compatibilism

[Immanuel Can]

...keep checking it until you finally do get around to addressing the points I raised.

So...when you wrote "note to others," you didn't mean "others." You meant me? And you were surprised that I did not recognize myself as one of the "others"?

Is that what you now want me to assume?

If so, why did you write this "note to others"? It wasn't really "to others" at all, then. You were trying to "raise points" to me...

Why didn't you just say what you meant?

So then, I looked back at the rant you printed in large text. And I couldn't find a single "point" that needed refuting, because it was all just a rant. Can you pick something intelligible out of that rant, and say what it is you were hoping I'd "address"?

[phyllo]

One eventually reaches the conclusion that Iambiguous is not interested in an "argument".

If he wants anything, it's a "proof" or a "demonstration".

Words alone are never going to be anything other than "theoretical" and "in the clouds".

Even though he requests these or thinks scientists and his listening to them would not be also potentially determined. IOW he has an ongoing critique of everyone being up in the clouds as if there is another option, but when one chooses that other option, he ignores it. He criticizes and requests as if there could be a right way to speak to him, to avoid being the Durantian serious philosopher, but this is, yes, simply impossible (for him to notice).

If he wants anything, it's a "proof" or a "demonstration".

Which of course might only seem like a proof he is compelled to see as a proof, should one ever come. So, it's silly. Either accept that we can try our best, and yes we might be fooling ourselves, perhaps make some progress. Or stop asking for things given that the dismissals he wields hold just as well for proofs, scientists arguments, etc.

It's funny that he is supposedly so averse to theorectical discussion but back when you and I suggested he actually participate in some of the systems, perhaps ones that might fit his interests or habits, he dismissed this. No, he could never actually try something. There are so many. We, one in million is better than zero. But further he could probably eliminate a huge number just based on the practices and beliefs of the teachers/masters/priests. Yes, he might be wrong, but he might actually find something interesting, and further NOT BE simply going on in a philosophy forum of all places about being up in the theoretical clouds. It'd be hands on, practical, participatory, potentially interpersonal and about as down to earth as possible.

This is like sitting for years in a chess club and complaining that chess isn't physical sport. Every single game he watches isn't physical enough.

Iambiguous will sometimes posts his 4 or 5 questions about the existence of God, etc.

I asked him what posters could write which would demonstrate the existence of God to him.

He replied that if God performed a miracle, then that would be a good demonstration for him.

IOW, no "mere human" can give him an adequate demonstration.

I have asked the same question about 3 times now just in case that was just an anomaly but he has given the same reply each time.

Can anything be proven or demonstrated to him? I don't think so. He wants absolute certainty from an infallible source.

[Immanuel Can]

Iambiguous will sometimes posts his 4 or 5 questions about the existence of God, etc.

I asked him what posters could write which would demonstrate the existence of God to him.

He replied that if God performed a miracle, then that would be a good demonstration for him.

IOW, no "mere human" can give him an adequate demonstration.

I have asked the same question about 3 times now just in case that was just an anomaly but he has given the same reply each time.

Can anything be proven or demonstrated to him? I don't think so. He wants absolute certainty from an infallible source.

Yes, I think you're right about that...Biggie can't be convinced.

If Biggie wants God to "perform a miracle" for him, then what "miracle" would it be? He would have to say what sort of "miracle" he would find acceptable, of course. So it would be up to him to set the task.

Otherwise, he'd have to accept a miracle performed by God, of God's own choosing. And since God has already performed many such miracles, and Biggie has already ignored them all, what's the next move? Only that Biggie must set the test: apparently, nothing God does of His own volition is allowed to count.

But then, if he set it, and God didn't perform it for him, what could Biggie reasonably conclude? Only that God had refused to perform-on-command. And what would that indicate? Not that God could not, but perhaps only that God would not play parlour tricks for Biggie on command.

So what can Biggie prove by that test? Nothing at all, really.

[Iwannaplato]

Iambiguous will sometimes posts his 4 or 5 questions about the existence of God, etc.

I asked him what posters could write which would demonstrate the existence of God to him.

He replied that if God performed a miracle, then that would be a good demonstration for him.

IOW, no "mere human" can give him an adequate demonstration.

I have asked the same question about 3 times now just in case that was just an anomaly but he has given the same reply each time.

Can anything be proven or demonstrated to him? I don't think so. He wants absolute certainty from an infallible source.

I wonder what kind of miracle he'd need as proof. I've experienced all sorts of things, really wild stuff and anomalies. Supernatural stuff.

These things actually fade. You find another explanation. Denial sets in.

Why would a miracle work? He could be incorrectly interpreting it? He could be compelled to think it was a miracle? And so on.

Further, pretty much every single tradition out there connects practices with experiencing miracles. You can experience a miracle, in most of these paradigms, without prayer, contemplation, rituals, gathering with others, focusing texts and scriptures or talks, meditation and so on, but the chance go up if you are in relation to whatever the religion, spirituality, tradition has a God. In a sense there is a skill element, from Shamanism to religious silent retreats to participating in Mass and so on. You get closer to that which you seek.

He's using a method that wouldn't even get him a date to meet a deity.

[phyllo]

This was one of the miracles he posted at ILP:

Iambiguous wrote :

How about this...

We wake up one morning and there's this guy on every single television channel around the globe telling us that He is God. And, He tells us, in order to prove this, He will make it so that in the next 24 hours not a single child anywhere around the world will die from starvation, or go to bed hungry, or suffer any sexual or emotional abuse, or, in fact, not be bursting at the seams with great big smiles.

And incredibly enough, He turns out to be virtually indistinguishable from your own "private and personal" Christian God.

That'll work as "good news of the Kingdom" for me.

Also, just out of curiosity, given that for many the Christian God is said to be infinitely loving, just and merciful, why isn't it that the way for all children now?

Also:

Iambiguous wrote:
Short of holding a press conference to introduce a God/the God to the world in order for Him to demonstrate His own existence, mere mortals are always going to miss the mark.

[Immanuel Can]

This was one of the miracles he posted at ILP:

Iambiguous wrote :

How about this...

We wake up one morning and there's this guy on every single television channel around the globe telling us that He is God. And, He tells us, in order to prove this, He will make it so that in the next 24 hours not a single child anywhere around the world will die from starvation, or go to bed hungry, or suffer any sexual or emotional abuse, or, in fact, not be bursting at the seams with great big smiles.

And incredibly enough, He turns out to be virtually indistinguishable from your own "private and personal" Christian God.

That'll work as "good news of the Kingdom" for me.

Also, just out of curiosity, given that for many the Christian God is said to be infinitely loving, just and merciful, why isn't it that the way for all children now?

Also:

Iambiguous wrote:
Short of holding a press conference to introduce a God/the God to the world in order for Him to demonstrate His own existence, mere mortals are always going to miss the mark.

Do you think he would believe that, even if it actually happened?

If I were him, I wouldn't. I'd simply say, "Look, if I can command the Supreme Being to do a test for me, and he jumps right to it, then he's clearly not as 'supreme' as I am: I commanded, and he had to obey."

And that would probably be right, too.

But the other way to go is simply to say, "This is a guy on a TV set. Now way is he 'god.'" And that would also be right. What's a 'god' doing on a TV show?

[phyllo]

I don't know how he would act if he got his wish.

I'm just noting some statements he has made and some behaviors he has exhibited.

[Immanuel Can]

I don't know how he would act if he got his wish.

I'm just noting some statements he has made and some behaviors he has exhibited.

Yep, fair enough.

[iambiguous]

Wait -- click -- above you accused me of accusing others of being unhinged objectivists. Please cite how you came to that conclusion given the things I have posted so far.

On the other hand, it might instead be this: that the arguments I make in regard to meaning and morality and metaphysics...that human existence is essentially meaningless, that human morality is rooted existentially in dasein, that death is "the end" period, that free will is a psychological illusion...disturbs those here who [to me] seem hell bent on routing philosophy in the general direction of their very own One True Path

After bashing me and others in multiple posts about objectivisist attitudes (which I don't actually have), you wrote the above. Hell bent on the One True path = unhinged objectivist, duh.

And it's not like anyone here ever "bashes" me, right? On the other hand, me bashing others and others bashing me may well be interchangeable in turn. Even in "everyday life".

Also, what I suggested is certainly not that I want to be an objectivist just in order to be one. What I would like is to encounter arguments able to convince me that human existence isn't essentially meaningless and purposeless, that there is the philosophical equivalent of objective morality, that death is not just a tumble down into the abyss, that autonomy is the real deal.

And, indeed, it is what I construe to be the limitations of philosophy [and its tools] in regard to meaning, morality and metaphysics that I focus far, far, far more on.

On the absolute level of philosophy, human existence is meaningless and purposeless, there is no objective morality, death is the end and autonomy isn't the real deal

Maybe it's just me but this sure sounds an awful lot like someone asserting things that they believe in their head about things they have no capacity to actually demonstrate are true for all rational men and women.

And this thread revolves more around the extent to which this exchange itself is unfolding either autonomously or autonomically.

You can only find/make meaning for everyday human life, create subjective/intersubjective morality for everyday human life, live like you won't die, live knowing that you have "free will" in the everyday choices sense."

How then, given your own interactions with others, is "free will" different from free will.

All you are doing here, in my view, is telling me once again what you believe "in your head". Just as I do myself here. But for the hard determinists, if you are never able to define something other than as your brain compels you to define it, then all definitions are interchangeable if for all practical purposes our behaviors themselves are wholly determined.

Again, whoever these hard determinists are, they just sound like a bunch of idiots. Everything being ultimately determined, doesn't mean that we should view our definitions as freely interchangable in the everyday life.

Again, we think about this differently. If everyone of us defines compatibilism only as our brains compel us to, how can we then be held responsible by others for defining it either "right" or "wrong"? Other then because in holding or not holding others responsible that too is just another manifestation of the only possible reality.

Actions and reactions are all embedded in this only possible world.

As for these "everyday choices" of yours, I'm still not certain how far you take this. Or, perhaps, how far it can be taken by mere mortals in a No God world. For example, you are reading these words. Now, are you reading them because you freely chose to?

Sure, I may be misunderstanding your point. You may be misunderstanding mine. So, philosophically or otherwise, how do we arrive at a conclusion that...settles it? Or, perhaps, that comes closer to what might be deemed settling it.

Again, the assumption I am making here is this: that the assumption you are making here is that using or not using Occam is part of your "everyday" freedom to choose. And that this is true for you [as far as I can tell] because you believe that it is true. Believing something apparently is what makes it true.

In the everyday sense, I'm reading this because I wanted to, choose to. Could have done a whole lot of other things.

Okay, how about this part then: "a man can do what he wants but not want what he wants".

Of course, Schopenhauer was himself no more able to demonstrate that this is true either.

I don't think we can really settle this, I just think that for someone like me who gave up any "hope" for objectivism long ago, this is one of the best views - it's realistic and also psychologically quite comfortable.

Just so long as you are willing to accept that believing something which makes you feel psychologically comforted may actually be why you believe it in the first place?

Thus, it's sort of settled for you here and now. But not perhaps there and then?

Now do we actually slightly "bend" the universe's past and future, by making everyday choices? The universe determines what we do, but do we also slightly determine the universe's past and future, because all perspectives are equal?

Okay, given where the universe stops and "I" begins, how might that be understood more effably in regard to you participating in this exchange?

I suspect the answer is actually yes, and that this is the true meaning of determinism, but don't think this can be proven or disproven.

Just as it cannot yet be proven or disproven that we do in fact have free will. And that "true meaning" is whatever we are compelled by our brains to believe it is. But this quandary becomes particularly problematic because all we have available to us to broach, examine and assess all of this is the brain itself.

Where most people see determinism as a yes or no question, I see it as an infinite regress. We do things because they were determined. Things are determined because we choose them. I suspect what is actually going on is where these two views meet in infinite regress, even if our input is very, very small.

Again, however, what on Earth does this mean "for all practical purposes".

Tell that to the hardcore objectivists who come here in order to set us all straight regarding meaning, morality and metaphysics.

I do, and I don't feel particularly threatened by objectivists, objectivism is dying in the West. They are good target practice.

Well, here in America -- click -- let's see how things unfold when Trump is back in the White House. From my frame of mind, Trump is not an objectivist. He just plays one on the campaign trail.

[iambiguous]

As I noted to Phyllo, yes, that does sound familiar. But when you are posting in 3 different philosophy forums, it's easy to lose track of what you posted and where. Not that any of this can in and of itself be pinned down as autonomous or not.

OK, maybe you have dementia. I'm serious, not being insulting. I posted here links to where I made the arguments in the two forums we meet in. I gave you the links. You openly said you weren't going to bother:

Come on, if you are going to resort to out and out bullshit, you might want to reconsider and accept that, yeah, maybe you are posting only what you could never have not posted.

What's the bullshit. You said you weren't going to bother responding to a real world concrete example that wasn't abortion in ILP. Here you said you weren't going to wade through links, though actually you only need to open the first link. Whats the bullshit?

You're not cracking up on me, are you?

Of course, "bullshit" is often in the mind of the beholder here. But then this thread explores the extent to which the minds of the beholders themselves are or are not autonomous.

And when did I ever say I would not respond to any real-world conflagrations that did not revolve around abortion?

To wit:

And all I asked of others here is that -- click -- if their own memory is still largely intact, would they please attempt to note what they themselves believe you were attempting to convey with that example.

Actually you asked for the gist of the argument. Earlier you gave reasons why you weren't going to read the posts. We went through this once before and 1) it's two forums not three 2) I gave you easy links precisely after you asked Phyllo and you opted not to use them. There was no bullshit in my reaction.

Why don't you just copy and paste the example of the man with the hammer? I'll read it.

don't respond, whatever.......

Click?

I have made it rather clear that the only reason I respond to you here at all is because you insist on following me around from thread to thread in order to "expose" me to others. Look, I respect both your intelligence and your commitment to philosophy. But I almost never read the stuff you post apart from that.

That sentence doesn't make any sense. You respect my intelligence and committment but you almost never read the stuff I write except for that. The first part isn't some portion of my posts, it's an assessment.

Click.

It makes considerable sense to me, however. I just have no way in which to determine if I am noting this autonomously or autonomically.

And I would not be at all shocked if science and philosophy came around to your own conclusions here. But over and again it seems [to me] that commitment revolves more around exchanges with those like VA here.

And that is just not the sort of philosophical exchanges I pursue in regard to meaning, morality and metaphysics.

So, don't respond to me and I won't respond to you.

What? That makes no sense. I haven't complained that you're responded to me. I was pointing out that what you complained never happened, happened. That you have gotten responses that were not in theoretical clouds, and that you opted not to read them...and continued to complain that everyone is responding up in the theoretical clouds.

It makes considerable sense to me, however. Though I'm always acknowledging just how tentative that will always be given The Gap and Rummy's Rule.

Now, about that man and the hammer...

[Atla]

And it's not like anyone here ever "bashes" me, right? On the other hand, me bashing others and others bashing me may well be interchangeable in turn. Even in "everyday life".

Don't know what that means, here both your bashing of others and others bashing you, was mainly caused by you.

Maybe it's just me but this sure sounds an awful lot like someone asserting things that they believe in their head about things they have no capacity to actually demonstrate are true for all rational men and women.

And this thread revolves more around the extent to which this exchange itself is unfolding either autonomously or autonomically.

Yes imo it's just you, for rational men and women it can be demonstrated that meaning, purpose and morality are human subjective psychological features, and so far we haven't found the universe to have any. And the biology of birth and death is pretty damn clear.

To me you sound more and more like an objectivist in denial, who has a beef with other objectvisist for not being good enough objectivists.

How then, given your own interactions with others, is "free will" different from free will.

Since I know a lot about how the world actually works via determinism and how much we can change psychologically, I can make more everyday choices than the average person who fully believes in libertarian free-will heh heh. I can sometimes make choices where most people just glide by automatically.

I hold that at any given moment I can stop and think and then do whatever the f I want, if my current biological body is capable of doing it.

Again, we think about this differently. If everyone of us defines compatibilism only as our brains compel us to, how can we then be held responsible by others for defining it either "right" or "wrong"? Other then because in holding or not holding others responsible that too is just another manifestation of the only possible reality.

Actions and reactions are all embedded in this only possible world.

Yes, and imo your thinking is wrong, because then the average human's brain is also "compelled" to make sense, and the standard definition of compatibilism doesn't make sense. Frankly you just sound to me like someone who wants an excuse to shed responsibility.

Okay, how about this part then: "a man can do what he wants but not want what he wants".

Of course, Schopenhauer was himself no more able to demonstrate that this is true either.

Don't know what that means: looks to me that wanting what one wants is just wanting said redundantly.

Just so long as you are willing to accept that believing something which makes you feel psychologically comforted may actually be why you believe it in the first place?

Thus, it's sort of settled for you here and now. But not perhaps there and then?

I think if that was fundamentally true then I would throw out my entire "absolute level" view and just be a blind irrational objectivist. But I can't do that because I value the smaller psychological comfort of truth over the great psychological comfort of blind irrational happy beliefs.

Okay, given where the universe stops and "I" begins, how might that be understood more effably in regard to you participating in this exchange?

There is no place where the universe stops and the "I" begins, the "I" is a part of the universe. Did you honestly mean that?

Just as it cannot yet be proven or disproven that we do in fact have free will. And that "true meaning" is whatever we are compelled by our brains to believe it is. But this quandary becomes particularly problematic because all we have available to us to broach, examine and assess all of this is the brain itself.

Err no I disagree, 4D libertarian free will was pretty much disproven at this point by neuroscience and psychology etc., unless some big miracle is going on - not counting on that.

Again, however, what on Earth does this mean "for all practical purposes".

I try to see if I can very slightly bend reality to my will, in the law of attraction sense. I can neither prove nor disprove it, if there is an effect, it's miniscule now. But again this is rather 5D philosophy territory, where this isn't the "only possible reality", not going there now.

Well, here in America -- click -- let's see how things unfold when Trump is back in the White House. From my frame of mind, Trump is not an objectivist. He just plays on the campaign trail.

Trump is a clinical NPD, if you want to understand his behaviour.

[iambiguous]

Okay -- click -- I clicked on that first link of yours above. And the first thing I notice is that it is not even in response to something I posted at all but something that FJ posted.

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, individuals doing things we consider dangerous to others, for example.

Again, as though in thinking this, believing this, that in and of itself makes it true? And, of course, for each of us as individuals, there are the things we do that others consider dangerous...but we do them anyway. Perhaps because we were never able not to, or perhaps because we are a sociopath or a psychopath, or perhaps because in, say, being on one or another One True Path, we rationalize it. "By any means necessary", is how some objectivists will put it.

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.

Compelled to or not, what this sounds like to me is someone who has come to believe that because there are so many terrible things happening around the world, it would be unthinkable that we couldn't hold others responsible for them. Again, as though thinking and feeling this -- philosophically? -- is what makes it true. Though I am certainly inclined "here and now" to agree that it certainly might be true.

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.

Not sure I understand this.

Are you saying ultimately the causes of a rape do go back to the Big Bang and beyond? That the rape was inevitable but punishing the rapist is not? The act of rape is a manifestation of the laws of matter, but our reactions to it allow for considerable individual "freedom".

What some determinists will argue is that nature has everything to do with both our acts and our reactions to the acts of others.



Now, let's move on to the man with hammer.

[iambiguous]

So then, I looked back at the rant you printed in large text. And I couldn't find a single "point" that needed refuting, because it was all just a rant. Can you pick something intelligible out of that rant, and say what it is you were hoping I'd "address"?

The, uh, "rant":

Here is someone who is a Christian convinced that "somehow" an omniscient God does not obviate his own autonomy.

Please explain to us again how the omniscient Christian God knows everything there is to know about everything, but "somehow" mere mortals are still able to choose their own behaviors autonomously.

Not only that, but his belief in God is not predicated on a leap of faith or "because the Bible says so", so much as on the belief that He does in fact reside in Heaven. And that this is as demonstrable to him as someone else demonstrating that the Pope resides in the Vatican.

Straighten us all out here regarding this claim of mine.

And yet you wouldn't know this by following him at PN. Instead, he seems far, far, far more interested in going into any number of threads and getting into these endless "philosophical discussions" about, well, philosophical stuff.

Of course, that is only an "if I do say so myself" personal opinion rooted existentially in dasein. I'm more than willing -- click -- to allow others here to make up their own minds regarding your commitment to saving souls.

How about if we get back to this: viewtopic.php?t=40750&sid=258f0d0f6dbff ... d9cea7fcd8

[Immanuel Can]

Please explain to us again how the omniscient Christian God knows everything there is to know about everything, but "somehow" mere mortals are still able to choose their own behaviors autonomously.

I'm glad you put in the word "again," because it at least reassures me you already read my earlier answers on this.

To "know" is not to "make." They are not the same verb. Somebody knowing what you will do will never make you do it. That's as simply and clearly as I can put it.

Not only that, but his belief in God is not predicated on a leap of faith or "because the Bible says so", so much as on the belief that He does in fact reside in Heaven. And that this is as demonstrable to him as someone else demonstrating that the Pope resides in the Vatican.

Straighten us all out here regarding this claim of mine.

You put this bizarre question about Popes in an earlier message. And I guess you thought it was in some way profound or telling...but I can't see how it is. However, we already had the discussion on that, though, so I refer you back to the responses I already sent you earlier.

And yet you wouldn't know this by following him at PN. Instead, he seems far, far, far more interested in going into any number of threads and getting into these endless "philosophical discussions" about, well, philosophical stuff.

This seems to be sort of remark directed past me at others, so far as I can see. And rather bizarrely, it seems to accuse me of being preoccupied with "philosophical stuff" on a philosophy board. I'm just not at all clear how that would be a bad thing.

So there's still nothing really worthy of being dealt with here. Most of it, I've already addressed with you...and the rest isn't even really comprehensible.

So...I still have nothing from you worthy of a serious response. Got anything else?

[Iwannaplato]

This was one of the miracles he posted at ILP:

Iambiguous wrote :

How about this...

We wake up one morning and there's this guy on every single television channel around the globe telling us that He is God. And, He tells us, in order to prove this, He will make it so that in the next 24 hours not a single child anywhere around the world will die from starvation, or go to bed hungry, or suffer any sexual or emotional abuse, or, in fact, not be bursting at the seams with great big smiles.

And incredibly enough, He turns out to be virtually indistinguishable from your own "private and personal" Christian God.

That'll work as "good news of the Kingdom" for me.

Also, just out of curiosity, given that for many the Christian God is said to be infinitely loving, just and merciful, why isn't it that the way for all children now?

Also:

Iambiguous wrote:
Short of holding a press conference to introduce a God/the God to the world in order for Him to demonstrate His own existence, mere mortals are always going to miss the mark.

Thanks for posting this. Well, I certainly can understand his wish.