Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 2:04 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 7:56 am ...physicists can apply their methods to any phenomena they wish; if only to rule out the possibility that the phenomenon in question doesn't lend itself to those methods.

Well, this is very interesting. You now admit there are real “phenomena” that “don’t lend themselves to those methods."

That is another example of your woeful logic: it simply doesn't follow. As it happens, all competent scientists know full well that for many disciplines you can by-pass physics and deal with phenomena at a different level, chemistry and biology being two obvious examples, but they are enhanced by interdisciplinary association with physics. Even the fields you listed have benefited from the input of physics, just as physicists benefit from other disciplines. There's no MRI or PET scans without physics, for example. So no, I do not admit that there are phenomena that don’t lend themselves to those methods, (incidentally, you shouldn't put quote marks around something that isn't a quote unless your aim is to look ignorant) instead I readily admit that there might be. Which is the inference that anyone with basic logical competence could deduce.

Walker wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 2:48 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 2:36 pm

Walker wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 2:23 pm
This may help you to better understand Determinism

Thanks for trying, but I don't need "help." You'll find that I'm right. Mental phenomena do not commence actions or causal chains, according to Determinism. They're mere byproducts of material-causal chains.

Think about it: if human knowledge or mental dispositions can initiate a new chain of actions, then things are not, after all, predetermined, but can be altered or directed to a new conclusion by nothing more than human volition, which is a purely mental phenomenon. Determinism isn't true, then. Human choices make a difference.

Human knowledge or mental dispositions are part of the causal chain of nature.

Not according to Determinism. Everything is nothing but the product of prior causes, including not only "dispositions" and "knowledge" but the human being himself or herself as well.

Humans don't float above it all.

Determinism says they don't "float," but rather sink beneath, or are less significant than the causality that produces them. They are nothing but the sum and result of the prior physical causes...no more than that.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 3:38 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 2:04 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 7:56 am ...physicists can apply their methods to any phenomena they wish; if only to rule out the possibility that the phenomenon in question doesn't lend itself to those methods.

Well, this is very interesting. You now admit there are real “phenomena” that “don’t lend themselves to those methods."

...all competent scientists know full well that for many disciplines you can by-pass physics and deal with phenomena at a different level, chemistry and biology being two obvious examples,

Both chemistry and biology are subdisciplines that deal with physical phenomena.

I do not admit that there are phenomena that don’t lend themselves to those methods,

See above. You just did. You said some things don't lend themselves to those methods. Well? What are those not-to-physics-methods-lending things?

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 3:01 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 2:21 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 2:11 pm
I also didn't claim that.

Oh, go read your own messages.

I told you to address the whole of that post...

And I told you to pound sand.

Walker wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 3:11 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 2:36 pm

Walker wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 2:23 pm
This may help you to better understand Determinism

Thanks for trying, but I don't need "help." You'll find that I'm right. Mental phenomena do not commence actions or causal chains, according to Determinism. They're mere byproducts of material-causal chains.

Think about it: if human knowledge or mental dispositions can initiate a new chain of actions, then things are not, after all, predetermined, but can be altered or directed to a new conclusion by nothing more than human volition, which is a purely mental phenomenon. Determinism isn't true, then. Human choices make a difference.

It's all right to need help in understanding.

I'll get "help" from somebody who understands Determinism, if I ever find I need it. I don't, in this case. I'm right about it.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 7:33 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 3:01 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 2:21 pm
Oh, go read your own messages.

I told you to address the whole of that post...

And I told you to pound sand.

Because you are too senile to understand what I wrote or to read multiple sentences.

You bear false witness.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 8:43 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 7:33 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 3:01 pm
I told you to address the whole of that post...

And I told you to pound sand.

Because you are too senile to understand what I wrote or to read multiple sentences.

Have a nice day.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 9:25 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 8:43 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 7:33 pm
And I told you to pound sand.

Because you are too senile to understand what I wrote or to read multiple sentences.

Have a nice day.

try to remember where you live

Walker wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 10:02 am Re: implications. There is a simple way to accurately understand Determinism, and that is the self-evident fact that every action of every person is the action that had to happen, and that the person had to perform, determined by conditions which include the complex makeup of the actor’s motives, which exist regardless of what the actor thinks exists, or regardless of illusions of non-existence within a situation of which one is conscious.

Self-evident has a habit of turning out to not be so "Evident". That's the cop out answer rather than having to explain how or why something is. If anything philosophers throughout history have shown that nothing is self-evident.

You say every action that happened had to happen that way but that's merely assertion, you don't know if it could have been otherwise. So it's a moot point. Furthermore the belief that we could have done differently makes us behave otherwise in the future. But chalking it up to "complex makeup of motives" means you don't know, so you cast a wide net hoping to land it.

Walker wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 8:02 am

Darkneos wrote: ↑Wed May 28, 2025 9:08 pm
Actually under determinism there is no such thing as responsibility for one's actually because technically "you" weren't the one who did it, it was all the factors that made it happen. Again you don't understand determinism or it's implications.

Tell it to the judge and he may consider that in the sentencing, perhaps in unanticipated ways.

That kind of determinism is a fairy tale based on ignorance of actual cause and effect. It only exists as a thought, never as reality.

Yes, I understand the implications of the delusions caused by cramming reality into known implications.

It's an error in perception caused by assuming that life moves along with the rigid known precision of a chessboard, when there is so much to Lifeation cause and effect that Human Beans just don't understand, and yet still insist on making explanations of reality conform to ignorance.

Again ... try applying definitions and what you know, to thinking, and you too will be a philosopher.

Chaos swallows both the butterfly effect and notions of linear determinism bound by time. The rules of chess confer a unified structure to contain every atom in the known universe as proven by the Shannon Number, but flat earthers are suspicious. However, The Democrat Party is still petty enough and limited in its vision, to Hate America.

Our current legal system is based on the belief in free will so I'm not sure what your point is there.

"That kind of determinism" is what determinism is and leads to. You seem to have a warped view of cause and effect like the others on here who want their cake and to eat it too.

It honestly sounds like you just don't know hence all this vague handwaving, perhaps in an attempt to convince yourself than life under determinism is the rigid precision of a chessboard. Definitionally that is what determinism is and what they believe in. Not to beat a dead horse but Robert Sapolsky literally wrote a whole book about it. If determinism is true then life is not open, it's merely a ride you're on for.

Google is your friend, so I encourage you to read more on determinism because you clearly don't understand it nor cause and effect.

Heck you said it yourself in another post, that people couldn't have done differently, and every definition says the same thing as well:

in philosophy and science, the thesis that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable. Determinism entails that, in a situation in which a person makes a certain decision or performs a certain action, it is impossible that he or she could have made any other decision or performed any other action. In other words, it is never true that people could have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did.

Sure sounds like "Rigid precision" on a chessboard. Maybe get your thoughts in order first before trying to show I'm mistaken.

You'll need more than vague handwaving. Didn't work with Belinda and it's not working here. The kind of determinism you believe in (if we can even call it that) is the only fantasy here.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 7:33 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 3:38 pmI do not admit that there are phenomena that don’t lend themselves to those methods,

See above. You just did. You said some things don't lend themselves to those methods.

Oh dear, I see trying to explain physics to you was a bit ambitious, given your poor grasp of English and logic. Here again is what I said:

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 7:56 amThat you think there are phenomena which physics can't "legitimately attempt to address" shows that, while you refer to phenomena, rather than "physical things" is encouraging, you still don't understand that physicists can apply their methods to any phenomena they wish; if only to rule out the possibility that the phenomenon in question doesn't lend itself to those methods.

Since you can read that and believe it says I admit there are phenomena that do not lend themselves to the methods of physics, something is evidently wrong with you.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 10:02 pm

You can't possibly be serious.

Darkneos wrote:Actually under determinism there is no such thing as responsibility for one's actually because technically "you" weren't the one who did it, it was all the factors that made it happen. Again you don't understand determinism or it's implications.

Walker wrote: Tell it to the judge and he may consider that in the sentencing, perhaps in unanticipated ways.

Darkneos wrote:Our current legal system is based on the belief in free will so I'm not sure what your point is there.

Shocking that you don't get the point, although that would explain your simplistic understanding.

- Tell the judge that you are “under” determinism,” and therefore not responsible for what you did.
- He will say no, you did it, so you’re responsible.
- And then you can say judge, you just don’t understand determinism or it’s implications. You may stamp your foot, tell the judge he doesn’t get it, and insist you are not responsible for what you did.
- Then he will say, it’s you who don’t understand the implications, little fella.
- He will say, even though every moment since the beginning of time has led to the dastardly deed that you did, you are responsible for what you did.
- Then you try and plead insanity.

That you don't get this raises serious doubts about your ability to function in the world.

Now, since that's settled ...

To be relevant to Reality and not some abstract theory that exists in a bubble in the mind ... Tell us, how did Jesus know beforehand that Judas had no choice but to betray him? Was it deduction, magic, or did he choose to know what would happen?

(And if you have some lame excuse for not having an answer to that question, that is your responsibility even though you were not present at the event.)

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 7:35 pm

This “no responsibility” attributed to Determinism, and apparently serving as some kind of an arbitrary keystone, sounds like a rider attached to inevitability, perhaps dreamed up in the fertile mind of some ambitious attorney with an agenda. Maybe one them there dang, lawfare attorneys!

You did it, you're responsible.

How it is you came to do it, is another issue.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri May 30, 2025 5:06 am ...physicists can apply their methods to any phenomena they wish; if only to rule out the possibility that the phenomenon in question doesn't lend itself to those methods.

Well, now you're evincing a belief in the total efficacy of physics...that it only has to "rule out the possibility" that various things "don't lend themselves to physical-scientific methods," rather than to face the very real possibility that it can't do any such thing at all.

Great. Then please show how you've managed to prove to yourself that physics can exposit EVERYTHING, even though you admit that things still exist for which we have no good reason to believe physics ever CAN exposit them, since they are the yet-to-be-ruled-out things, so to speak.

Here's one: how do you already know that physics can exposit mind? Or are you admitting that it's yet-to-be-known whether or not physics can do that, in which case, you're just stating a 'bad faith' position, a groundless confidence or vain hopefulness that eventually physics will be able to do that?

Then we can look at morals...and selfhood...and rationality...and science itself...and we'll just see what the basis of this confidence that science can do such work really is.

Walker wrote: ↑Fri May 30, 2025 2:00 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 29, 2025 7:35 pm

This “no responsibility” attributed to Determinism,

Not "attributed." It's an inevitable consequence.

If one could not help doing X, then by definition, one is not responsible for X. You cannot be blamed for falling from a building, even if you land on somebody and kill them. It's not a murder. You didn't choose to do it. It was a mere accident.

You did it, you're responsible.

Not according to Determinism. You were no more responsible than a man who fell accidentally off a building, and whose fall killed another beneath him. He had no choice, and neither had you, even if you imagined you did have a choice.

Considering one level deeper, from the Determinist perspective, we find that there actually was no "you," no entity distinct from prior causation, no "agent" who "chose" what was to follow. There were only the material preconditions, inevitably acting out the inevitable result of the causal chain of which they were just the last link. "You" is only an illusion, an "epiphenomenon," to use the Determinist term. The truth is that the chemicals and physical precauses in your body made X happen, and only illusionistically seemed to consult a "you" in the process...the truth, says Determinism, is that the physical causes alone account for what happened.

How it is you came to do it, is another issue.

That's how: according to Determinism, it wasn't "you" at all. Rather, it was the causal chain, inevitably proceeding in the one direction that cause-effect made inevitable. "You" were never part of the real explanation of why it happened.