Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Tue Mar 14, 2023 12:58 pm**

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 12:55 pm
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 11:34 am I agree with this, BUT I'd also say that the idea of mind dualism or souls or some other magical place for our thoughts and our will to exist doesn't, in my mind, change the larger picture at discussion here. Everything I think now, I would think the same if we found out tomorrow that mind dualism or souls are real. I don't even think we need to assume materialism - I consider materialism a reasonable assumption, and a good jumping off point for this discussion, but not actually a necessary component to reach these conclusions.
I think I agree. Presumably most dualisms have causation between substances. I suppose in a dualism one could think that the brain is not you and you soul is you. Though if your brain has total control of you, but you disidentify with your brain, then your soul is not an agent. There are spiritualities that are like this, even some interpretations of some religions - parts of HInduism and Buddhism come to mind. But then there really is no you to push around. You're just the Buddha or the all consciousness or Vishnu observing yourself.

If your soul is an agent, then you can't be compelled by your brain, at least there must be some kind of intersubstance causation in both directions. But if your soul has, say, a longing to be close to God or to love others or to participate in nature, and it can do something about it. If it's desires are parts of causal chains, then 'my brain compelled me to.....' is at the very least painting something in binary terms when it is more complicated.

Exactly. The soul simply becomes another moving piece in the casual chain, something that interacts with, and is ostensibly changed by, the brain and perhaps other physical phenomena.

Posted: **Tue Mar 14, 2023 1:12 pm**

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 12:58 pm Exactly. The soul simply becomes another moving piece in the casual chain, something that interacts with, and is ostensibly changed by, the brain and perhaps other physical phenomena.

And changes physical stuff also, causes both ways. Unless it's eliminative materialist-ish, with the ontologically, utterly passive, but receptive witness.

Posted: **Tue Mar 14, 2023 2:25 pm**

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 1:12 pmAnd changes physical stuff also, causes both ways. Unless it's eliminative materialist-ish, with the ontologically, utterly passive, but receptive witness.

Yes both ways.

The passive (acausal) witness idea seems evidently the least likely, given that we're talking about it

Posted: **Tue Mar 14, 2023 4:35 pm**

1] my post to Iwannaplato:

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 9:31 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 9:40 pm
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 8:59 pm

That doesn't have anything about obligation, that's just about beliefs.
He is so certain of his 'personal opinion, which he judges as rooted existentially in dasein point of view, that he's happy to say you are the imply/say you are the same as Nazis, Gulag makers, etc. How is that different from what he calls objectivists.
Let him note where I have ever been "happy to say" that Flannel Jesus or anyone here is the same as the Nazis and the Gulag makers. Let him note where I have even flat out insisted that FJ is an objectivist. Instead, I have noted what existentially, subjectively and entirely rooted in dasein, I have come to construe "in my head" the meaning of an objectivist to be.

And then I noted how, down through the ages, there have been any number of God and No God autocrats/authoritarians who came to power and demanded that citizens embrace their own moral and political and spiritual prejudices...or else.

But, in turn, I note that I have no way in which to demonstrate that any of them were necessarily wrong regarding their convictions. And that, in fact, I am fractured and fragmented in regard to all value judgments.

Then I ask of those here who do not construe themselves to be such to describe to me given a particular context and the assumption that we do live in a free will world, why that is the case.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 9:40 pmHe qualifies his opinion in his fancy as serious philosopher ways. But none of these qualifications give him pause from associating you with people he thinks are evil.
On the contrary, given determinism as I understand it, good and evil are entirely interchangeable to nature in the only possible world. And, given a free will world, good and evil in the absence of God, are merely historical, cultural, social and political constructs in an essentially meaningless and purposeless world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change.

And, in my view, the more that begins to sink in for some here as a reasonable frame of mind the more they feel compelled -- subconsciously? -- to make it all about me, the "idiotic" messenger himself.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 9:40 pmAnd nowhere does he justify that the people he labels as objectivists deserve in any way to be associated with monsters.
That's because I never do label anyone in that manner. Instead, I note that in regard to some of their believes -- Satyr at KY or AJ here -- others will depict them as monstrous.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 9:40 pmHe can't manage to see the irony of attacking objectivists by saying they are a threat to people who believe in democracy and the rule of law. IOW objectivists are a threat to objectivists. Hell, many pacifists are objectivists. And so on.
The irony is that -- click -- given my own fractured and fragmented moral and political philosophy, I'm not really "for all practical purposes" able to attack anyone. Not the Nazis. Not the Taliban. Their values are no less rooted existentially in dasein. And in a No God world their behaviors are no less able to be rationalized. All I can note is that in fact when those like them do get into power they do in fact become dangerous to others who do not or will not or cannot "toe their line".

Right? Call them objectivists or call them something else. That part doesn't change.

2] FJ reads this post and all he or she can note regarding it is this:

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 9:38 pm
iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 9:31 pm Right? Call them objectivists or call them something else. That part doesn't change.
Most people just call Nazis Nazis. Being objectivists is not considered by anybody but you to be one of their defining features...

Again, I call a Nazi like Hitler an objectivist because I suspect he believed that he was wholly in sync with his true Aryan Self, wholly in sync further with, among other things, the Final Solution.

And that, as such, he was dangerous if you were a Jew.

You don't think that's appropriate? Fine, don't call him an objectivist. Call him what you think he was.

I always acknowledge that the words I use in regard to a self interacting with other selves out in a particular world are rooted existentially in dasein. In regard to conflicting moral, political and religious value judgments. And I never expect others to share my own conclusions...or else. On the contrary, I note time and again that, given how vastly different our lives can be, we can come to very, very different conclusions about right and wrong, good and bad behaviors.

I merely suggest in turn that, given a No God world, there does not appear to be a way for philosophers or ethicists or political scientists to define or deduce into existence anything in the way of a Kantian deontological moral philosophy.

Posted: **Tue Mar 14, 2023 4:47 pm**

1] Again, all that I posted to Iwannaplato above:

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 9:31 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 9:40 pm
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 8:59 pm

That doesn't have anything about obligation, that's just about beliefs.
He is so certain of his 'personal opinion, which he judges as rooted existentially in dasein point of view, that he's happy to say you are the imply/say you are the same as Nazis, Gulag makers, etc. How is that different from what he calls objectivists.
Let him note where I have ever been "happy to say" that Flannel Jesus or anyone here is the same as the Nazis and the Gulag makers. Let him note where I have even flat out insisted that FJ is an objectivist. Instead, I have noted what existentially, subjectively and entirely rooted in dasein, I have come to construe "in my head" the meaning of an objectivist to be.

And then I noted how, down through the ages, there have been any number of God and No God autocrats/authoritarians who came to power and demanded that citizens embrace their own moral and political and spiritual prejudices...or else.

But, in turn, I note that I have no way in which to demonstrate that any of them were necessarily wrong regarding their convictions. And that, in fact, I am fractured and fragmented in regard to all value judgments.

Then I ask of those here who do not construe themselves to be such to describe to me given a particular context and the assumption that we do live in a free will world, why that is the case.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 9:40 pmHe qualifies his opinion in his fancy as serious philosopher ways. But none of these qualifications give him pause from associating you with people he thinks are evil.
On the contrary, given determinism as I understand it, good and evil are entirely interchangeable to nature in the only possible world. And, given a free will world, good and evil in the absence of God, are merely historical, cultural, social and political constructs in an essentially meaningless and purposeless world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change.

And, in my view, the more that begins to sink in for some here as a reasonable frame of mind the more they feel compelled -- subconsciously? -- to make it all about me, the "idiotic" messenger himself.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 9:40 pmAnd nowhere does he justify that the people he labels as objectivists deserve in any way to be associated with monsters.
That's because I never do label anyone in that manner. Instead, I note that in regard to some of their believes -- Satyr at KY or AJ here -- others will depict them as monstrous.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 9:40 pmHe can't manage to see the irony of attacking objectivists by saying they are a threat to people who believe in democracy and the rule of law. IOW objectivists are a threat to objectivists. Hell, many pacifists are objectivists. And so on.
The irony is that -- click -- given my own fractured and fragmented moral and political philosophy, I'm not really "for all practical purposes" able to attack anyone. Not the Nazis. Not the Taliban. Their values are no less rooted existentially in dasein. And in a No God world their behaviors are no less able to be rationalized. All I can note is that in fact when those like them do get into power they do in fact become dangerous to others who do not or will not or cannot "toe their line".

Right? Call them objectivists or call them something else. That part doesn't change.

2] What Flannel Jesus reduces it all down to:

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 9:46 pmI really hate all this pussyfooting. Calling someone an objectivist, saying "objectivists are dangerous because Nazis were objectivists", and then cowering down behind this "but but but I'm fragmented."

It's like a pedo priest who has just had his way with a child, and just as the townsfolk are about to beat him to death for it, he pleads with them, "please, I was very fragmented while I did it. I'm not even sure I liked it!"

It doesn't matter how fragmented you are when you say it you goof. If you say it, justify it. If you realize you can't justify it, admit that and say you were wrong. Your fragmentation does nothing but excuse you for your douchebageries.

Click...

I will now leave it entirely up to others to decide for themselves just how embarrassed he ought to be here.

Posted: **Tue Mar 14, 2023 5:05 pm**

Right. Ayn Rand believed in capitalism. Karl Marx believed in Communism. Adolph Hitler believed in the Final Solution. The Taliban believe in Allah. The Pope believes in Catholicism.

So, historically, what has often happened when those who believe in something gained power and had the capacity to insist that others must believe the same thing...or else? Again, I call them objectivists and, subjectively, I suggest that they are dangerous to those who believe instead in, say, democracy and the rule of law.

Call them something else if you must.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 9:58 pm In a thread about compatiblism people who believe their position on compatbilism is correct are called objectivists. Then we are told that people with beliefs may one day come to power and do bad stuff.

Sigh...

Again -- click -- I have never argued that people who believe their position on compatibilism is correct are objectivists. I have only suggested that, given my own subjective, rooted existentially in dasein frame of mind "here and now", I believe that those who do believe their own point of view here is wholly in sync with the "real me" wholly in sync further with the one and the only rational manner in which to think about compatibilism, are objectivists.

And that in regard to moral, political religious values, history is replete with those I construe to be objectivist who did come to power and as autocratic authoritarians did do bad things to others. Only from their frame of mind they were good things.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 9:58 pm Well, jesus, perhaps Iambiguous will come to power and kill objectivists.

Since I believe that, in a free will world, objectivists are no less the embodiment of dasein, I would attempt to convey that to them. And only if, in being objectivists, they came after me for not toeing their line would I go after them in turn.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 9:58 pm Can't the topic just focus on the arguments, examples, guesses, possible implications, analysis of beliefs related to determinism.

Sure. But tell that to the Stooges.

Posted: **Tue Mar 14, 2023 5:24 pm**

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 2:25 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 1:12 pmAnd changes physical stuff also, causes both ways. Unless it's eliminative materialist-ish, with the ontologically, utterly passive, but receptive witness.
Yes both ways.

The passive (acausal) witness idea seems evidently the least likely, given that we're talking about it

Yes, at least the passive witness is noticed by....the brain????

Posted: **Tue Mar 14, 2023 5:33 pm**

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 5:24 pm
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 2:25 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 1:12 pmAnd changes physical stuff also, causes both ways. Unless it's eliminative materialist-ish, with the ontologically, utterly passive, but receptive witness.
Yes both ways.

The passive (acausal) witness idea seems evidently the least likely, given that we're talking about it
Yes, at least the passive witness is noticed by....the brain????

Exactly haha. It has to have some casual effect, evidently, because the alternative is to suggest that our meat sacks would be writing the same words about the ineffable conscious experience even if they weren't connected to one!

"Philosophical zombies" they're called, and it's apparently a debate taken seriously by more than a few.

Posted: **Tue Mar 14, 2023 7:30 pm**

Thought I'd take a stab [compelled or not] at the article Iwannaplato posted above.

How to think about free will
You can’t escape cause and effect, but there is a way of viewing human agency that is motivating, plausible and humane
by Julian Baggini

How to think about free will?

Okay, but what of those who argue that in regard to how any of us think about free will we think about it as we do only because our material brains wholly in sync with the laws of matter compel us to think of it only as we must?

All I do then is point out that how any of us then react to that is embedded in all that we do not fully understand about this:

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

Are you reading this as a result of your own free choice? It certainly seems as though you are. After all, surely you could have read something else, or done something completely different. We feel that we are free, the originators of our own choices, not just conduits through which the chain of cause and effect flows. But think about it a little more and this ‘voluntarist’ conception of free will starts to look untenable.

I'm sure there are those here who will insist that this isn't applicable to me. That, instead, my own peremptory frame of mind regarding determinism doesn't allow for this at all. But, on the contrary, viscerally, intuitively, a part of me is no less a believer that I possess at least some measure of autonomy.

But then the part where each of us does start to "think about it a little more". The part where we acknowledge that in a No God world, the human brain is just more matter. That matter obeys "natural laws". The laws that are embedded in mathematics and physics and chemistry and biology. So, why should the brain be any different?

Yet we grasp immediately why brain matter is like no other matter there has ever been. After all, it is the only matter that has acquired a consciousness of the world around it. And human brain matter has in turn acquired a self-conscious understanding of that. What other matter is there that can ask, "am I myself free to ask if human brain matter acquired free will"?

All your choices are in a sense inevitable

Go back to when you saw the headline or link to this piece. Given the ‘choice environment’ you found yourself in – your history, your personality, the other options open to you, your mood, your schedule – wasn’t it inevitable that you were either going to start reading, save it for later or move on to something else? And as you now decide to continue to read or not, are you really in control of how intrigued or irritated you are by the words in front of you?

Choice environment. For me, the equivalent of dasein. All of the genetic and memetic factors in your lived life that predisposed you existentially to first care about free will philosophically and then to think about it as you now do. The experiences you had [or did not have], the people your met [or did not meet], the information and knowledge you acquired [or did not acquire].

This is applicable to the behaviors we chose overall down through the years and to the behaviors we will choose now or later. All of the factors that come together to either nudge or to shove us in all of the different directions that we can go. The Benjamin Button Syndrome writ large and small.

Posted: **Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:14 pm**

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 5:33 pm Exactly haha. It has to have some casual effect, evidently, because the alternative is to suggest that our meat sacks would be writing the same words about the ineffable conscious experience even if they weren't connected to one!

It could be a coincidence.

Posted: **Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:17 pm**

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 5:33 pm "Philosophical zombies" they're called, and it's apparently a debate taken seriously by more than a few.

But about philosophical zombies...
I notice in a lot of online discussions, people will talk about how consciousness evolved. Like it is needed, adaptive. But actually, I don't see how in a deterministic universe. You only need the body to do things. There needs to be perception, but you don't need an experiencer. It's a biproduct at best. You don't need the dominoes to be aware.

Of course, I tend towards panpsychism.

Posted: **Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:20 pm**

As far as I can tell we are not different from philosophical zombies.

Posted: **Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:59 pm**

Sculptor wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:20 pm As far as I can tell we are not different from philosophical zombies.

That suggests that the reason we talk about consciousness is entirely disconnected from the fact that we are conscious. Like if you removed the conscious experience from our bodies, our bodies would continue talking about conscious experience in exactly the same way we do now, except they'd be lying.

I don't know about you guys, but I definitely think the reason my body talks about conscious experience is directly related to the fact that I'm having conscious experiences.

Posted: **Tue Mar 14, 2023 10:02 pm**

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:17 pm
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 5:33 pm "Philosophical zombies" they're called, and it's apparently a debate taken seriously by more than a few.
But about philosophical zombies...
I notice in a lot of online discussions, people will talk about how consciousness evolved. Like it is needed, adaptive. But actually, I don't see how in a deterministic universe. You only need the body to do things. There needs to be perception, but you don't need an experiencer. It's a biproduct at best. You don't need the dominoes to be aware.

Of course, I tend towards panpsychism.

I think consciousness probably does have adaptive benefits. When you call it a 'byproduct', it may be that it is not extricable from the very things it's a byproduct of.

Posted: **Tue Mar 14, 2023 10:02 pm**

Sculptor wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:20 pm As far as I can tell we are not different from philosophical zombies.

So, if you put your hand in a flame your body would pull back the hand, but there would be no sensation of pain?
You behave, but you don't experience?

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