New Discovery

Obviously it wasn’t enough to overcome the strong desire to get high. Maybe an addict is under the belief that his family will stick with him. That immediate gratification is hard to deal with. No one is denying that. And they may be remorseful after rehab, but sadly it still could be too late. In the new world, the desire to take drugs in order to escape will not be an issue like it is today.

Yes, I get that. They do it anyway because the desire is very strong especially when the addiction is physical as well as emotional. That is how powerful addiction is, but there comes a time when the fear of losing someone (in the hypothetical example I gave you) is greater than the addiction. What I’m trying to share with you is that in spite of the pull toward addiction, it’s still a choice, and even though one knows his life can be ruined, an addict has a hard time stopping unless there is a more pressing fear that is sobering. It’s not like a causal chain (such as an avalanche) where one has no choice. I hope you can accept that man does not have free will (even if you accept it with some reservation) so we can move forward.

Peacegirl,

You argue that some people have more freewill than others, yet argue that none of us have freewill.

When making universal statements like this about people, you are negating the universal, by assenting to gradations.

You are contradicting yourself.

Meno, if this discovery can bring about peace on earth (which it can) I would say the ramifications are significant. I am doing my earnest to connect the mode of my thinking and not to place you in a forest of ideas in which to get lost in.

[i]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]

What? I never said that some people have more free will than others. No one has freedom of the will so how can people have more free will than others when there is no such thing? Makes no sense. :confused:

sounds good. always given benefit to challenging themes. , especially one such challenges so much of what we would like to hope for in the survival of our earth, and life, that has nestled us for so many, many years.

I hope you stick around. :slight_smile:

I’ve always been a man who stuck around for better or for worse. Of that You shall not have any doubt, I assure You.

You’ve admitted openly that people have freewill, words you quoted, but that they are confused about that this means.

You also openly stated that more educated people can make better educated decisions. That is overtly stating that gradations occur

Ecmandu: Peacegirl, you argue that some people have more freewill than others, yet argue that none of us have freewill.

Peacegirl: I was very clear that to say “I did something of my own free will” is fine if it means “I did something of my own desire”. But this is just a colloquial expression. He says throughout the book, “he was compelled, of his own free will”. Again, this means he was compelled of his own desire.

Ecmandu: When making universal statements like this about people, you are negating the universal, by assenting to gradations.

Peacegirl: There are no gradations. You misunderstood.

Ecmandu: You are contradicting yourself.

Peacegirl: No I’m not. I never said that some people have more free will than others. No one has freedom of the will so how can people have more free will than others when there is no such thing? Makes no sense. :confused:

Ecmandu: You’ve admitted openly that people have freewill, words you quoted, but that they are confused about that this means.

Peacegirl: I hope I straightened that out for you!

Ecmandu: You also openly stated that more educated people can make better educated decisions. That is overtly stating that gradations occur.

Peacegirl: This comment has nothing to do with gradations of free will, which I never said we had.

Peacegirl,

We can only possibly abstract determinism by the observation of restrictions. So, to show what’re or not existence is 100% restrictive (absolute determinism) is to use the limit of knowing every reason why you know everything that you know, and all of those reasons are external (restrictive) to you.

If it’s 100%, we know through the thought experiment that this allows 0% capability to abstract a self.

By definitions, through proof through contradiction, st the limit, we can prove that 100% determinism is false, in a self evident way.

You keep stating that it’s just MY definition of determinism, and not the correct one.

Actually, it’s the only definition of determinism.

You are being disingenuous to this regard.

Determinism means a person could not have done otherwise. You are contradicting yourself when you say we can have free will (we could have done otherwise given the same exact time and place) and no free will (we could not have done otherwise given the same exact time and place). To rectify the situation you resort to compatibilism. All they have done is created a convenient definition of free will which does nothing to change the fact that we can only go in one direction, thus no free will. Be happy we don’t have free will!

If everyone knows every reason why they know everything that they know, and any of those causes are external to them, than determinism exists, as they had no internal decision on that matter. It had to be that way and no other way.

If all of those causes are external, then we’re talking about absolute determinism (nobody ultimately has a choice). I d monstrated absolute determinism as false through a perfect irrefutable limit argument using your own definition (and the definition everyonevelse uses)

No, you are most certainly the one contradicting themselves here.

My summation of those who argue in favour of Free Will is that they conflate possibility with actuality.

“Could” have done otherwise, to the Free Will advocate, means the choice not taken seemed perfectly possible to choose and it felt like it could just as easily have been chosen in actuality, and the fact that it wasn’t doesn’t affect that.
“Could” have done otherwise, to the Determinist means sure the choice not chosen felt perfectly possible, but there was a reason why it turned out not to be the actual choice, and that reason also had a prior reason, and so on.

The conversation between the two is an infinite loop of the following:
FW: yeah but I could have.
Det: yeah but you didn’t.

It’s no wonder how some people, e.g. Karpel Tunnel blackbox the whole issue, to avoid debates of this type. It’s almost the case that you can tell something fundamentally psychological about someone who takes one side over the other. The Free Will advocate likes the aesthetics of things feeling free and open ended, perhaps revelling in the idea that they are therefore free and the Determinist is a slave: as I have come across at least one un-intellectual obsessing over on a different thread. The airy fairy type who lives in their own head. The Determinist is simply saying, sure that’s all nice, but reality.

Free Will only seems possible to a Dualist, avoiding the “mind-body problem”. The Determinist can be either. The respective causal chains seem to advance as follows:

FW
Material influences(external experience/genetics)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ======> Choice
Mental component (internal disposition/identity). /

Det
External experience/genetics/disposition/identity => decision mechanism => Choice

The former’s “mental component” is the “decision mechanism” from the latter, but ex nihilo: in and of itself, it exists independent of the information to consider in making a choice - somehow being influenced by it without being influenced by it. If it were being influenced by it, it would be slave to the master of its influences, but not being slave to the master of influence would make the decision essentially random: a paradox.

My argument is that either you make a decision for a reason, in which case there is will but it is not free, or you make a decision for no reason, in which case it is free but not by your will. Free or will, not both.

That’s why I’m a compatibalist.

Besides it being the correct answer.

Sorry silluoutte,

My bad, I only read up to the arrowy stuff.

You don’t believe compatibalism.

“Sly” however is the sort of thing you would expect from the free will folks. They would accuse someone of trying to be sly because they are convinced that this choice was something they did have control over. They chose to be sly when they could have chosen not to be. Whereas in a determined universe I “chose” to be sly only because nature compelled me to.

You want it both ways. But in a manner I am still unable to grasp. You want to make a distinction between a domino not choosing to topple over and John choosing to set it up to topple over. While at the same time acknowledging that both the dominio and John do only that which nature compells them to do.

No, that’s the hatch that nature compels me to “choose” to escape down. Just as nature compels us to “choose” to post these words in our exchange only as they ever could have been posted. What you want is to escape down the hatch that revolves around the meaning that you were of necessity compelled to give to “choose”.

It really comes down to how you connect the dots between the things you want to do and the things that nature compels you to want to do. As though there actually is a distinction to be made in a world where all matter [including the human brain] is inherently connected to all of the dots that comprise nature itself.

This is simply preposterous to me. You admit that what you think you know is necessarily embedded in all that you do not know…and then simply shrug that off. Why? Becasue you need to do this in order to sustain the belief that what you think you do know is somehow in sync with what the author thinks that he knows in discovering this wholly subjective progressive future.

It’s all neatly contained in the internal logic that revolves entirely around what you think you do know about that 5% of the universe that physicists themselves admit is applicable only to the matter that they are grappling to understand given all the unknown unknowns contained in the other 95%.

What you can’t ever own up to [in my view] is how crucial the authors “discovery” is to sustaining the psychological comfort and consolation that believing in all his assumptions provides you. It’s your own equivalent of God and religion from my frame of mind.

On the other hand, given the manner in which I construe a determined universe, my own speculations here about your “comfort zone” are no less compelled by nature. As though what either of us believe “is possible” is taken into consideration by nature as she makes her way inexorably into a future that can only be given the laws of matter that comprises nature.

See, you acknowledge that my interest in this is entirely embedded in that which nature compels me to be interested in, but that somehow nature, in compelling you to “choose” to whet my appetite here, might somehow herself be compelled to be more in sync with you.

Then someone else is going to have to be more successful in reconfiguring your words here into something that makes sense to me. There are no exceptions to nature’s rules. But the manner in which you “choose” to point this out here sure seems like an exception to me.

Again, I am not arguing that you are wrong here, only that, given my own understanding of determinism, your argument seems entirely bizarre to me. Over and again you seem to agree with me about things that, from my point of view, refute your point of view.

This part:

Then I cannot be autonomous as those who champion some measure of free will describe it. Instead you concoct your own description of it. A description that seems to admit that nature compelled you to describe only as you must but that somehow your “choosing” to describe it as you do makes it all different.

This is a flat out contradiction in terms given my own understanding of determinism. To be compelled to think for myself such that I think only that which is wholly in sync with the laws of matter makes “thinking for myself” basically an illusion that matter has somehow evolved into when becoming a human mind.

But I know any number of folks right here at ILP who argue the road to prosperity for all revolves either around capitalism or socialism. Which one then is more in sync with the author’s “progressive” future?

And what of those nihilists who own and operate the military industrial complex who crave the sort of wars that keep them grinning all the way to the banks?

Somehow they will all be compelled to come into contact with the author’s “discovery” and usher in this “progressive future”. Right?

Okay, nature compels both the automatons and the guests to do only as they were ever able to “choose” to do. But that’s not the same as nature “programming” them?

And, yes, I agree in the sense that nature is differentiated from God. The laws of nature are [until we know otherwise] just the reflection of the brute facticity that is existence itself. No teleological component at all.

In reality, time is a factor. Liking two options equally, assuming mutual exclusivity as your thought experiment does, and your decision making system halting in such a situation will result in inaction: a choice made for you by Determinism. This third choice is forced through by reality and ever-elapsing time. Your argument’s fallacy is the “False Dilemma”. But even if the two options are exhaustive in the general dilemma of “either action or inaction” and you like both equally, your deterministic decision making system isn’t the only one at play, and your own indecision will simply not play a part in the Determinism that exists beyond your own decision making, and reality will continue to unfold deterministically over time regardless.
Further, over time your two equally liked options will realistically not remain equally liked with perfect consistency - at the very least minor fluctuations will occur - and even if they didn’t, the Determinism that continues regardless will influence the factors you are taking into account to have come to equally like two options (Determinism beyond of your own decision making continuing regardless), changing the equation, thus making it an inequality, thus allowing you to prefer one option over the other and choosing it.

Your argument compelled me enough to look into it, and it turns out the solution is the same as the one to Zeno’s Paradox: simply apply it to reality. The paradox exists only within ideal constraints.

That is correct, I do not.

Compatibilism seems to require an overly generous perspective on “Free Will” in order to allow the words to fit in with Determinism. It’s basically “Soft Determinism”, still Determinism but worded neutrally: the politician’s answer to the problem. It’s correct insofar as it is politically correct and appeals to the “feeling” of Free Will, but ultimately incorrect in that it avoids the hard problem(s):

  1. Possibility is not actuality: the feeling that you could have chosen differently doesn’t make it an actual choice. Only actually choosing makes something actually possible.
  2. The mind-body problem. Not a problem in the sense that it could have a solution, but a problem in the sense that it’s an unavoidable obstacle to any degree of Free Will at all.
  3. How can you be influenced by circumstance, in order to have something to make a decision about, without being influenced by circumstance, in order for your decision to be free from said influence? Free or Will? Not both.

There’s probably more, but these three are enough of a barrier to any degree of Free Will, even Compatibilism.

Everyone does not have to know every reason why they know everything that they know to have no free will. It had to be that way and no other way because they had no choice since they can only move in one direction: away from dissatisfaction to greater satisfaction. Determinism in human affairs does not mean people have no internal decision on the matter. That is absolutely wrong.

No you didn’t demonstrate anything, nor did you prove anything, because you’re premise is faulty as well as your definition.

No way am I contradicting myself. I am not saying we have free will and no free will. That is a huge contradiction that cannot be ignored just because you want to be right.

Peacegirl and sillouette,

Peacegirl defined determinism as, “you couldn’t have chosen any differently”

For me the wave function collapses at the decision point, but before that, it is not determined.

My limit argument is the only reason that I’m a compatibilist.

I’m using the definition “you could not have chosen any differently” in terms of self evident observations we make about outside forces acting upon is in ways that we do not choose.

From this: I push to the limit of this self evident observation to see what happens at that limit.

I’ve shown that at the limit, that it’s impossible for any being to be a sentient being. The limit (absolute determinism) proves itself incorrect as an argument an intelligent being can coincide with, therefor, intelligent beings can prove that, any form of possible intelligence is a necessary disproof of absolute determinism.
This has no other option than to force compatibalism.

I’m not arguing from a “feeling” here. It’s a fact.

All choices are possible (as long as they are realistic choices) before we make one, but after a choice is made it could never have been otherwise because it would have given us less satisfaction than the alternative chosen, which is an impossibility.

This is another misunderstanding of determinism. How are we slaves? That makes it sound like we are being forced to act in ways that are counter to what we ourselves choose. These terms “slave”, “robot”, “automaton” really put determinism in a bad light. No wonder people are turned off. It sounds like determinism is taking people’s choices away, which is false.

We don’t always have to have a reason for doing something. We may just have a feeling of dissatisfaction with the present position so to remove the dissatisfaction we make a move. If we are satisfied with the position we’re in, we are not dissatisfied. It’s only when we are dissatisfied (it doesn’t have to be on a conscious level) that we change positions. For example, I lay down and begin to feel uncomfortable. I now desire to find a more satisfying position. We do this every moment of our lives but it’s so automatic that we don’t think about it.

Will cannot be free because we never have a free choice. Our choices are bound by previous causes that push us in a certain direction that could not have been otherwise when looking back in hindsight. But the word “cause” is problematic because it implies that something other than ourselves is responsible for our choices. THIS IS THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM. This debate would not be significant if it didn’t deal with the issue of responsibility, for if will is not free, how can we hold anyone responsible? This is why libertarians believe we have a choice and we are deserving of punishment if we choose wrongly, since we could have chosen otherwise. Compatibilists want to create a way out so they try to make determinism compatible with free will without appearing contradictory. But they are being contradictory when they use an arbitrary definition of free will that hold people responsible for certain things while exempting people from other things. They want their cake and eat it too, so to speak. You can’t have it both ways unless you create a big faux pas.