Freedom is another word, admittedly, however the word has two derivatives:
The first is, the dialectically relevant , rehardless of the developmental schema relating to time and space.it has been reified as a human and social right. The second done has been drastically realized as a pragmatic propositional value, and yet still relatively connected , at least tengentially to the common sense interpretation of what freedom and free will imply.
The very least developmental , structural and functional connection. , entailing the very general sense of social constructive standards of the self relating to its social objects and objectives , is within the the scope of reductionism, whether be phenomenological or eidectuc.
As space and time evolve, the ground of structural fidelity this out as it were, into less permeable and transparent structural basis.
To use common sense describes by rhetoric , does lead into less cohesive way to avoid paradoxical interpretatiions.
This is where we are today, and the political reality is using this , to create a faux foundation .
This thinning foundation. given rise to less continuous, apparently less continuum between such notions as freedom , will, and responsibility.
As a result the functional derivitive will become questionable, resulting of question reduced to inarguably notions.
From my frame of mind [which, admittedly, may well be wrong], it’s not what she is saying in a wholly determined universe that really matters. Instead, it is whether or not she was ever free to say something else instead. Just as it is not how I react to what she says that matters. Instead, it is whether I was ever really free to react in a manner other than I did.
This going all the way back to whatever propels/compels matter – all matter including the human brain/mind – to unfold only as it must given those ubiquitous “laws of matter”.
In other words, how do we fully explain the relationship between the brain and the mind? And then, for the faithful, the soul.
Again, imagine a hypothetical universe in which aliens who reside in an autonomous zone are observing us on Earth — a planet embedded in a wholly determined zone. They note this exchange in which we discuss things like blame. But what they observe are thoughts and feelings and utterances and behaviors that were only ever going to unfold as they do. In other words, from my way of thinking, as though here on Earth we are all just the equivalent of Nature’s dominoes toppling over onto each other. Yet they note in turn how the evolution of matter on Earth into life into human brains has created a matter actually able to convince itself that blame is embedded in what we were compelled to call “free will”. But that’s just a psychological illusion inherently, necessarily embedded in an ontologically determined reality. At least on our planet.
Whether we learn or not, whether we change or not…what on earth does it mean [for all practical purposes] to speak of this as unfolding “unfreely”?
It makes sense to you and to her and to others in a way that I simply don’t get. But she makes it appear to me that I could get it if only I’d “come around” to her way of thinking. Meanwhile she is acknowledging [or so it seems to me] that there is no way in which I was ever free to come around.
I’m clearly missing something here that somehow I am able to not miss. But how exactly would I go about that in a wholly determined universe?
Might inevitably take? Okay, how is that communicated by mere mortals to Mother Nature? The entity that seemingly commands all matter to unfold per her “laws”?
Isn’t that a powerful reason why mere mortals invent Gods? That way the dots can be connected – connected teleologically – between Mother Nature and a “meaning”, a “purpose” behind existence itself.
Only for all practical purposes in a determined universe we could never have not invented the Gods.
Yeah, and [for me] that is exactly what the autonomous aliens are telling themselves. They note changes that were never able not to be on planet Earth.
Meanwhile, they report back to their superiors on the home planet and they are judged as to how accurate their assessment is. And then blamed for the parts they get wrong. Why? Because they actually were free [up to a point] to not get it wrong.
And here is where I then switch gears from things able to be gotten right or wrong in the either/or world, and things only able to be judged as right or wrong in the is/ought world.
How does “everything” here not include a choice to either throw up or not throw up our hands?
Hell, in this world there are those who would actually choose to throw the baby into the street themselves. Watch enough “true crime” docs and there is almost nothing that flesh and blood human beings won’t do to sustain what they have come to construe as in their own best interest.
But: Have they come to construe this freely of their own volition? How is that determined beyond all doubt?
If nothing else, I take exception to the manner in which you present your argument here as an objectivist. As though regarding a question this philosophically baffling, you have already pinned it down.
Acknowledging in turn that you could never have not convinced yourself that you have pinned it all down.
I’m more than willing to concede that even in accepting that we do possess some measure of autonomy, there is almost no chance that what I think is the case here is wholly in sync with an actual understanding of existence itself.
We are responsible in that the choices we make precipitate consequences. I once walked around a corner, spooked a dog, and the dog ran into the street and was hit by [of all things] an MTA bus! It died.
Now, I’m responsible for its death though few would insist that I am in turn morally culpable.
But: In a wholly determined unvierse, what aspect of this incident was it ever really possible for me to freely change?
Yes, we choose things and there are consequences. But are we ever really free to not chose them?
Same with the incident with the policeman. Were the interactions of matter unfolding in his brain responsible for the shooting? Was he ever able to effectively control those interactions? How do these relationships “work” for all practical purposes? And here neurologists and others are attempting – using the scientific method – to establish that. Materially, phenomenologically, existentially.
But it seems [to me] that you are suggesting that only if their findings [based on empirical evidence gathered and then collated experimently] come into sync with your already established conclusions [deductions, intellectual contraptions] will they be right.
In my view, this is far more a psychological contraption that you concocted allowing you to imagine a future in which human interactions are more in sync with behaviors [re conflicting goods] that appeal to you as “right” and “just”.
And this allows for the sort “comfort and consolation” that comes with at least being able to imagine a more “progressive” future for our species.
Only, from my way of thinking, given a wholly determined universe, you were never able not to think this.
I understand that there are many interpretations of the word free [will]. My only interest is sharing what I know to be true, ( ie., that we are compelled to move in the direction of greater satisfaction than what the previous position offered). If we are compelled to choose only one alternative because the other was never a possibility once the choice was made, we could not have chosen otherwise. The definition I gave is accurate, and it IS why we don’t have free will and never did have free will since civilization began. Everything developed just the way it had to, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make huge leaps in progress.
There’s nothing more I can share with you because you will keep saying I could not not have said that. You keep circling around never wanting to hear any of the author’s proof. And yes, you could never not have answered me the way you did. We will continue to go in circles, so it’s not worth my time.
If this is how you are actually inclined to view the points I raise above, then, sure, by all means, move on.
From my frame of mind, however, you are an objectivist. It’s not what you believe is true that matters here nearly as much as that you believe it. Wholeheartedly. With nary a reservation. The whole package.
It is this part that allows you [psychologically] to anchor “I” to a font [an intellectual contraption] that enables you to, among other things, imagine a future in which mankind “progresses” to your own rendition “peace and prosperity”.
As to whether or not either one of us did in fact possess any autonomy in sustaining the exchange, how on earth would I know?
“I” am no less “fractured and fragmented” here as I am in probing human interactions in the is/ought world. There is simply far too much that I don’t know about existence, to ever lay claim to an argument such as yours.
And [in my view] it is precisely this frame of mind that you wish to avoid at all cost.
You just muddied the waters on every point, bringing in all sorts of stuff and not interacting with the ideas I presented. Perhaps pointing this out would make you try something else. Perhaps not. With my limited knowledge I cant know though my experience leads me to think you cant really listen or here ‘listen’ to another person at this time.0
Yes, everything is determined. yes, people blame. peacegirl thinks we will learn to not blame.
One could say that peacegirl thinks that not-blaming is catchy.
All of what you associate with that issue. And all the other problems you want to resolve, and anything that my post happens to make you think is irrelevant.
It’s like someone notes an issue in one of your posts. It’s not everything, but it’s one part. You mentioned that you weren’t sure as a pedestrian when to cross the street. They say, well, when it’s green facing you. You then post back about your bad marriage, your hemmroids, how the neighbors view you, without ever, it seems trying to show you understood the thing about the green light or you didn’t. Like interacting with the focus of the other poster. So the next step could be taken.
I promise you I did not think my post would solve all the world’s problems or all metaphysical issues or all of yours. If I point out one thing, it doesn not mean I think you should be happy or eveything is peachy. It is me trying to explain one thing.
In a determined universe you might come to change the way you post informed by this. Or you might not. In a free will universe you might change after this is pointed out, or not. You might be helped to understand what peacegirl is saying, or not.
I think you probably agree that people can change due to outside influence, since this is one of the core points you make, a la dasein. But from our perspective, we dont know when or if…
Touche! One can never know exactly what paeternal of one’s behavior is more determined then willful.
Some self determinations are so subtly learned that they have become rote. Here I am using that word again.
From the sense of the blank slate, determination has to source from an individual beginning, an example of that is the child on the balcony, who at one point sees through the transparent floor/foundation. His realization of depth, is a new attribution toward the birth of symbolism. Very closely aligned is the famous Narcissus Myth, and related to that are their symbolic repressions .
Okay, note the most egregious example of this from my post above.
Again, from my frame of mind, it is less what she thinks is true in a universe where [u]every[/u]thing is determined, and more whether she was ever able to not think it.
Is this exchange itself included in everything? If so then what does it really mean to blame here? How is blaming not just another manifestation of nature having evolved into minds precipitating consequences precipitating blaming that must ever and always be in sync with the laws of matter?
She seems to blames me here in the manner in which the free will folks blame others when they are convinced that blame is an appropriate choice to make in an autonomous world.
One could say lots of things. But is one free to say that what one says is not the only thing that one was ever able to say in any particular context, at any particular time?
Who comes closer to pinning that down — peacegirl pontificating about what she thinks is true “in her head”, or neurologists actually performing experiments involving the functioning human brain?
Are these experiences not in themselves inherently, necessarily embedded in a wholly determined universe?
It’s not what steps can be taken but whether you are ever able to choose – to choose freely – not to take them.
And here I just don’t know. Again, I am drawn and quartered. Those who embrace hard determinism, those who embrace the broadest interpretation of human freedom: they are both able to make convincing arguments: debate.org/opinions/does-free-will-exist
What I am most uncertain about here are the arguments of the so-called “compatibilists”. Those who make that crucial distinction between mindful matter choosing to make a move in a chess match and the pieces themselves [mindless matter] unable to choose at all.
Like somehow that’s “better” for us than the position of the hardcore determinists. Meanwhile in “choosing” to move a piece, I am never able to actually do this freely. I do only what I must. But then settle for the illusion of psychological freedom.
You “promise” this in the manner in which a free-will advocate would. Or so it seems to me.
You “try to explain” this in a world where the explanation itself is necessarily embedded in “everything being determined”.
Yet somehow [it seems] you able to convince yourself that your explanation is better than mine. Even though both explanations are but an inherent manifestation of matter unfolding into the only future possible given the immutable laws of matter.
Yes, in a determined universe, I might come to choose an explanation more in sync with peacegirls. Yet, in the manner in which I have come to understand determinism, I would really only “choose” this.
Those autonomous aliens, however, would know full well the crucial distinction, right? For all practical purposes for example.
Okay, but how broadly do you wish to encompass “outside influences”? In the is/ought world, given some measure of human autonomy, those outside influences would [in my view] include things like historical and cultural and experiential contexts. And a world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change.
But in a wholly determined universe it might be argued that those “outside influences” encompassed every and all aspect of existence/reality itself.
I think while we are bounded within and withoit the is/ought or the. deterministic world, the topicality of representation may be valuable at this point.
The history of philosophy is yet another element that can be retraced from this mix, as at least partially responsible for the WILL. Schopemhauer covers this, and of this guide is used , the problem of partial inclusive/exclusive basis toward an understanding of clarity.
Next , how did others , Nietzsche primarily, deal with what has reduced to set theory, for what Nietzsche and Husserl became evident as transcendental.
The is/ought world is a preface to this, summarily calling for the synthesis, a primary continuity based on what is conscious and what is not. What is nott known can play a part in determining action, stemming from unconscious motivation. If such is a basis of a future representation of the will to understand, then all those guys seeking some connection between excluded (inductive) and all inclusive (reductive) sets must see an alternative to a summary inclusive set between the two.
Husserl solved this neatly, with the only missing hypothetical that could work at all: the transcendental reductiive levels.
Into this mix, all of.what is listed as possible parts, can be spoken of as intrinsic in the very same set. This would satisfy the criteria for an absolute content into the represented will, and this is more credible then a principle working on nihilization (Nietzsche) of total projection of a thetic absolute.
By inquiring into the nihilization. of free will and the total abdication of it to absolute determination, the concept of historical determination. will tend to help solve the problem.
The question was asked as to how far do we extend relevance , where from the deducement can be made of a simulated will , to power?
The bounderies containing more of the referential elements grow more binding insofar as the complexity of their content becomes more appearent, to organize. and control. the simpler , more entropic boundaries, the less the simulated field becoming determined.
This process need not to entail a vested authority versus anonymity feature, it is sourced from power, a power which the will imposes on the hierarchies of structural fidelity.
Husserl transcends this distinction , and delegates it toward a progressive will.
The will to live, for instance , may not be based on a conscious effort, but them again it can not be disclaimed. that it does.
It is a unity, and not a separability which can be anayized within or without any set conception or preconception, but they too can be aasigned such roles. They do not authenticate or disauntthenticate claims one way or another, and this is why a total determinism can coexist with a will. . the idea here is to suppress the will into subconscious motivation, and over come having deal with it on a conscious level.
Nihilism is a conscious state based on repression of excluding forces determining other choices.
For instance, responsibility preceeds other choices, not in consequence for the attainment of that responsibility, regardless of how much more.pleasurable that choice would be. Most rationalists would like to negate.that unwritten code, bland it is merely a natural code, of psychic and later realization, and not.necessarily tied to a bad dream concerning a guilt.ridden conscious psyche.
Dreams can reverse the subconscious and turn the whole thing upside down.
Very generally, to understand it otherwise, one would need to ignore the natural basis of dreams, and turn ‘Civilization and Its Discomtemts’ upside down. (Which has been done)
You misinterpret peacegirl. She wasn’t contradicting neuroscience or determinism nor was I. I tried to explain this. If hard determinism is the case, well you’re not not understanding and your’re not being able to understand now, was all determined. Peacegirl acknowledges that, accepts that, assumes that. That’s why, as she said, she does not blame you. She thinks others will be similarly affected, over time, and stop blaming, when they realize that you could not help what you did, that one cannot. People will change, not from free will, but affected by what they experience. That blaming will come to seem pointless. No contradiction with neuroscience in this and further it ASSUMES everything is determined. My guess is it is determined that you will not understand this either. Peacegirl is nicer than me about that. He’s more like Jesus on the cross in relation to those nailing him up. Maybe one day I will be utterly determined by events and my reactions to it to give up blame also. That would not contradict determinism either.
I do feel some empathy sometimes. This would also be determined. Determinism does not rule out changes in patterns, in fact, it seems to entail it, so far at least. Peacegirl thinks a specific change will come. Determined. In part this change will come from people who have already been compelled to give up blame, pointing out that blame hurts and doesnot help. This will be part of the causes and effects which, within determinism, will compell others to give up blame. No free will in any of this.
IOW that humans might give up blaming one another is not inconsistant with determinism. That peacegirl might disagree with you on such an issue does not necessarily entail blame.
That’s all. No it does nto solve conflicting goods. No it does not mean that one should have a positive attitude about determinism. No, it does not mean that peacegirl proved free will is not possible. It just means what I said I was pointing out.
I won’t read your response. So forget what i should have done or what I didn’t do, or what I seem to be doing.
Is there something you might have missed and misinterprete?
What might that be?
You may not learn how to feel good about all the things you feel bad about, but you might learn something. I wonder if you have learned anything useful to you in all these years.
The belief in Determinism functions as a security-blanket for most, who would rather that life have some definitive-pre-existing-plan, than no plan at all. No plan, means that individuals are responsible for the course of their lives, and the results, whether good or bad. Those who are dissatisfied in life, cannot accept this, since it would mean blaming themselves rather than others. Life is filled with winners and losers, but, mostly losers. The losers have a desperate need to Blame, people other than themselves. Determinism helps this function, as a release-valve. If all is Determined, then the Losers, can point the finger elsewhere, instead of inward.
Losers reject the possibility that it is their own fault in life, and also reject the possibility that winning is the result of hard work, dedication, and sacrifice.
Winners are rare, by Nature, and will always be a minority in existence.
the conclusion that there is no freewill does not come about because one feels uncomfortable about being caught stealing a candy bar and wants to convince themselves that they couldn’t have done otherwise. the feeling of guilt is hardly a proof that there is freewill.
and while there is no such thing as freewill, there is no such thing as a ‘plan’ either. causality does not denote teleology. to think otherwise would be to anthropomorphize nature and give to it a deliberating will. it has no such thing.
but others can’t be blamed either if there is no freewill.
on the contrary, it’s those who still believe in freewill that demonstrate their lack of constitution and strength in having to blame and put to shame. behind every condemnation is a complaint, and behind every complaint is a weakness.
Change, contingency, outside influences, historical, cultural, and experiential contexts give us our predispositions that lead to the reasons why we make particular choices. None of this grants us free will (i.e. the ability to choose what is worse for ourselves) given the factors that are being considered when making a choice.
Determinism, the way it’s defined in the book, Decline and Fall of All Evil, does not mean we don’t take responsibility for our actions. It’s quite the opposite. Amazingly, when people know in advance they will not be blamed for hurting others without justification, they cannot do it. Responsibility goes up, not down. Determinism means not only not blaming others, but not blaming yourself for things past. It does not mean your choices are already in a fixed state where you cannot change and grow according to a continually changing set of circumstances.
I would like to add that the belief in free will was necessary, as part of our development, in order to justify blame and punishment that followed acts of crime, and also used as a deterrent before the criminal act took place. But now that we know man does not have free will, we are able to prevent from coming back that for which blame and punishment were previously necessary. I hope people will read the first three chapters, which shows how this new world can actually become a reality.
Well the belief in freewill did not originally begin as an expediency with which to place blame and justify punishment. It began with the emergence of self-awareness, and was a necessary error, you might say, in our reasoning. Only later was the belief found to be prevalent and then used for moral and judicial purposes. It was a ‘useful error’ in reasoning that was exploited by those who wanted to control others with the least amount of effort necessary… a kind of path of least resistance. One doesn’t need brute force to control if one can evoke in the other, a bad conscience. Making feel guilty is an extension of that effort without the need to apply coercive force.
therefore the fall waa really a quasi politicalcal effort to gain control and domination. through the manipulation of self impinged guilt unto the very created by the Creator. I wonder of the Holy Fathers saw this as a.scheme, or.they simply put it down to a magical existential imavoidaiility.
Was that close to an absolute proof of a.determined evolutionary stage of robbing man of even the semblance of free will yet holding him responsible none the less.; or was it a case of abstraction ex-nihilo of a semblance of compatible coincidental occurance which brought certain elements of both into a pre-conceived pre reflexive union, building up affinity rather then rather then intentional antogony?
So there is free-will, whether people want to accept that or not.
At the very least, there is blame. And that is because people do, instinctively, sub-consciously, search for causes. Causes can be anthropomorphic. Because people are responsible for their own actions. Although, again, people will deny self-responsibility.