The Democrat Party Hates America

[Belinda]

You start almost every reply to anyone with what is known as a "binary switch".

..belittling the posts of others prior to a typically unreasonable attempt to back your determined unreasonable determination.




I looked away from my keyboard and punched at the number keys blindly. A trillion numbers - figured whatever and however many times I punched the keys would be between 1 and 1 trillion.

So.

Explain what caused the first number (key press 1) , then the second number (key press 2) etc..





Well you see, from my POV that is nonsense. To suggest that my number picking exercise proves determinism IS nonsense.

Where did I make a choice per my fingers hitting the keys blindly?




Our first chat in the compatibilism thread was interesting and we both agreed to everything, including our conscious minds being of a material form - apparently that is not what theists tend to believe. Well, I am no longer theist - I have gnosis.

Thus, I find it interesting from both our POVs that you state that IF there is GOD, then determinism is FALSE. Since I know GOD exists, confirms then to me that you are wrong - however IF GOD is merely some A.I. "simulator" of reality formed deterministically through time (by us intelligent beings) - inevitably to deal with entropy then would you discount our reality as being deterministic or still, that there is no free will, thus man forming an A.I. to dish out (judgement) as to who gets further use of "life resources" in time would be pointless?

I understand that Atto claims to believe in free will. Attofishpi, is your free will always the same strength or does it fluctuate like your physical energy?

Of course my 'will' and choices I make are affected to a degree by physical reality including 'physical energy'.

Maybe I don't believe in free will as much as I could; my free will may be even more hard -wearing than my tooth enamel, what do you think?

Well, a long time ago did you choose to allow a dentist scrape 'plaque' from your teeth without considering the affect that might have upon the enamel? I haven't seen a dentist since 1986 (England) - my teeth are fine.

I do confess that my free will fluctuates with my energy level; I worry that my free will is not as strong as it should be . I bet there is a B-vitamin that is needed for free will.

Vitamin B for Belinda? I agree - free will is most definitely affected by physical essence of reality - otherwise we'd not be in a reality at all and no decisions can be made without existence!

Big Mike may be mistaken,

BigMike is - since GOD exists in form 1 or 2 (1 divine being, 2 AI being) ---according to him, if GOD exists determinism is incorrect.

How long did it take your free will to rehearse that reply ? Or was your reply spontaneous? (How you answer that question shows how much your free will affects what you do.)

[attofishpi]

I understand that Atto claims to believe in free will. Attofishpi, is your free will always the same strength or does it fluctuate like your physical energy?

Of course my 'will' and choices I make are affected to a degree by physical reality including 'physical energy'.

Maybe I don't believe in free will as much as I could; my free will may be even more hard -wearing than my tooth enamel, what do you think?

Well, a long time ago did you choose to allow a dentist scrape 'plaque' from your teeth without considering the affect that might have upon the enamel? I haven't seen a dentist since 1986 (England) - my teeth are fine.

I do confess that my free will fluctuates with my energy level; I worry that my free will is not as strong as it should be . I bet there is a B-vitamin that is needed for free will.

Vitamin B for Belinda? I agree - free will is most definitely affected by physical essence of reality - otherwise we'd not be in a reality at all and no decisions can be made without existence!

Big Mike may be mistaken,

BigMike is - since GOD exists in form 1 or 2 (1 divine being, 2 AI being) ---according to him, if GOD exists determinism is incorrect.

How long did it take your free will to rehearse that reply ? Or was your reply spontaneous? (How you answer that question shows how much your free will affects what you do.)

Rehearse? It was fairly spontaneous - spontaneity as with a DEGREE of free will is irrelevant, it's binary - either free will is TRUE or FALSE - there is no degree of free 'will'.

[Atla]

Why on earth would it do that? That's as stupid as the assertion that the religious make when they say that we get our 'morals' from the bible and that those who don't get them from the bible have 'no morals' and therefore are all murderous psychopaths.

Because even the non-religious need the mindset that between the confines of determinism, in the everyday sense they have as much freedom to act as possible. We've evolved to have psychological will, we make choices psychologically. "Hard" determinism takes away this mindset, you are always the consequence of past things, with absolutely no will of your own. Once people process that their lives are fully beyond their control, they become suicidal and homicidal.

That's not the reason people become 'suicidal' 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.

Pay attention. I was talking about Mike-AI's "hard" determinism, not determinism in general. You are psychologically almost blind anyway so who cares about your take anyway.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Pay attention. I was talking about Mike-AI's "hard" determinism, not determinism in general. You are psychologically almost blind anyway so who cares about your take anyway.

Am I right if I gather that you are not a hard determinist? Would I be right if I concluded that within strongly determined currents that we have some degree of choice or perhaps control?

(I have a feeling that your wheels will spin here in a mud puddle of contradiction.)

Evening in Paris

[Atla]

Pay attention. I was talking about Mike-AI's "hard" determinism, not determinism in general. You are psychologically almost blind anyway so who cares about your take anyway.

Am I right if I gather that you are not a hard determinist? Would I be right if I concluded that within strongly determined currents that we have some degree of choice or perhaps control?

(I have a feeling that your wheels will spin here in a mud puddle of contradiction.)

Evening in Paris

I see a hard determinist as someone who comes up with a bunch of unwarranted philosophy that goes beyond what determinism actually is. That's why I often criticize Mike, looks like he did away alltogether with the psychological mindset that we humans have agency.

[Will Bouwman]

It's not at all clear to me what you're trying to plead here.

That you don't understand physics.

You're going to have to try harder, if you want to prove that.

My work on that is done.

Physics is the study of physical stuff.

That is either a tautology or wrong.

Neither. It's in the name.

So it's a tautology.

And it can be shown: name something non-physical that you think physics deals with.

It depends on what you mean by physical. If you mean that everything that physics deals with is physical because that is what physics deals with, you're not saying anything worthwhile. On the other hand, if by physical you mean material, you have to include fields which are not material in the sense of atoms being little blobs of matter, much as Leucippus and Democritus supposed, but which are very much a part of physics.
Incidentally, there are a few new faces who are not yet bored silly by my book and may be interested in my interpretation of how fields might give rise to matter:
https://willybouwman.blogspot.com/2024/ ... n.html?m=1
I won't bother addressing your oafish blundering about eliminative materialism, since FlashDangerpants has already done it better than I could.

[BigMike]

Pay attention. I was talking about Mike-AI's "hard" determinism, not determinism in general. You are psychologically almost blind anyway so who cares about your take anyway.

Am I right if I gather that you are not a hard determinist? Would I be right if I concluded that within strongly determined currents that we have some degree of choice or perhaps control?

(I have a feeling that your wheels will spin here in a mud puddle of contradiction.)

Evening in Paris

I see a hard determinist as someone who comes up with a bunch of unwarranted philosophy that goes beyond what determinism actually is. That's why I often criticize Mike, looks like he did away alltogether with the psychological mindset that we humans have agency.

Atla—

You’ve got it completely backwards.

I didn’t do away with the “psychological mindset” that humans have agency. I did away with the psychokinetic fantasy that we’re somehow floating above the laws of physics—little ghost captains steering meat ships by sheer force of will. That’s the nonsense you’re defending.

Agency is real. It's just not magic. It’s what a sufficiently complex, biologically evolved, causally embedded brain does. What I reject is the idea that agency requires being an unmoved mover—some metaphysical unicorn untouched by prior cause. That’s not science. That’s mythology in a lab coat.

You want to keep “agency”? Great. But don’t sell it as wizardry. Because when people say “we must believe in free will or society collapses,” what they usually mean is: “We need to keep pretending people are little gods so we can keep blaming and punishing them like it’s 1348.”

Grow up. Reality runs on cause and effect. And if your version of agency can’t survive that, then it wasn’t worth much to begin with.

[Atla]

Am I right if I gather that you are not a hard determinist? Would I be right if I concluded that within strongly determined currents that we have some degree of choice or perhaps control?

(I have a feeling that your wheels will spin here in a mud puddle of contradiction.)

Evening in Paris

I see a hard determinist as someone who comes up with a bunch of unwarranted philosophy that goes beyond what determinism actually is. That's why I often criticize Mike, looks like he did away alltogether with the psychological mindset that we humans have agency.

Atla—

You’ve got it completely backwards.

I didn’t do away with the “psychological mindset” that humans have agency. I did away with the psychokinetic fantasy that we’re somehow floating above the laws of physics—little ghost captains steering meat ships by sheer force of will. That’s the nonsense you’re defending.

Agency is real. It's just not magic. It’s what a sufficiently complex, biologically evolved, causally embedded brain does. What I reject is the idea that agency requires being an unmoved mover—some metaphysical unicorn untouched by prior cause. That’s not science. That’s mythology in a lab coat.

You want to keep “agency”? Great. But don’t sell it as wizardry. Because when people say “we must believe in free will or society collapses,” what they usually mean is: “We need to keep pretending people are little gods so we can keep blaming and punishing them like it’s 1348.”

Grow up. Reality runs on cause and effect. And if your version of agency can’t survive that, then it wasn’t worth much to begin with.

See, this is again AI. Its memory was reset again.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I see a hard determinist as someone who comes up with a bunch of unwarranted philosophy that goes beyond what determinism actually is.

I would assume (if I may attempt a paraphrase) that your view goes like this:

Everything in our world (universe, cosmos) takes place within the substance of which everything is composed. What is, is. There can be nothing more nor nothing less. What takes shape within the substance of reality can, perhaps ultimately, be known. In theory it is knowable because it is in one degree or another tangible. I.e. it is not non-tangible and therefore unknowable because it cannot be demonstrated or if you will produced (for examination). What is non-tangible (conceptually) must always remain speculative.

The notion of metaphysics and certainly of supernaturalism is 1) obviously speculative and likely intertwined with old conceptual structures which have been rendered mythological. I.e. of no use to a modern and realistic view of “de rerum natura”.

2) The notion of God is entirely bound up with the Old School of view of reality. It is simply no longer needed because it (the idea of God) has no bearing on the matters pertaining to existence, which have only to do with the tangible stuff of reality. Kind of like the Epicureans saw it, “the gods” may “exist” but they are outside the domain of the manifest world and are ineffective. They (God or the gods) have no explanatory function within the modern view.

As a “non-dualist” there is no need to draw any distinction between matter and mind. Simply put, it all arises together. But mind cannot exist separately from the biological structure of a brain.

But everything is caused, and this means there is no material event which does not rest on an infinite array of causal events. To imagine a causal event outside of causality is (as even the phrasing makes it appear) is simply absurd.

Therefore, man is ensconced within physicalism and mind is an event linked to physicalism since, well, why bother with any other speculation. No other speculation is needed any longer.

Though all this is true, I, Atla, do believe that The Hyperborean Apollo does alone stand outside of all causation. He is the One True Lever that can move not just the world but all that is manifest and un-manifest.

Please sign, notarize and return by courier.

Carmen McCrae Sings Monk

[Belinda]

Of course my 'will' and choices I make are affected to a degree by physical reality including 'physical energy'.




Well, a long time ago did you choose to allow a dentist scrape 'plaque' from your teeth without considering the affect that might have upon the enamel? I haven't seen a dentist since 1986 (England) - my teeth are fine.




Vitamin B for Belinda? I agree - free will is most definitely affected by physical essence of reality - otherwise we'd not be in a reality at all and no decisions can be made without existence!




BigMike is - since GOD exists in form 1 or 2 (1 divine being, 2 AI being) ---according to him, if GOD exists determinism is incorrect.

How long did it take your free will to rehearse that reply ? Or was your reply spontaneous? (How you answer that question shows how much your free will affects what you do.)

Rehearse? It was fairly spontaneous - spontaneity as with a DEGREE of free will is irrelevant, it's binary - either free will is TRUE or FALSE - there is no degree of free 'will'.

Does "no degree of free will" mean :

*all living creatures have the same amount of free will?

*each human has the same amount of free will as any other human?

* a newborn human has the same amount of free will as a mature human?

* a sleeping human has the same amount of free will as a wide awake human?

[Belinda]

I see a hard determinist as someone who comes up with a bunch of unwarranted philosophy that goes beyond what determinism actually is.

I would assume (if I may attempt a paraphrase) that your view goes like this:

Everything in our world (universe, cosmos) takes place within the substance of which everything is composed. What is, is. There can be nothing more nor nothing less. What takes shape within the substance of reality can, perhaps ultimately, be known. In theory it is knowable because it is in one degree or another tangible. I.e. it is not non-tangible and therefore unknowable because it cannot be demonstrated or if you will produced (for examination). What is non-tangible (conceptually) must always remain speculative.

The notion of metaphysics and certainly of supernaturalism is 1) obviously speculative and likely intertwined with old conceptual structures which have been rendered mythological. I.e. of no use to a modern and realistic view of “de rerum natura”.

2) The notion of God is entirely bound up with the Old School of view of reality. It is simply no longer needed because it (the idea of God) has no bearing on the matters pertaining to existence, which have only to do with the tangible stuff of reality. Kind of like the Epicureans saw it, “the gods” may “exist” but they are outside the domain of the manifest world and are ineffective. They (God or the gods) have no explanatory function within the modern view.

As a “non-dualist” there is no need to draw any distinction between matter and mind. Simply put, it all arises together. But mind cannot exist separately from the biological structure of a brain.

But everything is caused, and this means there is no material event which does not rest on an infinite array of causal events. To imagine a causal event outside of causality is (as even the phrasing makes it appear) is simply absurd.

Therefore, man is ensconced within physicalism and mind is an event linked to physicalism since, well, why bother with any other speculation. No other speculation is needed any longer.

Though all this is true, I, Atla, do believe that The Hyperborean Apollo does alone stand outside of all causation. He is the One True Lever that can move not just the world but all that is manifest and un-manifest.

Please sign, notarize and return by courier.

Carmen McCrae Sings Monk

But there is more than one version of non-Cartesian dualism. A monist may be a physicalist, an idealist, or a neutral monist.
You do yourself no good with flippancies such as referring to "the Hyperborean Apollo"

[Immanuel Can]

That is either a tautology or wrong.

Neither. It's in the name.

So it's a tautology.

That’s called a “definition.” If you want to call definitions “tautologies,” I suppose you can. They are a type of that.

And it can be shown: name something non-physical that you think physics deals with.

It depends on what you mean by physical.

Let’s use what you mean. I’d like to see what you think “physics” includes.

[Alexis Jacobi]

But there is more than one version of non-Cartesian dualism. A monist may be a physicalist, an idealist, or a neutral monist. You do yourself no good with flippancies such as referring to "the Hyperborean Apollo"

There is only one Atla however.

And any of the belief options you mention could only occur within the physicalist model, unless you were inclined to ‘smuggling in’ old metaphysics.

I am trying to work within the framework that Atla and BM exist in.

Please, Belinda, allow yourself a bit of fun

Lullaby of Birdland

[Atla]

I would assume (if I may attempt a paraphrase) that your view goes like this:

Everything in our world (universe, cosmos) takes place within the substance of which everything is composed. What is, is. There can be nothing more nor nothing less. What takes shape within the substance of reality can, perhaps ultimately, be known. In theory it is knowable because it is in one degree or another tangible. I.e. it is not non-tangible and therefore unknowable because it cannot be demonstrated or if you will produced (for examination). What is non-tangible (conceptually) must always remain speculative.

The notion of metaphysics and certainly of supernaturalism is 1) obviously speculative and likely intertwined with old conceptual structures which have been rendered mythological. I.e. of no use to a modern and realistic view of “de rerum natura”.

Yeah that's about it. I can only add minor things, for example that I've left behind the idea of substance, the "composed of". And anything is possible, including any supernatural thing, I just see no good reason to believe in them.

2) The notion of God is entirely bound up with the Old School of view of reality. It is simply no longer needed because it (the idea of God) has no bearing on the matters pertaining to existence, which have only to do with the tangible stuff of reality. Kind of like the Epicureans saw it, “the gods” may “exist” but they are outside the domain of the manifest world and are ineffective. They (God or the gods) have no explanatory function within the modern view.

Yeah. (You might be surprised though to learn that I sort of "believe" in a goddess, I think there are probably infinitely many godlike beings, they are just not present in our world.)

As a “non-dualist” there is no need to draw any distinction between matter and mind. Simply put, it all arises together. But mind cannot exist separately from the biological structure of a brain.

But everything is caused, and this means there is no material event which does not rest on an infinite array of causal events. To imagine a causal event outside of causality is (as even the phrasing makes it appear) is simply absurd.

Therefore, man is ensconced within physicalism and mind is an event linked to physicalism since, well, why bother with any other speculation. No other speculation is needed any longer.

Again I can only add minor things. It's not that matter and mind arise together, that's still a subtle dualism. They are literally (two conceptualizations of) one and the same thing. We see double.

Looks like everything is caused in our world, we can't know how it is outside our world. Could be uncaused or whatever.

Though all this is true, I, Atla, do believe that The Hyperborean Apollo does alone stand outside of all causation. He is the One True Lever that can move not just the world but all that is manifest and un-manifest.

I'm not interested. Imo according to Occam's razor, if we are to speculate, the best speculation could be speculation about the 5th dimension (and 6th and so on). Because it takes the known 4d world as the basis, and then extrapolates from there. Way more likely to be actually correct than some random Hyperborean Apollo speculation.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I am with you Atla!

MOTHER of Aeneas and his race, darling of men and gods, nurturing Venus, who beneath the smooth-moving heavenly signs fill with yourself the sea full-laden with ships, the earth that bears the crops, since through you every kind of living thing is conceived and rising up looks on the light of the sun: from you, O goddess, from you the winds flee away, the clouds of heaven from you and your coming; for you the wonder-working earth puts forth sweet flowers, for you the wide stretches of ocean laugh, and heaven grown peaceful glows without poured light.