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?
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
My point exactly! If in fact that point is true.
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.
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.
You don’t grasp the implications because it was never explained to you.
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.
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.
I don’t like the domino example because we do get to choose (albeit unfreely) dominoes don’t.
But how is your not liking this but another “choice” you could never have not made?
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.
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”.
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.
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!
I’m not obsessed iambiguous. Nature does not prescribe behavior, which implies that we must choose what it dictates. Nature is not a dictator.
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?
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.
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.
You’re making it more difficult than it actually is.
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 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.
And yet somehow in “choosing” to make it more difficult that in turn somehow makes me…“blameworthy”?
No one is blaming you.