- Voluntary & involuntary biological systems
- Self-conditioning (behaviorism)
- The transcendent-immanent one who began the whole thing as a completed in-progress work sustains all temporal choices (including any that mess with time)
Yes. However, we do not know what has been determined. We walk in ignorance, but walk we do.
Given that we’re still moving through this life, we can try to move towards ideal futures that are still seemingly possible.
Questioning ourselves and each other, plays it’s own pivotal role in the path of history.
To dismiss the relevance of our actions in the unfolding of reality, is to neglect our own experience.
What I’m trying to emphasize is that we matter to ourselves and each other - and our decisions still have impact.
Even if it’s all inevitable, we still walk our paths - we still take the good and bad on our chest.
To say our actions aren’t relevant, is to sell ourselves short - as a butterfly’s flap may path the way to unforeseen results, so too do the makings of our lives.
This discussion influences me, as it perhaps influences you - even in the slightest way. A link in a chain.
To one who does not seek the reduction of purposeless suffering, I hope it is determined for them to be influenced away from that.
It’ll be as it’ll be. We can still try though - come what may. And when all is said and done, it had to be this way.
Compatibilism
David Agler
Of course: Scratch subject X.
Let X = Merrick Garland indicting Donald Trump. Garland desires to indict Trump because Garland deems it rational to indict Trump. But how exactly can Garland be free to indict Trump “since there are cases where it is true that were Garland to desire to indict Trump, they would both have the power or ability to indict Trump and nothing would prevent them from indicting Trump”.
Huh? Nothing could prevent him from indicting Trump. Why? Because given that his brain is wholly in sync with the laws of matter, he was never able not to indict him.
Note to compatibilists:
Again, what am I missing here?
Yep, that works for me. Why? Because it was such that, here and now, it was never able not to work for me. On the other hand, what do the laws of matter have in store for me down the road? Will one day a new configuration of matter compel me to embrace compatibilism?
Then this:
Again: Huh?
Given the Garland/Trump context above, you tell me. Compelled or not.
Okay, as long as you are willing to accept that, as of now, we seem to have no way to determine beyond all doubt if we are moving/walking into the only possible future there can ever be.
And, even given a definitive scientific/philosophical conclusion that human beings on planet Earth are in possession of autonomy, free will, volition…whose ideal future?
And here you are with a Dalai Lama avatar. Suggesting, what, that an ideal future revolves spiritually around Buddhism?
Then [from my frame of mind] a typical “general description spiritual contraption” approach to all this:
Whose questions? Whose answers? Given what context? Predicated on what set of moral and political and spiritual assumptions regarding the “human condition”.
Buddha’s?
And then the part where you either will or will not consider that your own spiritual path here is but one more subjective/intersubjective embodiment of dasein…“I” given the life you’ve lived existentially.
I’m a hard determinist so questions directed at compatibilists aren’t for me - even if I may seem like one.
Our actions contribute to the future result, shaped by a chain of events prior. I believe it is our ignorance that gives us the sense of possibility - we do not know, so we cannot determine which possible future is accurate. If a supernatural being free from the chains of cause and effect came into our existence and erased a person - the absence would affect the trajectory of existence. My point? Our lives contribute to the result - we restrict the future, forcing the hand of future events.
What our actions do change and influence, is our expectations - our predictions of the future. Our actions often lead to predictable results. If I walk off a cliff, there’s an expectation of a result that follows. If I don’t want this result, I should rationally avoid walking off cliffs - or act in another way to change the expected result, i.e. wear a parachute / wingsuit.
One can believe both that the current state of existence is determined by the prior state of existence, and that one’s will is not free - while simultaneously acknowledging that one isn’t aware of what the prior and current state of existence have determined of the future. Given these, one is left in a position where one can hope and strive towards possible futures that are preferred. If we knew exactly what was going to happen, then there’s no room for hope.
I’m not a Buddhist. I have deep respect for the Dalai Lama and his teachings / wisdom. It makes me happy to be reminded of him.
I think his teachings regarding compassion, kindness, tolerance and gratitude can increase the quality of life for many when practiced.
We each may strive towards our own conceptions of what is a preferred future.
The root of our preferences, however, aren’t really so different IMO.
My path is my own and I wouldn’t ask of another to walk it.
Again though, a preferred path may cross many common landmarks.
How can something with no effect erase that which was already the result of a cause?
Compatibilism
David Agler
There you go. If you are determined by the laws of matter to read these words then you lacked the capacity to opt not to read them. And if that is the case and another lacked the capacity to not insist that not reading them is immoral how could you be held morally responsible for not reading them other than because whoever holds you morally responsible was never able not to.
Yet thinking this through given the possibility that we have free will also seems to revolve around the assumption that we may not have it…and we suggest the possibility that we do only because we were never able not to.
Yet there does not appear to be either a scientific or a philosophical – or a theological? – resolution to any of this. Or, rather, none that I am aware of.
Same thing. Basically, we are stuck here trying to connect the dots between words that we may or may not be compelled to choose and a world going back to an understanding of existence itself that we may or may not ever fully understand.
Okay, but some hard determinists would be compelled to argue that I direct at you only what I was never able not to direct at you. And that you were never ever able to opt not to point this out to me.
Absolutely nothing that we think, feel, say and do is excluded from the laws of matter. Only we have no capacity that I am aware of to to pin down whether or not this is actually true.
Then [from my frame of mind compelled or not] you go on noting things to be as though you did in fact have the option to note other things…
How is this…
…really any different from how a libertarian might put it?
Contributions, beliefs, actions, expectations, acknowledgments…hoping, striving.
What…your brain allows for them in a way that is different from mine and everyone else’s in a wholly determined universe?
But, apparently, not really wholly determined at all for you.
Same thing. You have a deep respect for the Dalai Lama because you were never able not to have a deep respect for him. But what kind of respect is it that you were never able not to have? What on Earth are compassion, kindness, tolerance and gratitude if they are only ever what each of us could never not feel as we do?
Nope, one way or another human consciousness has to be explained scientifically and/or philosophically as matter…but a very, very different matter.
After all, why do you suppose so many explain that difference…spiritually, theologically. Some though God, others through…the universe itself? Buddhism is just another spiritual path to “enlightenment”.
But in a wholly determined universe as some understand it being enlightened or unenlightened is interchangeable. If, in fact, you were never able not to be either one or the other.
Well, from my frame of mind, even given free will, your path – morally and politically – reflects the embodiment of the points “I” raise on these threads:
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=194382
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=185296
And all I can do is to invite others to peruse those points and then, given particular sets of circumstances in the is/ought world, note for me why they are not applicable to them.
Again, assuming free will.
Easy.
Determinism does not matter for assessing culpability.
When a person determinedly breaks a law with the full knowledge of breaking the law, he is judged for the person he is not the choice he has made, since he was determined to make that choice he is to be punished for being the sort of person who commits crimes.
This is why we have “correctional” facilities, so that the hardships of imprisonment or the advice of rehabilitating advice might change the nature of the person and so cause a beneficial change.
If determinism is not true then change is not possible and we ought to throw away the key or kill prisoners if they have free will to chose to commit as many crimes as the will.
Intentional law breaking again depends on the level of culpability or capacity to understand the law.
So a fine tuning may not be necessary to interpret the meaning of the black letter, however , the fine line that is drawn between them rarely depends on an objective analysis, rather has more to do on the current mood of the judge who interprets it.
Some or most judges are practiced enough to do so prima facae or one look serves sufficient reason to hold or uphold that opinion.
The changes in application have at times no sufficient necessity to hold to that standard of opinion…
Sorry. X2
On the contrary, the truly hardcore determinists insist, there is absolutely nothing that we think, feel, say and do that is not wholly subsumed in a wholly determined universe.
What, assessing culpability is the one exception?
Thus from their point of view this…
…too is but one more inherent manifestation of the only possible reality in the only possible world.
Or, sure, in regard to prisoners and our reaction to them, that too is an exception to the immutable laws of matter rule. One of the dominoes that get away.
As though when someone breaks the law in a determined universe their knowledge of what they do is, as well, “somehow” beyond the reach of material laws.
And, yeah, it might be.
But then this:
FYI
To the best of my knowledge, Ichthus77 is a her.
And she is determined to love God.
Compatibilism
David Agler
But the quandary here always goes deeper. We can pose thought experiments like this…but we have no way of knowing if in posing them that too isn’t but another manifestation of the only possible reality. We are always stuck using our brain in order to determine what using our brain actually encompasses. That’s why Gods are invented. With Him we can anchor human existence itself in something that transcends human existence. Something that explains human existence. Something that gives human existence meaning and purpose.
Again: as though what we desire is not in turn wholly determined.
That’s where some here seem to go though. They focus in on human emotions or human intuition as though they were somehow qualitatively different from human thoughts. But, along with thoughts, where do emotions and “gut feelings” originate if not the brain?
It just seems reasonable to assume that if the human brain is matter and matter interacts with other matter in accordance with its “immutable laws” then nothing that is matter gets excluded. Not until God does reveal Himself and explains existence or science is able to establish beyond all doubt that human brain matter is the one exception to the rule here on planet Earth.
There is matter & there is conditioned matter.
Unconditioned matter may be better termed preconditioned matter if it is living matter (information in DNA encoded by…).
Conditioned matter is the result of erosion back to the most elemental, unless it builds up & fortifies. Up to what?
That which can be created or changed or shaped… is not essential. It is contingent.
When you take away all elemental matter, all conditioning… what is left of that which is in common between every person… even conscious AI?
We are each an image/spirit that will not return void to the programmer who gave it. We are free because we are not mere matter, and even matter comes from the programmer’s being. Even conscious AI with human programmers, because humans reverse engineer with elementals from the source.
We do not always self-condition, but if everything were just memes & genes, we never could. Weil would say… we never could WITHOUT them. I think that was what Dr. Rad meant to drive home with bringing up Spinoza.
Moral Responsibility and Determinism: The Cognitive Science of Folk Intuitions
Shaun Nichols,Joshua Knobe
Fully responsible? How can they be responsible to any degree at all “if every event is an inevitable consequence of the prior conditions and the natural laws”?
That’s the part I can’t come to grips with from the compatibilists…
“Mary, my brain, wholly in sync with the laws of matter, compels me to tell you that you were never able to freely opt not to abort Jane. But my brain also compels me to tell you that you are morally responsible for having done so.”
In other words, whatever “for all practical purposes” that means.
And whatever the hell we do here.
Either way, our intuitive, visceral, “gut feelings” are among the most mysterious reactions we have. Neither wholly rational nor wholly emotional nor even wholly conscious, it just seems to bubble up from “somewhere” inside us.
Thus…
Which takes us to the part where the sheer complexities of human psychology itself – partly ego, partly superego, partly id/ partly conscious, partly subconscious, partly unconscious/partly genes, partly memes – may be the place to go in figuring out exactly what that “somehow” is in explaining human autonomy.
Also, the mind-boggling mystery of human dreams. The part that seems perplexing [to me] beyond ever grasping.
Thus…
Then this part:
1] it hasn’t been pinned down yet
2] it’s not likely to be pinned before any of us here shuffle off our mortal coils
I believe I’ve offered you an explanation once before and yet you’ve forgotten it…
Determinism isn’t a circumstance where every atom in existence is responsible for every event. Consequently it’s not impossible to rule out all but one cause for a specific event… it’s like a domino effect.
Even though one might be able to trace cause and effect all the way back to the first domino… it’s not inaccurate to say the previous domino was entirely responsible for the current domino being toppled.
What’s more, things change a bit when this domino effect is applied to such complex systems as humans and their behavior, which consists of systems within systems to a treamondos degree… even though a person could not have done otherwise, what they have done could only be done if they possessed a certain character or quality… it tells us something about that person and how they function… You don’t need to have been the author of your own character in order to be judged and held responsible for it… you seem to be insisting that you do, but I fail to see why.
Who cares if you could not have done otherwise?
When it comes to responsibility and blame… No one cares if you COULD have been a different person… we only care about the person you ARE.
Or…
Your brain, wholly in sync with the laws of matter, compelled you to believe you offered me an explanation once before but my brain, wholly in sync with the laws of matter, compelled me to forget it.
Then back to this:
Then back to this:
Even though, going back to the first domino [whatever that means], the domino that is Mary was compelled to abort Jane, she is “somehow” still responsible for doing it.
Again, the aliens in the free will part of the universe hovering above planet Earth in the determined part of the universe noting that Mary did indeed “choose” to abort Jane. She is “responsible” in that if there is no Mary there is no abortion. Though there was still never not going to be that abortion.
Then, staying up in the “general description intellectual contraption” stratosphere…
Or, perhaps, he or she was never able not to succeed or fail to think, feel, say and do everything that he or she has ever thought, felt, said and done.
Someone link me to the definitive conclusions reached by those who actually examine and explore all of this experientially and experimentally.
Ah, of course!!
Merely assume that “somehow” caring itself both is and is not wholly in sync with the laws of matter.
I’m sorry but this is absurde to the point of nonsense…
Are you under the impression that determinism is a kind of mind control?
Like someone invades Mary’s mind and forces her to do stuff against her will?
Mary has an abortion because Mary WANTS to have an abortion.
It’s irrelevant whether or not an alternative universe COULD exist where Mary does NOT want an abortion… it has no relevance to THIS Mary and the consequences of her perusing her own goals in accord with her own will.
I think the point is that the will, and all actions of the will, is determined by experience. When you make a “free” choice it is the causally generated result of who and what you are at that moment. If it were otherwise it would just be random nonsense.
When the will is not “free” it is because of being compelled by outside forces. When acts of will are purely endogenous they are determined by the self.
But you cannot be free of yourself.
Exactly
From PN:
Click.
Quite the contrary.
Over and again, on any number of threads, I note I am no more able to resolve this centuries old conundrum than you are.
What, you don’t believe a part of me doesn’t agree that determinism is ridiculous? That I too “just know” that I am of my own volition typing these words and not other words?
Of course free will might be the real deal.
It’s just that, like you, I’m utterly incapable of explaining how it happened if it did happen. Though, unlike you, I don’t have whatever your own equivalent of God is “here and now” to bring it all back to my “soul” at the moment of conception.
Is that still your best guess? Is that what you still put your faith in?
Or, as with those like IC here, do you actually believe that you can prove it? A video of your own perhaps?
Sigh…
Ever and always from your end the assumption that ever and always from my end the things that I do I do of my own volition.
And, sure, going back to how the human condition itself fits into a definitive understanding of existence itself that may well be the case.
But then…
All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was “somehow” able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter “somehow” became living matter “somehow” became conscious matter “somehow” became self-conscious matter.
The link, please.