The Democrat Party Hates America

[Belinda]

Blimey. Okie dokie, let's try it in language you might understand: could your god have created a world from mental stuff that produces the same phenomena as one made of physical stuff?

I don't think whether it's mental or physical really affects how things behave, even if this world is mental and in the mind of God if physics works it works.

Try telling that to some people.

The issue is more about free will with determinism, or at least that's what I was getting at.

I'm with FlashDangerpants on this, insofar as I don't think it would make any appreciable difference to society if a bunch of neuro scientists demonstrate one thing or the other. You can't convince some people that the world isn't flat. In my view, people believe what suits them best for fundamentally aesthetic reasons. I don't see that changing.

Yes, it would not make much difference to some people, but it makes a lot of difference to how judges, diplomats, military strategists, psychologists, engineers, psychiatrists, social workers, and no doubt other professionals do their jobs.

[Will Bouwman]

I'm with FlashDangerpants on this, insofar as I don't think it would make any appreciable difference to society if a bunch of neuro scientists demonstrate one thing or the other. You can't convince some people that the world isn't flat. In my view, people believe what suits them best for fundamentally aesthetic reasons. I don't see that changing.

Yes, it would not make much difference to some people, but it makes a lot of difference to how judges, diplomats, military strategists, psychologists, engineers, psychiatrists, social workers, and no doubt other professionals do their jobs.

Maybe in an autocracy, where the proles are treated like machines anyway, but who is going to vote for legislators who tell them they are mindless drones?

[FlashDangerpants]

I don't think whether it's mental or physical really affects how things behave, even if this world is mental and in the mind of God if physics works it works.

Try telling that to some people.

The issue is more about free will with determinism, or at least that's what I was getting at.

I'm with FlashDangerpants on this, insofar as I don't think it would make any appreciable difference to society if a bunch of neuro scientists demonstrate one thing or the other. You can't convince some people that the world isn't flat. In my view, people believe what suits them best for fundamentally aesthetic reasons. I don't see that changing.

Yes, it would not make much difference to some people, but it makes a lot of difference to how judges, diplomats, military strategists, psychologists, engineers, psychiatrists, social workers, and no doubt other professionals do their jobs.

Only if adopted as a doctrine, which is a political/social/academic decision quite unrelated to the suspect metaphysics of the free will debate.

If a military strategist adopts the position that somehow things are different as a result of their conversion to a belief in determinism, I want to know about that, I have an urgent need to be on the other side in the event of any war.

[Belinda]

I'm with FlashDangerpants on this, insofar as I don't think it would make any appreciable difference to society if a bunch of neuro scientists demonstrate one thing or the other. You can't convince some people that the world isn't flat. In my view, people believe what suits them best for fundamentally aesthetic reasons. I don't see that changing.

Yes, it would not make much difference to some people, but it makes a lot of difference to how judges, diplomats, military strategists, psychologists, engineers, psychiatrists, social workers, and no doubt other professionals do their jobs.

Maybe in an autocracy, where the proles are treated like machines anyway, but who is going to vote for legislators who tell them they are mindless drones?

I think the traditional Labour party with welfare state avoids populism better than most.

[Will Bouwman]

I think the traditional Labour party with welfare state avoids populism better than most.

Well, again, politics isn't my area of strength, but if you consider what happened to Jeremy Corbyn, the traditional Labour party is holed beneath the waterline. I think George Monbiot does a good job of explaining why:
https://youtu.be/2Z5yRqv4RzA?si=T8cDfjunKzAvJ1sm
Actually, given the feathers it will ruffle, I might make that the subject of a new thread.

[Belinda]

I think the traditional Labour party with welfare state avoids populism better than most.

Well, again, politics isn't my area of strength, but if you consider what happened to Jeremy Corbyn, the traditional Labour party is holed beneath the waterline. I think George Monbiot does a good job of explaining why:
https://youtu.be/2Z5yRqv4RzA?si=T8cDfjunKzAvJ1sm
Actually, given the feathers it will ruffle, I might make that the subject of a new thread.

Please do!
And please have you another , text, link to George Monbiot on Corbyn? I don't manage youtubes very well.

[Will Bouwman]

George Monbiot on the POWER of Jeremy Corbyn
https://youtu.be/2vdzoe3QJoo?si=D9PKggU16XH4ChKw

[Belinda]

George Monbiot on the POWER of Jeremy Corbyn
https://youtu.be/2vdzoe3QJoo?si=D9PKggU16XH4ChKw

And also this easy to link text:--

I’ll take Labour dithering over Conservative cruelty any day
This article is more than 5 years oldGeorge Monbiot
The title sums up the material content okay.

[Belinda]

George Monbiot on the POWER of Jeremy Corbyn
https://youtu.be/2vdzoe3QJoo?si=D9PKggU16XH4ChKw

And also this easy to link text:--

I’ll take Labour dithering over Conservative cruelty any day
This article is more than 5 years oldGeorge Monbiot
The title sums up the material content okay.

A dual nationality American /British friend ( 1980s ,( Ronald Reagan))who was also good at understanding politics told me American Democrats resembled British Conservatives.
She herself was of course, Labour.

[Will Bouwman]

A dual nationality American /British friend ( 1980s ,( Ronald Reagan))who was also good at understanding politics told me American Democrats resembled British Conservatives.
She herself was of course, Labour.

Well, having seen George Monbiot opine on the matter in a few videos, I am now, of course, an expert on all things neoliberal. I've heard it before, apparently Maggie Thatcher considered her greatest legacy to be Tony Blair.
I'd also heard of neoliberalism, but assumed, rather naïvely, that it was some, almost certainly innocuous, new version of the old liberalism.
FlashDangerpants, who understands these things better than me, once told me:

The neoliberal in me feels required to point out that actually Immanuel Can might be economically illiterate to a roughly similar extent that he is philosophically illiterate.

So it would be interesting to hear why something that, to me sounds horrible, is a good thing. In fairness, FlashDangerpants has clearly said:

I am not a nice man...

so, there's no reason to expect his justification to be nice.

[Immanuel Can]

Blimey. Okie dokie, let's try it in language you might understand: could your god have created a world from mental stuff that produces the same phenomena as one made of physical stuff?

Well, help me out here. Since you believe I’m struggling to understand, just highlight the part of your answer above that’s supposed to answer my very, very, very simple question.

It didn't help you understand the last time Ianswered the same question

Maybe you should have answered better.

It depends on what you mean by physical. If you mean that everything that physics deals with is physical because that is what physics deals with, you're not saying anything worthwhile. On the other hand, if by physical you mean material, you have to include fields which are not material in the sense of atoms being little blobs of matter, much as Leucippus and Democritus supposed, but which are very much a part of physics.

Nobody holds to the "atom" theory, so this is as silly as trying to debunk phrenology or alchemy. We all know that matter is made up of energy: but both are physical. And that's what physics deals with: just the physical. Nothing else.

Again, physics is a human construct.

Only half true. Let's complete the statement: physics is a human construct made in response to the experience of physical phenomena. But people don't "construct" the experiential phenomena, anymore than a thermometer "constructs" the temperature outside. The physical world preceded any human construction, and physics responds to that external world, and is only as good as it remains effectively descriptive and predictive of that external world. So physical reality (including the dynamics of the same) is the subject matter of physics.

[Belinda]

A dual nationality American /British friend ( 1980s ,( Ronald Reagan))who was also good at understanding politics told me American Democrats resembled British Conservatives.
She herself was of course, Labour.

Well, having seen George Monbiot opine on the matter in a few videos, I am now, of course, an expert on all things neoliberal. I've heard it before, apparently Maggie Thatcher considered her greatest legacy to be Tony Blair.
I'd also heard of neoliberalism, but assumed, rather naïvely, that it was some, almost certainly innocuous, new version of the old liberalism.
FlashDangerpants, who understands these things better than me, once told me:

The neoliberal in me feels required to point out that actually Immanuel Can might be economically illiterate to a roughly similar extent that he is philosophically illiterate.

So it would be interesting to hear why something that, to me sounds horrible, is a good thing. In fairness, FlashDangerpants has clearly said:

I am not a nice man...

so, there's no reason to expect his justification to be nice.

I just asked ChatGTP what neoliberalism is. I reacted to the explanation with religious disapproval. I now need to argue against neoliberalism. At least I know I am biased.Could I start by suggesting that politicians would serve us better if they were righteous. Few voters want to be deliberately cruel.

[Belinda]

Try telling that to some people.

I'm with FlashDangerpants on this, insofar as I don't think it would make any appreciable difference to society if a bunch of neuro scientists demonstrate one thing or the other. You can't convince some people that the world isn't flat. In my view, people believe what suits them best for fundamentally aesthetic reasons. I don't see that changing.

Yes, it would not make much difference to some people, but it makes a lot of difference to how judges, diplomats, military strategists, psychologists, engineers, psychiatrists, social workers, and no doubt other professionals do their jobs.

Only if adopted as a doctrine, which is a political/social/academic decision quite unrelated to the suspect metaphysics of the free will debate.

If a military strategist adopts the position that somehow things are different as a result of their conversion to a belief in determinism, I want to know about that, I have an urgent need to be on the other side in the event of any war.

Determinism is not merely a belief,or doctrine .It's an attitude towards how events transpire. Nobody ever had to teach me that free will is nonsense.The more a military strategist understands the causes and probable effects of specific strategies the better she is at her job.

[Darkneos]

Blimey. Okie dokie, let's try it in language you might understand: could your god have created a world from mental stuff that produces the same phenomena as one made of physical stuff?

I don't think whether it's mental or physical really affects how things behave, even if this world is mental and in the mind of God if physics works it works.

Try telling that to some people.

The issue is more about free will with determinism, or at least that's what I was getting at.

I'm with FlashDangerpants on this, insofar as I don't think it would make any appreciable difference to society if a bunch of neuro scientists demonstrate one thing or the other. You can't convince some people that the world isn't flat. In my view, people believe what suits them best for fundamentally aesthetic reasons. I don't see that changing.

I think it would have a notable impact on people's behavior if it was proven to not exist given how society runs on it as well as almost everything else we do. Even if it's an illusion it's useful to believe, something BigMike fails to grasp. Also some evidence I see on how people react to losing agency or choice leads me to believe that.

I don't claim to have a big plan for society but I know now that BigMike is no serious about their views, or maybe they are (which is more disappointing).

[FlashDangerpants]

Yes, it would not make much difference to some people, but it makes a lot of difference to how judges, diplomats, military strategists, psychologists, engineers, psychiatrists, social workers, and no doubt other professionals do their jobs.

Only if adopted as a doctrine, which is a political/social/academic decision quite unrelated to the suspect metaphysics of the free will debate.

If a military strategist adopts the position that somehow things are different as a result of their conversion to a belief in determinism, I want to know about that, I have an urgent need to be on the other side in the event of any war.

Determinism is not merely a belief,or doctrine .It's an attitude towards how events transpire. Nobody ever had to teach me that free will is nonsense.The more a military strategist understands the causes and probable effects of specific strategies the better she is at her job.

I didn't say it is a mere doctrine, I said that it must be adopted as a doctrine to have an effect.

The problem you have is that there are so many ways to react to determinism once you convert people to that belief. They can simply adopt compatibilism, they can discover a belief that free will is a necessary illusion and go right back to how they were before. Or they could flop fatalistically and just lie there until they are eroded away by the bitter winds of fate. Or they could simply ignore it and say "none of this makes any difference to my day-to-day life".

So to make determinism have any actual outcome, you need a doctrine. You must live according the maxims that if human agency is mythical you will refrain from praising your children as praise and blame are redundant vestiges of a prior religion. I am sure your child rearing skills will now be scientifically super-charged.

Or you might find that even under a deterministic framework, you choose to give children lots of praise because you don't want them to work the stripper pole when they grow up. And before long you might find that determinism and free-will are a distinction that makes no actual difference. That all the decision outcomes you make under the one paradigm are equally well justified under the other.

Big Mike is an empty shirt. When he was challenged to explain how he could direct public policy in such a away that determinism was the difference maker, he came up with nothing that wasn't already being done without it. I think you are probably no less empty in that department because there is no reform available that only determinists could propose or defend other than a totalitarian one that you wouldn't want to take responsibility for.