Sorry again for the couple of days delay. Busy, busy right now. But I have time for at least a brief response now.
Dave Mangnall wrote:Take away the negative implications of Max Weber’s phrase “iron cage” and I agree with what you said in that paragraph. “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.”
So far, so good. We seem to be agreeing...although it would be impossible for us to do otherwise that we do, apparently.
Regarding your comment on drones (Such a pejorative term, which doesn’t chime at all with how determinism feels to me.)
And yet, what justification do we have for not liking it?
According to Determinism, we're not merely "drones" of the beehive; no, no, it's MUCH worse than that. We have the most in common with, say, "military drones," since they, like us (allegedly), are merely mechanical devices possessing no genuine consciousness, responding to orders sent to them from outside, and having no power to resist their program. So I don't know why such an apt metaphor would be objectionable at all -- unless deep down we did not feel that that was quite the way it was, and that maybe, just maybe, we aren't "drones" of material forces at all.
Always, I am doing what I must do, following my personal script as dictated by the Causal Nexus.
Hmmm...sounds "drony" to me.
The future is determined, but unpredictable.
The drone also does not "know" what will shortly be "happening" to it. But that brings us to one very notable difference: unlike us, it can't "think" about it at all. Drones have not only no identity, but no powers of speculation. Strangely, we do.
So we do find a legitimate objection to the "drone" metaphor: but it depends on our believing in a strange, non-drone-like thing called "consciousness."
Incidentally, when you use the phrase “I thought”, I’m struck by the idea that Descartes went too far with his cogito. Instead of saying “I think, therefore I am” he should have contented himself with “Thoughts occur”.
Hmm...but to what do "thoughts occur"? Not to drones, surely. For a "thought" needs an agent who is capable of having it. That agent must have an identity (Descartes, "I", if you will) to which that thought can "occur." The problem with your phrase is that it is passive voice, meaning that the doer of the action is hidden or unspecified. So too is the recipient of the action. In fact, your phrase parallels "rocks occur." Are you really going to suggest that no more is involved in a "thought" than the existence of a rock, a tree or a planet? That there is nothing different about consciousness?
That looks reductional to me.
So if the thought occurs in your thought stream “What an obstinately obtuse muddle-headed fool this Dave is!”, there’s nothing “you” could have done to prevent that thought from occurring.
It doesn't. Dave seems to be thinking carefully, notwithstanding my skepticism about the adequacy of his current conclusions. However, I believe Dave can, if he chooses, "change his mind." And I believe his volition and personal disposition will have a lot to do with whether or not he does.
I have to conclude in response to your last paragraph, and here it’s I who hope that you will forgive me, that it is you, not I, who do not understand the implications of determinism. This comment implies no disrespect for your intellect. But I’m looking at determinism from the inside, and have done for many decades, whereas you are looking at it from the outside, trying to imagine what it would be like on the inside. And that isn't easy.
It isn't the "lived experience" of being a Determinist that's problematic, Dave. I know many people who claim various kinds of Determinism, and have already had substantial conversations with many such. But (and I hope you'll forgive me if this sounds critical), there is a great rational gulf between being able to say, "I feel
comfortable living with my Determinism," and "I'm living
rationally consistently with my Determinism." There are, after all, a great many people who are "happy" to live with belief that simply do not add up. Take, for example, the Atheist who persists in being moral -- he had not justification for thinking he HAS to do so, but it may well please him to do so. He feels untroubled by the fact that he lacks even a hint of rational warrant -- he's content to stand on his gratuitous choice -- ironically, a "choice" which you now say he's not
really making anyway.
I don't question your happiness as a Determinist. And I don't question that you find your nominal profession of belief in it satisfactory. What I do doubt is that you can find it rational; and I say again that it seems to me to require a kind of "schitzophrenia," a split-personality to be a Determinist. Even talking to me as if I can change my mind, or even your sense of personal achievement and gratification in having decided to be a Determinist, have no warrant within the worldview you profess, and are, in fact, reduced in theory to nothing by it.
You see, Dave, it's a
rational problem, not a degree-of-contentment one. That you can
live with the inconsistency isn't the issue; it's that the inconsistency requires you to be behaving irrationally relative to your beliefs.