Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote;

This is incorrect. "Fatalism" is a species of resignation. It does not require that the person in question predicts or knows the future: only that nothing but the fated future can possibly occur (whatever it is), so there is no point in trying to influence it.

Fated implies predictable. If some specified future event E must occur it can in theory be predicted.

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Jan 13, 2020 8:52 pm Fated implies predictable. If some specified future event E must occur it can in theory be predicted.

Only "in theory," and only if human knowledge were omniscient. There's no implication in the word that any particular person can predict anything.

And that's what some Compatibilist-Determinists use to "taxicab," and to get off the hook. They say, "Yeah, well, in theory Determinism means everything is in principle predictable, but since no human being actually has such knowledge, we all must live as if free will is true instead. And that's what makes free will "compatible" with Determinism."

Of course, that's a cheat. What they mean is that free will is a complete delusion, and we are all actually in the grip of Fate, but don't know that we are. So the two aren't "compatible" at all; they're still mutually-exclusive -- one's real, one's a delusion.

"There would be no choices if we knew the future."

Why? if my future self came to me and laid out what's supposed to happen to me over the next five years, how does this negate choice? Seems to me, if I know what's gonna happen then I'm forearmed, not bound up.

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"If some specified future event E must occur it can in theory be predicted."

Supposing it were possible to predict with 100% fidelity: it would be a marvelous for predicting events where humans are not a factor, but it would fail miserably when it comes to us (cuz we're not solely physical systems; we're composite, as much software as hardware).

Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon Jan 13, 2020 7:37 pm It seems we have a choice but only a rare few are capable of actualizing it.

The Nick Minority Report? Ah yes, I've heard of it. Nick is the CEO and primary member and subscriber who publishes the report continually like some kind of religious spam, insisting that everyone hear about the glory of the minority that he's a part of.

But actually, there are quite a lot of people online who blab obsessively about their divine uniqueness and affiliations... so it's not such a minority after all.

Lacewing wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 1:20 am

Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon Jan 13, 2020 7:37 pm It seems we have a choice but only a rare few are capable of actualizing it.

The Nick Minority Report? Ah yes, I've heard of it. Nick is the CEO and primary member and subscriber who publishes the report continually like some kind of religious spam, insisting that everyone hear about the glory of the minority that he's a part of.

But actually, there are quite a lot of people online who blab obsessively about their divine uniqueness and affiliations... so it's not such a minority after all.

There is no glory in realizing ones nothingness. Your post is perfect example of a negative expression of blind denial of what you have made yourself closed to

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 3:27 am Your post is perfect example of a negative expression of blind denial of what you have made yourself closed to

But Nick, I'm very open and happy and spiritual and unafraid! So what's wrong with that?

Lacewing wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 3:33 am

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 3:27 am Your post is perfect example of a negative expression of blind denial of what you have made yourself closed to

But Nick, I'm very open and happy and spiritual and unafraid! So what's wrong with that?

If that is your goal there is nothing wrong. I support the ideas which reveal universal meaning and purpose along with the purpose of humanity within it. I support those with the need to experience objective human meaning and purpose. The ancient perennial ideas awaken us to what we need at the depth of our being and make the inward attempts at self knowledge understandable. There is nothing wrong with preferring enchantment It is only wrong for the minority who are called to experience what they are in the light of the potential for human being. Imagination and consciousness are mutually exclusive. Most prefer imagination in relation to meaning while a minority strive for consciousness

"The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry." Simone Weil

Modern technology has encouraged imagination to such an extent that most forget their inner hunger for meaning. Yet a stick has two ends. The loss of the hunger for objective meaning is so obvious in the world that those open to awakening to it are doing so. As a fan of enchantment you are closed to this calling. You follow the way of the world. It is your calling.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 6:05 am

Lacewing wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 3:33 am But Nick, I'm very open and happy and spiritual and unafraid! So what's wrong with that?

If that is your goal there is nothing wrong.

It's not a goal, it's just what I am. Can you understand that?

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 3:27 amMost prefer imagination in relation to meaning while a minority strive for consciousness

I'm focused on consciousness most of the time... and I have meaning through that... and I do not live in imagination, as you say.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 3:27 am As a fan of enchantment you are closed to this calling. You follow the way of the world. It is your calling.

So, here again, you are projecting and branding me with your crazy crap. You accuse me of being/doing things that aren't true. Why do you do this? Are you just too intoxicated with what you think and believe, to realize anything beyond that? Truly, if you're this foolish and inaccurate and reckless in branding people in ways that you have no way of knowing, then you surely aren't responsible or honorable or sane enough to have credibility with anything you say. Right?

Lacewing

Lacewing wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 2:33 am
But Nick, I'm very open and happy and spiritual and unafraid! So what's wrong with that?
If that is your goal there is nothing wrong.
It's not a goal, it's just what I am. Can you understand that?

If you believe this and it satisfies your need for meaning, who am I to argue. I know by experience how difficult it is to be open and to become able to use fear as opposed to having it use me. I know how spiritual energy is confused with emotional energy and why people confuse them. I know how relative happiness is and to be happy and considered normal in a world that is crumbliing around me. It doesn't seem anything to be happy about But again if it satisfies your need for meaning, go for it.

Simone Weil's fellow student, the feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir, wrote of Weil in her book Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter:

She intrigued me because of her great reputation for intelligence and her bizarre get-up; "A great famine had broken out in China, and I was told that when she heard the news she had wept: these tears compelled my respect much more than her gifts as a philosopher. I envied her having a heart that could beat right across the world. I managed to get near her one day. I don't know how the conversation got started; she declared in no uncertain tones that only one thing mattered in the world: the revolution which would feed all the starving people of the earth. I retorted, no less peremptorily, that the problem was not to make men happy, but to find the reason for their existence. She looked me up and down: 'It's easy to see you've never been hungry,' she snapped.

Simone Weil wasn't happy. She cried in frustration at the reality of world hunger. She wasn't normal. Happy people are normal and unable to experience it assuring that world hunger will always be a reality

A 'will' that is not caused by any other events is random, not free.

The best freedom men can have is got from knowing causes and effects of each option in the man's range of possible choices.

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 8:00 pm A 'will' that is not caused by any other events is random, not free.

"Free" does not mean "without reasons." It means only "without total constraint."

A will can even be partly constrained by circumstances, and yet be conclusively free in the final decision. And certainly, "free" does not imply "without thought." For that, we should use the word "gratuitous." Freedom is not merely gratuitous.

On the other hand, a will that is purely caused by prior physical events is, by definition totally constrained, and not at all free. That's why Determinsts have to insist that freedom is an illusion.

The best freedom men can have is got from knowing causes and effects of each option in the man's range of possible choices.

But as per Determinism, "knowing" doesn't change anything. It doesn't actually produce the decision. One cannot, in fact, "know" choices because no choices exist, and nothing is "possible" but what actually happens.

I think that what you have in mind is actually a version of free will. It's certainly not Determinism.

Immanuel, even a tiny sliver of will that is free of all constraints is enough to qualify as 'Free Will'.

For social control purposes some individuals are reckoned as not capable of being responsible in law, and other are held to be responsible. The common sense question is like " can she or can she not tell the difference between good and evil ?"

That seems fair enough. However legal systems are not philosophy, and philosophers have a duty to examine how precisely someone may know what is good or evil. This examination is an examination of causes and effects that apply to the individual at the exact time of the alleged criminal offence. As a determinist I claim every individual is caused to do what they did and necessarily did what they did. However the offender who knew exactly what they were doing, how they were harming others or another, and were capable of informing themselves of their duties under the law, is more culpable than some individual who is a child, is mentally deficient, is demented, or has been brain washed.

The problem about the abuse of girls in care in Manchester, England, was like the problem with abuse by priests. The institutions had become self- serving. There is no way to stop institutions becoming self-serving other than by public scrutiny by people who serve individuals not institutions. Blaming is no use for serving individuals' welfare and crime prevention; what is needed is knowledge of causes and effects, specifically causes of crimes.

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 8:51 pm Immanuel, even a tiny sliver of will that is free of all constraints is enough to qualify as 'Free Will'.

Not "all," B. You can, for example, be constrained by the needs of your family, the practicalities of the moment, the limits of your finances, your age and health, and so on...but none of that will be sufficient to make you not free. You are still free to choose what you do, given all those things.

The problem about the abuse of girls in care in Manchester, England,

I thought perhaps you were speaking of Rotherham. There are many such cases, of course.

...was like the problem with abuse by priests. The institutions had become self- serving.

No, the priests were self-serving. What they did had no "institutional" function, nor did the institution prompt them to do it. The institution's fault was trying to cover up their misdeeds after the fact.

There is no way to stop institutions becoming self-serving other than by public scrutiny by people who serve individuals not institutions.

"Institutions" have no consciousness, no conscience, no moral awareness, and no ears to hear. We can whine all day about their "institutiona" prejudices and faults, and it will change nothing. Only individuals have those things, and only individuals can hold the individuals who do evil to account. And there is nothing so effective, in reforming institutions, as to cut out of the herd those individuals who have been hiding their wickedness with the institution, and make them publicly accountable.

The priests who did what they did should be in jail...every one of them...since that is the limit of what the law allows. And the institution that shielded them should be exposed, and then reformed or shut down.

Blaming is no use for serving individuals' welfare and crime prevention; what is needed is knowledge of causes and effects, specifically causes of crimes.

Blaming is exactly what's needed. Blaming, and holding accountable, that is. It is the very fact that they can hide in an institution, and never be personally called to account, that makes individuals bold to do evil.

Try it: tell somebody, "Whatever you do in your role in institution X, you will personally answer for." Just see how happy they are to cross line after that.

A person may have the potential for free will but how many people have ever sensed the difference between the actions of free will and reactions to desire shared by animal life on earth?

What good is debating free will if we don't appreciate the difference between free will and reactions to desire?

"A 'will' that is not caused by any other events is random, not free."

A free will is a cause, so he is deliberate and self-directing. There's no randomness about him.

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"The best freedom men can have is got from knowing causes and effects of each option in the man's range of possible choices."

The only freedom is in self-possession, self-direction, self-responsibility, self-efficacy (in bein' a free will).

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Abused children: an awful thing, but not an institutional matter. An adult abuses a child, he's mebbe shielded by other adults doin' the same awfulness. This is what we call conspiracy, not an institution.