Once again, you conclude that we are in agreement about this. And yet clearly we are not in sync regarding the “for all practical purposes” implications of it for human interactions. You stress the part about the human brain/mind making a “choice” while I stress the part where that “choice” [in a determined universe] merely embodies for any particular “I” the psychological illusion of free will. The illusion itself being but one more manifestation of the laws of matter unfolding as they must.
For the same reason it is necessary for you to ask me that: we were never really free not to.
In a wholly determined universe [as I understand it now], contingency, chance and change would be just different sets of dominoes toppling over only as they are compelled to given the physical, material, phenomenological laws embedded in all of nature’s interactions.
It’s just that some components of the universe are mindless and make no “choice” and others are mindful and do.
In fact, there may well be intelligent life in the universe that have advanced far beyond Earthlings in grappling with this. They may well be considerably closer to pinning down the whole truth once and for all. Even closer to grasping a complete understanding of existence itself.
But here and now that ain’t us. Or, rather, to the best of my knowledge that ain’t us.
But: How, in an entirely ordered universe, is everything that “I” think, feel, say and do, not ultimately contingent on the laws of nature themselves? When you keep insisting that, “[t]his ‘I’ is not free even though it has the autonomy or freedom to choose one thing over another”, it makes no sense to me. How, instead, is “I” not “choosing” one thing over another?
The human brain/mind is either an exception here somehow or it’s not.
Either you will succeed one day in getting me to understand this as you do, or I will succeed in getting you to understand it as I do. Or someone else will succeed in changing both our minds. The only question then is this: will this unfold given some measure of autonomy on our part or are the laws of matter set up such that there is only one way in which it can unfold? We “choose” words here that we were never able to actually choose instead. You know, in the manner in which those who embrace human autonomy use the word.
If the human brain as matter is but a force of nature and nature is but a manifestation of immutable laws applicable to all matter, then arguing as you do here is just another instance of that. Right? “I” could never buck nature and choose something out of sync with its laws. My “no” is nature’s [b]no![/b]
Of course our “choices” matter. Robert Mueller’s choice to conclude that Trump did not collude with the Russians [in a criminal context] makes all the difference in world regarding, say, the 2020 presidential election here in America. But if fate is defined as that which is “destined to happen, turn out, in a particular way” to what extent was Mueller and Trump and all the other players here ever able to think, feel, say or do anything other than what they were compelled to do over the past two years?
Were the events of the last two years ever able to be other than what they in fact were in a determined universe?
It would appear [to me] that it is difficult for me to accept this here and now because I was never able to choose – choose freely – to rethink the exchange and to come around to your frame of mind.
Perhaps nature has that in store for me in the future. But the mystery still resides in understanding how that works exactly.
So, around and around we go…
For me it’s “choose” or choose. Being confused in any particular context is either something I am able to rectify by choosing to rethink your points [enabling me to not be confused] or nature is ever and always compelling me to “choose” only that which its very laws demand.
In other words…
You mean however I “want” to frame it. I “want” only what nature compels me to want given my own understanding of determinism.