For the discussion of all things philosophical.
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I was thinking of training soldiers how to bayonet people. The new recruits have to practice on filled sacks or dead pigs or such like so they psych themselves up to be able to do it on real living men.
But we were discussing how people get brutalised as a general principle.henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:30 pm So: we've gone from self-reliant, largely peaceful, folks protecting their cats, dogs, chickens, and sheep (not to mention children) from encroaching foxes to...Nazis!
It's like Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon.
No, you were.Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:35 pmBut we were discussing how people get brutalised as a general principle.henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:30 pm So: we've gone from self-reliant, largely peaceful, folks protecting their cats, dogs, chickens, and sheep (not to mention children) from encroaching foxes to...Nazis!
It's like Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon.
Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:35 pmBut we were discussing how people get brutalised as a general principle.henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:30 pm So: we've gone from self-reliant, largely peaceful, folks protecting their cats, dogs, chickens, and sheep (not to mention children) from encroaching foxes to...Nazis!
It's like Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon.
Do you consider the possibility of persuading your coterie of nocturnal killers to adopt sensible attitudes to foxes and to pest control?
Did you not read what I wrote? If you did so, in the full sense of 'read' as a fluent reader, then you were discussing the material whether or not you typed out a response.henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:36 pmNo, you were.Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:35 pmBut we were discussing how people get brutalised as a general principle.henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:30 pm So: we've gone from self-reliant, largely peaceful, folks protecting their cats, dogs, chickens, and sheep (not to mention children) from encroaching foxes to...Nazis!
It's like Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon.
Well, you've been tryin' to steer the back & forth in that direction, yeah. I haven't exactly cooperated though, mostly cuz I think you're seein' connections that aren't there.But we were discussing how people get brutalised as a general principle.
Nope.Do you consider the possibility of persuading your coterie of nocturnal killers to adopt sensible attitudes to foxes and to pest control?
Uh, no, I wasn't.Did you not read what I wrote? If you did so, in the full sense of 'read' as a fluent reader, then you were discussing the material whether or not you typed out a response.
When I was a girl I liked to fish in the sea from a rowing boat. One day someone saw me carrying the oars down to the boat and said " Going out to kill things again Belinda?" Sometimes a light remark turns one's ideas around. I 'd better stop nagging.henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Aug 11, 2022 12:26 pmWell, you've been tryin' to steer the back & forth in that direction, yeah. I haven't exactly cooperated though, mostly cuz I think you're seein' connections that aren't there.But we were discussing how people get brutalised as a general principle.
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Nope.Do you consider the possibility of persuading your coterie of nocturnal killers to adopt sensible attitudes to foxes and to pest control?
*
Uh, no, I wasn't.Did you not read what I wrote? If you did so, in the full sense of 'read' as a fluent reader, then you were discussing the material whether or not you typed out a response.
Oh, you can nag all you like. Just don't expect too much to come from it (with me, at least).I 'd better stop nagging.
1] We will need a contextQuick Review
Determinism is the general idea that either physical or causal
determinism is true.
Surface freedom: S has surface freedom if and only if S can act on their
desires without interference.
Deep freedom: S has deep freedom if and only if (1) S could have acted
otherwise and (2) the source of S's action is found in themselves (they
are in control of their desires to the extent to which they can be held
morally responsible for their action
Someday [hopefully] in a world where compatibilism reigns, someone will actually be able to explain to me how on earth compatibilism can possibly make any sense at all given determinism.Compatibilism and Incompatibilism
Compatibilism - freedom and determinism are consistent, viz., both
of the positions can be true.
Incompatibilism - freedom and determinism are inconsistent,
viz., both of the positions cannot be true.
It doesn't. Compatibilism doesn't make any sense at all.iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 3:26 am Someday [hopefully] in a world where compatibilism reigns, someone will actually be able to explain to me how on earth compatibilism can possibly make any sense at all given determinism.
iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 5:36 pm Are you in sync then with the argument that this very exchange we are having is unfolding entirely in sync with the only possible reality in the only possible world? I was never able not to type these words, you were never able not to read them?
BigMike wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 8:11 pm I like to believe that my actions and arguments reflect my beliefs, if that's what you mean by being in sync. But I am no fatalist. When I'm hungry, I find something to eat. I don't just sit around and wait for the universe to feed me out of the goodness of its heart.
iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 5:36 pmOkay, then you and I think about "no free will" differently. As I understand it -- compelled or not -- if the human brain is just more matter entirely in sync with the laws of matter, what you think and feel and say and do, whether in regard to what you believe or how you act, is all inherently, necessarily intertwined in the only possible reality. And how can that not be fated, destined?
You're hungry because biologically we are hard-wired to need food. Just as wolves and bears are. But these animals don't pull back and think about it philosophically. It's all instinct. With us however it can also be philosophical. But what if that is also just another manifestation of the brain as matter wholly in sync with the laws of matter?
Okay, but given how I understand determinism, if I am trying to create a disagreement where none exists here, that too is subsumed in the only possible reality. Yet the way in which note this is [to me] something I'd expect from the free will advocates. That if I were truly understanding your point, I would not do this.BigMike wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 8:11 pmIn my (my brain's) previous response, you (your brain) may replace the word "I" with "my brain" in every case, and it would still be consistent with the point I (my brain) tried to get across. So, too, in this response. And, whenever I use the word "you", feel free (poor choice of words) to replace it with "your brain" if you must. Everything I do is "fated, destined," as you put it, and as I very well may have put it but for the laws of physics. I think you are trying to create a disagreement where none exists.
Same thing. However either one of us perceives blue insofar as we use it to describe the sky, that perception is compelled by our brains wholly in sync with the laws of matter. What doesn't matter is that whether we agree or disagree it is still inherently and necessarily in sync as well with the only possible reality.BigMike wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 8:17 pmNow, when I look at a blue sky, I am very much aware that there is nothing blue about it at all. I am cognizant of the fact that the perceived blueness is merely a bizarre shorthand representation of electromagnetic waves with a wavelength of 450 nanometers. I don't know how you perceive "blue", nor does it matter as long as we agree to use the same word "blue" when referring to electromagnetic waves of a particular wavelength.
Again, however, try to link this to how you construe human responsibility...in particular moral responsibility. Take for example the back and forth now going on in regard to the FBI searching Trump's residence/club at Mar-a-Lago. Is there anything that either side says or does here that is not entirely unfolding in the only possible reality?BigMike wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 8:17 pmI am a "weak" epiphenomenalist in that I think, and I might be completely wrong about this, that everything I perceive as mental is merely a shorthand representation of brain activity in different regions of my brain. But my conviction that we have no free will does in no way depend on epiphenomenalism, "weak" or "strong". It's just my way of coming to terms with the color blue, Prince's "Purple Rain", anger, and everything else I perceive mentally but is actually physics. When I said that my brain will, at any rate, do what it thinks is best, and that thing will become my will, the will I’m referring to is perceived, just like the blueness of the sky, it’s not real.
On the other hand, in a way that neither one of us fully understands given the gap between what we think is true here and all that would need to be known about existence itself in order to know unequivocally, what exactly is "real" in regard to self-conscious living matter.
Okay, he said that. He believed that. But what actual hard evidence did he provide in order to demonstrate that all rational men and women are obligated to say it and to believe it in turn? Or was his more a "philosophical" conjecture. His conclusion is said to be true because his premises are said to be true. In a world of words by and large. Words defining and defending other words and not actually connected experimentally and experientially to flesh and blood human interactions.BigMike wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 8:17 pm Let there be no misunderstanding: The universe is physical. As Leucippus said: "Naught happens for nothing, but everything from a ground and of necessity." And that included thoughts, choices, and every "mental" activity. In fact, he even said that the "soul" was made of atoms.
As though "logic" here is a part of you that "transcends" the fate of all matter that is not us.
Okay, how close is that to you saying "I was never able to not type these words and post them...anymore than you were ever able to not read and then react to them. In other words, only as you were ever able to react to them."BigMike wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 8:17 pm I thought I had made it clear the "my" logic is physically hardwired in my brain by synapses of various strengths and axon terminals making various connections between neurons, like railroad tracks: Whatever my brain concludes is the result of nerve impulses (action potentials) following the neural network like trains on a track. Trains cannot leap to a new track that leads to a different destination, and nerve signals in my brain cannot jump to neurons that it is not actually connected to in order to arrive at a different conclusion than what the rules of physics mandate.
But then straight back to how surreal points like this can be. If you are a compatibilist, everything that you think, feel, say and do makes sense in that everything that you think, feel, say and do you were never able not to think, feel, say and do. What makes sense is whatever the unfolding reality happens to be. In other words, everything makes sense if it was the only possible reality there can be.BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 8:02 amIt doesn't. Compatibilism doesn't make any sense at all.iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 3:26 am Someday [hopefully] in a world where compatibilism reigns, someone will actually be able to explain to me how on earth compatibilism can possibly make any sense at all given determinism.
Okay, but if you tell someone where to find another that they are intent on killing because you believe you have a moral obligation always to tell the truth how is that not interchangeable with lying about where this person is?BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 8:02 amKant wrote "This is a wretched subterfuge with which some persons still let themselves be put off, and so think they have solved, with a petty word-jugglery, that difficult problem, at the solution of which centuries have labored in vain, and which can therefore scarcely be found so completely on the surface." In modern language, that means "This is a terrible trick that some people still fall for. They think that by playing with words, they've solved a hard problem that people have been trying to solve for centuries but haven't been able to, so it's not likely to be so clear on the surface."
Matson describes only what he was ever able to describe. And to insist that compatibilism is a fallacy is understood quite differently by those who subscribe to free will and by those who do not. And how on earth can something that could only ever be be obfuscated?BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 8:02 amWallace Matson described compatibilism as "the most flabbergasting instance of the fallacy of changing the subject to be encountered anywhere in the complete history of sophistry… [a ploy that] was intended to take in the vulgar, but which has beguiled the learned in our time." Compatibilism, in his view, was the most shocking example of the fallacy of changing the subject he had ever seen in the history of obfuscation; a trick that was meant to fool the uneducated but has now fooled the educated.
Same point though. Mine at least.
Over and again, from my frame of mind, the manner in which you note this would seem to be predicated on some measure of free will. We either can choose to opt to be reasonable here or anything and everything that we think about compatibilism is inherently/necessarily "reasonable" because we are compelled by brains wholly in sync with the laws of matter to think what we must about it.BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 8:02 amIn short, compatibilists are not susceptible to reason. Their beliefs are not based on evidence or facts; rather, they have blind faith (blind to facts) in a preconceived notion that they are god-like (created in the image of God), and possess god-like abilities. It is extremely disheartening to see how many of us so willingly embrace a lie when we know that evidence shows it to be false. Upon internalizing the falsehood, compatibilists look around in disbelief and wonder what is wrong with the world today. They are completely oblivious to the fact that "ex falso quodlibet" predicts that all forms of insanity, exactly as observed in the world today, will result from the belief in a contradiction like compatibilism. They share responsibility for the madness.