Darkneos wrote: ↑Sun May 18, 2025 11:52 pm
BigMike wrote: ↑Sun May 18, 2025 10:59 pm
Darkneos wrote: ↑Sun May 18, 2025 10:36 pm
You did, along with another person.
What you're advocating isn't determinism, it's a weird hybrid where you want your cake and to eat it too. I'm telling you what it is straight up and gave examples proving it. Will does not exist under determinism, definitionally. There is no choice under determinism therefor no will. Will is part of the "folk psychology" it tries to dismiss.
Again you want your cake and to eat it too.
The thing about will is that there is no evidence that proves free will either exists or doesn't, the data is mixed. Hence why I'm largely agnostic on it, but I acknowledge the benefit belief in it has.
That is trust me bro, that's your whole argument. No good ever came from society treating it's people like machines, but again under determinism people are just physics, not people. So your counterpoint ends up proving mine.
But you are incorrect that if it exists and it causes anything that it operates under conservation laws, which we cannot know. Again you are treating models as final says when they're not. So free will can exist and it can "not" be due to physics. In fact we don't have any real data showing that so it's up in the air. Also what we can observe is not "reality" it's only what we have to our senses.
In short, too much is unknown for you to make half the claims you do.
But again, if free will doesn't exist then people and agents don't exist because then it's just physics taking it's course. I cited Susan Blackmoore (a well known psychologist in the field) to explain it.
Again you want something that is incompatible with your worldview. THAT is reality.
Darkneos—
Let’s clear a few things up quickly.
First, again, I didn’t cite Sapolsky. Gary Childress did. I responded to Gary. You keep repeating this as if it bolsters your point, but it’s just a factual error.
Second, you say I’m not advocating determinism—that I’m pushing some “weird hybrid.” No. I’m advocating exactly what determinism is: that all events, including human decisions, are the result of preceding causes. This goes back to Leucippus some 2500 years ago. I’ve said consistently that “will” exists as a shorthand for the decision-making process of a physical brain. Not some ghostly chooser. Not a metaphysical wildcard. But a
caused process. Saying “that’s not real will” because it’s not magic is like saying a car’s motion isn’t “real” unless it moves itself without fuel.
Third, you keep insisting free will “might not be due to physics.” But any time something
causes something else to happen—whether a thought, a muscle twitch, or a moral decision—it has to exchange energy or information. That's not just a belief. That’s a requirement of
every single law of physics we use to model anything at all. And those laws? They’re all built on
conservation principles. Every genuine law—aside from definitional identities like F = ma—is an expression of one or more conservation laws. If something escapes that structure, it isn’t just “unknown.” It’s
inaccessible to interaction. Which means it doesn’t do anything. It might as well not exist.
Lastly, you repeat that determinism “eliminates people”—that if we’re just physics, we’re not real agents. But this is category error. It’s like saying hurricanes aren’t real because they’re just air pressure. People are what minds look like when arranged in certain ways. They’re not eliminated by being explained. They’re
understood.
That’s not me having cake and eating it too. That’s you demanding the cake be made of ghosts—or else calling it fake.
Reality doesn’t owe you metaphysical comfort. It owes you structure. And structure is what we’ve got.
You did and I made a post showing that with you in it.
Will isn't shorthand for the decision making process of the brain, as it is understood it is the ability to make a choice, in this case we liken it to agency. As people commonly understand it it is a "metaphysical wildcard", or "ghostly chooser" you're changing the definition to make your argument work.
Again, stop invoking magic, no one is saying that. You keep drawing back to strawmen.
Moral decisions are based on belief, rooted in words that we assign meaning to. That's not physics. Physics only models particle interactions and forces, not social situations or moral decisions. You are making a category error here, appealing to a field of knowledge that has no bearing on the topic.
Physics is a mental construct, a model, same with cause and effect. Both are based on our limited senses and reasoning ability. It is possible for something to escape that and still have interaction with everything else, again you are appealing to perfect knowledge that does not exist. Something can "escape that structure" but still exist and impact everything else. Again, we don't have total knowledge, only models rooted in evidence from the senses. Free will might not be due to physics the same way consciousness might not be, but both still have an impact. Who knows.
Determinism eliminating people is not a category error. Our idea of people is agents with the ability to act and make their own choices and determinism takes that away. When everything done is not by you then to what degree can we say there is an agent? It's all physics, "just stuff happening". People aren't "what minds looked like arranged certain ways", that's you grasping at straws to make your case work. Under determinism "mind" is just superfluous folk psychology. You want to appeal to physics being all there is, which by extension means matter is all there is, therefor there is nothing beyond the physical. The would include mind, emotions, anything else.
People are eliminated under determinism THROUGH explanation. Your case of people being machines proves that point, and again...we have evidence for how people treat machines (again, factory farming is due to humans regarding animals like that).
It is you having your cake and eating it too, and everyone on here can see that (even the nutbars).
Reality doesn’t owe you metaphysical comfort. It owes you structure. And structure is what we’ve got.
This is also wrong. Reality owes nothing and cares for nothing, we do. We care about comfort and structure, reality does not owe you structure. Structure is what humans project on the world around them so they can navigate it, I proved that with the link about how our brains work. Heck some evolutionary biologists go so far as to argue that we see none of reality, because evolution evolved us to survive and not for truth (I don't buy that one). Thousands of philosophers came to similar conclusions as well.
Reality does not care if you believe in god or free will or anything, appealing to "it" offers nothing to you. Though it is weird you're arguing we aren't gods apart from causation and yet arguing about "you" and "reality" as if they are two distinct entities...
Again...you're just wrong.
You really know and understand nothing don't you? You think you are in reality when you're really not which is why you get AI to write your stuff or ignore all the evidence I gave proving your words wrong.
You're delusional.
Darkneos—
You seem to think humans have psychokinetic powers. That our “will” can push atoms around without obeying physics. That we can just summon changes in the world—no exchange of energy, no causal chain, just pure metaphysical muscle. Like Jedi mind tricks, but for everyday choices.
We don’t.
You say I'm redefining will—but I’m not the one trying to make it float above physics like some disembodied command center. I’m grounding it. Will, as it actually functions in real life, is
not some soul-powered lever. It’s the result of neural computation: weighted inputs, memory, emotion, biology, hormones, past experience, current stimuli. You don’t like that? That’s fine. But it doesn’t make it false.
And you can keep saying "physics doesn't model moral decisions"—but that’s a category mistake on your part, not mine. Moral decisions don’t happen in the ether. They happen in brains. Brains are made of matter. Matter obeys physics. So if something in your brain causes you to act, that cause must exchange something physical—momentum, energy, neurotransmitter signals.
There is no known mechanism—zero—that allows you to cause change without participating in those exchanges. That’s not ideology. That’s every confirmed interaction we’ve ever studied.
You’re right that reality owes us nothing. I never said it did. But
if we want to understand it—
really understand it—then we don’t get to invent escape hatches. And what you’re calling “structure is just human projection” ignores that the very laws you rely on to critique this framework—your ability to argue, to form coherent thoughts—
depend on that structure holding. If cause and effect are optional, so is your next sentence.
You say people aren’t just minds arranged in certain ways. But what are they, then? Where’s the proof of this mysterious force that pulls the strings from outside time and matter? You keep pointing to what people
feel, or what you
hope is true—but never once do you provide the kind of traceable interaction that would show “free will” doing actual work.
And finally—if you're going to call me delusional, at least try to disprove a single claim I’ve made. Not by misquoting me, not by repeating “you want your cake,” not by calling AI my ghostwriter, but by
engaging with the argument on its own terms.
Because until you do, the only delusion here is the belief that “will” is above explanation. It's not. It's in the chain like everything else.
No ghosts required.
I think it would have quite the opposite effect. There are an awful lot of people who accept determinism and aren't suicidal or homicidal, and an awful lot who don't who are.
