Yes, but it is a “bush” that is clearly open to conflicting points of view. I see the point here [a point to either beat or not beat around] one way and he sees it another. I construe our obligations as revolving only around the assumptions that I make regarding this point; and he in his own conflcting ways.
And here is the beating:
IB: Again, on this thread, it’s not how I see it, but whether the manner in which I think I see it [here and now] is but an inherent, necessary manifestation of the laws of nature unfolding only as they ever could have.
SD: Well, assume it’s not determined and working within that context, how would you see it?
IB: What I assume in a world where we do have some measure of autonomy, is that “I” is embedded in the laws of nature in the either/or world. Here there are objective truths seemingly applicable to all of us. However, in the is/ought world of conflicting goods, “I” is still no less an “existential contraption”. At least at the intersection of identity, value judgments and political power. Obligations here are predicated on any particular objective context construed from any particular subjective/subjunctive point of view.
SD: Right, but notwithstanding yet more beating around the bush, what is your subjective point of view concerning the obligations one has to a game he/she started?
IB: What does it mean to “beat around the bush” with regard to questions this problematic?
SD: All that word salad in avoidance of the question is what it means.
IB: [more word salad to avoid answering question]
Nothing really changes. My reaction to KT is a value judgment. I make the assumption that he is reacting to me in a certain way. And I disagree with his assessment of me. Now, “beating around the bush” here would seem to be moot if, in a wholly determined unverse, KT and I were never able to freely choose to post anything other than what our brains propel/compel us to post in order to be in sync with the laws of matter.
And, in an autonomous world, I am never really able to demonstrate that my assumptions about him [or his assumptions about me] reflect that which all rational men and women are obligated to share.
Yes, and in a wholly determined universe all of these interactions unfold only as they ever could have. If time could be unwound hypothetically the same things would unfold over and over again. An “eternal recurrence” as it were.
But that view has been disproven by scientific experimentation so exhaustively that it is the most substantiated point in all of science, yet you continue on and on and on, for months now, in stern refusal to recognize that. Rewind the universe and there is almost zero chance it could recur the same.
Link me to sites on the internet where it has been demonstrated that, if time could be rewound in a determined universe, events would not unfold over and again only as they ever could have. Hell, there are even astrophysicists who argue that all events [past present and future] already exist in some extraordinary way in which one is able to grasp space/time.
…given human autonomy, beating around the bush regarding any particular set of conflicting goods in the is/ought world, can be explored in turn from conflicting moral and political perspectives.
People are said to be beating around the bush given conflicting assumptions regarding what that means in any particular context. Re abortion “the point” is said to be either the alleged “natural right” of the fetus to be born vs. the alleged “political right” of a women to chose abortion.
So, who exactly is beating around the bush here in arguing for or against the abortion of a particular unborn baby?
The woman has a natural right to choose abortion too. She could do it consciously or unconsciously, and both processes originate from the same cause.
How on earth would you/could you demonstrate that women have an inherent, necessary, natural right to kill their unborn babies? How can we even pin down precisely when the “unborn” becomes a bonafide “human being”?
Other than in assuming that what is “natural” here is that whatever the woman chooses it is the only thing that she was ever able to choose in a determined universe. In a world governed entirely by the laws of matter nothing can be said to be unnatural. Right?
How can you not know it?? If atoms are nonlife and you’re made of nonlife, then you are nonlife… unless the pixie sprinkled some magic dust making you alive.
You just claim to know it. But how on earth would you actually demonstrate it such that neuroscientists, physicists, biologists etc., all concur that your own take on these relationships reflects the whole truth? Let alone how this assessment is “for all practical purposes” relevant in grasping why we choose the behaviors that we do from day to day in a universe that may or may not be wholly determined.
You claim things like “the ceramic and fully-automatic models of the universe are both absurd” as though the claim itself settles it.
Alright, let’s play this game: you just made a claim that a question exists. Substantiate it. How do you know the question of how life came from nonlife is an applicable question? It seems hilarious to me to even posit such an absurd inquiry. What are you even talking about? Show me this thing you think is not alive and tell me why you think it isn’t.
Right from the start I flat out acknowledge there are any number of claims I make, I am unable to demonstrate. I certainly cannot demonstrate how [or why] non-life matter evolved into living matter. Or if ultimately they are actually two very different things. I can only note that here and now in this particular world they exist side by side. And that determinism is one possible explanation for that.
Come on, let’s face it: If someone were actually able to demonstrate that they grasp the interactions here ontologically [teleologically?] they’d be on every news format around the globe.
Baloney! They’d be ridiculed and ostracized just like every preceding genius.
Who is ridiculing and ostracizing folks like Newton and Einstein now?
Just try to imagine if someone actually could demonstrate once and for all – scientifically, empirically, phenomenologically, experientially etc. – if they either were or were not able to freely, autonomously accomplish this.
“EXISTENCE ITSELF EXPLAINED BY CONSCIOUS MIND AND/OR MATTER”
What is mind? It doesn’t matter.
What is matter? Nevermind.
That’s the point. We say things like this because we really don’t fully comprehend where one stops and the other begins. It’s not for nothing that some have speculated that human consciousness may well be the biggest mystery of them all.
It occurred to me last night that what you mean by existence of existence itself is the mind of matter. If you investigate matter you’ll invariably arrive at mind and if you investigate mind you’ll invariably arrive at matter. One doesn’t exist without the other.
Why? And how is this able to be explained going all the way back to the explanation for existence itself.
Tell us what you think is true here, sure. By all means. But don’t just expect us to accept that you thinking it is true need be as far as one goes.
You see, this is why I say you like your hole. As soon as someone presents a solution, you dismiss it by saying “How could you possibly know?” as if the solution is defined as too complex to know, so you’re asking questions which you already have decided can have no answer.
What’s this point really have to do with mine? Everything that you argue here you are either able to demonstrate as true for all of us or not.
The “solution” to what? What context? What conflicting points of view?
And my hole is completely irrelevant regarding those contexts and points of view that can be grasped objectively by all of us.
Look at all of the solutions that revolve around our capacity to invent technology, to solve engineering problems, to interact from day to day in any number of contexts in which we can all agree on what is true and what is false.
Instead, my “hole” revolves around the assumption that human autonomy does exist in some measure when we confront conflicting goods. And that for “I” death equals oblivion.
For you to say that, in this regard, I like my hole, is simply preposterous. You know, from my point of view.
If human brains/minds are just another manifestation of “the laws of matter” we might be thought of as nature’s “smart machines”. But when we think of ourselves as smart machines inventing “smart phones” we don’t think that the phones themselves are calling the shots. Instead, some insist that unlike the phones we do choose consciously to do one thing rather than another. But what if that is all essentially an illusion? What if nature has evolved to the point where matter is able to think that it thinks freely of its own volition but in fact thinks only as it was ever able to think being wholly in sync with the “immutable laws of matter”?
By what mechanism would it do that?
You’re asking me? Some of the greatest minds on the planet are grappling with this day in and day out. And without a definitive answer having been discovered. Or none that I am aware of.
You think that simply increasing the processing power of computers that one day computers can make decisions and think for themselves as humans do? So it’s a function of complexity? If enough switches are arranged complicated enough then the whole array comes to life? Then why is a worm alive and an iphone not? Theoretically we should be able to situate enough dominoes that the whole assortment comes to life and talks to us, if it were merely an artifact of complexity and determinism.
Again, I really don’t grasp what this point has to do with mine. Either nature and it’s immutable laws are behind all of this or there is some way in which the human brain is able transact relationships in the world with some measure of free will.
Has anyone on Earth untangled all of this going back to the understanding of existence itself?
Sure, maybe. And maybe it’s you. So, take your assessments here to those who think about these things for a living. See what they say about your own assumptions here. Then get back to us.
Sure, how do I do that?
Well, you can go into communities on line that delve into mind and matter in a systemic, scientific, experiential manner. Communities of physicists, neurologists, biologists, neuroscientists, chemists etc…
Communities that have forums.
You make your points and observations and they respond. You bring their reactions back to us.
How on earth in a particular context is one to differentiate determinism from pre-determinism? How is this distinction related to the assumption some make that in a determined universe all matter [including mindful matter] interacts only as it was/does/ever will interact.
Pre-determinism means it’s possible to predict where a fired electron will land. Determinism means there is a reason (cause) for where it landed, but it’s not possible to predict (nonlocal hidden variable). Probabilism means there is no cause (no hidden variables either local or nonlocal) and where electrons land are an artifact of probability.
But are not predeterminism and determinism here necessarily embedded/intertwined in what can only ever unfold in a universe that is wholly ordered by the laws of nature?
And in what the particular context involving the choices that we make in the course of actually living our lives from day to day?
If you can’t see that existence isn’t a thing that can exist, then I’m out of ideas of conveyance. I don’t know what to do.
This may well be the mother of all “general descriptions” regarding an explanation for existence. How exactly would you go about making a youtube video able to demonstrate that “existence isn’t a thing that can exist”?
Illustrate this particular text please.
Positive exist relative to negative, but what would it mean to say positive exists in a world where there is no negative? It’s meaningless. So existence is simply the relationship between positive and negative. Positive and negative have to be something that are differentiated from each other first, and then we can recognize existence as a thing next. We can’t say positive exists and then negative exists because it’s meaningless.
Okay, you could say this on a youtube video. But what about the part where you then illustrate it?