I request that anybody else not make posts here, I want to keep it streamlined and focused.
Iam, this isn’t a debate, just a conversation, and I’m really only intending to walk you through my thought process, not so that you come out of the other side a compatiblist, but that you hopefully come out of the other side with more of an understanding of why compatiblists think what they do.
I’m also, strictly speaking, not exactly a determinist. I don’t know if you know that. My view of physics definitely has space for a very real sense of randomness.
Before we get into the meat of the matter, I want to understand what it is we already have in common about our world views. I understand that both of our world views don’t include any sort of divine creator, is that correct? And would you disagree with us limiting this conversation to a purely material view of the world? Ie no need to propose a special “mind realm” that has bidirectional communication with the physical world - would you agree, for the sake of this conversation, to just assume that the mind is a product of our physical brain?
You can say no to that, we can probably work through that anyway, up to you, but it will make the conversation easier.
And that’s because given “the gap” and “Rummy’s Rule” here…
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.
…you really have no capacity to know definitively yourself whether of your own volition you freely opted to begin this thread or whether your brain wholly in sync with the laws of matter compelled you to post it in the only possible reality in the only possible world.
That “metaphysical” quandary that has preoccupied philosophers [and scientists] going all the way back to the pre-Socratics here in the West.
I mean, you’re not another peacegirl are you?
Well, in that case [click] back to this:
What would you tell Mary if she asked you “if I was compelled by my brain to abort Jane – was never able not to abort her – how can I be held morally responsible for doing so?”
Then [from my frame of mind] this part:
Unless of course in a wholly determined universe as some understand it, the compatibilists themselves are never able to not insist that she was morally responsible.
Well, here I often ask others to imagine that the universe is divided up between libertarian free will sectors and hardcore determinist sectors. So, aliens up in the free will sector are observing us down here in the determinist sector. Their own conjectures about the existence of God are made given whatever measure of autonomy that they have. But they note that we Earthlings also speculate about the existence of God. But what they know that we don’t is that our own speculations are only as our brains compel us to speculate. So, “here and now” I don’t believe in God given the existential trajectory of my life…but the existential trajectory of my life is but another inherent/necessary manifestation of the only possible reality in the only possible world here in the determinist sector of the universe.
Then what?
Okay. But then there will always be those who insist that, even leaving God out of it, “wait a minute, how can you possibly know – how can you possibly demonstrate – that we what construe to be reality is not just a solipsistic state of mind, or a sim world or a dream world or a red pill/blue pill Matrix contraption?”
Back to the Flatlanders groping futilely to grasp our own three-dimensional world. The “surreal” imponderables that we are all ensnared in. Given all the other possible dimensions which may exist.
Even that which is suggested to exemplify randomness in the quantum world may well be just what we still don’t understand about it.
You invited me to give you a rundown of the thought process I have, but this post of yours indicates you’d rather focus on your own thoughts than mine. If you want to know why someone is a compatiblist, you’ll have to do more listening. I’m here to explain the thought process as it works for me. That’s what I thought you were interested in when you said “let’s hear it”.
As I said in the opening post, I want to keep this streamlined. We’re here for a specific purpose: you said “let’s hear it”, which means you’re here to actively listen. We cannot keep a clear, streamlined focus on the goal if you’d rather just talk about your own ideas.
If you do want to talk about your own ideas, you should start a thread to do that.
I’m sure everything I’ve said sounds very rude, but I started this thread for a reason, to offer a very specific service to you, and I want to focus on that and only that.
Simply unbelievable. Well, given my own [compelled or not] reaction, of course.
If you wish to pursue these “it’s all about iambiguous” word games, let’s just move on to others instead.
On the other hand, if you do have an interest in encompassing your own understanding of compatibilism given this…
…let’s hear it.
Forget that I am here altogether. It’s just you and Mary. It is all about being “streamlined” with her. Only provide her with an actual argument that compatibilists might give explaining to her how, even though there was never any possibility of her not aborting Jane going back to whatever set into motion the laws of matter [including “somehow” living brain matter], she is still morally responsible for doing so. Just not in the way that the libertarians might encompass free will.
No, it sounds ridiculous. It sounds like the sort of “wiggle, wiggle, wiggle” intellectual contraption posts I get from AJ over at PN in regard to race and Jews.
Note to the compatibilists here:
Same thing. Pretend that I am not here at all. It’s just you and Mary and the surreal assumption that – click – you do have free will and can opt to choose of your own volition how determinism and moral responsibility are compatible.
Oh, and for her and the other God World folks, have a go at reconciling an omniscient God with human autonomy.
And an important point is that, given whatever measure of free will I might have, I flat out admit this may all be about me simply not understanding compatibilism in the most rational manner.
You don’t understand compatibilism because of your own framing. This thread is for me to offer you an alternative framing so that you can understand it. Not agree with it, but understand it.
I can’t do that if every chance you get, you try to force your own framing into the conversation. This thread isn’t about your framing. Your framing is why you’re confused, this thread is for clearing up the confusion, we can’t clear up your confusion caused by your framing by staying in your framing.
When you say “let’s hear it”, that means you want to listen. I haven’t even started to share my ideas before you started taking over, so this isn’t listening. How can you hear when you can’t listen?
Biggie, to know what we are going to choose, and even to sustain the conditions or context within which we choose, is by no means to choose for us. Dr. William Lane Craig calls it concurring. Others call it God’s permissive will.
There’s other stuff (C Theory of Time) but I wrote a whole paper on it and this thread is not my thread. Plus the user formerly known as ecmandu needs to remember his password, in my humble opinion.
