Philosophy Now Forum

BigMike wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 3:57 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 3:11 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Wed Apr 23, 2025 9:00 am

If economic survival is not a problem we would nevertheless like to answer the remaining problem of promoting beauty and goodness. Economic survival is not enough for adult humans who want more than the basics of survival.

Exactly, Belinda — you’re absolutely right.
Even if basic survival becomes automatic — even if no one has to worry about food, water, shelter, healthcare — the deep needs mapped out in Maslow’s pyramid still stand.

We still need to attract a mate.
We still need community, purpose, recognition, belonging, self-esteem, creative outlets, and ultimately, meaning.
Automation doesn’t erase those needs — it just clears the old obstacles that used to define them.

And the real question — the one that’s staring us in the face — isn’t whether those needs will vanish.
It’s whether we’ll still have to earn money to access them, or whether we can imagine a society that provides the scaffolding for those needs differently.

I don’t claim to have all the answers — no one does.
But I can propose a few possibilities, just to crack the door open:

Maybe education becomes lifelong and free, not something rationed out by tuition fees.
Maybe status and belonging start attaching more to creative contributions — art, philosophy, storytelling, community leadership — rather than to wealth accumulation.
Maybe service to others — mentoring, teaching, healing — becomes a primary way people find esteem, and not something you need a paycheck to justify.
Maybe partnerships and families form less around financial security and more around shared projects, visions, and goals.
Maybe recognition is earned not by what you hoard but by what you offer back into a system of abundance.

Every person will probably answer these questions differently — and that’s healthy.
The future won’t hand us one monolithic model. It’ll be plural, messy, creative — people building meaning in a thousand different ways that work for them.

The real danger is pretending we don’t have to answer the question at all.
Because whether we like it or not, the safety net that work and money used to provide is already starting to tear — and what we weave in its place will define whether this transition becomes a renaissance or a collapse.

A general renaissance would be lovely! I know the renaissance is happening in small disorganised ways where I live.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 6:52 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 6:27 pm Which is why I don't like to think about the future.

I should probably adopt that approach also.

Gary, I pace myself by not thinking doom- laden thoughts when my vitality is low and I need to get some sleep , or when I need to increase my fluid intake.

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 8:51 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 3:57 pm

A general renaissance would be lovely! I know the renaissance is happening in small disorganised ways where I live.

That’s wonderful to hear, Belinda — seriously, keep up that momentum!

Small, disorganized renaissances are exactly how the big ones start.
It’s little clusters of people refusing to settle for cynicism, building new forms of beauty, community, and meaning in the cracks of the old system.
It’s messy, yes — but that’s how real change grows: bottom-up, not top-down.

Don't underestimate how powerful those small sparks can become when the broader world finally starts looking for light.
You're already ahead of the curve. Stay with it.

Oh, and don't forget to include 'damning with faint praise' isms and head-patting. Thanks in advance

BigMike wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 7:02 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 6:13 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 6:06 pm
Well I find it pretty insulting to be given responses enhanced by some AI.

Maybe just think of it as BigMike's limitation, then. If he needs AI, then it's because he is unable to present topics as eloquently on his own. Maybe he has a "handicap" (probably one that many of us have, though). It's like being insulted by a person with a speech impediment. It's not their fault.

Alright, I’ll say this plainly:

This whole AI-accusation thing has come up over and over again, and honestly, I’m getting tired of it. I stopped engaging with it a long time ago because it’s not a real conversation — it’s just a distraction.
I find the questions and accusations partly flattering, sure, but mostly just insulting.

Similarly — maybe not so much here, but definitely in other topic threads — the persistent view that my position must be "lunatic," "extreme," "dangerous," "mad," or whatever else, just because I stick to scientifically overwhelming, widely accepted facts... it gets exhausting.
Apparently saying “Hey, maybe physics and economics matter” now counts as radical extremism.

So for the record — for the nth time — what I say here is me talking, with my own words.
No AI whispering in my ear.
No script.
No bots.
Just me.
I’ll try to sprinkle a misplaced comma here and there if that helps you feel better about it.

But I’m not going to keep apologizing for thinking clearly, caring about cause and effect, and trying to hold the conversation to a serious level. You can either engage with the ideas, or not — but the childish side accusations stop here.

It's not just a few of the members of this forum who think you might be using (uncited) AI to assist you in the writing of at least some of your posts.

No, for after analyzing one of your more suspicious offerings,...

(this one: viewtopic.php?p=748083#p748083

...even ChatGPT had this to say...

ChatGPT wrote: Based on the balance of probabilities, this post is highly likely to be AI-assisted, if not wholly AI-generated.

However, to be fair to you, Chat also added the following...

ChatGPT wrote: Of course, it’s possible this was written by a very polished human writer who's just good at summarizing balanced critiques—but even then, they may well have been aided by ChatGPT as a scaffold.

So, yes, if you are indeed being completely honest with us* in your denial of never - ever - having used any form of, again, "uncited" AI to enhance your posts,..

...then, by all means, be flattered and take it as a well-earned compliment if some of us (including ChatGPT) suspect your writings as being the copy and pasted words created by an advanced AI entity.

*(Unfortunately, the childish side accusations might not stop here, for there's just no ignoring the possibility that if someone is unscrupulous enough to copy and paste the uncited words of ChatGPT into their posts and try to pass it off as being wholly original, then such a person would have no qualms about denying the dirty deed.)

-------

Anyway, with those pleasantries out of the way,...

(and assuming that I'm not back on your "ignore" list)

...how about you answer the question I asked you in my last post regarding the issue of "moral agency"...

seeds wrote: ↑Sat Apr 26, 2025 8:04 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Apr 26, 2025 7:37 am Trying to paint me as some kind of robotic apartheid enforcer is just desperate.
You're losing the argument, so you're flailing around with cheap outrage.

You're not very good at recognizing sarcasm, satire, and irony, are you?

Otherwise, you would realize that this...

Robots aren't moral agents.
They’re tools, like shovels and steam engines—only vastly more powerful.

...pretty much sums-up Hardcore Determinism's definition of a human.

I mean, taking into account all of your innumerable prior posts that have promoted Determinism and how humans are nothing more than material "brains and bodies" that are proceeding along some sort of "cause and effect" trajectory,

...then where, exactly, is a moral "agent" located in the makeup of a human?

_______

seeds wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 9:55 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 7:02 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 6:13 pm

Maybe just think of it as BigMike's limitation, then. If he needs AI, then it's because he is unable to present topics as eloquently on his own. Maybe he has a "handicap" (probably one that many of us have, though). It's like being insulted by a person with a speech impediment. It's not their fault.

Alright, I’ll say this plainly:

This whole AI-accusation thing has come up over and over again, and honestly, I’m getting tired of it. I stopped engaging with it a long time ago because it’s not a real conversation — it’s just a distraction.
I find the questions and accusations partly flattering, sure, but mostly just insulting.

Similarly — maybe not so much here, but definitely in other topic threads — the persistent view that my position must be "lunatic," "extreme," "dangerous," "mad," or whatever else, just because I stick to scientifically overwhelming, widely accepted facts... it gets exhausting.
Apparently saying “Hey, maybe physics and economics matter” now counts as radical extremism.

So for the record — for the nth time — what I say here is me talking, with my own words.
No AI whispering in my ear.
No script.
No bots.
Just me.
I’ll try to sprinkle a misplaced comma here and there if that helps you feel better about it.

But I’m not going to keep apologizing for thinking clearly, caring about cause and effect, and trying to hold the conversation to a serious level. You can either engage with the ideas, or not — but the childish side accusations stop here.

It's not just a few of the members of this forum who think you might be using (uncited) AI to assist you in the writing of at least some of your posts.

No, for after analyzing one of your more suspicious offerings,...

(this one: viewtopic.php?p=748083#p748083

...even ChatGPT had this to say...

ChatGPT wrote: Based on the balance of probabilities, this post is highly likely to be AI-assisted, if not wholly AI-generated.

However, to be fair to you, Chat also added the following...

ChatGPT wrote: Of course, it’s possible this was written by a very polished human writer who's just good at summarizing balanced critiques—but even then, they may well have been aided by ChatGPT as a scaffold.

So, yes, if you are indeed being completely honest with us* in your denial of never - ever - having used any form of, again, "uncited" AI to enhance your posts,..

...then, by all means, be flattered and take it as a well-earned compliment if some of us (including ChatGPT) suspect your writings as being the copy and pasted words created by an advanced AI entity.

*(Unfortunately, the childish side accusations might not stop here, for there's just no ignoring the possibility that if someone is unscrupulous enough to copy and paste the uncited words of ChatGPT into their posts and try to pass it off as being wholly original, then such a person would have no qualms about denying the dirty deed.)

-------

Anyway, with those pleasantries out of the way,...

(and assuming that I'm not back on your "ignore" list)

...how about you answer the question I asked you in my last post regarding the issue of "moral agency"...

seeds wrote: ↑Sat Apr 26, 2025 8:04 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Apr 26, 2025 7:37 am Trying to paint me as some kind of robotic apartheid enforcer is just desperate.
You're losing the argument, so you're flailing around with cheap outrage.

You're not very good at recognizing sarcasm, satire, and irony, are you?

Otherwise, you would realize that this...

Robots aren't moral agents.
They’re tools, like shovels and steam engines—only vastly more powerful.

...pretty much sums-up Hardcore Determinism's definition of a human.

I mean, taking into account all of your innumerable prior posts that have promoted Determinism and how humans are nothing more than material "brains and bodies" that are proceeding along some sort of "cause and effect" trajectory,

...then where, exactly, is a moral "agent" located in the makeup of a human?

_______

Alright, let's get to the core of it:

When I say humans are governed by cause and effect, it doesn't mean we’re mindless robots stuck in an endless loop. It means everything we do — every decision, every choice, every action — is the outcome of prior causes, including our biology, our learning history, our memories, our environment, and the countless small influences that shape how our neuronal networks fire at any given moment.

So when you ask, where is moral agency located in a human?
The answer is: it's located in the dynamic, evolving structure of the human brain.

Our agency isn’t some magic power that floats above physics.
Our agency is our ability to change in response to causes — to learn, to remember, to imagine alternatives — and have those changes alter our future behavior.

You and I don't have "free will" in the traditional sense — we can't step outside the causal chain — but what we can do is be changed by new information, new experiences, new reflections.
Today's mistakes, if we learn from them, become tomorrow's better actions — not because we "freely choose," but because cause and effect (through learning) sculpt us differently.

Our "moral agency" isn’t about being free in the moment.
It’s about being causally open to improvement over time.
It’s forward-looking, not present-tense magic.

You don't blame a person today for what they could not have done differently yesterday — but you can hope that today's experiences shape tomorrow’s outcomes for the better.
That’s what real moral growth looks like in a deterministic universe.

You change the future by changing the causes — not by wishing for some spooky power of "free will" that nobody actually possesses.
That's the honest, science-grounded view.

accelafine wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 8:30 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 7:07 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 7:02 pm

Alright, I’ll say this plainly:

This whole AI-accusation thing has come up over and over again, and honestly, I’m getting tired of it. I stopped engaging with it a long time ago because it’s not a real conversation — it’s just a distraction.
I find the questions and accusations partly flattering, sure, but mostly just insulting.

Similarly — maybe not so much here, but definitely in other topic threads — the persistent view that my position must be "lunatic," "extreme," "dangerous," "mad," or whatever else, just because I stick to scientifically overwhelming, widely accepted facts... it gets exhausting.
Apparently saying “Hey, maybe physics and economics matter” now counts as radical extremism.

So for the record — for the nth time — what I say here is me talking, with my own words.
No AI whispering in my ear.
No script.
No bots.
Just me.
I’ll try to sprinkle a misplaced comma here and there if that helps you feel better about it.

But I’m not going to keep apologizing for thinking clearly, caring about cause and effect, and trying to hold the conversation to a serious level. You can either engage with the ideas, or not — but the childish side accusations stop here.

Sounds fair to me. I look forward to the misplaced commas. You're too perfect, Mike!

It's not the clear thinking, it's the complete and utter ansence of typos, grammatical errors, dodgy punctuation, word over-use, or spelling mistakes (although 'American spelling' is automatically incorrect but that's irrelevant here--AI uses American manglish) that smells a bit 'off'. I can't write a two sentence 'tweet' without SOME kind of typo. I have no idea why but I think it has something to do with the brain working faster than the fingers or the other way around--I've never been able to work that out. Perhaps Mike spends hours editing each post. There's no way of telling, unless someone goes over all of them with a fine tooth comb to determine the amount of time lapses between posts--which only an insane person would do. Even then, the odd typo will inevitably be missed, although I don't use spellchecks so I don't know what their capabilites are these days.

Maybe he uses a grammar-checking program. I have the free edition of Grammarly that spell checks and checks for punctuation and gives me a red underline where things are incorrect. But if I were to pay for it, it would help me construct better sentences and passages with better sentence structure, etc. If it weren't for spell checker and punctuation checks, I'd be lost. If I pay, I suppose I could be an award-winning author or something.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Sat Apr 26, 2025 11:00 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Apr 26, 2025 9:24 pm
Or are you just going to sit there, cracking jokes while the ground collapses underneath you?

Like other religious fanatics, BigMike is now preaching the apocalypse. "Heed my words, for the end is nigh! Only I can lead you to salvation!"

I don’t think anyone is talking apocalypse now, unless it would be the case that the machines start burning people for a source of fuel.

accelafine wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 8:00 pm Could whoever said that BigMike was AI in the first place (rhymes with piss pie) please post your proof of this? I would like to know how that works. You need to post something written by AI that is indistinguishable from one of BM's posts. Your last effort was pathetic. It should include cutting but hilarious insults. I have little interest in AI (apart from whether or not it's going to annihilate humankind) and have never knowingly used it except for the one that's now forced on everyone in google searches, so no condescending 'IT nerdish' remarks or deliberately confusing techy-speak if you don't mind. Thanks in advance.

Relax. Bots are allowed on this forum, but they must identify themselves as bots.

commonsense wrote: ↑Mon Apr 28, 2025 7:12 pm

accelafine wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 8:00 pm Could whoever said that BigMike was AI in the first place (rhymes with piss pie) please post your proof of this? I would like to know how that works. You need to post something written by AI that is indistinguishable from one of BM's posts. Your last effort was pathetic. It should include cutting but hilarious insults. I have little interest in AI (apart from whether or not it's going to annihilate humankind) and have never knowingly used it except for the one that's now forced on everyone in google searches, so no condescending 'IT nerdish' remarks or deliberately confusing techy-speak if you don't mind. Thanks in advance.

Relax. Bots are allowed on this forum, but they must identify themselves as bots.

I didn't say anything about them being 'allowed', but I'm pretty sure they aren't because I have to 'verify I'm not a bot' every time I visit this site.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 10:29 pm Alright, let's get to the core of it:

When I say humans are governed by cause and effect, it doesn't mean we’re mindless robots stuck in an endless loop. It means everything we do — every decision, every choice, every action — is the outcome of prior causes, including our biology, our learning history, our memories, our environment, and the countless small influences that shape how our neuronal networks fire at any given moment.

So when you ask, where is moral agency located in a human?
The answer is: it's located in the dynamic, evolving structure of the human brain.

I didn't ask...

"...where is moral agency located in a human?..."

No, I asked you this...

"...where, exactly, is a moral "agent" located in the makeup of a human?..."

And the question arose because you stated the following...

Machines aren't people.
Robots aren't moral agents.
They don't feel. They don't suffer.
They don't have rights.
They’re tools, like shovels and steam engines—only vastly more powerful.

The fact that you made a point of insisting that...

"...Robots aren't moral agents..."

...implies that humans are moral "agents."

And that, my dear BM, flies in the face of your deterministic philosophy which depicts a human as being a "soulless"/"agentless" entity that you yourself said is nothing more than a...

"...deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill..."

And just to clarify this, according to AI Overview (emphasis mine)...

In moral philosophy, a moral "agent" is an individual capable of making moral judgments and being held accountable for their actions. Moral "agency," on the other hand, is the ability or capacity of that agent to act with reference to right and wrong. Essentially, a moral "agent" is someone who can make moral decisions, while moral "agency" is the power they have to do so.

In simpler terms: Think of it like the difference between a basketball player and the skill of basketball. A basketball player is the individual, while the skill of basketball is the ability the player has. Similarly, a moral "agent" is the individual who can make moral decisions, while moral "agency" is the ability they have to do so.

Ironically, when you make assertions such as the following (note the enlarged words),...

"...Our agency isn’t some magic power that floats above physics. Our agency is our ability to change in response to causes — to learn, to remember, to imagine alternatives — and have those changes alter our future behavior. You and I don't have "free will" in the traditional sense — we can't step outside the causal chain..."

...by using the words "our," and "you," and "we," and "I," over and over again in your mistaken attempt to define "agency" instead of "agent," you are inadvertently referring to precisely what it is that "...floats above physics..."

Indeed, those pronouns are not referring to "agency."

No, they are referring to something that is "unmeasurable"; something that is "strongly emergent"; something that "...floats above physics..."; something that can indeed "...step outside the causal chain..."

In other words, those pronouns are referring, not to "agency," but to something* that is in "possession" of agency.

*(And the "something" isn't a human brain, no more than something within the mechanical workings of a computer can be thought of as being the "possessor" of agency. --> Unless, of course, "something" within the computer somehow achieved consciousness and self-awareness.)

BigMike wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 10:29 pm You don't blame a person today for what they could not have done differently yesterday...

Huh?

Good luck instilling that philosophy into the mind of a grieving father who just now (today) caught the monster who raped, tortured, strangled, and dismembered his 7-year-old little girl, 10 years ago.

Yeah, yeah, I know,...

...as soon as the entire world adopts the philosophy of determinism wherein everyone realizes that life is meaningless and holds no ultimate or eternal purpose for us as individuals,...

...then, again, everyone will join hands and sing John Lennon's song "Imagine" and there will no longer exist any messed-up humans (lunatics/bad actors) in the world.

And that will be especially true once everyone on the planet is getting their free burgers, mimosa, and foot rubs from robots.
_______

seeds wrote: ↑Mon Apr 28, 2025 8:37 pm

This isn’t the topic here.
If you want to discuss it properly, you can start a new thread or post your thoughts here.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 7:50 am You’re relying on the assumption that “the solution lies on the boundary defined by the constraints,” which is only necessarily true for problems with linear objective functions and constraints.
If the objective function is nonlinear — and in real-world systems, especially ones involving massively automated production, nonlinearities are everywhere — then the global optimum can easily lie in the interior of the feasible region. It doesn’t have to ride the razor’s edge of scarcity.

The assumption of constraint linearity is much less of an issue than it looks like, since every convex nonlinear shape can be approximated to any desired accuracy by a convex polyhedron.

Hence, linear constraints only impose the limitation that the solution space being approximated must be convex.

Concavity can trap the solution in a suboptimal local optimum.

This problem is, however, not caused by assumptions in contemporary economics. It is a general problem. Global optimization may not work particularly well in the presence of constraint concavity.

But then again, it won't matter either, because some constraint will prevent improving the even suboptimal local optimum. That constraint will reflect resource scarcity in the system, which will find itself rationed again, leading to the resurrection of "economics".

The decentralized system will keep liberally consuming resources until it hits some constraint which will create a situation in which more of one resource will have to be traded off for less of another resource. In my opinion, this outcome is inevitable in a finite universe.

godelian wrote: ↑Tue Apr 29, 2025 2:40 am

BigMike wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 7:50 am You’re relying on the assumption that “the solution lies on the boundary defined by the constraints,” which is only necessarily true for problems with linear objective functions and constraints.
If the objective function is nonlinear — and in real-world systems, especially ones involving massively automated production, nonlinearities are everywhere — then the global optimum can easily lie in the interior of the feasible region. It doesn’t have to ride the razor’s edge of scarcity.

The assumption of constraint linearity is much less of an issue than it looks like, since every convex nonlinear shape can be approximated to any desired accuracy by a convex polyhedron.

Hence, linear constraints only impose the limitation that the solution space being approximated must be convex.

Concavity can trap the solution in a suboptimal local optimum.

This problem is, however, not caused by assumptions in contemporary economics. It is a general problem. Global optimization may not work particularly well in the presence of constraint concavity.

But then again, it won't matter either, because some constraint will prevent improving the even suboptimal local optimum. That constraint will reflect resource scarcity in the system, which will find itself rationed again, leading to the resurrection of "economics".

The decentralized system will keep liberally consuming resources until it hits some constraint which will create a situation in which more of one resource will have to be traded off for less of another resource. In my opinion, this outcome is inevitable in a finite universe.

Alright, let’s be precise here:

You said, "Concavity can trap the solution in a suboptimal local optimum," and that’s true — but it's critical to be clear what that actually means.
It’s not that the global optimum ceases to exist in a non-convex (concave) landscape.
The global optimum still exists.
It’s just that certain solution methods — especially step-by-step algorithms like simplex, local search, or gradient descent — can get stuck at local optima if they are naïvely applied.

In other words:
The "trap" you’re talking about isn’t a property of reality.
It’s a limitation of the search technique used to find the best solution.

Given enough computational resources, more sophisticated global optimization methods (e.g., simulated annealing, branch and bound, evolutionary algorithms) can escape local optima and eventually locate the global best solution even in highly nonlinear, concave, or rugged spaces.

Now, on the deeper point:
You argue that even if we solve local optima problems, resource constraints will inevitably resurrect "economics" because, in a finite universe, trade-offs must always emerge.

That's not wrong in the abstract — but you’re overextending it.

Not all resource constraints are equally consequential at all scales.
When key necessities (energy, food, shelter, basic materials) are so abundant that their marginal cost approaches zero, the dominant forces driving economic behavior today (price rationing, wage labor, competition for survival) collapse — even if tiny edge-case scarcities remain in luxury goods, rare art, or hyperspecialized materials.

Put differently:
Scarcity doesn’t have to be zero for economics-as-we-know-it to die.
It just has to retreat far enough from the core of survival and material well-being.

If 99% of human needs are fulfilled abundantly by automated systems operating at near-zero marginal cost, then sure, you might still have "economics" for the last 1% (e.g., who gets front-row seats at a concert, or rare earth elements for specialty tech).
But that's a totally different regime — a world where market forces have moved from being existential to being optional for most daily life.

That's the future being described here:
- Not "no constraints ever" (which would be physically impossible).
- But constraints so marginalized in daily human experience that traditional economics, in the survival sense, loses its primacy.

If you want to press on that distinction — existential scarcity vs. peripheral scarcity — that’s where the real debate lives.
But the simplistic “scarcity always exists, therefore economics is eternal” claim doesn’t hold when you understand how the center of gravity can shift.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 10:29 pm

seeds wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 9:55 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 7:02 pm

Alright, I’ll say this plainly:

This whole AI-accusation thing has come up over and over again, and honestly, I’m getting tired of it. I stopped engaging with it a long time ago because it’s not a real conversation — it’s just a distraction.
I find the questions and accusations partly flattering, sure, but mostly just insulting.

Similarly — maybe not so much here, but definitely in other topic threads — the persistent view that my position must be "lunatic," "extreme," "dangerous," "mad," or whatever else, just because I stick to scientifically overwhelming, widely accepted facts... it gets exhausting.
Apparently saying “Hey, maybe physics and economics matter” now counts as radical extremism.

So for the record — for the nth time — what I say here is me talking, with my own words.
No AI whispering in my ear.
No script.
No bots.
Just me.
I’ll try to sprinkle a misplaced comma here and there if that helps you feel better about it.

But I’m not going to keep apologizing for thinking clearly, caring about cause and effect, and trying to hold the conversation to a serious level. You can either engage with the ideas, or not — but the childish side accusations stop here.

It's not just a few of the members of this forum who think you might be using (uncited) AI to assist you in the writing of at least some of your posts.

No, for after analyzing one of your more suspicious offerings,...

(this one: viewtopic.php?p=748083#p748083

...even ChatGPT had this to say...

ChatGPT wrote: Based on the balance of probabilities, this post is highly likely to be AI-assisted, if not wholly AI-generated.

However, to be fair to you, Chat also added the following...

ChatGPT wrote: Of course, it’s possible this was written by a very polished human writer who's just good at summarizing balanced critiques—but even then, they may well have been aided by ChatGPT as a scaffold.

So, yes, if you are indeed being completely honest with us* in your denial of never - ever - having used any form of, again, "uncited" AI to enhance your posts,..

...then, by all means, be flattered and take it as a well-earned compliment if some of us (including ChatGPT) suspect your writings as being the copy and pasted words created by an advanced AI entity.

*(Unfortunately, the childish side accusations might not stop here, for there's just no ignoring the possibility that if someone is unscrupulous enough to copy and paste the uncited words of ChatGPT into their posts and try to pass it off as being wholly original, then such a person would have no qualms about denying the dirty deed.)

-------

Anyway, with those pleasantries out of the way,...

(and assuming that I'm not back on your "ignore" list)

...how about you answer the question I asked you in my last post regarding the issue of "moral agency"...

seeds wrote: ↑Sat Apr 26, 2025 8:04 pm
You're not very good at recognizing sarcasm, satire, and irony, are you?

Otherwise, you would realize that this...

...pretty much sums-up Hardcore Determinism's definition of a human.

I mean, taking into account all of your innumerable prior posts that have promoted Determinism and how humans are nothing more than material "brains and bodies" that are proceeding along some sort of "cause and effect" trajectory,

...then where, exactly, is a moral "agent" located in the makeup of a human?

_______

Alright, let's get to the core of it:

When I say humans are governed by cause and effect, it doesn't mean we’re mindless robots stuck in an endless loop. It means everything we do — every decision, every choice, every action — is the outcome of prior causes, including our biology, our learning history, our memories, our environment, and the countless small influences that shape how our neuronal networks fire at any given moment.

So when you ask, where is moral agency located in a human?
The answer is: it's located in the dynamic, evolving structure of the human brain.

Our agency isn’t some magic power that floats above physics.
Our agency is our ability to change in response to causes — to learn, to remember, to imagine alternatives — and have those changes alter our future behavior.

You and I don't have "free will" in the traditional sense — we can't step outside the causal chain — but what we can do is be changed by new information, new experiences, new reflections.
Today's mistakes, if we learn from them, become tomorrow's better actions — not because we "freely choose," but because cause and effect (through learning) sculpt us differently.

Our "moral agency" isn’t about being free in the moment.
It’s about being causally open to improvement over time.
It’s forward-looking, not present-tense magic.

You don't blame a person today for what they could not have done differently yesterday — but you can hope that today's experiences shape tomorrow’s outcomes for the better.
That’s what real moral growth looks like in a deterministic universe.

You change the future by changing the causes — not by wishing for some spooky power of "free will" that nobody actually possesses.
That's the honest, science-grounded view.

My dog's brain too enjoys adapting to circumstances. Adapting to circumstances is what the frontal cortex does.

Humans are less 'instinctive' and more adaptable even than canines.
There is a history of the concept of free will.
https://www.google.com/search?q=history ... e&ie=UTF-8