phyllo wrote:Nothing.
Indeed, imagine explaining the laws of matter going all the way back to the Big Bang...culminating in, among other things, this:

It must be God, right?

phyllo wrote:Nothing.
Let’s assume Mark Balaguer is right, and the question of whether we have free will or not will eventually be discovered by neuroscientists. They’ll either find that we have free will, or that we don’t, or perhaps that we have some degree of freedom that is generally unsatisfying. Recall that on Balaguer’s model, in order for us to have free will, those torn decision events need a 50/50 chance of going one way or the other. This would require a very particular orchestration of brain processes. And while the question is still entirely open as to what is going on during torn decision events, it seems overly optimistic that in many cases we are making a free choice on Balaguer’s terms. It might not require an exact balance though. A 60/40 probability split on a decision, for instance, might mean a 3:2 likelihood of choosing one option over another. But perhaps 50/50 is required for absolute freedom of choice at any given moment.
Let’s make the pessimistic assumption that neuroscientists discover either that we don’t have free will, or that we don’t have a satisfying degree of freedom over our choices. Couldn’t we in principle develop a drug able to manipulate brain function in order to achieve that 50/50 probability of the brain state going one way or the other at the moment of choice? It’s not so hard to imagine that, if we learn enough about the brain to figure out what’s involved during a decision, we’ll have a decent enough grasp on what it might take to alter the brain in order to manufacture free will in Balaguer’s sort of way.
...if truly free choices can only be made once the [free will pill] is taken, that would make the choice to take the drug either determined or random. It seems strange to think either that we might be determined to become free, or that we might randomly become free. And if we can manage to wrap our heads around that paradoxical prospect, we are left with the question of whether or not we ought to take the free will pill.
For these 'hard-determinists the absence of free-will means their ideologies are divine in origin - part of a universal plan which they are agencies that bring it to fruition - doing 'god's will' in a secular form.
Considering Choice
I have two major ethical concerns about a free will drug. The first is that it could further stratify an already highly stratified society, exacerbating social and economic inequalities. The inequality of access to technology and medicine is a serious problem already in our current world, and barring a massive global redistribution of resources, we could find ourselves in a position where the few had enhanced free will and the many did not.
Creating this genuine metaphysical difference between people might lead to other divisions too. Since the notion of free will is inextricably linked to moral and criminal responsibility, one consequence might be that some people came to be held more fully responsible for their actions than others.
For these 'hard-determinists the absence of free-will means their ideologies are divine in origin - part of a universal plan which they are agencies that bring it to fruition - doing 'god's will' in a secular form.
promethean75 wrote:who said that... your homeboy satyr? sounds like something he'd say. well if he didn't say that, he's said the same thing in so many other words. i've been tellin this dude since what, 2010, that there is no 'determiner' in a causal system, no single individual who possesses some agency called 'freewill' that acts as a cause, and certainly no transcendent 'god' that determines what's going to happen in the system. this is all to say there is no intent for, or reason why, anything happens. it just happens because it has to.
but you can see here how these freewillists are so deluded about causation that they can't imagine it being even possible without some directing agency. if a determinist denies them their freewill, he must then be granting the determining power to some 'god'. see what i mean? but it's the freewillist who insists that there must be a 'determiner', not the determinist.
the fact is, the delusion of the illest of the freewillist runs so deep he begins to see himself in those he argues with... and presto, becomes his own strawman.
Urwrongx1000 wrote:promethean75 wrote:who said that... your homeboy satyr? sounds like something he'd say. well if he didn't say that, he's said the same thing in so many other words. i've been tellin this dude since what, 2010, that there is no 'determiner' in a causal system, no single individual who possesses some agency called 'freewill' that acts as a cause, and certainly no transcendent 'god' that determines what's going to happen in the system. this is all to say there is no intent for, or reason why, anything happens. it just happens because it has to.
but you can see here how these freewillists are so deluded about causation that they can't imagine it being even possible without some directing agency. if a determinist denies them their freewill, he must then be granting the determining power to some 'god'. see what i mean? but it's the freewillist who insists that there must be a 'determiner', not the determinist.
the fact is, the delusion of the illest of the freewillist runs so deep he begins to see himself in those he argues with... and presto, becomes his own strawman.
I'd like to see this argument used in a drunk-driver manslaughter case.
"It's not my fault because there's no single individual who possesses some agency called free-will that acts as a cause!"
In fact, we may as well start releasing all prisons of all criminals.
promethean75 wrote:the concealed premise here is that in order to justify 'punishment', it has to be believed that the punished had freewill. this rests on the lack of honesty and power on the punisher's part. we are still in the stage of human history where forces that deter, repress and control find it easier to do so through lying... which is understandable... because the 'truth' isn't a priority here. order is the priority, and the means to keeping this reveals a particular idiosyncrasy about society. what it has to do to keep order.
and there's an ongoing dual-history to the usefulness of this freewill lie. on one hand, it makes managing social order and criminal justice much more efficient; make an offender 'feel guilty' and half the work is already done. he'll do anything you say to clear his conscience. on the other hand, along with that continued belief in freewill, attention is always paid more to the individual rather than the environment from which he came. and this distraction compliments western democratic capitalism; the environments that produce criminals are, by and large, direct results of capitalism's effects. so to begin placing more restriction on, and demonstrating more control of, those conditions, would put a damper on the freedom of capitalism and what it indirectly causes.
iambiguous wrote:This is where it all gets particularly problematic. For some, determinism encompasses everything and anything that we had ever thought, felt, said and done in the past, everything and anything that we think, feel, say and do now in the present and everything and anything that we will ever think, feel say or do in the future.
Nothing is excluded. Not the drunk-driver manslaughter case, not the Holocaust. Not even Trumpworld.
And it certainly doesn't exclude me typing these words or you reading them.
Think about it. In a wholly determined universe [as some understand it], the fact that promethean has been telling satyr since 2010 what he thinks about all of this and the fact that he might take satisfaction that satyr is still unable to grasp it and the fact that satyr might react to this over at KT tomorrow --- none of it is exempt from the laws of matter. It is all only as it must be.
But: We have no way [that I am aware of] of determining and then demonstrating beyond all doubt if it is in fact only as it must be.
the fact that promethean has been telling satyr since 2010 what he thinks about all of this and the fact that he might take satisfaction that satyr is still unable to grasp it
We commonly think it obvious that a person facing multiple alternatives can choose any of them, and that the outcome is decided by free will at the moment of decision, rather than being already determined by earlier causes. All the events in the world, however, obey the law of physics, including those that happen inside a brain. If all events in the brain unfold according to classical physics, then free will in the above sense does not exist. This is because classical physics is deterministic: the state of the world at any moment is the inevitable consequence of its state at an earlier moment. Hence the alternatives are only apparently available to the decision-maker, as in fact only a single alternative is destined to be the one chosen.
In quantum physics the so-called probability amplitude evolves according to deterministic laws but the transformation from many possible outcomes to one actual outcome takes place purely by chance. The statistical distribution for such chance events follows strict rules, but the outcome of an individual chance event is unpredictable and cannot be controlled by will. Thus any decision is either the predictable result of earlier causes (which may include quantum chance events) and is not free from determinism, or is itself a quantum chance event and is not willed. Either way, the free will we commonly take for granted is absent. What then is the freedom to choose that we so cherish and which politicians like to invoke at every opportunity?
Urwrongx1000 wrote:I think Prom is at least aware, and we've broached the point already, that 'Justice' is obscure. I already agreed with the Witchhunt/Scapegoat/Whipping Boy tendency of society. Society, the mob, people in general, want something or somebody to Blame for wrong-doing, whether they are intentional or not. I disagree with Prom about the source of criminality. I, as per usual, default to Biology and Anthropology. Prom blames "society at large" and "capitalism", or other various social failings to properly educate, indoctrinate, discipline, and order children into adults. That's somewhat correct, but not entirely.
Urwrongx1000 wrote:I'm pretty sure that Prom's larger point is that he can 'blame' just as much as the judge and jury can. And, Prom is correct to point out lies and hypocrisy. But it goes both ways, "Nobody is without Sin", etc. That's not how Justice works in America though. You have to convince and persuade the Jury, your societal 'Peers'. And that's the wildcard. It may not be "Perfect", but Western Civilization has agreed on this, as it developed and evolved, to the current method of Justice. Can the wealthy class, with powerful lawyers, "beat the system"? Yes, they can. But there are reasons for this too.
Choice Under Determinism
One thing we can’t avoid noticing is that we have the experience of making choices. In fact, each choice consists of two stages. In stage one we conceive alternatives, and in stage two we are aware that we have picked one of them. Often the option picked is the one whose consequences we prefer over the consequences of its alternatives, but the comparison of consequences is not always done consciously. Furthermore, both genetic predispositions and past experiences play a role in forming an individual’s preferences, so the causative factors leading to the making of a choice are complex.
The conclusion is that although we do experience choice-making – that transition from stage one to stage two – this doesn’t imply the absence of determining causative factors.
...how can I be responsible for the consequences of such free choices, when the chains of events that cause them were determined outside myself, beginning long ago?
The answer is hinted at in the word ‘responsible'
...although many aspects of my being pull me in different directions and argue with one another during the making of a difficult decision, there is a relatively stable center that I identify as my self, and this recognition means that I can take or own the responsibility for each decision that’s made by me, even through or after the competition of all these factors. This is an appropriate expediency, since the detailed tracing of all the responsible factors is practically impossible.
Aegean wrote:You and Brian are like....brothers. Same quality of mind.
you're like him, in twenty years...when Godo's footsteps are heard on the door step.
Brian is version you, 2.0. Next generation nihilist.
Aegean wrote: Wow, an ultimatum.
Aegean wrote: The outcome can be predicted.
A slew of repeating sentences, not veering off a script. A loss of my time, on a hypocrite, and an inevitable surrender to nature's failed experiments.
Aegean wrote: I'll leave you with this.
Nothing is inherently good/bad, but only in relation to an objective. Your refusal to admit that your objective is parity and subjugation to a collective, makes you a thinker of bad faith. A waste of time.
The only acceptable answers will b those that promote your objective, without admitting it.
Marxist utopia.
iambiguous wrote:Aegean wrote:
The objective establishes the standard by which an action a choice can be evaluated.
What is your objective, in regards to abortion or paedophilia, or consuming fasces as a solution to world poverty?
My point though is to assess the extent to which any particular individual's objective is or is not largely an existential contraption. "I" here rooted in dasein rooted in the arguments I provide in my signature. Thus if we choose gun control [from above] as the focus of discussion, for some the objective is to expand the rights of citizens to manufacture, sell and use firearms. For others, however, it is to limit [or even eliminate] the same. Now, using the tools of philosophy, is it possible to construct an argument that either reconciles or resolves this conflict? Or, instead, are the components of my own argument more pertinent?
Given my own argument, there are no necessary standards able to be derived philosophically. Instead, the standards remain an existential contraption rooted subjectively/subjunctively in dasein. In other words, the actual lives [experiences] of some predispose them to embrace one rather than another political agenda [set of prejudices] in regard to this issue.Aegean wrote:The objective determined good and bad.
But not before the existential trajectory of our lives largely determine the objectives embraced by any particular "I" out in any particular world understood in any particular way.
Then it comes down to differentiating that which one is able to demonstrate is true for all rational men and women and that which largely remains, subjectively, a "personal opinion".
Aegean wrote:I bet your objective is to reduce all to nil and then force all to negotiate and compromise to bring about the utopian future world of peace on earth.
Anything that diverts or challenges this goal is dismissed or negated.
No other anser will do. They've wasted their time taking you seriously for months. I will not make the same mistake.
Another clown in this circus.
Yet more "general description" bullshit in which, as with other "serious philosophers" and/or Kids and/or objectivists here, the exchange configures [from their end] into huffing and puffing, retorts and making me the issue.
Again, in regard to gun control or to any other issue in which, from your perspective, "idiocy" becomes the narrative of choice, let's see how far we can take an exchange.
Aegean wrote: This is like a poem you repeat. Doesn't matter what the other says. You just repeat the same, over and over.
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