Philosophy Now Forum

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun Jun 05, 2022 3:22 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Jun 05, 2022 3:16 pm Do you guys have your own secret codes on this site so that the regulars know what all these things mean but anyone new coming in is just mystified?

Is that it?

Can you read? Seems you can. Can you consider what you read in context? If so: do so.

Or: *just keep actin' like biggie-lite.
*the penalty box is big

I think that you smelled your own bullshit.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Jun 04, 2022 9:45 pm

Right, like until we can determine how and why -- scientifically, philosophically, theologically, etc. -- the matter that is the human brain is or is not capable of embodying free will, we can just skip that part and be "practical" about it.

Are you even capable of grasping how ridiculous that is? Perhaps more or less ridiculous than my point? For "all practical purposes"?

You're going to be sitting around twiddling your thumbs until you get a definitive explanation.

And that's not ridiculous?

Well then carry on.

On the other hand, there are the objectivists among us here who sit around waiting post after post after post after post for everyone to finally agree that their own take on determinism is the optimal or the only rational frame of mind.

You don't find me in that camp though. At least not "here and now". How about you?

Instead, I merely point out that, to the best of my current knowledge, no scientist, no philosopher, no theologian, etc., has been able to establish beyond all doubt that we either do or do not have free will.

Unless, of course, someone here can link me to that accomplishment.

So, given that, how can any of us "here and now", know for certain what is in fact true about the human brain in regard to human autonomy?

Are your dreams different?

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Jun 04, 2022 9:45 pmDreams are not reality.

Right. We have dreams in which the brain tricks us night after night after night into believing that we are experiencing reality in the dream but it's only a chemical and neurological reality wholly concocted by the brain itself. We wake up in the morning and just know that the waking brain is "somehow" different.

Unbelievable. Well, to me. Over and over and over again in our interactions in the either/or world [assuming free will] we can get into situations where we damn well do insist on evidence to prove something. To doctors, to lawyers, to engineers, to teachers, to family and friends.

You tell me the car you want to sell me is in great condition. I ask you to prove it and you complain that I don't just take your word for it.

The surgeon tells you that an operation is the only option and you just shrug and and tell her, "well, if you say so."

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Jun 04, 2022 9:45 pmThe kind of ultimate, absolute, definite evidence that you insist on is not available.

Deal with it and move on.

What's so hard to understand about that?

Come on, the car is either in great condition or it's not. Other doctors are able to provide you with evidence that surgery is not the only option or they can't.

What's so hard to understand about that?

Mary wants to know if she is pregnant. She goes to the doctor and finds out that she is.

Mary wants to know if it is moral to abort the pregnancy. Who does she go to determine that?

Mary wants to know if she is choosing of her own free will to terminate the pregnancy. Who does she go to find out?

Come on, you know me. My focus is always on those who insist that what they do know settles it. The objectivists. The moral and political and religious objectivists in particular but also those who make arguments about the Big Questions like this one as well. Call it, say, the "peacegirl Syndrome".

Or the Immanuel Can/henry quirk Syndrome here?

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Jun 04, 2022 9:45 pmOkay, stick to IC and HQ.

That is basically what I do, of course. Only this thread confronts me with the possibility that I was never able to opt freely of my own volition not to.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Jun 04, 2022 4:43 pm
Stupid people with free-will are still stupid.

One possible translation...

"Stupid people with free will who don't think exactly like I do about Communism and abortion and buying and selling Bazookas are still stupid".

Call it, say, the Henry Quirk Syndrome.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Jun 04, 2022 7:47 pm

henry quirk wrote:
Feels like iambiguous all over again.

Just waitin' for the daesin to drop.

Big laughs, right Biggus?

To think that you and I are coming from the same direction, that our arguments are the same.

Alas, in believing in determinism, I am compelled by nature to acknowledge that I was never able not to make a fool out of henry...aka Mr. Snippet aka Mr. Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle.

I think he may well have been compelled by his brain to "foe" me of late.

After all, there's only so much embarrassment that objectivists of his ilk can take.




Note to larry:

Stay out of this, okay?

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 5:59 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Jun 04, 2022 4:43 pm
Stupid people with free-will are still stupid.

One possible translation...

"Stupid people with free will who don't think exactly like I do about Communism and abortion and buying and selling Bazookas are still stupid".

Call it, say, the Henry Quirk Syndrome.

The correct interpretation is that free-will doesn't make a person smart or knowledgeable. Nor does it make a person wise or give them good judgement.

The only difference between a determined person and a free-will person is that the free-will person can, supposedly, break out of the 'causal stream' and make a decision which is not limited by his personal state and experience. That would be an uncaused decision.

That's still limited because you can't will yourself to have knowledge that you have no access to. You can't will yourself to be smarter than you are. Etc.

Mary wants to know if she is choosing of her own free will to terminate the pregnancy. Who does she go to find out?

Why do I suspect that Mary doesn't care either way?

It's really all about you.

You're in a room with two doors - one is green and the other is red.

Your upbringing has taught you to associate green with safety and red with danger.

Therefore, you decide to open the green door.

Did nature force that choice on you?

Were you compelled by nature to choose the green door?

Did you choose it of your own free will?

Was it a "canned response"?

Are you living in a determined world or a free-will world?

phyllo wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 6:31 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 5:59 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Jun 04, 2022 4:43 pm
Stupid people with free-will are still stupid.

One possible translation...

"Stupid people with free will who don't think exactly like I do about Communism and abortion and buying and selling Bazookas are still stupid".

Call it, say, the Henry Quirk Syndrome.

The correct interpretation is that free-will doesn't make a person smart or knowledgeable. Nor does it make a person wise or give them good judgement.

Compelled or not, you just can't/won't/don't allow yourself to admit that you are just like the rest of us: not able to demonstrate that any interpretation you make is one that you either freely opted to make or were compelled by your brain to make in a world where the human brain itself is just more matter wholly in sync with the laws of matter going back to something that none of us have a comprehensive understanding of given how we don't have a comprehensive understanding of how the human condition itself fits into a comprehensive understanding of existence itself.

You don't, do you?

phyllo wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 6:31 pmThe only difference between a determined person and a free-will person is that the free-will person can, supposedly, break out of the 'causal stream' and make a decision which is not limited by his personal state and experience. That would be an uncaused decision.

Supposedly. Good point. Now actually think through the implications of that in a free will world where Mary grapples with her unwanted pregnancy, does her best to weigh the pros and the cons of abortion and opts of her own volition to abort.

The part where I suggest that her choice will, in turn, be profoundly rooted subjectively/existentially in dasein.

Or Mary aborts because her brain as matter wholly in sync with the laws of matter in the only possible world fated/destined [or whatever you are compelled to call it] the abortion. The unborn baby/clump of cells was doomed the moment matter and its laws came into existence.

You know, whatever that means.

phyllo wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 6:31 pmThat's still limited because you can't will yourself to have knowledge that you have no access to. You can't will yourself to be smarter than you are. Etc.

Well, in any event, however much the will is involved here one thing doesn't change for the objectivists among us: "my way or the highway." You call people who don't think like you "stupid". Henry calls them "dumb motherfuckers".

Compelled or not, you just can't/won't/don't allow yourself to admit that you are just like the rest of us: not able to demonstrate that any interpretation you make is one that you either freely opted to make or were compelled by your brain to make in a world where the human brain itself is just more matter wholly in sync with the laws of matter going back to something that none of us have a comprehensive understanding of given how we don't have a comprehensive understanding of how the human condition itself fits into a comprehensive understanding of existence itself.

You don't, do you?

Not that this has anything to do with the point I made.

A little bit of reasoning shows that free-will doesn't make much sense. If you're willing to reason.

I can't be "compelled by my brain" because I'm not free-floating separately from my brain. My thoughts are the thoughts of my brain. "Compelled by my brain" is the same as saying "compelled by myself". What sort of compulsion is that?

Now actually think through the implications of that in a free will world where Mary grapples with her unwanted pregnancy, does her best to weigh the pros and the cons of abortion and opts of her own volition to abort.

The part where I suggest that her choice will, in turn, be profoundly rooted subjectively/existentially in dasein.

Or Mary aborts because her brain as matter wholly in sync with the laws of matter in the only possible world fated/destined [or whatever you are compelled to call it] the abortion. The unborn baby/clump of cells was doomed the moment matter and its laws came into existence.

You honestly believe that free-will Mary is doing some sort thinking which is different and superior to the thinking that determined Mary is doing?

Are they not both deciding to abort because they prefer an exciting career to the boredom of raising a child? Are they not making the same decision for the same reasons?

You call people who don't think like you "stupid".

I didn't call anybody stupid.

Free Will and Neuroscience: From Explaining Freedom Away to New Ways of Operationalizing and Measuring It
Andrea Lavazza at the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience website

Free will can be defined by three conditions. The first one is the “ability to do otherwise.” This is an intuitive concept: to be free, one has to have at least two alternatives or courses of action between which to choose. If one has an involuntary spasm of the mouth, for example, one is not in the position to choose whether to twist one’s mouth or not.

Okay, start here. But that doesn't mean that any conditions we do come up with we unequivocally had the capacity to opt for another place to start instead. From my frame of mind there is just no way of getting around the fact that we still have no definitive understanding of how the human brain functions here. And until we do we will all continue to exchange conclusions that we "just know" are true instead. Even more problematic in that few of us here are actually involved in exploring the human brain experimentally using the scientific method. Instead, as philosophers, many here start with their own definitions and deductions and insist that all others must start with the same.

The second condition is the “control over one’s choices.” The person who acts must be the same who decides what to do. To be granted free will, one must be the author of one’s choices, without the interference of people and of mechanisms outside of one’s reach. This is what we call agency, that is, being and feeling like the “owner” of one’s decisions and actions.

Of course, it gets tricky here when you attempt to pin down if your brain itself does in fact allow you to have this control...or creates only the illusion of control given that the matter that is the brain is no less wholly in sync with those mysterious laws of nature. God works in mysterious ways, right? So why not nature in turn?

I merely muddy the waters all the more in suggesting that, even given human brain matter "somehow" resulting in free will, our choices and actions out in the is/ought world are still no less profoundly problematic leaps of faith rooted subjectively and existentially in dasein.

The third condition is the “responsiveness to reasons”: a decision can’t be free if it is the effect of a random choice, but it must be rationally motivated. If I roll a [die] to decide whom to marry, my choice cannot be said to be free, even though I will freely choose to say “I do”. On the contrary, if I choose to marry a specific person for their ideas and my deep love for them, then my decision will be free.

Come on, it still comes back to whether you freely chose to roll the die in order to let "fate" decide. And then the part where our reaction to their ideas and our deep love for them is in turn merely the illusion of freedom built into human psychology...no less a manifestation of the only possible reality in the only possible world.

phyllo wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 6:31 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 5:59 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Jun 04, 2022 4:43 pm
Stupid people with free-will are still stupid.

One possible translation...

"Stupid people with free will who don't think exactly like I do about Communism and abortion and buying and selling Bazookas are still stupid".

Call it, say, the Henry Quirk Syndrome.

The correct interpretation is that free-will doesn't make a person smart or knowledgeable. Nor does it make a person wise or give them good judgement.

See, there he goes again. Assuming that we do have the capacity to freely weigh in on this without the irrefutable empirical evidence to back it up. And [of course] insisting that there is a correct interpretation? Why? Because he just gave it to us. His own.

And my point of course is that given free will "somehow" becoming a component of the human brain, having it doesn't establish that how he feels about Communism and abortion or how henry quirk feels about buying and selling bazookas, a necessarily smarter or wiser or more knowledgeable frame of mind.

That, instead, our value judgments here seem more reasonably rooted in particular political prejudices we acquire as a result of the lives that we lived. Our indoctrination as children and our uniquely personal sets of experiences.

Unless, of course, I'm wrong. Which, unlike the objectivists among us, I am more than willing to acknowledge. Indeed, in the absence of God or an equivalent "transcending font", there does not appear [to me] to be an optimal argument around able to establish such things.

phyllo wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 6:31 pmThe only difference between a determined person and a free-will person is that the free-will person can, supposedly, break out of the 'causal stream' and make a decision which is not limited by his personal state and experience. That would be an uncaused decision.

That's still limited because you can't will yourself to have knowledge that you have no access to. You can't will yourself to be smarter than you are. Etc.

We'll need a context of course.

Again, how about Mary aborting Jane. His own understanding of Jane's fate if Mary was never able not to abort her and Jane's fate if Mary is able to opt not to.

Something a bit more substantive than this:

phyllo wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 7:12 pm

Mary wants to know if she is choosing of her own free will to terminate the pregnancy. Who does she go to find out?

Why do I suspect that Mary doesn't care either way?

It's really all about you.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 1:56 am You're in a room with two doors - one is green and the other is red.

Your upbringing has taught you to associate green with safety and red with danger.

Therefore, you decide to open the green door.

Did nature force that choice on you?

Were you compelled by nature to choose the green door?

Did you choose it of your own free will?

Was it a "canned response"?

Are you living in a determined world or a free-will world?

Again, from his frame of mind, this is, what, an extraordinary insight? As though if you grasp it, it will all become crystal clear as whether you opted freely to be reading these words or you were never able to not not be reading them.

In a determined universe as I understand it -- as I am compelled to understand it? -- nothing that is matter is excluded from the laws of matter. Including the human brain.

Only how on earth would someone actually go about demonstrating that? Yes, any number of brain scientists -- compelled or not -- are attempting to. To grapple with the scientific and the philosophical conundrum that revolves around explaining the human condition itself going all the way back to an explanation of existence itself.

And, for some here, there is the theological explanation.

So, what's your take on it all?

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 2:37 am

Compelled or not, you just can't/won't/don't allow yourself to admit that you are just like the rest of us: not able to demonstrate that any interpretation you make is one that you either freely opted to make or were compelled by your brain to make in a world where the human brain itself is just more matter wholly in sync with the laws of matter going back to something that none of us have a comprehensive understanding of given how we don't have a comprehensive understanding of how the human condition itself fits into a comprehensive understanding of existence itself.

You don't, do you?

Not that this has anything to do with the point I made.

Click.

Note to others:

Decide for yourselves whose points here have more to do with the points the other is making.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 2:37 amA little bit of reasoning shows that free-will doesn't make much sense. If you're willing to reason.

We'll need a context of course.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 2:37 amI can't be "compelled by my brain" because I'm not free-floating separately from my brain. My thoughts are the thoughts of my brain. "Compelled by my brain" is the same as saying "compelled by myself". What sort of compulsion is that?

How about if you make this applicable to posting here. You and your brain and your posting the above. Hard evidence that you opted of your own free will to post what you did. I certainly flat-out admit that I can't provide hard evidence that you were compelled to.

Now actually think through the implications of that in a free will world where Mary grapples with her unwanted pregnancy, does her best to weigh the pros and the cons of abortion and opts of her own volition to abort.

The part where I suggest that her choice will, in turn, be profoundly rooted subjectively/existentially in dasein.

Or Mary aborts because her brain as matter wholly in sync with the laws of matter in the only possible world fated/destined [or whatever you are compelled to call it] the abortion. The unborn baby/clump of cells was doomed the moment matter and its laws came into existence.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 2:37 amYou honestly believe that free-will Mary is doing some sort thinking which is different and superior to the thinking that determined Mary is doing?

No, I'm only pointing out that so far those exploring the functioning human brain scientifically and experimentally can't seem to pin down definitively one way or the other whether the thinking here is different. Let alone superior. All I surmise then is that if it can be determined objectively that Mary does in fact have free will there is at least the possibility that Jane will see the light of day like all the rest of us here. Whereas if Mary's thinking is wholly determined by the laws of matter that compel Jane to be aborted, she gets shredded into oblivion. Unlike all the rest of us here.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 2:37 am Are they not both deciding to abort because they prefer an exciting career to the boredom of raising a child? Are they not making the same decision for the same reasons?

Note to others:

What am I missing here? One decides because, at least up to a point, her reasons are her own. She is able to think through the pros and the cons and make a more or less informed decision because "somehow" the human brain became matter that is seemingly like no other matter that ever existed. Maybe through phyllo's God, perhaps?

I merely root her reasons more in dasein rather than in being able to choose "wisely" given the tools of philosophy, of ethics.

The other "decides" because her "reasons" are but the illusion of choice in a world where Jane is toast. Period.

You call people who don't think like you "stupid".

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 2:37 amI didn't call anybody stupid.

You argued that, "Stupid people with free-will are still stupid."

How does that not imply that in regard to Communism and abortion and henry's bazookas, smart and stupid can in fact be differentiated?

See, there he goes again. Assuming that we do have the capacity to freely weigh in on this without the irrefutable empirical evidence to back it up.

If you're waiting for "irrefutable empirical evidence", then you're never going to do anything.

And [of course] insisting that there is a correct interpretation? Why? Because he just gave it to us. His own.

I wrote the original quote. I damn well know what I meant to say.

And my point of course is that given free will "somehow" becoming a component of the human brain, having it doesn't establish that how he feels about Communism and abortion or how henry quirk feels about buying and selling bazookas, a necessarily smarter or wiser or more knowledgeable frame of mind.

That, instead, our value judgments here seem more reasonably rooted in particular political prejudices we acquire as a result of the lives that we lived. Our indoctrination as children and our uniquely personal sets of experiences.

Unless, of course, I'm wrong. Which, unlike the objectivists among us, I am more than willing to acknowledge. Indeed, in the absence of God or an equivalent "transcending font", there does not appear [to me] to be an optimal argument around able to establish such things.

So you're not even talking about compatibilism, determinism or free-will.

Good to know.

We'll need a context of course.

Again, how about Mary aborting Jane. His own understanding of Jane's fate if Mary was never able not to abort her and Jane's fate if Mary is able to opt not to.

Okay, go ahead and lay out how it works if Mary has free-will and if Mary doesn't have free-will.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 4:57 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 1:56 am You're in a room with two doors - one is green and the other is red.

Your upbringing has taught you to associate green with safety and red with danger.

Therefore, you decide to open the green door.

Did nature force that choice on you?

Were you compelled by nature to choose the green door?

Did you choose it of your own free will?

Was it a "canned response"?

Are you living in a determined world or a free-will world?

Again, from his frame of mind, this is, what, an extraordinary insight? As though if you grasp it, it will all become crystal clear as whether you opted freely to be reading these words or you were never able to not not be reading them.

In a determined universe as I understand it -- as I am compelled to understand it? -- nothing that is matter is excluded from the laws of matter. Including the human brain.

Only how on earth would someone actually go about demonstrating that? Yes, any number of brain scientists -- compelled or not -- are attempting to. To grapple with the scientific and the philosophical conundrum that revolves around explaining the human condition itself going all the way back to an explanation of existence itself.

And, for some here, there is the theological explanation.

So, what's your take on it all?

Notice that you don't respond to anything that I presented.

You just switch to your hobby horse, as OH called it.