It’s good to have you around Karpel, as a genuine neutral voice on this issue. I can understand how insufferable it may be to deal with people such as myself firmly standing by points of view, that we really think justify being stood by.
I’m inclined to agree that complexity does not yield freedom. Of course it’s true, to the extent that we currently understand it, that humans are far more complex than things like rocks - and that’s the only real difference. Somehow complexity results in descriptive models such as Determinism no longer applying?? But to give us a first hand taste of the sort of intellects that are able to go no further than arguing from incredulity in such a way, the guy seems to have understood what you said as the literal opposite of what you said in his response to you
I note your comment that determinists have all sorts of problems to deal with. I don’t want to drag you into any discussion that you want to blackbox, but what sorts of problems are you thinking of? You mention a problem of how one knows one is rational if they believe in Determinism. To appeal to a word that derives from the same root as rational: ratio, which is numbering/calculating etc. - there’s simply more attribution of measurable concepts in Determinism than Free Will. It’s more testable, it’s more precise and discerning - all of the things that one requires for knowledge. For example, where Free Will simply discerns between conscious/unconscious as Artimas is accentuating, perhaps mind/matter in line with the seemingly necessary Dualism required to believe in Free Will, Determinism goes into far more details of neuroscience, down to the level of individual cells in the brain and beyond. I think by the very definition of the word rational, Determinism clearly involves more. I would like to stress that I don’t believe any narrative of understanding can ever be absolute - also by definition - Determinism is simply more true to the world (far far far more).
I wouldn’t want anyone thinking I am right by virtue of the effort I put in my post - I don’t want that to add to any perception of impeachability. It would be fallacious to give my arguments more credit than what can be derived through their content alone - though actually I can’t find any name for it, perhaps some kind of fallacy by association with hints of argument from authority, but not really.
I do it to aid in clarity and specificity - I want to be sure I know exactly what my position is before I explain it, and I want to help others know this too to aid in my quest to find someone who can poke legitimate holes in what I have to say. Obfuscation is the last thing I want to be involved in. A problem I have with your writing, Mr. Mandu, is I have to read your sentences multiple times to try and coax out exactly what is being referred to, for example. When you use too many pronouns in one sentence, don’t explain non-standard terminology, and gloss over the absolute crux of your argument too lightly, it really makes it a chore to read and engage with you. I’ve said before that poor writing can be a sign of poor thinking, but I don’t want to assume this. When I try and phrase what I say, I am stretching my theory of mind as far as I can to make sure that someone who isn’t me ought to be able to understand what I’m saying - I recommend this for everyone, though plenty of people here are sufficient enough in this capacity.
How would you define the distinction between capitalising the term, and not? Honestly, I don’t want to take any credit that I don’t deserve - I only capitalise terms like this when they’re standard terminology, like one would capitalise Proper Nouns.
I think he was referring more to the incessant tedium of Urwrongx1000. Your zeal may be a little misplaced, though it’s true he was phrasing his post in a general manner.
I wonder if you associate Determinism purely as reliant on Materialism? I would disagree, if this is the case. If I had to choose a more standard ontology, I actually find myself more inclined towards something like Panpsychism. But in an attempted synthesis between this and the Logical Positivism that came after it, which has obvious ties to Determinism, this is why I propose my more neutral “Experientialism” - where experience is the fundamental subtance that incorporates both mind and matter. In my view, given the mind/matter dichotomy, it should be clear that matter only occurred to anyone in the first place as something viewed in terms of mind. It was only subsequently that this was inverted such that mind was then put in terms of matter - which has problems of the sort you seem to be pointing out. “The hard problem of consciousness” comes to mind. As such, I would prefer to think of matter as quanta of mind’s qualia, which I model as Discrete Experience versus Continuous Experience respectively. They are two forms of the same thing as a Monism rather than a Dualism: experience. You can “deal with” the discreteness of matter - it has utility where the true continuity of mind cannot be dealt with: the former models the latter. They are “of” the same thing, but serve differently. So whilst the ontological and epistemological ideals and absolutes reside in “that which is modelled”, the models themselves are the reals and relatives - and this is where Determinism comes in. It comes in terms of Discrete Experience to model Continuous Experience as the relatively most real and transitively true model of it. Free Will is a more primitive version of modelling Discrete Experience in far less precise terms - something more like a first attempt in the same way that religion is like a first attempt at science. We got better at this and now have Determinism.
Hopefully, if you can see the sense in this, you will now see how concepts such as “value” are not a problem for my philosophy. Nor is consciousness, and the Hard Problem of Consciousness no longer applies.
This is why I sing such high praise of Experientialism, because the simple distinction between truth and utility in terms of experience, monistically, solves a ton of traditional philosophical conundrums.
I’ll try to read your longer posts in due course and maybe respond to them at another time - like I did with your last longer post.