The Democrat Party Hates America

[Belinda]

And now you have given up. The only way determinism makes any difference at all is if you persuade everyone to adopt your clockwork version of causation, and then they get to pat themselves on the back for being superior to those who labour under superstitions about choice.

Meanwhile every question about how to find correct answers from determinism given that it obsequiously services everybody's intuitions and biases somehow remains unanswerable.

Determinism is not "clockwork " if by clockwork you mean predictable.

The medieval worldview that God who, as the top and source of existence , conferred free will on humans is now regarded as a superstition because there are now better ideas about God. Superstition is a disability. If there were a Creator and Sustainer of the world then He would want man to use their God-given common sense.

Beside the point. Your belief in determinism has no effect, and only other people who believe in determinism would conclude that it does. None of the recommendations that supposedly come from it actually need it, and it doesn't clarify anything.

I really don't care about religion, I don't know why you always veer off onto that topic.

If you were brought to justice on a charge of homicide which you privately knew were guilty of you would hope the sentence would be lessened by a judge who paid attention to any mitigating factors.

Religion is not the same as God. God , whatever else He may be ,is a place holder in thought experiments.

[Immanuel Can]

What do you think that means in practice?

In "practicing" what?

I'm starting to wonder whether English is your first language.

Insults aside, it's a perfectly reasonable question. "In practice" means "when somebody is actually doing the thing." That's rather vague, and requires specifying. It's not at all obvious it involves explaining matter-energy transformations, which are only describable "in theory," not practiceable at all.

...physics deals with: just the physical. Nothing else.

is tautological, or definitional if you prefer.

Definitional. And obvious. So obvious, I can't even imagine why you were fighting it.

Materialism is ontology, which is metaphysics.

Or, to put it more precisely, Materialism is a presumption. It's a kind of gratuitous presupposition required by Materialists without evidence. It's a presumptive denial of even the possibility of non-material realities existing.

The point is simple: physics neither analyzes, nor is capable of analyzing, nor should be artificially burdened with the claim that it must analyze non-material phenomena like mind, or rationality, or selfhood, or morality, or personality, or volition, or aesthetics, or cognition...these are not the subject matters of physics, and the determination that they ought to be is pure presumption on the part of Materialists, who invariably find that physics simply cannot do that in any way that is not painfully reductive, intuitively/existentially implausible, and ultimately uninformative.

So let's set aside the presumptive appeal to "physics" to answer such questions. It's not reasonable.

[Darkneos]

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.

The part about praise and blame is what Sapolsky argues as well with his take (or book). Though without praise or blame I'm not sure raising kids would go very well, or anything else in life/society. It's why when I asked BigMike about it he had nothing besides "trust me bro" and ignoring all the evidence to the contrary. Also his appeals to "living in reality" were hollow at best.

For good or ill society and humans run on the belief (or illusion) of free will (among others) and so far no determinist I've heard or talked to has a plan or idea of how society would work without it, let alone individual interactions. They just assume nothing would change...which is frightfully stupid IMO.

"Raising kids" is a lot like training puppies , depending on the developmental stage of the child. Education and training change proportions according to the age/stage of the child's ability. The very young child is a psychological part of her mother. the puppy is psychologically part of its parent substitute according to temperament and breed. Some breeds are more independent than others.

When we train a puppy we never blame him and we always praise good behaviour. This tactic even works with old dogs. I have an aged Romanian mongrel and I'd never blame him that would be stupid.

Blame is often a projection of one's own perceived failure. Blame is a feeble attempt to rationalise fear and greed, a means for social control

In some sense yes though humans are more complicated than dogs so the parallel isn't the same. The way dos works isn't like humans, they don't understand blame or responsibility.

Blame isn't always a projection of one's perceived failure, it can be a tool for personal growth as well. Sometimes it's for social control yes, but other times the only way people change is if they realize they're the reason for their problems and not projecting it to other people. When they accept blame for their circumstances they change.

Also praise is a means of social control too, so what now?

You seem to have a limited view of humans and society just like BigMike, which explains why Flash thought you were empty as well.

I can't really regard determinists seriously unless they have an actual plan for ordering society under their doctrine, because so far they just have foolish notions that nothing would change. Take for example your downplaying of blame, if you want that you'd have to render praise meaningless as well. And if you render praise meaningless you'd likely have to watch everything in society erode along with it. Sports, art, creative pursuits, schooling, inquiry about the world, so much would be undone if you got rid of praise and blame because it's "just physics playing out" and not personal choice or effort.

You haven't really thought your philosophy through nor seen it's consequences, like most determinists I've heard and talked to.

[Belinda]

The part about praise and blame is what Sapolsky argues as well with his take (or book). Though without praise or blame I'm not sure raising kids would go very well, or anything else in life/society. It's why when I asked BigMike about it he had nothing besides "trust me bro" and ignoring all the evidence to the contrary. Also his appeals to "living in reality" were hollow at best.

For good or ill society and humans run on the belief (or illusion) of free will (among others) and so far no determinist I've heard or talked to has a plan or idea of how society would work without it, let alone individual interactions. They just assume nothing would change...which is frightfully stupid IMO.

"Raising kids" is a lot like training puppies , depending on the developmental stage of the child. Education and training change proportions according to the age/stage of the child's ability. The very young child is a psychological part of her mother. the puppy is psychologically part of its parent substitute according to temperament and breed. Some breeds are more independent than others.

When we train a puppy we never blame him and we always praise good behaviour. This tactic even works with old dogs. I have an aged Romanian mongrel and I'd never blame him that would be stupid.

Blame is often a projection of one's own perceived failure. Blame is a feeble attempt to rationalise fear and greed, a means for social control

In some sense yes though humans are more complicated than dogs so the parallel isn't the same. The way dos works isn't like humans, they don't understand blame or responsibility.

Blame isn't always a projection of one's perceived failure, it can be a tool for personal growth as well. Sometimes it's for social control yes, but other times the only way people change is if they realize they're the reason for their problems and not projecting it to other people. When they accept blame for their circumstances they change.

Also praise is a means of social control too, so what now?

You seem to have a limited view of humans and society just like BigMike, which explains why Flash thought you were empty as well.

I can't really regard determinists seriously unless they have an actual plan for ordering society under their doctrine, because so far they just have foolish notions that nothing would change. Take for example your downplaying of blame, if you want that you'd have to render praise meaningless as well. And if you render praise meaningless you'd likely have to watch everything in society erode along with it. Sports, art, creative pursuits, schooling, inquiry about the world, so much would be undone if you got rid of praise and blame because it's "just physics playing out" and not personal choice or effort.

You haven't really thought your philosophy through nor seen it's consequences, like most determinists I've heard and talked to.

* young children don't have much sense of blame or responsibility.


*Determinists do NOT believe nothing would change. A determinist knows the future is open. It's a fatalist who believes nothing would change.

* what praise does is not social control, it's plain good manners that helps communication.

* Human behaviour is not "just physics playing out". We are free to choose our futures precisely because we cannot predict, as I said the future is open. Tools such as clocks and canals don't have minds. Minds evolved with life forms.

[FlashDangerpants]

Determinism is not "clockwork " if by clockwork you mean predictable.

The medieval worldview that God who, as the top and source of existence , conferred free will on humans is now regarded as a superstition because there are now better ideas about God. Superstition is a disability. If there were a Creator and Sustainer of the world then He would want man to use their God-given common sense.

Beside the point. Your belief in determinism has no effect, and only other people who believe in determinism would conclude that it does. None of the recommendations that supposedly come from it actually need it, and it doesn't clarify anything.

I really don't care about religion, I don't know why you always veer off onto that topic.

If you were brought to justice on a charge of homicide which you privately knew were guilty of you would hope the sentence would be lessened by a judge who paid attention to any mitigating factors.

There's no need to be a determinist in order to take such things into account, there's nothing that determinism actually does. It is sterile.

Religion is not the same as God. God , whatever else He may be ,is a place holder in thought experiments.

The number of fucks I do not give about your constant bullshit unwarranted deviations into religion cannot be counted. Even less of a fuck is given for your specious shit about all your God blatherings not being religion.

[Immanuel Can]

A determinist knows the future is open.

The reverse is true: the Determinist believes the future is predestined to be nothing but the one thing that prior causes make happen. Nothing else. There's nothing "open" or changeable in any way, in a predetermined universe. In principle, the Determinist must also believe that what was going to happen was preset from the very first second the universe came into existence, and nothing else ever could have happened than exactly what did, and nothing future will ever happen that is not 100% a product of the unrelenting causal chain.

That's Determinism.

If you don't realize that yet, it's time you did. If you don't, then what you are advocating is not Determinism at all.

[Will Bouwman]

In "practicing" what?

I'm starting to wonder whether English is your first language.

Insults aside, it's a perfectly reasonable question. "In practice" means "when somebody is actually doing the thing."

Perhaps in the English you speak, but in English as it is spoken in my part of England, by English people, it is used more broadly and such pedantry is met with mostly polite laughter. Given you clearly speak a different dialect, I shall try to translate into an English you understand:

We all know that matter is made up of energy...

In your version of English, what do you think that means? What is energy, and how does it turn into matter?

[Darkneos]

"Raising kids" is a lot like training puppies , depending on the developmental stage of the child. Education and training change proportions according to the age/stage of the child's ability. The very young child is a psychological part of her mother. the puppy is psychologically part of its parent substitute according to temperament and breed. Some breeds are more independent than others.

When we train a puppy we never blame him and we always praise good behaviour. This tactic even works with old dogs. I have an aged Romanian mongrel and I'd never blame him that would be stupid.

Blame is often a projection of one's own perceived failure. Blame is a feeble attempt to rationalise fear and greed, a means for social control

In some sense yes though humans are more complicated than dogs so the parallel isn't the same. The way dos works isn't like humans, they don't understand blame or responsibility.

Blame isn't always a projection of one's perceived failure, it can be a tool for personal growth as well. Sometimes it's for social control yes, but other times the only way people change is if they realize they're the reason for their problems and not projecting it to other people. When they accept blame for their circumstances they change.

Also praise is a means of social control too, so what now?

You seem to have a limited view of humans and society just like BigMike, which explains why Flash thought you were empty as well.

I can't really regard determinists seriously unless they have an actual plan for ordering society under their doctrine, because so far they just have foolish notions that nothing would change. Take for example your downplaying of blame, if you want that you'd have to render praise meaningless as well. And if you render praise meaningless you'd likely have to watch everything in society erode along with it. Sports, art, creative pursuits, schooling, inquiry about the world, so much would be undone if you got rid of praise and blame because it's "just physics playing out" and not personal choice or effort.

You haven't really thought your philosophy through nor seen it's consequences, like most determinists I've heard and talked to.

* young children don't have much sense of blame or responsibility.


*Determinists do NOT believe nothing would change. A determinist knows the future is open. It's a fatalist who believes nothing would change.

* what praise does is not social control, it's plain good manners that helps communication.

* Human behaviour is not "just physics playing out". We are free to choose our futures precisely because we cannot predict, as I said the future is open. Tools such as clocks and canals don't have minds. Minds evolved with life forms.

-Young children do have a sense of blame and responsibility, they are also fairly selfish.

-The line between determinism and fatalism seems more like semantics rather than anything substantial. If they believe the future is open they are being internally inconsistent. If your life is subject to factors out of your control then there is no open future. BigMike tried and failed to argue that point.

-Good manners and helping communication is literally the definition of social control. You reward behavior you want to see happen again. But that doesn't work if you want to rule blame out for being bad. If you want to get rid of blame then you have to get rid of praise.

-Under determinism human behavior is just physics playing out, again...bigmike tried and failed to argue otherwise. We are not free to choose under determinism, that would be compatibilism. Also mind would not exist under determinism as that is considered "folk psychology" when physical factors are the cause.

Like Mike you don't understand determinism.

[Immanuel Can]

I'm starting to wonder whether English is your first language.

Insults aside, it's a perfectly reasonable question. "In practice" means "when somebody is actually doing the thing."

Perhaps in the English you speak, but in English as it is spoken in my part of England, by English people, it is used more broadly and such pedantry is met with mostly polite laughter.

People who don't even realize what "in practice" means when they use the phrase should probably laugh...at themselves.

What is energy, and how does it turn into matter?

That's a great question for the physicists to continue to ponder, since they can't answer it. Nor can you, by your own confession. But does the fact that they and you can't explain it mean that, for example, E= MC2 is not true? Does it mean that what appears to us to be "matter" is actually made up of subatomic energy fields, or are we back to the idea that the nature of "matter" cannot be reduced beyond the levels of solids, liquids and gasses?

In any case, whatever they prefer, it's unrelated to the present debate. Our conversation is about what territory physics, rightly understood, claims to exposit. And matter and energy are both within the physics bailiwick; mind, morals, consciousness, rationality, selfhood, intellection, social dynamics...these sorts things are both assumed and required for physics to take place, but none of them is in the proper province of the study known as "physics." And so, I think, the point is adequately made.

And if you think otherwise, then, pray tell, what sort of non-physical realities do you believe physics is supposed to investigate?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Perhaps in the English you speak, but in English as it is spoken in my part of England…

Something along these lines?

[Walker]

A determinist knows the future is open.

The reverse is true: the Determinist believes the future is predestined to be nothing but the one thing that prior causes make happen. Nothing else. There's nothing "open" or changeable in any way, in a predetermined universe. In principle, the Determinist must also believe that what was going to happen was preset from the very first second the universe came into existence, and nothing else ever could have happened than exactly what did, and nothing future will ever happen that is not 100% a product of the unrelenting causal chain.

That's Determinism.

If you don't realize that yet, it's time you did. If you don't, then what you are advocating is not Determinism at all.

A determinist makes a determination, and acts.
A free-willer chooses, and acts.

Neither is absolutely certain of the future outcome in specific detail all the way down to the arrangement of molecules, before acting.

Therefore, what’s the difference between choosing, and making a determination?

And with a nod to thread relevance, why in God’s name would anyone be a Democrat unless they had no choice about it, which opens the door to self-discovering why they have no choice … which is the first step on their road to recovery from the dark side.

[Belinda]

In some sense yes though humans are more complicated than dogs so the parallel isn't the same. The way dos works isn't like humans, they don't understand blame or responsibility.

Blame isn't always a projection of one's perceived failure, it can be a tool for personal growth as well. Sometimes it's for social control yes, but other times the only way people change is if they realize they're the reason for their problems and not projecting it to other people. When they accept blame for their circumstances they change.

Also praise is a means of social control too, so what now?

You seem to have a limited view of humans and society just like BigMike, which explains why Flash thought you were empty as well.

I can't really regard determinists seriously unless they have an actual plan for ordering society under their doctrine, because so far they just have foolish notions that nothing would change. Take for example your downplaying of blame, if you want that you'd have to render praise meaningless as well. And if you render praise meaningless you'd likely have to watch everything in society erode along with it. Sports, art, creative pursuits, schooling, inquiry about the world, so much would be undone if you got rid of praise and blame because it's "just physics playing out" and not personal choice or effort.

You haven't really thought your philosophy through nor seen it's consequences, like most determinists I've heard and talked to.

* young children don't have much sense of blame or responsibility.


*Determinists do NOT believe nothing would change. A determinist knows the future is open. It's a fatalist who believes nothing would change.

* what praise does is not social control, it's plain good manners that helps communication.

* Human behaviour is not "just physics playing out". We are free to choose our futures precisely because we cannot predict, as I said the future is open. Tools such as clocks and canals don't have minds. Minds evolved with life forms.

-Young children do have a sense of blame and responsibility, they are also fairly selfish.

-The line between determinism and fatalism seems more like semantics rather than anything substantial. If they believe the future is open they are being internally inconsistent. If your life is subject to factors out of your control then there is no open future. BigMike tried and failed to argue that point.

-Good manners and helping communication is literally the definition of social control. You reward behavior you want to see happen again. But that doesn't work if you want to rule blame out for being bad. If you want to get rid of blame then you have to get rid of praise.

-Under determinism human behavior is just physics playing out, again...bigmike tried and failed to argue otherwise. We are not free to choose under determinism, that would be compatibilism. Also mind would not exist under determinism as that is considered "folk psychology" when physical factors are the cause.

Like Mike you don't understand determinism.

by "social control" is usually meant control by fear of an authority. Good manners is well within the democratic canon. Everybody can influence each other by good manners.

Determinism does not imply prediction: fatalism implies prediction

A determinist estimates probabilities: a fatalist believes in certainties.

[Will Bouwman]

What is energy, and how does it turn into matter?

That's a great question for the physicists to continue to ponder, since they can't answer it. Nor can you, by your own confession.

What physicists know is that if you smash particles together, you can create different particles. They also know that is consistent with various quantum field theories. What they don't know is which, if any, of the theories is correct. The facts are the phenomena we attribute to different particles, the physics is the underdetermined hypotheses. It is only in that context that we can say:

We all know that matter is made up of energy...

But does the fact that they and you can't explain it mean that, for example, E= MC2 is not true? Does it mean that what appears to us to be "matter" is actually made up of subatomic energy fields...

Well E=mc² is 'true' insofar as it is accurate. If you take 'true' as literally as you do 'in practice', then we do not know that it is true. An energy field doesn't really mean anything in physics, the closest thing is a field of force, which is just a mathematical description of an area in which a force acts. The broad consensus is that matter is energy in quantum fields. Again, I explain the basic idea and how it might work in a chapter on nuclear physics in my comic book:
https://willybouwman.blogspot.com/2024/ ... n.html?m=1
If you can read that and tell me something you know about physics that I don't, I would be grateful that you took the trouble to educate me.

[Will Bouwman]

Perhaps in the English you speak, but in English as it is spoken in my part of England…

Something along these lines?

No Gus. Only an actor who has never set foot in the East End (think Dick van Dijk in Mary Poppins) speaks like that. You're out by about 40 miles south west.

[Immanuel Can]

A determinist knows the future is open.

The reverse is true: the Determinist believes the future is predestined to be nothing but the one thing that prior causes make happen. Nothing else. There's nothing "open" or changeable in any way, in a predetermined universe. In principle, the Determinist must also believe that what was going to happen was preset from the very first second the universe came into existence, and nothing else ever could have happened than exactly what did, and nothing future will ever happen that is not 100% a product of the unrelenting causal chain.

That's Determinism.

If you don't realize that yet, it's time you did. If you don't, then what you are advocating is not Determinism at all.

A determinist makes a determination, and acts.

No, that's not correct. The word "determined" is ambiguous. We use to mean both "fated" or "pre-arranged" and "decided." That second one is totally absent from the idea of Determinism. Only the connotation "pre-arranged" or "prior-caused" is present in the word Determinism. "Decide" is not.

Unfortunately, you're taking the meaning of the word "determine" that Determinism does NOT imply, rather than what it does. The word "determine" in Determinism means, "to be preset by way of inevitable preconditions." Therefore, something a Determinists, by definition cannot do is to "determine" (i.e. "decide") in his own mind what is to be done, and then do it. The mind is not capable, in Determinist thinking, of itself being the origin of any chain of causes. Rather, the mind has to be a caused factor, a dumb link in a chain of cause-and-effect that actually ultimately traces back to whatever first event there ever was in the universe's history.

To put it simply, if you get ice cream, the free will person thinks you chose to get vanilla; the Determinist thinks you didn't choose to get vanilla, but rather, your body's chemistry at that moment compelled you to get vanilla, because other preconditions and fated that you would be there, because you were born, because your parents united, because their parents did...all the way back to the Big Bang and whatever was beyond it. The physical preconditions are the only true explanation for anything that a Determinist will accept.

A free-willer chooses, and acts.

This part is correct. A believer in volition supposes that his mind can be the initiator of a chain of cause-effect actions; so that "I decided to" is a correct explanation of why a thing came about. The Determinist has to suppose that "I decided to" is simply a misunderstanding by the mind; the truth has to be that prior causes made the mind take the form it did at the given moment, and actually the mind contributed nothing new to the chain of material cause-and-effect that was already inevitably in play.

Neither is absolutely certain of the future outcome in specific detail all the way down to the arrangement of molecules, before acting.

That's not important. Both the free will believer and the Determinist agree that people are not "absolutely certain" of what will happen before they act. But the Determinist holds that whatever it will be, it will be the inevitable product of a chain of pre-causes that stretch back into the infinite past, and the free will believer believes that he can, with his mind, through his body's action, inititate a future result.

You're mistaking epistemology (i.e. what a human being knows) for ontology (i.e. what is actually so, whether anybody knows it or not). Determinism is NOT an epistemological claim, but a claim about ontology itself.

Therefore, what’s the difference between choosing, and making a determination?

All the difference in the world, once we understand the difference between the two.