Philosophy Now Forum

You guys ought come up with an example that sounds like determinism. Maybe in a jungle setting.

If cutting a path in the jungle is an example of libertarian free-will, then do ants, jaguars, boars also have libertarian free-will when they make a path in the jungle?

How about beavers building dams. Or birds building nests? Or termites?

As with termites and birds and beavers and ants and jaguars and boars and all other living, biological creatures who might create paths in the jungle, human beings can create them too.

But, come on, do we speak of free will in regard to...termites? No, each and every one of the animals above are propelled by brains almost entirely intertwined in biological imperatives.

But "somehow" when their brains eventually evolved into our brains, at the very least [God or No God] we acquired the psychological illusion of free will, right?

We are the only animals with brains capable of either creating or finding paths that permit us to go in this -- https://youtu.be/ngWBddVNVZs?si=yX1fRCE1BuaqS4YM -- direction.

No one is going tp ask, "ought termites and beavers and ants, etc., behave as they do in creating paths in the jungle?" But what about those man-made paths in the film?

And the new paths that will be forged as the Europeans arrive in the jungle at the end of the film.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 9:29 pm

Iwannaplato wrote:Phyllo made it clear that what happened was always going to happen. That does not fit with Libertarian free will.

What phyllo posted:

phyllo wrote:You are in a jungle with a machete. You look around. You decide where the best place is to cut. The decision is based on the environment, your ability, your goals, your tools. The path is created by your cutting. It wasn't there before you cut it. When you look back, you say "Yeah, that path was determined. I would not cut anything differently. I thought that it was the best cut to make at that time and place."

Then -- click -- henry reacted to that. It sounded [to him] like something you'd hear from a free will advocate.

And I concurred.

Notice that he is saying something that any read of my posts would show I was quite clear on.

henry quirk wrote:See, that to me, sounds like libertarian free will...

Sounds like it to me too.

But in the either/or world, cutting a path through a jungle revolves around coming up with the most rational manner in which to do so. The reason the path was created is left out.

But it's inevitabllity was left in. And this goes against your interpretations, as I pointed out posts ago.

Notice that is not responded to here.

That's why I introduced a moral element: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSw5l5jMnPM

How could you know your own motives? Why aren't you in doubt about them? I guess you're a free will determinist like Sam Harris. I guess you believe your brain is somehow autonomous unlike the rest of matter. And what the F does Iambiguous think that video have to do with what I wrote.

Iambigious, like VA, does not respond to posts. Other people's posts remind Iambiguous and VA of things they have already said. They inspire repetition, even if that repetition is not a response to what they quote.

Imagine living with these people:

Roomate/spouse: I want you to hang your towel up on the rack after you shower.
Iambiguous: You do? You know Will Durant was very critical of the 'epistemologists''?
Roomate/Spouse: Hello, over here. Stop talking to the mirror.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 10:25 am

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 10:19 amWhich would all be rather trivial except it empowered Iambiguous to pretend the same thing.

Iambiguous is honest, it's all in his name. "Ambiguous". Some "philosophers", if we allow ourselves a big enough head to even use that word, love clarity above all else. Some philosophers get into philosophy because they want clearer answers, or the tools to get clearer answers. Some philosophers, on the other hand, love ambiguity. Iambiguous puts it right there in his name. Henry Quirk and him are getting along so well in this thread because they enjoy ambiguity.

Thinkers who crave clarity, and thinkers who like playing in the mud of ambiguity - those two types of thinkers are like oil and water.

Click.

Just for the record, I am not ambiguous at all regarding human interactions in the either/or world. The laws of nature are what they are. The rules of logic are what they are. The empirical world around us is what it is. There are tons and tons and tons of what certainly appear to be objective truths for all of us to fall back on. In other words, clarity is often just taken for granted by us in regard to any number of interactions.

On the other hand, in regard to 1] the is/ought world and 2] the metaphyseal quandaries that continue to plague even the hard guys and gals in the scientific community, clarity is often nowhere to be found.

Or, instead, are there serious philosophers among us who, in regard to their own understanding of determinism and moral responsibility, might be willing to take another stab at explaining why Mary is still morally responsible for doing something that she was never able not to do.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 9:52 pm

If cutting a path in the jungle is an example of libertarian free-will, then do ants, jaguars, boars also have libertarian free-will when they make a path in the jungle?

How about beavers building dams. Or birds building nests? Or termites?

As with termites and birds and beavers and ants and jaguars and boars and all other living, biological creatures who might create paths in the jungle, human beings can create them too.

But, come on, do we speak of free will in regard to...termites? No, each and every one of the animals above are propelled by brains almost entirely intertwined in biological imperatives.

But "somehow" when their brains eventually evolved into our brains, at the very least [God or No God] we acquired the psychological illusion of free will, right?

We are the only animals with brains capable of either creating or finding paths that permit us to go in this -- https://youtu.be/ngWBddVNVZs?si=yX1fRCE1BuaqS4YM -- direction.

No one is going tp ask, "ought termites and beavers and ants, etc., behave as they do in creating paths in the jungle?" But what about those man-made paths in the film?

And the new paths that will be forged as the Europeans arrive in the jungle at the end of the film.

So, what do we have above. There is an appeal to incredulity. There is an ad populum argument.

But the interesting thing is

Iambigious presents it as clear. If humans have free will, they are the only species that has it on earth.

He must be a free will determinist. Since he manages to have confidence enough to present his view as if the opposed view was silly.
He must think his brain, at least, is autonomous.

Because it knows that since we only talk about humans free will, we can rule out animals having it. (ad populum)

But, come on,

it would be silly to disagree.

Of course, Phyllo's whole point was that we don't think those animals have free will. That was the point. He was pointing out that Iambiguous' free will interpretation of his previous post could lead to concluding those animals have free will.

But this is missed.

Come on. It's obvious. Come on. Says Iambiguous, somehow not entailing he believes in free will himself or his own brain's autonomy.

phyllo wrote:S. says that we do not choose our wants.

Okay, but how far back does to take that? All the way back to his own wants? To his own argument?

Clearly, we look around and notice that everyone is choosing things. But that is not the same thing [some argue] as demonstrating that we must have free will in order to do so. Not if we choose our wants wholly in accordance with the wants that emanate from brains wholly in sync with the laws of matter.

phyllo wrote:We learn "wants". For example, we want a car because we are told that we should want a car by friends, by advertisements ... So that's what we want. We didn't free choose to want it. It's a result of our environment and experiences.

No, the hardcore determinists argue that our environment and our personal experiences are no less but another inherent manifestation of the only possible reality. Instead, the conundrum goes all the way back instead to this:

...how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

And as though our "parents, friends, schools, institutions" etc., are not in turn just more dominoes toppling over on cue per the laws of nature.

phyllo wrote: Basically, Iambiguous is questioning the legitimacy of everything said within the context of determinism.

No, basically, what I am doing [given some measure of free will] is questioning the metaphysical objectivists. Those who insists that how they understand the human brain here is actually the most rational -- the only rational? -- manner in which it can be understood.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 10:14 pm

Click.

Just for the record, I am not ambiguous at all regarding human interactions in the either/or world. The laws of nature are what they are. The rules of logic are what they are. The empirical world around us is what it is. There are tons and tons and tons of what certainly appear to be objective truths for all of us to fall back on. In other words, clarity is often just taken for granted by us in regard to any number of interactions.

On the other hand, in regard to 1] the is/ought world and 2] the metaphyseal quandaries that continue to plague even the hard guys and gals in the scientific community, clarity is often nowhere to be found.

Or, instead, are there serious philosophers among us who, in regard to their own understanding of determinism and moral responsibility, might be willing to take another stab at explaining why Mary is still morally responsible for doing something that she was never able not to do.

"I'm not ambiguous at all", and then you proceed to write a series of some of the most ambiguous sentences ever written

Sculptor wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 12:28 pm

attofishpi wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 8:43 am

Sculptor wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 12:59 pm Penal reform only makes sense of you believe the world is deterministic. Determinism recognises that criminality is caused.

In the greatest Protestant tradiction especially Calvinist, prisons are institutes of "REFORM", and that is why they were called "Correctional". Because this appraoch understands that free will is a mirage

If crime is just about free will, then no amount of adjustment and learning is going to trun a criminal into a decent citizen.
But outside the USA (where privatisation has just about fucked the whole system) rehabilitation worlks and the rst of the world has much lower rates of repeat offending.
If you steer criminals to a better life, give them skills , job prospects, and so on, they tend to stay away form prison and get on with their lives. Such intervention CAUSES change in most prisoners.
However if you believe they are just willful and evil then you might as well lock them up and throw away the key.

It's all entirely 'freaky' to consider actually.

I watch a lot of true crime and generally simply on the news where some rapist\murderer has been given a second chance and let to live once again, among us...they do it again. So for certain crimes I don't care about their prospects for 'rehabilitation' fuck 'em throw away the key.

The point here is that 90% of abusers are never convicted. If they are near a new offence they are the ones that get the scrutiny, and get convicted a second time. But in a system where there is no chance of rehab, or correction WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU EXPECT. And with your sort of attitude people who think they have a problem have no where to go to get hep BEFORE they offend.
So you really have no case here. You might as well just kill them, because nothing the penal system is doing now is working, but killing is not going to stop the vast majority of rapists either.
Education and rehabilitation is the only thing likely to have an impact.

Anyone convicted of certain sex-crimes and murder should be locked up permanently. Other lesser crimes, sure attempt some education for skills that might assist them to do an honest days work and stop from stealing or woteva.

Sculptor wrote:

atto wrote: Sure, give them something to do in gaol, teach them how to make a nice cabinet - but there is NO intelligent reason to let them back into society where another woman, child or me has to deal with 'em.

There are so many more crimes than sex-crimes.
Have you ever wondered why the US has more prisoners than any where else in the world, by far??
It's probably because of that attitude which you have absorbed.
Something like. people who commit crimes are animals, so lock them in a cage as if they were animals.
Now sure what that is supposed to achieve, but it does not seem to be working.

Again, murder and sex crimes - throw away the key. Don't tell me you think educating someone not to rape or not to murder (whatever that entails!) is going to stop them all from raping\murdering again!!

Posssion of drugs is the main reason US has so much incarceration, bloody ridiculous.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 4:01 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 3:39 pm meh...no point in beatin' a dead horse

Oh, I didn't see this.

I wrote sumthin' in response to phy, then thought better of it and replaced it with that. I'm not out.

Well, above I tried a different approach, a little overview like.

Which I'll touch on, not in depth, now.

-----

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 3:59 pm

You seem to believe wants, desires, etc, precede a person and are somehow separate from him.

I make my choices out of my desires, values and so on. I think those things cause what I choose to do.

Your desires, values, etc aren't riding you as though you were a horse. Your desire is you desiring, your values is you valuing, your wants is you wanting, your goals is *you goaling, etc. You, a person, precede all those actions.

Let's take an alcoholic...

The conventional view, today, is he is predisposed to addiction. It's not his fault. Poppycock. He took the first drink. He chose to drink it. Sure (and here's an example of what I mean about genes informing, not determining) it's plausible he has some biological glitch that makes that booze compelling, attractive, hard to put down. Let's call that glitch what it actually is: appetite. He has a hearty appetite for vodka. He finds it, as I say, compelling. But does this appetite compel him?

You, by way of your posts, seem to say this appetite precedes him and is somehow separate from him. Like an itch, mebbe. Therefore it causes what he does.

I say his appetite is a function of him -- he thirsts -- he wants booze. It's not an itch. It's him. He drinks becuz he chooses to. It may be a bad choice, a destructive choice, but he chooses to.

But, Henry, he sez he wants to stop. He's sincere. But he keeps drinking. He's choosing to?

Yes. Being a free will doesn't mean one is strong or smart or deep or wise or capable or immune to persuasion or immune from faulty thinking or self-contradiction or insulated from the consequences of cause and effect or...

Being a libertarian free will only means one is not caused. Boozehead Joe is not caused to drink. He chooses to give way to his appetite. He is the cause.


Now, if you three amigos can refrain from publicly talkin' about me and talk to me; refrain from insisting I pretend when I only interpret; refrain from pickin' -- rhetorically -- at nits; we can have a conversation.




*yeah, it's a crap construct...but you, I hope, get what I mean

Excerpts from a piece over at...

https://mindmatters.ai/

...(which I, upthread, suggested as a starting point for conversation [a suggestion, I suspect, that's been dismissed])...

The purely scientific idea of man tends only to link together measurable and observable data taken as such, and is determined from the very start not to consider anything like being or essence, not to answer any question like: Is there a soul or isn’t there? Does the spirit exist or only matter? Is there freedom or determinism? Purpose or chance? Value or simple fact? For such questions are out of the realm of science. The purely scientific idea of man is, and must be, a phenomenalized idea without reference to ultimate reality. -Jacques Maritain

Man is a person, who holds himself in hand by his intelligence and his will. He does not merely exist as a physical being. There is in him a richer and nobler existence; he has spiritual superexistence through knowledge and love. He is thus, in some way, a whole, not merely a part; he is a unvierse unto himself, a microcosm in which the great universe in its entirety can be encompassed through knowledge. And through love he can give himself freely to beings who are to him, as it were, other selves; and for this relationship no equivalent can be found in the physical world. -Jacques Maritain

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Nov 09, 2023 1:04 am Your desires, values, etc aren't riding you as though you were a horse. Your desire is you desiring, your values is you valuing, your wants is you wanting, your goals is *you goaling, etc. You, a person, precede all those actions.

They are me. I am those and other things batched in a whole. I don't think of those as separate from me. This is not easy to write about without creating some implication one doesn't intend.

Let's take an alcoholic...

The conventional view, today, is he is predisposed to addiction. It's not his fault. Poppycock. He took the first drink. He chose to drink it. Sure (and here's an example of what I mean about genes informing, not determining) it's plausible he has some biological glitch that makes that booze compelling, attractive, hard to put down. Let's call that glitch what it actually is: appetite. He has a hearty appetite for vodka. He finds it, as I say, compelling. But does this appetite compel him?

No, he is other values. He wants to be sober for various reasons - if he stops. He doesn't like the effects, some of them, of his drinking. There are many facets to himself and he all lead to his decision to stop. Or he doesn't have enough urge, isn't enough urge to stop. His appetite is him. Any other feelings and values are him. For convenience in language we make up parts. But when that alcoholic stops, he stops be HE IS THE CAUSE and wanted other things more than whatever makes that drink so damn appealing to him.

And you should realize this and I shouldn't have to point it out. It's like you now only focus on the apetite and leave unsaid why he actually goes against this appetite, because then you'd have to be talking about other facets of him that are causal. Or why the whole HE CAUSES THE CHOICE HE MAKES. And that whole he will ONLY MAKE ONE CHOICE.

You, by way of your posts, seem to say this appetite precedes him and is somehow separate from him. Like an itch, mebbe. Therefore it causes what he does.

Again, it a way of speaking about what is happening about what I am or he is.

I say his appetite is a function of him -- he thirsts -- he wants booze. It's not an itch. It's him. He drinks becuz he chooses to. It may be a bad choice, a destructive choice, but he chooses to.

Either the him that wants it wins out or other hims that don't win out. Whatever his nature is leads to his decisions. Him being his nature.

But, Henry, he sez he wants to stop. He's sincere. But he keeps drinking. He's choosing to?

Yes. Being a free will doesn't mean one is strong or smart or deep or wise or capable or immune to persuasion or immune from faulty thinking or self-contradiction or insulated from the consequences of cause and effect or...

I am not assuming that.

What is the difference between the alcoholic who keeps drinking and the one who quits, if both suffer bad consequences that they dislike from their drinking? (and I do not mean that one is compelled and the other isn't. I am asking what the difference is.)

Being a libertarian free will only means one is not caused. Boozehead Joe is not caused to drink. He chooses to give way to his appetite. He is the cause.

Yup, he is hte cause. And the one who stops, he or she is the cause. So we have a cause and it leads inevitable to the effect. Either to continue drinking or not to. Or to fluctuate between these.

Now, if you three amigos can refrain from publicly talkin' about me and talk to me; refrain from insisting I pretend when I only interpret; refrain from pickin' -- rhetorically -- at nits; we can have a conversation.

If you can't see the weakness in the above argument of yours and can't see that you just admitted that he is the cause. Well, that guy is in the room before he decides to drink or not. And he is what he is right before he decides, then that he who he is causes the decision. And that he is not going to make the other decision. Because that's not who he is.

And I have to chase you to look at this. And I have watched FJ chase you to look at this.

And then you tell us that a post where the outcome was the only outcome that was ever going to happen is mentioned. Where it is said that the choice is determined. And this is said by someone who believes in determinism.

And you have the gall to said is sounds like libertarian free will. It's determined and it was the only outcome that would ever happen. But it sounds like libertarian free will.

And then when you describe your position it is precisely compatibilism, again and again and this is pointed out by FJ in earlier interactions, it may end up that I talk about you. And this is not nitpicking, it obviously related to the core position.

He is the cause. Exactly.

I don't think it has been proven that determinism is the case. However when I see the arguments of libertarian free willers, so far they don't hold up. When the problems are pointed out I get vague answers OR answers that fit compatiblism perfectly, but this is not acknowledged. It's disrespectful. I expect discussion partners to be willing to and able to sit in cognitive dissonance. Determined or free, either way. If they can't do that. If they can't let that nagging feeling that arises sometimes when someone makes a good point affect them and affect how they respond. If they can't pause or say, good point. Let me mull over that. But rather insist on pretending that that didn't happen and it's just obvious what they encountered is wrong and silly and they can't make a charitable read or see that they rebuttal, like yours above, has exactly the same problem, but would rather put on a facade. I'm gonna call that out, eventually. I could be wrong, but that's true for most things, n'est pas? But I won't pretend that the other person is actually willing to face the anxiety around their beliefs, when I sure as shit can and do. And this includes what I see in interactions with others vastly more patient than me like FJ.

So, if you don't like when you eventually become the focus, when I see vague and pretendy, convenient arguments coming out of you, then ignore me. At a certain point it is being disrespectul to yourself, the discussion and to the people you are talking to, when you give vague answers, when you mislabel things, when you don't connect the obvious dots, like above, where HIM causing is a compatibilist explanation.

Hell, you've even said to FJ that only one outcome is possible.

If you can't face those moments of cognitive dissonance then ignoring me is no loss for me. And just because they come up, obviously doesn't mean you must be wrong. But sitting with them prevents pretending and vagueness and not admitting stuff along the way.

The purely scientific idea of man tends only to link together measurable and observable data taken as such, and is determined from the very start not to consider anything like being or essence, not to answer any question like: Is there a soul or isn’t there? Does the spirit exist or only matter? Is there freedom or determinism? Purpose or chance? Value or simple fact? For such questions are out of the realm of science. The purely scientific idea of man is, and must be, a phenomenalized idea without reference to ultimate reality. -Jacques Maritain

Man is a person, who holds himself in hand by his intelligence and his will. He does not merely exist as a physical being. There is in him a richer and nobler existence; he has spiritual superexistence through knowledge and love. He is thus, in some way, a whole, not merely a part; he is a unvierse unto himself, a microcosm in which the great universe in its entirety can be encompassed through knowledge. And through love he can give himself freely to beings who are to him, as it were, other selves; and for this relationship no equivalent can be found in the physical world. -Jacques Maritain
Top

This is not incompatible with determinism.

Determinism is not materialism or physicalism.

for example, one can say that a person has a non-physical soul.

The determinist position is that soul is part of the character of the person. It's a factor in the state of the person at any moment. It plays a role in decisions. It is a cause for the decisions.

phyllo wrote: ↑Thu Nov 09, 2023 1:25 pmThis is not incompatible with determinism.

Determinism is not materialism or physicalism.

for example, one can say that a person has a non-physical soul.

The determinist position is that soul is part of the character of the person. It's a factor in the state of the person at any moment. It plays a role in decisions. It is a cause for the decisions.

I think this is a really important point to mention. People think the conversation is just settled as soon as you believe in a soul. "Well I'm not a materialist or physicalist, I believe in a soul, so libertarian free will must be true."

No, not at all. Souls, if they exist and are the source of our conscious experience, evolve over time in parallel with material reality - and apparently evolve in relatively predictable ways (not perfectly predictable, but you can make some more or less accurate predictions), so that means it's a system not too dissimilar from physics.

In my view, either it evolves over time based on entirely deterministic rules, or it's only partially deterministic and partially random.

Moving the mind to a soul realm doesn't solve any problems if free will. They're all still there, in exactly the same way

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Nov 09, 2023 1:32 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Thu Nov 09, 2023 1:25 pmThis is not incompatible with determinism.

Determinism is not materialism or physicalism.

for example, one can say that a person has a non-physical soul.

The determinist position is that soul is part of the character of the person. It's a factor in the state of the person at any moment. It plays a role in decisions. It is a cause for the decisions.

I think this is a really important point to mention. People think the conversation is just settled as soon as you believe in a soul. "Well I'm not a materialist or physicalist, I believe in a soul, so libertarian free will must be true."

No, not at all. Souls, if they exist and are the source of our conscious experience, evolve over time in parallel with material reality - and apparently evolve in relatively predictable ways (not perfectly predictable, but you can make some more or less accurate predictions), so that means it's a system not too dissimilar from physics.

In my view, either it evolves over time based on entirely deterministic rules, or it's only partially deterministic and partially random.

Moving the mind to a soul realm doesn't solve any problems if free will. They're all still there, in exactly the same way

And just to put it in a different way. Presumably a soul has goals, values, personality, desires, information....all of which lead to the souls choices. There are soul ontologies that have a kind of anonymous entity, without these things, but then this has little to do with you and I am not sure, then, on what basis it makes choices. IOW we would need to know more about why soul X decided to get its body to dive into the pool. What are this soul's motivations? And regardless of what they are, those are causal. NOT that they compel the soul, they are the compelling facet of the soul. If not, then what?

phyllo wrote: ↑Thu Nov 09, 2023 1:25 pmThis is not incompatible with determinism.

Determinism is not materialism or physicalism.

for example, one can say that a person has a non-physical soul.

The determinist position is that soul is part of the character of the person. It's a factor in the state of the person at any moment. It plays a role in decisions. It is a cause for the decisions.

Well, that's certainly one interpretation.