iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun Sep 29, 2024 1:29 am
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.
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?
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 5:50 amCould 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?
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Sep 25, 2024 5:46 am 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.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 5:50 amWhat'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?
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Sep 25, 2024 5:46 am 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.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 5:50 amRight, 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.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Sep 25, 2024 5:46 am We can certainly do that, but Strawson is not saying anything like that.
Well -- click -- maybe he should have.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 5:50 amWhy 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?
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Sep 25, 2024 5:46 am She isn't saying he is claiming that.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Sep 25, 2024 5:46 am 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.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 5:50 amObviously. 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.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 5:50 amWell, 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.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 5:50 am
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?
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 5:50 amIt'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.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Sep 25, 2024 5:46 am 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?
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 5:50 amWhy 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.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 5:50 amWhat? 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.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 5:50 amAgain, 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?