Determinism

Well if I could tell you that, it wouldn’t be very Zen, would it?

My intent was not to discredit the author. Which is you, you are the author I am addressing. It was to address the specific questions about your hypothesis that I raised, which I did. Maybe with a heavier hand than I intended. My apologies, I haven’t watched golf in a while.

Sureley, though, this is worth a re-read and some contemplation. Not only for the justification of Nazi concentration camps, but what the statement might imply about your own approach in this (political) hypothesis.

I won’t beat a dead horse to death, or whatever, thank you for your answers.

Oh, one of those.

Young grasshopper, in Zen, they are all one of those.

The sound of a bell being struck rings in the distance.

[quote=“Aventador”]

My intent was not to discredit the author. Which is you, you are the author I am addressing.

Peacegirl: I’m not the author.

Aventador: It was to address the specific questions about your hypothesis that I raised, which I did. Maybe with a heavier hand than I intended. My apologies, I haven’t watched golf in a while.

Peacegirl: It’s okay

[quote="peacegirl"They could justify their actions. They were under the auspices of determinism.[/quote]
Aventador: Surely, though, this is worth a re-read and some contemplation. Not only for the justification of Nazi concentration camps, but what the statement might imply about your own approach in this (political) hypothesis.

Peacegirl: The Nazis felt justified to kill Jews based on a false belief that the Jews were responsible. Beliefs can be powerful motivators however wrong they may be. The age of politics is coming to an end only because it won’t be needed at this stage of man’s development.

Aventador: I won’t beat a dead horse to death, or whatever, thank you for your answers.

Peacegirl: You’re welcome

Okay, given your own understanding of determinism/free will/compatibilism, was there ever a possibility that you could have opted instead to post that I am relevant?

In other words, given the real deal free will world as I understand it, there is only a mystery here for those who don’t think exactly like you do about this. Thus for Ierrellus, God is still a mystery because he refuses to think about religion in exactly the same way that you do. Whereas in my own discussions with him, the mystery revolved more around theodicy.

Here of course any attempt to grasp this fully can only involve grasping fully in turn how mindless/lifeless matter somehow managed to configure into mindful/living matter given the evolution of biological matter here on planet Earth.

Got a handle on that yet?

Now, given what we seem to know about interactions in the either/or world, we can choose to do and then to accomplish things that we have learned to accomplish. I can choose to type these words. But: Why did I want to choose them?

Again, I wanted to only because I was never able to not want to. Why? Because everything I choose to do or want to choose to do is an inherent/necessary manifestation of the only possible reality given the inherent/necessary nature of the laws of matter. Only science and philosophy are still grappling to understand exactly what that means. For example, going back to what it does mean going back to a complete and comprehensive understanding of existence itself. Even your own [at times] caustic arrogance here is somehow entangled in that.

Right? Or do you have a handle on that too.

Now, again, flicking the switch to the real deal free will world, I want you to be completely honest here and admit that others can only be honest when they think exactly as you do in regard to God or determinism or [I suspect] moral and political value judgments.

Oh, and what prompted you to suppose that I am an advocate for “radical free will” when “here and now”, existentially, I am instead an advocate of determinism.

Though certainly not radical hardcore determinism. After all, how can my own “wild ass guess” be any more demonstrable than…yours?

As for Heidegger, let’s take your understanding of his understanding of all this and discuss it in regard to, say, Nazi Germany?

You are the Dasein lover, not me.
Not that Dasein has fuck all to do with Nazi Germany.

Note to nature:

Thanks for the opportunity to challenge him given the illusion that we live in a free will world.

So, how’d he do?

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I hear that!

Have you had a mental event?
Would you like me to call you a doctor?

No, I hear this:

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On the other hand, given a free will world down here on planet Earth, if you think you can sustain an intelligent exchange with me in regard to the points raised here…

…by all means let’s have a go at it.

If not, then, sure, call the doctor. One from the VA okay?

Have you read Arthur Schopenhauer?


A man can do as he wills, but he may not will as he wills.

We can act of our own volition freely, but we are not ultimately in control of how and why we desire to do things.
In a sense this way of thinking predicts the idea of the subconscious. A deeper place wherefrom all needs and desires come.

Send for the men with straight-jackets.

peacegirl -

I have asked a couple of times for what kind of environment would allow for the teaching of determinism to result in a higher ethical behavior of people. I think I might have run across that very answer as doing a credibility analysis on James’ Physics of Psychology thread.

It is appearing to me that the teaching of Lessan’s theory concerning determinism globally would only work to create more ethical behavior if accompanied by James’ deterministic model of how the mind works. And I imagine the standard would improve considerably - changing the entire world toward less conflict and violence - “evil”.

Peacegirl: It could be. Lessans always said someone else could make this discovery because it’s part of the real world, not the imagination.

Peacegirl: The bottom denominator will be the same regardless of the myriad ways that got us to this point in our history.
———-

Peacegirl: Observer524, no! This is not a conversation that won’t cause misunderstanding. It most likely will but at the very least we need to make a concerted effort to avoid the basic pitfalls due to lack of communication!

If anyone is still interested in this book, the first three chapters are below:

declineandfallofallevil.com/ … APTERS.pdf

Determinism versus Determinism
Nurana Rajabova is determined to sort it out.

Okay, how, experientially/experimentally, would he go about demonstrating this? Neuroscientists and others exploring these relationships today are still unable to pin down if what it is said Hume believes here is true. Again, unless of course someone here can link me to that definitive assessment. Although, come on, if science, philosophy and/or theology had been able to resolve it all definitively would it or would it not be discussed around the globe on any number of media outlets.

Yes, human beings would surely seem to be closer to “holding active creative power” then any other animal on the planet. But that’s not the same as fully explaining how lifeless matter evolved into living matter. Or how human consciousness itself was able to configure into free will. At least given how I understand it.

And what does Hume himself know about whatever it is that did cause the existence of matter…let alone the existence of existence itself. Instead, he, as with so many others, sat down and “thought up” a conclusion based solely on a set of assumptions that, so far, in so many crucial respects, are just “thought up”.

After all, do we or do we not “experience” pleasure and avoid pain in our dreams? I know that I do. The dream I had a few nights ago for example. There I “am” in a situation that was completely lucid to me. I’m at work in a company I was an employee in for 27 years. My employer is searching for me. Then in a sequence of events that were vividly real to me, I have to perform a task that will dissuade him from firing me. The turbulent tug of war between pleasure and pain, ever intertwined in my employment there, reached a point where had I not accomplished the task [placing a crucial order from our agent in Shanghai] it was over for me. I woke up barely able to distinguish between the dream world and the real world.

Again, as though he could provide us with the empirical evidence that does establish whether he “reconciled”, reconciled or “reconciled” moral responsibility with causality.

Yes humans actively take part in their creations in a way that, say, volcanoes don’t take actively part in that which is created as a result of their eruptions. But how on earth can he have known for certain that human choices are not in fact but psychological illusions rooted wholly in a brain utterly in sync only with the laws of matter.

Though, sure, whatever that means.

Everyday living demonstates this. What Neuroscience shows is that although we are all creative agents we are nonetheless determined by our experience.
It’s called Compatibilism.
But you seem to have had your eyes closed to it.

Okay, but did I “close my eyes” to it because my brain, wholly in sync with the laws of matters, compelled me to? Or did I close my eyes to it because having the capacity to think compatibilism through more rationally I might accept it instead? Or did I “close my eyes” to it in a way that peacegirl – and you? – suggest that I have? In other words, I gain greater satisfaction in closing my eyes to it even though given the manner in which I – here and now – have come to understand determinism, any satisfaction at all that I feel is as well rooted entirely in my brain functioning only as the laws of nature compel it to?

But back to Mary’s abortion.

Given your own understanding of compatibilism, was there ever the possibility that Mary would/could not have aborted her unborn baby/clump of cells?

Oh, and is this exchange going to be sustained intelligently or are you going to revert back to Shemp when I refuse to finally come around to your way of thinking about this? After all, I flat out admit that my own assessment here can never really be more than just a “wild ass guess”.

For one thing, I’m not a neuroscientist. And I sure as shit don’t have access to how the human condition itself fits into a comprehensive understanding of existence itself.