Determinism

Thank you! That’s what I was trying to explain. It’s only after a happening that it could not not have happened. We have choices but once a choice is made it could not have been otherwise. That does not mean we are in a fixed state where our choices are not our own, or that the choice has already been made for us using the domino example. This is an important observation because our consent has to precede any choice made.

Once again, the definition over words is a semantic one. Will simply means the ability to choose one thing over another based on one’s desire. It can be a strong desire or a weak one depending on the choice being made. This will is never free because we are never given a free choice.

yeah sure, but that’s compatibalism/soft-determinism… which is the failed last vestige to save freewill and responsibility from having to swallow the ‘last bitter drop’ (nietzsche) of the truth and surrender to amoralism.

it’s what biggy has been trying to explain to you for weeks; you can’t get around the problem by saying ‘we can choose between our desires’, because that choice, too, is just another domino (as biggy put it).

What I assume in a world where we do have some measure of autonomy, is that “I” is embedded in the laws of nature in the either/or world. Here there are objective truths seemingly applicable to all of us. However, in the is/ought world of conflicting goods, “I” is still no less an “existential contraption”. At least at the intersection of identity, value judgments and political power. Obligations here are predicated on any particular objective context construed from any particular subjective/subjunctive point of view.

Forget X and Y. Forget electrons. Bring this assessment down to earth by describing what you construe to be cause and effect with respect to human interactions. How one might differentiate them in the either/or and in the is/ought world. Rewind the universe 24 hours and assess whether today’s news headlines might have been different in a wholly determined universe. From my frame of mind, given a determined universe, the is/ought world is indistinguishable from the either/or world. It’s just that matter evolving into life on Earth evolving into human brains evolving into self-conscious minds is able to concoct and then sustain the illusion of free will.

Still: We can speculate about all of this until we are blue in the face. But what can we actually demonstrate is in fact true such that all rational men and women are obligated to believe it. Going all the way back to the explanation for existence itself.

Okay, but 24 hours ago, could I have freely chosen to think I know something other than what I came to think I know?

Again and again: I’m more than willing to concede the points that you are making here [like the points that others are making] are in fact more in sync with what is actually true.

But if that is the case it has not sunk in. Or not yet. But how am I to determine if, in a wholly determined universe, there was ever the possibility of my having freely chosen to think about it differently 24 hours ago such that today I would instead be exclaiming, “oh, now I get it!”

How is not before something happened, something happens and something else will happen, not embedded inherently, necessarily, wholly in “nature’s way”?

The body and the behavior are the same “thing”.

This is why a woman can be a super-model, but dumb as a brick, and/or be repulsive in many other traits, and beauty alone isn’t good enough.

Identity, the “will”, involves both aspects.

Even though midgets may have a “strong will”, doesn’t mean they’ll be taken seriously or respected though. Willpower = Body (power) + Behavior (will).

Right, but notwithstanding yet more beating around the bush, what is your subjective point of view concerning the obligations one has to a game he/she started?

X and Y and electrons is bringing it down to earth. How much closer to earth can I get than electrons?

Exhibit an example that you think is down to earth and then I will shoehorn it into probable outcomes.

What does this mean? Why qualify “world” with “either/or and is/ought”? Why not just say “world”? What information is the qualifier conveying?

The chance it would unfold the same is unfathomable.

Right.

Wrong. Life cannot come from nonlife. Something from nothing is absurd.

Freewill can only be realized in the context of things that are not free.

The pertinent question is what can be demonstrated to irrational men and women such that they are obligated to believe it? Rational men and women are not the problem :wink:

How does one demonstrate red to a blind man such that he is obligated to believe it?

Existence itself doesn’t exist. Circular argument. Things exist in a context and existence has no context to exist in, but is essentially a synonym for relationship, which arises spontaneously when one thing is perceived to be different from another thing even though they are codependent and in fact the same thing.

I’m merely describing my reaction to your participation in threads that include me. It seems true to me. On the other hand, all of this may well be embedded in a wholly determined universe such that these very words that I am choosing to type [and that you either are or are not choosing to read] may be entirely beyond our control as autonomous human beings.

And I point out time and again that in reard to conflicting value judgments in the is/ought world, and in grappling with the really Big Questions regarding the either/or world, my own understanding of “the point” is entangled in either “existential contraptions” or in the gap between what I think I know about “ultimate reality” here and now and all there is to be known about the very nature of existence itself.

That’s why over and over and over again I suggest that, to the extent that we are able, we bring “the point” down to earth.

Right, like there is no possibility of my turning this around and suggesting that, from my frame of mind, it is also applicable to you.

To the best of my recollection, I have always at least made an attempt to respond to your posts. I don’t just abandon the points that you make altogether. Instead, you strike me as one of the “serious philosophers” here. You become rankled when others don’t agree with the points you make. In other words, for others to respond they must eventually agree.

Whereas from my frame of mind, dasein and conflicting goods [embedded in existential contraptions], all but guarantee “failure to communicate.”

We’ll just have to agree to disagree reagarding our respective reactions to each other. Unless, of course, someone is actually able to demonstrate/prove which of us is in fact closer to the objective truth.

Instead, over and again [from my point of view] I get stuff like this from you…

What on earth does this mean? Note a particular context in which human beings do interact, and we can discuss our respective misunderstandings with regard to both determinism and pragmatism.

this thesis, my dear friend, is categorically false. so false, in fact, that my kind has never before experienced a greater threat than the danger presented to us by one specific midget who would have exterminated our entire race if we had not stopped him. when one is faced with extinction, one does not underestimate one’s enemy on account of him being a midget. while dr. trask was indeed small in stature, his will was a gargantuan force and something to be respected with the greatest reverence. had his sentinel program been completed, i’d not be here today.

Indeed, all behaviors would seem to be entirely obligatory on our part in a determined universe.

But: What determines how we behave? Isn’t it how we think and feel?

But: if how we think and feel is in turn entirely determined, then [it would seem] anything that we come to realize that prompts us to be less inclined to blame is in turn but one more inherent, necessary component of nature unfolding only as it every could have.

From my frame of mind, once you conclude that the human brain is itself just another manifestation of matter unfolding by obeying immutable laws, then everything we come to think, feel, say and do – or come to realize – is but in fact what it could only ever have been.

How can anything be excluded unless you are able to demonstrate that mind as matter is a very, very different kind of matter indeed.

And that leads to discussions of God or how living matter can reach the point where it is able to consciously speculate on why [sans God] there is something instead or nothing at all. And why this something and not another something instead.

First of all, I’m not sure who you are addressing in this post. I hope it’s not me because the discovery I am trying to bring to light is not compatibilism. We have no FREE will and therefore we are not morally responsible. How could we be held responsible if the only choice that was made (looking back in hindsight) was the only choice that could have been made. But amoralism is not the result. In fact, it is not about moral and amoral; it is about what can be justified and what cannot.

The confusion arises due to the word choice. We have options, but it’s never a free choice not because we are dominoes without a say, but because we can never move in a backward direction, or a less preferable direction whenever a choice is being made. Therefore when making comparisons to decide which choice is the most satisfactory, only one choice can ever be made in the direction of greater preference.

The nail was hit on the head. We can never glance back as far as determinism, or the choice made being the only one which could have been made in order to move forward-----implies a pre chosen state of being or mind that has the appearance of having more choices, not of actually having them.

What peace girls is saying, is that appearance changes into reality after a choice was made. That is compatible with the missing parts in the process of reasoning, as to what is the optimal basis of a progressing route whereby choices are made.

Therefore, forward, determination is not absolutely bound by circumstances even beyond our control.

Reversely, a reduction into less symbolic manifestation appears to want to confirm a required sought after priority.

Necessarily, we must choose what nature prescribes is a modal fallacy.

We must necessarily choose what gives us greater satisfaction based on contingent factors that feed into one’s preference is not a modal fallacy. Nature does not prescribe. It is descriptive only.

Well, yes, but isn’t the modal fallacy based on attaining more pleasure basis of primal instincts of survival, and only if survival is described as
more pleasurable then being killed killed by a more voracious Neanderthal, then can we discount the fallacy.

We can discount the fallacy because nature does not prescribe. You can replace greater satisfaction with pleasure although not everything we find satisfyingly is pleasurable. I may save someone from harm and risk dying in the process. This may be in the direction of what gives me greater satisfaction but I certainly wouldn’t call it pleasurable.

Basically, it would be fallacious to presuppose that instinctive pleasure toward supposing a pleasurable after life rather then the contrary would not evolve from a cro magnon man even from a lower derivation , , because in Neanderthal man the conscious choice of attack/retreat was already evident, the instinctual pleasure of survival implies the transcendent reduction , as a solution to the paradox.

Therefore to connect pleasure with existence is primordial and instinctual.
With subordinate mammals the consciousness manifested in early man is not supported by activities and artifacts implying conscious capacity to make choices. But early man usually buried his kin, and implies a consciousness of the connection.
Such connection, does not negate the natural perhaps unconscious content of various differing evolutionary preceptions of the content.

Therefore the fallacy is an inductive presumptive hypothesis based on the reduction of phenomenological awareness limiting determinism to a purely conscious manifestation, and has to be modified, or at least augmented by the instinctual determination, that does invalidate the fallacy.

And I think , even then, Your thesis can stand, but not without the arguable idea, that lower forms with as yet undeveloped will, can not be presumptive of a total denial of predetermination . in other words , an almost total reliance on instinct may not cut an animal from a human and lead to a conclusion which define mostly pure determination from natural causes, because the intermediary of primitive man can attain consciousness of partial awareness.

Paleontology has evidence for this factual progression, and too label this purely fallacious because of a modern notion of an existential reduction, misses the point.

I feel You may not accept this in Toto- on anthropological basis, however so
much transcendentilism has been nullified on its face, that it reminds of the theory that is protested against too much.

To over emphasize so much signification on conscious meaning per se, indicates the fact that science is merely a component of analysis of all that already is in the analysand.

Life moves constantly in one direction which is away from a state of dissatisfaction to a state of greater satisfaction. If you were satisfied to remain in one position you would never move from the spot you’re on. Just because humans are able to use language in order to contemplate what option would be the most satisfying does not change the direction of all life. This also does not mean we always understand the reasons behind a choice on a conscious level. Many of our preferences are based on factors that are just below the surface of our conscious awareness. Animals also move instinctually toward what satisfies whether it’s pruning themselves, scratching an itch, or foraging for food, without being aware of what they are doing on an intellectual level. You have misinterpreted the claim.

Moreover, determinism is an invariable law that doesn’t change with time. Will is another word that can cause confusion. In this context it means desire. Without a will or desire to accomplish a goal (regardless of the developmental age) we could not progress because will (or desire) precedes action.

Let’s try it one more time. Above in reponse to what I bolded and underlined above, I ask you if you think there is one or one obvious conclusion when you ask that question. Sometimes people use this rhetorically, asking a question like that. I even said it seemed like you were implying there was one obvious negative conclusion about what it says, but I couldn’t be sure. You never answer this.

Did you think you knew why I left like that? Did you think others would draw the same conclusion because there is an obvious one?

And sure, there is all sorts of room for misunderstandings, but if we don’t actually respond, when acting as if we are, these things cannot possibly be cleared up, even in those cases where it is possible.

You do write responses to my posts, but they are not responses to what I write, often. Can you respond directly to the above and not write in the timeless general abstract manner you do about our differences and actually respond to what I write?

That is exactly what peacegirl thinks is going to happen and he is glad about that.

And he also agrees with that.

And he would agree with that.

And his telling people this, he thinks, might be part of those causes and effects which inevitably lead to people moving past blame.

It might lead to that. It might not. I don’t see it always leading to that.

(something gives me the impression peacegirl is a man. I can’t remember what it was. apologies if I’m incorrect)

oh my GOD… peacegirl is a man?! gah… uhhhhuh!