New Discovery

Yes, we judge many things to determine if something is worth pursuing, but this is not the kind of judgment I’m talking about. Stop conflating this word to make it look like you’re right when you’re dead wrong. :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s the exact opposite. When we stop judging, everyone will be perfect. But remember this does not mean we suddenly stop judging just because we know FOR A FACT that man’s will is not free. If you had read the chapters you would have known that. You know nothing about this knowledge, and it shows!

Thinking is hardwired. Judgment against someone because you judge him to be wrong and worthy of repercussions is not hardwired into anyone’s DNA.

Is English your second language or am I missing something? Psychopaths are not born to be psychopaths without the environment to trigger it.

Oh, so now you’re a great scientist on top of being a great compatibilist. You know for a fact that every person that becomes psychopathic has something wrong in his genome? Shouldn’t they have identified this genome already with such sophisticated technology?

Who said “obey me now”? You are just pissed because your logic does not prove that man has free will, let alone anything that can help our world. Sorry Ecmandu, you lose! :laughing:

You would not disagree with Einstein because he was recognized. You would listen quite attentively and if you didn’t understand something you would question earnestly to get a clearer understanding. But you certainly wouldn’t argue. You disagree because this author was an unknown, and because of this you don’t take this knowledge seriously. But he did have a discovery and it will become recognized one day. Then, just like with Einstein, you would not even think of arguing. This can work in reverse if science says something is true. People accept it at face value and don’t question any further. This can be dangerous and lead to apparent truths that have graduated into fact and no one dare criticize or ostracism is the name of the game.

How do you know this surreptitious75? Prove to me that they would act the same being born in a world where not only no one blames, but no one is hurt by the many events in life that lead to hatred whether it’s used against oneself or against others.

It’s more than being non judgmental. It’s changing the environment entirely. I did say that as we make the transition, there may be people who are so far gone that they cannot be rehabilitated at all. Therefore, they will need to be institutionalized just like a mad dog would, but this is a tiny percentage of the population. Why are you focusing on this when most criminals are run of the mill crooks? They are the professional thieves who know right from wrong. They would never desire to steal, rob, murder, under changed conditions that alter their preference not to take from others as that alternative that gives them greater satisfaction.

  1. I can’t speak for Iambiguous, but I would certainly, if I ended up in a discussion with Einstein, question his ideas, point out what I thought did not make sense, probe and test, as well as I could. I have a suspicion Iambiguous would also. I think Einstein would have understood the need for such a process. That is part of learning. And since Einstein was not always correct, it is a part of his learning also, or was.

  2. The writer, your father presumably, has not been recognized. So it makes sense that people will be skeptical and critical. Einstein’s ideas and the math involved were scrutininzed by the smartest people in the relevent fields and then later tested empirically, where possible. This has not been done yet. So you are in a cart before the horse situation. And experts were skeptical of his ideas for quite a time. Anyone with new ideas can expect criticism and would understand the need to work maturely and respectfully with it. I notice that the predictions in the book about when humanity would come to understand the great discovery were not correct. IOW predictions about the speed with which these ideas would be accepted were incorrectly predicted by the author. Fine, he could be wrong about that, but right about other things. But since the predictions about how we will all get along if we believe in the ideas depend on knowledge of how humans react, the fact that he was significantly off about when the ideas would take over says something about his understanding of humans. And that calls into questions his ability to predict other things. Further it means that he and perhaps you have not be dealing with criticism in such a way that the scientific community and intellectuals in general have taken the ideas seriously. The fact that you think it should be treated like we would hypothetically treat Einstein’s ideas even though we have no good reason to do this and criticism is treated poorly, does not bode well for any wide acceptance of the ideas in the near future.

  3. Einstein was incorrect about some things. So everyone bowing down to even Einstein would not have been a good idea. That’s why we have peer review. If you want to say no one here is your author’s peer. Fine, but whoever is peers are, they are not listening, or you would not be pushing the book here amongst people who do not have the power, in the main, to get scientific consensus support.

Well,right. We aren’t just bowing down. All we have now is your assertions and the authors assertions that everyone will be convinced. We have someone who think she/he should be treated by Einstein, despite the fact that Einstein ran a gauntlet of expert criticism, using incredible skill and discipline over a long period of time. IOW he knew what to do to get a wider acceptance of his ideas and who to go to and who to collaborate with. He earned it. You want it ahead of time, without doing the work.

How can you possibly not understand such basic things about how ideas come to be accepted

and at the same time be sure

these ideas will have the effects you claim they will have.

Right there I question even the chance of you having expertise.

The number of psychopaths that exist in the general population is not actually relevant here
I also dont think that environment is the major cause for psychopathic behaviour but genetic
The brains of psychopaths are different to non psychopaths so they are already born that way

Einstein is a bad example because he spent the second half of his life trying to dismiss quantum mechanics
As reality at that level did not conform to his ontological [ not scientific ] expectations of how it should be

Peacegirl,

Let’s come back to this:

You state that the deterministic law of world peace is the highest law in existence.

For millions of years, hominids have never been confused by a real law, the law of gravity …

Yet, a law that you claim to be a higher law than the law of gravity is a law that NOBODY obeys !!!

So there are one of two possibilities here for your “law”

1.) because it’s the highest law in existence and nobody follows it, it’s a proof of freewill

2.) it’s not a law

Remember what she is proposing cannot be proven at this point in time since it has yet to happen
This means there is no absolute guarantee it will happen and something else could happen instead

Well put.

It seems that people have certain predispositions that can manifest in anti-social behavior given the right conditions, but to say that people are born evil or psychopathic is without scientific proof.

I didn’t say that. I said that man’s will is not free and that when the corollary to this invariable law is put into practice, world peace can be achieved.

That’s only because we had to believe in free will as part of our development, even though man’s will has never been free. Your comparison doesn’t fly. Just because we were never confused about gravity and we were confused about free will, doesn’t automatically negate determinism.

Once again, your premises are ridiculous. We don’t follow it because the principle of no blame is counter-intuitive considering that our entire justice system (the best in the world) is based on the belief in free will. But the time has come where we have been given a better way. Why are you so resistant when you haven’t even studied the principles? You are too sure of yourself.

It is a natural invariable law that no one can escape because there are no exceptions. That’s why it’s a law.

I appreciate the time it took to respond to this long post, but I am going to take a pass. A lot of it is repetitive and we just don’t see eye to eye. You keep saying I blame you, and I don’t. You keep saying these are assumptions that have no real capacity to demonstrate, which is false. Chapter Three gives a clear demonstration of how this law works when applied to the environment. You keep saying this discovery has no foundation without understanding what is behind existence itself, which is not true. You keep bringing up autonomy (free will) as if we can step outside of the laws that created us. I keep saying that it’s a false dichotomy because we can have determinism and be autonomous according to the definition given in most dictionaries. You keep talking about conflicts that you believe can never be resolved. You say it’s just a frame of mind that I have concocted in order to feel good about the author, his discovery and all the peace and prosperity heading our way as a result of them, which is completely bogus. I have concocted nothing. You haven’t shown a shred of interest in the book which is why you don’t understand a shred of it. I know nature didn’t allow you to, and that’s okay. But because we have such different perspectives, I don’t think there is any way we can move forward, therefore I’m bowing out of our discussion. It was a good run and I wish you the best. :wink:

First of all, given that Einstein is described here …

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious … #Free_will

…as a “strict determinist”, I would ask him if he believed the discussion we were having would and could only unfold as it must. Given how he is said to believe that “human behavior was completely determined by causal laws.”

I would then probe his thoughts regarding Hitler and the Manhattan Project. If human behavior is in fact completely determined by causal laws, was not the entire Second World War [up to the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki] inherently and necessarily in sync with the laws of matter? Going all the way back to the explanation for existence itself?

Besides, try as I might, I still don’t really understand all the technical arguments he made in his arguments/theories regarding the “space-time continuum”.

But the thing about Einstein is that his arguments could be tested empirically. Experiments could be conducted, predictions could be made, results could be replicated.

And your author? Where on earth is the equivalent of this in his own work? How has he taken his world of words, intellectual contraption assumptions about free will, determinism and a “progressive” future and provided us with an assessment that can in fact be brought down to earth and shown to be applicable to the behaviors that we really do “choose”?

The fact that you are so obsessed with “definitions” speaks volumes to me. In my view, you believe that words mean only what they must mean in order to sustain [psychologically] the comfort and security you derive from this meaning “in your head”.

No one is disputing this, but the word “cause” is misleading. I’m not going to repeat myself.

The results of this knowledge can be replicated although its difficult due to the fact that we cannot easily isolate the variables in a free will environment. But it can be falsified. If, under the changed conditions (which involves much more than not blaming) people can move in the direction of striking a first blow, then it will be proven wrong.

This author made no assumptions. None whatsoever iambiguous. He was correct about determinism and the book is exactly that: an assessment that can in fact be brought down to earth and shown to be applicable to the behaviors that we really do “choose”. You haven’t read it so you can’t respond to my comment intelligently.

Give it up! All he did was clarify a definition that is more exact. He was a stickler for clarity. His definition of determinism is correct because it reflects what is actually going on in reality. By saying nature made me answer this way, you are relinquishing the agent or “I” that made the choice. I’ve said this over and over. It’s all about clarification which is important in this important discussion. It’s more accurate to say I was compelled to make this choice, not nature made me which implies you weren’t a participant. We know that once a choice is made, it could not have been otherwise but that doesn’t mean that before something is done the choice has already been pre-planned by an external force called nature. What if you don’t like the plan? You can change it, but that doesn’t mean your will is free. You keep abdicating your responsibility, as if nature is this thing that forces you to do what you can’t help but do. But you can help but do, if that is not the choice you want to make. Where is this a world of words iambiguous? You are accusing him of things he is not guilty of. The entire book is a practical application of how these principles work.

The first thing some will note about this point is that it reflects precisely the sort of thing that would be raised by those who do believe in free will. You appreciate the time I took because you had the option not to appreciate it but chose instead to appreciate it. You have now decided to take a pass on continuing the exchange because you were able to think through the discussion and, of your own volition, decided it’s time to end it.

Whereas from my frame of mind, given my own understanding of a wholly determined universe, not a single letter of a single word that I am typing here and now could ever have not been typed.

Only, sure, another part of “me” scoffs at this, convinced that, in a manner no one really understands fully, “I” am capable of choosing the words that I type. Even if I am compelled [by the laws of spelling] to chose particular sets of letters to comprise them.

Again, as though in the moment before I repeat myself “I” am somehow crucial to bringing that about. But the moment after I repeat myself, my free will is really gone.

Maybe someone else might be more successful in explaining this to me, but, until then, it remains nonsensical.

I’ll leave it to others to decide for themselves the extent to which you do in fact hold others responsible for not completely agreeing with the author’s discovery.

They can’t of their own free will choose to read his book, but it clearly seems to exasperate you to no end that many of us here don’t “choose” to read it.

Maybe it just comes down to how we define “blame”.

And note just one example of where the author his demonstrated that his discoveries are on par with the manner in which folks like Edison and Einstein demonstrated both the use value and the exchange value of their own discoveries.

You claim this…

Sum up the manner in which this is demonstrated. Note an argument that is free of the mere assumptions he makes, of the definitions that others must first agree to accept.

In my view, only someone very, very naive could possibly believe this. Or are wholly compelled by nature to believe it.

This part:

[b]It would be like physicists discovering that the multiverse does in fact exist, and someone insisting that, for the purposes of their own discussion, they want only this universe to be relevant. Even though the existence of the multiverse might have profound implications for our own universe.

Or like someone living in Flatland able to demonstrate the existence of our own three dimensional world, and dismissing that as irrelevant to all that might be understood regarding the relationship between these two worlds.

Or like someone who was raised to believe their Christian beliefs were based only on the Old Testament alone, discovering that the New Testament existed…but then dismissing that is irrelevant to a discussion about Christianity.[/b]

How is this not applicable to your claim about the discovery in the context of all that can be known about existence itself?

No, that is what you do. You posit the laws of nature but somehow “I” is able tweak them. And then eventually enough of them will have been tweaked to usher in the author’s own rendition of the Brave New World. Only this time with real “peace and prosperity”.

The dictionary. The ultimate world of words.

Then back to the extent to which any of the words you “chose” here…

…had any possibility whatsoever of either not existing at all or of being different words.

Was there that mysterious moment “before” you chose them when it might have become something other than what it, in fact, now is…or was nature wholly embedded in the sequence of experiences that is your own particular “I” going all the way back to the day that you were conceived.

So, are you choosing to bow out here as those who embrace autonomy might construe this juncture, or has nature compelled you to “choose” to do what you were only ever able to.

From my frame of mind [and that’s all it is], you are just another in a long string of objectivists I have come across over the years in venues like this one.

Your arguments are construed by me to be but another existential rendition of this: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296

Though, of course, my own narrative here can only be seen in much the same way.

Anyway, to the extent that I have not been able to convince you that “I” is largely an existential contraption down in a hole all busted up, you remain intact. You are still able to think yourself into believing something that, in the end, comforts and consoles you. And in a world that is bursting at the seams with so many fucking things that do anything but.

Whatever works I always say.

I’ll have to look at the links. I’m not an objectivist. So many things are subjective and relative. The “I” or self gets to choose, although the choice is never free because life can only take us in one direction. The “I” is not a contraption down a hole all busted up. The “I” is part of the causal chain, but remember the word “cause” is misleading since nothing can cause us to do anything we (the “I” that we use to identify ourselves) choose not to do. Moreover, we can’t go back to one cause that has one effect, like a domino. When it comes to human choice, there are many factors that affect choice, which we consider every time we deliberate. Bottom line: We are compelled to move in the direction of greater satisfaction, not less satisfaction, from moment to moment. He explains this in more detail in Chapter One.

Peacegirl,

To be respected, there are three things you must represent:

You must be logical
You must be reasonable
You must be sympathetic

You have neither of those three traits.

This whole philosophy will be dumped in the wastebin of human output

Which is why all entities and particles and quanta are “valuings”.

What a sore loser! :mrgreen:

Interesting and very relevant!! :slight_smile: