Here is another tricky proposition: “random events”.
What does it mean for something to be truly “random” here? Does it mean that out of the blue something “just happens” – it happens such that it cannot be linked to any causal laws of matter?
This doesn’t seem reasonable at all to me.
But here [eventually] we get around to the evolution of matter into the mysterious marvel that is human consciousness.
Prior to self-conscious matter, is it even possible to imagine matter interacting in an entirely random fashion? I don’t see how. Whatever precipitated the big bang precipitated a universe that seems to be wholly in alignment with mathematics and the laws of physics. Or seems to be depending on the extent to which quantum physics is relevant here.
Still, the human mind is matter like no other. But even here what unfrolds is never really “random”.
Instead, what we think and feel and do seem to be intertwined both in the immutable laws of matter and in the more problematic [existential] implications of dasein. We are clearly predisposed by the past to make the particular choices that we do in the present. But it’s not like things just pop into our head in a wholly random manner. It is simply that the complex intertwining of nature and nurture make it extremely difficult at times to pin these things down. Let alone to pin them down objectively.
You’re relatively new here. So allow me please to note the distinction that I make between Objectivists and objectivists.
Objectivists [with a capital O] are those who embrace the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Objectivists [with a small o] are those who insist that they have acquired the one and only objective truth [about anything] and if others here don’t embrace their argument [their definitions, their deductions] then they are perforce, necessarily wrong.
And then I make a further distinction between those things which seemingly are true objectively for all of us [i.e. we all make choices] and those things which seem embedded instead [by each of us as individuals] in subjective narratives [i.e. I make my choices freely, I do not make my choices freely].
But in particular I focus on those discussions that revolve around human identity and conflicting value judgments.
Yes, we’re certainly on the same page here.
Well, this seems similar [to me] to the argument that some religionists make that God’s omniscience is rooted in Him knowing everything that we will do – even though He does not know what we will do until we choose to do it. But then we get into an “epistemological” debate about what truly and objectively constitutes “omniscient” knowledge. Why not root it in God knowing everything we will do before we do it? Why necessarily after we do it?
God can know that Mary will choose an abortion before she chooses an abortion. Or God can only know that Mary will choose an abortion after she chose it.
But how in the world would philosophers or religionists be able to determine which it is other than by merely making certain assumptions about what constitutes “God’s omniscience” here and then believing that this is true objectively “in their heads”?
Going back to the Ministry’s argument above:
I have a five year old son. If I were to leave a chocolate chip cookie on the table about a hour before dinner time and my son was to walk by and see it, I know that he would pick up the cookie and eat it. I did not force him to make that decision. In fact, I don’t even have to be in the room at all. I think I know my son well enough, though, to tell you that if I come back into the kitchen the cookie will be gone. His act was made completely free of my influence, but I knew what his actions would be.
I’m sorry but I don’t see how this adequately deals with the points I raised above:
[b]How could the act be made completely free of his influence when he put the cookie on the table?
And suppose the boy had the stomach flu and left the cookie sitting on the table. Or suppose the boy had been struck by a car and killed because he chose to visit a friend an hour before dinner and was not even around to see the cookie?
Do these events unfold only as they must unfold or is there an element of genuine free choice involved?[/b]
I will be the first to admit that this might be entirely logical. Technically. But it is simply not the sort of logic I am [yet] able to wrap my head around.
I don’t deny that Mary can choose to abort or not to abort her baby. I don’t deny that the boy can choose to eat or not to eat the cookie. But what does that really mean [re free will] when either through the immutable laws of matter or through an omniscient God everything – everything – can only unfold out of necessity as it must unfold in order to be in sync with what peacegirl calls the “design”?
No, I’m saying something stronger. I’m saying God can know what we will do, before we do it, and this does not mean that we can fail to do, other than what we do. This is what I am trying to show.
Forget about God.
Aristotle wondered whether, today, there can be true propositions about future contingent events. His worry was that if there can be such propositions, then fatalism prevails: Nothing is contingent, and everything must unfold in some pre-determined way. (fatalism is not the same as determinism, but put that aside.)
Posit that it is possible for there to be true propositions today, about events that happen tomorrow.
Today it is true, that tomorrow there will be a sea battle.
My question to you is: if it is true today, that tomorrow there will be a sea battle, does it logically follow that tomorrow, there must be a sea battle?
Or do the sea battlers have a choice whether to have a battle or not?
Why focus on the environment here at all when whatever the environment is [either now or in the new world] it is only what it ever can be?
And I suspect that if you live in a political jurisdiction where obtaining an abortion is the legal equivalent of capital murder, that might be incentive enough not to obtain one. Or maybe having the child is deemed to be so dissatisfying to you that you will risk the back alley route.
And yet we will still be stuck with those who insist that financial stability for all is only possible in a socialist political economy. What is their option then, not to sign the “universal conscience” contract, not to become citizens of the new world utopia?
What about executions? What about those who are killed in the course of starting and then sustaining wars revolving precisely around which political economy will prevail, must prevail, should prevail? And around who will have the wealth and the power to enforce a set of laws that favor some segments of the population over others? And around those who will profit from sustaining a war economy?
These conflicting goods, in my view, go away only in your head here. I have yet to come upon substantive arguments that convince me that we can actually achieve this ideal “new world” such that blame and punishment become moot.
And that is before we get to the part about the narcissists who steal and rape and murder etc., simply because, from their point of view, morality revolves entirely around self-satisfaction, around self-gratification.
Or those who do all manner of hurtful things to others because they claim that it is in “the will of God”.
But, again and again: What any of us want is only what we must want. If we do something “wrong” or punish another for doing something “wrong”, that is reasonable because how can doing only what it is necessary to do not be reasonable – not be reasonable?
Because the decision among the majority to create a no blame environment based on science will cause a paradigm shift never before seen in the history of man. God is tricky.
Again, who is arguing with this?
There IS no force. If someone doesn’t want a guaranteed income never to go down then he doesn’t have to sign an agreement not to blame or tell anyone what to do. Those ARE the preconditions.
But we’re not punishing anymore, which is also part and parcel of what must be IF people see the value in NOT BLAMING. We are not on a trajectory that will lead us toward something that we ourselves have not chosen. The designer (whether you call it God, Om, or the Source) does not have this kind of power.
Too many “nots” here perhaps. God [in being omniscient] cannot not know that Mary will choose to abort her baby. But Mary is still “free” to choose?
Nope. I’m definitely still missing something here.
Sans God, if matter unfolds [yesterday, today and tomorrow] only as it must unfold to be in sync with the immutable laws of matter, then the sea battle either unfolds or does not unfold only as it must or must not unfold in order to be in alignment with the immutable laws of matter.
Here the “sea battlers” are just more matter, albeit matter with minds. But minds [making choices] would seem no less inexorably embedded in these necessary physical laws of existence.
Then I am back to pointing out that the decisions made here are themselves only as they ever could be. Per the ubiquitous design. Whereas [from my perpsective] the manner in which you present events unfolding here seems to allow for men and women to “see the light”; and thus to change their minds about blame and punishment. Before, they chose to be for it…and now they choose to be against it. As though it was ever within their power to choose one over the other freely.
But the manner in which I describe this is predicated on the assumption that women will make these choices freely. Or, rather, subjectively, within the context of dasein and conflicting goods. But if a woman does choose to abort there will be those who choose to blame and punish her for it.
Thus I am still at a loss to understand how this goes away in the new world.
From my frame of mind this is noted as though wanting or not wanting something is within our capactity to choose freely. Just as choosing to sign or not sign would be. But all of this unfolds instead within the confines of the necessity that is inherently embedded in the laws of matter.
From my perspective then, your perspective is one that seems to flit in and out of this in order to sustain your assumptions about the new world.
Well, my own present knowledge of the conflicting political narratives rooted in the historical context that is capitalism vs. socialism is predicated on what is actually able to be confirmed empirically over the past 150+ years. Your own projection on the other hand is rooted only in scientists [and then the rest of us] coming into contact with Lessans’ discovery, embracing it and then “shifting” over to a no blame/no punishment frame of mind.
Or so it seems to me.
Or: You are so caught up in your defense that you have not heard a word I said.
Meanwhile, nothing that we have exchanged thus far on this thread is anything other than that which we could only have exchanged. Thus we are both off the hook here in advance.
After all, how can someone determined to think and to feel and to do what he must, win or lose anything other what it is necessary for him to win or to lose?
No, only if the right people happen upon Lessans’ discovery and set into motion the paradigm shift, will the new world unfold as Lessans’ discovery predicts it will.
But, in turn, this can only happen or not happen as it must.
And it would seem futile to speak of having “power” here because [to me] this implies a frame of mind able to grasp it. Which, of course, is why most folks invent Gods. Instead, “power” here is embedded only in the belief that matter unfolds solely within the context of its own immutable laws. There can be no real teleological component here at all. It is all simply intertwined intrinsically in the brute facticity of necessity.
And, if I understand you, absolutely none of us are ever excluded from doing what we must do in order to be wholly in sync with it.
Yes, this is a rather succinct manner in which to sum up the ways in which most of us approach the relationship between “free will” and “moral responsibiility.”
We choose to do the right thing and are praised. We choose to do the wrong thing and are blamed. Or even punished. And right and wrong here can revolve either around a deontological or a consequentialist frame of mind.
What it leaves out entirely however is the manner in which I construe moral narratives as rooted in dasein, conflicting goods and in political economy.
But at least we can reasonably grasp the manner in which it frames the relationship between free will and moral responsibility.
It was never within their power to choose it freely since we can only move in a direction that is the most preferable. Allowing men and women to change their mind based on new information or to “see the light” is still within the framework of determinism. It does not grant anyone free will.
I really don’t know why you keep focusing on this one aspect. Are you talking about Middle Eastern countries where women are subjected to harsh punishment? Who punishes a woman for getting an abortion in this day and age? There may still be differences in opinion but everyone who becomes a citizen will have to sign an agreement that he will not judge or criticize what another person does, even if he doesn’t agree with it. This is what prevents someone’s conscience from doing that which he is being judged, if his conscience tells him that what he is doing is hurtful. Abortion is that grey area where a potential life is snuffed out, but it is usually because the woman is in a predicament and must choose the lesser of two evils. When she doesn’t get into this kind of predicament, abortions will be a rare occurrence, if at all.
Having the capacity to choose, or having options, does not grant us free will. Obviously, everything unfolds as it must unfold. I can pretty much guarantee that when this knowledge becomes recognized people will want to become part of this new world and will be on pins and needles waiting for their turn.
Signing in or out is done not of our own free will, so where am I flitting in and out to sustain assumptions, when there are no assumptions? You are the one making assumptions that this knowledge contains assumptions, which it does not. That is why discussing a book of such import (which has not been read) in a philosophy forum is not working because it only offers a cursory understanding. It’s not the fault of the discovery or the venue. It’s just not a good fit.
In the sense that you had to respond the way you did and I also had to respond the way I did, we are off the hook, but there is something to be lost (about a thousand years) if people don’t give this man the benefit of the doubt, even though this too would be the way it must be. My hope is that people will have the capacity and the desire to learn more. The problem is that science has yet to confirm that this knowledge is, in fact, valid and sound and until that time people will turn their noses up at it as if it’s trash.
I’ve never disputed this point. Matter unfolds within the context of its own immutable laws, which states that we must choose that which gives us greater satisfaction, and when this psychological law is understood, mankind will have no choice but to move in this direction for satisfaction.
I think the answer Pec was looking for is something along the lines of: No, if it is true today that tomorrow there will be a sea battle, it does not logically follow that tomorrow, there must be a sea battle (namely, that it is true tomorrow that there has been, is, or will be a sea battle that day). After all, Logic is just about statements, not about reality. There is nothing in the first statement that implies (the content of) the second statement. Only if we add a third statement that establishes such an implication will the second statement logically follow from the first. Nifty, eh?
Nifty? I don’t agree with your and Pec’s analysis that what will be is not what must be. If an onmincient being knows exactly what will take place, isn’t that what must take place? I understand the desire to be free of any preconditions, so that we become God. But we are not God, and if God knows (the intelligence governing this universe) in advance what we will do, this does not mean our actions are fruitless. We are the mirror of God, and we cannot win over God to be more than what we are, but our importance as individual human beings is not taken away because of this. I think this is what people most fear; their insignificance.
Yes, but that is precisely my point. In a wholly determined world, the entirety of existence itself unfolds inherently only as it ever could have unfolded. You and I making our choices/“choices” now, just like the folks above making their choices/“choices” in the new world, are all components of the same unfolding reality embedded in the laws of matter. Nothing [no one] escapes it. Every choice/“choice” made by every mind necessarily coincides with it.
But how is any of this not already part and parcel of the point I just made above:
In a wholly determined world, the entirety of existence itself unfolds inherently only as it ever could have unfolded. You and I making our choices/“choices” now, just like the folks above making their choices/“choices” in the new world, are all components of the same unfolding reality embedded in the laws of matter. Nothing [no one] escapes it. Every choice/“choice” made by every mind necessarily coincides with it
Women choosing abortion, others choosing to blame and to punish them for choosing abortion, the political narratives that exist around the globe – everyone here doing only what they ever could have done.
Right?
You argue that…
As though men and women are free to choose whether or not they will recognize this knowledge. As though the feeling of being on pins and needles or not being on pins and needles is anything other than what they must feel.
I suppose this pretty much encompasses our own rendition of “what we have here is failure to communicate”.
You are asserting what you do about our capacity to exercise free will. And this assertion is predicated on the assumption that Lessans’ discovery is in fact true objectively. But, in my view, his discovery is predicated in turn on the assertions that he makes regarding the manner in which he construes the meaning of his observations. He provides little or no empirical/experiential evidence to support the assumptions he makes in his argument/analysis. How then can neuroscientists [or any other scientists] either verify or falsify his “principles” by way of conducting experiments or by way of replicating his results?
And, again, the surreal part for me is the manner in which, in embracing your own consclusions about free will, there is not a single thing that Lessans or you or I or the scientists could/can/will ever do other than what we necessarily must do in order to be fully in sync [u]with the design[/u].
But whether this is or is not lost a thousand years from now is as certain in a determined world as what might have been thought lost by folks a thousand years ago. All of the old worlds of the past eventually became the new worlds of the present in the only possible worlds there could ever have been. Every single one of us then are just along for the ride. It’s just that some of us sustain the illusion that we choose what we choose here of our own free will. And others know [assert] that we do not. But the common denominator between us is still always this: [u]the necessity to think and to feel and to behave only as we must[/u].
Yes, in a wholly determined world, this would seem to be a reasonable assumption. I only point out then that what we construe as being satisfying is also only what we ever could have construed as being satisfying. And that what we do come to understand is only what we ever could have come to understand.
But how you and Lessans go from what I seem to understand about the world today to what everyone apparently must understand about it in the new world, is still a gap that [to me] makes the Grand Canyon look like a crack in the sidewalk.
Apparently, my irony was lost on you. Also, you have apparently forgotten that, in all my discussions with you in this thread and others, I’ve never expressed disagreement with the determinism part of your father’s argument. Anyway, my rendition of Pec’s analysis is still correct. That is to say, I’m not sure whether it’s what he meant, but nothing follows from a single statement except what’s in that statement. Thus from the statement, “Today it is true, that tomorrow there will be a sea battle”, it does not follow that “tomorrow it is true, that there has been, is, or will be a sea battle that day.” The second statement only follows from the first statement in combination with a third statement, for instance “Regarding tomorrow, whatever is true today will be true tomorrow.” (This example is false, by the way, as today it’s true that tomorrow lies entirely in the future, but tomorrow that will no longer be true.)
What must be understood is not that difficult and can be easily applied once this knowledge is recognized and once all the political leaders become our first citizens which will allow the Great Transition to commence.
If it’s taken for granted that am omnicient being knows what will take place in advance of its occurrence, then it is true that He would know tomorrow there will be a sea battle. In this context there is no difference between “will” and “must”. The fact that you never expressed disagreement with the determinism part of my father’s argument is only half of the solution. If you don’t see the validity in his observation regarding conscience and the fact that nothing on this earth can make you do to another what you don’t want to do, not even God himself, then it’s no wonder you are not that interested in the book. But his observations are accurate.
Again, and again and again: this is the distinction I am not able [here and now] to wrap my head around.
It is as though someone believes that everything we think, feel and do is only as we must – but they “choose” instead to pretend that this is not the case at all. Why? In order to be “practical” about the need for men and women to at least believe that they are freely choosing to either do the right or the wrong thing.
All the while knowing that nothing is ever not as it can only be.
I think that, for determinists, consequentialism only makes sense in relation to non-determinists. A determinist can see how praise and blame matters to non-determinists. This then may cause him to praise and blame non-determinists. And this, in turn, has a completely determinate effect on the latter.
The same nature that permits the most heinous crimes, and all the other evils of human relation, is going to veer so sharply in a different direction that all nations on this planet, once the leaders and their subordinates understand the principles involved, will unite in such a way that no more wars will ever again be possible.
…will come about much beyond simply asserting that it will. And yet the world a thousand years ago, the world today and the world a thousand years from now are of a whole. Our parts in it were fated from the moment the law of matter itself came into existence. And none of us are anywhere near to understanding the meaning of that.
Yes, you believe things like this, “in your head”. But until you are able to devise an argument that links these prognostications to the sort of empirical/experiential evidence that will show how what you predict here and now necessitates the existence of the “new world”, you can only be content with just “knowing” that it must be true because Lessans predicted it. Sure, you can always keep insisting that Lessans is right even if no one else has “confirmed” his observations. But I sincerely doubt you will manage to convince many others of this. Until and unless his arguments are in fact more substantively demonstrable, it will always just come down basically to either agreeing with or not agreeing with his analysis.
If everything that I think, feel and do is thought, felt and done only because I was utterly compelled to think, feel and do them, well, that comes about as close to being an automaton as I can imagine. To call this actively choosing is like calling the dominoes actively falling. Only the dominoes [unlike us] are completely oblivious to it all.
Again: As though to suggest that if someone does not understand something that is not really all that difficult to understand, they are the problem here. But then all the while you keep agreeing with me that the extent to which anyone does understand it is only as they were ever able to understand it.
That is why discussing a book of such import (which has not been read) in a philosophy forum is not working because it only offers a cursory understanding. It’s not the fault of the discovery or the venue. It’s just not a good fit.