Again, you are saying something here that makes no sense to me in a wholly determined universe. If one’s goal is to improve the human condition and one is compelled to think, feel, say and do only that which is inherently entailed/compelled by the laws of matter then both the means and the ends here are subsumed in what can only be.
And that’s before we get to the part that most interest me: How, assuming some level of autonomy instead, progress is basically an existential contraption embodied in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
Let’s bring this down to earth. In a determined universe what would constitute progress in regard to, say, the role of government in our lives? And how would we go about improving the human condition in regard to government when we can only go about doing what we must?
Applied globally so as to reflect the fact that man’s will is not free. Thus it would seem that war, crime, and poverty are but inherent components of that.
They are inherent components of that, but when we apply the knowledge that man’s will is not free (along with the corollary that follows), we veer in a different direction but still within the “inherent components of that”.
All I can do is to ask others here who share your point of view to reconfigure it into an assessment I might be able to better grasp. How is an individual “applying knowledge” not in turn entirely subsumed in a deterministic universe?
It all becomes somewhat surreal. We grasp that man’s will is not free. But we grasp that only because we could never not grasp it. And however we apply that to the human condition it is the only way that we ever could apply it.
We were never really free to do anything other than what we have done, or what we will do, but that does not mean we are not “free” (without constraint) to discuss better solutions to the world’s problems.
“Free.” Exactly. The very nature of matter itself wholly restrains us from choosing anything other than what we must.
Unless, of course, that is not true at all.
What’s your point?
And around and around we go. Making points that the other does not fully grasp in a wholly determined universe in which there was never any possibility of it being otherwise.
John is compelled to set up the dominoes just as the dominoes are compelled to topple over. But somehow with us it’s different. We’re not compelled mindlessly.
John is not compelled to set up the dominoes unless he wants (or chooses) to set up the dominoes. The dominoes don’t have an option.
I am either incredibly dense in not grasping this or you are incredibly dense to argue it. John chooses only that which he is compelled to choose. The autonomous aliens note that unlike the dominoes John “chooses” to set them up. But John’s choice was never not going to be anything otherwise.
How is John here not just one of nature’s very own dominoes?
Thus:
Neither the person whose life was in the toilet, or the person whose life was better, had any control over how their life turned out. It’s very true that when times are good, people want to take all the credit. You aren’t getting my point because I haven’t made one yet, other than agreeing that we have no free will. But there’s more to it than just stating that we must do what we must because we cannot not do it.
If there is more to it, then I will either be compelled to grasp it or not.
Very true.
A little help here!!
Admitting that perhaps I really am the one who needs it. Your point is solid and I keep missing it.