Funny that you say that, I was going to accuse you of being a theist about three pages back.
You are defining EVERYTHING as good and consensual (AT LEAST we ALWAYS CHOOSE the BETTER of our CHOICES no matter what we choose!) Because god only creates perfection, and we are creations of a perfect god.
Theists have been arguing this for thousands of years to people while abusing them mercilessly as they preach this to them.
Like I stated earlier in the thread, your conclusion about everyone consenting to everything is very disturbing (that they should consent to everything no matter what, because it’s ultimately ALL POSITIVE, and that, that is the GOOD NEWS!!
That’s not what I’m doing Ecmandu. You seem to be finding anything you can to bolster your fake proof. It doesn’t fly.
I said explicitly that the word God is used only to indicate the laws that govern us. Stop putting something on me that I didn’t say or subscribe to.
WTF are you talking about? This has nothing to do with “you should consent”. How can that be when there are no shoulds? Do you see the danger of jumping to conclusions?
I’m not jumping to conclusions, you have stated very clearly that not only do people always choose what they think is the best option, by natural law, they all individually choose what the best option is.
I’m not mischatacterizing your argument, and I’m not misdefining determinism either on your own terms or anyone else’s :
That is true. People choose, according to their particular circumstances, not those of others, what they believe is the best option of the available alternatives. That doesn’t mean it’s the healthiest option, or even the best option according to what others would do in the same situation. This only refers to what gives them greater satisfaction. For example, they may know cigarette smoking isn’t good for them but the need for the nicotine fix is greater than the desire to stop. Later on, they may have the strength to stop in favor of continuing to smoke. Each moment offers a new set of alternatives that affects choice. You’re just dying for me to be wrong which is not allowing you to be a little bit curious. You’re just in confrontation mode.
No, you’re the confused one by not understanding that definitions mean nothing where reality is concerned unless they reflect what is actually going on in reality. It doesn’t matter how long the definition has been used, if it’s misleading it’s misleading. This has nothing to do with misdefining determinism on my own terms. You just can’t accept that your proof is no proof at all and there is no way to make determinism compatible with free will which would be a complete contradiction. Compatibilism does nothing more than retain the status quo by trying desperately to avoid cognitive/dissonance. They’re not doing a good job of it.
I’m sorry to inform you but the movement away from dissatisfaction to greater satisfaction is not theoretical. That doesn’t mean I can predict what will give you greater satisfaction but that isn’t necessary to prove that this knowledge, when extended, can do what it claims. I offered the first three chapters. You didn’t read it. What more can I do? You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.
I already gave you a very obvious counter example to your “proof” about satisfaction :
Gamblers with the gambling disease.
They have ZERO evidence that gambling is the best choice, and 100% evidence that the longer they do it, the more money they will lose.
They will destroy their families, their homes, their jobs, their friends, destroy it all, ruining not only their life but the lives of countless others, before they even come close to hitting bottom, and they know all this for a fact; there is no evidence in what people tell them or their own personal experience, that gambling is the better option, but they do it anyways.
All I need is one counter example to disprove your entire law, and I just did that.
You did not disprove this law. People with addictions have a strong physical and emotional compulsion toward their addiction. Many addictions are so strong that the person feels there is no way out because the addiction seems to have a life of its own even to the point of destroying everything that gives meaning to life. This just shows how strong an addiction can be, but this doesn’t mean an addiction can’t be overcome and it doesn’t mean an addicted person doesn’t have the ability (like the compatibilists claim) to stop. As I said earlier, if someone threatened to kill his child (whom he loved dearly) if he took one more hit of heroin, the desire to stop (however difficult it may be) would override his desire to continue because he couldn’t bear to see his child get hurt. A gambler may try to justify his behavior by saying to himself that he will win the money back which gets him caught up in a downward spiral. Unfortunately, it may take a person to hit rock bottom, when taking that one cigarette or gambling his mortgage payment becomes less satisfying (now that he has COPD, or he is on the verge of losing his home) that finally he has the determination to say no more, or to get help in avoiding temptation (in the direction of greater satisfaction). That is when his greatest chance of overcoming a powerful addiction can occur. All an addiction is is a powerful attachment to a behavior that satisfies a physical or an emotional need. But attachments can be broken given enough drive to do so.
Oh sure, addiction satisfies physical and emotional needs, no argument from me there… so does eating live babies as a satanist …
That not what I put forth…
What I put forth, is do they know for a fact that it’s the worst possible decision, but they do it anyways?
The answer is yes, they do know that.
To keep with the gambling analogy. In the state I live in, we have video poker. We’re not talking million dollar jackpots here… maybe a few grand at most now, and that happens on full bet, one out of 40 million times, the machines are programmed to never have a streak that can bankrupt the system, even though by random odds, that’s actually possible.
Everyone who plays these games knows this, yet some people drop three grand per day on these machines … they have 100% proof that it will NEVER work, but they still do it.
It is what satisfies them at the moment. They move in the direction of greater satisfaction to gamble and get immediate gratification rather than the work that is involved in making a commitment to stopping. They don’t have enough drive. They do it anyways, yes because there is a certain amount of satisfaction to be gotten knowing that down the line they may pay a hefty price.
They probably believe they can beat the odds. How many people pay money for these powerball jackpots knowing the odds are one in 292 million? Maybe they are struggling financially and hope to score eventually. Whatever the reason, they are moving in the direction of greater satisfaction. The difference in the new world is that people will not do anything that could hurt their families financially. They will limit themselves to a certain amount of gambling money that is not earmarked for other expenses, and no more. You don’t think this is possible? It is.
People who don’t destroy their families with gambling addiction are like people who can drink a half a glass of wine a month, or people who smoke one cigarette every week. These people don’t have the disease.
Your comparing apples and oranges here … yes, they are both fruits, but the similarities pretty much stop there.
I reiterate, you’re making sweeping claims that demonstrate that you have very little experience with a very full breadth of life.
I will say one last time that if someone’s loved one were being threatened if they take one more drink, guess what? They would stop cold turkey. Most people are not threatened this way; and because the drug’s physical and psychological effect is so powerful, it’s hard to stop when the motivation isn’t as strong as the motivation to take the drug (e.g., to get the high or to reduce the pain of unresolved conflict)… but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. The only difference between a heavy and a light drinker (for example) is the quantity imbibed, not the quality. We are still comparing oranges to oranges, IOW but just on a different scale.
Again, you show a very sheltered life by stating that the quality but not the quantity is not different.
Gamblers are addicted by the quality, which determines quantity.
Again, showing your naivity, you think hardcore addicts loved one is not just the addiction, gamblers will be assassinated by casinos mobsters before they quit, the assassination of their family members is only an afterthought …
You’re wrong about your proof, you’re wrong about “everybody”
Your proof is false and you are so naive about life that you can’t see how blatantly false it is.
Ecmandu: Again, you show a very sheltered life by stating that the quality but not the quantity is not different.
Gamblers are addicted by the quality, which determines quantity.
Peacegirl: But the quantity doesn’t change the apple to an orange. It’s not qualitatively different except by degree. Once again you’re using the definition of quality which is not what I meant.
Ecmandu: Again, showing your naivity, you think hardcore addicts loved one is not just the addiction, gamblers will be assassinated by casinos mobsters before they quit, the assassination of their family members is only an afterthought …
Peacegirl: You’re jumping the gun. Without understanding how powerful this law is to change the landscape of our world, let me just say that when all drugs are as easy to buy as going to the drugstore (how can there be casino mobsters which indicate there is a market for what they have), along with the causes that lead to addiction that are no more, no one will desire to take drugs not because they aren’t available but because they will be high on life. This is not seeing through rose colored glasses.
Ecmandu: You’re wrong about your proof, you’re wrong about “everybody”.
Peacegirl: I’m not wrong Ecumandu and you’re saying I’m wrong 100 more times does not make it so.
Ecmandu: Your proof is false and you are so naive about life that you can’t see how blatantly false it is.
Peacegirl: An addict could change if and only if something more important to him was a motivating factor. For example, the position he is in is so painful that it’s less painful to stop as the lesser of two evils than to continue the way he has which is the greater evil. This IS an invariable law which means there ARE no exceptions.
You mean, if you torture someone enough they’ll change.
I already told you that this was this implication of your argument … remember? (You’re a sadist to sadists)
If you torture anyone enough, especially using 21st century advancements in torture, you can make them do anything under duress… however, the moment the immediate duress stops, they just revert .
Besides, I only need one counterexample in all of human history to prove your law false, and I did already in this thread .
I’m trying to make a point and you’re not getting it because you’re blocked. I’m saying that we only choose options that we consider to be the best choice, under our particular circumstances. To someone looking from the outside, especially if he believes in free will, he can’t understand why that person could make such a choice, but we’re not talking about other people. We’re talking about the individual who is walking in shoes that no one can totally understand unless they’re in his shoes.
You haven’t proven ANYTHING! Amazing to me that you think you have. I am not saying that torture is right. I’m just saying that a person with an addiction could change IF HE WANTED TO. He is not compelled, against his will, to stay addicted. In other words, he has a choice (but not a free one) although it feels like he doesn’t because the pain of withdrawal and the pain of leaving a lifestyle that is filling a physical or emotional need takes an enormous amount of strength. But that doesn’t separate him as compatibilists do by saying he is not free because he is under a compulsion that a person who is not under this duress is not under. This is where they are creating a semantic shift and a big blunder because no one has a free choice, not the person who has a greater compulsion to move in a particular direction, or a person who is choosing what to eat for breakfast. Both have NO FREE WILL.
Many people are confused over this one point.
Just because no one on this earth can make you do anything against
your will does not mean your will is free. Gandhi wanted freedom for
his people and it was against his will to stop his nonviolent movement
even though he constantly faced the possibility of death, but this
doesn’t mean his will was free; it just means that it gave him greater
satisfaction to face death than to forego his fight for freedom.
Consequently, when any person says he was compelled to do what he
did against his will, that he really didn’t want to but had to because he
was being tortured, he is obviously confused and unconsciously
dishonest with himself and others because he could die before being
forced to do something against his will. What he actually means was
that he didn’t like being tortured because the pain was unbearable so
rather than continue suffering this way he preferred, as the lesser of
two evils, to tell his captors what they wanted to know, but he did this
because he wanted to not because some external force made him do
this against his will. If by talking he would know that someone he
loved would be instantly killed, pain and death might have been judged
the lesser of two evils. This is an extremely crucial point because
though it is true that will is not free, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
ON THIS EARTH CAN MAKE MAN DO ANYTHING
AGAINST HIS WILL. He might not like what he did — but he
wanted to do it because the alternative gave him no free or better
choice. It is extremely important that you clear this up in your mind
before proceeding.
This is another religious argument that you’re making.
There are two ways that this argument is made by religious people:
1.) consent violation is an illusion because we all “contracted” our souls for this, even though you think it’s a consent violation, it’s really not.
2.) all consent violations by law are for the greater good, so again, it is an illusion or misperception of reality as a whole and as the truth, that your consent is every truly being violated. If you think your consent is being violated, you are delusional, or just incorrect.
Some people will read this book, and if it actually matters (which it doesn’t) but it actually becomes a cultural phenomenon - there will emerge a group of anti satifactionists just for the sake of proving it false, they will, always choose the worst possible choice they have available to them.
Because all of their satisfaction depends on freewill existing.
I assume you’re not good at self referential arguments, which is why you’re in this hole in the first place.
I’m not beholden to the hole you dig for yourself because I define ethics by consent, you have an ethics that has no consent. Consent is a structure of compatibalism.
Again , if I may briefly interject:
A seminal shift in understanding this conceptual difficulty lies with the important and noteworthy event that accompanies this topic, particularly in the years following the American and the French Revolutions.
The semantic shift is only the patent manifestation infestation with which we are struggling the dynamic element consisting of the will, yes, but the shift or the change exhibited thereby can not be a sufficient description of what is happenong, in our minds , that does correspond, even if not as a contability
issue with the primary objective consideration.
Particularly notable is the famous will to power. Here the will and the power are related, bringing this up with a Nietzsche-en scholar who has not posted for a while, the reverse : the power to will.
Here the will to power can be interpreted as a multi dimensional representation, a sort of totality where the will is dependent on it’s interiorization, it is quantified, and the power to will becomes the other side of sustaining meaning through equalization with qualifying it.
A diminishing power, can not sustain a very strong will to make the most useful and desirable choices, just as an uncertain will, not sensing what is best or useful, not only in reference inter , but intra alia, could not possibly interpret the facts as they are.
Free will is not a singular effect, but can be sensed as an affect, for sure, and the self referentiality counterpositions the objective dynamic.
