake inside a fleeting moment in the cosmos and knowing what it took—across billions of years—for that moment to exist at all.

And finally—you say I'm appealing to the story. But I’m not saying it only matters to me. It matters to others, too. To a child held in their mother’s arms. To someone grieving. To someone laughing uncontrollably with a friend at midnight. These aren’t illusions. They’re shared, caused, real experiences—emerging from biology, yes—but no less meaningful for it.

So no, I’m not mixing science with religion. I’m rejecting fantasy—and still finding plenty of reason to care.

[Immanuel Can]

A supernatural cause is above nature by definition.

Yes...and...?

Brains and minds are the objective and the subjective aspects of the same entity.

It's more complicated than that, B. Sure "brain" is physical: but a corpse has a brain, too. Yet it's missing something. You call it "subjectivity," but the truth is, that the ability to have a subjectivity is a product of mind, not a description of it: as is the ability to reason, to think, to choose, to cogitate, to perceive, to interpret, to identify, to do science and logic, and to hold an opinion.

The brain and the mind definitely interact. Nobody doubts that. But how they do...that remains much more difficult. We can, for example, track patterns of electricity shooting around in the synapses: but we can't tell from them what opinion is being formed, or how the reasoning is going, or what choice will ensue. Clearly, the physiology is not giving us the precise content of the cognition. And that's certainly super-physical, even if you don't like the term "supernatural."

See "the mind-brain" problem in philosophical research. There's a lot on it. I recommend starting with Nagel, just to grasp the issues.

The corpse's brain has no electrochemical process going on, i.e. it lacks nervous activity.The corpse is a thing not a person.

But it has all the physical parts of a human being. If being human were a matter of strict physicality, a dead body should be just as much a person as a living one.

I grant you the mind/brain problem is still an issue.

It is. But I think we can safely say a few things about it. And the most obvious one is that physics are not going to supply us with the information we need in order to understand mind. That much is very obvious. The precise, predictable easy traction that physics gives us in physical situations is not replicated in any situations involving mental phenomena. And yet, it's not possible to deny the existence of mind.

So what do we make from that?

[iambiguous]

We, the free willists, just attribute and identify cause properly.

Yep, that's exactly right.

We're not saying things happen without a cause. Our concept of "cause" is just more capacious than that of the Materialist. Their list of items included in The Real is just too crabbed and narrow to deal with things like mind, personhood, morality, selves, rationality, cognition, soul or logic. That's not our fault, it's theirs.

First of all, I suspect that when someone claims the Democratic Party hates America, what they are really attempting to convey is the fact that they hate the Democratic party themselves. Objectively, as it were.

As for these folks -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions -- many will insist in turn that it all revolves around God. Their God though, not yours.

And here's immanuel can and henry quirk backing each other up time and again. And yet IC argues that unless his BFF accepts Jesus Christ as his personal savior, he will writhe in agony for all of eternity in Hell.

Go figure?

[Immanuel Can]

We, the free willists, just attribute and identify cause properly.

Yep, that's exactly right.

We're not saying things happen without a cause. Our concept of "cause" is just more capacious than that of the Materialist. Their list of items included in The Real is just too crabbed and narrow to deal with things like mind, personhood, morality, selves, rationality, cognition, soul or logic. That's not our fault, it's theirs.

First of all, I suspect that when someone claims the Democratic Party hates America, what they are really attempting to convey is the fact that they hate the Democratic party themselves.

Not being the original poster, I can't speak to that.

But it seems to me the claim is not "I hate the Dems," but rather that "The Dems hate America." And if you take a different view, you'll have to debate it with him.

[iambiguous]

Yep, that's exactly right.

We're not saying things happen without a cause. Our concept of "cause" is just more capacious than that of the Materialist. Their list of items included in The Real is just too crabbed and narrow to deal with things like mind, personhood, morality, selves, rationality, cognition, soul or logic. That's not our fault, it's theirs.

First of all, I suspect that when someone claims the Democratic Party hates America, what they are really attempting to convey is the fact that they hate the Democratic party themselves.

Not being the original poster, I can't speak to that.

But it seems to me the claim is not "I hate the Dems," but rather that "The Dems hate America." And if you take a different view, you'll have to debate it with him.

I don't debate the objectivists here, I expose them.

Unless, perhaps, Walker is willing to acknowledge that his own political prejudices regarding the Democratic Party in America are rooted existentially in dasein. Not unlike the manner in which, in my view, your own religious prejudices are in turn. And mine certainly are.

Now, let's move on...

As for these folks -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions -- many will insist in turn that it all revolves around God. Their God though, not yours.

And here's immanuel can and henry quirk backing each other up time and again. And yet IC argues that unless his BFF accepts Jesus Christ as his personal savior, he will writhe in agony for all of eternity in Hell.

Go figure?

[Immanuel Can]

I don't debate the objectivists here, I expose them.

You can't.

Remember? There is no way to "expose" somebody, since, according to you, there are no objective moral facts. Nobody's obliged to agree with you, and there's no basis for an argument that they "should," then.

[iambiguous]

I don't debate the objectivists here, I expose them.

You can't.

Remember? There is no way to "expose" somebody, since, according to you, there are no objective moral facts. Nobody's obliged to agree with you, and there's no basis for an argument that they "should," then.

So much more to the point, until someone is able to convince me there is plenty of scientific and historical evidence to confirm the existence of the Christian God, I'll burn in Hell myself for all of eternity.

Know anyone with access to such evidence?

[Immanuel Can]

So much more to the point,...

I'm at a loss how to explain your whole line of inquiry as being "to the point" of the thread here.

[Darkneos]

You're drawing a sharp line between the story and the substance—as if “love” doesn’t exist because it has no mass or charge. But by that standard, neither does wetness. Or color. Or music. Or pain. Are they fantasies too?

In your use of words, love doesn’t “exist.” It’s not fundamental like a quark. And sure, it’s not. But love emerges from the physical, just like wetness emerges from water molecules. Not because atoms “want” anything, not because they aim at meaning—but because, by chance, some molecules formed biology. And some biology survived. Not because it was noble, but because it happened to work. Survival of the fittest, one step at a time.

The feelings we prize—joy, connection, heartbreak—those weren’t designed by a god or woven by a soul. They evolved. They slipped through the tight little eye of evolution’s needle because they helped organisms like us stay alive, protect kin, form bonds, and reproduce. That’s not fantasy. That’s history.

So yes, love is chemicals. But it's not just chemicals. It’s the result of ancient chemistry building layer upon layer, generation after generation, until eventually you had a brain that could feel heartbreak and write poetry about it. That’s not magic. That’s nature. And it matters—because it's all we've got.

When we die, we stop. The engine shuts down. No magic. No mystery. Just the truth. And the fact that it ends doesn’t mean it didn’t matter. Quite the opposite.

In a sense, yes. Wetness, color, music, pain, love, all of that are fantasies (per determinism and by extension physicalism, which seems to be what you're arguing with the material stuff). That's the response I get when asking folks.

A lot of people I've talked to think of biology as applied physics, not sure what they're getting at there.

That is fantasy in the sense that it's treating other people as people and not elementary particles:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tPqQdLC ... 2ki6sSvAxu
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gDNrpuw ... extinction

Even just arguing for evolution does make it meaningless, don't you see? That just means you're doing it because of biological programming, there is no value or meaning to it, it's akin to some computer scanning a bar code. The fantasy comes from believing there is more than just evolutionary programming to those actions.

It matters because of "magic", because of the stories we tell, it's like that speech by Death from Discworld. Humans need fantasy to be human, else the sun doesn't rise (not literally). That's not nature, that's us making more of nature than what it is.

You are still appealing to the story, not "Reality". The reality is that it's just elementary particles and nothing more. No poetry, no love, no friends, etc. The fantasy is everything we take to have meaning in life, and that's something physicalists don't seem to reconcile along with determinists. The ones I've met at least aren't afraid to accept where their views lead, but I think you're still arguing for a mix of both. That's why I try to forget about this in order to live a normal life, David Hume had the same idea.

Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hour's amusement, I wou'd return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain'd, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.

https://www.lesswrong.com/s/6BFkmEgre7u ... pZH2hgz59x

In my view if you want the things that humans care about you'd either have to forget where determinism leads (or materialism from your arguments) or appeal to fantasy and "magic".

You're pointing out something real—that reductionism, when taken as the whole story, can feel like it drains the world of meaning. But that’s only true if by “meaning” you mean some external intention—a cosmic purpose, a divine will, a moral script written by the universe. And yes, determinism does nullify that kind of meaning. But not because it erases it—it’s because it was never there to begin with.

You also say determinism erodes agency and significance. In one sense, yes: we don’t have agency in this moment in the way people often imagine—some pure, uncaused freedom floating above the laws of physics. But in another sense, we are nothing but the result of causes—our histories, our experiences, our genetic inheritance, our memories—all of it shaping who we are, second by second. Learning patterns over time—observing, predicting, adjusting—is a causal, neural process that changes us. Pattern recognition is understanding. And understanding changes behavior. That’s not fantasy. That’s growth.

Now, on fantasy: you say humans need it to be human. I disagree. We used it to survive when we didn’t understand the world. But as we learn more, we replace myth with model, superstition with science, illusion with explanation. We can still dream, imagine, create—but we don’t have to lie to ourselves about what we’re made of to do it. Meaning doesn’t come from magic. It comes from being awake inside a fleeting moment in the cosmos and knowing what it took—across billions of years—for that moment to exist at all.

And finally—you say I'm appealing to the story. But I’m not saying it only matters to me. It matters to others, too. To a child held in their mother’s arms. To someone grieving. To someone laughing uncontrollably with a friend at midnight. These aren’t illusions. They’re shared, caused, real experiences—emerging from biology, yes—but no less meaningful for it.

So no, I’m not mixing science with religion. I’m rejecting fantasy—and still finding plenty of reason to care.

I don't mean cosmic purpose or anything like that, I mean meaning in the way humans assign it to things, hence the part about fantasy. No one is talking cosmic meaning or anything written by the universe.

The second part about who we are isn't supported by determinism either, as some would argue that if there is no one in control of the actions, no free agent exerting their will then it's pretty much as if they don't exist. Pattern recognition is fantasy because it's only a pattern if one recognizes it as such, meaning it would be in our heads. There is no "who we are" under determinism, just physics acting out. You'd be no different from a rock ultimately. So the argument goes.

You also say replace myth with model when they are two sides of the same coin. Even now you are still doing it, the models aren't reality, that includes "living things" and anything outside the standard model, per this:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tPqQdLC ... 2ki6sSvAxu

In short we "lie" to ourselves every day, every time you see people and planes and things, every time someone is more than just patterns of atoms. Or talks about color, music, or love, any of that stuff. Color doesn't exist outside your head, neither does music.

Even that final part about love of a child and grief, that's illusion, under reductionism and materialism. My really long post earlier covered all that. It's less meaningful if you just reduce it to biology, which is why society doesn't opt for that. There is also a reason telling people free will doesn't exist isn't done either as research shows a negative impact on the lives of those whom it has been.

You aren't rejecting fantasy, your words still drip with it. You keep asserting that it's not the case but you haven't really offered anything besides your mere insistence it's still meaningful and these things are real. It's akin to what religion does, but under determinism none of that holds water.

I agree with the stuff that makes life meaningful and worth living, I value all of that. But most determinists don't, because it doesn't logically follow.

[BigMike]

I don't mean cosmic purpose or anything like that, I mean meaning in the way humans assign it to things, hence the part about fantasy. No one is talking cosmic meaning or anything written by the universe.

The second part about who we are isn't supported by determinism either, as some would argue that if there is no one in control of the actions, no free agent exerting their will then it's pretty much as if they don't exist. Pattern recognition is fantasy because it's only a pattern if one recognizes it as such, meaning it would be in our heads. There is no "who we are" under determinism, just physics acting out. You'd be no different from a rock ultimately. So the argument goes.

You also say replace myth with model when they are two sides of the same coin. Even now you are still doing it, the models aren't reality, that includes "living things" and anything outside the standard model, per this:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tPqQdLC ... 2ki6sSvAxu

In short we "lie" to ourselves every day, every time you see people and planes and things, every time someone is more than just patterns of atoms. Or talks about color, music, or love, any of that stuff. Color doesn't exist outside your head, neither does music.

Even that final part about love of a child and grief, that's illusion, under reductionism and materialism. My really long post earlier covered all that. It's less meaningful if you just reduce it to biology, which is why society doesn't opt for that. There is also a reason telling people free will doesn't exist isn't done either as research shows a negative impact on the lives of those whom it has been.

You aren't rejecting fantasy, your words still drip with it. You keep asserting that it's not the case but you haven't really offered anything besides your mere insistence it's still meaningful and these things are real. It's akin to what religion does, but under determinism none of that holds water.

I agree with the stuff that makes life meaningful and worth living, I value all of that. But most determinists don't, because it doesn't logically follow.

Thanks for clarifying—really. You’re making an honest effort to square the emotional weight of life with the cold mechanics of physics, and that’s not an easy place to sit. So let’s look at what’s really going on here, piece by piece.

You're saying meaning—as humans experience it—is a kind of fantasy. If you mean it’s not baked into the cosmos by a divine author, I agree. That kind of “meaning” is a myth. But the kind you're talking about—human meaning—is not something that disappears under determinism. It’s something that emerges. From us. From biology. From brains evolved to care, connect, and respond to patterns in experience.

You suggest that if no one is “in control,” then no one is there at all. But that’s conflating control with existence. I don’t “control” my cells replicating, or my heartbeat. Does that mean I’m not here? “Who we are” isn’t a floating soul—it’s the sum total of what we’ve inherited, experienced, and become. A person is a process. And yes, that process is made of physics. But so is everything that’s ever mattered.

Pattern recognition doesn’t become meaningless because it happens in a brain. Quite the opposite—it’s why a brain matters. If “recognizing” a pattern makes it “not real,” then nothing we know is real—including the laws of physics themselves, which are all patterns we’ve discovered in data. We didn’t invent those laws. We uncovered them. And they’re real because they reliably describe how reality behaves.

You say models are lies. But models are the best approximations we have—ways to map reality, to function within it. I never claimed color exists outside perception. Of course it doesn’t. Neither does pain. Or language. But that doesn’t make them false. That makes them emergent phenomena—real in the way that a wave is real, even though it’s “just” moving water molecules.

You say love and grief are illusions if they reduce to biology. But reduction doesn’t erase—it explains. When a child loses a parent, it matters because biology made attachment so powerful. Evolution built that depth for survival, yes. But that doesn’t make the love fake. It makes it profound—and fragile. The more we understand how it works, the more we can honor what it is, not what we wish it were.

And the idea that determinism robs life of meaning? That’s only true if you think meaning must be uncaused or magical to be real. I think the opposite. Meaning is what emerges when complex matter—like you—feels, reflects, connects, and creates.

So no—I’m not denying reality. I’m not dodging the cold facts. I’m saying: this is the truth. That we are matter, organized for a moment into something that can write, argue, dream, and grieve. And that matters. Not because it’s eternal. Not because it’s magical. But because it’s ours—and it won’t last.

You say most determinists don’t value what gives life meaning. Maybe. But they should. Because meaning isn’t something that comes from above. It comes from us. And that’s more than enough.

[Belinda]

Mike's account of human dignity within determinism is complete in itself.

I want to comment on a particular objection to determinism written by Darkneos :

You'd be no different from a rock ultimately. So the argument goes.

No rock can contemplate its future. But we can. Not only us humans but other animals with central nervous systems can contemplate their futures, ***so they can learn from past experiences how to efficiently stay alive . Some animals live in societies and those animals have ideas , usually instinctively evolved ideas, of right and wrong towards others and towards their own selves.

That living beings evolved, and evolved further to have attitudes towards their futures, is a deterministic process.

Darwin was in the forefront of evolutionary theory , a determinist theory, and this is why Darwin upset so many people when his book was published---because no need any more to believe species were created as a single act of creation.


*** we human seem to be the only animals who can think abstract ideas like 'the future' or 'tomorrow'. A mixed blessing ! Our ability and burden to think abstract ideas is due to language.

[Belinda]

Regarding how this thread has veered away from the original topic of the title--- that topic was originally a polemic not an argument. The ideologically polarised piece was from a link to some man connected with Fox News.

(Naturally the OP attracted some early joking repartee. )

The connection between a polemic against Marxism and determinism is that Marxist view of history is ecologically deterministic. Economic determinism is a branch of ecological determinism.

By "ecological determinism " I'm not evaluating cultures and genetics but refer to the urgent emergency of universal food and water scarcity, and its connection with the ascent of the political Right.

[Immanuel Can]

No rock can contemplate its future. But we can.

Listen to yourself, B. Pay attention to what you just said.

According to Determinism, there WOULD be no difference between us and a rock, in that regard. Our "contemplations" would be no more a product of us, or of our cognitions, then a rock would have choice about falling off a cliff.

BUT YOU CAN SEE IT'S NOT LIKE THAT.

Get it, yet?