peacegirl wrote: ↑Fri Feb 01, 2019 8:59 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Fri Feb 01, 2019 8:35 pm
henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Feb 01, 2019 7:27 pm
Challenge accepted. I'll read the fifteen this weekend and comment after. Please, post the link again or send it to my in-forum mailbox.
Good luck with that. I've just skimmed the first 32 pages until I got bored. All I have seen is alternately some wanker boasting about his theory is going to completely change the world, and the same wanker whining about nobody believing his theory because of dogmatism. This book is like some heinous collaboration between Prof and Nick_A, with each contributing his most pathetic tendencies.
Obviously, being that you read 32 pages, you are now a self-appointed authority.
And why the name calling? Dogmatism is a problem, hence the need to put this in the intro. You, believing his claims are impossible, are searching for something to criticize. Since you know so much about the book and its contents, why is the will of man not free according to this author? What is the two-sided equation? It's really funny that you have become the judge and jury of a book that you know nothing about. Is this what philosophy has done for you?
I've read lots of real philosophy, some of it excruciatingly boring. But I am not putting up with 30 odd pages of whiny fucking preamble again. Even Prof only took 12 pages to get to get round to his actual argument, and he's got a lot of evading to do. You can try to reverse physch me, and you can do the sneering passive-aggressive thing as well, but if you can't get to the point quicker than this book does, the fact is that you need an editor who is less stupid than the author. But I am going to indulge you simply because this book is almost entirely concocted of empty calories, it is so wasteful it can be read in minutes tbh.
The free will thing is lazy and stupid. All it does is take a standard
rational choice theory describing behaviour, and describe all outcomes as if they were the only real choice available simply because counterfactuals are by definition not factual. Then, obviously, because it is this bloody book, it stops to boast about how amazing this brilliant discovery is, even though it is banal if true, and utterly unprovable in any case.
The stuff about the two-sided equation is predicated on the notion that follows from the above and is equally not new, that if choices run on rails then there can be no blame - repeated endlessly. You get the same thing when evolutionary biologists claim that cheating on your wife is natural and unavoidable because of genetics, and so not to be condemned. Then you get some stuff about there being no such thing as evil, even though almost nobody believes in evil as a force. Then there is a small delay while the author does yet more boasting.
The most stunning thing in the book is on page 70 where the world's most repetitive man uses the words
"Let me repeat this crucial point" as if he has made any fucking point merely once. Then there are a few more pages of bragging.
Here and there, as if to underline the gulf between what this book does and any possible product of valid reasoning, your man likes to boast that once everybody understands his awesome discoveries about free will... they will then choose to behave better. Apparently, for some reason, they will all want to, and nobody would prefer to view it as license to do other things they find more enjoyable.
But here's the thing... you've read it, and understood it, and it changed your life right? So why are you choosing to be passive-aggressive on the internet? Because the book is worthless shit, that's why. It's done you no good at all, and you're supposed to be the advert for its direct and immediate morally beneficial outcomes.