Determinism

More from our hardcore intellectual…

Somehow this is thought to be a keen observation on the subject of free will.

The past apparently is clearly beyond any measure of autonomy. But to the extent autonomy prevails in regard to that which we choose [freely] to remember about the past, we are still able to use those memories to shape the present into a future that is not wholly compelled by the laws of nature.

Cause and effect have created a past that we can then will into a future that is somehow not subject to the laws that all other matter must obey.

The brain – his brain anyway – is the one exception in regard to natural law. Nature is championed by him but only to the extent that he is freely allowed to dictate to others how they are obligated to embrace nature in turn.

The irony here then being completely lost on him.

How is this all actually demonstrated by him to be true? Well, being a hardcore intellectual, he has only to assert it as something that is believed to be true “in his head”.

Perhaps even defined into existence?

Whether compelled by nature, or of his own free will, we can always count on the hardcore intellectual to keep the “analysis” up in the clouds.

What on earth is this supposed to mean with regard to the behaviors that we choose from day to day?

Let him cite some examples of “pure projected abstraction” being “vulnerable to human emotional and egotistical corruption.”

And let him demonstrate how all of this unfolds in a human brain that some neuroscientists insist is no less the embodiment of nature’s laws.

How on earth are these laws not then applicable to his own frames of mind?

Some feedback. Yourresponses are on the same subjewct, but they don’t really respond to points I’ve made. They seem to rephrase earlier assertions you’ve made. Which makes it hard to have a discussion. I could repeat my points, but I’ll drop it.

Consider:

“…because free will is typically taken to be a necessary condition of moral responsibility, compatibilism is sometimes expressed as a thesis about the compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism…”

In other words, I still can’t figure how, once the “thesis” makes contact with the actual world of conflicting goods, moral responibilty can only be compatible instead with free will.

Somehow this seems to revolve around how peacegirl and others focus the beam on the fact that, unlike the bullet from the gun that has no choice but to kill its target, the ones pulling the trigger “choose” to do this.

Even though there was never any possibility of them not choosing to.

How can moral responsibility be made compatible with that — other than by insisting that nature compels some to believe that it is.

It doesn’t matter what the free will advocate, the compatibilist or the hard determinist claims is true given my own understanding of determinism.

All things claimed by all of them reflect human brains that are necessarily in sync with the laws of nature.

What then do I keep missing?

There are no actual choices being made here. There is only the psychological illusion of “choice” emanating from brains emanating from matter emanating from the laws that govern it.

Bullets are inanimate objects that have no choice but to obey the laws of physics just like all other inanimate objects in the Universe
Human beings are biological organisms that have the freedom to exercise moral or immoral choices such as firing a bullet from a gun

Human beings are also moral agents as well as biological organisms
A moral agent is something that is capable of making moral choices

If no choices existed then neither would free will and every thought and action would automatically be determined
But randomness which is the opposite of determinism still exists and equally applies to objects as well as organisms

But then you have to demonstrate how the matter that comprises the bullet is different from the matter that comprises the human brain.

Can you?

Now, don’t get me wrong, there may well be a difference.

And this might go back to God or to an understanding of human consciousness emanating from a brain composed of matter that can be shown to be qualitatively different from mindless matter.

But, if so, where is the actual demonstration that this is an irrefutable fact of nature?

Where is the philosophical argument [or scientific evidence] that, once and for while, finally reconciles the conflicting assumptions that have been going back and forth in regard to dualism now for thousands of years.

Okay, how is the brain as a biological organism able to reconfigure its own matter into an autonomous point of view?

How specifically does that actually unfold in the brain?

And, if this has in fact been determined by, among others, neuroscientists, why aren’t we hearing about it everywhere?

So, what about the choices that you make in dreams? Do you choose freely the things that you think, feel, say and do in them? Or, instead, does the brain create these “realities” chemically and neurologically night after night?

Everything exists on a spectrum ranging from the very simple at one end to the very complex at the other end
So complex organisms such as human beings are therefore more capable and adaptable than simple organisms
The entire spectrum is quite simply the eternal infinite reality that is in a constant state of motion and change

We do not yet fully understand how the brain works and a very specific problem is lack of objectivity
In order to study the brain you have to use the brain which is not ideally how phenomena are studied

What can be determined is that the sub conscious is more in control than the conscious
So I would say that it is that which is responsible for all dream states not the conscious

Moral responsibility cannot be made compatible with that. How can a person be held morally responsible if he could not have done otherwise? That’s the first part of the two-sided equation.

Even when two or more choices have a relatively equal probability of being chosen, as long as there is the slightest difference in value to the person doing the choosing, he will be compelled to pick that choice in favor of the other. If there are no differences in value to the person doing the choosing, his brain will automatically choose one over the other without any contemplation necessary. What difference would it make if he chose this A or that A considering they were identical or identical in value?

In actuality, every thought and every action is determined not by some external force but by our biological necessity of choosing only that which offers us the better alternative, and only one choice is possible. It’s a one way street. IOW, why was the chosen option inevitable? Because that option most fitted our purposes at the time-inevitability is not some mysterious external force which forces us to choose against our will. If you don’t understand the greater satisfaction principle, you will be using the old definition which causes an unnecessary split between these two ideologies. There will never be a solution because the two camps are not compatible due to definition only. That is why the author said that free will (or doing something of one’s own accord) and determinism (not choosing freely) can be reconciled and still be within the confines of natural law.

Obviously, we have no control over our dream states just as we have no control over other biological systems like our reflexes. Although we are able to make a choice, the choice is not a free one. We are no more free than our brain state when we’re dreaming although the illusion of free will is a very powerful one. “Sure I have free will. Nothing is stopping me from choosing this or that.” It seems so simple coming from a superficial understanding.

separate morality from free will
by Phil Goetz
at the lesswrong website

Even in a free will world however Jim would seemingly have the choice not allow Joe to make him do it. He could choose freely to alllow Joe to shoot him. The real question then is this: regarding the entire sequence of events was Joe or Jim at any time able of their own volition to choose [rather than “choose”] anything at all?

In other words, even in regard to what others are concerned about in reacting to what does in fact unfold, the reactions themselves are all compelled by nature’s laws.

All that need be established [if it can be by the hard guys in the scientific community] is that the human brain itself is no less a necessary component of those laws.

Or, again, so it seems to me given my own understanding of determinism.

They wouldn’t need to ask perhaps because asking here is no less beyond their control as entities lacking in autonomy. The brain deficiency is merely another inherent manifestation of nature – a necessary mutation that unfolds inside any particular brain. It [and only it] causes him to behave as it does.

Or maybe something like this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_W … nd_inquest

The controversy that surrounded cause and effect here. Did the brain tumor alone compel him to behave as he did?

The real question would still seem to be this: are all brains [with or without conditions/tumors/diseases etc.] just the most sophisticated of nature’s dominoes?

Which just brings us back to the deeply puzzling conundrum embedded in grappling with the human brain in all this: to be or not to be of our own free will?

Does the “entire spectrum” that encompasses the laws of nature allow for human autonomy?

That’s the predicament alright. We are of nature trying to explain nature evolving into brains now able to make attempts to explain it.

There appears to be no way in which to detach ourselves from the inquiry itself. To gain that precious “objectivity”.

After all, look at what is at stake here! What if everything – everything – we think, feel, say and do is only as it ever could have been?

What would that then suggest about this very exchange?

But what can’t be determined is the extent to which waking states are just the psychological illusion of being different from dream states.

With ever fiber of our intuition we just know that they are. But who among us has at last been able to demonstrate this?

Again, how would news of this sort not be plastered everywhere if a final determination had been made?

Or, if that in fact did become a part of our waking world, how would we determine if that part in turn was not just another manifestation of nature? That we believed it had all been resolved only because nature had compelled us to believe it.

They are only different in the sense that they have different capabilities but they are still on the same spectrum
Because everything that exists in the observable Universe is either all made of or from the same natural elements
These elements are the building blocks of all organisms and objects which share this commonality if not much else

Yes it does because any observable function is a feature of the spectrum because the spectrum is all there is - there is nothing else
This does not just include the observable Universe but everything that is non observable as well for it is literally everything there is

In other words, the part we seem bascially in sync regarding.

Yes, the part that we are compelled by nature not to be in sync regarding at all.

As though the “value” that “I” place on this instead of that is not in turn just another inherent manifestation of natural law.

This mysterious part of your own particular “I” that, at the moment of “choosing”, is compelled by nature to be convinced that, unlike the bullet in the gun, does in fact get to “choose”.

That it is only what nature compels you to choose is beside the point. What’s important is that nature compels you to believe that this is a crucial, important distinction between the trajectory of your “I” and the trajectory of the mindless bullet in the mindless gun.

But: over and over and over again, I may well be incorrect regarding my understanding of all this. Either because nature compels me to be or because my thinking as an autonomous beings is inferior to yours as an autonomous being.

I don’t deny the possibility of that.

When machines finally replace humans they will be able to study us from a more clinical perspective
They will not be compromised by the psychological traits that prevent us from being truly objective

Waking states and dream states are functions of the brain and therefore exist on a spectrum
Different parts of the brain are activated but it is still the same organ that is doing all of this

We like to compartmentalise and split things up and put them into little boxes but reality is just a single continuum
Everything is ultimately connected to everything else - there is no real separation in reality - separation is an illusion