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You mean because you find it too "complex" for you? Or that you mistook it for a "question"? Or both?promethean75 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 09, 2022 5:48 pm "Running with your tail between your legs?"
I have reason to believe the speaker may have committed the complex question fallacy
"Originate in." Explain what you mean, please.
That's an interesting mystery. Mind-brain philosophers are working very hard on that question.
No, you're too fast with that assumption. It doesn't follow. It's a specimen of the old "correllational fallacy," where one imagines that if two things occur together then inevitably, one must be "causing" the other. But that doesn't follow. One MAY be causing the other, or the other MAY be causing the one; or they MAY not have a causal connection at all, just a correlational one. Or some third thing not-yet-mentioned COULD BE causing both.Because if it's from the brain then it's reasonable to consider both to be deterministic.
Well, then all this talk about consciousness and subconscious doesn't support or advance your position. So there is really no reason to bring it up.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 09, 2022 7:05 pmThat's an interesting mystery. Mind-brain philosophers are working very hard on that question.
And just because we don't know the answer, it doesn't imply the answer is "physical stuff" -- especially when "physical stuff" turns out to be a totally inadequate explanation, as it does with Determinism. For rocks, trees and atoms are "physical stuff," but if we imagine they have consciousness, identity, reason, science, choice, volition...and so on, then we're certainly without evidence of any of that. So the "physical stuff" explanation does not get to win-by-default.
Some better explanation awaits, and it's that one we should be looking to. Thomas Nagel tries to offer some suggestions, for example; but he admits he doesn't have anything very compelling yet on that. And Jaegwon Kim is as astute as anybody you'll ever find on picking apart the problems with the Physicalist and "epiphenomenal" sorts of attempts at explanation, but he too is not able to say positively what "mind" is.
This, it seems, is currently beyond our ability to say. We are rapidly mapping the brain, but apparently not finding what the "ghost in the machine" is, in the process. And very likely, the problem is that we continue to look in the physical "stuff" for answers the physical "stuff" simply is not the right "stuff" to provide.
No, you're too fast with that assumption. It doesn't follow. It's a specimen of the old "correllational fallacy," where one imagines that if two things occur together then inevitably, one must be "causing" the other. But that doesn't follow. One MAY be causing the other, or the other MAY be causing the one; or they MAY not have a causal connection at all, just a correlational one. Or some third thing not-yet-mentioned COULD BE causing both.Because if it's from the brain then it's reasonable to consider both to be deterministic.
We never know which is the case, if our observation is merely that two types of things always seem to happen together.
My favourite joke about the correllational fallacy goes like this:
A woman walks into her doctor's office, and says, "Doc, every time I drink tea, my right eye hurts."
And the doctor says, "Well, take the spoon out of the cup."
Oh, that doesn't follow at all, in fact.phyllo wrote: ↑Fri Sep 09, 2022 7:18 pmWell, then all this talk about consciousness and subconscious doesn't support or advance your position.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 09, 2022 7:05 pmThat's an interesting mystery. Mind-brain philosophers are working very hard on that question.
And just because we don't know the answer, it doesn't imply the answer is "physical stuff" -- especially when "physical stuff" turns out to be a totally inadequate explanation, as it does with Determinism. For rocks, trees and atoms are "physical stuff," but if we imagine they have consciousness, identity, reason, science, choice, volition...and so on, then we're certainly without evidence of any of that. So the "physical stuff" explanation does not get to win-by-default.
Some better explanation awaits, and it's that one we should be looking to. Thomas Nagel tries to offer some suggestions, for example; but he admits he doesn't have anything very compelling yet on that. And Jaegwon Kim is as astute as anybody you'll ever find on picking apart the problems with the Physicalist and "epiphenomenal" sorts of attempts at explanation, but he too is not able to say positively what "mind" is.
This, it seems, is currently beyond our ability to say. We are rapidly mapping the brain, but apparently not finding what the "ghost in the machine" is, in the process. And very likely, the problem is that we continue to look in the physical "stuff" for answers the physical "stuff" simply is not the right "stuff" to provide.
No, you're too fast with that assumption. It doesn't follow. It's a specimen of the old "correllational fallacy," where one imagines that if two things occur together then inevitably, one must be "causing" the other. But that doesn't follow. One MAY be causing the other, or the other MAY be causing the one; or they MAY not have a causal connection at all, just a correlational one. Or some third thing not-yet-mentioned COULD BE causing both.Because if it's from the brain then it's reasonable to consider both to be deterministic.
We never know which is the case, if our observation is merely that two types of things always seem to happen together.
My favourite joke about the correllational fallacy goes like this:
A woman walks into her doctor's office, and says, "Doc, every time I drink tea, my right eye hurts."
And the doctor says, "Well, take the spoon out of the cup."
The gap between what any of us here think we know about determinism/free will/compatibilism and all that would need to be known regarding '...all of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter'...has surely got to be staggering.BigMike wrote: ↑Wed Sep 07, 2022 5:33 pmI don't see how your "But...", normally used to start a sentence in contrast to what has already been said, introduces anything relevant to what was said about determinism. I have not attempted to explain the things that you find so perplexing and I have no problem waiting until such information becomes accessible. The only effect it will have on my worldview is to enlighten me on that one unrelated thing.iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Sep 07, 2022 3:06 pm But...
Like all the rest of us, you are unable to propound a definitive explanation for where BigMike fits into this:
So, as with all the rest of us, your argument falls somewhere between an educated guess and a wild-ass guess.All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.
Then those here who actually believe that what they believe about all of this reflects, what, the ontological truth about the human condition itself?
Then those who are compelled in turn to insist on a teleological component as well. Usually in the form of one or another God.
Meanwhile, philosophers and scientists and theologians have been grappling with this profound mystery now for thousands of years.
Either in the only possible reality in the only possible world or of their own volition.
As though how we do or do not collectively adapt is not in and of itself a fated, destined trajectory in the only possible world.BigMike wrote: ↑Wed Sep 07, 2022 5:33 pmThe question of how we should collectively adapt to a world that has rejected the concept of free will is far more urgent and intriguing, in my view. And "everybody" should take part in this process because, in the end, our collective decisions will have a big effect on everyone's life.
iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Sep 09, 2022 8:52 pm From my frame of mind, you come off as a run-of-the-mill objectivist here.
I realize that is combining his certainty in determinism, which I assume you are focusing on most here, with his belief in Evil and his simple heuristic for determining that a few billion people are evil.BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Jul 30, 2022 7:25 pm
Even though they don't have a choice, people who believe they have free will are intrinsically evil.
Just to get this straight.You sound like peacegirl over at ILP. We have no free will but if we read her father's book there's still hope of ridding the world of Evil.
Well, and he's got a worse problem...Determinism has no account of evil. Because to say something is "evil" is to say it's something that shouldn't be done, or shouldn't be allowed, or we shouldn't choose it, or it shouldn't happen.Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Sep 09, 2022 8:59 pmiambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Sep 09, 2022 8:52 pm From my frame of mind, you come off as a run-of-the-mill objectivist here.I realize that is combining his certainty in determinism, which I assume you are focusing on most here, with his belief in Evil and his simple heuristic for determining that a few billion people are evil.BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Jul 30, 2022 7:25 pm
Even though they don't have a choice, people who believe they have free will are intrinsically evil.
Or some would say that anything at all that you or I or anyone else says we and they were never able not to say.
Who cares about the prior events if, like the event itself and the subsequent consequential events, everything unfolds wholly in sync with the laws of matter.phyllo wrote: ↑Thu Sep 08, 2022 3:57 pm Prior to that event, any number of events could have prevented the abortion.
-She got hit by a bus on the way to the clinic.
-An anti-abortion bomb threat closed the clinic on that day. The delay led to other events which caused her to change her mind.
-Something happened on the way to the clinic which made her change her mind.
-It turns out that she was never pregnant. The initial test/diagnosis was wrong. An abortion did not get done.
Click.
Unless, of course, everything consisting of matter is based on the laws of matter. Period.
Something deemed to have worth or deemed to be worthless...what's the difference if both the achievement and our reaction to it is only as it ever could have been?You didn't create yourself. You didn't design yourself. You didn't build yourself. Are all your achievements worthless as a result?
I think it's important to note that free-will is already 'thinking' and 'deciding' independent of a brain or some other physical organ.Common to each is that they are interactions between physical objects. There is no force or interaction between "free will" and atoms. People who believe they can make things happen through their own non-physical free will, i.e., move particles in their brains and thus initiate nerve signals through non-physical "willpower," are, therefore, mistaken. Despite these fundamental truths, I have noticed that most people believe they possess such psychokinetic powers when they do not. But it is not the job of physics to explain why people are so delusional.
Compatibilists don't believe in free-will.I ask libertarians and compatibilists: Which of the four existing forces is involved in executing your free will?