Once again, from my frame of mind, you are agreeing that everything we think, feel, say and do is inherently, necessarily intertwined in the “brute facticity” that encompasses the existence of existence itself…but that somehow this “progress” you speak of is dependent on others choosing to think about all of this as you do. As though they really are free to do so.
And [of course] “progressive” behavior revolves around your own understsanding of what that means in a world where you could never have understood it other than how you were compelled to.
And, yes, if the laws of matter propel/compel everything that we do, being described as a cog in nature’s wheel seems reasonable to me.
Okay, what aspect of human interaction is not wholly in sync with cause and effect as prescribed by nature?
We are hopelessly “stuck” here then. Well, for now. Perhaps nature’s laws of matter will “unstick” us at some point in our wholly determined future. But one thing we can surely count on is that if we do get “unstuck” it will be because nature finally compels me to see things your way.
Right?
But how could my perception of contingency, chance and change not be just another inherent manifestation of nature? In an autonomous universe, the manner in which I understand them is crucial because the things “I” choose are profoundly predicated on, embedded in, and sustained by the manner in which I can never fully understand and control them. But in a determined universe how I think I understand and control them is only as I was ever able to.
Yes, you “choose” to call it folly. Meaning the laws of nature compelled you to. Just as the laws of nature compel the libertarians among us to think that they choose – choose freely – to call it that.
But any lack of understanding on the part of either of us is always compelled by nature. The “folly” for me here [given my current understanding of determinism] is that any misunderstandings on the part of either one of us in this exchange are perfectly natural.
And this seems preposterous to me because you have no real capacity to demonstrate this beyond the internal logic sustained in the assumptions you make about the human brain, the human mind and nature. In your argument itself.
You should take your conclusions to those who actually perform experiments on the thinking brain. Those who, using fMRI technologies, test their conjectures about free will and determinism on people who are actually in the process of “choosing” or choosing something.
Back again to my desire in turn being an integral part of nature’s laws.
“Given the ability”, “contemplate options” “making a mockery…”. What does any of this mean in a world where we are compelled to think it means only that which nature commands. Then back to understanding if nature itself has any capacity to choose here. Which [of course] takes most men and women to God.
God forbid? You mean Nature forbid? But if nature has no meaning or purpose embedded in its laws, than the dominos falling, the cars piling up and the human brains that brought both situations into existence were never going to not unfold as they must.
As though I was ever really free not to make them up. As though you were ever really free to care that I did.
Then this:
Call it whatever you must. Nature either allows new ideas to reconfigure the world into your own wholly compelled rendition of progressive behavior, or it doesn’t. But you are either free or not to acknowledge that your thinking here is more in sync with my own speculation about your motivation: to sustain your own psychological understanding of a “comforting and consoling” frame of mind.
But that merely avoids my point. You and the author were compelled to “bring it about” by writing a book and making an argument. Others are compelled to either read it or not read it. But either way, the future [like the present] is already inherently a continuation of the past. Once nature’s laws set us in motion we are only ever going to “choose” what must be.
Thus…
From my frame of mind this is you attributing to nature the capacity to choose a future more in sync with your own “choices”. Almost as though Nature should be thanking you for showing her the way.
Ultimately, it seems to come down to this:
From my perspective, if in “[l]ooking back…we could not have chosen otherwise”, it means that our choices are for all practical purposes robotic. Nature’s laws program us to think and feel and say and do only what we could never not think and feel and say and do. And feeling here includes our desires. They are no exception to the rule. Nature is my “will”.
My reaction here is that you are pointing this out about him as though he should be lauded for “choosing” to do something that he was never really free not to. As though any conditions that change in the future were ever going to not change. As though people can be “corrected” if only they come to understand these relationships as you and he do. Even though they can only understand what nature compels them to.
And what is his empirical proof [here and now] that confirms his predictions about this more progressive future?
This makes sense to me only to the extent that you are able to explain who or what decides that the laws of nature are based on “sound principles”. The laws of nature simply exist. They necessarily link “in my head” to “out in the world” in a way that can only be wholly/fully understood when existence itself is understood.
Now, the existence of an omniscient God and “sound principles” makes sense. If God knows everything of course His principles will be sound. But nature in a No God world? How on earth does that work?
And here you are like many, many others insisting that what you think is true here comes closest to explaining it all. You even include a more “progressive” future in the mix of assumptions. Though never in a million years will you describe this explanation as a psychological defense mechanism rooted inherently in a human brain rooted necessarily in nature itself.
How comforting and consoling can that be?
Why would you come to ILP if you weren’t intent on persuading people to embrace your own assumptions here? After all, it is in grasping these assumptions that the progressive future hinges on.
Or: Once we are compelled by nature to either see or not see how this new world can be achieved people will either be compelled or not compelled to move in this direction because nature will have either compeled or not compeled them to want what they see.