compatibilism

[Age]

If you want to fight and/or argue that 'free will' exists

What level of mental retardation must you have to not realize that I'm not arguing for free will, nor do I believe in it.

Great. I am happy that you admit this.

I now wonder if you saw the 'if' word there.

[Age]

Once again, what I want to, and am, showing and revealing was never intended for you, personally, nor for anyone else posting here, in this forum.

That's kinda gross

I will just say that somehow you have been managing to draw forth a clearer version of Age. Here, for example: I have seen him write many, many times that people posting here are not necessarily his intended audience, which is an absurdly useless contribution.

But here he just says we are not.

Who do you presume or believe the 'we' word here was in reference to, exactly, "iwannaplato"?

You got the touch, FJ.

[Flannel Jesus]

Once again, what I want to, and am, showing and revealing was never intended for you, personally, nor for anyone else posting here, in this forum.

That's kinda gross

I have no idea nor clue as to how nor why you would find that 'kind of gross'.

It feels weird and exploitative somehow, to talk to someone but you don't really care what they think and you don't expect them to care what you think. It's objectifying somehow, it's dehumanising. If your audience isn't the person you're talking to, you shouldn't be talking to them. It's gross.

[Age]

Literally everyone who gets annoyed about compatibilists having an adjusted definition of free will. Atla for example.

I have already talked about how there are no such actual things as so-called "compatibilists".

So what? So what if you've already talked about it? If you've already talked about it that makes it true? Saying you've already talked about it isn't a cogent point at all. I've already talked about how you're wrong. And whatever your reply is, I've already talked about how that's wrong. That means I win, because I've already talked about it. You see how stupid this "already talked about it" crap is?. It's nonsense. It didn't mean anything.

Are you suggesting that because you say and use the word "compatibilists" that there must be some thing that exists, which is called a "compatibilist"?

If you have an argument to make, post it. Don't say you've already posted it, that's worse than useless. I don't care what you already said m

Okay.

If you do not care what I have already said, then 'we' will just leave it there.

Once again, "flannel jesus" presumes that I am 'arguing" against it, or doing some thing I am not.

you once claimed that you like me providing (a) definition/s for the words I use. But, when I do this, the definitions, which, by the way, answer, absolutely, and irrefutably, the questions that are asked, are just completely and utterly rejected and/or ignored. And, utterly rejected, or ignored, so much that questions are asked as though 'my definition/s' were not already given, or were not cared about at all.

[Age]

That's kinda gross

I have no idea nor clue as to how nor why you would find that 'kind of gross'.

It feels weird and exploitative somehow, to talk to someone but you don't really care what they think and you don't expect them to care what you think. It's objectifying somehow, it's dehumanising. If your audience isn't the person you're talking to, you shouldn't be talking to them. It's gross.

Any one can write a book, for example, for a particular or specific audience. But, that in no way means that others cannot, nor will not, read it.

Again, if you 'feel' some particular way, which was in no way intended, then I will again suggest that you stop assuming things, before you even start to begin to assume any thing.

I am not sure how I can make this any more clearer, for you, and others, here.

[Flannel Jesus]

If you do not care what I have already said, then 'we' will just leave it there.

If you have something to say, say it. You've made thousands of posts on this forum, I haven't memorized them all, so you telling me you've already said it is beyond stupid. How am I supposed to use the information that you've already said some thing? Just say it again. You think you're that important that if you've already said something, I'm just going to remember what you said if you just say you already said it? You're not that important. Just say it again.

[Atla]

Great. I am happy that you admit this.

I now wonder if you saw the 'if' word there.

We know what the 'if' means there:

"atla" to just defend its 'currently' held onto belief and position, which, obviously, it is absolutely failing to do so on all accounts.

I'm not holding that position and belief. Did you know that you've written like 20 comments addressed to me just now, and all along you had no idea what you were even talking about?

[Flannel Jesus]

I am not sure how I can make this any more clearer, for you, and others, here.

Do not write anything for me if I'm not your audience. Don't reply to me, don't quote me. If I'm not your audience, leave me the fuck alone.

[Age]

If you do not care what I have already said, then 'we' will just leave it there.

If you have something to say, say it.

I did say it. And, you have specifically stated that you do not care that I have already said it.

You've made thousands of posts on this forum, I haven't memorized them all, so you telling me you've already said it is beyond stupid.

Okay. But, and if I recall correctly, since you had already responded to it, then I was just reminding you that I had already said it. Which, again, resolved and answered the actual questions that you were asking here.

But, even when I defined other words here, which showed how they worked with other words, other definitions, and with the topic of discussion within this thread, which you even acknowledged, and also said that 'you liked it', only a couple of your posts later you still went on to 'argue' with another about the very old different definition for a word, which has been 'discussed about', for thousands upon thousands of years already, with absolutely no resolution in sight. So, I could re-repeating the definitions for words, which actually 'work', but then, as before, I will get criticized for just repeating things, over and over.

How am I supposed to use the information that you've already said some thing? Just say it again.

1. 'Free will' is 'the ability to choose', only.

2. It is absolutely impossible for things like so-called "compatibilists", "libertarians", "determinants", nor any other name or label that is 'tried to' be put on, or assigned to, just another human being. And to prove this irrefutably True, define "compatibilist" in a way that 'works with', and 'fits in, perfectly with', every other word and their definitions, and which can be agreed with and accepted by every one.

There are no so-called "compatibilists" because it is not a word that can be defined properly, Accurately, and Correctly. As will come-to-light if, and when, any one tries to.

You think you're that important that if you've already said something, I'm just going to remember what you said if you just say you already said it?

Why are 'you' telling 'me' what 'I think', but then 'you' put a question mark at the end of 'your accusing statement'?

You're not that important. Just say it again.

I did above here, at number 2.

[Age]

Great. I am happy that you admit this.

I now wonder if you saw the 'if' word there.

We know what the 'if' means there:

But, obviously, knowing what a word means, never means that that word was seen.

"atla" to just defend its 'currently' held onto belief and position, which, obviously, it is absolutely failing to do so on all accounts.

I'm not holding that position and belief.

So, if you are, supposedly, not holding 'that position and belief' here, then 'what position and belief' are you, actually, holding here, exactly?

Did you know that you've written like 20 comments addressed to me just now, and all along you had no idea what you were even talking about?

LOL

'This one' will 'try' absolutely any thing to 'try to' deflect, and to deceive you readers here.

I could also ask 'this one' if it knew that it had written many posts, in this forum, and all along that it had no idea what it was even talking about?

But, to do so would be just another form of deceptive wording, and deceptively writing.

[Age]

I am not sure how I can make this any more clearer, for you, and others, here.

Do not write anything for me if I'm not your audience.

But how would I know if you are my targeted audience or not?

you seem to have a conflated or confused perception of what I have actually been meaning. you appear to made the same False and Wrong conclusion here, just like "iwannaplato" has been continually making.

Don't reply to me, don't quote me. If I'm not your audience, leave me the fuck alone.

Why do you, continually, have a negative and/or False perception of 'me', and of 'my words' here?

[iambiguous]

As noted by others, however, sure, I might be misconstruing his point. For all I know the author herself might be misconstruing it. Strawson seems [to me] to be making a distinction between acting and reacting. Mary acts by aborting her unborn baby/clump of cells. Others react to this in conflicting ways...all up and down the moral, political, and spiritual spectrum. But Mary's behavior itself derives from her own subjective reaction to the unwanted pregnancy. Then the billions and billions of human actions/reactions day after day after day after day going back millenia.

Like clockwork?

He's not drawing a distinction between actions and reactions in any way that implies that one is a free thing and the other is determined.

More to point, however, some argue that the distinction he drew was the only distinction he was ever able to draw.

Which would hold also for scientists and of course anyone they communicate with, so the is ought distinction and the science vs philosophy distinctions you emphasize are meaningless.

Again, from my frame of mind -- click -- this is not a meaningful, substantial reaction to the points I made above. Where's Mary, for example?

Science and compatibilism, philosophy and compatibilism. Six of one, half dozen of the other? That's how some construe it. Nothing that is matter transcends the laws of matter, they are compelled to argue. It's just that brain matter is like no other matter we have ever come across. On the other hand, given this...

It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe.

...you tell me where human autonomy fits in here. As always, with me, in regard to meaning and morality, I'm drawn and quartered. Whereas others seem to actually believe that what they do believe "here and now" about compatibilism really, really is, if not the only rational assessment, then certainly the optimal assessment.

Or, perhaps, it's like hard determinists asking, "what part of everything that we think, feel, say and do we were never able not to think, feel, say and do" don't you understand?"

And let's get back to how Strawson might have explained his argument to Mary above.

I don't think she is saying that about his thoughts but one can read Strawson's arcticle here, for example
https://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/P._ ... ntment.pdf

Then the part where some compatibilists will argue that even though you were never actually able to read the article, you are still responsible for, what, understanding what it said?

Could you show me any article or text by any compatibilist that leads to that conclusion?

Again, Mary and her abortion are nowhere to be seen.

As for reading the article, let those here who believe that they do grasp an optimal understanding of compatibilism, explain to us how they are able to pin down "free will" here. Were they or were they not determined by laws of matter emanating from their brain to read it? And if they were never, ever going to come into contact with it, how can they be held responsible for not sharing its conclusions?

The part I keep missing.

We have evolved to have bodily reactions and mental processes that ultimately serve the evolutionary purpose of our preservation, and our reactive attitudes are part of that.

This could certainly be the case. So, how do we go about attempting to actually demonstrate it?

that sentences is, more or less, darwinism. The only problem with it is that it overreaches: we may inherit traits that are slightly negative or neutral. But that sentence holds for most traits.

On the other hand Strawson does not mention evolution. She's going off on her own and adding interpretations. He does call the reactions natural.

Going off on her own? In other words, the possibility that when she does this, she may well have never been able not to. It's not what he calls reactions, some argue, but his capacity to demonstrate that all other rational men and women are obligated to describe them in the same way.

What's not that? What are you asserting here?

That we both may well be asserting things here like actors reading their lines from a script going all the way back to the Big Bang? Just as with Strawson and the author?

Sure, like others here, there's a part of me able to question that. It just seems ridiculous that I am not typing these words "here and now" of my own volition. Just as given your own "here and now" you are reading them of your own volition. But that is no where near the same as actually establishing this...ontologically? Let alone, given meaning and morality, teleologically?

Just out of curiosity, if you were to take his assumptions to a convention of neuroscientists, how might they, well, react to it? Would they be able to connect the dots between the human brain and the human mind here? Such that a chemical and neurological distinction between human action and human reactions can be noted. Can be established?

Neurosciensts tend to assume what you say here.

Or, perhaps, neuroscientists, just like all the rest of us, assume nothing they were ever able not to assume.

Right, so will you stop framing the issue as if scientists weighing in is what is needed, given that you now acknowledge that not only their thoughts and conclusions may well be determined, but then anyone listening to the may be compelled to misinterpret them or believe them not for rational reasons?

Sure, as soon as you are able to establish that, in framing the issue as I do, I was in fact able to frame it otherwise. The right way. As, say, you or phyllo or FJ do?

Also, as noted before, imagine the universe had locations where free will prevailed and locations where determinsm prevailed.

We can certainly do that, but Strawson is not saying anything like that.

Well -- click -- maybe he should have.

Why should he have? Are you now saying that he should have, and that's why you responded as if he did? Does that make sense to you?

Because my point is one way in which others might think about this. Or did Strawson just assume that we need not take this much beyond planet Earth? Though, some will suggest, it's not like he was ever able himself to suggest otherwise.

Claiming, asserting or believing things philosophically is one thing, actually establishing that they are true objectively for all of us another thing all together.

Except in a wholly determined universe, where they are actually interchangeable? And essentially meaningless sans God or Pantheism?

She isn't saying he is claiming that.

He is saying that the fact of deteminism does not undermine our moral reactions and assigning responsibility.

Right, and then the part where "somehow" the brain has managed to make that distinction between acting and reacting. And even though it would seem to make sense that we be held responsible for things that we opted freely to do, it doesn't make sense [to me] that we be held responsible for reacting to the actions of others if the laws of matter compelled our brain to compel that and only that reaction.

Obviously. Could you present the reasoning for your position and perhaps why the reasoning of those who have said it does make sense are incorrect?

No, very, very little of what we are speculating about here is obvious, in my view. In fact, I often wonder to what extent the Benjamin Button Syndrome is applicable in the either/or world. All those zillions and zillions of atoms swirling about in our bodies, in our brains, interacting with zillions and zillions and zillions and zillions of other atoms "out there". Really, if it turned out that the human condition is just a "sim world" or a "dream world" or a working model Matrix, I probably would not be all that surprised. Well, if that was an option, anyway.

As for "presenting reasoning"...why would that be any different? Same brain.

But then the part where I do keep missing the point about compatibilism and moral responsibility. Only in that case how am I not straight back to the assumption "here and now" that I could never have not missed it.

Well, first off you could try stopping saying that compatibilists in general and in individual cases are saying that there are regions of free will (in brains for example) and respond to what they do say.

Trying to start and stop, actually starting and stopping, reacting to the starts and the stops of others. Maybe the human condition is just a video game that some super-advanced civilization "out there" employs to entertain their children.

In fact, one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes imagines just that: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734625/

Note to compatibilists:

Please attempt again to explain how you would hold someone morally responsible for something they were never able not to do. If I do keep missing something truly important here then note why you do not keep missing it yourself.

People have done this. I did it over at ILP with the man hitting a stranger with a hammer for no reason. You opted not to respond to that. If you are not going to respond to explanations, why ask for them? I think I've done it here. I know Phyllo has. I believe FJ has done it here. This doesn't mean we proved anything, but as far as I can tell you don't interact with the explanations you request.

Come on, we are grappling with issues here that have thoroughly fascinated -- and boggled -- the minds of both scientists and philosophers now for centuries.

But these questions are so fucking fascinating! People like us just can't resist rolling the boulder a little further up -- or down? -- the hill.

Look, if you are convinced that you have in fact accomplished this you have -- click -- two options:

1] keep trying with me
2] give up with me and move on to others

In an argument [since that's as far as we seem able to go here], note how Strawson's assessment above is applicable to your own value judgments...to your own actions and reactions. Note what you would suggest neuroscientists ought to do experientially and experimentally in order to pin this down more...substantively?

It's not a neuroscientist issue. Neuroscientists could certainly weigh in on determinism vs free will in the nervous system including the brain. Just as physicists could. But that's not the issue with compatibilists.

Again: "...note how Strawson's assessment above is applicable to your own value judgments...to your own actions and reactions."

Who knows, if you bring this stuff down to Earth often enough rhen, given your own interactions with others, you might post something that does begin to sink in more. Of course, that works the other way around too.

And, again, why do you think neuroscienstists should be more convincing: their conclusions, in a deterministic universe would also be determined, and your interpretation and 'being convinced' by them would also be determined.

To the extent that scientists themselves study the brain, how could they not deem it vital to determine if they are doing so of their own volition? Yeah, some argue this is the job of philosophers, not scientists, but how many philosophers do you know who employ fMIR technology in order to actually study the functioning brain?

"Neuroscience, also known as Neural Science, is the study of how the nervous system develops, its structure, and what it does. Neuroscientists focus on the brain and its impact on behavior and cognitive functions."georgetown university

Gee, what could that possibly have to do with Mary aborting Jane, provoking all manner of conflicting moral reactions?

Why post in a philosophy forum, or two at least, and request explanations when you don't interact with them when they come? If you want neuroscientists to answer your question, why not go to science forums or contact neuroscientists directly?

Or -- click -- why do you continue to respond to someone that you insist refuses to actually respond in turn to your own explanations? Or, are we both off the hook given that this exchange itself is unfolding in the only possible way that it could have going back to....to what exactly?

He believes that moral reactions are utterly compatible with determinism, and part of what he does is to show how we decide in a determinist universe if some one is responsible and that how we determine that does not entail arguing that person X was determined and person Y was not.

From my frame of mind -- click -- he was just doing what all the rest of us here are still just doing...accumulating sets of assumptions about the human condition that permit some to believe "in their head" there to be free will.

What? He is not arguing for free will.

Okay, but for those like me [who, yes, may well be wrong here], is he or is he not arguing that Mary was never able not to abort Jane but that she is still morally responsible for doing so? Sounds like free will to me. Either that or a language game? Is this one of the things Wittgenstein suggested we not speak of precisely because of the gap here between words and worlds?

On the other hand, is it an inherent gap? Who knows, maybe someday we will make contact with the folks from Flatland and we can explore that gap.

Again, if someone came and quoted from your posts and said Clearly Iambigious is a Bible Thumper, spewing his deontological morality and is willing to force people with violence to agree with him, I''d pop in and say they were mistinterpreting you and back it up by showing whatever they quoted did not support that position. I suspect you would start saying that my interpretation of you is compelled - even if you agree with it in the abstract. You might even, [shock] point out that you did not assert those things and ask for some evidence you did.

How does that really change anything? Either that exchange itself unfolded in the only possible material reality or "somehow" when matter became biological and biological matter became conscious, and conscious biological matter became self-conscious biological matter, we just acquired autonomy.

Or, perhaps, this still all comes down to...souls? The God thing?

[iambiguous]

And thinking that only with freedom can we have responsibility is a postion that he could argue for. This would entail making an argument, rather than expressing incredulity and merely asserting his position, and I'm not sure why he doesn't make that argument.

Other people have explained why they think determinism is compatible with holding people responsible. Instead of a making his case for the necessity of freedom or countering their arguments - which would mean specifically pointing out the flaws in the argument, for example - he simply repeats his assertions

Absolutely shameless!

For example, if I do say so myself.

Yes, your behavior certainly seems to be shameless and not in some positive sense. At the very least, utterly lazy.

Look, in no way, shape or form am I arguing that my point of view here regarding meaning, morality and/or the Big Questions is the correct one. Instead, I suggest that, given how I have come to understand the tools of philosophy "here and now", there may well not be any answers in a Godless universe. At least not in regard to those things that are most important to me.

On the other hand, I believe my posts here do qualify as serious philosophy. And, in part, I know this because I majored in philosophy at TSU and the professors themselves there were intrigued by it.

To wit...

In JoAnn Fuchs class, devoted to the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir, I was assigned the task of assessing her novel The Blood of Others.

JoAnn was really impressed with my conclusions. Which were a rudimentary reflection of what I believe now. She passed them on to her [at the time] husband Walt Fuchs. But he and I had already had many long and truly exhilarating discussions about how "for all practical purposes" existentialism and Marxism were relevant in a "postmodern" world. I also had many encounters with another philosophy professor there, Rene DeBrabander, discussing much the same things.

Now, back then I was like few other students. Almost all of them had just graduated from high school. Whereas I had worked at Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock and in the tin mill and the pipe mill at Bethlehem Steel. I had been drafted into the Army, spent a harrowing year in Vietnam and almost didn't make it back.

In other words, many of my most rewarding relationships back then were with teachers, not with other students..

More to the point: you seem to be making moral judgments, here, and in a very, very mild way, holding someone responsible for their actions by making a public criticism and labelling them. Given that deteminism might be the case why do you seem to hold a compatibilist position here?

Note to Nature:

You tell him.

[Iwannaplato]

As noted by others, however, sure, I might be misconstruing his point. For all I know the author herself might be misconstruing it. Strawson seems [to me] to be making a distinction between acting and reacting. Mary acts by aborting her unborn baby/clump of cells. Others react to this in conflicting ways...all up and down the moral, political, and spiritual spectrum. But Mary's behavior itself derives from her own subjective reaction to the unwanted pregnancy. Then the billions and billions of human actions/reactions day after day after day after day going back millenia.

Like clockwork?

He's not drawing a distinction between actions and reactions in any way that implies that one is a free thing and the other is determined.

More to point, however, some argue that the distinction he drew was the only distinction he was ever able to draw.

Which would hold also for scientists and of course anyone they communicate with, so the is ought distinction and the science vs philosophy distinctions you emphasize are meaningless.[/quote]

Again, from my frame of mind -- click -- this is not a meaningful, substantial reaction to the points I made above. Where's Mary, for example?

Well, you often frame the Mary situation and other moral situations by saying there is a distinction between is and ought. You argue that we can know X about a pregant person and what an abortion will do. But we cannot know about whether she should do it or not. While in other posts you make arguments about how determinism undermines all our conclusions.

If my point was not relevant to the Mart sitution than your bringing up the is/ought distinction is not relevant.

If we are trying to work out way towards either common ground or THE TRUTH (if this is possible) or both, the process may not be that my posts immediately lead to our agreement about what Mary should have done or if morals can be objective or if it is wrong to assign responsibility directly. They make shift the way things are framed in a longer process where we might arrive at agreement.

kPerhaps the way you are framing the issue is part of the problem.

On the other hand I have directly explained how I think assigning responsibility is compatible with determinism. But you have not opted to interact with my or others' explanations of that in any specific way. You have responded by saying 'from my perspective....' and repeated your position. But you haven't shown what is wrong with our explanations.

Science and compatibilism, philosophy and compatibilism. Six of one, half dozen of the other? That's how some construe it. Nothing that is matter transcends the laws of matter, they are compelled to argue. It's just that brain matter is like no other matter we have ever come across.

This is very unclear but it sounds like you might be saying again that compatibilists say that brain matter is somehow outside of determinism. They aren't.

On the other hand, given this...

It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe.

...you tell me where human autonomy fits in here. As always, with me, in regard to meaning and morality, I'm drawn and quartered. Whereas others seem to actually believe that what they do believe "here and now" about compatibilism really, really is, if not the only rational assessment, then certainly the optimal assessment.

I haven't said anything about autonomy. I don't see what dark matter has to do with Mary.

Or, perhaps, it's like hard determinists asking, "what part of everything that we think, feel, say and do we were never able not to think, feel, say and do" don't you understand?"

And let's get back to how Strawson might have explained his argument to Mary above.

He wrote an article that anyone can read. Of course how he would have interacted with Mary would likely have depended on what he thought about abortions in terms of morality. So, it's an absurd questions to ask us to speculate on. we can however see how he spoke about morality in general, and we could try to work out how he might say something to someone who he thought was doing something immoral.

I don't think she is saying that about his thoughts but one can read Strawson's arcticle here, for example
https://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/P._ ... ntment.pdf

Then the part where some compatibilists will argue that even though you were never actually able to read the article, you are still responsible for, what, understanding what it said?

Could you show me any article or text by any compatibilist that leads to that conclusion?

Again, Mary and her abortion are nowhere to be seen.

I was responding to this quote of yours where Mary and her abortion are nowhere to be seen.

Then the part where some compatibilists will argue that even though you were never actually able to read the article, you are still responsible for, what, understanding what it said?

Do you mean if you make up stuff, no one should point this out or ask for support for your statements? Does making up stuff help us reach a conclusion about Mary?

As for reading the article, let those here who believe that they do grasp an optimal understanding of compatibilism, explain to us how they are able to pin down "free will" here.

Hey, idiot. He doesn't argue for free will. HE DOESNT ARGUE FOR FREE WILL.

Were they or were they not determined by laws of matter emanating from their brain to read it? And if they were never, ever going to come into contact with it, how can they be held responsible for not sharing its conclusions?

The part I keep missing.

Actually it's the part you keep making up. If you are too fucking lazy or disinterested in reading the people you quote and every single time your're just going to make up positions they do not have, why not stop quoting them?

If you think that talking about things that do not resolve the Mary issue is fine on your part, then consider accepting that it is fine when others respond to those parts of your post.

If you only want people who are anti-abortion to respond to this thread, MAKE THAT CLEAR.

Otherwise consider the problem there is for people to hallucinate what people who may not be anti-abortion will tell Mary who isn't around what they should have done and how they are responsible for doing something they don't think was wrong.

If you want someone to actually explain how they think determinism is compatible with holding people responsible then actually read what they write, here or at ILP, and accept their example, since they may not be anti-abortion so your exmaple doesn't work. Unless the whole point of the thread is to help you write a letter to Mary rather than to understand how one might reasonably hold poeople responsible for their actions while believing in determinism, then actually interact with their ideas?

That is the issue, right? How can we hold someone responsible for their actions if determinism is correct?

It doesnt' matter what example is used, right? And people have used examples of specific down on the earth situations where an action was taken and they held the person responsible.

[Iwannaplato]

Absolutely shameless!

For example, if I do say so myself.

Yes, your behavior certainly seems to be shameless and not in some positive sense. At the very least, utterly lazy.

Look, in no way, shape or form am I arguing that my point of view here regarding meaning, morality and/or the Big Questions is the correct one.

I never said you were.

Instead, I suggest that, given how I have come to understand the tools of philosophy "here and now", there may well not be any answers in a Godless universe. At least not in regard to those things that are most important to me.

On the other hand, I believe my posts here do qualify as serious philosophy. And, in part, I know this because I majored in philosophy at TSU and the professors themselves there were intrigued by it.

They raise serious philosophy issues. What I react to is the way you use the quotes of others and generally do not interact with them. They are treated as triggers to repeat your positions. So, the same perfectly good issues are re-raised.

To wit...

In JoAnn Fuchs class, devoted to the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir, I was assigned the task of assessing her novel The Blood of Others.

JoAnn was really impressed with my conclusions. Which were a rudimentary reflection of what I believe now. She passed them on to her [at the time] husband Walt Fuchs. But he and I had already had many long and truly exhilarating discussions about how "for all practical purposes" existentialism and Marxism were relevant in a "postmodern" world. I also had many encounters with another philosophy professor there, Rene DeBrabander, discussing much the same things.

Now, back then I was like few other students. Almost all of them had just graduated from high school. Whereas I had worked at Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock and in the tin mill and the pipe mill at Bethlehem Steel. I had been drafted into the Army, spent a harrowing year in Vietnam and almost didn't make it back.

In other words, many of my most rewarding relationships back then were with teachers, not with other students..

Lovely. But any philosophy professor, responding to a paper or responding to assertions made by students, is going to challenge if that student is accurately responding to what they are quoting/interpreting. They're not going to sit back and let strawman arguments go by.

They are also going to think that if one student argues for compatibilism, but never says there is free will or that brain cells are outside determinism, and you respond as if they have, that no one should mention this. I'm pretty sure they'd ask you what you base your interpretation on? When people do this here and at ILP, it is as if they only motivation for doing this is to dominate you and your interpretation, or that there is no way to reconcile interpretations or that there is no need for you to justify your assertions, but others should, or that if something does not immediately generate the words that Mary should here, there is no point, even though much of what you write is not doing that.

I can't see where any philosophy professor would think asking for justification or expecting people to interact with the ideas of other people are incorrect or problematic attitudrs/expectations, especially given that you have those expectations yourself for others.

More to the point: you seem to be making moral judgments, here, and in a very, very mild way, holding someone responsible for their actions by making a public criticism and labelling them. Given that deteminism might be the case why do you seem to hold a compatibilist position here?

Note to Nature:

You tell him.

It would have been problematic to respond there, so I understand your presenting a non-repsonse.