Iambiguous: This from the woman who just a short while ago all basically abandoned this thread and insisted she would be posting on the New Discovery thread instead.
Peacegirl: I told you that I tried to use that thread but it didn’t gain enough traction. Anyway, what’s it to you?
Actually, it does make a difference what we believe and think about. Arguing over whether we have free will or not doesn’t in itself change anything (many people feel it’s like arguing over what came first the chicken or the egg), but when we learn the truth (that will is not free) we can discover those things that depend on this knowledge for their discovery. This truth of our nature is the gateway that unlocks the door to this discovery that was heretofore out of our reach.
Pood: Or, as peacegirl’s author would have it, she is compelled of her own free will to move in the direction of greater satisfaction, which, in her case, is having the last word — though this might be different under the changed conditions that would result if the author’s larger argument were manifested to everyone.
Peacegirl: This type of discussion wouldn’t even take place.
Pood: But this is interesting, because no matter what metaphysics you use, all our behavior looks exactly the same. So one could offer a deflationary account of determinism and free will and say that it simply doesn’t matter what metaphysics is employed, because there is no empirical way to distinguish among them.
Peacegirl: That’s just the point, there is a way which can be empirically proven by creating an environment where no one could get satisfaction from hurting another for his personal gain. If Lessans is right, and it’s possible to create such a world, how can anyone argue with proven success?
Click.
Having been around and around and around and around with Phyllo, peacegirl and pood here, I am “choosing”, choosing or “choosing” to discontinue further exchanges with them on this thread. In fact, I won’t even “read”, read or “read” their posts. So, they can “say”, say or “say” anything they wish about me.
Nature to iambiguous:
I agree. Enough is enough.
Now consider the experiments which have been done on free-will and determinism. The subjects were primed with ideas about either free-will or determinism and they changed their subsequent behavior. The physical reality, the physical mechanics of thoughts and decisions were unchanged. The beliefs of subject about their environment changed. If we live in a deterministic world, the subjects could be primed to act as if they had free-will or they could be primed to act as fatalists.
What if we do this to ourselves?
Prime yourself with ideas of free-will and freedom and you will act as if you really have free-will and freedom.
We are what we think.
We are what we think but what we think has everything to do with our environment. An experiment that tries to prime us to believe in free will or determinism would have no bearing on one’s conduct where it counts.
Fatalism is not what we are talking about here and would not change the fact that before something is done, we are not fated to do it, if we don’t want to. This goes back to the false idea that nature is forcing a choice on us without our permission. Once we act on something, and it doesn’t work out the way we planned, we can then say it was fate ordained, but not before. Experiments are often flawed in design such as Johnathon Skoolers experiment with college students that primed them to believe their will is not free. This allowed them to cheat and become less responsible, thereby [falsely] concluding that the belief in determinism would be detrimental.
On the contrary. Most people probably don’t think about the curvature of the earth most of the time. They act as if the earth is flat. And there is no problem with that unless you are doing something which directly depends on whether the earth is spherical or flat … like launching a satellite into space.
In fact, people move seamless between various ideas and abstractions all the time. But for some reason, philosophers like to come along and say “this is THE TRUTH and you must always think in this way”… Nonsense.
Pood posted an article which had a reference to an experiment with the opposite result.
Peacegirl: Can you link me to it?
Thank you for that phyllo. I must have missed it. It’s no surprise that free will is shown to be false. I will read this in its entirety as soon as I have a moment. This seems to confirm, through a different experimentation, that there’s no way man’s will could be free. This is something to be celebrated because it will allow us to achieve what we could never have done otherwise!!!
It doesn’t show that at all.
If it shows no free will to be true, then they are correct which Lessans has proved. He was right in spite of any disagreement to the contrary. Schooler’s experiment is flawed just as many others where the design is compromised. It would give the experimenter a false impression that determinism would cause someone to be less responsible which is categorically false. Do you see what is happening? What if these experiments prevented any further investigation because these experiments were assumed to be the final word? Am I asking too much to give this author a chance to prove his case, especially considering what is at stake here. What if we could prevent another 911 from ever happening again? Something to think about before telling me that it’s not possible.
Pereboom’s Four Case Argument against Compatiblism
John Danaher at the Philosophical Disquisitions website
Here we go again…
What exactly is being argued here? Doesn’t it depend entirely on whether the author has either been 1] wholly compelled by the laws of matter to believe and to write here what he could not have not believed and written, or 2] on whether, in a manner in which he or no one [to the best of my knowledge] fully understands, lifeless matter configuring biologically into the human brain “somehow” resulted in at least some measure of human volition, will, autonomy.
I start then with that obvious assumption: the gap.
Meaning that, right from the start, a resolution to the quandary is beyond our grasp. Unless, of course, you have thought yourself into believing that your own resolution is in fact the optimal or the only rational one.
Still, the peculiar argument [to me] that swirls around those who, compelled or not, manage to reconcile a belief in causal determinism with human responsibility. Either moral or otherwise.
Very, very intelligent men and women have “come” to this conclusion so there is no way I can rule out the possibility that the problem is me. My own inability “here and now” to grasp their frame of mind.
Sorry duplicate
dupe
Yes, but I think we are already there.
But since there is no desire to expunge the need or cause for violence then the status quo shall remain. This is probably due to the fact that there is a great deal of money to be made from the perpetuation of violence.
That’s probably part of the motivation for sure. But this doesn’t change the fact that when there is a better alternative than depending on violence to make money, humans will choose that option.
Will they??
Tell me then, why did the USA not spend the trillion dollars (they spent on 20 years of war) taking to the Taliban to get them to give up BIn Laden?
Why did they not provide a trillion in aid, with conditions about letting girls go to school?
Why did they choose to loot the tax payer in a 20 years war that left 150,000 civilians and 3000 service people dead?
They had that choice. Afghanistan could have been transformed into a modern looking state.
But the US chose to spend 20 years to replace the Taliban with one that was more aggressive and better equipped.
And why is it that police, chose to shoot rather than go to the trouble of arresting, charging and filling out lots of paper work?
Why was Iraq invaded on a series of lies?
What motivated the USA to support a dictatorship in Vietnam and wage a useless war that brutalised 3 nations in SE Asia and an entire generation of American youth?
Money is the answer.