Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[BigMike]

You will not hear — for all that you have ears.

Myself, I appreciate Sr. Pistolero’s clarification: we exist within a complex context, and our choices are real within a complex web.

In my view, this a similar statement to that which I presented to you months back: We live within determining structures and yet we have (what I called) a cubic centimeter of possibility to act within that complex web.

[He puts it thus: “Existence is dynamic, interactive....meaning cause/effect.”]

You continue to respond to me and to others with thoughts and arguments that prove that you are capable of decisiveness and choice. You prove my argument (for degrees of freedom).

Your arguments are hypocritical and they involve self-deception. This signals for me a psychological problem, and a reasoning problem.

I don’t have a great deal more to add except to say you have been — you are — an invaluable resource for me. You have helped me to understand how important it is (for men, for man) to realize how valuable is the choice (agency) that we have.

I think you are one of the best participants on the forum. Not because you are presenting truth — you present partial truths and sophistries wedded together, a bad mix — but because you allow such highly relevant topics to be discussed.

You still haven’t named a single “error” or given one argument that falsifies my view. Praise and projection don’t count. Try again — clearly, concisely, and with evidence.

[promethean75]

The unstated disagreement unknown to the debaters here is not about the nature of 'choices' and whether or not they exist, but rather about what is making the choice, causing the choice to happen.

A freewillist who believes in the regularity of the forces operating in the universe (even if only for a meager hundred billion years before they change), therefore submitting that a mechanistic causality exists in the world, must argue that the thing causing a human choice is either a) a force not yet known by scientists or b) an agency that is not affected by mechanistic causality, one which is also able to intervene in mechanistic causality and cause things to happen that wouldn't have otherwise happened without that agency applying its causal force on the world (the body to be precise).

Now, they are faced with having to produce evidence, a snap shot of this cartesian ghost in the human machine. They go looking and find only charged particles moving across membranes.

Failing to produce any evidence, they resort to a metaphysical defense... it's the soul, dude, and a soul has to have freewill (when not even that is true see Harris, Sam). Or some obscure talk about chaos or quantum physics.

Last time i saw a freewill debate i went up there you know they're trying to show me this that i fired the two of the fuckers off on their fuckin head. They don't know what the fuck they're doin'

[Dubious]

From the looks of it, the world's "despotic pigs" already have that view. And some of them seem to have religious affiliations. I mean, Slavery in the US was justified in some circles by people who used whatever interpretations of the Bible. The Holy Roman Empire doesn't seem like it was all that "holy". Netanyahu is quite a marvel, too. Maybe what the world needs is for people to wake up and realize just how fucked we all are in life. I don't know. Nothing else seems to work.

We only have ourselves to blame for that. That should be the first thing to wake up to!

You got that right!

But in our defense, the level of consciousness we've been allotted to try and make it through this temporary nut house, isn't much to work with.
_______

I agree completely, except for the word "temporary". I'm not sure whether we need a collective lobotomy to solve the problem or a further influx of brain cells. One would think, to paraphrase Bill Gates, 85 billion neurons should be enough for anyone to avoid the worst consequences of rampant stupidity. However, it's fair to wonder how in a majority of humans so many of these little suckers got consigned to a neuronal graveyard where only 640K of usable material is left to carry on with.

[BigMike]

The unstated disagreement unknown to the debaters here is not about the nature of 'choices' and whether or not they exist, but rather about what is making the choice, causing the choice to happen.

A freewillist who believes in the regularity of the forces operating in the universe (even if only for a meager hundred billion years before they change), therefore submitting that a mechanistic causality exists in the world, must argue that the thing causing a human choice is either a) a force not yet known by scientists or b) an agency that is not affected by mechanistic causality, one which is also able to intervene in mechanistic causality and cause things to happen that wouldn't have otherwise happened without that agency applying its causal force on the world (the body to be precise).

Now, they are faced with having to produce evidence, a snap shot of this cartesian ghost in the human machine. They go looking and find only charged particles moving across membranes.

Failing to produce any evidence, they resort to a metaphysical defense... it's the soul, dude, and a soul has to have freewill (when not even that is true see Harris, Sam). Or some obscure talk about chaos or quantum physics.

Last time i saw a freewill debate i went up there you know they're trying to show me this that i fired the two of the fuckers off on their fuckin head. They don't know what the fuck they're doin'

Exactly. And here's the kicker:

In case a) — if a new, undiscovered force is causing decisions, then that force must still exchange energy, momentum, charge, etc., otherwise it violates conservation laws. And if it doesn't, then you’re proposing energy and information magically appearing from nowhere — a direct violation of the most well-established principles in all of physics.

In case b) — if an “agency” sits outside mechanistic causality yet still affects the body (neurons firing, muscles moving), then where does the energy for that influence come from? Again, if it’s not accounted for within the system’s inputs, then it’s just popping into existence, breaking energy conservation, momentum conservation, and so on.

So when Alexis starts talking about his “cubic centimeter of freedom,” what he’s really doing is carving out a chunk of his skull and declaring that physics doesn’t apply there. That somehow, within that space, causality halts, conservation vanishes, and metaphysical magic begins.

Sorry — that’s not insight. That’s intellectual escapism dressed up as profundity.

[Belinda]

Promethean, your are correctly addressing relative freedom to choose: you are not addressing supernatural Free Will.

The determinist must agree that the event (including its psychological correlates) which happened ---- necessarily happened. However the determinist , same as anybody else, can't predict what is going to happen . Mike could not be sure he would choose mint ice cream until after the event.

Living systems can and do choose between alternatives. The human is especially good at assessing probabilities especially when the human is also a trained scientist and statistician.

The Modernist seeks fundamental and essential truths. The post-modernist thinks truth varies depending on one's point of view. Clearly, from our point of view the future is indeterminate and we can freely make choices. "Aha!" cries the Modernist. "That's an illusion. Everything is determined by basic physics!"

Ok. Maybe the modernist is right. But so what? What good is.it to pretend to see things aa "predetermined" when, from the speaker's point of view, they are not determined? To insist that it is important is to promote a particular world view -- a world view that has been soundly and correctly criticized by post- modernists.

It's not good to "see things as predetermined". No event is predetermined . There are only probabilities . No event is predetermined; past and future events are relatively probable or improbable.
It is good to make common -sense choices and even better to make educated choices.
We must choose between alternatives unless we decide to leave it to others to make decisions like a young child does. We know nothing . Nevertheless we must forge ahead into the unknown, and so we deal in probability.

Consciousness of probability is necessary but not sufficient. We also need honest use of language.
Dishonest use of language:

* presuming an essence exists before the event

* deliberate mystification

* escape into facetiousness

[Alexis Jacobi]

So when Alexis starts talking about his “cubic centimeter of freedom,” what he’s really doing is carving out a chunk of his skull and declaring that physics doesn’t apply there. That somehow, within that space, causality halts, conservation vanishes, and metaphysical magic begins.

From where I sit, I found that some of Pistolero’s incisive pronouncements helped me to better realize what it is that you, BigMike, do.

You extract “facts” on which you affix the label “truth”. You assemble a group of these in a linguistic pattern that resembles — mimics — a mathematical proof and, applying your will, you create and empower a perspective, an existential ideology really, that also resembles or mimics a religious fundamentalism. There is a whole range of purposes and intentions that your ideology wishes to realize in the world and, tellingly, these are all of a Left-Progressive sort. Thus your ideology is activist.

You then declare “Refute an element if my verbal arrangement, a contrived formula, which I have established linguistically as being absolutely true and irrefutably true” while, hypocritically, you demonstrate by each defensive response that you are fully capable of direct responses that clearly involve the assertion of your will. Yet you declare, bizarrely, that you yourself, the self that is acting in direct accord with its own promptings, that you are a “rolling rock” and a “water molecule” being moved through a channel without volitional power of any sort.

This, as I say, is neurotic.

You have established an “absolute truth” through your linguistic construct, bolstered by an absolutist logic, that there is no alternative to your perspectival arrangement. “It must be so”, you say. “It cannot be different”. And within the Construct this really appears true to you.

You are trapped within a circularity which, I suspect (and this insight was nicely expressed by Don Señor Pistolero) is a language-idea concoction (with a whole range of political, social and anthropological purposes).

Those who “agree” with you — this is my impression — seem to agree that the Construct is suitable for them as well. Or perhaps they too cannot conceive of any other arrangement (of facts defined as absolute truths) in their own perspectival system. Or “lens” through which they view reality. The word “reality” takes on the sense of a totalizing perspectival relationship. To “life” and to “being” and also to consciousness and awareness.

Is this entirely, or merely largely, a sort of linguistic magic? This has to be settled. It looks to be a sort of mantra-like incantation formed into self-talk. An inner dialogue that both builds a picture and also maintains the picture invoked.

I am myself not at all convinced that the picture is an accurate description or depiction of Reality. Yet I do grasp its linguistic power. My supposition is that it can indeed “convince many”. But, and this I will say “just for myself”, I am quite unconvinced it is the right thing to think. It presents itself as inevitable but what it conduces to does not seem “genuinely healthy”.

But that is linguistic power and similar to the power of a novelistic invention or even a poetical construct.

[Pistolero]

Philosophy at its heart, is the study of man's relationship with his own existence.
Some have said it is man coming to terms with his mortality.
Psychology is essential in understanding the subject of philosophy, man himself.

Language is how this relationship manifests in real time - words/symbols referring to how man relates to existence - art.
Math and logic is how man disciplines his mind to the apparent - to what he perceives and can only perceive as order - patterns.
How we use words/symbols - semiotics - exposes out intentions - will - our objectives.

How we define 'freedom,' or 'love', or 'morality' or any word representing a cocnept, exposes our motives.
Do we seek clarity and truth - no matter how painful and difficult it is to stomach - or do we seek comfort, a plausible lie....the desirable ideal.
Do we begin with the perceptible - empirical - or with the ideological, with what has been establish as popular, conventional?
Do we ever doubt these definitions or adopt them because it suits our purposes?
This CHOICE, is what exposes the motives and the quality of the mind.

Is our thinking Bottom-Up, or Top-Down?

[BigMike]

So when Alexis starts talking about his “cubic centimeter of freedom,” what he’s really doing is carving out a chunk of his skull and declaring that physics doesn’t apply there. That somehow, within that space, causality halts, conservation vanishes, and metaphysical magic begins.

From where I sit, I found that some of Pistolero’s incisive pronouncements helped me to better realize what it is that you, BigMike, do.

Okay, so right from the start, this isn’t about evaluating the truth-value of a claim I’ve made. It’s about identifying a rhetorical or psychological pattern—what I do—as if the structure of my communication somehow reveals something covert about my intentions, rather than the content itself being evaluated on its own terms.

Let’s note that. This is already a shift from argument analysis to personal framing.

You extract “facts” on which you affix the label “truth”.

Yes. And let’s be clear: when I refer to truths, I’m referring to claims consistent with empirical evidence and established physical law—laws like conservation of energy, thermodynamics, neurobiological causation, etc. If you want to challenge a “fact” I’ve used—challenge it. Name it. Show how it's incorrect. What Alexis does instead is cast doubt on the act of labeling a fact a truth—as if the process of interpretation itself is always inherently suspect. But not all interpretations are equal. If a worldview is based on testable, replicable phenomena, that has more weight than poetic or metaphysical intuition.

You assemble a group of these in a linguistic pattern that resembles — mimics — a mathematical proof...

You’re almost describing clarity as a vice here. As if making arguments in a structured, logical sequence that aims to demonstrate consistency is somehow theatrical. But logic isn’t mimicry. It’s method. And yes, I aim for clarity and internal consistency. If you find that threatening, ask why. If you think it’s misleading, point out where the logic fails.

and, applying your will, you create and empower a perspective, an existential ideology really, that also resembles or mimics a religious fundamentalism.

This is projection, not argument. Let’s be honest here: the criticism is not of determinism per se, but that I believe it too strongly. That I speak with conviction, therefore it must be dogma. But the content matters. This isn’t faith. I don’t claim divine insight. I claim causal closure. I claim that the brain, like the liver or the climate, obeys physical law.

And if that sounds “fundamentalist,” it’s only because you’re used to hearing truth claims padded with hedging. But conviction grounded in evidence is not the same as blind faith. They're different species.

There is a whole range of purposes and intentions that your ideology wishes to realize in the world and, tellingly, these are all of a Left-Progressive sort. Thus your ideology is activist.

Here comes the politicization. If I say the criminal justice system should be rehabilitative rather than punitive because behavior is caused, that’s not “leftism.” That’s cause-and-effect applied to policy. If I say people don’t deserve poverty because their circumstances weren’t self-created, that’s not progressive utopianism. That’s physics meeting ethics.

So yes—determinism has implications. But those implications aren’t partisan unless you assume, in advance, that agency and moral blame are sacred cows of one political tradition.

You then declare “Refute an element if my verbal arrangement, a contrived formula, which I have established linguistically as being absolutely true and irrefutably true” while, hypocritically, you demonstrate by each defensive response that you are fully capable of direct responses that clearly involve the assertion of your will.

This is where things get slippery.

Responding to an argument is not proof of free will. Speech, reaction, even conviction—these are all outcomes of causal chains. To say, “Look, you replied to me! That proves you have volition!” is like saying a calculator asserting 2+2=4 is proof of its independence.

It’s a category error. Response does not imply metaphysical independence. It implies processing. And processing is a physical event.

Yet you declare, bizarrely, that you yourself, the self that is acting in direct accord with its own promptings, that you are a “rolling rock” and a “water molecule” being moved through a channel without volitional power of any sort.

Not bizarre. Just disillusioning. This metaphor is meant to expose that our cognitive events—thoughts, beliefs, decisions—are downstream from unchosen inputs: genetics, early experiences, environment, sensory stimuli. That doesn’t mean we’re passive lumps. It means that our so-called “choices” are outputs of physical processes, not exceptions to them.

This isn’t nihilism. It’s a shift in framing. And yes, it’s hard to swallow—but that doesn’t make it wrong.

This, as I say, is neurotic.

Here comes the pathologizing again. Rather than arguing against the framework, we’re back to diagnosing the person who holds it. “You think people aren’t free? You must be sick.” That’s not a rebuttal. That’s an evasion dressed up as psychoanalysis.

And it’s telling. Because when the logic stands firm, and the data holds up, one last refuge is to declare the speaker unwell. That’s not philosophy. That’s deflection.

You are trapped within a circularity... a language-idea concoction...

Show the circularity. Spell it out. What premise assumes its own conclusion? If my argument is that human behavior is physically caused, and I support that with neuroscience, psychology, and physics, then where’s the loop?

Calling it a “concoction” doesn’t dismantle it. It just makes it sound like a spell. But this isn’t spellwork. It’s system analysis.

Those who “agree” with you — this is my impression — seem to agree that the Construct is suitable for them as well. Or perhaps they too cannot conceive of any other arrangement (of facts defined as absolute truths) in their own perspectival system.

Or they’ve looked. And tested. And found that systems built on free will, blame, and moral absolutism don’t work. That they generate cruelty, not clarity. And they’ve realized that giving up the illusion of free will isn’t narrowing—it’s liberating. It opens the door to systems that treat people according to what caused them, not what they “chose.”

The word “reality” takes on the sense of a totalizing perspectival relationship.

Reality, as I use it, is not perspectival. It’s physical. What can be observed, measured, predicted, tested. That doesn’t mean we understand all of it. But it means we don’t invent it out of preference. We uncover it. Slowly. Reluctantly. Sometimes painfully.

Is this... a sort of linguistic magic? This has to be settled. It looks to be a sort of mantra-like incantation formed into self-talk.

No magic. Just consistency. And the reason it feels like incantation is because it doesn’t flinch. The framework forces us to reframe things we’ve taken for granted: agency, morality, responsibility. And that repetition? It’s not spellcasting. It’s insistence. And insistence is necessary when the counterargument is always “But it feels like I choose.”

I am myself not at all convinced that the picture is an accurate description or depiction of Reality.

That’s fine. But if you’re going to challenge it, you have to show where the causality breaks. Not where it feels uncomfortable. Not where it seems bleak. Where it fails to describe the evidence. That’s the standard.

It presents itself as inevitable but what it conduces to does not seem “genuinely healthy”.

That’s a separate discussion. There are worldviews that feel good and are false. And there are worldviews that are hard and true. The psychological effect doesn’t determine the truth of a framework. If you think the consequences of determinism are bleak, we can talk about that. But truth is not a democracy of emotions.

But that is linguistic power and similar to the power of a novelistic invention or even a poetical construct.

If you really think this is all poetry—just rhetoric dressed up as science—then challenge it as science. Otherwise, you're just critiquing the music, not the math.

So here’s the invitation, Alexis: dismantle the structure. Don’t moralize the tone. Don’t psychoanalyze the speaker. Don’t romanticize the discomfort. Just show where the logic breaks. I’m not afraid of the confrontation.

Are you?

[Pistolero]

Okay, so right from the start, this isn’t about evaluating the truth-value of a claim I’ve made. It’s about identifying a rhetorical or psychological pattern—what I do—as if the structure of my communication somehow reveals something covert about my intentions, rather than the content itself being evaluated on its own terms.

Not "its own terms" Mickey...the terms you chose......
On its own terms means objectively.
You would start from a position of ignorance, observing actions....not from established theories.

How, Mickey, does science build its knowledge and understanding?
How?
By observing what?
Actions....behaviors.

Your objective is to "correct" what you observe.
This is what clouds your judgements with emotions.

Then you define concepts in a way that suits your emotionally driven objectives.

Look at the verbal acrobatics you performed to avoid the term "choice."

If you want to be taken seriously you must define the words you use, empirically.....not conventionally....nor emotionally, nor ideologically.

[Pistolero]

You must ask yourself, Mickey, is modern science truly objective?
Has its reliance or private and public funding corrupted its objectivity?
Who determines what science will explore? The funders or the scientists?
How will the results be interpreted, Mickey....objectively, or in relation to an ideological goal?

Look at what "science" told us about Covid, Mickey.

[Pistolero]

Mickey, when you asked me to define 'will' an d 'free', I gave you a definition that was NOT metaphysical, as you expected, but physical.
Then you challenged me to explain how....as if my perceptions of will could be sanely dismissed because I failed to explain the source.
So, Mickey....if you cannot explain how life emerges nor how it works, absolutely and completely, does the perception of life become an illusion for you and you ilk?
I can give you a hypothesis on how will works or how it emerges, but it is not necessary, Mickey....because we both can witness it, and experience it in ourselves, can't we? It exists, whether we can understand it or not.
Once we establish that it exists, then we can proceed into the details.

So Will exists, and it requires no metaphysics.....and no explanation.
Freedom exists, as strength, because it is nothing more than a qualifier.

If your "science" cannot do the same, then how different is it from a religion?

Define equality.
Define justice.
Describe how man evolved without sub-species, since you are so scientifically minded. I assume you accept natural selection as an explanation concerning the multiplicity of life.
How does speciation occur, Mickey, without intermediate steps, often producing sub-species, breeds, types, races?
I bet you will recoil from that one, wont you Mickey. The American political zeitgeist has infected your brain.

[BigMike]

Okay, so right from the start, this isn’t about evaluating the truth-value of a claim I’ve made. It’s about identifying a rhetorical or psychological pattern—what I do—as if the structure of my communication somehow reveals something covert about my intentions, rather than the content itself being evaluated on its own terms.

Not "its own terms" Mickey...the terms you chose......

Right away, this is setting up a false dichotomy—implying that “my terms” are somehow illegitimate because I chose them, and that objectivity requires... what, exactly? That we don’t choose terms? That we operate without framing? But science, logic, philosophy—all disciplines begin by defining terms. That’s not manipulation. That’s foundational clarity. You want to challenge my definitions? Great. Let’s compare them to empirical evidence and explanatory power. But dismissing them because they were chosen is a distraction, not a rebuttal.

On its own terms means objectively.
You would start from a position of ignorance, observing actions....not from established theories.

That’s simply false. The scientific method does not begin from ignorance in the absolute sense. It begins from observation, yes, but always within a theoretical framework. Physics doesn't observe objects falling and then make up gravity from scratch every time. It builds on prior understanding—refining, falsifying, confirming. You’re implying that referencing established theories somehow disqualifies objectivity, when in fact, that’s what enables consistent observation. A theory is not a bias. It’s a model. The only question is whether the model fits the data.

How, Mickey, does science build its knowledge and understanding?
How?
By observing what?
Actions....behaviors.

Yes. And more. Science builds knowledge by observing behavior, yes—but also by analyzing the causes of behavior, identifying patterns, and modeling those patterns with increasing accuracy. You’re stopping at observation, as if that’s enough. But observation without causation is just surveillance. Science asks why. And the “why” leads—reliably—to physical causes. Genetics. Neurotransmission. Environmental conditioning. Hormonal regulation. That’s not emotional interpretation. That’s data.

Your objective is to "correct" what you observe.
This is what clouds your judgements with emotions.

Let’s slow that one down. The claim here is that I want to “correct” what I observe—and that this motivation leads to emotion, and emotion leads to bad reasoning. But here’s the thing: observing suffering caused by false beliefs should provoke a response. If someone believes that poverty is a result of moral failing, or that punishment is a cure for trauma, and I say, “That belief is unsupported by what we know about cause and effect,” that’s not emotional clouding. That’s ethical reasoning based on observable harm.

So if you’re saying, “You’re not objective because you want to make things better,” then yes—I admit it. I want systems that are aligned with how reality works. If that’s bias, then science itself is biased every time it leads to a vaccine, a bridge, or a functioning justice system.

Then you define concepts in a way that suits your emotionally driven objectives.

Let’s address this claim of “emotionally driven definitions.” Take “choice.” When I challenge the term, I’m not playing semantic games—I’m being precise. The word “choice,” as it’s commonly used, implies uncaused agency. A little magical center of the self hovering above determinism. I reject that. Not because I don’t like it emotionally, but because it contradicts everything we know about how neurons fire, how habits form, how trauma shapes personality.

Now, if you’re emotionally attached to the idea that “choice” is sacred, that might feel like emotional motivation on my part. But I assure you—it’s analysis, not sentiment.

Look at the verbal acrobatics you performed to avoid the term "choice."

No acrobatics. Just precision. If you want to keep the term “choice,” fine—but you’ll need to redefine it as the experience of deliberation, not as an uncaused metaphysical act. Once you define it within a deterministic framework, I have no problem using it descriptively. But I won’t affirm it as a magical interruption of causality. That’s not acrobatics. That’s intellectual hygiene.

If you want to be taken seriously you must define the words you use, empirically.....not conventionally....nor emotionally, nor ideologically.

Agreed. And that’s exactly what I’ve done. When I say “free will,” I refer to an uncaused causal agent. And I deny it exists—empirically. When I talk about “consciousness,” I refer to the emergent process of neuronal interactions—empirically. When I talk about “responsibility,” I ground it in outcome-based systems of accountability, not moral deserts—empirically.

What you seem to want is not empirical definition—but traditional definition. You want to hold onto folk concepts because they feel grounded. But science doesn’t validate feelings. It validates predictions. And in a world where behavior can be modeled and modified without invoking uncaused will, that’s the end of that debate—unless you can show where the chain of causality breaks.

So here’s the challenge back to you, Pistolero:
Where does causality fail?
Where does physical law pause so the “chooser” can step in?

If you can’t answer that, then the rest is just narrative. I’m here for truth, not comfort. Are you?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Okay, so right from the start, this isn’t about evaluating the truth-value of a claim I’ve made. It’s about identifying a rhetorical or psychological pattern—what I do—as if the structure of my communication somehow reveals something covert about my intentions, rather than the content itself being evaluated on its own terms.

No, that is not a fair assessment. My focus on man’s psychology — and not just yours — is a large part of (let’s say) my backgrounding in my intellectual life. For example I have over the course of my time on this forum referred to two essays by CG Jung — Wotan and After the Catastrophe as a means to make reference to psychic upheaval in what seems to be an invisible in man: his psyche. Woton was written prior to the last war; After the Catastrophe after the European devastation.

The present conversation, and everything occurring on this forum and the conflicts clearly visible — tremendous and consequential divisions between people and perspectives — I see within a larger context: a breakdown in a sense of order; or perhaps simply “the loss of horizon” Nietzsche referred to.

I see you within this context. As Hamlet describes the Actors: “...the abstract and brief chronicles of the time.” You are enunciating, concretizing — quite literally — what you understand to be a New Anthropology. A supposedly non-metaphysics metaphysics which replaces a former metaphysics. It is a totalizing, absolutist perspective, plainly and simply.

This is my view, BigMike, and this is why you are regarded as dangerous.

the structure of my communication somehow reveals something covert about my intentions

I suspect that what you call “my intentions” preceded what I call “the concoction”.

That is where the psychological factor plays its part. Your larger aims and objectives are what really motivates you (this is my impression).

[Pistolero]

Right away, this is setting up a false dichotomy—implying that “my terms” are somehow illegitimate because I chose them, and that objectivity requires... what, exactly? That we don’t choose terms?

I've explained this, Mickey.
How do we define the concept Horse?
We select a word, to represent an abstraction in our brain, based on the collection and processing of stimuli, using the medium (mediation) of light.... but the cocnept refers to what?
Kant called it a phenomenon....with a specific range of size and forms, coloration, behaviors...etc.

That’s simply false. The scientific method does not begin from ignorance in the absolute sense. It begins from observation, yes, but always within a theoretical framework. Physics doesn't observe objects falling and then make up gravity from scratch every time. It builds on prior understanding—refining, falsifying, confirming. You’re implying that referencing established theories somehow disqualifies objectivity, when in fact, that’s what enables consistent observation. A theory is not a bias. It’s a model. The only question is whether the model fits the data.

No Mickey...science has built a knowledge base, but what is its origins...ignorance.
It begins by observing what, Mickey?
Behavior, acts.
Empiricism, Mickey.
Then it tests and revised its theories...scientific method, Mickey.

Let’s slow that one down. The claim here is that I want to “correct” what I observe—and that this motivation leads to emotion, and emotion leads to bad reasoning. But here’s the thing: observing suffering caused by false beliefs should provoke a response. If someone believes that poverty is a result of moral failing, or that punishment is a cure for trauma, and I say, “That belief is unsupported by what we know about cause and effect,” that’s not emotional clouding. That’s ethical reasoning based on observable harm.

I know how you justify it, Mickey....
Thanks for admitting that your primary objective is to "correct" suffering....
This is why you are prejudiced by your own desire to eliminate your own suffering.

It corrupts your choice of definitions.

So if you’re saying, “You’re not objective because you want to make things better,” then yes—I admit it. I want systems that are aligned with how reality works. If that’s bias, then science itself is biased every time it leads to a vaccine, a bridge, or a functioning justice system.

So, you admit that your primary, dominant, objective is not clarity, but to heal the world's injustices and suffering...only as it pertains to one species.

Let’s address this claim of “emotionally driven definitions.” Take “choice.” When I challenge the term, I’m not playing semantic games—I’m being precise. The word “choice,” as it’s commonly used, implies uncaused agency. A little magical center of the self hovering above determinism. I reject that. Not because I don’t like it emotionally, but because it contradicts everything we know about how neurons fire, how habits form, how trauma shapes personality.

See what I mean...."commonly used."

What do YOU observe as choice, Mickey.
Forget conventions.
YOU Mickey...how have you experienced choice?
Metaphysically?
Was it an illusion, as determinists claim?

Agreed. And that’s exactly what I’ve done. When I say “free will,” I refer to an uncaused causal agent. And I deny it exists—empirically. When I talk about “consciousness,” I refer to the emergent process of neuronal interactions—empirically. When I talk about “responsibility,” I ground it in

So you adopt a definition of 'free' which is conventionally used to dismiss free-will, and you do not begin with the observable.
How honest of you.

Could not conventions define life in a way that would make it metaphysical?
Could they not then claim that life is an illusion?
They could because they do not begin with the empirical, but begin with the ideological.
And you would follow them if they couched it in pseudo-scientific jargon.

Where does physical law pause so the “chooser” can step in?
If you can’t answer that, then the rest is just narrative. I’m here for truth, not comfort. Are you?

See what I mean?
Why does reality have to pause?
All is a dynamic continuity, and the will participates in it.
You intentionally choose to define it in a way that would require a stoppage....or, perhaps, your IQ does not allow for an understanding that would not require a stoppage.

I gave the allegorical narrative of a boat floating down a river.
Boat = organism
Rudder = will
Steersman = reason.

The river need not be stopped....for will to be able to maneuver, Mickey.
This is what Will does...it does not stop existence.....it directs an organism's momentum....its movement, with intent, an objective, based on reasoning, and knowledge and understanding.
It does not step out of the river, Mickey. Within it.
PARTICIPATES, Mickey...are you so thick that you do not comprehend this?
Freedom is not going upriver, Mickey....freedom is in reference to the quantity of options available to the steersman.

Heidegger sues the allegory of throwness...we are thrown into existence, the river....and we must swim...mickey.....Will is essential to survival.
It cannot be negated with your pronouncements and word juggling, even if you simply adopt the method form others.....
You experience will constantly, Mickey....nothing stops....the river of time need not be stopped and reversed for life to be able to choose a course of action.

Sheesh....


I think I'm done with ya.
This is fatiguing.
So much need.....so much naivete....so much desire...
Zero objectivity.

[BigMike]

All right, Pistolero. Let’s roll up the sleeves and take this carefully—line by line, no sidestepping, no selective replies. I’ll meet every point on the field you laid out. No name-calling, no tribal signaling, just clarity and logic.

Mickey, when you asked me to define 'will' and 'free', I gave you a definition that was NOT metaphysical, as you expected, but physical.

Good—if that’s true, then we’re speaking the same language. But let’s be rigorous: what was your definition? If you define “will” physically, then I expect it to be based on material processes—neurons, synapses, hormonal triggers, memory encoding, and environmental response loops. Not just behavior described as will, but will explained as physical dynamics. Otherwise, we’re back to intuitive metaphors masquerading as empirical definitions.

So: did you define “will” as something caused—that is, part of the causal web of the physical universe? Or as a source of causation that operates independently of prior inputs? If it’s the former, you’re not disagreeing with me. If it’s the latter, you’ve slipped metaphysics back in through the side door, no matter what label you gave it.

Then you challenged me to explain how....as if my perceptions of will could be sanely dismissed because I failed to explain the source.

Yes, because perception is not proof. We perceive a stable self. We perceive continuity of identity. We perceive time as linear. We perceive that the sun “moves across the sky.” But all of these perceptions are interpretations, not direct access to reality. The job of science—of reason—is not to rubber-stamp perception, but to investigate its cause.

If your definition of will is based on “I feel it,” then yes, I challenge it. Because feelings are not arbiters of truth. They are data—useful, meaningful, but not sacred.

So, Mickey....if you cannot explain how life emerges nor how it works, absolutely and completely, does the perception of life become an illusion for you and you ilk?

No, not at all. Incomplete understanding ≠ non-existence. But some claims do require explanation before they can be accepted—especially if they violate established laws.

For example: we don’t fully understand consciousness. But we don’t claim it’s supernatural. We investigate. But free will—as it’s traditionally conceived—does contradict physical law. If you're claiming will acts independently of prior causes, you are implying an exception to causality. That does need more than perception to be taken seriously.

And if your answer is “we feel it, so it must be real,” then you’re just relabeling wishful thinking as insight.

I can give you a hypothesis on how will works or how it emerges, but it is not necessary, Mickey....because we both can witness it, and experience it in ourselves, can't we?

We experience decision-making. That doesn’t mean we experience free will. We experience light—but it took centuries to understand that photons don’t behave like billiard balls. We experience “self”—but neuroscience shows that the self is a constructed narrative, not a static core. So yes, we experience choice-making behavior. But that behavior is explained by underlying causes. That's not a denial of the experience. It’s a clarification of the mechanism behind it.

It exists, whether we can understand it or not.
Once we establish that it exists, then we can proceed into the details.

Only if it exists coherently. If you're defining “will” as a label for behavioral experience, no problem. If you’re defining it as an autonomous initiator of action that bypasses causality, then no—you haven’t established anything but belief. You’re assuming what needs to be proven.

So Will exists, and it requires no metaphysics.....and no explanation.

No explanation? Come on now. That’s the heart of dogma. Everything in the natural world requires explanation if we’re going to build a rational framework. If your “will” operates within causal chains—okay, let’s model it. If it doesn’t, you’ve just claimed a ghost with a new name.

Freedom exists, as strength, because it is nothing more than a qualifier.

This is a little fuzzy. “Freedom exists as strength” sounds like rhetorical poetry more than empirical analysis. If you mean freedom is relative capacity—like the degrees of mobility a person has in a system—fine. But let’s distinguish that from metaphysical “freedom” as independent will. That’s the crux here. Determinists don’t deny functional choice. They deny uncaused choice. Big difference.

If your "science" cannot do the same, then how different is it from a religion?

Let’s pause. Science doesn’t claim to explain everything. But it makes testable claims. If you say “will exists and doesn’t need explanation,” that’s religion. If I say “behavior is caused and here’s the evidence,” that’s science. The difference is in method. Not completeness.

Science says: let’s trace the chain. Religion says: stop asking—just believe.

Define equality.

Sure. Equality, in political or ethical terms, is the principle that individuals should be treated with the same consideration under a given set of rules or laws, regardless of arbitrary characteristics. It doesn’t mean everyone is the same in capacity or outcome—but that the playing field isn’t skewed by irrelevant factors like race, gender, or wealth.

If you want a biological or philosophical breakdown of “equal,” we can go deeper, but that’s a fair starting point.

Define justice.

Justice is the alignment of actions and consequences within a system of fairness. Under determinism, justice shifts from retribution to causal accountability. Not “you deserve this because you chose it,” but “this is the outcome of what caused you, and here is how society must respond to protect itself or rehabilitate you.”

Describe how man evolved without sub-species, since you are so scientifically minded. I assume you accept natural selection as an explanation concerning the multiplicity of life.

Yes, I accept natural selection. And I also understand that Homo sapiens is a single species with regional adaptations—which is exactly what anthropology and genetics confirm. There were once other hominins—Neanderthals, Denisovans—but they went extinct or were absorbed through interbreeding.

Sub-species require sustained reproductive isolation and distinct evolutionary paths. Humans, for most of their history, migrated, interbred, and mixed traits. So no, modern racial categories do not correspond to biological sub-species. That’s not politics—that’s genomics.

How does speciation occur, Mickey, without intermediate steps, often producing sub-species, breeds, types, races?

It doesn’t occur without intermediates. That’s the whole point. But those intermediates don’t always result in modern, genetically isolated categories. You’re using “race” here in a folk taxonomy. In reality, human genetic variation is clinal—not categorical. There’s more variation within so-called races than between them. That’s not woke ideology. That’s peer-reviewed biology.

I bet you will recoil from that one, wont you Mickey. The American political zeitgeist has infected your brain.

No recoil. Just rigor. If your implication is that scientific consensus is a product of ideology—then sure, let’s talk about methodology. But if your fallback is “you’re brainwashed” every time evidence contradicts a folk belief, then you’re not doing science. You’re doing cultural grievance.

So here’s the offer: if you want a clean, scientific debate about will, freedom, biology, justice—we can have that. But it has to be disciplined. Not poetic smoke bombs. Not vague assertions. Show where the causal chain breaks. Show where agency arises independently. Otherwise, you’re making emotional claims in a lab coat.

I won’t recoil. But I will ask you to put your cards on the table.