I guess you didn’t see my last post. Now I feel compelled to answer even though I just posted that I would like to take a break. Of course you are compelled to consider it as a necessary adjunct of the design. Once again, no one is arguing with this. I was just explaining to you that the answer I gave is not inconsistent with my knowledge of determinism. You seem surprised that I pointed out that you are making more out of it than needs to be. Obviously, you couldn’t think any differently at that moment.
It doesn’t mean that you could have responded differently at that moment but it may change how you think about a later response as a result of my input. That is what conversation is all about; the give and take of ideas that may change someone’s perspective.
But: No one’s perspective ever changes other than as it must change. And, thus, before, now and later are always of a whole. And, finally, always rooted squarely in the laws of matter.
Even though your perspective can only ever change as it must change before, now and later does not change the fact that each and every moment offers a new perspective based on the accumulated knowledge and experience you have gained up to that point in time. My offering you feedback on what we’re discussing may play a role in what your next choice will be.
To me, it would be like dominoes toppling over in what is supposed to be the design of the American flag but then, somehow, in the middle of it all, the toppling encounters a paradigm shift and the design ends up being the flag of Russia instead.
No, nothing escapes that framework of determinism just because of new knowledge. That would mean nothing new could ever come into play because the dominoes would already be predetermined to fall in a certain way. That’s how it works with dominoes, but not with human nature. We do make choices; dominoes don’t get to. Based on new knowledge, a paradigm shift could occur and with great speed. You are making a comparison that doesn’t apply to humans, even though we cannot escape the laws of determinism. I don’t think you understand why the past does not cause the present, and why this matters.
As you say, “an immutable law has no exits or exceptions.” But for you to note something here that prompts me to come around to your point of view would seem to encompass something in the way of volition on my part.
Of course it would be of your own volition, or your own choosing, but as Lessans stated this choice (which is coming from your will, no one else’s) is correct if it means “of your own desire”, but this has nothing to do with having freedom of the will.
And then, of course, there is always the possibility of you coming around to my point of view, right? After all, who can really ascertain for certain what the laws of matter will encompass a day from now…a week from now…a month from now. Let alone a thousand years from now.
I will not come over to your point of view (that I can promise you) because I know for a fact that we have no free will and that there’s no ghost in the machine.
Anyway, you always focus on the before I make a choice part. As though what happens before, during or after we make a choice will actually make a difference regarding what does happen.
It doesn’t change deterministic laws if that’s what you’re thinking. But there is a difference. Before something is done a person is still contemplating which choice to make; which choice will be the most preferable based on all of the factors involved in the making of that choice. After a choice is made, it’s done. We can then say he could not have done otherwise.
Nope, it still doesn’t compute. Right now I am contemplating the best way in which to respond to your point. Either the words that I am typing now are the only words compatible with the nature of existence itself or somehow [however problematic] there is an element of free will such that I am choosing these words within one or another rendition of this:
I am able to choose the words as I do here because 1] I reflected on them 2] I tried to grasp the context in which they will be used to the best of my ability 3] I tried to weigh the pros and the cons to the best of my ability and then 4] I chose these words rather than others.
Sorry iambiguous but the fact that you are reflecting on the words, trying to grasp the context in which they will be used, and weighing the pros and cons DOES NOT GRANT YOU FREE WILL IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM.
Back to Jack and Jane. Jack chooses to rape Jane. Now, if I understand you, Jack must rape Jane if Jack raping Jane is necessarily in accordance with the only existence there can ever be. The one in which Jack rapes Jane. There is no existence where Jack doesn’t rape Jane. So, how does his choice to rape Jane at the moment he makes it have any relevance to the fact that he must rape her because, well, that’s reality.
As I just mentioned, if Jack chose to rape Jane, then he could not have done otherwise but he has not done it yet. He is still contemplating which choice to make. This is before the fact, so it is not yet written in stone that Jack must rape Jane. Only when Jack does, in fact, rape her can we say that it had to be.
Same thing though. If, at the moment he is choosing whether his satisfaction lies in raping Jane, he does not have it within his capacity to freely choose “yes” or “no”, then he is compelled to rape Jane if Jane’s rape is a necessary component of the design.
In the sense that he can choose not to rape Jane IF HE DOESN’T WANT TO, or rape her IF HE WANTS TO, the term “freely chose” can be used in place of “of his own desire” (which Lessans was clear about), but it does not mean he has free will to choose A over B or B over A equally. That is what freedom of the will implies. The fact that he has the power of contemplation does not mean he has the capacity to freely choose “yes” or “no.” He is compelled to choose the alternative that he finds the most preferable, which is an immutable law. In other words, the fact that he has two choices does not mean he has the capacity to freely choose since he must pick the choice that gives him greater satisfaction. That is why choice is an illusion.
I am still here because I must still be here. And you are still here because you must still be here as well. Isn’t that in essense the fundamental point of your deterministic frame of mind? Could I have freely desired not to be here? No. Could I have freely chosen to be satisfied doing something else? No.
You want to insist that I do only what I must do and that I “choose” to do it. But they are for all practical purposes the very same thing in a determined world. Or so it seems to me.
There is an important difference. One states that you must choose something based on a prescribed program that won’t allow you to change course because it’s already written out. The other states that based on antecedent conditions, along with your experiences and heredity, you are “free” (which only means that there is nothing external controlling you) to pick a choice that you yourself desire based on these factors.
Yes, “free”. But never [u][b]free[/u][/b]. I and the design are at one with existence itself. There is nothing external to that. As though there ever could be.
Who said there was something external to that? Not me.
We both agree there is nothing external to that. But if all that encompasses what we think, feel and do is a necessary component of existence itself, what are the practical implications of that when Jack “chooses” to rape Jane. Or when Mary “chooses” to abort her baby? Or when the state "chooses’ to execute Bob?
Although we cannot change the past because we know that we could not have chosen otherwise, that does not mean man’s choices will be the same when these principles are introduced on a worldwide scale. The practical implications of this change cannot even be fully comprehended.
You are confusing the two principles. One states that will is not free because we always move in the direction of what gives us greater satisfaction, which we have absolutely no control over. So if you turn out to be a criminal, you had no control over that. The other principle states that nothing can make or force you to do anything against your will, which you have absolute control over. This means that you cannot use the excuse that someone or something other than you made you do what you did, because nothing has the power to do that. You did it because you wanted to, but most people would never admit to that since it would get them in trouble with the law.
The two principles perhaps. But for all practical purposes, in terms of the behaviors that I will choose existentially, when I move in the direction of what gives me greater satisfaction, it is because I must move in that direction. The only real “control” I have here is in toppling over as I am compelled to. And we still ever become entangled in conflicting goods whereby what brings me satisfaction, brings you dissatisfaction.
This is where I’m going to have to jump ship because you are challenging Lessans without caring to understand how this new world plays out in blueprint form.
This reminds me of the many objectivists I have encountered here who insist that before I can grasp the practical implications of their own particular objective truth, I have to read this or that [ofttimes voluminous] analysis/argument. Only when I finally grasp these myriad definitions and deductions that they propose will the relevance to the things that interest me become manifest. But then they give me no real incentive to do so by fleshing out their arguments in order to show how they pertain to either identity, conflicting goods or political economy.
Besides, before they will ever bring their own largely epistemological constructs down to earth, I must first agree that they are the starting point for understanding, among other things, the whole of reality.
Then around and around in that circle we go.
I have no idea what “truths” these objectivists are defending. All I know is what I know is true based on what I have learned. I am offering you a book that I believe will have a huge impact on your life personally, and an even bigger impact on the world at large.
As long as you continue to “resolve” all of “the major conflicts” that plague humankind by positing this new world as basically an axiomatic construct revolving largely around embracing Lessans’ own argument/analysis, there is no viable manner in which others can grasp how we will get from here to there. That’s all contained in embracing the assumptions he derived from his observations.
This is just repeating the same thing over and over again. I am very sorry but these observations were not assumptions. He made valid inferences based on what he observed but there are no assumptions anywhere in his proposition, his observations, or his reasoning.
Again, I’m sorry, but I simply do not grasp how humankind had the option not to use the technology that allowed it to go to the moon if there was not an element of free choice involved in going in the other direction instead. As long as the laws of matter were such that humankind must go to the moon, all of the “moments of choice” in the achievment were necessarily in sync with this reality. The only reality there could ever have been in a world governed by the immutable laws of matter.
But even here there were conflicting goods. While many hailed our trip to the moon as “progress”, others insisted that, with a world teeming with so many seeming intractable problems “down here”, it was immoral to spend billions of dollars to explore “up there”. Not in a world where 18,000 children die from starvation every single day. Though certainly not of their own free will.
And, ironically, we have the capacity to end that starvation at any time. What we lack of course is the politcal will to do so.
But, sure, I can imagine that this particular horror story would become easier to endure if you were able to convince yourself that they starve only because they must starve per the immutable laws of matter. It’s not like there is really anything that any of us can ever do if everyting that we do is only as we must do.
It’s just their bad luck that the laws of matter necessitated their starvation.
You are being premature. The new economic system solves this problem of conflicting opinions regarding going to the moon while people are starving. That’s why it’s hard to discuss this when you have not studied the extension of these principles into the areas you are most concerned about.
The “new economic system” that, so far, is merely an intellectual construct in the minds of those who subscribe to Lessans’ arguments.
And if Lessans’ more extended lessons regarding political economy are tantamount to [or extentions of] the excerpts you have provided above, there is still nothing really tangible that social scientists can grapple with in order to verify/falsify them more empirically/experientially.
And there are still the difficulties that revolve around conflicting goods. As noted above, social scientists can in fact perform experiments in order to verify/falsify propositions relating to human behavior in crowds. But that does not enable them in turn to ascertain whether the moral/political cause embraced by the crowd is objectively moral or immoral.
The irony is that these types of moral conflicts won’t even exist. How can they when the age of politics is coming to an end? You are unable to consider the possibility that what you are envisioning is impossible is an incomplete and myopic view based on the world as it is now. I don’t need you to tell me that your view is more practical one more time.
…either Lessans had some capacity to choose freely to write his book or his writing it is the equivalent of men going to the moon. As is this exchange we are having in turn. Nothing is ever not what it must be.
He had no capacity to choose freely, even though he had the ability to weigh alternatives.
Okay, he weighs alternatives but then he must write the book. Why? Because the book was written. But at the moment he chooses to write the book his ability to weigh the options might have resulted in the book not being written? No. The book was always meant to be written because, in a determined world, it was in fact written. So [from my frame of mind] his “ability to weigh options” is illusory. Yes, he did weigh them. But, no, the book was always going to be written. Thus he chose “freely” to write it.
Where does “freely” enter into this at all? He did not “freely” choose. The word choice is illusory because, in reality, he had no choice since he was compelled to choose the most preferable option.
Yes, this is the point that I often raise, isn’t it? But you are the one above who often encloses the word freely here in these: " ". Thus Lessans is compelled to write the book. Eventually, enough people are compelled to read and embrace it. And then [a 1000 years from now] the future is compelled to be without blame or punishment. At least for those citizens who take the “universal consciousness” oath .
And I will ask again: Where does “free” in the way I qualified it have to do with freedom of the will? I already explained how the phrase “I did it of my own free will” is qualified and can be used if it means “of my own volition”. We are losing communication.
You can’t say before you do something that you must do it because you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.
But I want only what I must want. I want what existence itself compels me to want. You claim there is nothing making me choose to type these words. I type these words because I prefer to type them…rather than, say, type, “the blue meanie in the White House will one day become a member of the Bilderberg Group.” Which “in the moment” I preferred to type as well rather than something else. And I am still dissatisfied with your own arguments here because I fail to properly understand that you and Lessans are right. About everything.
You actually are correct that you preferred to type these words rather than other words, but this is only half of the equation. You’re missing the other half. No wonder you don’t get it, and you will continue not to get it if you are dissatisfied at this point and therefore you are convinced that he is wrong about everything. You won’t go forward and that’s okay too.
If I do miss this other half it is only because I am compelled as a necessary component of the design to miss it. And that’s the part that you have never managed to reconcile for me. I must type what I can only type here but still I somehow fail to type what you insist that I should type in order to be in sync with what you type.
It is true that if you don’t desire to read the book, then you found it more preferable not to read the book [in the direction of greater satisfaction]. I don’t see what there is to reconcile.
And by “going forward” I have found that most objectivists mean “agree with me”. But my problem is that I can’t make sense [realistically] of how their theoretical analysis has any substantive [existential] relevance to the world that we interact [and conflict] in.
You wouldn’t. You haven’t read the book. You’re just denying that there could be something valid because either you don’t want to believe there is no ghost in the machine and this might burst your bubble, or you just can’t believe that someone could make a major discovery that would cause a paradigm shift and still be within the framework of determinism. Whatever the reason you will be acting in accordance with your nature.
You keep referring back to abortion, as if this one conflict ruins any possibility of peace. It does not.
I often choose abortion in which to discuss dasein, conflicting goods and political economy. Why? Because 1] it is a moral congflagration we are all familiar with 2] it literally revolves around life and death and 3] if we can resolve the conflicting goods revolving around this, all the other moral conflicts would seem that much easier.
I don’t agree. There are other more pressing moral conflagrations that are not dependent on this one issue for their solution such as war, crime, and poverty for starters.
But I have asked you [and others] any number of times to pick a moral conflict that you/they deem most relevant to these relationships. Again, I am more than willing to integrate the manner in which I construe dasein, conflicting goods and political economy in the discussions.
[b][u]Discussions in which words and worlds are explored in tandem.[/b][/u]
The conflicts that are most pressing such as war and crime are prevented by this natural law. Definitions (and words) mean nothing where reality is concerned unless they are symbolic of reality. It just so happens that his words are just that.
Even rape is a conflicting good from the perspective of the narcissist who views morality solely in terms of that which brings him personal satisfaction. Or mass beheadings from the perspective of the religious fanatic who views morality solely in terms of satisfying “God’s will”.
Rape is a hurt to the person being raped. Any kind of hurt that is a first blow will be unjustified in the new world, ending this type of abuse.
Yes, I agree. Rape is certainly a devastating infliction of pain on the one being raped. But that doesn’t mean much to the narcissist who construes morality solely in terms of his own personal satisfaction. And I keep pointing out time and again that, with respect to all moral conflicts, folks on both sides of the issues have their own rendition of the hurt brought on by either pursuing or not pursuing particular behaviors.
But then, in my view, you only make this go away in the new world theoretically, analytically, axiomatically; once everyone willing to sign up for universal consciousness creates their own utopian paradise.
There is nothing theoretical about his vision based on his spot on observations. I don’t see many people not wanting to become part of this new world once it gets underway. You seem to be thinking that people will not want what they want. Who would want to live in a world where accidents, crime, medical mistakes, torture, war, and poverty exist when they can enter a world that none of these things exist? In other words, how can a person not want what is the better choice? BTW, there is nothing theoretical about this law of our nature and how it works under changed environmental conditions.