compatibilism

[FlashDangerpants]

Wachuonnabout biggie? I was saying this Rumsfeld Matrix thing is banal and unimportant. Try to follow the conversation bud.

Oh, now I get it! You said it's banal and unimportant and since I didn't pat you on the back [virtually] and thank you for setting me straight, that "proves" I'm not following the conversation.

And to paraphrase the high plains drifter, "I'm not your bud". 

I said what was banal - the Rumsfeld Matrix. You failed to make a case against thay, which is hardly surprising, it is banal. I didn't offer an opinion on any other issue, and when I am in conversation with people like you I stick largely to the point I was making at the start of that engagement otherwise you guys just ramble forever.

One of the major issues, not just with you Biggie but frankly with all of the most disastrous nutters here, is that you guys persistently forget what the other person is writing about so quickly that there is room for doubt that you even attempted to read. You are far too vain to care what other people write, that vanity presents as failures of comprehension.

Note to others:

Just out of curiosity, is this all being scripted by iwannaplato? And, if so, how would you go about demonstrating that it is scripted autonomously or autonomically?

And correct me if I'm wrong but given free will, are you and others here actually required to read the posts of all the "nutters"? 

In other words, I'm trying to imagine what it would be like if I were required to read everything that the Stooges here post about me!

You're not one of them, are you?  

What is this paranoid rubbish about IWP supposed to be? Presumably he criticised you for your obvious reading problems too? Others are going to do that too, it's a you thing: You don't address the content of other people's case, you just shrill at us.

[Atla]

Oh noo he's onto us, naturally we have IWP and Satyr on a daily videoconference where we discuss our next moves.

[Flannel Jesus]

Is that something he's hinted at before? That he's a solipsist or something?

He's not a philosophical solipsist. According to my current theory, he has two different kinds of theory of mind / empathy deficiency: an autistic deficiency and the Pisces glass wall deficiency.

Click, of course.

Meaning what? In simple, normal English terms, what should the reader understand when they read what you wrote here? What should they understand about Atla's post, or what should they understand about your thoughts about Atla's post? Plain English please. No "Rummy's Rule". And please don't tell me what it "Revolves around", just say what it means, what you want the reader to understand.

[Flannel Jesus]

Please read the post above.

Given that you think Iambiguous has a great, or at least adequate, understanding of English, perhaps you can tell me what you think it means. "Click, of course". What is he trying to say here?

[FlashDangerpants]

Given that you think Iambiguous has a great, or at least adequate, understanding of English, perhaps you can tell me what you think it means. "Click, of course". What is he trying to say here?

@belinda also while you are translating his greatness for us plebs, please explain what this "stooges" thing is about?

[Belinda]

Please read the post above.

Given that you think Iambiguous has a great, or at least adequate, understanding of English, perhaps you can tell me what you think it means. "Click, of course". What is he trying to say here?

I don't know. You are right that good use of English includes that the utterance is intelligible to the expected audience. I thought it was just me that was too simple to understand Iamb.
When I encounter a post that is both long and unintelligible to me I stop reading it . Maybe I ought to be more energetic.

[Flannel Jesus]

Please read the post above.

Given that you think Iambiguous has a great, or at least adequate, understanding of English, perhaps you can tell me what you think it means. "Click, of course". What is he trying to say here?

I don't know. You are right that good use of English includes that the utterance is intelligible to the expected audience. I thought it was just me that was too simple to understand Iamb.
When I encounter a post that is both long and unintelligible to me I stop reading it . Maybe I ought to be more energetic.

And I should note that it's not JUST that they're unintelligible. Atla said something unintelligible earlier, he said something about the "pisces glass" or something like that. That's about as idiosyncratic as any of Iambiguous's shit. The redeeming quality for Atla, though, is Atla can clearly and succintly say what he means if you ask him.

If you ask Iambiguous what he means, he weaves increasingly complex tapestries with even more idiosyncratic language. If you ask him about click, he starts bringing up random "rules" he made up. If you ask him what those rules are, he rambles on about quotes from Noam Chomsky, without ever explicitly saying what the actual so-called "rule" actually is.

It's not completely against the rules of communication to speak idiosyncratically, but it's exceptionally hard to do it well and if you do want to do it well, at the very least you gotta do what Atla did and explain it in plain English. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Because you're right, if your utterances are unintelligible to your target audience, why write anything at all?

[Flannel Jesus]

To add to the confounding factor, not only can he not clearly describe what he means, I'm also like 80% sure he doesn't always mean the same thing.

When he quotes an article and says "click", and then writes a paragraph or two and then writes "click" again, click means one thing.

And then when he quotes Atla and says "click, of course", I'd be willing to bet he means *an entirely different thing*.

So even if you're a very observant person who understands other people well, the second you think you've got a handle on what click means to this silly goose, he throws a curve ball and now you can't really be sure you were ever right. Because "click" probably doesn't mean any one specific thing, it means whatever biggy wants it to mean at any given moment. It's a word he uses on a whim - it's not just meaningless to us, I suspect it's not even particularly meaningful to him!

[FlashDangerpants]

Because "click" probably doesn't mean any one specific thing, it means whatever biggy wants it to mean at any given moment. It's a word he uses on a whim - it's not just meaningless to us, I suspect it's not even particularly meaningful to him!

One of the famous problems with a private language is that there's nobody to agree semantic rules with. So perhaps he remembers how to apply his term "click" correctly, as he intended it the first time and every other time since ... or perhaps he doesn't actually remember that sort of thing all that well and it just doesn't really have any rule of application...

[iambiguous]

He's not a philosophical solipsist. According to my current theory, he has two different kinds of theory of mind / empathy deficiency: an autistic deficiency and the Pisces glass wall deficiency.

Click, of course.

Note to others:

I challenge anyone here to actually explain what on Earth this might mean pertaining to the part where compatibilists among us explain to Mary that even though she was never able to choose of her own volition to have the abortion, she is still morally responsible for doing so.

As I understand it, you are dishonest (maybe not deliberately), that's not what compatibilism says. In compatibilism volition is redefined as psychological volition, it's not libertarian free will volition.

On the other hand, some hardcore determinists, compelled by their brains, will point out that your own brain compelled you to post that. Word for word.

And please link me to brain scientists able to confirm that what you think about what I think about all this is of your own volition.

So Mary WAS able to choose of her own volition. Then again, compatibilists are also dishonest when they pretend that they didn't completely redefine key concepts.

Of course, this sounds familiar. As though everything here always revolves around how we define or redefine words so that we can deduce this or deduce that. As though what we define or deduce is merely understood "somehow" to be autonomous in and of itself.

The relevance is that you seem to be more or less psychologically blind, you don't really understand what psychology, psychological volition could mean. Compatibilism is about people's psychology, which more or less looks like gibberish to you.

Same thing, in my view. Then the part where philosophers are able to provide us with a truly definitive assessment regarding how mental, emotional and psychological reactions become intertwined in the brain given what our senses convey to it.

Something, in other words, that even scientists are unable to provide us with. Again, unless perhaps they have and I missed it. The link please if you didn't.

[iambiguous]

So, given my most recent post above, by all means, correct me. Note what I misconstrued about the author's argument and provide us with that which all true philosophers would recognize as the correct interpretation.

You didn't misconstrue anything, you didn't respond to it at all.

If someone writes a bunch of stuff about, say, dinosaur bones, and I quote it and reply "I'm coocoo for coco puffs", I didn't misconstrue the argument, I just didn't reply to it. I said things completely unrelated. That's what you do.

There's nothing to note, you're just talking about other things entirely. I've already pointed that out to you. Maybe start actually replying to the text you quote.

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.

If I do say so myself.

I posted my reaction to an article in PN:  

Determined by Robert Sapolsky
Philip Badger questions Robert Sapolsky’s determinism.

Now, if I understand you -- click -- you claim I didn't reply to the text quoted. You claim my reaction to the article is the equivalent to this:

"If someone writes a bunch of stuff about, say, dinosaur bones, and I quote it and reply "I'm coocoo for coco puffs",

Okay, please note examples of this and offer us a reaction and an assessment that someone who did understand him would post.

Sure, I don't doubt that I may well have either misconstrued his point or failed to respond to it as others would. But then, after all, in regard to meaning, morality and metaphysics, failures to communicate have been the norm going all the way back to the pre-Socratics here in the West.

Now, why do you suppose that is?

[iambiguous]

Wachuonnabout biggie? I was saying this Rumsfeld Matrix thing is banal and unimportant. Try to follow the conversation bud.

Oh, now I get it! You said it's banal and unimportant and since I didn't pat you on the back [virtually] and thank you for setting me straight, that "proves" I'm not following the conversation.

And to paraphrase the high plains drifter, "I'm not your bud".

I said what was banal - the Rumsfeld Matrix. You failed to make a case against thay, which is hardly surprising, it is banal. I didn't offer an opinion on any other issue, and when I am in conversation with people like you I stick largely to the point I was making at the start of that engagement otherwise you guys just ramble forever.

Yes, you said the Rumsfeld Matrix was banal. What, because you said it, that makes it true? And Rumsfeld's observations are a matrix only to the extent he was talking about a world where mere mortals existed along these lines: https://youtu.be/O5b0ZxUWNf0?si=UijwZveeZtymNjwh

And, okay, if you have managed to convince yourself that Rumsfeld's observations in regard to meaning, morality and metaphysics are banal, fine. Whatever works, I always say. As for "you guys rambling on", I would imagine some here find that applicable to you as well.

Or perhaps we should run it by the Oracle.

One of the major issues, not just with you Biggie but frankly with all of the most disastrous nutters here, is that you guys persistently forget what the other person is writing about so quickly that there is room for doubt that you even attempted to read. You are far too vain to care what other people write, that vanity presents as failures of comprehension.

Note to others:

Just out of curiosity, is this all being scripted by iwannaplato? And, if so, how would you go about demonstrating that it is scripted autonomously or autonomically?

And correct me if I'm wrong but given free will, are you and others here actually required to read the posts of all the "nutters"?

In other words, I'm trying to imagine what it would be like if I were required to read everything that the Stooges here post about me!

You're not one of them, are you?

What is this paranoid rubbish about IWP supposed to be? Presumably he criticised you for your obvious reading problems too? Others are going to do that too, it's a you thing: You don't address the content of other people's case, you just shrill at us.

Let's run this...

I posted my reaction to an article in PN:

Determined by Robert Sapolsky
Philip Badger questions Robert Sapolsky’s determinism.

Okay, please note examples of this and offer us a reaction and an assessment that someone who did understand him would post.

Sure, I don't doubt that I may well have either misconstrued his point or failed to respond to it as others would. But then, after all, in regard to meaning, morality and metaphysics, failures to communicate have been the norm going all the way back to the Pre-Socratics here in the West.

...by you as well.

What specifically do I need to be corrected about in regard to the article?

[iambiguous]

Oh noo he's onto us, naturally we have IWP and Satyr on a daily videoconference where we discuss our next moves.

Click.

You forgot that. Or are you convinced as well that what you think, feel, intuit, say and do is entirely of your own volition? And it may well be. Only, as with most of us here, you have no capacity to actually demonstrate that beyond a "world of words".

[iambiguous]

He's not a philosophical solipsist. According to my current theory, he has two different kinds of theory of mind / empathy deficiency: an autistic deficiency and the Pisces glass wall deficiency.

Click, of course.

Meaning what? In simple, normal English terms, what should the reader understand when they read what you wrote here? What should they understand about Atla's post, or what should they understand about your thoughts about Atla's post? Plain English please. No "Rummy's Rule". And please don't tell me what it "Revolves around", just say what it means, what you want the reader to understand.

On the other hand -- click -- when I come across reactions like this, I'm just further convinced that their point really revolves around the assumption that if I truly did understand what others are saying in "normal English terms", I would be saying the same thing.

Unless, of course, that's wrong. And, really, in regard to meaning, morality and metaphysics, what are the odds the infinitesimally tiny specks of existence that we are are never not in the bullseye?

[iambiguous]

Please read the post above.

Given that you think Iambiguous has a great, or at least adequate, understanding of English, perhaps you can tell me what you think it means. "Click, of course". What is he trying to say here?

And yet above in a post reacting to him, I noted this:

I use "click" because I'm the first to admit that given The Gap and Rummy's Rule, what are the odds that my own assessment of the human brain "here and now" is the correct one?

Or, for that matter, yours or anyone else's here.

From my frame of mind, It's the equivalent of taking an existential leap of faith to God. In other words, given that scientists, philosophers and theologians have yet to reach a consensus regarding the existence of free will [going back thousands of years now], a click on my part here is only me acknowledging this.

Maybe we are posting autonomously here and maybe we're not. So, by all means, if anyone here is convinced they've found an argument that establishes this one way or the other, please link me to it.

I use "click, of course," only to remind myself and others that there is still no consensus within the scientific and philosophical communities regarding whether we do or do not have autonomy.