Philosophy Now Forum

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 5:33 am

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 4:24 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 2:16 am
the only reason that makes any sense [to me] is that on some level you recognize just how threatening my points are to your

Total and genuine blindness. And his points aren't even on-topic, after 400 pages he still hasn't even addressed compatibilism, he doesn't even know what it is.

Again, all I can do is to extrapolate from nearly 25 years of dealing with declamatory mentalities like this online. By and large, the more they make it all about me the more I recognize it is all about them. Bit by bit, crack by crack, they react to me with increasing exasperation. What if my own drawn and quartered moral philosophy begins to sink in all the more?

What's at stake here for the objectivists, in my view, is their precious "my way or the highway" One True Path. They are used to coming into places like this and doing battle with those who completely share in their conviction that there really is One True Path. But it's their own of course. Whereas -- click -- I suggest that in a No God universe, there is no One True Path. There are only moral, political and spiritual prejudices derived existentially from particular historical and cultural contexts and then sustained given one or another rendition of this: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

The psychology of objectivism.

This is the 10th or so time you're telling me about your beef with objectivists. You don't know what communication is so what I'll say won't register either, but you see: in communication we usually don't repeat the same thing over and over. Especially not if the one we're communicating with is not an objectivist.

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 10:22 am This is the 10th or so time you're telling me about your beef with objectivists. You don't know what communication is so what I'll say won't register either, but you see: in communication we usually don't repeat the same thing over and over. Especially not if the one we're communicating with is not an objectivist.

*dons iambiguous hat*

unless that's exactly what an objectivist would say

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 11:43 am

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 10:22 am This is the 10th or so time you're telling me about your beef with objectivists. You don't know what communication is so what I'll say won't register either, but you see: in communication we usually don't repeat the same thing over and over. Especially not if the one we're communicating with is not an objectivist.

*dons iambiguous hat*

unless that's exactly what an objectivist would say

Perhaps I never could have done otherwise, which would have a MASSIVE implication here, but I won't tell you what it is.

Determined by Robert Sapolsky
Philip Badger questions Robert Sapolsky’s determinism.

Chance, Crime & Causation

If someone hates Sapolsky’s conclusions about the lack of merit, they’ll be incensed by the implications of his arguments for the treatment of criminals.

Some, of course, will conclude that being incensed to the point they come to hate someone is just another inherent component of "it's beyond my control". How the criminal treats us and how the government treats the criminal is six of one, half a dozen of the other. Just as our reactions to it are only as they ever could be.

Here, again, the logic of determinism is inescapable. To put it simply, something external makes the paedophile the way they are; and something external made Hitler and Stalin and every other monster the way they were or are, too.

This part in my view: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/a-man ... sein/31641

Only the monsters throughout history and those who challenged them were/are just interacting "by the book". The book of nature. On the other hand, sometimes I accept this and other times it seems utterly preposterous. Of course I am trying these words of my own free will. "Somehow" nature accomplished this...period. That becomes the default assumption from then on.

As for all the monsters among us, even in accepting the existence of human autonomy, what then of the arguments I make pertaining to individual daseins interacting existentially out in a particular world understood in a particular way. Then the assumption in turn that "somehow" we can pin down Good and Evil such that we can know ontologically/teleologically that pedophiles, Nazis and those who pursue the "dictatorship of the proletariat", are objectively evil.

Just the thought that maybe the "internal" components of the human brain are, as well, necessarily interchangeable with the external factors...?

Obviously, it would be a good thing if we could figure out what it is and prevent people being exposed to it (there are indeed a range of risk factors associated with both paedophilia and psychopathy). Unfortunately, that doesn’t tell us much about what we should do with offenders.

Let alone that whatever society does choose to do with them, it was never able to opt otherwise.

Sapolsky favours what he calls the ‘quarantine’ model: like Typhoid Mary, these folk shouldn’t be allowed to mix with others, but that’s no reason for doing nasty things to them. And yes, some people are beyond reform and their ‘quarantine’ must be permanent.

This frame of mind -- click -- is the one that most baffles me. Sapolsky is a determinist, but "somehow" he still favors this instead of that. Here, in my view, he argues as though his own rendition of determinism isn't really all that far removed from how the Libertarians would themselves express their own renditions of crime and punishment.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 7:42 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 2:16 am

How does it not embarrass you to post endless reviews of literature on compatibilism and still not understand it after years and years?
"Unless" and "on the other hand" are the reasons you don't understand it. Every time you read something, you immediately start looking for permission to think of something else.
Maybe if you gave yourself permission to think about compatibilism, you'd understand it by now.

Nature to iambiguous:

No, it really is beyond his control. Unless, of course, I'm wrong. 

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 10:22 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 5:33 am

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 4:24 am
Total and genuine blindness. And his points aren't even on-topic, after 400 pages he still hasn't even addressed compatibilism, he doesn't even know what it is.

Again, all I can do is to extrapolate from nearly 25 years of dealing with declamatory mentalities like this online. By and large, the more they make it all about me the more I recognize it is all about them. Bit by bit, crack by crack, they react to me with increasing exasperation. What if my own drawn and quartered moral philosophy begins to sink in all the more?

What's at stake here for the objectivists, in my view, is their precious "my way or the highway" One True Path. They are used to coming into places like this and doing battle with those who completely share in their conviction that there really is One True Path. But it's their own of course. Whereas -- click -- I suggest that in a No God universe, there is no One True Path. There are only moral, political and spiritual prejudices derived existentially from particular historical and cultural contexts and then sustained given one or another rendition of this: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

The psychology of objectivism.

This is the 10th or so time you're telling me about your beef with objectivists. You don't know what communication is so what I'll say won't register either, but you see: in communication we usually don't repeat the same thing over and over. Especially not if the one we're communicating with is not an objectivist.

Again, just for the record in what may well be a free will world down here among us mere mortals, how would Atla describe his/her own moral and political value judgments?

Rooted existentially in dasein? derived from a God the God? encompassed dogmatically in one or another rendition of deontology or ideology or biological imperatives?

Then the part -- click -- where Atla continues to communicate with someone that he/she insists doesn't even know what communication is?!

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 11:01 pm Then the part -- click -- where Atla continues to communicate with someone that he/she insists doesn't even know what communication is?!

But I'm not I'm doing research.

(Unless my worldview is crumbling because of your posts, and having to keep up the denial is making me more and more desperate heh. Never before have we considered that there could be conflicting moral things, it's quite a shock.)

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 10:45 pm

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 7:42 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 2:16 am

How does it not embarrass you to post endless reviews of literature on compatibilism and still not understand it after years and years?
"Unless" and "on the other hand" are the reasons you don't understand it. Every time you read something, you immediately start looking for permission to think of something else.
Maybe if you gave yourself permission to think about compatibilism, you'd understand it by now.

Nature to iambiguous:

No, it really is beyond his control. Unless, of course, I'm wrong. 

Nature isn't talking to you. That doesn't mean anything you schizo.

What are you searching for in this thread? If it's understanding compatibilism, then... why? It's been years, you still don't understand it, you never will. If it's not that then what is it?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Jul 10, 2025 9:15 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 10:45 pm

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 7:42 am
How does it not embarrass you to post endless reviews of literature on compatibilism and still not understand it after years and years?
"Unless" and "on the other hand" are the reasons you don't understand it. Every time you read something, you immediately start looking for permission to think of something else.
Maybe if you gave yourself permission to think about compatibilism, you'd understand it by now.

Nature to iambiguous:

No, it really is beyond his control. Unless, of course, I'm wrong. 

Nature isn't talking to you. That doesn't mean anything you schizo.

Said 'the deaf' and 'the blind'.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Jul 10, 2025 9:15 am What are you searching for in this thread? If it's understanding compatibilism, then... why? It's been years, you still don't understand it, you never will.

Do you, really, want to come into a 'public forum' and proclaim that you understand 'compatabilism', itself?

If yes, then inform 'the readers', here, what 'compatabilism' is fully, and exactly.

Show 'us', and let 'us' see, how far you will actually get.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Jul 10, 2025 9:15 am If it's not that then what is it?

Atla wrote: ↑Thu Jul 10, 2025 4:18 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 11:01 pm Then the part -- click -- where Atla continues to communicate with someone that he/she insists doesn't even know what communication is?!

But I'm not I'm doing research.

(Unless my worldview is crumbling because of your posts, and having to keep up the denial is making me more and more desperate heh. Never before have we considered that there could be conflicting moral things, it's quite a shock.)

Worldviews rarely crumble overnight. My own moral and political objectivism took years to collapse.

And it's not the part where moral convictions come into conflict, but the part where some insist that only their own convictions reflect either the best of all possible worlds, or are, in fact, the only truly rational assessment that there is. Then the part where some become particularly adamant and append "or else" to it all. And, historically, we all know what this can result in.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Thu Jul 10, 2025 10:31 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Thu Jul 10, 2025 4:18 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jul 09, 2025 11:01 pm Then the part -- click -- where Atla continues to communicate with someone that he/she insists doesn't even know what communication is?!

But I'm not I'm doing research.

(Unless my worldview is crumbling because of your posts, and having to keep up the denial is making me more and more desperate heh. Never before have we considered that there could be conflicting moral things, it's quite a shock.)

Worldviews rarely crumble overnight. My own moral and political objectivism took years to collapse.

And it's not the part where moral convictions come into conflict, but the part where some insist that only their own convictions reflect either the best of all possible worlds, or are, in fact, the only truly rational assessment that there is. Then the part where some become particularly adamant and append "or else" to it all. And, historically, we all know what this can result in.

Why did it take years for you?

Biggs, this seems to be your current go-to thread, so: one last try for old time's sake...

*

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Jun 30, 2025 12:03 am

All I can do here is to note once again what I construe to be an enormous gap between religious denominations regarding the One True Path on this side of the grave, and the parts revolving around immortality and salvation given one or another rendition of "or else" on the other side.

Yeah, it's almost like we all believe stuff but none of us actually know anything so we're all left to our own devices to figure sumthin' out.

Though, who knows, if IC's Christian God is the real deal, someday you and I may be up at the Pearly Gates explaining to Him why we are not "here and now" Christians ourselves. 

We may indeed.

*Okay, we can just agree to disagree regarding our assessment of God. **But with all that is at stake on both sides of the grave, you would think that a God, the God would be considerably more adept at putting the breadcrumbs down to guide mere mortals to the part where they are either saved or left behind.

*Doesn't seem to me to be about we can so much as we often do, disagree, I mean, and not always agreeing to.

**Well, it depends on which God you're talkin' about, doesn't it.

Not really, in my view. IC is able to sustain a belief "in his head" that in accepting Jesus Christ as his personal savior, he is bound for Glory on the other side. And for all of eternity. And I personally know just how comforting and consoling that can be because I once believed it myself. On the other hand, IC is also convinced that WLC/RF have provided us with substantive and substantial scientific and historical proof that He does exist.

All that means is Mannie believes (and has, in his view, good reason to). So do I (in Someone different, with, in my view, good reason). But neither of us knows. We may think we do, or feel like we do, but, really, we don't.

No one does.

Well, with IC the problem revolves around the fact that [for me] he insists there is but one Divine solution. And he's got actual demonstrable evidence that it is his own Christian God [and only Him] who can save our souls. But he won't go here  --  viewtopic.php?t=40750 -- in order to explore it further.

Yeah, I know your beef with the guy. Who doesn't? You've plaster'd it all over the forum. Again: I can't help you with any of that.

Yes, that frame of mind works for some. But "maybe it's this God or that God or some God worshipped and adored by those on another planet or another universe or No God at all...?"

Yep, it's a conundrum.

"Maybe" just doesn't cut it here for others though. The only way they are able to make sense of themselves out in the world is to believe just the opposite. It really is their God [and only their God] that saves souls.

And, of course, that's what they do.

No, what I want is an argument able to convince me that No God moral nihilism is actually unreasonable...something that I can distance myself from.

I can't help you with that either. I can tell you what I believe and why (I already have). Can't do more than that.

However others interpret that, of course.

Of course.

*

...I wonder why you wiggle away from continuing this leg of the conversation...kinda shameless, guy.

Determined by Robert Sapolsky
Philip Badger questions Robert Sapolsky’s determinism.

Brilliant Imperfection. At times, this book is a brilliant antidote to the incoherence of our thinking about things like good and evil.

Then the part where the hardcore determinists insist they are compelled to point out that a book published in a wholly determined universe is neither brilliant nor imperfect. Unless, perhaps, you are someone who claims that even though you were, are and always will be inherently and necessarily both, that’s still “compatible” with being responsible. Morally and otherwise.

For instance, Sapolsky resists the urge to portray our considerate frontal cortex as the ‘angel’ on our shoulder by pointing out that moral motivation is essentially emotional, and so compassion lives elsewhere in the brain.

Then the part where some [compelled or otherwise] insist that human psychology, human emotions and human intuitions are no less intrinsic manifestations of the only possible world.

Some here call this their very own “intrinsic self”. The deep down inside them “real me” that, when mindless matter configured into biological, self-conscious matter, we “somehow” acquired autonomy.

I can live with that. You can live with that. Others can live with that. But that’s not the same as actually demonstrating it is, in fact, ontologically or teleologically true. Let alone deontologically applicable to all of us.

Moreover, his employment of a time-scale for the causes of our actions, going from seconds (the firing of neurones and the secretion of hormones), to minutes and hours (low blood sugar, or the depletion of serotonin occasioned by a poor night’s sleep), to years (did dad hit you and beat up your mum?), to centuries (what kind of culture do you live in?), to eons (evolutionary history), is quite brilliant. There is therapeutic merit, too, in his message that the melancholic tendencies some of us endure are not, in the end, any fault of our own.

Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, lifetimes. Time frames embedded in ever evolving contingency, chance and change. And then going all the back eons to…to what exactly?

One thing seems certain, however. If your life is bursting at the seams with any number of extraordinary accomplishments and satisfactions, it’s not likely you are going to just shrug and conclude “it was all beyond my control”. Or, on the other hand, if your life circumstantially is in the shitter, you can always fall back on “it was all beyond my control”.

So, those who insist it’s all about free will and those who insist that none of it is, may not be able to demonstrate it unequivocally, but then neither can demonstrate that the other frames of mind here are false.

Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t
By Dennis Overbye at the New York Times

I was a free man until they brought the dessert menu around. There was one of those molten chocolate cakes, and I was suddenly being dragged into a vortex, swirling helplessly toward caloric doom, sucked toward the edge of a black (chocolate) hole. Visions of my father’s heart attack danced before my glazed eyes. My wife, Nancy, had a resigned look on her face.

Then our very own rendition of that.

Surely, given experiences like the one above, it would seem nothing short of preposterous to suppose we don't embody at least some measure of free will. I would certainly never argue it's out of the question. Unless I was, in fact, never able to argue otherwise?

Or suppose I had a dream last night in which the same experience unfolded. While in the dream, however, I'm convinced I'm not dreaming at all. And yet the entire experience was just a dream. My brain created it.

How? Why?

And yet when confronted with that, many will insist the wide awake brain is just...different. And it certainly may well be. God or No God. But just believing that it is up in the philosophical clouds is not the same thing as philosophers and scientists announcing one day that together they have finally resolved it.

They go about explaining how the human condition is intertwined in a reality that goes all the way back to a definitive explanation for the existence of existence itself. The Big Bang? The multiverse? They note how and why mindless matter evolved into biological matter evolved into conscious matter evolved into self-conscious matter.

Thus...

The outcome, endlessly replayed whenever we go out, is never in doubt, though I often cover my tracks by offering to split my dessert with the table. O.K., I can imagine what you’re thinking. There but for the grace of God.

Never in doubt? Or never able to be in doubt?

On the other hand, once a God, the God becomes embedded in the narrative, that is one possible explanation for free will. And all you need to do then is scoff at all those who refuse to accept that it is your own God.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 8:27 pm Then the part where

If you add something largely unrelated to what was said, then those aren't really parts.

Then the part where the hardcore determinists

Again, who are the "hardcore" determinists? Those who take determinism seriously like me, so, the determinists?
That's what hardcore means to me, I ran it by an AI and it also guessed that that's what a hardcore determinist could mean.

Then the part where the hardcore determinists insist they are compelled

If by "compelled" you just mean "determined", than just say "determined". Being "compelled" sounds like being forced somehow, but determinists aren't forced, they are determined.
If you mean something else by "compelled" then you're wrong.

Then the part where the hardcore determinists insist they are compelled to point out that

That's the opposite of what determinists would insist on. Either it's determined that they'll point out something, or it's determined that they won't point out that something.

Then the part where the hardcore determinists insist they are compelled to point out that a book published in a wholly determined universe is neither brilliant nor imperfect.

Determinism has nothing to do with subjective judgments of brilliance and imperfection. A determinist too can easily say that a book is brilliant or imperfect.

Then the part where the hardcore determinists insist they are compelled to point out that a book published in a wholly determined universe is neither brilliant nor imperfect. Unless, perhaps, you are someone who claims that even though you were, are and always will be inherently and necessarily both,

How can a human be a brilliant and imperfect book? Humans aren't books. (Maybe my English is bad.)

Then the part where the hardcore determinists insist they are compelled to point out that a book published in a wholly determined universe is neither brilliant nor imperfect. Unless, perhaps, you are someone who claims that even though you were, are and always will be inherently and necessarily both, that’s still “compatible” with being responsible. Morally and otherwise.

What do subjective judgments of brilliance and imperfection about a book have to do with responsibility? So how does the "unless" come in?