compatibilism

[Flannel Jesus]

That "part" isn't applicable to posts on an internet forum. You're not going to end up on a meat-hook because of something you post here.

Does he think you're just supposed to smack the word "existentially" in the middle of sentences to sound smart?

How does one being rubbed the wrong way "existentially" differ from just being rubbed the wrong way, without the word "existentially"?

I'd think the more amazing part is what rubs Iambiguous the wrong way. I mean, it rubs me the wrong way when people walk onto the bike path without looking. I have slightly (ironic word choice) stronger feelings about being put in a re-education camp, say. Then there's the implicit moral objectivism, hush, hush.

It irked me when they killed my whole family for being Jews.
It ruffled my feathers when I was sentenced the hard labor in Siberia for 20 years.

If he doesn't speak in riddles, he might actually be able to point out specific people who are threatening him in these ways. But phyllo is right, that doesn't usually happen on philosophy forums, so he's kinda just sitting there ranting about these "or else" ers as a deflection because it's simply not relevant here.

I wonder how he feels about the fact that people get put in prison for murder. Is this an example of those evil objectivist or-else-ers?

[iambiguous]

Determinism versus Determinism
Nurana Rajabova is determined to sort it out.

As we go through life Hume argued, we constantly witness conjunctions of events: we see one thing following another on a regular basis. Based on this constant conjunction, we infer that there is a cause and effect relationship between them.

Again, bringing this down to Earth, I note what appears to be that crucial distinction between cause and effect in the either/or world and cause and effect in the is/ought world.

For doctors who perform abortions or for women who obtain them there appears to be a rather clear-cut cause and effect interaction between human biology, human sexuality, pregnancy and abortion. There are facts here that one can become aware of, facts that are by and large, applicable to all of us.

Whereas our moral and political reactions are predicated by and large on the particular prejudices we accumulate over the course of living our lives.

So we see one billiard ball hit another billiard ball, and the second ball then moves, and we infer a causal relationship. Such observations in turn lead us to a belief in causal necessity, a universal principle that every effect must be caused.

The billiard ball analogy. Cause and effect on a billiard table? As though when you hit a ball it sometimes does this but sometimes "out of the blue" it does that instead. And you're never quite sure which it will be. Indeed, imagine human interactions in which that was the case for...everything? Yet this is basically how I see human relationships in regard to moral and political conflagrations. With value judgments there are countless possible social, political and economic permutations, twists and turns. And we can never really fathom how the personal experiences of others will shift their moral philosophy in very different directions from our own. And then the part where philosophers have utterly failed to take that into account in providing us with a deontological philosophy that really does [demonstrably] reflect the best of all possible political economies.

With determinism, however, that just gets shifted all the way to, well, everything.

Thus we assume that for an effect to exist, it is necessary that there must be a cause, and nothing comes out of randomness or chance: “The chance or indifference lies only in our judgment on account of our imperfect knowledge, not in the things themselves, which are in every case equally necessary, though to appearance not equally constant or certain,” Hume writes. From Hume’s rejection of the idea of chance being ‘in things themselves’, we can conclude that he was a determinist.

That's the broad philosophical argument. Given free will there is always the possibility that we will still get things wrong. Even in regard to the either/or world. For example, look at all the crimes that go unsolved...up to and including murder. With God however they are never unsolved. With God human behaviors either are or are not mortal Sins. Nothing is left to chance by God. He implanted free will in our souls at the point of conception so there is no question of autonomy. And, given Judgment Day, there is no question of our being found worthy or unworthy of immortality and salvation.

But...No God? No God and we should shift gears to the philosopher kings and queens? Perhaps just assume that they really are the "best and the brightest"?

[Iwannaplato]

If he doesn't speak in riddles, he might actually be able to point out specific people who are threatening him in these ways. But phyllo is right, that doesn't usually happen on philosophy forums, so he's kinda just sitting there ranting about these "or else" ers as a deflection because it's simply not relevant here.

I wonder how he feels about the fact that people get put in prison for murder. Is this an example of those evil objectivist or-else-ers?

And what about the moral objectivist who are pacifists or who believe that compromise, negotiation and moderation are objective moral goods? Or those who, from a moral objectivist perspective rise up against tyranny (that is government with a clear or else set of policies).

[iambiguous]

Notice how you phrase your objection: How is this pertinent to the point I am making, you say.

Over and again: from my own frame of mind [which may certainly be wrong] it's not the points you raise about the points I raise about the points Hume raised but the fact that none of us were/are able to actually phrase anything other than in how our brains compel us to.

Unless, of course, that's false. Is it? Then link us to the scientific and the philosophical arguments that you believe establish this.

My point was that your point is not a response to what YOU quoted. You could say it after any quote. Why bother to quote anyone, if you are going to say that? It's a conversation stopper. Same as saying 'How do we know we're not a brain in a vat? Or How do I know I am not insane? Or is it possible what seems obvious to us isn't?

Of course it can be noted after any quote. At least if "in your head" you assume that all quotes are derived from brains wholly in sync with the laws of matter.

That's the quandary in a nutshell, perhaps. We think we are quoting others of our own free will but we really have no way in which to assess that objectively.

You could throw these out in relation to any post. Fine, if you want to just stop discussion and even stop your own consideration of the ideas you are quote, well, it's a good strategy. Though there is absolutely no need to quote anyone. You could simply just make the assertions you keep making. Skip the pretend middle man.

All of this merely by assuming that I do have the capacity to see myself as you do. If only of my own volition I would finally stop pretending to be a serious philosopher myself?

Further, Iambiguous has often made it very clear he sees a qualitative distinction between is and ought issues and questions. One can find solutions, the other, as far as he can see so far, we cannot find solutions regarding.

With determinism as some understand it, both problems and solutions [to anything] are interchangeable. And if some wish to insist that it's their solution that ultimately resolves it, well, what does it even mean to take credit for something you could never have not taken credit for?

And this is a non-response.

Translation: you didn't respond to me by agreeing with me so you may as well have not responded at all. Again, as though in regard to these "metaphysical" questions, only some here are qualified to address them.

My point was that in the past and recently you have drawn a distinction between moral conslusions and, for example, scientific conclusions. But if you are going to quote person after person and say 'But for all we know we are compelled to think this makes sense' THAT PRECISE QUOTE would apply to scientific conclusions also.

Exactly! Given how some understand determinism, absolutely everything that we think, feel, say and do we were never able not to. More then once I have speculated about the scientific community announcing to the world that it has finally arrived at the objective truth: we do have free will.

As though they can then prove that this announcement in and of itself was not wholly compelled by Mother Nature.

And anytime anyone here wants to demonstrate how their own arguments really do establish an empirical, scientific basis for autonomy, by all means, let them back them up with hard evidence.

Yet, here and often recently he is essentially arguing that both is and ought questions cannot be resolved. So, not just moral nihilism, but epistemological nihilism.

Look, if he wishes to insist here that how he understands me is more reasonable than how I understand myself, well, que sera, sera?

I said that you have long made a distinction between is assertions, say in science, where you have said we can be objective, and ought assertions where, so far, you see not adequate justification for claims to objectivity.

Then the part, however, where I speculate that if the hardcore determinists are correct such distinctions are moot because both the either/or and the is/ought worlds are inherently embedded in the only possible world.

If you can't remember making that distinction, then things just go surreal. You've been making it for years.

Actually, again, going back to my exchanges with Volchok years ago at ILP, I was [to the best of my recollection] defending free will. And the surreal part [for me] revolves around "click". After all, here we are discussing something that reflects the profound ambiguities embedded in "the gap", in Rummy's Rule and in the Benjamin Button Syndrome. We take our own philosophical leaps to free will, determinism and/or compatibilism but we have no way to go beyond speculation and conjecture itself. At least not definitively.

And there are no contradictions in a wholly determined universe because if something must unfold -- if everything can only unfold -- entirely in sync with the only possible reality then what is it about the only possible reality that is compatible with moral responsibility?

The bottom line [mine, here and now] is that neither the scientific community, the philosophical community nor the theological community have managed to go much beyond speculation derived from what is surely an enormous gap between what we think we know about the human brain here and how the human brain fits into the existence of existence itself.

Only the science community can fall back on the scientific method itself to examine the quandary empirically, experientially and experimentally. What is the philosophical or theological equivalent of that?

So, all we can do is to try, try again or move on to others.

Fine, that's a position in philosophy, but where is the admission that his asserting for years that there is a clear distinction between is and ought was false? We can't know either. We may merely think our answers to the latter are correct because we are compelled to.

Further, here we are in a philosophy discussion forum. If any suggestion about how moral responsbility will be responded to with 'but maybe you're compelled to think that makes sense', then there is no point in discussion.

In fact, there are any number of posters here who seem adamant in commanding others to accept only their own answers. They'll go to the grave perhaps absolutely convinced there is but one answer to questions like these. In the other words, the answers that comfort and console them the most.

And if some here really do refuse to make a distinction between the either/or world and the is/ought world, well, they'd be fools not to steer clear of me.

And there you've asserted it again. See, I wasn't making claims to understand you better than you or at all. I was claiming that you make this distinction, which you do in the quote above, while at the same time using a conversation stopper that eliminates the distinction.

Let's just say that I have no clear idea at all of what this is supposed to mean. If a conversation here stops or stops it stopped or stopped either because we did have the capacity to sustain it or to end it of our own free will or we don't.

You tell me.

Here's another example...

On the other hand, if the hardcore determinists are correct, no points can be invalid.

How is that not correct if the determinists are correct? Sure, some may be compelled by their brains here to argue that the determinists are wrong. But if both parties are interacting in the only possible reality, what does it mean to insist that one of them is incorrect? After all, how would you go about demonstrating this other than because your brain compels you to attempt to.

[Iwannaplato]

Over and again: from my own frame of mind [which may certainly be wrong] it's not the points you raise about the points I raise about the points Hume raised but the fact that none of us were/are able to actually phrase anything other than in how our brains compel us to.

Which is a conversation stopper., in a discussion forum.

Unless, of course, that's false. Is it? Then link us to the scientific and the philosophical arguments that you believe establish this.

1) As Phyllo points out just because we are compelled to conclude something doesn't mean it is false. 2) Unless you are sure that there is no point in reasoning about anything, then we can either actually discuss points raised, or just accept that we can never know anything. Is it really impossible for you to think something like: well, it is possibly, perhaps even likely that determinism is the case, so we can't be sure if our reasoning is correct or merely compelled. That said, I am going to reason as well as I can, in relation to points raised, while knowing that perhaps we may not be being reasonable.

You're a participant in a philosophy forum. If you are just going to use this conversation stopper, what are you doing here? And why bother quoting anyone? You could quote from flying fishing essays. Or just keep posting the same thing without quoting anyone.

My point was that your point is not a response to what YOU quoted. You could say it after any quote. Why bother to quote anyone, if you are going to say that? It's a conversation stopper. Same as saying 'How do we know we're not a brain in a vat? Or How do I know I am not insane? Or is it possible what seems obvious to us isn't?

Of course it can be noted after any quote. At least if "in your head" you assume that all quotes are derived from brains wholly in sync with the laws of matter.

That's the quandary in a nutshell, perhaps. We think we are quoting others of our own free will but we really have no way in which to assess that objectively.

So, you've said, hundreds of times. So, we can do our best and consider various arguments and points or just say there is no point in having a discussion.

You could throw these out in relation to any post. Fine, if you want to just stop discussion and even stop your own consideration of the ideas you are quote, well, it's a good strategy. Though there is absolutely no need to quote anyone. You could simply just make the assertions you keep making. Skip the pretend middle man.

All of this merely by assuming that I do have the capacity to see myself as you do. If only of my own volition I would finally stop pretending to be a serious philosopher myself?

I have no idea what this means? Does it merely assume that? Why did you bother to make a point and reason here?

Further, Iambiguous has often made it very clear he sees a qualitative distinction between is and ought issues and questions. One can find solutions, the other, as far as he can see so far, we cannot find solutions regarding.

With determinism as some understand it, both problems and solutions [to anything] are interchangeable. And if some wish to insist that it's their solution that ultimately resolves it, well, what does it even mean to take credit for something you could never have not taken credit for?

And this is a non-response.

Translation: you didn't respond to me by agreeing with me so you may as well have not responded at all.

No, that's not what saying something is a non-response means. You could disagree and that's a response. You could agree and that is a response. You could partially agree or point out some weakness in my reason. Those are responses. You basically said the same thing you have said time and again. Nothing you said responded to the distinction issue you have raised and I pointed out in what you quoted, about the difference between is and ought issues. That's why it's a non-response.

Again, as though in regard to these "metaphysical" questions, only some here are qualified to address them.

I said nothing like that at all. I wish you'd addressed the issue I raised. Find the part where I said you weren't qualified to address them.

My point was that in the past and recently you have drawn a distinction between moral conslusions and, for example, scientific conclusions. But if you are going to quote person after person and say 'But for all we know we are compelled to think this makes sense' THAT PRECISE QUOTE would apply to scientific conclusions also.

Exactly! Given how some understand determinism, absolutely everything that we think, feel, say and do we were never able not to. More then once I have speculated about the scientific community announcing to the world that it has finally arrived at the objective truth: we do have free will.

As though they can then prove that this announcement in and of itself was not wholly compelled by Mother Nature.

So, you finally admit that all those years of saying that is questions and answers are qualitatively different from ought questions, you were mistaken.

And anytime anyone here wants to demonstrate how their own arguments really do establish an empirical, scientific basis for autonomy, by all means, let them back them up with hard evidence.

Did you not read what you just wrote. You just wrote that even if someone did this, we couldn't know if it only seemed reasonable and a proof.

I mean, seriously. From one sentence to the next you first say, we still wouldn't know if someone showed a proof. Then you ask for a proof. I actually read what you write. I am not sure you do.

Yet, here and often recently he is essentially arguing that both is and ought questions cannot be resolved. So, not just moral nihilism, but epistemological nihilism.

Look, if he wishes to insist here that how he understands me is more reasonable than how I understand myself, well, que sera, sera?

I said that you have long made a distinction between is assertions, say in science, where you have said we can be objective, and ought assertions where, so far, you see not adequate justification for claims to objectivity.

Then the part, however, where I speculate that if the hardcore determinists are correct such distinctions are moot because both the either/or and the is/ought worlds are inherently embedded in the only possible world.

Great, so you are conceding that your long standing thousand times declaration that we can know things about is issues but not about ought issues was incorrect. You now admit this about what you posted for years and mocked people for questioning.

If you can't remember making that distinction, then things just go surreal. You've been making it for years.

Actually, again, going back to my exchanges with Volchok years ago at ILP, I was [to the best of my recollection] defending free will. And the surreal part [for me] revolves around "click". After all, here we are discussing something that reflects the profound ambiguities embedded in "the gap", in Rummy's Rule and in the Benjamin Button Syndrome. We take our own philosophical leaps to free will, determinism and/or compatibilism but we have no way to go beyond speculation and conjecture itself. At least not definitively.

You've said this to me before.

And there are no contradictions in a wholly determined universe because if something must unfold -- if everything can only unfold -- entirely in sync with the only possible reality then what is it about the only possible reality that is compatible with moral responsibility?

Adn this.

The bottom line [mine, here and now] is that neither the scientific community, the philosophical community nor the theological community have managed to go much beyond speculation derived from what is surely an enormous gap between what we think we know about the human brain here and how the human brain fits into the existence of existence itself.

And this.

Only the science community can fall back on the scientific method itself to examine the quandary empirically, experientially and experimentally. What is the philosophical or theological equivalent of that?

I mean, this is insane. I point out you make the distinction. You say you (no longer?) make the distinction, and here it is again. Science can lead to conclusions we can know are correct, philosophy and theology can't. This after JUST SAYING THAT EVEN SCIENTIFIC CONCLUSIONS, THOSE, WE MIGHT BE COMPELLED TO THINK ARE CORRECT.

It's like dealing with different alters in Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).

So, all we can do is to try, try again or move on to others.

In fact, there are any number of posters here who seem adamant in commanding others to accept only their own answers. They'll go to the grave perhaps absolutely convinced there is but one answer to questions like these. In the other words, the answers that comfort and console them the most.

Sure, there are people like that. There are other people who go to their grave comfortable in the role of repeating themselves endlessly in a kind of I am victim of the universe and we can't know anything type and passive-aggresssively attacking others who don't feel the same way. Great. So we have a couple of ad homs. We can all be described in ad hom terms. So what.

Let's just say that I have no clear idea at all of what this is supposed to mean. If a conversation here stops or stops it stopped or stopped either because we did have the capacity to sustain it or to end it of our own free will or we don't.

Here's another example...

On the other hand, if the hardcore determinists are correct, no points can be invalid.

How is that not correct if the determinists are correct?

I would say we can't be sure if they are valid or invalid. But the point is you just asserted, again, that the distinction between is and ought conclusions is not real if determinism is the case. We'd be compelled to think scientific conclusions are correct and the scientists would be compelled to make them.

So, sometimes people have better stay away from you if they think these two areas are the same, is and ought issues. Other times, you re asserting that we can't be sure at all of either, given determinims is possible.

You just don't seem to remember from one moment to the next what you are saying. I can put the two things you assert that contradict each other right next to each other and you still don't notice. In fact you do this yourself and don't notice. I'll try again not to try any kind of dialogue with you, though I will continue to point respond to some of your posts, but not the non-responses of yours to mine.

[henry quirk]

85349448-0E5B-441B-BA86-57DAACAE94AE.jpeg

[Iwannaplato]

85349448-0E5B-441B-BA86-57DAACAE94AE.jpeg

A few takes on the image:
1) It's an image of compatibilism
2) It shows how much work goes into laziness.
3) The best laid plans of concussed rabbits.....

[iambiguous]

What rubs me the wrong way about them existentially is that their attitude is often anchored in one or another rendition of "or else". Then the part where "or else" itself can revolve around such things as cults or reeducation camps or gulags or fatwas or crusades or inquistions or show trials or final solutions.

That "part" isn't applicable to posts on an internet forum. You're not going to end up on a meat-hook because of something you post here.

That's not the point of this thread though, in my view. Rather, the point revolves around grappling with a world in which human beings may, in fact, not have free will, but only brains compelling them psychologically to believe in the illusion of free will. And while some libertarian objectivists are tolerant of me here, others can barely contain their contempt. An essentially meaningless and purposeless existence? a fractured and fragmented moral philosophy? falling over into the abyess that is oblivion?!

Just the fact that it's a truly grim assessment of the human condition in a No God world is enough for some to insist it's not true.

And then the part where I want to be born again. Indeed, I'd be a complete fool to just ignore arguments here that might actually bring me back to a comforting and consoling philosophy of life.

Then just shrugging aside the gap and Rummy's Rule, they take you up into the philosophical clouds and treat things like free will as though it really could be defined and deduced into existence.

On the other hand, if the hardcore determinists are correct, no points can be invalid. Why? Because all points are embedded inherently and necessarily in the only possible reality.

You often use these "hardcore determinists" to support your statements but you never provide a reference to a specific determinist who actually said the things you claim.

Philosophers and scientists who believe that the universe is deterministic and that determinism is incompatible with free will are called “hard” determinists. Since moral responsibility seems to require free will, hard determinism implies that people are not morally responsible for their actions. britannica

https://www.google.com/search?q=hard+de ... s-wiz-serp wiki

"No points can be invalid" is utter nonsense. The statement 2+2=5 is invalid whether the universe is determined or not. It's inconsistent with the rules of mathematics.

Again, if you want to believe "internal components" of the human brain "somehow" allow you to acquire an "intrinsic Self" that transcends the neurological and chemical dominoes toppling over in our material brain as we go about the task of "commanding" our lives...? It may well be that from my frame of mind "here and now", however, you were never able to believe otherwise. But that's as far as I can go as well.

Then what? Where's the hard evidence that human brains are in fact autonomous?

You're confusing the inability of making a mistake with the evaluation of what constitutes a mistake.

Or you're confusing this wholly determined assessment of your brain with human autonomy. Still, if you want to -- must -- believe that even though you were never able not to think, feel, say or do anything in your life, you are still repsonsible for doing it.

The pantheist rendition of "The Fall" perhaps? Nature makes us what we are and it's ultimately "beyond our control?"

If no points can be invalid, then it would be impossible to calculate the forces on a bridge and therefore it would be impossible to build a bridge that stays intact. For example.

Nature "somehow" brought matter into existence such that human beings were sometimes compelled to reflect it and sometimes compelled to reject it. But again if you are wholly compelled by your brain to go in either one direction or the other and still feel that others can blame you, punish you, well, the only way here and now that makes sense to me is because my brain compels me to make sense of it. Just not so far.

Well -- click -- if they did, their arguments failed to register with me. And mine with them. So, all we can do is to try, try again or move on to others."

Your arguments registered with me. You have three points ... we don't know enough ... we have no control over what we think and do ... it doesn't matter what we think and do. I responded to all three several times.

Fine. So, here and now -- click -- we clearly have a failure to communicate. Unless, of course, you are willing recognize that on thread after thread here you'll find members constantly haranguing those who refuse to think exactly as they do.

Now [of course] all you have to do is to actually demonstrate experimentally, experientially, empirically, etc., that you do in fact have free will. Then back to the part where you astonish us all the more with a bold analysis of how and why the human condition and the existence of existence itself provide this "overwhelming evidence".

It's already been shown experimentally that the brain is the organ that thinks and decides.

Right, just as it thinks and decides what I dream. Then the part where, due to any number of medical conditions and brain afflictions, we find ourselves thinking, feeling, saying and doing things that are often well beyond our control because it is the brain itself that triggers our reactions to things around us.

If you believe that thinking and deciding is done somewhere else, then it's on you to show some evidence.

I'm not the one arguing here that there is a God "out there" who is fundamentally responsible for the way our brains function, or that the universe itself is "out there" waiting for my brain to recognize that I am Divinely as one with it.

It's remarkable how much value you place in science and demonstrations but when presented with scientific facts, you throw them aside as irrelevant or worthless.

Right, I just throw them aside. Well, unless of course, I was never able not to? And you were never able not to blame me for it? Okay, what do you construe to be the strongest scientific and philosophical arguments around here and now? And, as always, with you, there's that murky role that God and religion plays to allowing us to claim that morality is objective.

And how exactly would anyone of us go about accomplishing that?

Well, you show some observations where the brain is not doing the thinking and deciding. Or you show some logical reasoning which shows why the brain cannot be doing the thinking and deciding.

Again, until we have a far more astute understanding as to how the human brain came to possess it's capacity to invent philosophy and ethics, we can only continue to grope about trying to connect it to God or to Nature.

As for logic, you tell me why it is entirely logical for anything to exist at all.

No, I believe "here and now" that the variables involved are intertwined in an ineffable complexity of social, political and economic permutations that not even the science guys and gals can untangle.

Yeah, I have noticed that as soon as one can come to some sort of conclusions, you introduce more and more details to sabotage it.

Let's call this ... your agenda.

Or my brain's agenda? Or Nature's agenda? Or God's agenda? Or should we just admit that the Matrix is a more likely explanation. Or sim worlds. Or dream worlds.

My case revolves around the assumption I make regarding the human brain. That it is is but more matter "somehow" compelled to act and to react to the actions of others as so many dominoes toppling over on cue given the laws of nature.

Dominoes are a terrible analogy. Dominoes fall down once and that's it. They have no ability to alter how they fall or interest in how they fall.

But someone had to go about the task of setting them up. Now, the truly mind-boggling observation here is that this may also be applicable to him or her.

Brains observe and remember what has happened to others. They engage in thousands of interactions per day. They survive those interactions. They learn from those interactions. They can alter their responses. They have desires and interests.

Right so that proves we have free will? No way, in my view. It merely describes what we think the brain is doing.

[Iwannaplato]

That "part" isn't applicable to posts on an internet forum. You're not going to end up on a meat-hook because of something you post here.

That's not the point of this thread though, in my view. Rather, the point revolves around grappling with a world in which human beings may, in fact, not have free will, but only brains compelling them psychologically to believe in the illusion of free will. And while some libertarian objectivists are tolerant of me here, others can barely contain their contempt. An essentially meaningless and purposeless existence? a fractured and fragmented moral philosophy? falling over into the abyess that is oblivion?!

Just the fact that it's a truly grim assessment of the human condition in a No God world is enough for some to insist it's not true.

Self-serving mind-reading ad hom.

When ideas are expressed in an article of by another post, nowadays they face the conversation stopper about determinism undoing reason. Perhaps we're just compelled. No investigation of the points raised.

But Iambiguous indulges his mind reading fantasies, when convenient.

Let me try to make my point clear by rephrasing it. Iambiguous quotes from an article. He then brings up his conversation stopper:for all we know we are compelled to think X.

The consversation stopper has a valid question/assertion in, but it is used over and over INSTEAD of interacting with the ideas in what is quoted. It's not an asterisk about the interaction - of course, while we analyze and think about what this person wrote our reactions may not be rational given determinism - and then goes ahead and gives reason a try anyway. No, the conversation stopper is the only reaction.

Yet, here he uses mindreading based 'reason' about the people who disagree with him. The conversation stopper didn't keep him from this analysis.

Bot his mindreading claims and responding to articles he quotes might, yes, only seem reasonable, given the possibility of determinism. But for some reason, in a philosophy forum, he is willing to indulge in his mindreading analysis, but decides to not respond with reasoning to posts and articles he quotes.

And then the part where I want to be born again. Indeed, I'd be a complete fool to just ignore arguments here that might actually bring me back to a comforting and consoling philosophy of life.

Why would that be foolish, given your use of the conversation stopper? That would apply to any possible set of words posted by anyone, scientist or priest, philosopher of psychologist. You use that conversation stopper to ignore the texts you quote. It works on any text equally well.

Then just shrugging aside the gap and Rummy's Rule, they take you up into the philosophical clouds and treat things like free will as though it really could be defined and deduced into existence.

Which is less good then deducing through ego-syntonic mind reading and a bunch of idiosyncratic intellectual contraptions (Rummy's Rule etc.) according to you. Notice also how all you wrote above was up in philosophical clouds.

On the other hand, if the hardcore determinists are correct, no points can be invalid. Why? Because all points are embedded inherently and necessarily in the only possible reality.

You often use these "hardcore determinists" to support your statements but you never provide a reference to a specific determinist who actually said the things you claim.

Philosophers and scientists who believe that the universe is deterministic and that determinism is incompatible with free will are called “hard” determinists. Since moral responsibility seems to require free will, hard determinism implies that people are not morally responsible for their actions. britannica

Note that key word 'seems'. Seems to whom?

"No points can be invalid" is utter nonsense. The statement 2+2=5 is invalid whether the universe is determined or not. It's inconsistent with the rules of mathematics.

Again, if you want to believe "internal components" of the human brain "somehow" allow you to acquire an "intrinsic Self" that transcends the neurological and chemical dominoes toppling over in our material brain as we go about the task of "commanding" our lives...? It may well be that from my frame of mind "here and now", however, you were never able to believe otherwise. But that's as far as I can go as well.

How did you get that far, given the conversation stopper? What possible motivation led to you exploring, if briefly, a reasoned argument? Why doesn't the conversation stopper stop you?

Then what? Where's the hard evidence that human brains are in fact autonomous?

As if all the people responding to you argued that brains are autonomous. There's no memory in these threads. I believe most people here who argued against your reasoning did not posit an exception from determinism regarding brain matter. Gosh, I think this was even said to you dozens of times by those people. But when summing up the issue, we go back to this assumption you have that any disagreement with you must be based on brain matter exemption from determinism.

[phyllo]

That's not the point of this thread though, in my view. Rather, the point revolves around grappling with a world in which human beings may, in fact, not have free will, but only brains compelling them psychologically to believe in the illusion of free will. And while some libertarian objectivists are tolerant of me here, others can barely contain their contempt.

You're the one who brought up objectivists. As you often do.

On the other hand, if the hardcore determinists are correct, no points can be invalid. Why? Because all points are embedded inherently and necessarily in the only possible reality.

phyllo wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 7:25 am
You often use these "hardcore determinists" to support your statements but you never provide a reference to a specific determinist who actually said the things you claim.

Philosophers and scientists who believe that the universe is deterministic and that determinism is incompatible with free will are called “hard” determinists. Since moral responsibility seems to require free will, hard determinism implies that people are not morally responsible for their actions. britannica

https://www.google.com/search?q=hard+de ... s-wiz-serp wiki

Instead of linking to a determinist who said that "no points can be valid", you quote a britannica article with a general description of determinists and a google search on determinists.

You didn't confirm that some determinists had made that statement. You still have nothing.

"No points can be invalid" is utter nonsense. The statement 2+2=5 is invalid whether the universe is determined or not. It's inconsistent with the rules of mathematics.

Again, if you want to believe "internal components" of the human brain "somehow" allow you to acquire an "intrinsic Self" that transcends the neurological and chemical dominoes toppling over in our material brain as we go about the task of "commanding" our lives...? It may well be that from my frame of mind "here and now", however, you were never able to believe otherwise. But that's as far as I can go as well.

That reply doesn't even attempt to address what I wrote, let alone try to refute it.

phyllo wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 7:25 am
You're confusing the inability of making a mistake with the evaluation of what constitutes a mistake.

Or you're confusing this wholly determined assessment of your brain with human autonomy. Still, if you want to -- must -- believe that even though you were never able not to think, feel, say or do anything in your life, you are still repsonsible for doing it.

The pantheist rendition of "The Fall" perhaps? Nature makes us what we are and it's ultimately "beyond our control?"

Again, this reply doesn't address my point in any way.

phyllo wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 7:25 am
If no points can be invalid, then it would be impossible to calculate the forces on a bridge and therefore it would be impossible to build a bridge that stays intact. For example.

Nature "somehow" brought matter into existence such that human beings were sometimes compelled to reflect it and sometimes compelled to reject it. But again if you are wholly compelled by your brain to go in either one direction or the other and still feel that others can blame you, punish you, well, the only way here and now that makes sense to me is because my brain compels me to make sense of it. Just not so far.

Again, you don't even try to counter my example.

phyllo wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 7:25 am
Your arguments registered with me. You have three points ... we don't know enough ... we have no control over what we think and do ... it doesn't matter what we think and do. I responded to all three several times.

Fine. So, here and now -- click -- we clearly have a failure to communicate. Unless, of course, you are willing recognize that on thread after thread here you'll find members constantly haranguing those who refuse to think exactly as they do.

You don't have to "think exactly as I do".

I tend to believe that you don't even bother to "think about exactly what I write", let alone reply to it.

I'm not the one arguing here that there is a God "out there" who is fundamentally responsible for the way our brains function, or that the universe itself is "out there" waiting for my brain to recognize that I am Divinely as one with it.

Neither am I. So what is this statement about???

Right so that proves we have free will? No way, in my view. It merely describes what we think the brain is doing.

No, it shows that dominoes are a terrible analogy.

[henry quirk]

1) It's an image of compatibilism
2) It shows how much work goes into laziness.
3) The best laid plans of concussed rabbits.....

Those all work, but -- truth be told -- I'm just clearin' out an old meme folder. I can't give a clear reason why I plunked bunny's suicide attempt down in this thread 'cept that it fits. Mebbe it reflects my contempt for the subject and the thread starter (cuz both are for shit), mebbe not... *shrug*

[Iwannaplato]

1) It's an image of compatibilism
2) It shows how much work goes into laziness.
3) The best laid plans of concussed rabbits.....

Those all work, but -- truth be told -- I'm just clearin' out an old meme folder. I can't give a clear reason why I plunked bunny's suicide attempt down in this thread 'cept that it fits. Mebbe it reflects my contempt for the subject and the thread starter (cuz both are for shit), mebbe not... *shrug*

It's funny: I can be mistakenly very positive. I thought the nail was aimed to go in the wall and the bunny had found this ornate complicated way of getting it done without expending energy. I can see now the nail is on his head.

[henry quirk]

I can be mistakenly very positive.

That's becuz you're a good egg...

[iambiguous]

A feeding frenzy?

Still, here's my own predicament, of course.

Since I believe "here and now" that hard determinism is certainly a possibility in a No God world, it's therefore possible that when some here insist on making me the subject, they were never able not to.

I have to let them off the hook if for no other reason that I myself have no capacity to demonstrate that we do have free will.

But -- click -- I still suspect that what is going on here is the same old same old. Objectivists unnerved by the possibility that one day they too might become "fractured and fragmented" morally and politically. Those convinced that their own One True Path to immortality and salvation might slip out from under them. Those who get particularly queasy at the thought that human existence itself might be essentially meaningless. Those convinced that to be a serious philosopher one must first go up into the technical clouds and pin down precisely how each word must be defined. Theoretical constructs/exchanges that go on and on and on and on "up there".

Now, I'm the first to admit these points are no less rooted existentially in dasein. And that, given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge, I might once again change my mind about them.

In the interim, all I can do is to fall back on my own win/win approach to philosophy.

[Iwannaplato]

A feeding frenzy?

Still, here's my own predicament, of course.

Since I believe "here and now" that hard determinism is certainly a possibility in a No God world,

Seems highly possible in a yes-there-is-a- God World. There are even Christians who believe in predestination. And then in other religions there is fate and determinism. And of course there is nothing inherent in the existence of a deity entailing free will.

it's therefore possible that when some here insist on making me to subject, they were never able not to.

I have to let them off the hook if for no other reason that I myself have no capacity to demonstrate that we do have free will.

that doesn't follow.

But -- click -- I still suspect that what is going on here is the same old same old. Objectivists unnerved by the possibility that one day they too might become "fractured and fragmented" morally and politically.

See, when it suits you, you can go ahead and analyze and reason about something, even though determinism or simply bias and self-serving interpretations might mean you are wrong.

See?

However so often you quote someone and then throw out the conversation stopper. You could do what you did here: remind people of this possibility, then go ahead and actually respond to the ideas presented. But more and more regardless of what you quote in the articles you just say the same conversations stoppers.

Those convinced that their own One True Path to immortality and salvation might slip out from under them. Those who get particularly queasy at the thought that human existence itself might be essentially meaningless. Those convinced that to be a serious philosopher one must first go up into the technical clouds and pin down precisely how each word must be defined. Theoretical constructs/exchanges that go on and on and on and on "up there".

Yeah, there was a lot of this behavior above.

Now, I'm the first to admit these points are no less rooted existentially in dasein. And that, given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge, I might once again change my mind about them.

In the interim, all I can do is to fall back on my own win/win approach to philosophy.

I can't manage to see the conversation stopper as a real win win approach.

Now above you mention that you because the subject. But that's not quite the case. The focus, at least most of mine, was on what you do in your posts. The communication. But here in this post you definitely made other people the subject, which you have been doing for years. It's a core portion of many of your posts about objectivists or theists or whomever.