The way he describes free-will sounds like determinism.
Here for example:
(Interactions with others may or may not cause John to choose to act differently towards Jane.)
The way he describes determinism sounds like fatalism.
I very reasonably described to him exactly how determinism can be used to explain this change in mind, and he responded negatively.
I wonder if his disquiet about the possibility that decisions are determined by foregoing conditions forces him to caricature determinism as fatalism, because he scared of the idea there there is no radical free will.
Surely this is just childish argument from adverse conequences.
So rather than think reasonably he choses to thrash out.
I have to say that his apparent denial of compatibilism and his pressing for radical free will has far more adverse consequences that simply accepting that we all make choices based on our motivations, and that any radically free choices would be meaningless and random.
Determinism is not a predicted future but one in which actions have definable consequences, and he ought to be grateful for that simple truth.
He does that a lot.
It looks like he has absented himself from this thread.
Yes, reducing the them a to an ominous ‘paradoxical’ effect, entails the perception of the smallest degree of difference which is mere hypothetical.
And can such hypothesis still make sense?
Would you like Mayonaisse with that, or Olive Oil with Modena Balsamic?
We can’t reverse time and not choose what has already been chosen, but each moment we get to consider our options and choose on that basis. Fatalism implies that our choices don’t matter because our fate is not up to us. That is true looking back but before something is done we have the ability to contemplate and make a decision based on the circumstances. If a toddler was running into the street after a ball, we would not say it’s fate that the child get hit. We would do everything in our power to prevent a potential tragedy. If it was too late even though we did everything to prevent it, then it would be appropriate to say it was fate ordained. That’s the correct usage of the word. Ambiguous conflates determinism and fate to mean the same thing.
Fatalism is the no-no that is trollied out by those that erroneously believe in radical free will to falsely demonstrate the adverse consequences of determinism.
The fact is that determinism does not entail fatalism in any sense. Anyone wanting desperately to believe in radical free will needs only listen and pay attention more carefully to understand that determinism can encompass free-will, and that their own concept of free-will is totally bogus.
An example of fatalism follows.
If anyone has seen Lawrence of Arabia, in it on the march to Akaba Lawrence protects his servant from execution but later on he is caught red-handed and once again the sentence of death comes back to haunt him. This time Lawrence has to carry out the sentence himself.
Lawrence’s friend Auda Abu Tayi sneers and says " You should have let him die in the first place. I told you so! He was meant to die. IT WAS WRITTEN."
Fatalism imples that regardless of causative factors the future is unavoidable.
This is NOT what determinism suggests.
The future is stil unknown. Only an omnipotent, omniscient being would know the future.
Incidentally Such a being would also negate free will - radical free will or otherwise.
Determinism holds that our actions have causative consequences, that the choices we make are based on substantive causes, such as out learning and experience.
THere can be no room, value or meaning for radical free will, since a decision not caused by our volition, motivavtion, learning, situation, and experience is useless. If radical free will applies then what good would it do? If you want adverse consequences then radical free will has it all.
Imagine. Two worlds, indentical. You are asked to choose between the red car and the black car. At that moment a decision is only meaingful if the same on both worlds.
If a radical free will applies then the choice could be different. But what would such a decision based on. How could it be different and be you decision?
If you ask this question and agree that the two worlds would run parallel, then you are a determinist.
If you ask this question and think they could divert then you might think you believe in free will but all you have is randomness. Random choices are worthless and meaningless. IS that all radical free will amounts to or is there more?
I think iambiguous’ problem is that he finds radical free will attractive, and has made a sort of fetish about Rand and Heidegger. but utterly lacks the intellectual skills to understand how to argue for his point of view.
If he had actually read Being and Time he would have uncovered the fact that Dasein is wholly deterministic and that it differs only from the “survival based” determinism of animals, in so much as it involves more interesting determinants that go beyond base purposes, that humans are capable of determining their purposes for themselves.
cit. In Heidegger’s Being-centred project, these are the conditions “which, in every kind of Being that factical Dasein may possess, persist as determinative for the character of its Being” (Being and Time 5: 38).
Dasein, far from being anti-determinism is a theory in which a thicker understanding of human necessesity is revealed.
References to the deterministic quality of Dasein are littered throughout his work. Heideggers is at pains to show the how this work. How the human agent is himself a causative factor of change. Dasein lies between the “throwness” and the “projection” of your selfness.
As for Rand. You can’t expect philosophy from a second rate novelist.
iambiguous would distract the child and strike up a conversation about how his views are rooted in objectivist intellectual contraptions and ask him to explain how his running in the street is related to dasien and moral conflicting goods.
And after the child was run over he would - “Note to others: see how I have reduced him down to not answering my reasonable questions?”
Over and again I have “attempted”/attempted to “note”/note the differences.
We are clearly “stuck”. Or stuck. Or as I have “attempted”/attempted to understand peacegirl, “stuck”.
Maybe one day you will have a particularly vivid dream in which John is on trial for raping Jane. You wake up and think, “wow, the whole thing was just a dream! Chemically and neurologically my brain invented the whole fucking thing! But it seemed so real!! I’d swear it was as though I wasn’t dreaming at all.”
Iambiguous: The ability a free will John would have is the capacity to opt not to rape Jane. After, say, a discussion with me in which I asked him to think back on his life experiences in order to probe how he came to want to. And why he might come to think instead that he shouldn’t want to.
Peacegirl: A no free will John would also have the ability to opt NOT to rape Jane. Where does the ability of a “free will” John differ from a “no free will” John in this regard? We are back to definition which is muddying the issue. Finally, where does asking him questions about his life experiences in order to possibly change his mind, fall out of the boundaries of determinism? We are constantly given different options to choose from. You can’t seem to grasp (we know it’s beyond your control) that this is a human attribute which does not equate with freedom of the will.
The compatibilists try to reconcile determinism with free will by creating a definition of free will that upholds the legal definition in a court of law. But the truth is we cannot have free will and no free will just as we cannot be dead and alive. It is a logical contradiction.
I think that my other recent post in this thread applies here:
Dreams are completely fabricated in the mind. Reality is not only in the mind.
If John goes through with it, he still has to be rehabilitated or locked up. That’s not going to change in your ‘new world’.
We’ve already been there:
[b]Now, one more time: Given your understanding of Saint’s understanding of determinism in the post you noted above, what would he make of all this?
Or am I “deflecting” again?
[/b]
Come on, Mr. Wiggle, Wiggle Wiggle, don’t make me resort to the C word again. 
Okay, explain to me how and why your mind and the laws of matter are intertwined to create your reality. And how the reality you experience in the waking world is, well, just somehow more the real deal than the dream reality.
To wit: Satyr, Saint, obsrvr524, peacegirl and all the other compatibilists: “It just is!”
In other words, at least admit that, as with me, your own assessment here can never really be more than either a “wild ass guess” or a wild ass guess.
Phyllo: If John goes though with it, he still has to be rehabilitated or locked up. That’s not going to change in your ‘new world’.
Peacegirl: It’s understandable that you can’t envision a world in which the mere thought of hurting another would never enter someone’s mind. Once you understand the power of this law, it will be easier to see why these crimes will be coming to an end.
Since when is this thread about the difference between dreams and reality??
If the thought does enter his mind and if he acts on it, he gets rehabilitated/jailed. Call that “punishment” or something else. :-"