Philosophy Now Forum

As has been shown, and proved, over and over again, it only takes one word, misspelled, or even just one letter, misplaced, or even just missed, for what was actually meant and intended to be completely missed, misinterpreted, or misunderstood, which would then lead to further and more bickering, arguing, and fighting. And, as these posters here have shown, and proved over and over again, that they did not even stop to consider seeking out 'clarification', and would just respond based upon nothing at all other than 'their assumption/s' only, there is absolutely no wonder, at all, why 'the world' was in the complete and utter mess that it was in, in the days when this was being written.

Adult human beings create/d 'the world', the way it is, mostly from just 'words', alone. That is; from the False and Wrong misunderstanding/s of, and, from the False and Wrong misuse of words. And, 'the mess that 'the world' was in, was, or will be, to some, continually fixed and repaired through just the 'understanding' of 'each other', which comes mostly from Correct way of SEEING, and HEARING, through and from 'words', themselves.

Take for example this thread.

Considering the fact that not one of 'these people' here would just define the words being used here, I will begin:

'Free will', the ability to choose.

'Determinism', every thing that happens, occurs because of previous events/experiences. Which is more or less just 'cause and effect', in action.

The fact that all human beings have 'the ability to choose', while cause and effect happens, and occurs, is a compatible Fact, which is absolutely and irrefutably True.

In fact it is because 'free will', and what 'will happen', pre-determined factors, co-exist together, and are, absolutely, compatible, why both do exist.

In fact, this is HOW and WHY what all of you human beings want, and desire, is coming-to-be, and will exist, soon enough.

Now, for absolutely any one who wants to disagree that the words 'free will' do not refer to 'the ability to choose', then explain WHY NOT, and explain what those two words refer to, EXACTLY.

And, remember that I suggest that you, already, have the 'actual proof' for your belief and/or claim here. This also includes having all of 'your definitions' of and for all words being able to 'fit together', perfectly, in order to form One irrefutable True 'picture story' of all-there-is.

Or, you posters here can carry on as you have been and show and prove to future readers just how stubborn you, really, were, back in the 'olden days' when this was being written.

Age wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 6:09 am

Accepting the premise that there is no such thing as a free lunch
transforms the world
from a place
where beggars can’t be choosers,
into a place
where choosers can’t be beggars,
which supports a sorely neglected need that you’ve highlighted,
and that need is to discover an EXACT and equitable definition of “free,”
that applies to all the days wherein it is written,
into the history of the world
or ever could be written,
and to be pronto, Tonto,
before unexpected detours appear
that lead to Who knows where and cause Who know what, to happen.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 4:13 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 1:44 am 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?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Sep 29, 2024 6:03 am Well, you often frame the Mary situation and other moral situations by saying there is a distinction between is and ought.

No, what I do is to note how, given my own rooted existentially in dasein experiences, relationships and access to information and knowledge, "I" have come to conclude what I do "here and now" about these things. My "Mary" aborted her unborn baby/clump of cells. That is a fact. On the other hand, ought she have done so?

You just did precisely what I said.

Note to others:

A little help here please. Either for him or, sure, for me. What did I do above "precisely" as he said? Pertaining to Mary and Jane.

Is there or is there not a distinction being made between is and ought by the preponderance of men and women around the globe?

I'm not saying he is wrong. I'm only noting I haven't got a clue regarding how his point bears any resemblance to mine.

Is it a fact that she ought not to have done this?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 4:13 amHere too. Contrasting 'is' facts, which we can know about with 'ought' claims which you argue we cannot know about.

This, I believe, is simply preposterous. What is being contrasted [by me] are the objective facts regarding abortion as a medical procedure and personal opinions rooted existentially in dasein regarding the morality of it.

But: that all flies out the window for the hard determinists. They argue there is no distinction between the either/or and the is/ought world. Why? Because they are both inherently intertwined in the only possible reality.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 4:15 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 1:44 am

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Sep 29, 2024 6:03 am Perhaps the way you are framing the issue is part of the problem.

I would never deny that possibility.

Great, then don't judge my responses if they don't solve the entire Mary issue in that particular post. If my pots has to do with your way of framing the problem/issue, it could well be useful.

Or is it a "condition"?

As though that is what am doing here: judging his responses because they don't solve the entire Mary issue. It's as though this part...

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

...is still just, what, a trivial pursuit?

As for framing the problem, that's always been the same for me since the OP: figuring out how the compatibilists are able to reconcile determinism with moral responsibility. Both philosophically and for all practical purposes.

And the way some here seem to frame it is by defining the words. Objectively? And then assuming that their own definitions need be as far as we go. Or are certainly the place to start.

Walker wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 6:50 am

Age wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 6:09 am

Accepting the premise that there is no such thing as a free lunch

But, why would I, or any one, accept some thing that was not true?

Walker wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 6:50 am transforms the world
from a place
where beggars can’t be choosers,
into a place
where choosers can’t be beggars,
which supports a sorely neglected need that you’ve highlighted,
and that need is to discover an EXACT and equitable definition of “free,”
that applies to all the days wherein it is written,
into the history of the world
or ever could be written,
and to be pronto, Tonto,
before unexpected detours appear
that lead to Who knows where and cause Who know what, to happen.

Since your first line was ridiculous,
the rest is moot.

I will now suggest that you start with an irrefutable premise, and then move on from there.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 7:13 am

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 4:15 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 1:44 am

I would never deny that possibility.

Great, then don't judge my responses if they don't solve the entire Mary issue in that particular post. If my pots has to do with your way of framing the problem/issue, it could well be useful.

Or is it a "condition"?

As though that is what am doing here: judging his responses because they don't solve the entire Mary issue. It's as though this part...

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

...is still just, what, a trivial pursuit?

No, it's not as though that this the case. Nothing I have done has said those are trivial issues. Feel free to point to something I said that indicates this. Also that it becamse conscious hasn't even been your issue in most posts. In most of your posts the issue is how brain become autonomous and free somehow from determinism. So, this just seems ridicualous. A ridiculous accusation. A change in the focus from consciousness - which yes, I have seen you raise as an issue, but it's not the issue you have mainly raised around compitiblism in th e posts I have responded to - to autonomy.

What I have pointed out is that the brain cells becoming autonomous was not what the compatibliists your quoted were saying.

See the difference.

That's not what they were saying.
That's trivial.

Can you understand the difference? [rhetorical questions]

As for framing the problem, that's always been the same for me since the OP: figuring out how the compatibilists are able to reconcile determinism with moral responsibility. Both philosophically and for all practical purposes.

Great, well, it'll be comvincing you have this interest when you actually interact with what the people you quote are saying - which is not that brain cells are exceptions to the rules of determinism - and if you actually read and respond to people who have presented such arguments.

And the way some here seem to frame it is by defining the words.

Yeah, I didn't do that. But nice shot in the dark.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 6:55 am Note to others:

A little help here please. Either for him or, sure, for me. What did I do above "precisely" as he said? Pertaining to Mary and Jane.

Is there or is there not a distinction being made between is and ought by the preponderance of men and women around the globe?

Of course, those who hold with Hume. Nowhere, nowhere did I argue that people dont' make the distinction.

What I have pointed out is that YOUR arguments for why determinism leads to us not knowing things eradicate the distinction.

I have presented an argument for that three or four times. I have pointed out that often in the context of determinism, when you are thinking about that and whether we can know things, you say we may be compelled to believe that. I have then gone on to explain that that is true regarding all knowledge, any knowledge.

When your focus is somewhere else on the issue, you talk about scientific facts and wish scientists would come here and they would give real answers and possibly then we would know, forgetting what you have said about us being compelled to believe things, which would include scientists and us listening to them.

That's a sketch of what I have written several times but which you clearly have ignored.

And above here in the post I was responding to you denied you made that distinction, then made it again, acting incredullous anyone could question it.

what the fuck is wrong with you????????????????????????????????????????????????

A complete lack of courtesy. Then asking others to weigh in instead of actually reading things.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 4:43 am

There's no secret sequence of words that's going to convince him to have a real conversation with you. That's not because he doesn't want to though, it's because he doesn't know how.

He doesn't know how to say, for example, "I guess you're right, the mortality of abortion is kind of separate from compatibilism, and me forcing them to be the same conversation is actually not helping anything".

He doesn't know how to say, "these are my current beliefs about free will and determinism, and here is why I believe them."

He doesn't even know how to engage with you if you were to offer your beliefs about free will and determinism, and why you believe them. Instead of talking to you about your reasoning, he'll say "we need a context" and start talking about abortion again, because he doesn't know how to do anything else.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 8:50 am

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 4:43 am

There's no secret sequence of words that's going to convince him to have a real conversation with you.

Oh, Jesus, how embarrassing. Don't send good advice and clear analysis at me: I am clearly impervious. I agree with the rest as the most likely and actually most charitable interpretation. IOW it doesn't assume he is trying to frustrate people as a conscious troll.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 8:57 am

Maybe I'll try to have the conversation with you that I wish he could.

What do you think about free will and determinism, and why do you think it?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 10:28 am

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 8:57 am

Maybe I'll try to have the conversation with you that I wish he could.

What do you think about free will and determinism, and why do you think it?

As I've said earlier I think responsibility is compatible - and to me clearly in the practical sense - with determinism. I see no reason to not react to, including taking measures, iindividuals doing things we consider dangerous to others, for example. Sometimes in this and other of his threads he hsa made the distinction between intellectual contraptions and, in my words, down to earth, practical applications of ideas. Well, I see it as perfectly reasonable to isolate a rapist from society. I don't hold a table responsible for his raping. I don't hold non-rapists responsibile. I might hold, for example, his parents or someone who sexually abused him parly responsible and take measures in relation to them also. There might also be societal causes: systemic sexism, for example - and these I might also want to hold responsible and take measures in relation to. The up in the clouds idea that his actions could not have been otherwise going back to the Big Bang might lead to greater sympathy for the rapist on my part. But I would still consider him a person who may rape again and it is more likely he will than someone who has not raped and we need to do something about that.

I am not comparing a person to bacteria, but in terms of causation, I would also potentially take antibiotics because I think a specific bacteria in my body is responsible for my fever and sepsis. I will take measures in relation to that. I hold the bacteria responsible - and perhaps my idiotically not clearning a wound that got infected and take steps to remedy my own responsibility for creating this problem.

The person we punish is not empty of traits, even in determinism. He, in this case, is someone who has the desire to rape and lived it out. While the causes go back to the Big Bang and perhaps beyond, and even though they are inevitable, this does not mean that his nature has nothing to do with his acts. He is the one who rapes. He has qualities that lead to rape.

If causation had nothing to do with essence, it would be different. I'm not sure how. But if anyone regardless of attitudes toward women, tendencies to aggressive acts and all that had NOTHING to do with rape, that might be a different situation.

For exmaple, let's say that humans who come within five feet of ladybugs try to rape a woman shortly after.. A causation that has nothing at all to do with the essence/traits/tendencies of a paticular person was the cause of rape. That's different. I suppose my focus would be entirely on measures that keep ladybugs from the proximity of men and vice versa.

But here we have a person with traits that lead to rape. I can feel bad, certainly, if he had a childhood that was violent and abusive, for example, and he was trained to hate women or see rape as justified. But I am still dealing with a person with these tendencies.

EDIT: See below for an addition

Further it seems very up in the clouds to not consider the person responsible. Iambiguous has talked about compatibilists changing the meaning of the word. Some may, but to me that is a focus on intellectural contraptions.

In a deterministic universe...
Is anger in reaction to a rape justified?
Is taking measures in relation to a rapist justified?
Is thinking of that person as presenting a problem justified?

I think the answers are yes to all of those.

Will these reactions be experienced by the rapist as holding him responsible - and not some guy in the apartment next door to him, for example - for the rape?
Does it leave room to look at other causes and factors if I hold this person responsible and take measures that he does not want?

I think the answers to those questions are yes.

We can try to make some intellectual contraption happy and use some other word than responsible, but it won't change anything at all about my general reaction to the situation. He did it. We need to deal with him first. We can deal with other causes and prevention strategies after, despite holding him responsible.

If I considered abortion immoral, sure I could hold someone responsible for having done that. And in a practical sense, I would hold someone responsible for doing that, even without moral judgment. If she or they came to my clinic, asked for an abortion, I performed it and she started saying she was not going to pay for my services because the Big Bang was responsible for her getting the abortion, I would not suddenly buckly in my claim for payment.

That word, responsible, is how we frame reacting to actions we like and abhor. It is part of the process of deciding on what measures we take: giving someone a reward, expressing gratitude, calling someone a Stooge, putting them in prison, firing them, giving them a bonus.

People take idiotic measures, yes. People have all sorts of moral postions, including obviously contradictory ones and ones I abhor, but should it turn out to be the case that we are determined utterly and this is finally laid to rest and proven, I see no reason to change the basic process here involved in holding indviduals responsible for acts.

There can certainly be an incredible amount of needed discussion about the measures taken and what other now existent things, people and processes might or might not also be responsible. And this doesn't eliminate issues like 'is there an objective morality' for me.

And any rapist arguing that they should nto be held responsible because it was inevitable that they would rape due to determinism would be using an intellectual contraption that has very little to do with life on the ground, here in day to day life. That would be an up in the clouds response and assessment and not one he would use in relation to infections, someone stealing his car, someone hitting him with a hammer in the street, someone who did him a favor and so on. In those instances he would hold people and things responsible. He'd be being a hypocrite. And of course his argument would mean he has nothing to complain about in relation to the people considering him responsible and taking measures, given that they would not be responsible for their reactions in his schema.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 11:05 am

You gave some pretty fulfilling answers, so I'm struggling to come up with follow up questions. Hmmmm.

Wish I could put myself in the shoes of someone like biggy so I could try to draw out from you the clarity they think they're missing. Obviously we can't trust him to do that, he's probably just going to call you a stooge or tell you to tell that to Mary, or whatever other unproductive things...

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 11:13 am

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 11:05 am

You gave some pretty fulfilling answers, so I'm struggling to come up with follow up questions. Hmmmm.

Wish I could put myself in the shoes of someone like biggy so I could try to draw out from you the clarity they think they're missing. Obviously we can't trust him to do that, he's probably just going to call you a stooge or tell you to tell that to Mary, or whatever other unproductive things...

Well, let me add on something that might even be controversial to compatiblists:
I think Libertarian Free Will is not compatible with responsibility. Here's why:

1) let's be clear that some Libertarian free will people actually mean that we are not determined by external causes. In other words, even if someone puts a gun to my head, I can still refuse to give them my bank card code. To me that still leaves room for and actually assumes deteminism. The causes are internal. Why did you do X? Because I like to do X? Desires, motivations, values, dislikes etc. led to that person doing X. Internal state A led to State B with the action
2) I am talking about full on free will where many possible futures could happen, nothing determines what is done.
3) IN this scenario my personality, my desires, my values (both moral and preference) do not inevitably lead to what I. I could do anything, unaffected by who I am and what I want and like. This entails that my actions are not connected to what I do. That, it seems to me, entails actions and choices are random. Anyone could do anything and all actions are not caused by the state of the person just before the action.
4) Anyone could at anyone moment rape or seek to rape, because his (focusing on male rapists) choice is not determined by who he is.
5) Now someone could argue that their desires, wants, motivations, tastes etc. lead to tendencies, but there is some swing room. Well, what are those causes that lead to one possible choice and not another that fits with his or her personality. Well, they really love butterscoth ice cream. They sort of like chocolate, but love butterscotch. Welll, that intensity is a part of their make-up. Yeah, but sometimes they choose chocolate. Sure, but they also have a desire for variety.
5) This was fast and slopply but either your desires, etc. lead to decisions and these will be inevitable (though from our perspective on option amongst a set that fits us) OR there is no connection to us at all. Which would mean that anyone is as likely to rape as anyone else. We can't hold people responsible for acts that are random and anyone will randomly commit. Adn there is no practical reason to since the act has nothing to do with the person committing it. There is no more chance they would commit it again than someone who hasn't.

Note: I said that this would be controversial even for compatibilits. Not because it criticizes their position, which it doesn't, but because it's counterintuitive, so like anyone else they may think it sounds nuts.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 11:48 am

What if someone had a little bit of libertarian free will, but also were a little bit subject to determining factors, external (and internal) causes?