Philosophy Now Forum

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Sep 10, 2025 12:17 am

peacegirl wrote: ↑Wed Sep 10, 2025 12:08 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 11:57 pm
Please just accept that the reason you cannot find any philosopher who has ever claimed that determinism entails being forced to against your own wishes is because you have misunderstood the whole thing and that is simply not what philosophers actually claim.

Don't try to gaslight us. Just get it right, you have no excuse any more.

I just explained the reason why this second principle is so important. And I already said that the conversation has come up probably because people think of determinism as turning us into dominoes where we have no say, no will, no agency, and no way to make our own choices. That's all I'm going to say about this.

Well, ok, but you have been using a strawman to paint your philosophical opponents with a lie, so your failure to remediate this situation detracts from any credibility you might have had.

There’s nothing to remediate. What philosophical opponents have I lied to? You are creating a problem that doesn’t even exist.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 10:21 pm

peacegirl wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 9:35 pm I don’t agree with you. Why can’t you try to see where the two principles lead rather than wasting all this time telling me it’s a made up story that isn’t connected.

I am going to explain some stuff. Please just read it from one end to the other before you hit reply (which I don't think is your habit), and then just reply with a fulsome answer to the points. Maybe don't bother chopping the text up, the following short paragraphs are a continuous thought that doesn't need splitting up anyway....

The book you are flogging does not contain arguments of the typical philosophical sort that use premises and conclusions in a logical and supporting framework. Why is this a problem? It is a problem because you are presenting what you believe are arguments that we ought to find persuasive not because we are very nice and easily persuaded people, but because we would be in error not to agree with them. That is what logical philosophical arguments are for.

The book you are flogging tries to persuade by revelation. Here is a purported fact about X, here is a purported fact about Y, here is how that all fits into my story about making the world a better place .... It intermittently mimics a philosophical argument by saying if purported fact X were not so then ABC would occur. But it doesn't actually have the structure of premise and conclusion that a real philosophical argument would contain. As before, I am not interested in being told that I am wrong here, if a I am wrong you can show me by listing the premises and conclusion of an argument it contains. As long as the premises are valid and the structure is such that if the premises are true then the conclusion must also be true I am wrong. It should be easy to show that I am wrong if I am. Otherwise we should just proceed on agreed grounds that this book simply does not use premise and conclusion based argument. We don't' have to lie to ourselves about that any more.

But the problem with switching from a logical mode of argument to a storytelling mode is that people can just not buy the story if they don't find it persuasive, and there's no real reason they should not. It might make peacegirl sad because she likes the story and she thinks it would be super cool if the whole world liked it along with her, but there is no persuasive power in that. Your preferences are not evidence of import or truth.

So what I am telling you does matter. Your efforts to not be told are neither here nor there, you cannot get anywhere with a storytelling argument unless you tell the story incredibly well. I think I have made it rather clear that any story about a dragon with an invisible key guarding the door to knowledge is not well told as far as I am concerned. I have no duty to "yes and" your story, and neither does anyone else.

Your whole spiel is a bunch of baloney. The fact that you didn’t see that the metaphor with the dragon was done to make the difficult part of the book more engaging, and the fact that you scoffed at him so readily says by more about you than him. More importantly, it certainly didn’t take away from the soundness of his demonstration. You keep talking about him not meeting the standard of what constitutes a philosophical argument. This discussion isn’t even an argument, never was, and it certainly isn’t a story. This book is obviously not for you. I kind of knew early on but I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt unlike you who have refused to give that same courtesy to him. You have made up your mind that your review of what you haven’t even read was a well done analysis. Noooo! With all your so-called intelligence, it seems like you’ve lost a little something along the way: it’s called humility! You’re welcome to leave and find greener pastures.

peacegirl wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 11:48 pm I know Atla said that not being responsible does not mean a person should not be blamed and punished.

I would never say that.

peacegirl wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 8:34 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 8:25 pm

peacegirl wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 8:18 pm Determinism as surrendering one's own will to an external force

What external force? Did you seriously think that?

(Note to others: Wait, is that what iambig believes too?)

I don't personally think that. It's just something that comes up in discussions. Determinism: A force that causes... means, to many people, that they are forced to do what they do without their consent, or against their will.

In discussions with your father? Determinism never had anything to do with a force.

peacegirl wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 11:48 pm But he can't use this as an excuse since nothing can make him stab someone UNLESS HE WANTS TO, FOR OVER THIS HE HAS ABSOLUTE CONTROL.

Isn't absolute control the same as free will? So you're saying that determinism is true because he has free will? How do you have absolute control?

peacegirl wrote: ↑Wed Sep 10, 2025 1:53 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 10:21 pm

peacegirl wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 9:35 pm I don’t agree with you. Why can’t you try to see where the two principles lead rather than wasting all this time telling me it’s a made up story that isn’t connected.

I am going to explain some stuff. Please just read it from one end to the other before you hit reply (which I don't think is your habit), and then just reply with a fulsome answer to the points. Maybe don't bother chopping the text up, the following short paragraphs are a continuous thought that doesn't need splitting up anyway....

The book you are flogging does not contain arguments of the typical philosophical sort that use premises and conclusions in a logical and supporting framework. Why is this a problem? It is a problem because you are presenting what you believe are arguments that we ought to find persuasive not because we are very nice and easily persuaded people, but because we would be in error not to agree with them. That is what logical philosophical arguments are for.

The book you are flogging tries to persuade by revelation. Here is a purported fact about X, here is a purported fact about Y, here is how that all fits into my story about making the world a better place .... It intermittently mimics a philosophical argument by saying if purported fact X were not so then ABC would occur. But it doesn't actually have the structure of premise and conclusion that a real philosophical argument would contain. As before, I am not interested in being told that I am wrong here, if a I am wrong you can show me by listing the premises and conclusion of an argument it contains. As long as the premises are valid and the structure is such that if the premises are true then the conclusion must also be true I am wrong. It should be easy to show that I am wrong if I am. Otherwise we should just proceed on agreed grounds that this book simply does not use premise and conclusion based argument. We don't' have to lie to ourselves about that any more.

But the problem with switching from a logical mode of argument to a storytelling mode is that people can just not buy the story if they don't find it persuasive, and there's no real reason they should not. It might make peacegirl sad because she likes the story and she thinks it would be super cool if the whole world liked it along with her, but there is no persuasive power in that. Your preferences are not evidence of import or truth.

So what I am telling you does matter. Your efforts to not be told are neither here nor there, you cannot get anywhere with a storytelling argument unless you tell the story incredibly well. I think I have made it rather clear that any story about a dragon with an invisible key guarding the door to knowledge is not well told as far as I am concerned. I have no duty to "yes and" your story, and neither does anyone else.

Your whole spiel is a bunch of baloney. The fact that you didn’t see that the metaphor with the dragon was done to make the difficult part of the book more engaging, and the fact that you scoffed at him so readily says by more about you than him. More importantly, it certainly didn’t take away from the soundness of his demonstration. You keep talking about him not meeting the standard of what constitutes a philosophical argument. This discussion isn’t even an argument, never was, and it certainly isn’t a story. This book is obviously not for you. I kind of knew early on but I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt unlike you who have refused to give that same courtesy to him. You have made up your mind that your review of what you haven’t even read was a well done analysis. Noooo! With all your so-called intelligence, it seems like you’ve lost a little something along the way: it’s called humility! You’re welcome to leave and find greener pastures.

Properly constructed arguments are what you need in philosophy, that's just a fact. You can't find a plausible set of premises supporting a conclusion in your own book because you clearly don't even know what you are looking for. I couldn't find them because they are not there. Whine about that as long as you like, it will still be true.

The book is simply not persuasive. And that's why nobody but you is really interested in it. Soon you will go in search of some new place to try and sell it, and everybody here will just forget about it.

Honestly, the things that review said all seem to be confirmed by what you've laid out here. Let's review the review...

AmazonReview wrote: The book is presented in an awkward style where the author presents imaginary conversations he's having with people that he readily gets the best of. The other person then gushes enthusiastically about the authors reasoning. The prose and self glorification aren't the only problems with the text though.

The book is definitely presented in an awkward style, such dialogues fell out of fashion centuries ago because they are so contrived. The self-glorification is a bit much, and the prose is clearly terrible.

AmazonReview wrote: Lessan likes to present even his philosophical ideas as scientific validated theories.

However not all of them are even testable hypothesis, and the ones that are testable he never bothered to try testing, or apparently reading any research in the field that was available even at the time the book was written.

Maybe Lessans does present some of his ideas as scientifically validated? I would say the problem is more that he conflates scientific, mathematic and deductive into one and is never clear which he is trying to do. But I have only read the first 3 chapters, and once your boy gets into his freak theory of immediate seeing, it looks like he goes off the scientific rails so I will award the points to the reviewer for this one too.

AmazonReview wrote: His first discovery regarding free will he claims will lead to a world in which no one can hurt another person. The caveat is that these ideas can only been tested when he first has complete compliance from the entire worlds population. This last part even requires a period of military action first where dissenters are taken care of.

Is there a bit about using the military to coerce dissenters? I haven't got that far, but I sort of suspect there is. Also your dad's only real philosophical reference is some guy who was real big on Rousseau, so I can believe it, I sure know where he would have lifted the idea from.

AmazonReview wrote: His second discovery, being the most testable, proves to be the weakest. Here the author claims that he can perceive an event, in real time, over great distances, without the light from the object having to have first had time to reach our eye. That perception was a process occurring without light reaching the eye and at greater than light speeds.

The most famous of his examples is seeing our newly ignited instantly sun eight minutes before the first rays of its' light can touch the earth.

The claims he lays out here are easily testable, don't match any observation ever made, and defy everything known about light, optics, and physics.

Well that bit seems to be true doesn't it.

AmazonReview wrote: This would be Lessans worst mistake if we didn't get to his third discovery.

The third claim involves proving we are born again through an argument involving pronoun usage. The difference between people saying I or You and a person's inability to say I any more after their death convinced him that one of those other You out there must now be I.

Is that unfair? The rest of the review really doesn't seem to be, so this reviewer has credibility you lack at the very least.

This snippet you posted yesterday is not just bad writing (it is terrible writing though), it is absurdly self-glorifying, and of course indicative of deep mental ill health...

peacegirl wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 11:19 pm That night in a dream I kept hearing this phrase: “The solution to all the problems plaguing mankind lies hidden behind the fallacious belief that man’s will is free.” I still didn’t understand where it was leading, but the next day I started to reread Durant’s chapter on free will in his book Mansions of Philosophy. When I completed it, I remarked, “He really doesn’t know what he is talking about, and Spinoza is right; man’s will is not free.” Then, after nine strenuous months, I shouted, “Eureka, I have found it!” and I have had no rest ever since. After opening the door of determinism and proving conclusively that man’s will is not free, I saw another sign that read: ‘Hidden behind this door, you will discover the solution to the problem of evil — the long-awaited Messiah.’ I applied the key, opened the door, and after many months in the deepest analysis, I made a finding that was so fantastic, it took me several years to understand its full significance for all mankind. I saw how this new world must become a reality in a very short time.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 10:21 pm
I am going to explain some stuff. Please just read it from one end to the other before you hit reply (which I don't think is your habit), and then just reply with a fulsome answer to the points. Maybe don't bother chopping the text up, the following short paragraphs are a continuous thought that doesn't need splitting up anyway....

The book you are flogging does not contain arguments of the typical philosophical sort that use premises and conclusions in a logical and supporting framework. Why is this a problem? It is a problem because you are presenting what you believe are arguments that we ought to find persuasive not because we are very nice and easily persuaded people, but because we would be in error not to agree with them. That is what logical philosophical arguments are for.

The book you are flogging tries to persuade by revelation. Here is a purported fact about X, here is a purported fact about Y, here is how that all fits into my story about making the world a better place .... It intermittently mimics a philosophical argument by saying if purported fact X were not so then ABC would occur. But it doesn't actually have the structure of premise and conclusion that a real philosophical argument would contain. As before, I am not interested in being told that I am wrong here, if a I am wrong you can show me by listing the premises and conclusion of an argument it contains. As long as the premises are valid and the structure is such that if the premises are true then the conclusion must also be true I am wrong. It should be easy to show that I am wrong if I am. Otherwise we should just proceed on agreed grounds that this book simply does not use premise and conclusion based argument. We don't' have to lie to ourselves about that any more.

But the problem with switching from a logical mode of argument to a storytelling mode is that people can just not buy the story if they don't find it persuasive, and there's no real reason they should not. It might make peacegirl sad because she likes the story and she thinks it would be super cool if the whole world liked it along with her, but there is no persuasive power in that. Your preferences are not evidence of import or truth.

So what I am telling you does matter. Your efforts to not be told are neither here nor there, you cannot get anywhere with a storytelling argument unless you tell the story incredibly well. I think I have made it rather clear that any story about a dragon with an invisible key guarding the door to knowledge is not well told as far as I am concerned. I have no duty to "yes and" your story, and neither does anyone else.

Your whole spiel is a bunch of baloney. The fact that you didn’t see that the metaphor with the dragon was done to make the difficult part of the book more engaging, and the fact that you scoffed at him so readily says by more about you than him. More importantly, it certainly didn’t take away from the soundness of his demonstration. You keep talking about him not meeting the standard of what constitutes a philosophical argument. This discussion isn’t even an argument, never was, and it certainly isn’t a story. This book is obviously not for you. I kind of knew early on but I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt unlike you who have refused to give that same courtesy to him. You have made up your mind that your review of what you haven’t even read was a well done analysis. Noooo! With all your so-called intelligence, it seems like you’ve lost a little something along the way: it’s called humility! You’re welcome to leave and find greener pastures.

Properly constructed arguments are what you need in philosophy, that's just a fact. You can't find a plausible set of premises supporting a conclusion in your own book because you clearly don't even know what you are looking for. I couldn't find them because they are not there. Whine about that as long as you like, it will still be true.

The book is simply not persuasive. And that's why nobody but you is really interested in it. Soon you will go in search of some new place to try and sell it, and everybody here will just forget about it.

Honestly, the things that review said all seem to be confirmed by what you've laid out here. Let's review the review...

AmazonReview wrote: The book is presented in an awkward style where the author presents imaginary conversations he's having with people that he readily gets the best of. The other person then gushes enthusiastically about the authors reasoning. The prose and self glorification aren't the only problems with the text though.

The book is definitely presented in an awkward style, such dialogues fell out of fashion centuries ago because they are so contrived. The self-glorification is a bit much, and the prose is clearly terrible.

AmazonReview wrote: Lessans likes to present even his philosophical ideas as scientific validated theories.

peacegirl wrote:This guy heard the claim on a forum like this, never opened the front cover, didn't like the claims on the senses, and couldn't wait to give this a bad review, and you're buying into it. You two belong together. I am happy this book is being reviewed by other people who are much more objective.

FlashDangerpants wrote:However not all of them are even testable hypothesis, and the ones that are testable he never bothered to try testing, or apparently reading any research in the field that was available even at the time the book was written.
Maybe Lessans does present some of his ideas as scientifically validated? I would say the problem is more that he conflates scientific, mathematic and deductive into one and is never clear which he is trying to do. But I have only read the first 3 chapters, and once your boy gets into his freak theory of immediate seeing, it looks like he goes off the scientific rails so I will award the points to the reviewer for this one too.

peacegirl wrote:He explained sufficiently that these three words are synonymous in his book. His claims can't be tested in the way you want. It doesn't make his observations, incorrect. It's an equation that, once understood, can be tested in a simulation, but this would not be necessary if it is found that the two-sided equation is valid and sound. It's the same thing with equations that allow us to get to outer space. We can test the equations to make sure they are correct but the only way for them to be useful is to actually reach the target, which would prove the equation worked. That is the same thing here. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and one day it will be shown that he was correct.

AmazonReview wrote: His first discovery regarding free will he claims will lead to a world in which no one can hurt another person. The caveat is that these ideas can only been tested when he first has complete compliance from the entire worlds population. This last part even requires a period of military action first where dissenters are taken care of.

FlashDangerpants wrote:Is there a bit about using the military to coerce dissenters? I haven't got that far, but I sort of suspect there is. Also your dad's only real philosophical reference is some guy who was real big on Rousseau, so I can believe it, I sure know where he would have lifted the idea from.

peacegirl wrote:Not only did he fail to read the book, but he slandered it because nothing in the book mentioned dissenters or military force. This made me literally cry because Amazon wouldn't take it down. And this is what you're using to reject this book? You're just as bad as this guy. Why are you judging him so harshly before you even know for sure whether his claims hold any weight? In his defense, he read literature and philosophy for many many years. He was an autodidact who was able to think outside of the box.

AmazonReview wrote: His second discovery, being the most testable, proves to be the weakest. Here the author claims that he can perceive an event, in real time, over great distances, without the light from the object having to have first had time to reach our eye. That perception was a process occurring without light reaching the eye and at greater than light speeds.

The most famous of his examples is seeing our newly ignited instantly sun eight minutes before the first rays of its' light can touch the earth.

The claims he lays out here are easily testable, don't match any observation ever made, and defy everything known about light, optics, and physics.

Well that bit seems to be true doesn't it.

peacegirl wrote:No. This is what got him angry and is what gets most people angry because Lessans was challenging established "fact." This guy did not understand that no physics and no optics were being violated. This is a tough one because logically it appears that light brings the image, but Lessans disputes this and you can't just throw his reasoning in the wastebasket if you are anything close to a real philosopher, not just a label that you adopted.

AmazonReview wrote: This would be Lessans worst mistake if we didn't get to his third discovery.

The third claim involves proving we are born again through an argument involving pronoun usage. The difference between people saying I or You and a person's inability to say I any more after their death convinced him that one of those other You out there must now be I.

Is that unfair? The rest of the review really doesn't seem to be, so this reviewer has credibility you lack at the very least.

peacegirl wrote:It has nothing to do with being unfair; he didn't understand the first thing regarding Lessans' observations and just picked out the word "pronouns" (because they were used) and thought that was the end of that. Not surprisingly, he failed spectacularly to understand any of his discoveries. Quick dismissal seems to be the ongoing theme in these type forums. This is worrisome because these philosophy forums are supposed to be the cream of the crop. We're all in trouble if this is the case.

This snippet you posted yesterday is not just bad writing (it is terrible writing though), it is absurdly self-glorifying, and of course indicative of deep mental ill health...

peacegirl wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 11:19 pm That night in a dream I kept hearing this phrase: “The solution to all the problems plaguing mankind lies hidden behind the fallacious belief that man’s will is free.” I still didn’t understand where it was leading, but the next day I started to reread Durant’s chapter on free will in his book Mansions of Philosophy. When I completed it, I remarked, “He really doesn’t know what he is talking about, and Spinoza is right; man’s will is not free.” Then, after nine strenuous months, I shouted, “Eureka, I have found it!” and I have had no rest ever since. After opening the door of determinism and proving conclusively that man’s will is not free, I saw another sign that read: ‘Hidden behind this door, you will discover the solution to the problem of evil — the long-awaited Messiah.’ I applied the key, opened the door, and after many months in the deepest analysis, I made a finding that was so fantastic, it took me several years to understand its full significance for all mankind. I saw how this new world must become a reality in a very short time.

If you knew this man personally, you would have not thought this for a moment. Unlike you, he was not arrogant. He wanted to share his story about what compelled him to investigate further. He had an intuition or revelation, call it what you want, but this was not self-glorifying. He was just explaining what happened to him that got him involved in this subject.

Ho hum, let me just fix all those quote fuckups for you yet again peacegirl so we can have some idea of what was written by whom.

peacegirl wrote: ↑Wed Sep 10, 2025 11:02 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 10:21 pm
I am going to explain some stuff. Please just read it from one end to the other before you hit reply (which I don't think is your habit), and then just reply with a fulsome answer to the points. Maybe don't bother chopping the text up, the following short paragraphs are a continuous thought that doesn't need splitting up anyway....

The book you are flogging does not contain arguments of the typical philosophical sort that use premises and conclusions in a logical and supporting framework. Why is this a problem? It is a problem because you are presenting what you believe are arguments that we ought to find persuasive not because we are very nice and easily persuaded people, but because we would be in error not to agree with them. That is what logical philosophical arguments are for.

The book you are flogging tries to persuade by revelation. Here is a purported fact about X, here is a purported fact about Y, here is how that all fits into my story about making the world a better place .... It intermittently mimics a philosophical argument by saying if purported fact X were not so then ABC would occur. But it doesn't actually have the structure of premise and conclusion that a real philosophical argument would contain. As before, I am not interested in being told that I am wrong here, if a I am wrong you can show me by listing the premises and conclusion of an argument it contains. As long as the premises are valid and the structure is such that if the premises are true then the conclusion must also be true I am wrong. It should be easy to show that I am wrong if I am. Otherwise we should just proceed on agreed grounds that this book simply does not use premise and conclusion based argument. We don't' have to lie to ourselves about that any more.

But the problem with switching from a logical mode of argument to a storytelling mode is that people can just not buy the story if they don't find it persuasive, and there's no real reason they should not. It might make peacegirl sad because she likes the story and she thinks it would be super cool if the whole world liked it along with her, but there is no persuasive power in that. Your preferences are not evidence of import or truth.

So what I am telling you does matter. Your efforts to not be told are neither here nor there, you cannot get anywhere with a storytelling argument unless you tell the story incredibly well. I think I have made it rather clear that any story about a dragon with an invisible key guarding the door to knowledge is not well told as far as I am concerned. I have no duty to "yes and" your story, and neither does anyone else.

Your whole spiel is a bunch of baloney. The fact that you didn’t see that the metaphor with the dragon was done to make the difficult part of the book more engaging, and the fact that you scoffed at him so readily says by more about you than him. More importantly, it certainly didn’t take away from the soundness of his demonstration. You keep talking about him not meeting the standard of what constitutes a philosophical argument. This discussion isn’t even an argument, never was, and it certainly isn’t a story. This book is obviously not for you. I kind of knew early on but I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt unlike you who have refused to give that same courtesy to him. You have made up your mind that your review of what you haven’t even read was a well done analysis. Noooo! With all your so-called intelligence, it seems like you’ve lost a little something along the way: it’s called humility! You’re welcome to leave and find greener pastures.

me wrote: Properly constructed arguments are what you need in philosophy, that's just a fact. You can't find a plausible set of premises supporting a conclusion in your own book because you clearly don't even know what you are looking for. I couldn't find them because they are not there. Whine about that as long as you like, it will still be true.

The book is simply not persuasive. And that's why nobody but you is really interested in it. Soon you will go in search of some new place to try and sell it, and everybody here will just forget about it.

Honestly, the things that review said all seem to be confirmed by what you've laid out here. Let's review the review...

AmazonReview wrote: The book is presented in an awkward style where the author presents imaginary conversations he's having with people that he readily gets the best of. The other person then gushes enthusiastically about the authors reasoning. The prose and self glorification aren't the only problems with the text though.

The book is definitely presented in an awkward style, such dialogues fell out of fashion centuries ago because they are so contrived. The self-glorification is a bit much, and the prose is clearly terrible.

AmazonReview wrote: Lessans likes to present even his philosophical ideas as scientific validated theories.

This guy heard the claim on a forum like this, never opened the front cover, didn't like the claims on the senses, and couldn't wait to give this a bad review, and you're buying into it. You two belong together. I am happy this book is being reviewed by other people who are much more objective.

Well, you've repeatedly accused me of not reading things posted here that I clearly have read. So frankly I am not buying that. But it doesn't matter. The text is awkward, it takes the dialogue form he describes and so it is evident that your reviewer is familiar with at least that much. Your complaint about him not not opening the front cover are an attempt to mislead and the claim in this quote is demonstrated true in spite of your sideways objection...

LazyGirlWhoCan'tCloseQuoteBrackets wrote:

FlashDangerpants wrote:

AmazonReciew wrote: However not all of them are even testable hypothesis, and the ones that are testable he never bothered to try testing, or apparently reading any research in the field that was available even at the time the book was written.

Maybe Lessans does present some of his ideas as scientifically validated? I would say the problem is more that he conflates scientific, mathematic and deductive into one and is never clear which he is trying to do. But I have only read the first 3 chapters, and once your boy gets into his freak theory of immediate seeing, it looks like he goes off the scientific rails so I will award the points to the reviewer for this one too.

He explained sufficiently that these three words are synonymous in his book. His claims can't be tested in the way you want. It doesn't make his observations, incorrect. It's an equation that, once understood, can be tested in a simulation, but this would not be necessary if it is found that the two-sided equation is valid and sound before a simulated environment would be necessary. It's the same thing with equations that allow us to get to outer space. We can test the equations to make sure they are correct but the only way for them to be useful is to actually reach the target, which would prove the equation worked. That is the same thing here. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and one day it will be shown that he was correct.

If the claims can't be tested scientifically, that makes them not scientific. The equation is not mathematical and is it really an equation? I leave that question open for others to decide. The reasoning is not mathematical. If you have to have confidence that one day it will be tested somehow then obviously it is not undeniable either. It therefore fails to be any of the things Lessans called it. If we review what he wrote, I believe he said that it needed to be those things. So... it fails. It is a failed argument on its own terms.

It fails on all other terms by having no clear relationship between premise and conclusion other than the order in which they are written into the narrative. Without the proper arrangements of premises and conclusion no argument can be valid and sound because that phrase refers only to arguments where true premises indisputably ensure a true conclusion. So we don't ever need to worry about your dad's work being valid and sound, none of it is valid at all.

Girl who should just stop chopping stuff up if she's only going to burden everyone else with her slovenly work wrote:

AmazonReview wrote: His first discovery regarding free will he claims will lead to a world in which no one can hurt another person. The caveat is that these ideas can only been tested when he first has complete compliance from the entire worlds population. This last part even requires a period of military action first where dissenters are taken care of.

FlashDangerpants wrote:Is there a bit about using the military to coerce dissenters? I haven't got that far, but I sort of suspect there is. Also your dad's only real philosophical reference is some guy who was real big on Rousseau, so I can believe it, I sure know where he would have lifted the idea from.

Not only did he fail to read the book, but he slandered it because nothing in the book mentioned dissenters or military force. This made me literally cry because Amazon wouldn't take it down. And this is what you're using to reject this book? You're just as bad as this guy. Why are you judging him so harshly before you even know for sure whether his claims hold any weight? In his defense, he read literature and philosophy for many many years. He was an autodidact who was able to think outside of the box.

Crocodile tears. I have doubts, your honesty has been lacking, and I suspect you are at it again. If the work describes a scenario where all the problems of the world end only when all the people in the world hold the same beliefs about unfree wills and consequences of unfree will, then it seems obvious that a discussion must cover what happens when 90% of the people believe but 10% are obstinate laggards.

I don't know what Lessans wrote for that part, but I suspect that reviewer does know, and I suspect you are back to that move you tried to use on me where I accurately summarised but you tried to pull the "I didn't use those words" trick.

SelfPityGirl wrote:

PlopDooDooPants wrote:

AmazonReview wrote: His second discovery, being the most testable, proves to be the weakest. Here the author claims that he can perceive an event, in real time, over great distances, without the light from the object having to have first had time to reach our eye. That perception was a process occurring without light reaching the eye and at greater than light speeds.

The most famous of his examples is seeing our newly ignited instantly sun eight minutes before the first rays of its' light can touch the earth.

The claims he lays out here are easily testable, don't match any observation ever made, and defy everything known about light, optics, and physics.

Well that bit seems to be true doesn't it.

No. This is what got him angry and is what gets most people angry because Lessans was challenging established knowledge. This guy did not understand that physics and optics are not being violated. This is a tough one because logically it appears that light brings the image, but Lessans disputes this and you can't just throw his suspicion in the wastebasket if you are anything close to a real philosopher, not just a wannabe.

If Lessans was challenging established knowledge then he was defying what is known. We've seen enough pasted here to know this part of the review is obviously fair. You are being silly.

SelfPityGirl wrote:

FlapDunderPants wrote:

AmazonReview wrote: This would be Lessans worst mistake if we didn't get to his third discovery.

The third claim involves proving we are born again through an argument involving pronoun usage. The difference between people saying I or You and a person's inability to say I any more after their death convinced him that one of those other You out there must now be I.

Is that unfair? The rest of the review really doesn't seem to be, so this reviewer has credibility you lack at the very least.

This snippet you posted yesterday is not just bad writing (it is terrible writing though), it is absurdly self-glorifying, and of course indicative of deep mental ill health...

peacegirl wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 11:19 pm That night in a dream I kept hearing this phrase: “The solution to all the problems plaguing mankind lies hidden behind the fallacious belief that man’s will is free.” I still didn’t understand where it was leading, but the next day I started to reread Durant’s chapter on free will in his book Mansions of Philosophy. When I completed it, I remarked, “He really doesn’t know what he is talking about, and Spinoza is right; man’s will is not free.” Then, after nine strenuous months, I shouted, “Eureka, I have found it!” and I have had no rest ever since. After opening the door of determinism and proving conclusively that man’s will is not free, I saw another sign that read: ‘Hidden behind this door, you will discover the solution to the problem of evil — the long-awaited Messiah.’ I applied the key, opened the door, and after many months in the deepest analysis, I made a finding that was so fantastic, it took me several years to understand its full significance for all mankind. I saw how this new world must become a reality in a very short time.

If you knew this man personally, you would have not thought this for a moment. Unlike you, he was not arrogant. He was very humble, in fact. He had an intuition or revelation, call it what you want, but this was not self-glorifying at all. He was just explaining what happened to him that got him involved in this subject.

It's so easy to spot the humble ones, they call themselves Messiahs and announce they have the fix for all mankind's problems, ready to sell for a reasonable price.

The following is mainly a reply to Peacegirl . It is sourced from ChatGPT in response to my search this morning.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ChatGPT
The Story of “Will” — From Wanting to “The Will”
1. Everyday Life (before philosophy)

People used will to mean wanting:

“I will go” = “I want to go.”

“Against his will” = “against what he wanted.”
Just simple wanting, nothing mysterious.

2. Augustine (400s AD)

Augustine said humans have a special power inside them: the Will.

Not just “I want,” but a whole inner faculty that chooses between good and evil.
First step: wanting became a thing inside us.

3. The Middle Ages (Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham)

Scholars asked: which is higher — Reason (thinking) or Will (choosing)?

They treated “Will” like a real organ of the soul, with its own rules.
“Will” was no longer just a word for wanting — it was like a machine inside you.

4. The Reformation (Luther, Calvin)

Luther wrote The Bondage of the Will: he said human Will is enslaved to sin unless freed by God.

Calvin said God’s Will is supreme, above human Will.
“Will” now had huge moral and religious weight.

5. Early Modern Thinkers (1600s–1700s)

Descartes: Will is infinite, Reason is limited.

Locke: Will is the power to prefer one action over another.
Will became a central philosophical power of the mind.

6. Modern Philosophy (1800s)

Kant: “Good Will” is the foundation of morality.

Schopenhauer: “The Will” is the blind force driving all existence.

Nietzsche: “Will to Power” is the core of life.
By now, “Will” is no longer just human wanting — it’s a cosmic force.

In Plain Words

They started with wanting.
They turned it into an inner power.
Then into a moral faculty.
Then into a cosmic principle.

This is the arc: from “I want” → “The Will.”
------------------------------------------------------------
ChatGPT on the history of the word 'will' .

Peacegirl lacks the insight of historical perspective . Historical perspective would enable her to contrast and compare the several changes in usage of the word 'will' particularly religious/philosophical usage.

Her problem is not so called 'Free Will' but reification of the word 'will'. I hope my previous post as synthesised by ChatGPT will help her to understand where in the arc of historical meanings she herself stands

Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Sep 10, 2025 12:36 pm Peacegirl lacks the insight of historical perspective . Historical perspective would enable her to contrast and compare the several changes in usage of the word 'will' particularly religious/philosophical usage.

Her problem is not so called 'Free Will' but reification of the word 'will'. I hope my previous post as synthesised by ChatGPT will help her to understand where in the arc of historical meanings she herself stands

Belinda,with all due respect you cannot condemn him when you have no idea what he read or the intelligence he had. You don’t know what you’re talking about!

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Sep 10, 2025 12:04 pm Ho hum, let me just fix all those quote fuckups for you yet again peacegirl so we can have some idea of what was written by whom.

peacegirl wrote: ↑Wed Sep 10, 2025 11:02 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 10:21 pm
I am going to explain some stuff. Please just read it from one end to the other before you hit reply (which I don't think is your habit), and then just reply with a fulsome answer to the points. Maybe don't bother chopping the text up, the following short paragraphs are a continuous thought that doesn't need splitting up anyway....

The book you are flogging does not contain arguments of the typical philosophical sort that use premises and conclusions in a logical and supporting framework. Why is this a problem? It is a problem because you are presenting what you believe are arguments that we ought to find persuasive not because we are very nice and easily persuaded people, but because we would be in error not to agree with them. That is what logical philosophical arguments are for.

The book you are flogging tries to persuade by revelation. Here is a purported fact about X, here is a purported fact about Y, here is how that all fits into my story about making the world a better place .... It intermittently mimics a philosophical argument by saying if purported fact X were not so then ABC would occur. But it doesn't actually have the structure of premise and conclusion that a real philosophical argument would contain. As before, I am not interested in being told that I am wrong here, if a I am wrong you can show me by listing the premises and conclusion of an argument it contains. As long as the premises are valid and the structure is such that if the premises are true then the conclusion must also be true I am wrong. It should be easy to show that I am wrong if I am. Otherwise we should just proceed on agreed grounds that this book simply does not use premise and conclusion based argument. We don't' have to lie to ourselves about that any more.

But the problem with switching from a logical mode of argument to a storytelling mode is that people can just not buy the story if they don't find it persuasive, and there's no real reason they should not. It might make peacegirl sad because she likes the story and she thinks it would be super cool if the whole world liked it along with her, but there is no persuasive power in that. Your preferences are not evidence of import or truth.

So what I am telling you does matter. Your efforts to not be told are neither here nor there, you cannot get anywhere with a storytelling argument unless you tell the story incredibly well. I think I have made it rather clear that any story about a dragon with an invisible key guarding the door to knowledge is not well told as far as I am concerned. I have no duty to "yes and" your story, and neither does anyone else.

Your whole spiel is a bunch of baloney. The fact that you didn’t see that the metaphor with the dragon was done to make the difficult part of the book more engaging, and the fact that you scoffed at him so readily says by more about you than him. More importantly, it certainly didn’t take away from the soundness of his demonstration. You keep talking about him not meeting the standard of what constitutes a philosophical argument. This discussion isn’t even an argument, never was, and it certainly isn’t a story. This book is obviously not for you. I kind of knew early on but I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt unlike you who have refused to give that same courtesy to him. You have made up your mind that your review of what you haven’t even read was a well done analysis. Noooo! With all your so-called intelligence, it seems like you’ve lost a little something along the way: it’s called humility! You’re welcome to leave and find greener pastures.

me wrote: Properly constructed arguments are what you need in philosophy, that's just a fact. You can't find a plausible set of premises supporting a conclusion in your own book because you clearly don't even know what you are looking for. I couldn't find them because they are not there. Whine about that as long as you like, it will still be true.

The book is simply not persuasive. And that's why nobody but you is really interested in it. Soon you will go in search of some new place to try and sell it, and everybody here will just forget about it.

Honestly, the things that review said all seem to be confirmed by what you've laid out here. Let's review the review...

The book is definitely presented in an awkward style, such dialogues fell out of fashion centuries ago because they are so contrived. The self-glorification is a bit much, and the prose is clearly terrible.

This guy heard the claim on a forum like this, never opened the front cover, didn't like the claims on the senses, and couldn't wait to give this a bad review, and you're buying into it. You two belong together. I am happy this book is being reviewed by other people who are much more objective.

Well, you've repeatedly accused me of not reading things posted here that I clearly have read. So frankly I am not buying that. But it doesn't matter. The text is awkward, it takes the dialogue form he describes and so it is evident that your reviewer is familiar with at least that much. Your complaint about him not not opening the front cover are an attempt to mislead and the claim in this quote is demonstrated true in spite of your sideways objection..

peacegirl wrote:FlashDangerpants, he resented the claims. If you want to use this as a truthful review, go right ahead, but I cannot continue discussing the book with you. The fact that you didn't like his writing is unfortunate, but it means nothing in so far as the soundness of his proof.

LazyGirlWhoCan'tCloseQuoteBrackets wrote:

FlashDangerpants wrote:
Maybe Lessans does present some of his ideas as scientifically validated? I would say the problem is more that he conflates scientific, mathematic and deductive into one and is never clear which he is trying to do. But I have only read the first 3 chapters, and once your boy gets into his freak theory of immediate seeing, it looks like he goes off the scientific rails so I will award the points to the reviewer for this one too.

He explained sufficiently that these three words are synonymous in his book. His claims can't be tested in the way you want. It doesn't make his observations, incorrect. It's an equation that, once understood, can be tested in a simulation, but this would not be necessary if it is found that the two-sided equation is valid and sound before a simulated environment would be necessary. It's the same thing with equations that allow us to get to outer space. We can test the equations to make sure they are correct but the only way for them to be useful is to actually reach the target, which would prove the equation worked. That is the same thing here. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and one day it will be shown that he was correct.

If the claims can't be tested scientifically, that makes them not scientific. The equation is not mathematical and is it really an equation? I leave that question open for others to decide. The reasoning is not mathematical. If you have to have confidence that one day it will be tested somehow then obviously it is not undeniable either. It therefore fails to be any of the things Lessans called it. If we review what he wrote, I believe he said that it needed to be those things. So... it fails. It is a failed argument on its own terms.

peacegirl wrote:You're wrong again. Just as any equation must be correct before the actual proof in real life is seen, he did that. We live in a world of blame and punishment. He couldn't remove this free will environment to prove he was right until his claims are seen to be sound.

It fails on all other terms by having no clear relationship between premise and conclusion other than the order in which they are written into the narrative. Without the proper arrangements of premises and conclusion no argument can be valid and sound because that phrase refers only to arguments where true premises indisputably ensure a true conclusion. So we don't ever need to worry about your dad's work being valid and sound, none of it is valid at all.

peacegirl wrote:There was a proper arrangement. He showed exactly why will is not free, and why, although will is not free, nothing can make us do what we don't want, which is important when it comes to the two-sided equation given that people think that if will is not free, they can excuse themselves by saying determinism made them do what they did, shifting their responsibility.

Girl who should just stop chopping stuff up if she's only going to burden everyone else with her slovenly work wrote:

AmazonReview wrote: His first discovery regarding free will he claims will lead to a world in which no one can hurt another person. The caveat is that these ideas can only been tested when he first has complete compliance from the entire worlds population. This last part even requires a period of military action first where dissenters are taken care of.

He lied. I am asking anyone to find in the book anything that says there will be military action. Why you people are giving credit to this individual is beyond me.

FlashDangerpants wrote:Is there a bit about using the military to coerce dissenters? I haven't got that far, but I sort of suspect there is. Also your dad's only real philosophical reference is some guy who was real big on Rousseau, so I can believe it, I sure know where he would have lifted the idea from.

Not only did he fail to read the book, but he slandered it because nothing in the book mentioned dissenters or military force. This made me literally cry because Amazon wouldn't take it down. And this is what you're using to reject this book? You're just as bad as this guy. Why are you judging him so harshly before you even know for sure whether his claims hold any weight? In his defense, he read literature and philosophy for many many years. He was an autodidact who was able to think outside of the box.

Crocodile tears. I have doubts, your honesty has been lacking, and I suspect you are at it again. If the work describes a scenario where all the problems of the world end only when all the people in the world hold the same beliefs about unfree wills and consequences of unfree will, then it seems obvious that a discussion must cover what happens when 90% of the people believe but 10% are obstinate laggards.

peacegirl wrote: The knowledge has to be understood by science first. The rest follows but it doesn't mean a person has to hold the same beliefs. If a person doesn't want to be a part of this change, he doesn't have to. There is no force at all. But how can he not want to when he will be entering a world where his income will be secured to never go down and he will be free from the laws of his country. I'm sure people will laugh at this because they don't understand that this higher law of conscience will prevent any desire to hurt another with a first blow. This is how conscience works.

I don't know what Lessans wrote for that part, but I suspect that reviewer does know, and I suspect you are back to that move you tried to use on me where I accurately summarised but you tried to pull the "I didn't use those words" trick.

peacegirl wrote:Why are you here?

SelfPityGirl wrote:

PlopDooDooPants wrote:
Well that bit seems to be true doesn't it.

No. This is what gets most people angry because Lessans was challenging established knowledge. This guy did not understand that physics and optics are not being violated. This is a tough one because logically it appears that light brings the image, but Lessans disputes this and you can't just throw his suspicion in the wastebasket if you are anything close to a real philosopher, not just a wannabe.

If Lessans was challenging established knowledge then he was defying what is known. We've seen enough pasted here to know this part of the review is obviously fair. You are being silly.

peacegirl wrote:The science isn't always settled. Many people have challenged the thinking of the day and they turned out to be right.

FlapDunderPants wrote:
Is that unfair? The rest of the review really doesn't seem to be, so this reviewer has credibility you lack at the very least.

This snippet you posted yesterday is not just bad writing (it is terrible writing though), it is absurdly self-glorifying, and of course indicative of deep mental ill health...

PG: This comment is so outrageous, promise me you'll never enter the mental health field.

Not even bothering to try and disentangle that car wreck of a post.

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Sep 10, 2025 4:30 am

peacegirl wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 11:48 pm But he can't use this as an excuse since nothing can make him stab someone UNLESS HE WANTS TO, FOR OVER THIS HE HAS ABSOLUTE CONTROL.

Isn't absolute control the same as free will? So you're saying that determinism is true because he has free will? How do you have absolute control?

That is the whole point being made, that we don't have control over the movement toward greater satisfaction, which is why man's will is not free, but the other point being made is that nothing has the power to make us do what we don't want, for over this we have absolute control.

It is easy, in many cases, to recognize things that satisfy, such as money when funds are low, but it is extremely difficult at other times to comprehend the innumerable subconscious factors often responsible for the malaise of dissatisfaction. Your desire to take a bath arises from a feeling of unseemliness or a wish to be refreshed, which means that you are dissatisfied with the way you feel at that moment, and your desire to get out of the bathtub arises from a feeling of dissatisfaction with a position that has suddenly grown uncomfortable. This simple demonstration proves conclusively that man’s will is not free because satisfaction is the only direction life can take, and it offers only one possibility at each moment of time.

The government holds each person responsible for obeying the laws and then punishes those who do not while absolving itself of all responsibility. But how is it possible for someone to obey that which, under certain conditions, appears to him worse? It is quite obvious that a person does not have to steal if he doesn’t want to, but under certain conditions he wants to, and it is also obvious that those who enforce the laws do not have to punish if they don’t want to, but both sides want to do what they consider better for themselves under the circumstances. The Russians didn’t have to start a communistic revolution against the tyranny that prevailed; they were not compelled to do this; they wanted to. The Japanese didn’t have to attack us at Pearl Harbor; they wanted to. We didn’t have to drop an atomic bomb among their people; we wanted to. It is an undeniable observation that man does not have to commit a crime or hurt another in any way if he doesn’t want to. The most severe tortures, even the threat of death, cannot compel or cause him to do what he makes up his mind not to do. Since this observation is mathematically undeniable, the expression ‘free will,’ which has come to signify this aspect, is absolutely true in this context because it symbolizes what the perception of this relation cannot deny, and here lies in part the unconscious source of all the dogmatism and confusion since MAN IS NOT CAUSED OR COMPELLED TO DO TO ANOTHER WHAT HE MAKES UP HIS MIND NOT TO DO — but that does not make his will free.

In other words, if someone were to say — “I didn’t really want to hurt that person but couldn’t help myself under the circumstances,” which demonstrates that though he believes in freedom of the will, he admits he was not free to act otherwise; that he was forced by his environment to do what he really didn’t want to do, or should he make any effort to shift his responsibility for this hurt to heredity, God, his parents, the fact that his will is not free, or something else as the cause, he is obviously lying to others and being dishonest with himself because absolutely nothing is forcing him, against his will, to do what he doesn’t want to do, for over this, as was just shown, he has mathematical control.

“It’s amazing; all my life I have believed man’s will is free, but for the first time I can actually see that his will is not free.”

Another friend commented, “You may be satisfied, but I’m not. The definition of determinism is the philosophical and ethical doctrine that man’s choices, decisions, and actions are decided by antecedent causes, inherited or environmental, acting upon his character. According to this definition, we are not given a choice because we are being caused to do what we do by a previous event or circumstance. But I know for a fact that nothing can make me do what I make up my mind not to do, as you just mentioned a moment ago. If I don’t want to do something, nothing, not environment, heredity, or anything else you care to throw in, can make me do it because over this I have absolute control. Since I can’t be made to do anything against my will, doesn’t this make my will free? And isn’t it a contradiction to say that man’s will is not free, yet nothing can make him do what he doesn’t want to do?”

“How about that? He brought out something I never would have thought of.”

“All he said was that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink, which is undeniable; however, though it is a mathematical law that nothing can compel man to do to another what he makes up his mind not to do — this is an extremely crucial point — he is nevertheless under a compulsion during every moment of his existence to do everything he does. This reveals, as your friend just pointed out, that man has absolute control over the former but absolutely none over the latter because he must constantly move in the direction of greater satisfaction. It is true that nothing in the past can cause what occurs in the present, for all we ever have is the present; the past and future are only words that describe a deceptive relation. Consequently, determinism was faced with an almost impossible task because it assumed that heredity and environment caused man to choose evil, and the proponents of free will believed the opposite, that man was not caused or compelled; he did it of his own accord; he wanted to do it; he didn’t have to. The term ‘free will’ contains an assumption or fallacy, for it implies that if man is not caused or compelled to do anything against his will, it must be preferred of his own free will. This is one of those logical, not mathematical, conclusions. The expression ‘I did it of my own free will’ is perfectly correct when it is understood to mean ‘I did it because I wanted to; nothing compelled or caused me to do it since I could have acted otherwise had I desired.’ This expression was necessarily misinterpreted because of the general ignorance that prevailed, for although it is correct in the sense that a person did something because he wanted to, this in no way indicates that his will is free. In fact, I shall use the expression ‘of my own free will’ frequently myself, which only means ‘of my own desire.’ Are you beginning to see how words have deceived everyone?”

peacegirl wrote: ↑Wed Sep 10, 2025 4:02 pm That is the whole point being made, that we don't have control over the movement toward greater satisfaction, which is why man's will is not free, but the other point being made is that nothing has the power to make us do what we don't want, for over this we have absolute control.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Ok I'm out.