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.
Pistolero wrote: ↑Sat Apr 19, 2025 2:23 pm
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.
