Dave Mangnall wrote:...deterministic forces, which I term the Causal Nexus. These forces include the actions of people, even those rare people who are determinists. And determinists do make choices, just like everybody else. We all make choices, but we could not choose to make choices other than in the way that we do. The way we make choices is determined.
Now, if you'll forgive me, Dave, this sounds to me like doublespeak: people "make choices," but none of those "choices" are anything less than fully "determined" in advance. Your "nexus" can't include free will, or you're no longer a Determinist: for no free-willian denies the existence of SOME things that are predetermined; after all, not one of us is in charge of the day of his birth, his hair colour, his natural intelligence potential, the location of his arrival, and so on. Rather, they insist only that SOME choices are also genuine. And if you agree with them, you no longer believe in Determinism.
As Max Weber put it, Determinism itself is the "iron cage." It admits of no possibility of "choice" being genuine, or "will" as a causal agency. Thus the illusion of "choice" by individuals is never more than exactly that -- an illusion, not a reality. If you go another direction, then whatever it is, it's not Determinism. It's just the very ordinary observation that we don't always have a choice about everything that happens to us, but leaves open the possibility that sometimes we do.
So we are not simply drones, commissioned by forces beyond us. Some of the forces are within us.
Sounds good at first, but "within" in what sense? It can't be the volitional sense, or you've sold Determinism down river. You must then mean in the biochemical sense, in which case it matters not one whit whether they're "within" or "without": both are just part of a predetermined set of purely physical causes. So you really haven't saved the "drone" idea there at all, if that's the case. "Drones" it is.
Which way do you go with that, Dave?
We are not merely spectators in our own lives. We are also actors, playing out our roles according to the unfolding script dictated by the Causal Nexus. This is what makes life more interesting than movies; we have a bigger role to play than eating popcorn. But we are not truly autonomous. Although we may be free from external constraints, the inner ones work just fine.
Well, again, I need you to explain to my why "inner" and "outer" matter, if biological causality is all you mean. Either way, it's predetermined, and we are again merely the spectators.
Belinda raised the issue of fatalism, and I admit that it did seem to me that you were conflating determinism with fatalism by wondering about the point of discussion if I thought I couldn’t change anything. Fatalism can be defined in different ways, but one way involves having a range of options which all lead to the same destination, in the way that, try as he might, Oedipus Rex couldn’t avoid killing his father and marrying his mother. This is not what determinism is. Fatalism may be, as you say, a pessimistic response to a belief in some sort of determinism, but it’s not my response. My response to determinism is wholly positive.
Fair enough. But if it's based on biological Determinism, I can't see any "positive" addition there at all. It just looks to me like another way of saying, "predetermined, with no possibility of volition."
You said “Why argue with a movie?” and The Doc chimed in on that one. I think this is a red herring, but people are not always rational. Have you ever watched a football match with overexcited fans who volubly abuse the referee and players who have roused their ire, although no-one on the telly can hear them?
We call such people "fans," that word being short for "fanatics."
And that makes sense. To act that way is, to read it charitably, just a one-sided release of emotions on the part of the "fan." At worst, it's deluded and crazy. It's certainly no model for normal human behaviour.
Finally, I notice that your express concern is about how one can live consistently, if one really believes in determinism? I would point out that even if one could not (which I firmly deny), that in itself would not prove determinism false.
Correct. Nor would it indicate it were true. The argument needs to be settled on other grounds.
But one thing is evident: people who believe in free will are able to live consistently with that belief. Determinists are not. For even though they believe that in principle a person cannot really "change" his mind or his outcome, they still all act as if he can -- they argue, persuade, use reason, refer to morality, and so on...
Like, here you are, trying to convince me that you're right. I don't mind, of course; it's fun to talk about. However, according to your theory (if it is indeed Determinism) I literally CANNOT change my mind. Whatever I would think at a given moment was settled from before the moment of the Big Bang, by a causal chain of material events that persists up to the present day. If I APPEAR to change, that "change" is just an illusion: I would have done it anyway, because I was predestined to do it; but if I do not, it will not (according to Determinism) be because I thought your theory flawed, but because I never really "thought" at all. I was "thought for" since before the Big Bang, so to speak. So now, I cannot possibly believe you, since I am predestined not to, no matter how good your argument might turn out to be...
Is that how it is?
But I would suggest that argumentation itself is anti-Deterministic. The fact that professing Determinists argue their case betrays that they are actually at odds with their own theory. And that tells you something. It says that every time they argue, they show they don't deeply believe in their hearts what they profess with their lips; or else, that they don't really understand the implications of Determinism. For I suggest to you (hoping actually to change your mind, of course
) that there is no "change of mind" in a Determinist universe. Only what was always going to happen anyway happens.
Free will advocates never tackle head on the question of whether free will actually exists or whether determinism is true. In this they are very wise.
I was imagining that that is what we are doing
right now, actually. I don't think we're shying away from anything...do you?
