Determinism

Before, during or after something happens. Before, during or after anything happens. What parts here [including human interactions] are not embedded in matter unfolding only as it ever could have in a wholly determined universe?

What can we know about something, about anything in a wholly ordered universe that we were ever free not to know? or free to know in a different way?

Well, we make choices and then once that happens, we can’t go back and unmake them. That part is certainly the case.

Hitler chose the Final Solution. That is a historical fact. But was this choice a historical fact only because he could never have not chosen it? That of course is what is at stake here. If everything the human brain as mindful matter chooses is always in sync necessarily with the laws of matter, then when folks blame Hitler for acting in an atrociously immoral manner, that too is just an inherent manifestation of a wholly determined universe.

And when some imagine that as having appalling implications for human interactions that too is just more dominoes toppling over as nature marches on.

Our consent. Our choice. And, yes, those autonomous aliens note that most of us are convinced that we are giving our consent to the choices we make.

But who perhaps is fooling themselves here about the nature of that consent, those choices? The “compatibilists” with their “psychological freedom” embedded in an ontologically determined world? Those like peacegirl who seem obsessed that no others force us to choose what nature compels us to choose? Like in not forcing us to choose others have freely chosen to do that!

Or, yes, yes, yes, it’s me here. I’m just not getting what is crystal clear to others about the existential relationship between determinism, the human brain, the human mind and the choices it makes.

[quote=“peacegirl”]

Many people would do the same, but I would not call it pleasure. That’s misleading.

You are, once again, trying to negate this law by bringing in irrelevant factors. What motivates you to choose psychological pleasure over neurological pain may not be what someone else chooses. This doesn’t disprove the “greater satisfaction” principle. It proves it. This principle cannot be denied, which is proof that man does not have free will because he can only go in one direction.


[quote=“Meno_”}In cases of tightly half morally encompassing duties, where the imperative to act invalidates the archaic notion of preservation of the self toward a motiveless leap towards the preservation of others. That is not based on an instinctual state[/quote]
Our instinct for self-preservation may be replaced by the desire to help someone else in an emergency situation. We may act counter to our instinct in a situation that requires it. Where does this nullify anything I’ve said?

It’s not a fallacy. That is a mistake on your part. We are compelled to choose the greater of two goods, the lesser of two evils, or a good over an evil. It is impossible to choose the lesser of two goods, the greater of two evils, or an evil over a good. You have not shown me an example where this principle fails. Looking back in history only confirms that man never had free will because his actions were necessitated by the urgency for survival during that time period.[/quote peace girl

peace girl:
You have a knack for. revealing prima facea paradigm
The fact of choosing good over evil exactly examplifies the struggle between Chirst and the Antichrist between Jesus and Nietzsche, even though the latter washed his hands by pronouncing himself to be above it!(good and evil)

Here is a decision to be made!

These were Pontius Pilate’s exact words.

Good and evil are relative terms although most people would consider not being shot by a sniper to be good when compared to the evil of being shot.

I think this comes closest to my own frame of mind here. In the manner in which I have come to understand the nature of determinism [though, sure, I may well be wrong] [b][u]nothing[/b][/u] escapes the clutches of mother nature’s immutable laws.

There are our desires. And these desires propel/compel us to feel greater satisfaction about certain things. And this sense of greater satisfaction about certain things propels/compels us to choose different behaviors.

But how is this not all “as one” to mother nature? Then the crucial question becomes teleology. Is there a God behind it all? Is there as aspect of nature [going back to the existence of existence itself] that allows for something analogous to “meaning” and “purpose” in the lives we live?

Such that someone like peacegirl can speak of things like peace and prosperity and progress “in the future” as though mere mortals here and now can actually pin them down? Or in fact have any actual freedom here at all in effectuating these changes?

Though I am the first to admit that human autonomy may well be applicable here. But that however is when I introduce dasein, conflicting goods and political economy into the is/ought world.

So, naturally, most folks are likely reject my frame of mind. I’m either suggesting that nothing that we think, feel, say or do, is not “beyond our control”; or I’m suggesting that even if we have some control, “I” in the is/ought world is largely an “existential contraption”.

Unless of course I’m wrong. And, come on, given the gap between what I think I know here and now and all that can be known, what are odds that I am actually right?!

I merely suggest in turn that this is applicable to others here too: the objectivists, the nihilists, the naturists, the deontologists, the Kids, the serious philosophers, the ranters and the ravers…everybody.

They are embedded, but they are contingent on antecedent events. IOW, the choice we make cannot be dictated until the choice is made. That would be a modal fallacy.

What we know and what we don’t yet know is perfectly ordered. We were never free not to know or to know in a different way because there was no other way it could have been in a wholly determined universe.

I don’t like the domino example because we do get to choose (albeit unfreely) dominoes don’t.

We are giving consent to the choices we make.

I’m not obsessed iambiguous. Nature does not prescribe behavior, which implies that we must choose what it dictates. Nature is not a dictator.

You’re making it more difficult than it actually is.

“Good and evil are relative terms although most people would consider not being shot by a sniper to be good when compared to the evil of being shot.”

Ok good and evil are relative nominally, but, as far as their connexion to how to choose between them demands more dynamic involvement with the sources and the outcome of determined effect of the outcome of the choice, and I think a lot of confusion may arise by the appearant rather then the structural understanding. Is this why sometimes we are condemned to be fated to make the wrong choices?

what we are now experiencing is a derridaian state of the aporetic, an impasse generated from an unusual bewitchment of language… when language is forced out of its ordinary environment into the philosophical landscape. chances are, all of you are meaning the same thing… but using the signifiers (words) differently. i think we should take a break from this discussion for a while, collect our marbles, and come back to it later, refreshed and renewed, ready to enter again into the same linguistic entanglements…

What does it mean to “beat around the bush” with regard to questions this problematic?

What “point” do you expect someone to get to?

In fact, my whole point here is that both the beating and the bush are profoundly problematic.

Obligations?!

I’m suppose to actually know that?! When, over and over and over again, I situate discussions like this in the gap between what I think I know here and now and all that can be known.

Until you come closer to understanding that as I do, it is not likely that I will ever stop beating around your own rendition of the bush here.

Well, the one I tend to focus on is abortion. It’s literally a life and death issue that is well known to almost everyone.

Here there is cause and effect/correlation in the either/or world: life on earth—> human biology—> sex—> unwanted pregnancy—> abortion.

Whereas cause and effect in the is/ought world is [in my view] predicated more on what I construe to be existential contraptions. And they are often considerably more subjective/subjunctive.

But: From my way of thinking, in a wholly determined world, this distinction is essentially an illusion.

But if you cannot grasp the distinction I do make here between the either/or and the is/ought worlds given some measure of human autonomy, we need to spend more time pursuing that. On another thread perhaps?

Here and now I basically agree. Why? Becasue scientists/philosophers have yet to fathom the extent to which human autonomy is in fact an aspect of human interactions.

So, until they do fathom it, we have to take these discussions [over and again] into realm that encompasses [more or less] a world of words.

Right, like beyond the “world of words” that is bursting at the seams with all the assumptions you make here, you can actually know this!!

But as I recall on another thread I asked you [at least I think it was you] to take these suppositions to the hard guys delving into these relationships in the hard sciences. I believe you noted that you would attempt this and get back to me.

Yes, I make the assumption that mindless matter evolved into mindful matter here on earth because both actually do exist side by side. And that’s one possible explanation. Another is God.

And how in a wholly determined universe is anything at all free? Instead [given my own assumptions] we have mindless matter on earth evolving into mindful matter able to in fact “choose” things that nature compels them to. But: are our choices really any different [for all practical purposes] from the choices made by animals further down the evolutionary chain? They choose almost entirely by “instinct”. Our species however has encountered all manner of historical, cultural and experiential variables that come into play. The part where genes intertwine with memes.

How then is this to be understood?

Or the pertinent question might be that, if rational and irrational beliefs are all subsumed in the fact that beliefs themselves are wholly determined, what does it really mean to make this distinction at all?

And this is situated in the either/or world. One is blind or one is not blind. Something is construed as a legitimate demonstration here or it is not. Red might be conveyed to blind person as associated with heat or passion, blue with coolness and calm. The communication is always either more or less effective. But: in a wholly determined universe it is what it is. Period. It could never have been other than that.

Again: How on earth can you ever hope to demonstrate that this is in fact true for all rational/logical folks beyond merely asserting that it is something that you believe is true here and now “in your head”?

There really is no confusion if we define how we’re using the words beforehand. Free will in regard to the free will/determinism debate means that a person could have done otherwise if we were to rewind the clock. Determinism means that we could not have done otherwise because there is only one choice that could be made at any given moment in time. Determinism does not mean, in the way it is correctly defined, that we necessarily must do anything that is prescribed by nature. It only means given our particular circumstances, we are compelled to choose what gives us greater satisfaction rendering all other choices an impossibility. Free will therefore is an illusion, although a convincing one.

We don’t always have all the information available to us to know how our choices will turn out in the short or long term. You can say we were fated to make the wrong choices but you can also say we were fated to make the right choices. Looking back in hindsight teaches us what works and what doesn’t, which is how we grow.

Questions like this are existential contraptions in my view. So, the answers are likely to be in turn. I’m certainly not arguing that what I think this makes you is that which all others ought to think in turn.

And, on this thread, the part where anything that we exchange here might be construed to be the only thing that either one of us ever could have chosen to post. Letting us both off the hook.

Okay, but what is the likelihood of misunderstandings being cleared up when you flat out insist you will not even read the points that I make?

In cases like this all we can do is point out particular instances of it. And then [over time] decide if our own rendition of it warrants moving on to others.

But there is in turn [in my view] that murky middle. The part where someone insist that others are not responding to their points when what they really mean is this: if someone were responding to their points they would be agreeing with them.

The question bolded above, my question, both?

So you were not saying, via the question, something like 'well, we see why this guy does this? ’ Right? You were actually asking a question, or?

Letting us both off the hook is pretty vague. We can still draw conclusions. For exmaple. You seem to know what it says about me that I said I would not read your response. I then wrote why I did that. You’ve now read that. Did it have any effect. Or do you still think you know why I wrote that. Did it affect the degree of your certainty?

It can seem as if we are not just determined in the moment, but as if nothing we do will affect each other. It seems like when I explain my motivations it has no effect on your certainty or conclusions. Determinism lets you off the hook, in the sense that you and I cannot but do what we do. But if you are unaffected by information, one could describe you as that kind of person. We can still be described.

And determinism does allow for change, in fact it claims it must take place. Not necessarily what changes or how fast.

As I have said. One of the reasons I find your posts frustrating is that you often do not seem to respond to what I write, to the points I make, and often shift the context as if what I wrote was, for example, my claiming to have solved the problem of conflicting goods. I wanted to try letting you know I would not respond, on the chance that this would shift the way you would respond.

I mean, whatever you think of me, I certainly hope that y ou’d agree that over the course of our communication, I have tried many times in many different ways to explain my thinking to you, to point out where I think you are misunderstanding or mischaracterizing me. Here you asked people to judge me by a much less used pattern and determine what I am like. I think I have a fine motivation for this latter choice. But it is as if I had not tried a wide range of approaches over a long period of time.

Hey, what’s this guy like, look what he just did. Seems kinda facile to me.

Agreed. In the past though you wouldn’t even respond. You would call it psychobabble or serious philosophy or would call my dealing with concrete instances of our communicative interaction as not grounded and ask me to weigh in on abortion.

I pointed out that that is not as concrete since I am not dealing with that issue, but our communication is an act we have documented here, and is in fact an interaction we are the two parties involved.

I don’t remember you ever admitting that I was right. Now you seem to get it.

Sure that’s a possibility in human interactions. And following your own point above, it would have been good in all our communication if you had tried to demonstate how my wording seemed to indicate this added conclusion. But you would just label me that way. Or label a large section of a post as indication I assumed you would agree with me if you actually focused on what I wrote.

So ideas about what might happen get written as if they are the case. With disclaimers, but never with any argument for why you think it is true in this particular case.

I also have seen other people make similiar criticisms of your posts. Now of course we all know many even most people can be wrong. But I have no seen you ever actually try to get to the bottom of that criticism to see if there was any validity.

You called my entering into this discussion with peace girl my ‘setting you straight’ with the connotations that go along with that phrase. My sense was I saw where you were talking past each other. And, in fact, I believe you or perhaps it was peacegirl asked people to try to mediate. So I did.

IB: Note to others: What does this tell you about him? And he’s done it before. He jumps into a thread, “sets me straight”, and then abandons the discussion.
SD: We were discussing earlier what obligations one has to discussions. How do you see it?
IB: Again, on this thread, it’s not how I see it, but whether the manner in which I think I see it [here and now] is but an inherent, necessary manifestation of the laws of nature unfolding only as they ever could have.
SD: Well, assume it’s not determined and working within that context, how would you see it?
IB: 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.
SD: 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?
IB: What does it mean to “beat around the bush” with regard to questions this problematic?

Jordan Peterson? Is that you? lol

All that word salad in avoidance of the question is what it means. My sympathies to the restaurant staff who must take your order lol. “My order? What would I order in an either/or/ought/is world of conflicting goods where “I” is embedded in deterministic laws of nature rooted in existential contraptions where I could only ever order what I was going to order anyway?” :laughing:

sex—> unwanted pregnancy—> abortion.
sex—> ectopic pregnancy—> surgery.
sex—> wanted pregnancy—> birth.
sex—> unwanted pregnancy—> miscarriage.
sex—> wanted pregnancy—> miscarriage.
sex—> unwanted pregnancy—> mother dies in freak accident.
sex—> wanted pregnancy—> mother dies in freak accident.
sex—> unwanted pregnancy—> mother commits suicide.
sex—> unwanted pregnancy—> father kills mother in fit of rage.
sex—> no pregnancy—> woman hit by train.
no sex—> pregnancy—> christianity is born.

Where the electron will be is not predictable. Outcomes are not predictable. Rewind it and it will unfold differently.

Right.

I get the difference, but I don’t get why you keep saying it.

Well, they’ve exhaustively proven there are no local hidden variables determining outcomes, so either information can travel faster than light (ie can arrive before it left and see itself off) or there are no determining causes. Pick your favorite absurdity. And because it’s so weird, it’s the most substantiated fact in all of science.

How can you not know it?? If atoms are nonlife and you’re made of nonlife, then you are nonlife… unless the pixie sprinkled some magic dust making you alive.

No that wasn’t me. Sounds like KT.

The ceramic and fully-automatic models of the universe are both absurd.

If the universe is wholly determined, how could you possibly be aware of that? Determinism can only be realized in the context of freewill.

Geese get pissed off, jealous, proud, egotistical, depressed, yet don’t have the brains god gave a goose lol. It’s possible that plants could experience emotions in ways we don’t understand. Heck, it could be possible to piss of the earth. How far do you want to take it? All you are is chemicals; star dust shit.

If that were the case then you couldn’t ask because you couldn’t exist as anything more than a dumb machine.

Why are you so hungup on pre-determinism? It’s contrary to science and contrary to common sense. It could never only have been other than that.

How do I demonstrate red to a blind man? If you can’t see that existence isn’t a thing that can exist, then I’m out of ideas of conveyance. I don’t know what to do.

Indeed, and she – he? – might argue in turn that this post of yours is exactly what could only have been posted in sustaining this thread. But that somehow it is important to note that you “chose” to post it. Even though there was never any possibility that you could have chosen not to.

No one forced/compelled you to. Other than the laws of nature compelling others not to compel/force you?

Glad. But only because she was never able to react in any other manner. Her “choice” to be glad is necessarily subsumed in the reality of nature unfolding only as it must. Given the manner in which I construe the meaning of determinism.

She agrees with all of the points that I make but she still “chooses” to back away from our exchange. And this makes sense to me only to the extent that she seems able to convince herself that I am in fact to blame for not agreeing with her. Really to blame because I should have “chosen” to agree with her.

It simply doesn’t make any sense to me.

Again, she thinks only that which she was ever able to think here. And in my view she has no way given that assumption to know what on earth the future will bring in the way of peaceful, prosperous and progressive policies here on earth.

Instead, she can avoid altogether dealing with my own understanding of human interactions [re dasein, conflicting goods and political economy in an autonomous is/ought world] by falling back on determinism. But a determinism that somehow predicts a brighter future only if others will finally come around to her and her author’s way of thinking. As though they are still somehow to be blamed if they refuse to see the light.

As-if fate being pre-written and all life pre-destined, is not an even more convincing and pervasive illusion?

agreed.

And my internal nature. In other words not just external causes, but also internal ones, but still all utterly predetermined

Precisely. In that moment she could not have reacted in another manner. On another day, perhaps she would have been compelled to answer differently.

.That’s the only possible interpretation?

Can’t one be compelled by unsuccessfuly getting something across, or by it seeming over and over that the other person is not reading carefully - even if they cannot help but do that.

It seems to me you have a go to interpretation. You can’t help that. But now when it is pointed out that there might be other possibilities, perhaps you will not have that same reaction, since information might change your mind. we’ll see.

I would think you can imagine a woman, say, who has had bad experiences with men, interpreting all advances in one way. If she had had a real trauma, or come from a very harsh subculture. She could over time learn that not all men will treat her the way she has been treated.

Perhaps what seems to you like the only possible reason he would back off, is not the only reason. It certainly seems to me there is a range of possibilities.

I really do understand the implications of determinism.

Sure, she might be wrong about what is coming. She might be correctly analyzing the trends. I haven’t focused on that issue.

I question her optimism also. I question in turn your sense that her position must have blame. That seems habitual.

If someone backs off. If someone gets angry at you.

It means they think you should agree with them. That is you go to interpretation. I don’t see it supported that that is the only possibility. I also don’t see it supported that the future will be without blame.

What seems obvious to both of you as the only possibility seems like one of many.

I believe equating pre-destiny with determinism is a big problem because it presupposes that we can’t change what has already been pre-destined to happen. This is like saying “I can’t make things better” so what’s the use of trying. We are agents of change, but only through one choice at a time. This agent or “I” that we call ourselves does not mean that we have free will and it also doesn’t mean that our choices have already been made for us in advance of us making them. It is true, however, that looking back, we were predestined to make the choices we made.

I think iambiguous is confused on this issue. He makes a false dichotomy between the “I” that is embedded in the natural unfolding of matter, and the autonomous “I” that can make choices apart from the dictates of this natural unfolding. It’s all about defining words correctly. No one seems concerned that the standard definition of determinism is misleading. Nature does not cause…we make choices based on our circumstances, and all of it takes place in the present. Each person’s heredity, experiences, and environment are unique to them, therefore the alternatives presented and the choices made are different for each person, but one thing is certain: We give consent to the choices we make. No choice is made against our will (or without our consent) because, like Gandhi, we could die before choosing to do something we don’t want to do.

In typing these words [and not others] what is the difference between “I” being embedded in the laws of matter and “I” being “contingent on antecedent events” that are embedded in the laws of matter?

If the bottom line is “I could only have thought and felt what I do in choosing to type these words and you could only have thought amd felt what you do in reacting to them”, what then is the substance of this distinction?

My point exactly! If in fact that point is true.

But then somehow in making and sharing this same point, I don’t grasp the implications of it “for all practical purposes” as you do. Even though I can only ever grasp what I was never not going to grasp.

But how is your not liking this but another “choice” you could never have not made?

Again, with you it is always this precious choice. Something the overwhelming preponderence of mindless matter in the universe does not experience. But from the perspective of the autonomous aliens [and many determinists down here] it’s always only really a “choice”.

The surreal aspect of the exchange here is that in discussing “nature” – nature as a whole – we really don’t know what to attribute to it. Nature may well just be. It actually prescribes or proscribes nothing because it is somehow encompassed in the entirety of existence itself. And we don’t really have a clue as to how to explain that. At least not wholly.

Here the exchange shifts gears: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194274&start=475

But how do we not “choose” what the laws of matter/nature dictate in a wholly determined universe?

See? It happened again. On the one hand, we would both seem to agree that, given a determined universe, I could not not make it more difficult than it actually is.

And yet somehow in “choosing” to make it more difficult that in turn somehow makes me…“blameworthy”?

This is probably true. But how on earth would someone [philosopher or not] go about demonstrating that it is.

Clearly, there are things we experience from day to day. There are things encountered by our senses. There are things we think we understand cognitively, intellectually.

But in any number of contexts what is there available to us to convey any of it but words? Words to broach something. Words to describe something. Words to assess something. Words to judge something.

But how closely [at any given time, in any given place] are we actually able to connect the dots between our words and our world? If I say, “I am sitting in my recliner in Baltimore typing these words on my HP laptop commuter”, I would be able to demonstrate that to any number of people.

On the other hand, if I say “Baltimore is a terrible place to live” who could I demonstrate that to? How could I demonstrate that in fact Baltimore is a terrible place to live? What are the limitations of language here?

And then on this thread we have to come up with words able to demonstrate whether or not anything that we think, feel, say or do is embodied in some measure of autonomy. Where are the words for that?

Because your idea of all choices already being “embedded” in the natural unfolding of matter is a fatalistic position that seems to mean you are not making your own choices. It’s the difference between: Necessarily, you must choose to eat eggs rather than cereal for breakfast because this has already been predetermined for you (which is a modal fallacy) rather than: You are compelled to CHOOSE (of your own accord or desire) the option that offers you the greater satisfaction at any given moment in time.

It’s how you are interpreting the meaning of determinism that is causing the issue. You are constantly implying that if determinism is true, you are given no choice. If you contemplated what you are going to do first today, you have already weighed different options. Once you make the choice based on the many pros and cons that all of us use to determine which choice is preferable, it could never have been otherwise. You don’t get to omit choice because that would make a mockery out of contemplation.

We do not have free will in a wholly ordered universe, but that does not mean nature has dictated what you must choose before you choose it.

It IS true, so please stop saying IF in fact that point is true. It’s just not true the way you describe it. I know for a fact that man’s will is not free.

You don’t grasp the implications because it was never explained to you.

That doesn’t make it any less exciting. Just knowing we are progressing toward a world of peace based on the understanding that man’s will is not free, is a wonderful thing to know.

My choice to not like this is another choice that “I” could never have not made, but…it was not embedded in a decision that was already made in advance of my making it. Nothing has the power to cause a choice to occur (not the past, not nature, not my parents, not God) without MY CONSENT. It was made by ME based on my analysis of which alternative was the most preferable, in the direction of greater satisfaction. All anyone can do is try to give me different points of view, but I make the choice even if seconds later I regret having made that choice. IOW, you can’t say God made me pull the trigger, or nature forced this on me; and you can’t say this person caused me to shoot him because nothing on this earth can cause you to pull the trigger if you don’t want to.

Humans are not mindless matter. They are not just dominoes toppling over. Rocks don’t have a choice. Trees don’t have a choice. The ability to choose has been given to us because we are able to think through things. Having choice though does not mean we have a FREE choice.

There is no shifting of gears. There is just a more accurate way of explaining what determinism really means. It does not remove anything that we hold dear. In fact, removing the impasse that has perplexed philosophers for centuries, we can now prevent war, crime, and conflicting goods. I know you don’t believe me, and that’s okay.

And I agree with you. If you can’t help but repeat yourself because it satisfies you to answer this way, I’m not blaming you but we won’t make any further progress.

No one is blaming you.