Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Wed Mar 01, 2017 4:26 am**

thedoc wrote:
SpheresOfBalance wrote: But then Actually I hate war games, been there, done that, had enough for a lifetime. At least to the extent that a piece is taken. Live and let live is the ultimate game!
I started following a war game that was being developed recently, "World of Warships" which was an offspring of "World of Tanks". I am interested in WWII naval history, especially the naval action, but then I realized that the game was aimed at gamers and not historians. The real navies had simulations that were based on reality and they conducted exercises with real ships, but the game had tiers and upgrades that would have required a lot of time and reconstruction of the real ships. I don't follow the game as closely but I occasionally look at an action just for fun. What really got to me was the video describing the real ships and like most other videos depicting actions from the period, the film editors apparently don't know one ship from another. The videos were constantly showing an incorrect clip while talking about a totally different ship in a different part of the world.

Yes doc, I've seen the commercial. Oh the graphics looked cool, but I don't like any game where it's men killing men, unless it's self defense or killing some fictitious beings. More power to you though, if it fills some void that needs filling, fill it! I mean no one actually gets hurt playing video games, except possibly the player, depending upon how it effects them.

Posted: **Wed Mar 01, 2017 12:25 pm**

SpheresOfBalance wrote:
Your claim that you can initiate causes stands against all physics...
Any human can initiate causes for another human.

Yes, Spheres can "initiate causes" but only as the immediate trigger cause, but the total background of influences i.e. "all physics" is totally more powerful than any human.

As the immediate trigger cause you, Spheres, are a human man who has powers of prediction far more than even the most intelligent apes or dogs. These human powers are the upshot from human reason and are why you are so frequently a trigger cause. This is why you are a trigger cause in everyday circumstances. Comes the day when your family is being devastated and yourself close to death by a pandemic your power as trigger cause will be nullified.

Posted: **Wed Mar 01, 2017 6:42 pm**

thedoc wrote:
Dave Mangnall wrote:
thedoc wrote:The debate on free will vs. determinism is all dependent on where you draw the line. A hard determinist will claim that all influences mean that life is deterministic. However there may be some influences that are not deterministic, certainly all choices are determined by influences both external and internal, but some internal influences may allow free will, and it only takes a few choices, freely made, to demonstrate free will. Most of our actions are indeed determined and we are left with no choice in the matter, but there are a few actions that could go either way, and there is where the question is.
Hi, Doc.
I agree with what you say about where the question lies. So the question from a hard determinist such as myself is this. When you speak of those choices, freely made, that demonstrate free will, how do you establish that they were freely made? Some physical processes were occurring in your brain when you wrote the above paragraph, causing you to write in the way you did? How could those neural events have happened otherwise? Given that you wrote what you did, how could you not have written what you did?
In your response to Hobbes’ Choice’s first comment, you say “Some conditions MAY influence a decision, but it does not determine that action. The action may be counter to the influence, that is free will. Not all influences contradict free will.” My answer to that is that free will is not established. Your action counter to the influence of which you were conscious was caused by other influences, of which you were unconscious.

There is no way to prove or disprove free will it is just a matter of opinion, similar to the argument that an individual can't prove that individual is not a brain in a vat because all the stimuli are processed in the brain, so are all decisions made in the brain and there is no way to examine them outside the brain. In the end both positions are the opinion of the person who holds that opinion.

I certainly agree with you that there is no way to prove or disprove free will. And yet here we are, both involved in a debate that is proceeding at a furious pace, although it is doomed to remain inconclusive. Of course I, as a determinist, merely do what I must, in what Immanuel Can thinks of as my drone-like way. But why do you choose to engage in such an ultimately pointless endeavour when (according to your belief) you could choose to use your time more productively?

Posted: **Wed Mar 01, 2017 7:46 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: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.

Actually, your brief response seems fairly substantial, and I will answer it as well as I can.
I don’t have any particularly deep reason for objecting to the word “drone”. Superficially, it just seems like trying to carry the argument by name calling, portraying your interlocutor as being mindless. However, I don’t believe that is in fact your intention, so let’s move on.
You mention consciousness. I hope I’ve said nothing to lead you to think that I disbelieve in consciousness. My point about Descartes was that his Cogito was supposed to establish his own existence, but that he was assuming his own existence in order to prove it. You’re making the same assumption when you say that a “thought” needs an agent who is capable of having it. I could call on my mate David Hume for support here. He wrote “I can never catch myself at any time without a perception, and can never observe anything but the perception.” But, again, let’s move on. I don’t seriously doubt my own existence, or even yours.
However, I do not see myself as an agent, as you know. I see myself partly as an actor ( or drone, if you insist) following the unfolding script as determined by the Causal Nexus, and partly as a spectator, watching events unfold. Clearly, consciousness is required for the spectator.
I’m still not convinced we understand each other on mind changing. What is it you think that determinism would prevent from happening in this respect? I can, for example, read something, think it makes no sense, read it again, and decide it makes sense after all. This is just the unfolding of events, requiring no free will. I guess my volition and personal disposition do have a lot to do with it, both in my inability to make sense of the first reading and my determination to give it a second chance. But everything happens as it must happen. Am I missing your point?
Talking of reading things twice, I’ve read your last three paragraphs twice and I still can’t understand why you find living with determinism either inconsistent or irrational. Again, you come back to my talking to you as if I could change your mind, as if that were significant. At the risk of being repetitive myself, let me explain what’s happening. Both of us have our opinions, now, and it could never have been that anything could have changed our minds, now, from what they are, now. Determinism says that if such a change could have happened, it would have happened. But in the unpredictable future, it could easily be, in principle at least, that either of our minds might change as a consequence of our dialogue. And if that change happens, then it would have had to happen. Meanwhile, the Causal Nexus determines that I enjoy entering into this discussion, partly for a self-indulgent enjoyment of the sound of my own voice (or should I say the sight of my own script) and partly because I enjoy the articulation of a view contrary to my own. And I want the views that I refute to be the best that they can be. Now then, where’s the irrationality in that?
Not that determinism requires me to be a totally rational person, any more than anybody else is. And I do confess that at times even I find myself under the thrall of the Free Will Illusion, which is a very powerful illusion, even when I know that an illusion is what it is.

Posted: **Wed Mar 01, 2017 8:43 pm**

Dave Mangnall wrote:
thedoc wrote:
Dave Mangnall wrote:
Hi, Doc.
I agree with what you say about where the question lies. So the question from a hard determinist such as myself is this. When you speak of those choices, freely made, that demonstrate free will, how do you establish that they were freely made? Some physical processes were occurring in your brain when you wrote the above paragraph, causing you to write in the way you did? How could those neural events have happened otherwise? Given that you wrote what you did, how could you not have written what you did?
In your response to Hobbes’ Choice’s first comment, you say “Some conditions MAY influence a decision, but it does not determine that action. The action may be counter to the influence, that is free will. Not all influences contradict free will.” My answer to that is that free will is not established. Your action counter to the influence of which you were conscious was caused by other influences, of which you were unconscious.

There is no way to prove or disprove free will it is just a matter of opinion, similar to the argument that an individual can't prove that individual is not a brain in a vat because all the stimuli are processed in the brain, so are all decisions made in the brain and there is no way to examine them outside the brain. In the end both positions are the opinion of the person who holds that opinion.
I certainly agree with you that there is no way to prove or disprove free will. And yet here we are, both involved in a debate that is proceeding at a furious pace, although it is doomed to remain inconclusive. Of course I, as a determinist, merely do what I must, in what Immanuel Can thinks of as my drone-like way. But why do you choose to engage in such an ultimately pointless endeavour when (according to your belief) you could choose to use your time more productively?

I had intended to split some firewood today, but in the morning it was raining so I was waiting for things to dry off a little. Then right after noon it started storming with a heavy rain pelting the windows, so I knew everything would be wet again and I am stuck with little else to do. FYI I have a gas powered hydraulic log splitter that is in my garage, so I just open the door when I want to use it.

Posted: **Wed Mar 01, 2017 9:13 pm**

Belinda wrote:
SpheresOfBalance wrote:
Your claim that you can initiate causes stands against all physics...
Any human can initiate causes for another human.
Yes, Spheres can "initiate causes" but only as the immediate trigger cause, but the total background of influences i.e. "all physics" is totally more powerful than any human.
I would argue that because we are caused by the universe, we are in fact a member of the physics of the universe, thus we are just as powerful, maybe not like an asteroid the size of Texas, but surely a meteor the size of a dump truck at ground zero, as we have devastated quite a bit of this planet, due to our insatiable want and desire, NOT need!

As the immediate trigger cause you, Spheres, are a human man who has powers of prediction far more than even the most intelligent apes or dogs. These human powers are the upshot from human reason and are why you are so frequently a trigger cause. This is why you are a trigger cause in everyday circumstances. Comes the day when your family is being devastated and yourself close to death by a pandemic your power as trigger cause will be nullified.
Not quite, as usually those diseases causing a pandemic are communicable, so don't you or anyone then stand next to me because I'll probably explode in your/their face, metaphorically speaking of course. Then I'll only temporarily be nullified until those elemental constituents that was once me are again used by another lifeform to borrow, just like I did, to finally repeat all over again until the end of time. I mean is one their physical self or their so called consciousness? It's not so called consciousness that would have caused such a pandemic, rather the physical!

Posted: **Wed Mar 01, 2017 9:20 pm**

Nothing, that we're aware of, in the universe can 'choose' except animals, There's your free will. The problem with most is that they try and define it otherwise so they can deny it, FOOLS THEM ALL! It is what it is, it's that simple. It matters not, that some try to make it suit themselves to further their agenda; it matters not! Case closed!!

"Free Will," such that it is, exists within the framework of a "Deterministic" universe!

Edit: more clarity

Posted: **Thu Mar 02, 2017 6:40 pm**

thedoc wrote:
Dave Mangnall wrote:
thedoc wrote:

There is no way to prove or disprove free will it is just a matter of opinion, similar to the argument that an individual can't prove that individual is not a brain in a vat because all the stimuli are processed in the brain, so are all decisions made in the brain and there is no way to examine them outside the brain. In the end both positions are the opinion of the person who holds that opinion.
I certainly agree with you that there is no way to prove or disprove free will. And yet here we are, both involved in a debate that is proceeding at a furious pace, although it is doomed to remain inconclusive. Of course I, as a determinist, merely do what I must, in what Immanuel Can thinks of as my drone-like way. But why do you choose to engage in such an ultimately pointless endeavour when (according to your belief) you could choose to use your time more productively?
I had intended to split some firewood today, but in the morning it was raining so I was waiting for things to dry off a little. Then right after noon it started storming with a heavy rain pelting the windows, so I knew everything would be wet again and I am stuck with little else to do. FYI I have a gas powered hydraulic log splitter that is in my garage, so I just open the door when I want to use it.

Hi, Doc.

This is easily the best answer received to any question I've asked in this forum. And I'm not being sarcastic!

Posted: **Thu Mar 02, 2017 7:29 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote:
Dave Mangnall wrote:I don't think the account is complete, and I disagree with his view of the consequences, which he seems to struggle to avoid finding depressing.
Don't you find it interesting that he presses his logic to a depressing conclusion, and you accept the explanation, but reject the depressing conclusion?

I wonder what rationale you have for severing premises from conclusions in that way. Can you explain?

Hi again, Immanuel. I missed this one yesterday.

It's really very easy to explain. You have not read Honderich’s book, obviously, so I’ll explain that it’s in two parts. The first part establishes the truth of determinism, at least to his satisfaction and to mine. The second deals with the consequences in terms of the perceptions of the determinist. The consequences are not conclusions logically derived from the “fact” of determinism. (I use the apostrophes to respect your disagreement.) The consequences, as he sees them, are fresh assumptions. I understand his viewpoint to be that a person freshly convinced of determinism would initially find it depressing, but it needn’t be, really, if he thinks about it the right way. I think he makes heavy weather of it, because I never found determinism depressing at all.

Now then, Immanuel, I note that you neatly side-stepped the main point I made in this post that you quoted. I referred to Honderich as a writer of a detailed account of determinism, having previously said “If anyone, anywhere, has tried to give a detailed account of free will, I'd be hugely grateful if you'd point me at it.” I take your silence on that one as significant.

Why is it, I wonder, that the Free Willies expect determinists to be held to account while they themselves explain nothing about their own beliefs? Now we’ve lingered on determinism for quite some time and I think we’ve firmly established that you have nothing to say about it other than to make repeated unfounded ad hominem charges of irrationality and inconsistency. So let’s talk about free will. My allegation is that you have a belief that’s based on........nothing whatsoever. You have no explanation of how free will operates and no reason to believe in it, unless you count (which I don’t) a distaste for the idea of determinism and for your mistaken idea of its implications. If I’m wrong, you’ll be able to demonstrate this very easily. So come on, get off your high horse, let’s have no more about how irrational, inconsistent and possibly insincere it is to claim to be a determinist, and let’s have an explanation of your own position.

As the late great comedian Eric Morecambe used to say, “Get out of that! You can’t, can you?”

Posted: **Thu Mar 02, 2017 9:23 pm**

'why is it so easy to dismiss the sense that you choose, that you self-direct, in favor of 'cause and effect'?'

I don't deny cause and effect, but neither can I deny the reality of my choosing and self-directing. I can't pretend my agency is (or that I'm) an illusion, and I wonder how determinists can.

Posted: **Fri Mar 03, 2017 2:29 am**

henry quirk wrote:'why is it so easy to dismiss the sense that you choose, that you self-direct, in favor of 'cause and effect'?'

I don't deny cause and effect, but neither can I deny the reality of my choosing and self-directing. I can't pretend my agency is (or that I'm) an illusion, and I wonder how determinists can.

Hey HQ, how you doin? Well I hope!

Those people that argue such things are really just mincing words. They've taken 'free' to it's absolute limit, when in fact it's just 'free' relative to a deterministic universe. The freedom is indeed limited, but by whatever quantity, as it varies between people depending upon many things, it still is much different than strict determinism, of which inanimate objects are only capable, as far as we know.

It seems they can only have it as an all or nothing dichotomy, and it's just not that black or white. It's just shades of gray! It doesn't matter that a long chain of causals led to an animal that is capable of choosing a narrow direction within it's largely deterministic world, because that is what has happened. From things that can't think was born something that can, and in so doing, it can choose from a variably limited menu!

Posted: **Fri Mar 03, 2017 4:14 pm**

"Hey HQ, how you doin?"

Fair to middlin'. And you?

#

"They've taken 'free' to it's absolute limit"

I agree. They get boxed in by the placeholder (free will) instead of just lookin' at the phenomenon (the will, which is nuthin' but the willer, the person, the individual).

From way the hell up-thread...

"how can someone actually believe in free will?"

Put aside the placeholder 'free will' and self-interrogate: 'Do I choose?' Don't over-think it. The question is simple. The answer is 'yes' or 'no'.

If 'yes': then you're utterly self-responsible (you self-direct, you're a cause [at least some of the time]).

If 'no': then you're bio-automation (a friggin' domino in a line of dominos).

Posted: **Sat Mar 04, 2017 4:50 pm**

Noax wrote:A monist determinist has volition and personhood, and has no need to initiate cause to have that.

I think that's true. But if he does, then he's not a Determinist. He only thinks he is, but he's inventing non-determined entities and introducing them into his chain of causality without justifying that move.

Why do you call him a pawn then?

I don't. His Determinism if he logically follows its implications, tells him that's all he is.

I don't agree, but I'm not a Determinist either. But that doesn't stop me from seeing where his logic compels him. In fact, that's a good reason for doubting Determinism: existentially, we all feel and act as if it's untrue.

Soft determinism says there are a bunch of movies playing, none of which can be touched by the viewer, but he still can choose which one to watch, effectively initiating (only for the free-willed viewer) any effect that is uncaused, and there are plenty of them in physics, even if no biological entity seems sensitive to them.

If that's Soft Determinism, then it should probably be called "Inconsistent Determinism," for it denies Determinism, essentially. And even supposing we could get past that, which logically, we can't, there can be no "free-willed viewer" if the "bunch of movies" so to speak "cannot be touched by the viewer." Then he's just prisoner to a bunch of forces, instead of one. He's no better off, and no different, from the Hard Determinist, except he hasn't really figured out where he is, and allegedly at least, the Hard Determinist has.

If he "chooses" among "movies," then that is compatible with some measure of free will ("choosing") but has no explanation that fits Determinism at all.

However, ad hominem...not legit, in this case. A straightforward fallacy. My attitude, even if wholly "programmed by my biases," might still be correct. You need to show the truth or falsehood of the statement, not your like or dislike of the person who offers it.

Confused by this. Did I express an ad-hom?
Yes. You supposed I must have "programming biases" instead of supposing I was trying to speak rationally to you about what I actually believe to be true. All I wanted to say is that "biases" can be for the truth or against it; and one cannot tell which is the case without examining the argument, rather than supposing knowledge of the motives of an interlocutor...especially one that one has never met...but in any case.

I actually like you since you're substantially above the median civility on this forum.

Thank you. Likewise.

I think there are a fair number of folks here who don't actually get what arguing is about, and think they secure their position with "clever" abuse, rather than demonstrating their lack of ability to stay with civil conversation. But I don't get that from you. If you meant no ad hominem, then perhaps "biases" was just a poor (or Deterministic?) choice of words. No hard feelings there anyway.

Your claim that you can initiate causes stands against all physics,

That' s a non-sequitur, for two reasons.

Firstly, because there's nothing about saying that I can initiate a cause that means physics can't, or that physics might not even be a generally accurate explanation for why most things happen. Free will can accept some determined things; but the view maintains that human will can be a causal factor in its own right as well. So it's not against "all" physics, or "any" physics at all. It just does not take for granted that physics is all there is.

Secondly, if physics is a causal chain, then it cannot be eternal in the past. It must have had an initiation point. Physics cannot be eternal without producing an incoherent causal regress. So the supposition that physics, in itself, can be a complete causal explanation is simply wrong.

So while your view might be correct, inductive reasoning puts it well down the probability scale.

Oh, I don't think so. It seems to me highly improbable, for example, that a phenomenon like "consciousness" would ever have "emerged" from pure physics; and physics itself is utterly devoid of explanation as to how such a thing could come about, so I think that's an existentially-powerful case.

You seem to be aware of this since you avoid taking a stance on even simple issues like where memory, will, and cognition reside. Do they reside in the brain, the soul, or mixed or what? Or do you decline to take a stance since that would destabilize your position that looking at the man behind the curtain is a bad thing to do?

When did I "avoid" this question? I musts have missed the point at which it was asked. However, if you're looking for me to tie "memory, will and cognition" to pure physics, my reasons for not doing so are that I don't believe that it IS pure physics: and to offer any such explanation would simply be to deny my own position, so why would you suppose I ought to? I'm not prepared to take Physicalism on faith, and it does not appear more than reductional in the case of dealing with the (epi?-)phenomena you mention.

...the combination of them that makes up a person does want things.

A combination of nothing-but-purely-physical entities in a causal chain wants things? Explain how that happens, please. The reason for my quotation marks around "wants" is that the very term really has no place in a Physicalist universe. It's a redundancy for "caused by physics," or else it's illegitimately imported to try to explain something physics actually isn't explaining.

I suspect the latter, so when I speak of "wants" in a Physicalist paradigm, it has to remain a suspect usage. There's simply no other honest way I can see at the moment. But perhaps when you explain the answer to my question about "wants" above.

Under monism, 'want' is a product of a functioning system that is a person with volition and personhood, I know you need to drop into this fundamental particle mode to avoid discussion of a functioning whole. I can similarly claim a tornado doesn't suck since there is nothing but individual electrons and protons and such interacting with each other, none of which is an actual tornado or sucks.

Ah! This is the problem.

Determinists use metaphorical language (of which "wants" is a part, for them). Physical entities can't actually want things. Rather, the true description of what they are doing is that previous causal forces are obliging them to react (without volition or choice) in particular ways that appear to us as wants -- but are not, because we are all somehow confused about the factual truth of Determinism and can't find the language to speak the truth to ourselves.

It's the metaphors that confuse, in that case. We need to stop allowing Physicalists to speak of wants. We need them to tell the truth of what they believe: that apparent wants are nothing but impersonal chain reactions. They should call them impersonal chain reactions.

Well, that's how Determinists have to think it is. I think they're being reductional.

Posted: **Sat Mar 04, 2017 4:55 pm**

thedoc wrote:No, the pawn does whatever the player wants it to do, whether that is a sacrifice, or an advance to the 8th rank to become a queen. The pawn is a Vehicle for the advancement of the game, nothing more, nothing less. There is a purpose to each move or the game is lost.

Ah, so now there's a "player." And this "player" has "purposes."

So even if the theory leaves us as "pawns" all this still sounds like God talk -- but only of a peculiarly Calvinist kind.

Take out the "player" and the "purposes," and you've got Determinism. By it's lights, we're all pawns; but what's "making us move" is nothing but causality. There is no purpose or direction, no "game," no "player" and certainly no volition from any pawn.

Posted: **Sat Mar 04, 2017 5:05 pm**

SpheresOfBalance wrote:
Dave Mangnall wrote:Hi, Rick.

I note that 47% of your voters suffer from the Compatibilist confusion between "having free will" and "feeling free", which allows them to believe in determinism (sort of) without having to worry about the consequences for moral responsibility...
The reason you see things this way is because you can only see through your eyes.

No, actually. Dave's dead right.

"Feeling free" would not be the same as "having free will," anymore than "feeling elated" tells you for certain whether or not there's anything on hand that's worth the elation. It might, but it might not. People do get inexplicably elated sometimes.

Now, this much I can grant you: that "I feel free" is an existential reason to doubt Determinism, and I would say the same. But "I feel free" is not a refutation of Determinism. After all, Determinists can always just say that the "feeling" itself is nothing but an illusion created by the predetermined causes.

Like Dave, I find Compatibilism illogical, and my experience with Compatibilists is that they are mostly people who want to believe in Determinism as a theory, but are fearful of its logical implications in practice.

Really, they are like the man who jumps of a cliff and hopes to stop half way down.

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