Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Tue Nov 07, 2023 1:35 am**

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2023 11:51 pmIt's not a reduction.

Sure seems like it to me. Mebbe I'm missin' sumthin'. Can you illustrate by example? Tell me: what is it that leads you to choose A over B?

We can look at it as a whole state.

You mean you have to look at the whole person, yes? If you don't mean that then I don't know what you're talkin' about with a whole state.

A state that includes those things and other things like what you just perceived, your intuition, processes of reasoning, that day's temperment, and so on.

Well, yes things happen around me, happen to me. The world is dynamic, circumstances shift. Thank Crom I remain stable, coherent, consistent in the midst of it.

But either your actions come out of who you are the moment before you make that choice or they are random.

Who I am now is who I was five minutes ago, five hours ago, five days ago, etc. I complexify with experience, I don't become someone new. Do you see yourself as a different person from moment to moment? If so, describe that to me cuz it seems to me to be an awful way to live.

Unless you want to perversely what go against your (yes very complicated nature) your choices reflect who you are in that moment before the action is performed/the choice is made.

My nature is to self-direct, self-rely, and be self-responsible. I'm always choosing: responses, actions, paths, goals, this or that. And not as ephemera but as, as I say, a consistent, coherent, person. There is no me of the moment. There's just 61 year old me.

If the complicated whole that you are in the moment before the decision does not inevitably lead to the choice/action, what does?

I choose. I am the cause.

Posted: **Tue Nov 07, 2023 1:43 am**

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 1:00 amThanks, henry. I couldn't have said it better myself.

You'll not lure me back into conversation with hollow praise. You go have fun with your lil fractured self and leave me be. Talk to IWP. Apparently he believes a person is nuthin' but a moment to moment state. Mebbe it's your natural state to be broken.

Posted: **Tue Nov 07, 2023 3:10 am**

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 1:10 am
phyllo wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2023 11:50 pmI'm baffled as to how that could work.
Explain what baffles you.

Well, how this 'I' of yours works.

Either it's permanent, in which case it could be considered part of your biology.

Or it's changing based on your experiences, in which case it could be considered part of your history.

There appear to be no others ways for it to exist.

Therefore, this 'I' is determined.

And then there is the question of what being "informed" by history and genes means. Logically it would seem to mean that these are causes for decisions and actions. Which appears to be determinism.

There's no space for liberterian free-will in this.

Posted: **Tue Nov 07, 2023 3:31 am**

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 3:10 am

Well, how this 'I' of yours works.

If, as you suggest, man is just meat and mind is just brain state, then, no, none of us can be free wills.

However: man is sumthin' more than meat, and mind is not a brain state, so, yes, each of us is libertarian free will.

there is the question of what being "informed" by history and genes means. Logically it would seem to mean that these are causes for decisions and actions.

To be informed/to inform (to acquire, understand, and use information) is not synonymous with cause, causing, or being caused. You are the cause, not your bits or your incidentals.

Posted: **Tue Nov 07, 2023 3:49 am**

Those are just assertions.

There is no reasoning to support them.

Posted: **Tue Nov 07, 2023 4:50 am**

henry quack wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 1:43 am
iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 1:00 amThanks, henry. I couldn't have said it better myself.
You'll not lure me back into conversation with hollow praise. You go have fun with your lil fractured self and leave me be. Talk to IWP. Apparently he believes a person is nuthin' but a moment to moment state. Mebbe it's your natural state to be broken.

I'll see you in Hell, I'm sure.

Right, Mr. Cant?

Posted: **Tue Nov 07, 2023 5:40 am**

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 1:00 am Thanks, henry. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Really? No other outcome was possible. That sounds like libertarian free will?

How strange, strange bedfellows can be.

Henry defending his position Iambiguous.....

Well, yes things happen around me, happen to me. The world is dynamic, circumstances shift. Thank Crom I remain stable, coherent, consistent in the midst of it.

Posted: **Tue Nov 07, 2023 5:42 am**

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 3:31 am To be informed/to inform (to acquire, understand, and use information) is not synonymous with cause, causing, or being caused. You are the cause, not your bits or your incidentals.

Yup, you are the cause. So, the next instant is determined by your prior moments entire state. It's still caused, utterly, because you were in that entire state you were in.

I mean, unless you perversely decide, for no reason at all, to go against your nature, and do things you don't want to do and nothing in you would lead you to do, again for no reason at all.

Posted: **Tue Nov 07, 2023 5:45 am**

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 1:35 am Who I am now is who I was five minutes ago, five hours ago, five days ago, etc. I complexify with experience, I don't become someone new. Do you see yourself as a different person from moment to moment? If so, describe that to me cuz it seems to me to be an awful way to live.

It only gets more clearly determined if you are exactly the same moment to moment. If you do not change. Then you would at any given moment in your life react the same to the given circumstances.

Posted: **Tue Nov 07, 2023 5:50 am**

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 5:40 am
iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 1:00 am Thanks, henry. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Really? No other outcome was possible. That sounds like libertarian free will?

How strange, strange bedfellows can be.

Henry defending his position Iambiguous.....
Well, yes things happen around me, happen to me. The world is dynamic, circumstances shift. Thank Crom I remain stable, coherent, consistent in the midst of it.

Doesn't sound like dasein, either.

Posted: **Tue Nov 07, 2023 8:31 am**

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 12:51 am
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2023 10:43 amThat being said, many of us Sam Harris fans consider him essentially a "compatibilist" who just doesn't like the wording of compatibilism or free will.
And, of course, what he likes or dislikes is also compatible with determinism as he understands it.

Then what he wants or does not want and Schopenhauer's assessment of that.

This might pass for English where you're from, but where I'm from we have to complete our sentences. "Then what he wants or does not want and Schopenhauer's assessment of that." That's not a sentence. That's a fragment of a sentence. Where is the rest of it?

Posted: **Tue Nov 07, 2023 6:59 pm**

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 5:40 am
iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 1:00 am Thanks, henry. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Really? No other outcome was possible. That sounds like libertarian free will?

How strange, strange bedfellows can be.

I'm not arguing for or against autonomy, determinism or compatibilism. Sure, Libertarian free will may well be the most rational frame of mind here. I was just pointing out how, in my view, henry's point to phyllo did not seem all that far removed from my own to him. But even then, the post was largely tongue in cheek.

On the other hand, I'm back to the brain being matter and how all other matter seems to be entirely in sync with the laws of matter. So, if autonomy has become a component of human interactions, how exactly is that actually explained?

Now, phyllo may or may not be a Christian. So, perhaps, he explains it as a manifestation of a God-given soul. After all, isn't God and religion how he justifies objective morality?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 5:40 amHenry defending his position Iambiguous.....

Well, yes things happen around me, happen to me. The world is dynamic, circumstances shift. Thank Crom I remain stable, coherent, consistent in the midst of it.

And...?

Posted: **Tue Nov 07, 2023 7:14 pm**

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 5:50 am
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 5:40 am
iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 1:00 am Thanks, henry. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Really? No other outcome was possible. That sounds like libertarian free will?

How strange, strange bedfellows can be.

Henry defending his position Iambiguous.....
Well, yes things happen around me, happen to me. The world is dynamic, circumstances shift. Thank Crom I remain stable, coherent, consistent in the midst of it.

Doesn't sound like dasein, either.

Dasein, as I understand it, revolves around the assumption -- and how could it possibly be more than just an assumption on my part? -- that in the is/ought world, "I" is ever and always at the existential intersection of identity, value judgments, conflicting goods and political economy.

Assuming, in turn, that "somehow" we did acquire autonomy when bear brains became ape brains became our brains. And how is that not but a leap of faith for all of us?

I just shifted the path from one jungle to another: https://youtu.be/gSw5l5jMnPM?si=n6o4z9wHyyaj9fKY

I introduced the element of moral responsibility.

If you get my drift.

Then the final scene: https://youtu.be/CzNy7fNo-gI?si=xwbbC5dx7yUwfiGc

If you get my drift.

Posted: **Tue Nov 07, 2023 7:16 pm**

Now, phyllo may or may not be a Christian. So, perhaps, he explains it as a manifestation of a God-given soul. After all, isn't God and religion how he justifies objective morality?

WTF

Posted: **Tue Nov 07, 2023 7:28 pm**

Flannel Jesus must think he/she is still back at ILP...

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2023 10:43 am That being said, many of us Sam Harris fans consider him essentially a "compatibilist" who just doesn't like the wording of compatibilism or free will.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 12:51 amAs though that's my point. It's not what you claim to know about Harris or what he says he believes about free will. It's about whether or not either one of you were ever able to claim or to believe something else instead. Why? Because in a free will world as I understand it, new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge might prompt you to rethink it all and change your mind. Whereas in a wholly determined universe as others understand it, all claims and all beliefs are just more dominoes toppling over onto each other by brains totally in sync with the "immutable laws of matter".

And, of course, what he likes or dislikes is also compatible with determinism as he understands it.

Then what he wants or does not want and Schopenhauer's assessment of that.

"Man can do what he wants, but man can't want what he wants." It was Arthur Schopenhauer who wrote: “Man does at all times only what he wills, and yet he does this necessarily." the philosopher's shirt

On the other hand...

"Schopenhauer argues that all human actions are causally necessitated, as are all other events in empirical nature, hence there is no freedom in the sense of liberum arbitrium indifferentiae. However, our sense of responsibility or agency (being the 'doers of our deeds') is nonetheless unshakeable." Cambridge University Press

Same thing? Is our "unshakeable sense of responsibility" but one more inherent manifestation of the psychological illusion of free will?

Psychologically we "just know" we have free will. But psychologically were we ever really free not to "just know" that?

Flannel Jesus aka Mr. Snippet wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2023 10:43 am This might pass for English where you're from, but where I'm from we have to complete our sentences. "Then what he wants or does not want and Schopenhauer's assessment of that." That's not a sentence. That's a fragment of a sentence. Where is the rest of it?

I'm giving him/her a change to scrap the huffing and puffing -- the Stooge Stuff -- and actually explore Sam Harris's view here in a substantive manner.

Instead...grammar!!!

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