Determinism

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.

Nick Trakakis

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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.

More later.

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.

repeat

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.

Nick Trakakis

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.

But then he does not demonstrate how this…

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.

My own difficulty here always revolves around this: that, in a world where matter is compelled to interact with other matter only as it must, then nothing we do that some will blame and punish us for [that others will not blame and punish us for] is ever other than what it could be.

Thus others can no more choose freely to blame and punish us [or not blame and punish us] than we can choose freely to do what we do to precipitate these reactions. Absolutely nothing that we think, feel and do is exempt from the laws of matter.

So, if the human mind is just more matter – matter that has evolved to the point where it is able to be conscious of itself as matter inexorably in sync with peacegirl’s design – it would seem [to me] that every single post on this entire thread is just [inevitably] only what it ever could have been.

And what does that tell us about living in a determined world? Well, if you want to rid yourself of the burden that comes with being morally responsible, sure, why not.

In any event, in embracing some capacity to choose my behaviors freely, I am still saddled with this:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

In fact, I often pursue exchanges like this [or those revolving around God and religion] precisely in order to find an antidote for this rather glum way in which view the world around me.

Yes, free will is nothing without objective values. As for determinism: from a determinist perspective, knowing that praise and blame matter to non-determinists will be an entirely deterministic factor which may–depending on the other factors–be decisive in causing determinists to praise and blame non-determinists, etc.

All I can point out here is the ordeal that free will often becomes from the perspective of dasein and conflicting goods. At least for this particular non-determinist.

And that the determinist knows that blame and praise matter to the non-determinist is only ever what she could have known. Just as, for the non-determinist, not knowing that praise and blame are not freely chosen is all that he could have known.

Until, that is, we come into places like this and bump into points of view that conflict with our own. Minds then might change. But even if they do they could not not have changed, right?

Nick Trakakis

Here, too, Tommy [and those reacting to him] are either able to make choices of their own volition or they chose only what they must choose as necessary components of the laws that compel matter to interact as it must.

Now, in a world where we do have some capacity to exercise free will, this exchange can certainly seem reasonable. Objectively, Tommy either does or does not do his homework. And, objectively, he either does or does not have a medical condition that might necessitate his not doing it.

But once we switch over to the hard determinist model everything would seem to be intertwined in the inevitable. We might have different perspectives on it but all of the perspectives would seem to be of a whole. The whole of existence/reality being only what it can ever be once the laws of matter are configured into what they in fact are.

The mystery then revolves more around why they did configure as they did. Why not some other way instead?

Or why does existence even have existence at all?

I’m sorry but this is not a mere assertion. If you believe that’s all it is, then you won’t want to even try to understand this knowledge. And if that’s how it must be, then that’s how it must be.

What do you mean by “none of us are anywhere near to understanding the meaning of that?”… as if to say that anything Lessans’ discovered can’t be that important in light of the fact that there’s so much more to know. Is that what you’re implying? It seems to me you keep alluding to this in an effort to diminish what he has discovered. At least that’s how it appears to me or you wouldn’t keep repeating it.

I’m actually sorry that you feel you are no different than a domino or a computer. In the sense that everything we think, feel, and do is done only because we were compelled to think, feel, and do them, we are very much alike because we are all determined beings. But the fact that we have been given a tremendous gift of thought and reason, we are able to use this ability for our betterment. I believe that the fact that we can only do what we must do wouldn’t bother you nearly as much if you knew for a fact that we are going to live in a much kinder world.

I say this only to people who state that Lessans’ observations are just assertions. I will again say that they are the problem not in the sense that they can do other than what they do, but in the sense that it is their lack of effort to read the book in its entirety that is causing a problem in my opinion. There is no way a person can get the full impact of how these principles play out in real life without reading the text.

Yes, the objective values must be non-conflicting, if only in that no two of them can be equal.

Right.

If you came across a new thing, determinism will only have ultimately non-comparable references as to what it is. In this state of confusion a non-deterministic resolution has to be made, such that the non-comparable values be understood.
Then we must ask if all situations are ultimately new to the consciousness at some point?

If any [new things], then the determinative strains of thought could never know any new things. If it is true that we can know new things, then it is true that there >is< an independent determinator, even where it is also true that there are non-independent determinators.

We physically subjective organic instruments do have free will, and we don’t have it. Both kinds of things are occurring within the conscious sphere, and the unconscious is probably entirely composed of non-independent determinators.