New Discovery

Man’s will is not free?? Why bother getting up in the morning! :confused:

Hi my real name, how are you? I don’t think you read the definition of determinism that this author has set forth. We are not robots or automatons reacting to a determinant with no will. You MUST read the first chapter and then you will see that getting up in the morning is a choice (although not a free one) that people can make, or they can go back to sleep, or commit suicide. Once they make a choice, they could have never done otherwise, at that moment, because it gave them greater satisfaction. If you really want to understand this, you need to study it and I’ll be here to answer questions afterwards. It is worthwhile reading in spite of everything that has been said to the contrary.

Your author seems to be a pessimist on the topic of choice. All his talk seems to be about lesser evils, when free will has more to do with choosing a positive good. Limitations on free will are not existential, that is, they are situational problems, not a problem with the will itself. I see his future world as an Orwellian one, where no one ever acts for what they really want. I think that’s the result of his position.

As for the first chapter, I tired of it since it seemed to be hackneyed discussion about how no one has ever discovered what he discovered and how this will revolutionise the world. Good luck.

By the way, I like your author’s underlining discussions after the arguments. I think it’s good rhetoric and it puts the argument into simpler language to understand.

It is not rhetoric. He tried very hard to make it as clear as he could, but when the world uses logic in so many arguments, they can’t tell the difference between fact and opinion. I have an uphill battle but I ain’t giving up. Maybe I will add one more chapter to help clarify certain things. It takes reading the entire book at least twice for understanding. I have been with this knowledge for many years and that is the only reason I have a clearer grasp of these principles.

Oh, I’m sure it is pretty flattering to compare yourself (or your author) to Galilei and the like.

You want your readers to be like young children, because you want them to believe

My occupation is not pseudo-philosophic - stop parroting my words. I have razed down your precious castle-in-the-air, and though I take it that you are attached to this castle - perhaps the original author was your father? -, I think this is a fine opportunity for you to grow up (become a woman instead of a girl). Our failures may be valuable lessons - if we are not too proud, or rather proud enough, to admit defeat. A little humility would be in place, I’ll agree with you on that: you come barging into a philosophy forum with your fancy theories and preach (not to mention accept) them as Gospel truth. You are no better than a Christian Fundamentalist who sticks to his Bible no matter what.

I will leave if there is no further interest. You won!

Just point out where I am “confused” if you can, instead of coming up with childish comparisons to simple mathematics.

I have a comparison for you, by the way. You think you have a thesis and an antithesis which together form a synthesis, and you think that both the thesis and the antithesis are right. Or, to put it differently, you have two premises and a conclusion, and because you believe both premises are true you believe the conclusion is true. But one of the premises is false. You think you have a case of 1+2=3, but you only have 1+0=1.

Oh, but there is further interest! From fellow believers like myrealname and what’s-his-name - Membrain! I remember Membrain’s leap of faith like it was yesterday… You share the same characteristic with him, namely the stiff refusal to relinquish your faith - and probably for the same reason: fear of uncertainty!

Confidence
c.1430, from L. confidentia, from confidentem, prp. of confidere, from com- intens. prefix + fidere “to trust” (see [b]faith[/b]).”
etymonline.com/index.php?term=confidence

But your “analogy” has no connection to my argument. I challenge you to tell me what the 3, the 6, the 4, the 8, and the 9 correspond to in your “analogy”. I can tell you what the 1, the 2, the 3, and the 0 correspond to in mine:

1: true premise (thesis)
2: true premise (antithesis)
3: true conclusion (synthesis)
0: false premise

You cannot make a person “do” anything against his will, as “doing” is an active occupation. But a person is not free to will or not to will. One cannot “bring up” the will to do something, nor can he repress it if the will is there (unless the will to repress, as the phrase bespeaks, is itself a will and thereby part of the equation whose resultant is what we call “the person’s will”. And the same goes for this will to repress as for any other will: it is a pathos, something passive, something suffered, something that arises, that is aroused. You cannot “choose” to make a will appear or disappear.

Of course you are, Jenny.

Who the hell is Jenny? Is this some kind of inside joke? [-X :stuck_out_tongue:

I am not angry; what makes you think that? But the premise is wrong, and your “analogy” applies more to you than to me: you probably don’t understand my deconstruction of it, perhaps because you’re not intelligent enough (I mean, you certainly are skeptical enough!..).

You can “convince” me that I am mistaken by pointing out the mistake I made, or making a logical argument for your premise. It is really a case of you defending your “knowledge” (belief) to the nth degree (and not with rational arguments but by repeating that it is “valid and sound”). I will again show you the breach I made in your supposedly waterproof argumentation:

“As you are contemplating hurting me in some way, I know as a matter of positive knowledge that you cannot be blamed anymore because it is an undeniable law that man’s will is not free. This is a very unique two-sided equation for it reveals that while you know you are completely responsible for everything you do to hurt me, I know you are not responsible.”
[Chapter Two, The Two-Sided Equation, with added emphasis.]

According to the writer, there are two knowledges here that are mutually exclusive. At least one of them must be wrong (and therefore his “knowledge” not be knowledge at all). You are either responsible or not responsible. As I agree that there is no free will (but determinism), I say you are not responsible.

You should also see that the following two statements are mutually exclusive:

  1. “No one is blaming you.”
  2. “You are blaming yourself.” (= what we call “conscience”)

As “no one” includes “you”, if it is true that you are blaming yourself, it is not true that no one is blaming you.

By the way, nothing can do anything to itself, but it is always a part of something (or someone) that does something to another part of it (for instance, if “I hit myself”, my hand is hitting another part of me - it cannot hit itself). The part of you that blames you is called “conscience”.

Except for the part I made bold, I agree. Funnily, the part that follows the sentence I made bold is in nowise an argument for the assertion I made bold.

But that consideration is part of your will. Will is always a will to something - it is not as if you have a will but you are free to choose what you do with it. The will we are currently discussing is your will to speak to me, not to do anything else (even though it may be the resultant of many disagreeing wills within you; but then the will to speak to me is the strongest of all those wills).

PG: Agreed!

Yes, because your character is too stubborn - or too thick - to listen to reason.

Because the law of noncontradiction says it has to.

I agree with the part I didn’t make bold. But the removal of all first blows is, according to your author, achieved as follows. As no one can relieve his conscience by shifting the responsibility for one’s actions, one must suffer the pangs of conscience which are aroused by hurting others, and as these are unbearable, no one will hurt others anymore. But this “logic” fails to take into account the fact that, if there is no free will, there is no responsibility. It’s as simple as that. There can only be pangs of conscience if one’s conscience tells one that “you should have done otherwise”; but this depends on the assumption that he could have done otherwise - which he couldn’t, as there is no free will.

Yes, because of the otherwise-ensuing pangs of conscience I mentioned above. But if my conscience blames me, I can tell my conscience that my will was not free, and thereby wash my hands of any responsibility.

But your hand was not free! So it wasn’t your hand’s fault.

Oh please. Remorse is only due to attachment. Enlightenment is freedom from attachment. So you are calling the enlightened “mentally ill”. That is pretty blasphemous.

It means that if one’s “conscience” is blaming one, one is blaming oneself, so then it is not true that no one is blaming one. As long as there is conscience, there is blame.

Before or after makes no difference. Everything is determinate before, after, and during the event.

Yes, I can. It is what Nietzsche called “the innocence of Becoming”. It means the absence of resentment. This does not mean the absence of war, however (indeed, Becoming is a struggle).

PG: There won’t be resentment because there will be nothing to cause that resentment, and when there is nothing to cause that resentment, then under the changed conditions there will be no reason to strike out at people who have not hurt you first. The same goes for war. War is not that difficult to prevent, once this law is put into effect. I can’t cut and paste this chapter because it is over 100 pages long.

This correspondence is closed.

PG: I’m curious as to what I said that upset you? If you didn’t like something I said, you could have given me the decency to tell me what it was and what was bothering you in the post. I never said anything to be nasty. So whatever you interpreted to be unacceptable is not something I did intentionally. What an unfortunate ending to a promising discussion. Take care.

A-huh…huh. Ah-huh-huh-huh-huh…hey Beavis…

…ah-huh-huh…“come on baby light my fire”…a-huh-huh-huh!!!

Yeah, yeah…mm-mm…fire! fire! FIRE!!!

Ummm…

Nevermind.

Dear Peacegirl, you are part of change in progress. In the past cultures have risen, flourished, solidified and fallen. At other times the solidification gives rise to the seeds of a new direction for a culture (re: Fritjof Capra’s “Turning Point”). Our culture is rapidly approaching the Turning Point. The Old has solidified and must decay. The new shoots of the future direction (yourself included) spring up at an ever-increasing rate. We flow with it doing what we MUST do and being who we MUST be. Do not cling to the aspect of the future you have witnessed or you may solidify. But if you do cling, you were always going to anyway. Just as I was always going to send this message.
My own vision concerns time - it doesn’t exist - and the repercussions of this for mankind. I constantly fall back into who I am, a condition I would dearly love to transcend and find myself clinging to the “importance” of my vision.
Time for the New Shoots to gather
Mosassam

Thanks for your thoughts Mosassam. I am in absolute agreement that we are reaching a turning point, and it is happening rapidly. We have no control because we are gravitating toward this New World, this Golden Age of man, where there are no wars and no hatred but still in accordance with the laws of our nature. But the universe must be ready for change and until we can wrap our minds around that fact that a peaceful world is not only possible, but inevitable, we will be angry at anyone who makes claims of this magnitude. I am just a messenger bringing knowledge that I have studied for a long time, and I feel a commitment to it because I know it is undeniable.

Until the world recognizes the scientific nature of what is being presented, we will live in the world of free will with the concomitant blame and punishment, and the misery that we have experienced since time immemorial. But I have hope that very soon there will be a quantum leap in understanding, and when this occurs the world will never be the same. I hope you continue to dream and trust your vision that a new world is coming, because it is God’s will which only means the laws of our nature including the law of greater satisfaction. I hope you continue to question and learn from this knowledge, because it is undeniable. Sincerely, peacegirl