Well, that would depend entirely of course on the extent to which the aliens are able to demonstrate that where they reside autonomous minds do in fact exist. Although even here you may or may not have the capacity to grasp what they tell/show you. Or the whole experience might be encompassed in a sim world or in a dream or while on LSD or because your brain was damaged in some manner.
After all, can mere mortals ever really be certain of anything until they are able to comprehend the existence of everything?
It’s like the folks in Flatland. They are compelled to view the world through two dimensions. But there actually does exist a three dimensional world. And for all we know [re string theory] there are many more dimensions besides.
So you’re saying there’s things about the real thing (real free will) that we who don’t have it can’t even imagine?
I’m saying that anything that I might say or that you might say here would seem to be necessarily embedded in Don Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns”.
But if we don’t have free will anything that we imagine would seem to be only that which we were ever able to imagine.
If nothing changes other than in the manner in which it must change in a wholly determined universe what does our choosing to change something mean?
It means we aren’t really choosing (not rocket science).
The autonomous aliens note that we do in fact choose. Just as, when we watch something on TV or at the movies, we note the characters on the screens choosing. But they choose only that which the directors [and the writers] compel them to choose. Their choices are scripted. So, the questions we need to ask here are these: are the choices that we make scripted by God? by nature? by our own free will?
Me, I don’t know. I’m not really sure what to believe. “Deep down inside” I’m still convinced that I am in possession of at least some measure of volition. But in the dream I just woke up from I was just as certain of that then.
But in the either/or world [assuming there is one] there is a right side and a wrong side to choose. One’s answer is relative to that which can in fact be demonstrated to be the case for all rational human beings. With human minds, however, one can still be convinced that the wrong answer is the right answer “in his head”. And, most crucially, he behaves in accordance with what he thinks is true. And it is human behavior that precipitates actual consequences.
That’s right. So it comes down to that which is powerful enough to persuade a person to change his or her mind, and that which will never be powerful enough to persuade a person to change his or her mind.
Again, that might be God or the immutable laws of matter embedded inherently in nature or…or what?
Sure, the power might revolve around my own autonomous mind. My capacity to think something through and arrive at the most rational conclusion. After all, look at the technology around us. Some folks were unequivocally able to make choices that brought it all into existence. And I’m sure they would accept no other explanation but that they accomplished this because they freely made the right choices.
And there will in turn be those who accomplish nothing in life able to convince themselves that this is only because they were never able to accomplish something.
So, beyond all doubt, which one is it?
Here of course all there is, is someone [anyone] asking you to demonstrate that what you believe is true is in fact true. And then to the extent that this might provide some measure of “comfort and consolation” – peacefulness – for some and not for others. But it’s still more than I am able to conjecture: “I” disintegrating back into star stuff. Not completely gone, but, come on, who is kidding whom.
Weren’t you just asking out of curiosity?
Was I ever able not to?
Clearly that is one way to look at at. Just as there are clearly other conflicting narratives. But how does that fit into “I” interacting with “we” interacting with “them” interacting on this particular planet in this particular solar system in this particular galaxy in what may or may not be this particular universe going back to something instead of nothing going back to the reason it is one rather than another going back to or not going back to God.
Biggy, I was being serious. Put your questions aside for a sec, and give what I said some thought. It’s one of the rare moments when I’m trying to help you. Take it.
Here [once again] the assumption is that how you construe all of this is somehow more reasonable than the manner in which I do. And that if I will only try harder to understand your own frame of mind, I might be helped. All the while assuming in turn that this exchange is unfolding “metaphysically” only as it ever could have, producing human minds able to convince themselves “psychologically” that it is all unfolding instead because they choose for it to unfold one way rather than another.
And even though this choice is really just an illusion it is still no less a choice.
Unless, perhaps, you are just being ironic?
Although you’ve most likely thought of this tons of times before, you also keep bringing up the fact that you feel stuck in this dilemma of yourself, that life is not made peachy and rosy by it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re depressed. See a doctor. Maybe you need medication. I’m not bringing this up as just another statement to be thrown into the philosophical mix. I’m serious. If you’re as bothered by this as you claim to be, I think you need help.
Depressed? Hardly. I have many, many distractions that bring me tons of fulfilment. Here and now. But there it is: oblivion. Getting closer and closer. And a “frame of mind” on this side of the grave having convinced itself that human existence is essentially meaningless in an is/ought world in which I have brought into existence [in my head] the components of a moral philosophy that is either entirely grim or entirely liberating.
I don’t wallow in this sort of thing. But the questions truly do fascinate me. Just as they fascinate others here.
Only my “I”, unlike your “I” and their “I” is considerably more fractured and fragmented. And, therefore, as long as I don’t bring you over to my point of view, you can sustain a measure of “comfort and consolation” that continues to escape me.
I merely speculate that, in an autonomous world, it is this soothing psychological frame of mind that is actually behind their philosophy.