Philosophy Now Forum

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 12:44 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 12:37 pm Those statements aren't really true because they are a butchering of grammar. Specifically the use of the word 'never'.

What they suggest is that all reactions are independent of an underlying reality. The reaction is forced by the "laws of nature" rather than any reasonable derivation from experience.

Sure. I wanted to bypass all that, since it delays me saying a kind of 'so what'.

One pattern I notice in this thread and others is the implicatory response. I think that response you came up with for a hypothetical person is an implicative response.

IOW it is presented as if it is a critique. It has an implied 'Hey you're wrong because.....'
But I don't think it entails any critique at all of what I said.

So, I could have gone into the grammar, but I think it's better to respond more in the spirit of 'OK, so?'

It's up to the hypothetical person to demonstrate how that makes what I said false.

One thing some hypothetical persons have a habit of not doing.

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 12:52 pm But the whole "you're wrong" and "you're right" gets bypassed because thinking that something or someone is right or wrong is just forced onto the person saying it.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 12:27 am

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 9:41 pm It's his basic idea that the brain and "laws of nature" compel everything that determinists and compatibilists think.

And therefore, all thoughts and ideas are equivalent and meaningless. True and false mean nothing. Reasoning is no different than non-reasoning.

Because there is no control over it.

Yes, essentially, in a No God world where nature itself is wholly responsible for everything we think and feel and say and do here on planet Earth, well, doesn't everything unfold in the only possible reality?

Then back to those aliens in the hypothetical free will sector of the universe observing us interacting down here in such a way that we really do think that we have at least some measure of control over what we think and feel and say and do. Only the autonomous aliens know that this reflects but the psychological illusion of free will because "somehow" human psychology itself is but an inherent manifestation of the only possible world.

It's like in our dreams when we think that we are behaving autonomously only to wake up and realize that everything we "thought", "felt" "said" and "did" in the dream was entirely concocted by the brain.

Or when we watch a movie and the characters up on the screen seem to think and feel and say and do things of their own volition...only it's all entirely in sync with what the screenwriter and the director are telling them to think and feel and say and do.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 10:18 pm It terminates a discussion, since there is no true/false evaluation to anything that is said. All is babble.

No, our discussions continue. And they are hardly construed by us to be babble. Same with the discussions I have with others in my dreams. They are by and large entirely coherent.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 9:41 pm That's probably because you don't actually believe it. Or, click, you pretend that you have free-will.

I certainly don't believe it.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 9:41 pmBut it does get tiresome when you bring it out as the answer to everything determinism/compatibilism.

[Compatibilists] believe what they do only because they were never able not to believe it. So, compatibilists reconcile an inevitable, wholly determined abortion with moral responsibility but only because every single component of their brain, in sync with the laws of matter, compels them to? Is that what they are concluding? Not that moral responsibility actually is reconcilable with determinism, but that the compatibilists thinking that it is is?

It simply makes no sense to me "here and now" that if Mary was unable not to abort her unborn baby, that she can still be held morally responsible for doing so. Unless, when someone does hold her morally responsible, they do so, in turn, only because they were never able not to...in a world where all of our brains are entirely in sync with the laws of matter. And thus everything that we think and feel and say and do is but an inherent, necessary manifestation of the only possible reality.

Then "the gap" and "Rummy's Rule" in regard to grasping how the human condition fits into the ontological -- teleological? -- understanding of the existence of existence itself.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 12:27 amIt killed the 'Determinism' thread at IPL because you wrote it as a reply to almost everything that Peacegirl posted. Dozens, maybe hundreds of times. One could almost see her foaming at the mouth.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 1:07 pm "you said that because you could never not say it", no matter how true it is, doesn't actually do anything to advance the conversation. If it's true, it's the most empty truth imaginable.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 2:58 pm

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 1:07 pm "you said that because you could never not say it", no matter how true it is, doesn't actually do anything to advance the conversation. If it's true, it's the most empty truth imaginable.

I could see some poster having that as the basis of there singular skeptical stance. But to shift between saying that and asking other people for justification or to making arguments yourself is just being disruptive/hypocritical, whether or not you could do anything other than be disruptive/hypocritical.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 3:19 pm Right. "nothing you say matters, so what do you have to say about that?" And then you say something and he's like "doesn't matter" lmao. Check mate

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 3:29 pm Instead of being a slave purely to physics, it seems as though some people would prefer to be a slave only mostly to physics, and partly to randomness.

That's really where my compatibilist train of thought begins.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 11:59 pm

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 8:30 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 8:14 pm I concede that flannel jesus -- Mr. Wiggle -- has a greater philosophical understanding of compatibilism than I do.

As gracious as this concession is, it's not what I'm looking for. I'd much prefer you to leave this conversation understanding that compatibilism is not about making exceptions for determinism inside human brains.

On the other hand, some determinists will insist, they would rather have you leave the conversation understanding that what you tell them compatibilism is all about is but an inherent and necessary manifestation of your brain compelling you to tell them that. Just as my brain compels me to post this.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 8:14 pm I invite him therefore to take this far more sophisticated understanding down out of the technical clouds and intertwine it into his reaction to this:

[Compatibilists] believe what they do only because they were never able not to believe it. So, compatibilists reconcile an inevitable, wholly determined abortion with moral responsibility but only because every single component of their brain, in sync with the laws of matter, compels them to? Is that what they are concluding? Not that moral responsibility actually is reconcilable with determinism, but that the compatibilists thinking that it is is?

It simply makes no sense to me "here and now" that if Mary was unable not to abort her unborn baby, that she can still be held morally responsible for doing so. Unless, when someone does hold her morally responsible, they do so, in turn, only because they were never able not to...in a world where all of our brains are entirely in sync with the laws of matter. And thus everything that we think and feel and say and do is but an inherent, necessary manifestation of the only possible reality.

Then "the gap" and "Rummy's Rule" in regard to grasping how the human condition fits into the ontological -- teleological? -- understanding of the existence of existence itself.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 8:30 pmYou've said quite a lot there, and I really don't know how to reply to all of that - I'm much better at replying to very focused posts and questions. In that vein, I'll pick out the most highlighted part of the above text and just imagine that this is the question you want me to focus on:

Is that what they are concluding? Not that moral responsibility actually is reconcilable with determinism, but that the compatibilists thinking that it is is?

You're asking, are compatibilists concluding that compatibilists think that responsibility is reconcilable with determinism, but compatibilists are not concluding that moral responsibility actually is reconcilable with determinism?

Click. I'm asking them to tell me if the voters here -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gY20_InCKs -- are compelled by their brains to vote only as they must vote? And if they are so compelled by their brains "beyond their control" and the outcome is what it turns out to be -- because there was never any possibility of it turning out otherwise -- can those on the other side hold them responsible for voting as they did even though they were not ble to vote any other way? And, if they do hold them responsible, is that too only because their brains compelled them to hold the other side responsible?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 8:30 pmIf so, I don't really understand that question. Surely if compatibilists conclude that they think it's reconciliable with determinism, then compatibilists have also concluded that it actually is reconcilable with determinism.

Again, from my frame of mind "here and now", if the compatibilists conclude that moral responsibility is reconcilable with determinism not only because they want to conclude this but because they were never able to not want to conclude this, then what they conclude becomes an inherent manifestation of the only possible reality. They may say it's reconcilable but that is only because they were never able not to say otherwise. Thus everything that we think, feel, say and do is but an intrinsic component of the laws of matter. That includes all of the voters in Ohio. The whole voting process itself reflects merely the psychological illusion of autonomous votes because human psychology itself is an inherent and necessary component of the laws of matter.

Depending of course on whether or not -- God or No God -- human brain matter "somehow" acquired free will when non-biological matter itself "somehow" evolved into biological matter on Earth evolved into conscious biological matter evolved into us.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 8:30 pmCan you explain what the difference is here? What's the difference between a compatibilist who says "I conclude that I think that responsibility is reconcilable with determinism" vs a compatibilist who says "I conclude that responsibility is actually compatible with determinism"? To me, both of those compatibilists are saying the same thing, I'm having a hard time understanding why there's a difference here for you, one that you think is worth highlighting and focusing on.

if the compatibilists' brains are compelling them to think as they must what difference does it make what they think? There was no possibility of them thinking other than how they must think.

It's just that mere mortals do not possess the capacity -- philosophically, scientifically or theologically -- to pin this down such that we know what the objective truth is here. That would involve the brain itself explaining itself 13 to 14 billion years after matter supposedly came into existence in the first place if you believe in the Big Bang.

Unless, of course, I'm wrong. But what on Earth does it mean to be either eight or wrong here given both The Gap and Rummy's Rule?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 5:22 am It sounds to me like all those words are just saying, in short, that to you compatibilism doesn't make sense.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 5:22 am Good. Fine. Lots of very bright, intelligent people don't think compatibilism makes sense. If you don't think compatibilism makes sense, that's allowed. I'm not going to try to make it make sense to you. I don't believe there's any sequence of words I could possibly say that could make it make sense to you. Much less demonstrate that it's true.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 5:22 am My goal here was much more achievable than that - just to clarify for you what compatibilism means. That it means, simply, that free will and determinism can be compatible, and that it doesn't mean making exceptions to determinism inside of bifurcated brains. If you understand that, but come away thinking compatibilism doesn't make sense, that's perfectly acceptable. I do not think you're intellectually or morally required to accept compatibilism or to even think it makes sense.

How about commenting on my points here?

Believe what?

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. What answer do I bring out?

My take revolves around peacegirl becoming more and more agitated, perturbed by my posts there. To the point where she wanted me gone from the thread.

Which by the way no one is required to click on. Same with my posts here. Fed up with all the dozens, maybe hundreds of times I post much the same thing? Don't click on me.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 3:36 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 11:59 pm

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 8:30 pm
As gracious as this concession is, it's not what I'm looking for. I'd much prefer you to leave this conversation understanding that compatibilism is not about making exceptions for determinism inside human brains.

On the other hand, some determinists will insist, they would rather have you leave the conversation understanding that what you tell them compatibilism is all about is but an inherent and necessary manifestation of your brain compelling you to tell them that. Just as my brain compels me to post this.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 8:14 pm I invite him therefore to take this far more sophisticated understanding down out of the technical clouds and intertwine it into his reaction to this:

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 8:30 pmYou've said quite a lot there, and I really don't know how to reply to all of that - I'm much better at replying to very focused posts and questions. In that vein, I'll pick out the most highlighted part of the above text and just imagine that this is the question you want me to focus on:

Is that what they are concluding? Not that moral responsibility actually is reconcilable with determinism, but that the compatibilists thinking that it is is?

You're asking, are compatibilists concluding that compatibilists think that responsibility is reconcilable with determinism, but compatibilists are not concluding that moral responsibility actually is reconcilable with determinism?

Click. I'm asking them to tell me if the voters here -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gY20_InCKs -- are compelled by their brains to vote only as they must vote? And if they are so compelled by their brains "beyond their control" and the outcome is what it turns out to be -- because there was never any possibility of it turning out otherwise -- can those on the other side hold them responsible for voting as they did even though they were not ble to vote any other way? And, if they do hold them responsible, is that too only because their brains compelled them to hold the other side responsible?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 8:30 pmIf so, I don't really understand that question. Surely if compatibilists conclude that they think it's reconciliable with determinism, then compatibilists have also concluded that it actually is reconcilable with determinism.

Again, from my frame of mind "here and now", if the compatibilists conclude that moral responsibility is reconcilable with determinism not only because they want to conclude this but because they were never able to not want to conclude this, then what they conclude becomes an inherent manifestation of the only possible reality. They may say it's reconcilable but that is only because they were never able not to say otherwise. Thus everything that we think, feel, say and do is but an intrinsic component of the laws of matter. That includes all of the voters in Ohio. The whole voting process itself reflects merely the psychological illusion of autonomous votes because human psychology itself is an inherent and necessary component of the laws of matter.

Depending of course on whether or not -- God or No God -- human brain matter "somehow" acquired free will when non-biological matter itself "somehow" evolved into biological matter on Earth evolved into conscious biological matter evolved into us.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 8:30 pmCan you explain what the difference is here? What's the difference between a compatibilist who says "I conclude that I think that responsibility is reconcilable with determinism" vs a compatibilist who says "I conclude that responsibility is actually compatible with determinism"? To me, both of those compatibilists are saying the same thing, I'm having a hard time understanding why there's a difference here for you, one that you think is worth highlighting and focusing on.

if the compatibilists' brains are compelling them to think as they must what difference does it make what they think? There was no possibility of them thinking other than how they must think.

It's just that mere mortals do not possess the capacity -- philosophically, scientifically or theologically -- to pin this down such that we know what the objective truth is here. That would involve the brain itself explaining itself 13 to 14 billion years after matter supposedly came into existence in the first place if you believe in the Big Bang.

Unless, of course, I'm wrong. But what on Earth does it mean to be either eight or wrong here given both The Gap and Rummy's Rule?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 5:22 am It sounds to me like all those words are just saying, in short, that to you compatibilism doesn't make sense.

Sigh...

What does not make sense to me is how compatibilists can argue that Mary was wholly determined to abort Jane and that Mary is still morally responsible for doing so. Again: Unless in holding her morally responsible this too is but another inherent manifestation of the only possible reality. In their brains, I speculate, are these two contradictory frames of mind. But not really...not from the perspective of nature with its immutable laws of matter. The brain is the brain is the brain. Dreaming or wide awake it compels everything that we think, feel, say and do.

After all, that's why libertarians are so fiercely committed to free will. If we don't have it, how can we really be held responsible for what we were never able not to do? It's like God and morality. Many theists insist that "in the absence of God all things are permitted". So, for that reason alone God must exist. Same with free will for the libertarians. If we have no free will all behaviors are justified because all behaviors are wholly determined.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 5:22 am Good. Fine. Lots of very bright, intelligent people don't think compatibilism makes sense. If you don't think compatibilism makes sense, that's allowed. I'm not going to try to make it make sense to you. I don't believe there's any sequence of words I could possibly say that could make it make sense to you. Much less demonstrate that it's true.

Sigh...

The point isn't whether we think that compatibilism makes sense or does not make sense. The point is that in regard to whatever we think about it did we have the real deal option to think about it some other way instead? We want to think what we do about it. But we can't want to want to think that. That's entirely the embodiment of a material brain wholly in sync with all of the other dominoes around it. Toppling over on cue to sustain the only possible reality.

Unless, of course, this is wrong? Cue one or another God out there? Cue one or another philosopher king down here? One way or the other, the "final solution"?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 5:22 am My goal here was much more achievable than that - just to clarify for you what compatibilism means. That it means, simply, that free will and determinism can be compatible, and that it doesn't mean making exceptions to determinism inside of bifurcated brains. If you understand that, but come away thinking compatibilism doesn't make sense, that's perfectly acceptable. I do not think you're intellectually or morally required to accept compatibilism or to even think it makes sense.

Right, your goal. The assumption being that it is your goal. And autonomously, of your own volition, you pursue it.

Unless, of course, you don't. Unless, of course, it's all a manifestation of your material brain in thrall to the psychological illusion of free will.

But you "just know" that's not the case? "Somehow" human intuition became the exception?

Somehow.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 3:52 pm No exception. Pretty simple my dude. Compatibilism is not about exceptions to determinism. Very straight forward.

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 4:57 pm

How about commenting on my points here?

What points?
I see nothing interesting in talking about dreams or movies.

Your hypothetical aliens have been around for years. Nothing more to be said about them.

Believe what? In fact, my point is that until science and/or philosophy and/or theology is able to determine definitively whether we do in fact have free will, what we believe about it may or may not be all that we were ever able to believe. That's why I often include the surreal "click" here. I'm suggesting, "okay, let's presume that we do have free will here even though I cannot be certain if I am in fact compelled by my brain to note it".

There's no getting around that quandary for any of us.

Mr. Sanippet wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 4:57 pmI don't believe that the "laws of nature" are forcing people to think something that is independent of the underlying reality.

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 4:57 pmBut it does get tiresome when you bring it out as the answer to everything determinism/compatibilism.

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. What answer do I bring out? Instead, after asking "what is compatibilism?" to the "serious philosophers" here I then ask them to take their own answers here:

[Compatibilists] believe what they do only because they were never able not to believe it. So, compatibilists reconcile an inevitable, wholly determined abortion with moral responsibility but only because every single component of their brain, in sync with the laws of matter, compels them to? Is that what they are concluding? Not that moral responsibility actually is reconcilable with determinism, but that the compatibilists thinking that it is is?

It simply makes no sense to me "here and now" that if Mary was unable not to abort her unborn baby, that she can still be held morally responsible for doing so. Unless, when someone does hold her morally responsible, they do so, in turn, only because they were never able not to...in a world where all of our brains are entirely in sync with the laws of matter. And thus everything that we think and feel and say and do is but an inherent, necessary manifestation of the only possible reality.

Then "the gap" and "Rummy's Rule" in regard to grasping how the human condition fits into the ontological -- teleological? -- understanding of the existence of existence itself.

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 4:57 pm"You can never have not posted what you posted". Or some variation of it, in response to some point a poster has made.

My take revolves around peacegirl becoming more and more agitated, perturbed by my posts there. To the point where she wanted me gone from the thread.

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 4:57 pmShe became more and more agitated because you stonewalled her repeatedly with your "answer".

Which by the way no one is required to click on. Same with my posts here. Fed up with all the dozens, maybe hundreds of times I post much the same thing? Don't click on me.

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 4:57 pmStop misinterpreting determinism, compatibilism and free-will and I won't come in to correct you.

The problem is that left alone, you spread misinformation.

That's bad.