New Discovery

Once again, if determinism is true (i.e., that we could not have done otherwise), free will — as its opposite — is false. We can’t have both unless you are using a definition of free will that is not the definition in question. The problem is how determinism is defined, not that determinism is false. You, like iambiguous, use the word autonomy in a way that makes it appear that if we are controlled by deterministic law, we have no freedom. We are robots. I am free to talk to you at this moment because nothing external is infringing on my ability to make this choice if I so desire. I am using the word “free” correctly, but that does not mean my will is free to do other than what I’m doing, which is the free will that libertarians believe we have.

I am not the author of that post PG… I simply ensured that it wasn’t lost within the postings of new ones.

Thanks for including it. Maybe it will help clarify things.

[i]In order for this discovery to be adequately understood the reader
must not apply himself and his ideas as a standard of what is true and
false, but understand the difference between a mathematical relation
and an opinion, belief, or theory. The mind of man is so utterly
confused with words that it will require painstaking clarification to
clear away the logical cobwebs of ignorance that have accumulated
through the years. For purposes of clarification please note that the
words ‘scientific’ and ‘mathematical’ only mean ‘undeniable’, and are
interchanged throughout the text. The reasoning in this work is not
a form of logic, nor is it my opinion of the answer; it is mathematical,
scientific, and undeniable, and it is not necessary to deal in what has
been termed the ‘exact sciences’ in order to be exact and scientific.
Consequently, it is imperative to know that this demonstration will be
like a game of chess in which every one of your moves will be forced
and checkmate inevitable but only if you don’t make up your own
rules as to what is true and false which will only delay the very life you
want for yourself.

The laws of this universe, which include those of
our nature, are the rules of the game and the only thing required to
win, to bring about this Golden Age that will benefit everyone… is to
stick to the rules. But if you decide to move the king like the queen
because it does not satisfy you to see a pet belief slipping away or
because it irritates your pride to be proven wrong or checkmated then
it is obvious that you are not sincerely concerned with learning the
truth, but only with retaining your doctrines at all cost. However,
when it is scientifically revealed that the very things religion,
government, education and all others want, which include the means
as well as the end, are prevented from becoming a reality only because
we have not penetrated deeply enough into a thorough understanding
of our ultimate nature, are we given a choice as to the direction we are
compelled to travel even though this means the relinquishing of ideas
that have been part of our thinking since time immemorial?

This discovery will be presented in a step by step fashion that brooks no
opposition and your awareness of this matter will preclude the
possibility of someone adducing his rank, title, affiliation, or the long
tenure of an accepted belief as a standard from which he thinks he
qualifies to disagree with knowledge that contains within itself
undeniable proof of its veracity. In other words, your background, the
color of your skin, your religion, the number of years you went to
school, how many titles you hold, your I.Q., your country, what you
do for a living, your being some kind of expert like Nageli (or
anything else you care to throw in) has no relation whatsoever to the
undeniable knowledge that 3 is to 6 what 4 is to 8. So please don’t
be too hasty in using what you have been taught as a standard to judge
what has not even been revealed to you yet. If you should decide to
give me the benefit of the doubt — deny it — and two other
discoveries to be revealed, if you can.

[/i]

So do you agree with what I stated before, is this accurate?

We have thought/will to do whatever we want with to the limits of our imagining, But choice is limited by objective reality. Will is thinking and mind, which has little to no bounds, it’s the only freedom we have technically, our minds and solitude. We can’t project or do anything we want with those thoughts though, due to preferences, choice being limited, etc

Peacegirl,

There are differing variations of determinism, such as “soft-boiled determinism.”

What I mean by “the truth of the matter could be a combination of both” is that some things we believe or do could be determined or influenced by factors apart from the will, while other things are the result of the will.

For example, I subscribe to the position of free-will (more specifically: limited autonomy), that we have the ability to do certain things based in self-generated willing, but I also believe we can acquire genetic predispositions and socially acquired dispositions that unwittingly cause us to perceive or behave in certain ways. One can, of course, override some of these things, if he or she becomes aware of them and desires to do so.

Free-will is something so intuitively and patently obvious. For anyone to obstinately deny it and, furthermore, to promote the position of militant determinism, with such alacrity, it causes one to wonder…

Not having any free-will… It’s, actually, a rather morbid and unhealthy notion.

I understand that, as philosophers, we have a duty to acknowledge the truth, whether it be beautiful or ugly, comforting or ghastly, but to go on an intellectual crusade, promoting determinism, with such zeal, is questionable…

Many influential factors come into play when making choices, but the choices we make come from our will, our desire, not that of another. IOW, you can’t force me to make a certain choice and I can’t force you because no one can do that. In fact, no one can force someone to do what he makes up his mind not to do, for over this he has absolute control.

The way you are using the word “autonomy” does not conflict with the truth that man’s will is not free. It just means you are free (i.e., nothing is physically constraining you) to choose one thing over another when deliberating. It is okay in a colloquial sense to say I did something of my own free will or desire, but that does not grant you freedom of the will. Do you see the difference? Given the cultural, psychological, economic, or genetic factors that influence one’s choice indicates that we are compelled to choose the least dissatisfying, or the most satisfying of the alternatives being considered.

Free will appears true superficially, but when you understand what the true meaning of determinism is, it does not take away from your freedom whatsoever. In fact, it increases it. It also increases one’s responsibility, the opposite of what many philosophers down the ages believed.

Obviously, your interpretation of determinism compels you to react this way, but your understanding is limited. You are going by the conventional definition which would turn us into automatons and take away what people hold most dear; their self-made authorship. Moreover, if will is not free the question then becomes: How can we not hold people responsible for their acts of crime when we know they didn’t have to do what they did had they not wanted to? You would really get a lot out of the book, Decline and Fall of All Evil. I believe it would change your entire perspective. I’m on a crusade because this knowledge has the ability to change our world for the better by eliminating the causes that lead to war, crime, and poverty.

declineandfallofallevil.com/ … rDxqGhUFoI

Once again, from my frame of mind, you are agreeing that everything we think, feel, say and do is inherently, necessarily intertwined in the “brute facticity” that encompasses the existence of existence itself…but that somehow this “progress” you speak of is dependent on others choosing to think about all of this as you do. As though they really are free to do so.

And [of course] “progressive” behavior revolves around your own understsanding of what that means in a world where you could never have understood it other than how you were compelled to.

And, yes, if the laws of matter propel/compel everything that we do, being described as a cog in nature’s wheel seems reasonable to me.

Okay, what aspect of human interaction is not wholly in sync with cause and effect as prescribed by nature?

We are hopelessly “stuck” here then. Well, for now. Perhaps nature’s laws of matter will “unstick” us at some point in our wholly determined future. But one thing we can surely count on is that if we do get “unstuck” it will be because nature finally compels me to see things your way.

Right? :wink:

But how could my perception of contingency, chance and change not be just another inherent manifestation of nature? In an autonomous universe, the manner in which I understand them is crucial because the things “I” choose are profoundly predicated on, embedded in, and sustained by the manner in which I can never fully understand and control them. But in a determined universe how I think I understand and control them is only as I was ever able to.

Yes, you “choose” to call it folly. Meaning the laws of nature compelled you to. Just as the laws of nature compel the libertarians among us to think that they choose – choose freely – to call it that.

But any lack of understanding on the part of either of us is always compelled by nature. The “folly” for me here [given my current understanding of determinism] is that any misunderstandings on the part of either one of us in this exchange are perfectly natural.

And this seems preposterous to me because you have no real capacity to demonstrate this beyond the internal logic sustained in the assumptions you make about the human brain, the human mind and nature. In your argument itself.

You should take your conclusions to those who actually perform experiments on the thinking brain. Those who, using fMRI technologies, test their conjectures about free will and determinism on people who are actually in the process of “choosing” or choosing something.

Back again to my desire in turn being an integral part of nature’s laws.

“Given the ability”, “contemplate options” “making a mockery…”. What does any of this mean in a world where we are compelled to think it means only that which nature commands. Then back to understanding if nature itself has any capacity to choose here. Which [of course] takes most men and women to God.

God forbid? You mean Nature forbid? But if nature has no meaning or purpose embedded in its laws, than the dominos falling, the cars piling up and the human brains that brought both situations into existence were never going to not unfold as they must.

As though I was ever really free not to make them up. As though you were ever really free to care that I did.

Then this:

Call it whatever you must. Nature either allows new ideas to reconfigure the world into your own wholly compelled rendition of progressive behavior, or it doesn’t. But you are either free or not to acknowledge that your thinking here is more in sync with my own speculation about your motivation: to sustain your own psychological understanding of a “comforting and consoling” frame of mind.

But that merely avoids my point. You and the author were compelled to “bring it about” by writing a book and making an argument. Others are compelled to either read it or not read it. But either way, the future [like the present] is already inherently a continuation of the past. Once nature’s laws set us in motion we are only ever going to “choose” what must be.

Thus…

From my frame of mind this is you attributing to nature the capacity to choose a future more in sync with your own “choices”. Almost as though Nature should be thanking you for showing her the way.

Ultimately, it seems to come down to this:

From my perspective, if in “[l]ooking back…we could not have chosen otherwise”, it means that our choices are for all practical purposes robotic. Nature’s laws program us to think and feel and say and do only what we could never not think and feel and say and do. And feeling here includes our desires. They are no exception to the rule. Nature is my “will”.

My reaction here is that you are pointing this out about him as though he should be lauded for “choosing” to do something that he was never really free not to. As though any conditions that change in the future were ever going to not change. As though people can be “corrected” if only they come to understand these relationships as you and he do. Even though they can only understand what nature compels them to.

And what is his empirical proof [here and now] that confirms his predictions about this more progressive future?

This makes sense to me only to the extent that you are able to explain who or what decides that the laws of nature are based on “sound principles”. The laws of nature simply exist. They necessarily link “in my head” to “out in the world” in a way that can only be wholly/fully understood when existence itself is understood.

Now, the existence of an omniscient God and “sound principles” makes sense. If God knows everything of course His principles will be sound. But nature in a No God world? How on earth does that work?

And here you are like many, many others insisting that what you think is true here comes closest to explaining it all. You even include a more “progressive” future in the mix of assumptions. Though never in a million years will you describe this explanation as a psychological defense mechanism rooted inherently in a human brain rooted necessarily in nature itself.

How comforting and consoling can that be?

Why would you come to ILP if you weren’t intent on persuading people to embrace your own assumptions here? After all, it is in grasping these assumptions that the progressive future hinges on.

Or: Once we are compelled by nature to either see or not see how this new world can be achieved people will either be compelled or not compelled to move in this direction because nature will have either compeled or not compeled them to want what they see.

That is very true. Only when people act on a finding can there be success based on that finding.

It depends on the context.

Nature doesn’t proscribe or prescribe behavior, therefore nature does not cause an effect. The word 'cause" is misleading. Nothing causes a person to kill. He wants to kill for various reasons, which gives him greater satisfaction in his motion from here to there.

Nature doesn’t compel or cause a behavior. Our circumstances give rise to desiring one alternative over another but we are not caused by external forces since nothing has the power to do that.

The distinction you’re making is flawed. The things you choose as an autonomous being are no different than the determined being who thinks in a certain way — because the two are one and the same.

How is your repeating this over and over again helping to clarify the fact that determinism does not mean we are compelled to choose what we do not prefer to choose? A domino has no choice. We do have a choice, although it’s never a free one.

It is. That is why this knowledge may take thousands of years to be brought to light not because it’s untrue, but because people are reluctant to give up fixed ideas.

There is no way that free will can be proven by an MRI. Determinism has been supported by neuroscience but it doesn’t solve the problem of responsibility.

You are confused over the meaning of determinism unfortunately. You are making a mockery of contemplation because you are of the idea that we don’t contemplate in a determined universe. You’re wrong.

As I stated, nature does not cause; neither does heredity, God, your status, your income, your being an expert of some kind. Only your desire based on conscious and unconscious factors lead to the choices that you ultimately make.

I am not reconfiguring anything. I’m sharing a discovery. If you don’t want to partake in trying to understand this discovery, that’s fine. Others will. It does not necessitate that everybody understand this knowledge for it to work, just as it didn’t take everyone to understand Edison’s discovery of the lightbulb for us to enjoy the benefits.

Stop shifting your responsibility to nature, as if nature has this kind of control. It doesn’t.

You obviously are in an embedded groove where you cannot see beyond your own take on how the world may or may not work. And that’s okay because no one is depending on you.

Are you saying there are no discoveries yet to be made? Obviously, we can only go at a certain rate which is out of our control.

True. It took two thousand years for people to finally accept that the earth is round, so who knows how long it will take to bring this discovery to light.

Not at all. I am thanking nature for showing us the way at long last.

That is true. Nature doesn’t prescribe. But we can learn from nature through observation and utilize those laws in ways never before thought possible.

You’re getting off onto a tangent about God. The word God was used throughout the text to mean the laws that govern our universe. One of those laws is that man’s will is not free. We never knew the importance of this law and its implications until now.

OMG, you are the one making assumptions that this must be some kind of psychological defense mechanism. You’re way off base iamiguous.

Because persuasion isn’t the right word. I can persuade someone to believe in something only because of my zealousness. That’s not what I’m trying to do here.

True, but when a genuine discovery is made, it is human nature to want to understand how that knowledge can be applied for the betterment of all. If someone finds a cure for cancer, are we not going to use that knowledge in order to help those suffering? Progress moves humanity forward.

No, only when it is determined that we do in fact live in a universe where there is some measure of human autonomy, will folks be free [up to a point] to act on a finding. Your finding for example. Or mine. In the interim, given a wholly determined universe, we act on findings that we were never able to not act on. And never able to not find.

How are not all contexts wholly in sync with nature’s way?

Thus…

The laws of nature are either embedded in a teleological component of Existence, or they are not. One can imagine a God prescribing or proscribing human behaviors. But nature? Wanting to kill or not wanting to kill is neither here nor there to nature. It is just nature evolving into matter evolving into minds necessarily compelled to want or not to want anything.

But this in turn can only be an assessment that I was never able not to make.

Just as this…

…is an assessment that you were never able not to make. Either determinism encompasses all matter or the human mind is somehow the exception. After all, our desiring would seem [to me] to be no less in sync with the laws of matter.

Think about it. The distinction that I am making here is one that I am compelled to make and it is flawed? Indeed, this is precisely why some will embrace the idea of a wholly determined universe. Everything that they think, feel, say and do, they are off the hook regarding. “Flaws” are no less the embodiment of nature than “perfection”.

Then back to this:

Nature is a domino not choosing to topple over and nature is a human being “choosing” to topple over the domino. The domino was never not going to topple over and the human being was never not going to set it up to topple over.

Just as the future is only going to be what it must be but somehow we can “choose” to see it as you do and make it a “progressive” furture.

Why are people reluctant to give up on fixed ideas in a determined universe if not because being or not being reluctant [again regarding anything] is what they are ever and always compelled to be?

In my view, another flagrant assertion. You believe this and that makes it so. You still have no capacity to actually demonstrate that this is true. And the problem of responsibility has always revolved around the extent to which it can be demonstrated that we are responsible for choosing one thing rather than another. And the only way that makes sense is if we are not compelled to “choose” instead. You keep insisting what to me are two contradictory things:

1] that I am confused over the meaning of determinism
2] that I was never able not to be confused over the meaning of determinism.

Or, rather, so it still seems to me.

What then is the “for all practical purposes” relationship between nature and any and all desires that I have? Aren’t they begotten by life on earth evolving into human brains evolving into human minds wholly in sync only with the laws of matter?

Well, you are not of your own free will sharing this discovery, right? And it’s not a question of whether it is “fine” that I am not sharing in it [here and now], but that I was never really free myself to share in it. To choose to share in it. Although, depending on what nature has in store for me in the future, I might one day “choose” to share it.

I shift where nature compels me to. Just as you do. In a determined universe. And “control” here revolves entirely around a complete understanding of existence itself.

Well, it will take as long as it must in order for the future to be what it must.

Do I or do I not have any real choice in how I perceive determinism. In the past, in the present or in the future?

How is my “consent” not also synonymous with nature? How are the people shooting or being shot or explaining why they were not in turn also wholly synonymous with nature’s way?

We can learn only that which nature, in unfolding inexorably, enables us to learn. Call it a “prescription”, call it something else. It is what it is because it is what it is.

No, with God it is possible to imagine the existence of meaning and purpose behind existence. And “sound principles” as being in sync with God’s will. With nature – nature as this profoundly mysterious explanation for existence – “sound principles” suggests that nature is as it is because it is in fact “sounder” than being some other way.

And we don’t know why it is this way at all.

Again, as though the choices that I am making here allow you to accuse me of this. I am not at all free to make choices more in sync with your own, but somehow the problem seems to rest here [in your mind] with my “flaws”.

Genuine? How can that not be but one more word that we were compelled to invent in order to sustain an exchange as it was, in turn, compelled to be?

Cancer is a biological imperative built into the evolution of life on earth. Some get cancer. Some don’t. And someday someone may well find a cure for it. But how is any of this not wholly in sync with whatever nature necessarily has in store for us in the future?

Peacegirl,

You presented your case.

Iambig provided a response.

Why not accept it as a disagreement and move on? What is gained by continuing the conversation with him?

Determinism, the way it’s accurately defined, does not mean we aren’t able to act autonomously or with thought based on contingent events and sudden changes. Just because we can’t act outside of natural law does not mean we can’t change course or think independently. We’ve been through this.

Determinism encompasses all matter. The human mind is no exception but you are ignoring an important adjunct to this understanding, which I will state again: Nothing but nothing has the power to force you to do anything you make up your mind not to do, for over this you have mathematical control. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.

Regardless that they are the embodiment of nature, they are still flawed and need correction. If I say that 2+2 is 5, that is also no less the embodiment of nature but I would appreciate being corrected.

Human beings are not dominoes. They are not “choosing” to topple over the domino unless there is a pile up on the highway, or something similar.

You can choose to learn more, or not choose to learn more, in the direction of greater satisfaction. Either way, once you make a choice, you could not have done otherwise.

I understand that, but repeating how many centuries it took for the truth to be accepted may help to prevent the same thing from happening again. Just knowing what has happened in the past can serve as a reminder.

You can’t be serious. I offered the first three chapters. You have not read it yet you seem to be so sure it’s a flagrant assertion! Wow! :astonished:

But it has been demonstrated. Do you have any conception of what the discovery is about in order to come up with such a charge?

You are. Definitions mean nothing if they do not symbolize reality. The way determinism has been defined causes a false dichotomy where none exists.

I never said that you were never able not to be confused but that does not take away from the fact that it needs correction.

The only reason the terms are contradictory to you is because you don’t understand how I’m using the term “responsibility”. For example, if a person runs a red light and injuring someone, he is responsible no one else but that doesn’t mean he is responsible in the sense that he could have done otherwise. But this is only part of the equation. This alone will not prevent a person from slowing down rather than speeding up if that is what gives him greater satisfaction. The feeling of hurting someone when he knows in advance he will not be blamed for this careless act, WILL STOP HIM.

That is very true. All I am showing is that this law of our nature, when applied to our environment, will cause us to veer in a new direction but still in keeping with deterministic law.

No one is denying that iambiguous. The only thing I am trying to bring out is that nothing from the past can cause us to do anything against our will, not nature, not our parents, not even our genetics. IOW, a person can’t say nature forced him to shoot that person. He shot that person because he wanted to. At that moment it gave him greater satisfaction than not to shoot, for whatever reason. Does that make sense?

What is done is done, but that does not mean in the next instant you [in the here and now] may decide to share it. Either way, each moment offers a new set of possibilities.

Call it nature if you will but you cannot say nature made you share it. You may desire to share it because you find it compelling and want to pass it on, in the direction of greater satisfaction but that is a far cry from saying you were forced to share it against your will, which is the problem with the conventional definition.

Once again, nature doesn’t compel. You, as part of nature, are compelled to choose what offers you greater satisfaction from moment to moment. That is the direction of all life. This direction is beyond our control, as is the fact that nothing can make us do what we choose not to do. If you could allow me to show you where these two principles take us, we would make progress.

Very true. None of us know what our efforts will produce or what the future will be. It will be what it must be, in the final analysis.

If you are given different ways of looking at it, you have a choice based on what makes more sense to you. The choice in how you perceive determinism is not a free one. We all know that.

Your consent is also synonymous with nature since nothing can make or force you to do what you do not consent to. This is an important observation because many people when questioned will say, “This person made me do it,” or “I didn’t agree to it; I was forced into it.”

Along with the truth that it is what it is because it is what it is, humanity is developing at a consistent rate. It’s exciting to see what is ahead knowing that we have the ability to prevent war and crime.

We don’t have to know the reason for why nature is the way it is, or if God exists. All we really need to know is that we are moving toward a world of peace and brotherhood as a result of this knowledge (which you haven’t read).

I am pointing out that your analysis is flawed. This is not an accusation; it’s a statement.

Again, I am not accusing you for being mistaken. I’m just pointing it out.

What is wrong with the word genuine? You say this is but one more word that we are compelled to invent? I’m not inventing this word.

Again and again you keep repeating what I already agree with. All I am saying is that life progresses as it must, which is to do better with each succeeding generation. That is how life works.

Hell, you could make this same point about many things. Relating to disagreements revolving around religion or morality or politics or art or…

This time it just happens to revolve around one of the biggest quandaries of them all: human autonomy.

The existential implications of it clearly fascinate her as much as they fascinate me. And who knows when an argument that another makes might finally begin to sink in.

Sometimes, as with our own discussion of Communism and objective morality, it makes sense to move on. Or, rather, it did to you. But that doesn’t make a world that precipitates such conflicts go away.

Then I’m back to the part about dasein. Grappling with all the variables in your life that come together “here and now” to predispose you to make one decision rather than another.

Only here the very nature of that choice itself is at stake.

I’m asking her why she is choosing to stay- what she is getting out of this when all you do is repeat the same point. You see yourself as a domino and she does not see herself that way. Apparently neither of you have a reason to change.

Of course, from my point of view, you were no less making the same points over and over and over again in our own exchanges.

As she tends to as well in our effort here.

All we can do then is to situate those points out in the world that we live in.

And, no, I do not think of myself as a domino. I am instead unable to make up my mind as to whether or not the choices that I make are [at least in some respect] of my own volition.

I merely suggest in turn that even to the extent that they are, “I” in the is/ought world is the embodiment of dasein in a world of conflicting goods that are, as often as not, “resolved” in favor of those with the political and economic power to actually enforce particular sets of behaviors.

I’m not sure.

Human autonomy meaning free will. Why don’t you use the term “free will?” The is a semantic problem not a genuine contradiction.

This discussion fascinates me only because of its value once we understand that responsibility increases with this knowledge, not decreases.

Conflicts will naturally go away when the first blow of hurt goes away.

And when the decision that predisposed you to making a decision that requires punishment no longer exists, our problem is solved.

The nature of choice is not at stake. As long as man can deliberate and compare, choice will remain. What matters is that when this principle is put into effect, the choice to hurt another will be the least preferable alternative rendering this option an impossibility under the changed conditions.

Of course your choices are of your own volition or desire. Could they be anyone else’s? But… just because your choices are of your own volition (or free will, according to compatibilism) does not, in actuality, grant you freedom of the will due to the fact that you are never given a free choice since you are compelled to move in the direction of what offers you greater, not less, satisfaction, and only one choice can be made each and every moment of time. Moreover, when there is no more need for government because the conflicts have been resolved, how can there be political and economic powers that create an unfair advantage?

[i]Decline and Fall

There is no mathematical standard as to what is right and wrong
in human conduct except this hurting of others, and once this is
removed, once it becomes impossible to desire hurting another, then
whatever value existed in asking for and giving advice has been
permanently done away with.[/i]

Doesn’t that support his position that you are not really making a choice?

But he says that he’s not making a choice.

That’s the point that he keeps repeating which seems to directly negate your ideas about choice, decision, responsibility, etc.

How can you cross that fence between you?

Yeah. I’m used to this.

You hammer on the same thing over and over. Then when someone addresses that consistent message, you shift entirely.

Of course, you could never not respond in this way. And you will always respond in this way until you don’t.

You can think of yourself as an actor with choices or you can think of yourself as a domino without choices.

Why pick one over the other? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Can you switch around from one to the other? Are you better off adopting one view?