I don’t understand a lot of the philosophic language or patterns of reasoning that you’ve presented, since I’m not familiar with it. Therefore, I will need a translation in order for me to respond intelligently. 
Not sure what you mean. Maybe you can expound on it.
Can you give me an example?
I like that analogy. We cannot identify absolute intrinsic causative factors that can be traced back because it’s almost impossible to know all of the factors that lead up to an individual’s preference. Identifying a cause/effect relationship is not possible because there are many variables that lead a person to choosing one thing over another. I’m sure if you’ve been following this thread you would also understand why the word “cause” is misleading. Meno, thanks for your input. As I mentioned in the previous post, I am trying to understand your reasoning even though it’s a challenge because I’m not well versed in some of the language. I hope we can overcome this barrier. 
It had to be a technical quirk because I never saw your post. If it was ambiguous’s post, you should be able to find it. I can’t delete other people’s posts. You said you seconded what he was saying in part, right? I don’t remember seeing your comment or I would have responded, especially if it was a question for me. I would never censor anyone, but I have blocked people in the past who were throwing around ad hominems.
Above you pointed out that you had “chosen” to end this exchange. Now you have “chosen” to resume it.
So, did nature compel you to flip-flop here or were you in fact able to choose to “choose” to reverse yourself?
In other words, regarding the part I do not understand, what was unfolding inside your head before and then after these two “choices”? How is free will – the lack of it – understood by you in both instances?
But how are these words not in turn just more of the same: the embodiment of nature compelling you to “choose” them. How is your expression of appreciation different from how a free will advocate would encompass it? The inflection [to me] is basically the same.
Also, I have no clear understanding at all of what particular point nature has compelled you to make. As usual [with you and the author] it’s just words defining, then giving meaning to, then defending more words.
Which just takes me back to the distinction made between “choosing” words and choosing words.
Or: Before I do something, I am compelled by nature to embody the only option that is in sync with the laws of matter.
Or: Once I am compelled by nature to choose the one behavior that is in sync with nature’s inherent laws, my “reponsibility” [perceived by both myself and others] becomes just another necessary manifestion of reality unfolding only as it ever could have.
Again, I am compelled by nature to ask: What choice do you have in reacting as you do other than in how nature compels you to? Instead, you settle for this mysterious “choice” that your own particular “I” has in the moment before the choice that you make is finally understood by you to be the embodiment of no free will.
So, in terms of an actual context preciptating actual choices precipitating actual behaviors, show me where/how the author has demonstrated empirically that someone wanting to do something is not in turn just a necessary adjunct of his or her brain complying with the laws of matter.
Instead…
And here is your exceedingly thin response:
This is really all you have to fall back on, isn’t it? You simply keep repeating the mantra that the author doesn’t need to close that staggering gap between what he thinks he knows about free will among the human species here on planet Earth and how the existence of Earth itself somehow fits into staggering enormity of the task involved in grappling with an understanding of our own existence in what may be a multiverse encompassing an infinite number of universes.
You don’t go there in my opinion because that puts a gigantic crack in the edifice that has become the discovery that has become the very foundation onto which you anchor all that is purposeful and meaningful in your life.
Just as for years, I too resisted abandoning first God, then Marxism, then the “authenticity” embraced by existentialists as my very own foundations.
Trust me: I do know what is at stake here for objectivists of all stripes.
Then, the part that truly baffles me:
Yet despite this, you cling to an “agency” which you claim to possess even though this agency “for all practical purposes” changes nothing regarding the things you think, feel, say and do!
Others here might perhaps try to make better sense of this for me. Because your rendition simply makes no rational sense to me given my own understanding of determinism.
No, you can’t literally go backward, but you can imagine determinism in a particular way and go back and speculate as to how your own understanding of it would for all practical purposes impact on the choices you made before, during and after they are made. For me, “no free will”, no autonomous “agency” exist from start to finish. For you however there seems to be some manifestation of actual agency that reconfigures into no free will only after the choice is made. But nothing is “prevented” unless it is in sync with nature unfolding inexorably [per its laws] as it must.
That’s the part that I am not yet compelled to latch onto.
Thus:
Over and over and over and over again: precisely the sort of observations and suggestions I would expect from someone who believed that their preferences and the direction that their sense of satisfaction goes in, was embodied in an agency embodied in at least some measure of free will.
Only they are convinced that they are choosing these things of their own volition, not “choosing” them only because nature wholly compels them to.
Always you want it both ways. You topple over only as nature compels you to, but unlike the domino it is absolutely vital for you to believe that you participate in “choosing” to. Nothing at all changes in terms of what you must think, feel, say and do…but at least nature has evolved for you into an “I” that does “choose”.
It doesn’t work that way for me. Instead, it is only profoundly mysterious. How can mindless matter evolve over billions of years into a lifeform possessing a brain possessing a mind culminating in a self-conscious “I” wholly in sync with the laws of matter and be able to actually grasp that!!
The hard guys are, of course, groping and grappling to understand that experientially, experimentally, scientifically, empirically, materially, phenomonologically, etc… Their discoveries are not predicated solely on intellectually self-serving assumptions and defintions.
The only question is whether this in and of itself is but another manifestation of wholly natural compulsions.
It doesn’t matter that there are “many factors that affect choice, which we consider every time we deliberate” if all of them are wholly in sync with the only possible reality that can unfold in a nature that includes the matter we call mind.
Consider:
The Boeing 737 is made up of 367,000 parts. And not a one of them chooses a damn thing.
The average human brain has about 100 billion neurons. And each of them works in sync with all of the others to embody an “I”. But how [in tandem] do they encompass an “I” that either does or does not possess the will to choose freely among options?
No doubt about it, the parts of an airplane were thought up and assembled by the parts of our own brains. But the distinction between not choosing, choosing and “choosing” here is far, far, far, far from being wholly understood, settled.
Except for objectivists of your ilk. However you are compelled to understand the profound mystery embedded in the fact of existence itself, you are compelled in turn to insist that others had better damn well better concur with it. Otherwise…
They!
Are!!
Wrong!!!
Right?
I’m merely compelled to suggest that this frame of mind is more in sync with the manner in which I am compelled in turn to keep coming back to this part: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296
I’ve never really understood how some folks are able to “think” themselves into not fearing death. Not unless they are able to “think” themselves into believing in God, immortality, salvation and divine justice.
Or unless their life becomes so riddled with terrible pain and suffering, they yearn to die just to be done with it.
Or maybe “fear of death” is not the right way to put it.
If your life here and now is bursting at the seams with many more good things than bad things, then dying takes all of those things away. And, if you are not a believer in God, they – like you – are gone forever.
Me, I’ve found things that give me an enormous amount of pleasure, satisfaction, fulfilment. The last think I want is for oblivion to take them all away. So, in that respect, I certainly dread the prospect of dying.
On this thread though the dread is either something I have some measure of control over or it is but another inherent manifestation of my wholly determined “I”.
But, again, imagine understanding the evolution of matter able to become self-conscious of it’s own demise. Autonomically as it were.
How to explain that?!
And, once again, peacegirl puzzling over why someone doesn’t mention something that can only be mentioned by someone when nature compels them to.
Nature didn’t compel me to flip-flop as if it forced this on me, no. I thought that you wouldn’t post anymore but when you did it gave me greater satisfaction to answer you.I don’t like to intentionally ignore people. I may still still bow out if your posts are repetitive and I don’t think there’s any progress being made.
What was unfolding inside my head was before I said I was going to bow out was basically frustration with the lack of progress. Haven’t you ever said you were never going to do something again, and then you did it again? I don’t have identifiable reasons why I decided to post after I posted that I was bowing out. Maybe I felt more relaxed and at that moment I changed my mind when you were the only one posting. Maybe I saw something in your post that I wanted to respond to. We can change our mind up to the very last instant before we make a choice.
A libertarian would think I had a choice, where I know I didn’t. It’s not about the inflection, it’s about the underlying belief system.
Nature hasn’t compelled me to choose something; nature has compelled me to desire to choose something.
We can’t “choose” words that are not part of our repertoire. If every move we make is not done of our own free will, and every thought is not done of our own free will, we have no choice in anything we do. Contemplation is also part of the causal chain, which moves us in only one direction.
You can put it that way.
That’s perfectly fine to say, although “your responsibility perceived by others” is a judgment that will not occur under the changed conditions.
No, you are misunderstanding. Before you do something that requires serious thought, you contemplate, right? There is no mysterious “I” that comes to a decision. All I am saying is that this law prevents the act of crime BEFORE it takes place, not AFTER. Why? After contemplating should I rob this person or not, for example, the desire to rob will be less satisfying than not to. If this person chooses not to rob, do we need to do those things that were required in a free will society such as incarcerate, rehabilitate, punish, seek justice and recompense?
to be cont…
So, in terms of an actual context preciptating actual choices precipitating actual behaviors, show me where/how the author has demonstrated empirically that someone wanting to do something is not in turn just a necessary adjunct of his or her brain complying with the laws of matter.
Instead…
And here is your exceedingly thin response:
This is really all you have to fall back on, isn’t it? You simply keep repeating the mantra that the author doesn’t need to close that staggering gap between what he thinks he knows about free will among the human species here on planet Earth and how the existence of Earth itself somehow fits into staggering enormity of the task involved in grappling with an understanding of our own existence in what may be a multiverse encompassing an infinite number of universes.
You don’t go there in my opinion because that puts a gigantic crack in the edifice that has become the discovery that has become the very foundation onto which you anchor all that is purposeful and meaningful in your life.
Just as for years, I too resisted abandoning first God, then Marxism, then the “authenticity” embraced by existentialists as my very own foundations.
Trust me: I do know what is at stake here for objectivists of all stripes.
Then, the part that truly baffles me:
Yet despite this, you cling to an “agency” which you claim to possess even though this agency “for all practical purposes” changes nothing regarding the things you think, feel, say and do!
Others here might perhaps try to make better sense of this for me. Because your rendition simply makes no rational sense to me given my own understanding of determinism.
No, you can’t literally go backward, but you can imagine determinism in a particular way and go back and speculate as to how your own understanding of it would for all practical purposes impact on the choices you made before, during and after they are made. For me, “no free will”, no autonomous “agency” exist from start to finish. For you however there seems to be some manifestation of actual agency that reconfigures into no free will only after the choice is made. But nothing is “prevented” unless it is in sync with nature unfolding inexorably [per its laws] as it must.
That’s the part that I am not yet compelled to latch onto.
Thus:
Over and over and over and over again: precisely the sort of observations and suggestions I would expect from someone who believed that their preferences and the direction that their sense of satisfaction goes in, was embodied in an agency embodied in at least some measure of free will.
Only they are convinced that they are choosing these things of their own volition, not “choosing” them only because nature wholly compels them to.
Always you want it both ways. You topple over only as nature compels you to, but unlike the domino it is absolutely vital for you to believe that you participate in “choosing” to. Nothing at all changes in terms of what you must think, feel, say and do…but at least nature has evolved for you into an “I” that does “choose”.
It doesn’t work that way for me. Instead, it is only profoundly mysterious. How can mindless matter evolve over billions of years into a lifeform possessing a brain possessing a mind culminating in a self-conscious “I” wholly in sync with the laws of matter and be able to actually grasp that!!
The hard guys are, of course, groping and grappling to understand that experientially, experimentally, scientifically, empirically, materially, phenomonologically, etc… Their discoveries are not predicated solely on intellectually self-serving assumptions and defintions.
The only question is whether this in and of itself is but another manifestation of wholly natural compulsions.
It doesn’t matter that there are “many factors that affect choice, which we consider every time we deliberate” if all of them are wholly in sync with the only possible reality that can unfold in a nature that includes the matter we call mind.
Consider:
The Boeing 737 is made up of 367,000 parts. And not a one of them chooses a damn thing.
The average human brain has about 100 billion neurons. And each of them works in sync with all of the others to embody an “I”. But how [in tandem] do they encompass an “I” that either does or does not possess the will to choose freely among options?
No doubt about it, the parts of an airplane were thought up and assembled by the parts of our own brains. But the distinction between not choosing, choosing and “choosing” here is far, far, far, far from being wholly understood, settled.
Except for objectivists of your ilk. However you are compelled to understand the profound mystery embedded in the fact of existence itself, you are compelled in turn to insist that others had better damn well better concur with it. Otherwise…
They!
Are!!
Wrong!!!
Right?
I’m merely compelled to suggest that this frame of mind is more in sync with the manner in which I am compelled in turn to keep coming back to this part: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopi … 5&t=185296
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It does.
There are no assumptions. That’s what makes me recognize how off you are in your reasoning.
I am not interested in doing more than you care to do. This book took many years to put these concepts down on paper that could be understood. If you are that uninterested, then don’t read it but don’t expect me to spoon feed it to you.
It’s not relevant. I know that one plus one is two. I don’t need to know if this math works in theoretical multiverses.
Do we need to know that two plus two equals four may be three in a different multiverse? Does it matter to our understanding of mathematics here on Earth which provides the building block for every architectural structure that’s ever been built?
Let up ambiguous. All you are spouting off is psychobabble.
You fail to listen. I told you I am not an objectivist.
What baffles you? You have accused me of concocting ideas about the author that comfort me.
Do you ever say “I did this or I did that?” Please answer. Can you tell me that the things you choose everyday are not your choice (although not free) because you have no agency? Are you saying there’s nothing that can distinguish you as an individual, from others?
Maybe if you read the first three chapters, it would begin to make rational sense to you.
You’re right. Nothing is prevented unless it is in sync with nature unfolding inexorably [per its laws] as it must. I never said otherwise.
You are very confused here. Agency does not mean you have any measure of free will. It’s nonexistent, a mirage.
Again, contemplation is an attribute of the human mind. When the phrase of my own volition is used, it only means “of my own desire.” Can you make a choice not of your own desire? Whose choice would it be if not your own?
I do participate in choosing. God doesn’t choose for me. Nature doesn’t choose for me. I choose, although the word choice, once again, is misleading because we don’t ever have a real choice.
It has done just that.
Off the wall comment that I know you couldn’t help articulating. 
Of course it is. There is an element of compulsion in everything we do.
That is true but you can’t eliminate the attribute of deliberation, pondering the pros and cons, contemplation (that comprise the matter we call mind) which is part of the causal process, not separate from it.
There is a lot of unknowns, but you can’t clump everything together and just say nothing is settled when much is settled. It boils down to what you want to believe.
Who the hell said that? I never said people have to concur with me, but I do know that the people who don’t concur have absolutely no understanding of this book. That includes you.
They are wrong if they believe that free will exists, just as those who believe one plus one is three are wrong.
I know you feel compelled to make this nothing more than an intellectual contraption based on your assumption that this is nothing more. I asked you to please shorten your posts or break them up. I am hoping you will honor my request.
Until all causes that go into a moment can be gathered and thus until every moment can be predicted from anywhere in advance, determinism is unverifiable except analytically.
Analytically I have only seen attempts at verification in two forms: Value Ontology and Rational Metaphysics.
I find Value Ontology more powerful as a predictor, but I have great esteem for RM as well especially its founder James S Saint.
So you responded to satisfy yourself? You still satisfied? Isn’t that the opposite of what a wise man is?
So I’m curious, after you got the satisfaction, where did it go? Unless you’re still satisfied? Is that enough?
Is wisdom satisfaction? Does it thrill you to believe you’re correct?
Free will is the never ending cause and effect scenario(s) that one has the option of choosing. The present moment is a continuity of choice, which is an infinite string of options until dead.
Note, there is a beginning and an end, for cause and effect yes? So then where’s the middle? You think you are caused? Have an effect then just die? Do we look like cells? Unconscious and not able to choose our purpose? The fact that we have options and cause and effect is observable should be enough to show you there is more at play than only that. Does a cell self destruct because they want to or do they function to keep the body alive? Do we self destruct or try to keep ourselves alive? I’ve seen both forms of self destruction in the case of humanity but not in cells. So then how can both exist if everything is managed by a system of cause and effect that isn’t open to any sort of freedom? Which freedom would bring new. How did we evolve otherwise if no freedom or diverse multiplicity within cause and effect itself?
I mean if that’s how you wish to live your life, being an effect of others cause than so be it but in my life, I control my emotions to the best of my ability and I am not merely an effect to everything else’s causing or effecting me. How? Understanding the role attachment plays to satisfaction or desire/instincts. Your argument for greater satisfaction is pointless due to satisfaction barely lasting a minute and if that’s the case that you argue for your own satisfaction then you meet the quota of a fool and I am not calling you it, I am pointing out what is there according to Plato. It’s only satisfying if you have attached yourself to an idea you defend. Attachment brings a bias, so how can you be clear in your thought, logically or reasonably rather, if biased toward an idea that is your own?
Why would a ‘fool’ -have- to say something? For their own satisfaction right?
That means my response now will easily trigger you into responding because you will want a satisfaction from that addressing me, right? So tell me Peacegirl, how can I predict you if I am just an effect of cause or cause of effect, I don’t need a free will to choose to respond to you directly? I can just observe and I am bound by a need to respond to you? So I’m curious how can I observe the system while being in the system? Does that mean a cell in our body can as well? How can I predict you by observing you and the system? It just happened? I didn’t choose freely?
Are you claiming I do this for satisfaction as well? I could think of a million things I could be doing with my time 100x more satisfying and a quarter of those are probably sexual lmao. Wisdom is necessary to evolve, not because I wish to spend my life in the dark, learning through pain. Your satisfaction argument makes it seem like wisdom or pain is just a play jump house, a mockery. Wisdom and it’s pursuit is no satisfying and easy task. No proof? What’s society? Why isn’t everyone doing philosophy actively then? If it’s such a satisfying thing to pursue? Why and how are our achievements built off of suffering then? Fruits of labor aren’t made with being satisfied nor hope alone. It’s easy to say or think this /after/ the fact.
So there’s two or three possible choices or responses to me, I’ll let you figure those out on your own, they should be as clear as day.
Prediction is not at all necessary if you understand the true definition of determinism. Do you see the problem here? That’s the old way of thinking because it means we would have to determine in advance what will happen to prove determinism true. This is completely false.
No, that’s not what greater satisfaction means. I can’t communicate with you if are determined to be right without proof and you are only here to defend your position, which is a joke.
Let it go Artimas. You don’t have a clue.
OMG, please find another thread. I don’t say that lightly.
Your definition is fucked up to put it lightly.
to be cont…
Note, there is a beginning and an end, for cause and effect yes? So then where’s the middle? You think you are caused? Have an effect then just die? Do we look like cells? Unconscious and not able to choose our purpose? The fact that we have options and cause and effect is observable should be enough to show you there is more at play than only that. Does a cell self destruct because they want to or do they function to keep the body alive? Do we self destruct or try to keep ourselves alive? I’ve seen both forms of self destruction in the case of humanity but not in cells. So then how can both exist if everything is managed by a system of cause and effect that isn’t open to any sort of freedom? Which freedom would bring new. How did we evolve otherwise if no freedom or diverse multiplicity within cause and effect itself?
I mean if that’s how you wish to live your life, being an effect of others cause than so be it but in my life, I control my emotions to the best of my ability and I am not merely an effect to everything else’s causing or effecting me. How? Understanding the role attachment plays to satisfaction or desire/instincts. Your argument for greater satisfaction is pointless due to satisfaction barely lasting a minute and if that’s the case that you argue for your own satisfaction then you meet the quota of a fool and I am not calling you it, I am pointing out what is there according to Plato. It’s only satisfying if you have attached yourself to an idea you defend. Attachment brings a bias, so how can you be clear in your thought, logically or reasonably rather, if biased toward an idea that is your own?
Why would a ‘fool’ -have- to say something? For their own satisfaction right?
That means my response now will easily trigger you into responding because you will want a satisfaction from that addressing me, right? So tell me Peacegirl, how can I predict you if I am just an effect of cause or cause of effect, I don’t need a free will to choose to respond to you directly? I can just observe and I am bound by a need to respond to you? So I’m curious how can I observe the system while being in the system? Does that mean a cell in our body can as well? How can I predict you by observing you and the system? It just happened? I didn’t choose freely?
Are you claiming I do this for satisfaction as well? I could think of a million things I could be doing with my time 100x more satisfying and a quarter of those are probably sexual lmao. Wisdom is necessary to evolve, not because I wish to spend my life in the dark, learning through pain. Your satisfaction argument makes it seem like wisdom or pain is just a play jump house, a mockery. Wisdom and it’s pursuit is no satisfying and easy task. No proof? What’s society? Why isn’t everyone doing philosophy actively then? If it’s such a satisfying thing to pursue? Why and how are our achievements built off of suffering then? Fruits of labor aren’t made with being satisfied nor hope alone. It’s easy to say or think this /after/ the fact.
So there’s two or three possible choices or responses to me, I’ll let you figure those out on your own, they should be as clear as day.
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That wasn’t the definition of freewill, that’s why/how it is.
My definition for free will being self determinism is fucked up?
“1.
the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one’s own discretion.”
A fate is only a fate by the choice of what one may value, whatever it may be that one picks. The only thing determinism has set in stone is genetics, which genetics aren’t the sole or even the main cause of personality and genes can also be altered by environment, which we can choose environment. How else did we breed the dog out of the wolf?
I’ll leave the thread, but not because you told me to, because arguing with logic bots is pointless.
let me do this one, peacegirl.
by ‘toward greater satisfaction’, it is meant that at the level of some function of some system, sustaining some degree of stasis is being attempted. ‘satisfaction’ is not merely ‘what i like’, but actions that avoid dissonance, disintegration and local entropy. for example, if joe chooses to do x, but is in doubt about him oughting (wait is oughting a word?) to do x, cognitive dissonance will result… but here’s the kicker; this dissonance is not founded at the level of language or conscious thought, but in the very reasoning he’s developed as a conditioned response to historically similar experiences which, in turn, were not products of his ‘choice’. an entire series of habitual beliefs and certainties are accessed and processed at a neurological level during every individual decision to act… so satisfaction does not amount simply to ‘well i think this would be the better thing to do’, but instead inventories the motivation of a whole greater than the sum of its parts comprising a complete system… one which wants to sustain it’s stasis.
the big mystery is, for instance, why does, say, the failure of certain neurotransmitters to be reabsorbed by uptake valves on the dendrites result in a feeling of ‘whoa this is great’?
‘toward greater satisfaction’ presents the entire organism as one big hedonistic putz that even at an intellectual level is only striving to prevent dissonance from occurring. so all these wonderfully logic and rational arguments exist only for the sole purpose of preventing that lowest level of pain - the ‘uh oh i’m wrong’ - from happening to the organism. being wrong on a math problem is neuro-ontologically identical to bashing your shin on the front step… only it’s a different kind of dissonance, a different kind of breaking of stasis.
So then what happens when you don’t care if you’re right or wrong? What if you have no attachment to caring about being right or wrong? Preventing pain? When pain is the only thing that is not temporary? How is that a useful purpose… I understand it has a biological function and our knowing this offers a form of control, does it not? What is the point of knowledge or understanding then? If not a better point of being or controlling oneself more sufficiently?
Is there not one time where you choose the harder option and a not being satisfied biologically? Isn’t that how we learn?
There is always a better way but it can never reach a point of perfection because human beings are beyond that state
Gradual self improvement is therefore the best that we can do because that is simply how we develop as moral beings
With all due respect, this thread is probably not for you because you came in too late.
It’s fine to say you did something of your own free will if it means you had a choice (nothing was constraining you), but having a choice does not mean your will is actually free since you are compelled to move in a direction that you feel is the better choice in your eyes, not the worst.
I have said over and over that cause and effect doesn’t work when it comes to human choice. Nothing causes, so how can there be a direct effect?
You are misunderstanding the meaning of “greater satisfaction.” You are telling me I’m wrong because I have an attachment toward my idea. So if someone makes a genuine discovery, they can’t be right because they’re biased?
Your interpretation is incorrect because you have neglected to understand what he means by greater satisfaction.
Of course.
Obviously not because you would do those things.
Are you saying the only way we can gain wisdom is through war, crime,and poverty? 
Once again, you have completely misunderstood what he meant by this word. How can I even begin to explain this knowledge when you didn’t understand the first premise? Satisfaction does not mean pleasure or doing only those things that are easy to come by. A person may find greater satisfaction pursuing a difficult task that takes much sacrifice. You find greater satisfaction being here at this moment than being somewhere else, or you wouldn’t be here.
That is not how the word “free will” is defined. Freedom of the will means that given the same exact circumstances, we CHDO (could have done otherwise), which is false.
How we move about about this world is dependent on a combination of our genetics and environment. Environment plays a big role in how we interact with our world on a daily basis.
I can tell you jumped into this thread without a shred of understanding as to what it’s about.
If someone is suffering from hunger and steals from another, is he being immoral? IOW, if someone has been hurt, are they justified in striking back? Most children are constantly hurt by their parents, school, and society in general. Then when they explode in a murderous rage, we call them evil. It’s true that not everyone with a difficult background murders, because each person’s predispositions are different to a degree. These murderous rampages are just a symptom. Locking someone up (which may be necessary) doesn’t get to the root cause and is bound to happen again and again, which we are now seeing.
From my frame of mind what you are doing here is making nature the equivalent of the man holding a gun to your head. Nature becomes the “external” force giving you no choice but to choose what it compels you to do. But nature and you are one and the same from my point of view. The laws of nature compel you to “choose” only what you must. Without actually holding a gun to your head. In fact, you, the man with the gun and nature are all seamlessly [re the laws of matter] of but one necessary unfolding reality.
But how is this emotional state not in and of itself just another manifestation of nature embodied in your brain embodying the laws of matter.
Sure, but it still comes down to whether these flip-flops were ever actually something I was able to choose to make.
What if the alleged identifiable reason [not able to be substantiated by any of us] was embedded in the laws of matter? You change your mind at the last minute because [and only because] nature compelled you to.
Or: A libertarian would be compelled by nature to think you had a choice. His/her underlying belief system would be just like yours: entirely natural.
Exactly: Before, during and after a choice that you make, “I” is compelled by nature. You choose something precisely because nature has compelled you to desire to choose it.
Now it’s “repertoire”. Another word you were compelled to choose to confuse me. Thus moving this exchange along in the only possible direction it can go.
How can our reaction to anything not occur but only as it must if the changed conditions themselves occur only as they must?
Or: I am compelled by nature to only misunderstand.
Until you can explain to me how human contemplation before, during and after a choice to rob someone is not at one [from start to finish] with the laws of matter themselves you lose me.
Stealing to eat is not immoral because food is a necessity not a luxury
Striking back when attacked is only moral when self defence is needed
Parents and teachers are no longer allowed to hit children but in my day they were and both hit me
Evil is a way of separating the most immoral from everyone else although given the acts that it describes it is understandable why the term is used
But when it is tolerated by the masses even though it may be initially perpetrated by one individual it becomes more acceptable - it becomes banal
Most psychopaths probably dont murder as most non psychopaths dont too
But you are far more disposed towards it if you happen to be a psychopath
Sometimes it is not psychopathy but something else entirely - anger - jealousy - lust - greed - revenge
Unlike psychopathy these other traits exist within the general population so are impossible to contain
Or: Of course because of course you were compelled to be.
And Edison was in fact able to demonstrate that the things he invented/discovered were in fact in sync with the laws of matter.
But: How might he have gone about demonstrating that he was not compelled by nature to invent these things involving precisely the sequence of choices he made? That, in fact, he invented them of his own free will.
Right. Until we get to the “for all practical purposes” implications of that pertaining to an actual choice that she makes. Then this choice that the free will folks embrace becomes this “choice” that you advocate instead.
In other words, nature compels you not to demonstrate this at all. Instead, nature compels me to insist that this is just another example of you wiggling out of not noting an example of this.
Thus…
But then when I ask for the demonstration…
We get this…
Wiggle. Wiggle. Wiggle.
That’s how nature has compelled me to react.
Always and ever you insist that I must “choose” to read the book that [up until now] nature has in fact compelled me not to read!
On the other hand, one day nature may well compel you to “spoon feed” his demonstrations to me and “progress” will then have been compelled in turn.
And then this [again]:
My point summarily dismissed by something as substantiveless as this.
I am only compelled [once again] to ask why you avoid addressing this more in depth.
Or, if we do possess some measure of autonomy, not compelled. Just curious.
You must know that this is just more wiggling around addressing my point here. You’re only hope in my view is that you really are compelled by nature to respond here as you do.
You keep insisting that you are not an objectivist here. And I keep insisting that this is only because nature has compelled you to insist this. That in a wholly determined universe someone calling you an objectivist and you claiming not to be one is all necessarily embedded in our only possible reality.
Why don’t we just let nature decide which of us is more confused here. 
Unless, of course, there is God and He created nature. That is, before He created us to be a part of it. Then things get particularly complicated. How can mere mortals ever have free will if an omniscient God knows everything? So, on top of being compelled by the laws of nature to do only what we must, we are compelled in turn by an omniscient God to do only what He already knows we must.
In any event, you insist here that you choose but it is not a real choice. Again, what on Earth can that possibly mean?
You know, for all practical purposes.
How? Why? Well, don’t expect that to be covered by the author. That part is inherently irrelevant to his discovery.
Note to others:
You think? Just an “off the wall” comment? Excused by her because, well, I couldn’t help but articulate it.
Which ironically is my point!
Nothing can be “off the wall” in nature if nature and its laws encompass everything there is.
Though my point here still being just an existential leap I have taken given what “here and now” I happen to believe going all the back to all the things I still don’t know about existence itself.
That’s just what objectivists do though. They clump together their own intellectual assumptions and definitions and say everything [that is important to them] is settled despite what may well be a staggering amount of knowledge that they don’t know about existence itself.
The idea being that as long as what they believe in their head is true sustains at least some measure of comfort and consolation, fuck all that other stuff. Their own particular “I” is grounded in one or another TOE. If that works, why not just let it keep on working.
As for shortening my posts, how have they ever not matched the length of yours?
Still, let’s at least pin this down, right?
Again, as though the length at which we “choose” to post here is not in turn only the length that nature has compelled us to post.
Oh, but you’re not blaming me here are you?