What makes me want to listen to a new understanding [re my own understanding of a wholly determined universe] is the fact that I could never not want to.
I literally have no choice but to choose to want to. And [clearly] we don’t think about that in the same way. And I always allow for the possibility that, autonomously, I could choose to think about it differently.
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.
You are presupposing there has to be conflict in these things that you mentioned.
Let’s just say that throughout the entire length and breadth of human history, our species has been awash in them.
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?
Doing what we must is simply saying that we are moving in the direction that we think is best for us. Improving the human condition, once this knowledge is recognized and confirmed, government as we know it will no longer be necessary.
Right, like in a wholly determined universe, we could choose to think about this in any other way than we are compelled to. Like we are actually free to recognize this.
Meanwhile out in the world that we live in? To build or not to build Trump’s wall. To be or not to be a socialist. To abort or not to abort the unborn baby. What here does improve the human condition?
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?
As long as you use the phrase “subsumed in a deterministic universe” you are reducing us to automatons that can’t make choices.
But how are you not reducing us down to men and women who choose only that which they are compelled to? Was the Terminator more like us or more like an automaton?
Although the word choice is misleading because it implies we can choose A or B equally (which is false) does not mean that our choices are less meaningful as part of our continued development.
In a world where the meaning we ascribe to things is the only meaning we were ever able to ascribe to things…what does that tell you about this choice? Something different than what it tells me.
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.
And… are you saying that my words mean nothing because I couldn’t not be in this forum and type what I’m typing?
You mean your words only as you ever could mean them. And they mean to me only that which they ever could mean to me. But those autonomous aliens are up there pointing out that that we still “choose” this meaning.
I’m still missing something in the meaning you are trying to convey. Not that I could ever have not missed it?
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.
True, from the birth of the universe to today had to occur exactly the way it did. Once again, a wholly determined universe does not remove our part in that determined universe by the “unfree” choices we make which will deterministically influence where our world is headed.
As nature’s dominoes, we’re not removed.
A little help here!!
Admitting that perhaps I really am the one who needs it. Your point is solid and I keep missing it.
You’re missing the point because there’s no real point yet other than the reason man’s will is not free (i.e., that he is constantly moving in the direction of greater satisfaction).
But what on earth does this mean regarding our actual interactions with others? Other than the only thing that it ever could mean?
What is important to recognize (which leads to the two-sided equation) is that although we have no control over which choice gives us greater satisfaction at any given moment in time…nothing has the power to make or force us to do anything against our will (which the conventional definition of determinism ignores).
Other than the fact that our “will” is entirely subsumed in nature —and in those immutable laws of matter?
So when someone says “he made me pull the trigger”, he is not being truthful. This is important in regard to this discovery which you will understand if you find this interesting. If you don’t find this interesting, then you could not not have moved on. I get that iambiguous. You don’t have to keep repeating it.
We can just take that back [re an infinite regression] to the understanding of existence itself. I pulled the trigger because someone made me. And someone before that made him make me. And then all of the wholly determined interactions that come into play that brought both of us into existence. Going back to the laws of matter that brought into existence life itself.