BigMike wrote: ↑Mon May 19, 2025 8:07 am
Darkneos wrote: ↑Sun May 18, 2025 11:52 pm
BigMike wrote: ↑Sun May 18, 2025 10:59 pm
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.
Again, enough with the strawmen.
All I said is that we don't have the whole picture of reality so making sweeping judgments about it is fallacious. Free will especially given the mixed evidence around it. Hell...I just learned today that energy is not actually conserved in physics.
Will is not what you described, will is the cherry you want to add on top of the entire "computations" to make it sound palatable. You're not grounding it you're eliminating it, I explained how. But it is false in that we still don't fully understand how decisions work, which is why we throw in multiple causes we think might be the case.
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.
This is also not true, and the category mistake is on your part. Moral decisions are what we ought to do and physics cannot model or answer those. We don't even know how or what consciousness is so everything you're saying is premature, extremely so. Therefor something in your brain causing you to act might not have anything to do with what you described.
But that's a dodge to the question. Physics cannot tell you what to do in the trolley problem, or whether the outcome or motivation is more important in moral decisions, it can only model the particle interactions taking place. It's about as useful in moral decisions as quantum mechanics.
Nice try.
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 literally said it owes us structure and I told you structure is what we impose on it. Structure is human projection. We made up the words, terms, measurements, concepts, etc that we use to explain reality. That's why science says it never proves anything, yet you're acting like it has. The "laws" you appeal to are also human projections (which is acknowledged in the philosophy of science).
My ability to do all that does not depend on the structure holding. Cause and effect being optional also doesn't mean anything.
Again, you're dodging because you have nothing to defend your position. You acknowledge it's not the good thing you believe it to be, probably why you need AI to write your posts.
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.
Who knows? We humans only have access to what is within our senses and it's entirely possible things exist outside of that. What you call "Time" is not fundamental to the universe (according to some theories in QM) and matter as you imagine it is less solid than you believe (and might not exist at all).
"Free will" does work in that people believing in it drives them to action they wouldn't otherwise. Again, already proved you wrong that removing that would do nothing, it would in fact do great harm. Beliefs are powerful things that can override biology to some extent, belief in free will is part of that. Hell you have people condemning sex even though that's "natural" for humans. You know shockingly little about the world. My guess is your education never advanced past high school.
But I digress, under determinism (the one you seem to argue, but in general) there are no humans. There is only physics, aka "just stuff happening". Mind, under this view, is a relic of the past.
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 have disproven your claims, many times. You just ignore what's inconvenient and repeat the same structure every argument, just like AI. You're not actually thinking about or replying, you just want validation, but even the nutbars on here can see your philosophy doesn't work. And try as you might what you understand as "living in reality" is completely false and based on incomplete data.
You're not engaging with my points so why should I give the same consideration. I give 100 and you give about 10, ignoring everything I citing proving you wrong.
Will, as we understand it, is currently above explanation. We don't even have working definitions for life or intelligence yet, and don't know how consciousness works, we know very little.
You're the delusional one, and I'm getting tired of entertaining your fantasies about reality and how people work. Even moreso when it comes to the impact of your "plan" (and I'm being exceedingly generous with that word).
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.
