Determinism

Surreptitious, all major decisions involve the conscious mind in order to give permission for an action to be performed (based on that decision) or else someone could easily say, “I didn’t make that choice, my unconscious mind did.” Not only is that false, but how would that fly in a court of law?

I agree that the subconscious mind is still part of you and in that respect you are still in control of them. All major decisions involve the conscious mind in order to give permission for a choice to be made (even if the motivation for that choice involves subconscious factors), otherwise someone could easily use the excuse, “I didn’t give permission to pull the trigger, my subconscious mind did 7 seconds before my conscious mind agreed to it.” How would that fly in a court of law? Once again, that doesn’t mean there aren’t subconscious factors involved in making a choice, but the ultimate decision maker is the conscious agent whose job it is to decide whether there is justification to make the choice he is about to make. I am only trying to establish the “I” or “self” who is responsible for making a choice where someone, let’s say, was badly injured as a direct result of someone’s choice to run a red light. We are not talking about right or wrong here; just who is the responsible party.

Sleepwalkers are entirely unaware of what they do when sleepwalking [ even though they can demonstrate perfect motor function if knowledge
of it is in their memory ] and so if they commit a crime they cannot in principle be held responsible for it regardless of what it might actually be

The law however should not be changed to allow the guilty to blame their sub conscious every time they commit a crime
Although I was more interested in the question from a psychological / philosophical position rather than from a legal one

Maybe people would like to hear from the author reading from his book, Beyond the Framework of Modern Thought. I am so glad I was able to save his tapes from the 1970s, because these are all I have of him speaking. If you are interested in hearing more, please contact me because I am not taking credit cards at this time. I’m working on upgrading my site.

declineandfallofallevil.com/ebook/

If they didn’t have a clue as to what they were doing (like being under hypnosis) of course they cannot be held responsible.

From a psychological position, as we extend the corollary, Thou Shall Not Blame, that goes alone with determinism, we can see that nobody is morally responsible for what they do. But the interesting thing is that instead of decreasing responsibility, it actually increases responsibility, something philosophers down through the ages never understood.

I am entirely responsible for all of my moral choices made ever since I became an adult and therefore blame no one else for them
I refuse to look anywhere other than inside myself for any mistakes I have made since it is the only way I can actually self improve

You are way ahead of the game. :wink: What this corollary does is prevents a person’s ability to shift to someone or something else that which is his responsibility.

I am nothing special and have no wisdom to offer up which is the reason why I avoid giving advice
What I have learned took time but it is not something no one else could also learn for themselves

I have no real idea about most things and the older I get the less I know anyway but I try to have something I can hold onto
Just something that will make my temporary existence bearable before that which I cannot control actually finally happens

None of us are special and all of us our special, if that makes sense. You are like Socrates who was known for his wisdom because he stated that he knew that he didn’t know, whereas others didn’t know either but thought they did.

I think as we become older we become more humble. That’s one of the attributes of wisdom.

Talk about a stuck record!

Here you appear to be criticizing me for repeating myself, failing to make progress and going around and around in circles.

As though I was ever actually free not to.

[i][u][sombody explain this to me please…what on earth do I keep missing?][/i][/u]

It’s not a question. It’s a speculation about “I” confronting conflicting goods throughout human history. Even if
“improvements” were something we could choose freely to pursue, who gets to say what constitutes them?

Thus:

I have no idea what that has to do with the conflicts noted.

Yes, but, for all practical purposes, what are the existential implications of that — given the choices that are made by flesh and blood human beings in particular contexts?

Again:

Here we go again: I’m missing what I could never have not missed. I chose not to read the first three chapters because I could never have chosen to read them. But somehow [from my point of view] you still seem to hold me responsible for making the wrong choices.

Okay…

If I do have some measure of autonomy and your arguments here do begin to convince me, that might motivate me to read them.

That’s the best I can do for now. But: Is it actually the only think I can do?

The dominoes do only what they must do in toppling over. John does only what he must do in setting them up. You clearly see more of a distinction here than I do. The dominoes are mindless components of nature. The human brain is a mindful component of nature. Thus “everything that has been done or will be done could not be otherwise.”

The dominoes and John both being “natural” components of this. But nature in ways that are different in so many crucial respects.

How about the choices that our brains force us to make in dreams? In the dream I am utterly convinced that I am making the choices that I want to make. But we know better, right?

As long as John is not able to choose 1] not to set up the dominoes or 2] not to set them up as he does, it’s all matter unfolding in what may or may not be a set of immutable laws.

Again, the irony here [for me] is that this is precisely the sort of argument you would expect from someone who champions free will. Though I am more than willing to agree that the point is anything but trivial; and that the problem revolves around my not grasping it.

On the other hand, would you ever be willing to admit that the problem here revolves instead around your failure to understand my own points?

Could you ever be willing?

I am not criticizing you, but you will not let me move forward when you say over and over “as though you were ever actually free not to.” You’re right, we were never free not to do what was done, so let’s move on from here. If you still don’t get it, maybe somebody else can help explain what you’re not getting.

That’s a fair question. Many of the questions you have are answered in the economic chapter. The question of walls is irrelevant because there will be no need for walls. Abortion will be less and less a desirable option not because it’s morally wrong, but because people will have the kind of marriages where they will have economic security and will want the child if a pregnancy happens unexpectedly. Do you see how you’re jumping to conclusions without considering that these questions would be answered if you took the time to read the book?

Of course you don’t. How could you?

You are missing what I’m trying to convey because you refuse to read anything that I’ve offered. You’re making assumptions that flesh and blood human beings cannot alter their behavior when the particular contexts (or conditions) they find themselves in, are altered.

Pallleeease iambiguous, you’re playing games now. I am not holding you responsible for anything. If you don’t want to read the first three chapters, then don’t, but you can’t expect to understand this discovery if you don’t.

You can choose to read if you want to. You can choose not to read if you don’t want to. You have the autonomy to make that choice for yourself, and that choice will become the choice that you could not not have made.

The distinction is that we make choices. Dominoes do not. And although the choices we make are not free, we have the capacity to say “no” to a choice that we don’t want. Dominoes are not capable of this.

We know that it’s a dream when we wake up, at least most people do. Most people do not act out their dreams in real life.

But John IS able to choose, that’s just the point. Being able to choose (without external restraint) does not grant us free will. It is true that we are unfolding the way it had to be, but…under new environmental conditions we are able to veer in a different direction yet still be unfolding according to nature’s immutable law.

The reason it appears that I am championing free will is due to the fact that both of these ideologies are reconciled (i.e., an eye for an eye with turn the other cheek). Will is not free but responsibility for one’s actions is increased with this knowledge. Many philosophers down through the ages have thought that responsibility would be decreased with the knowledge of determinism. This book shows us why this is false, and why we can create a world of peace due to the fact that man’s will is not free. We could not achieve a peaceful world otherwise.

I’m reading your posts, aren’t I? I’m doing the best I can to answer your questions but you need to meet me halfway.

I didn’t say that. Surreptitious did.

But humans cannot choose what they like, so “their liking” is a programmed yardstick to evaluate choices the same as a computer uses code that it didn’t write to determine what it will freely choose.

You only moved the goal posts since now it’s a choice of whether or not to accept the brain’s choice which must again be decided by the brain. Whether or not you choose to accept the choice could also be discerned by scientists before you were aware of it yourself. It seems there is no way out of this one.

Sure, as long as “you” is defined as everything but your consciousness.

Yep, it seems the experiencing can’t guide the experience.

Because having laws is what helps determine the behavior of people and if it “flew in court” it would undermine the deterrent. I think the legal system holds its nose and looks the other way on this.

The Brain on Trial

[i]DOES THE DISCOVERY of Charles Whitman’s brain tumor modify your feelings about the senseless murders he committed? Does it affect the sentence you would find appropriate for him, had he survived that day? Does the tumor change the degree to which you consider the killings “his fault”? Couldn’t you just as easily be unlucky enough to develop a tumor and lose control of your behavior?

On the other hand, wouldn’t it be dangerous to conclude that people with a tumor are free of guilt, and that they should be let off the hook for their crimes?

As our understanding of the human brain improves, juries are increasingly challenged with these sorts of questions. When a criminal stands in front of the judge’s bench today, the legal system wants to know whether he is blameworthy. Was it his fault, or his biology’s fault?[/i]

Free will may exist (it may simply be beyond our current science), but one thing seems clear: if free will does exist, it has little room in which to operate. It can at best be a small factor riding on top of vast neural networks shaped by genes and environment. In fact, free will may end up being so small that we eventually think about bad decision-making in the same way we think about any physical process, such as diabetes or lung disease. theatlantic.com/magazine/ar … al/308520/

Nice :slight_smile:

The thing controlling all your decisions will also make that decision.

You can compare humans to robots if you want to. Humans cannot choose what they like, so “their liking” is a programmed yardstick to evaluate choices as a computer uses code that it didn’t write to determine what it will UNFREELY choose. How can it be free when it can only choose one option? The fact that it is not constrained by external force does not mean the choice is free. You really need to understand this because there is no wide range between free and unfree when it comes to man’s will.

I gave this as an example as to how schizophrenic this becomes when scientists use the idea that neuronal impulses are making choices before we consciously make them. The motivation for a choice that may be hidden in the subconscious mind does not remove the conscious mind from the equation because the choice is still up to the agent or the “I” that the brain is contained in. It takes the conscious mind to say “yes” to an action even if there is a gap of 7 seconds where the brain has already made a decision. The agent can veto that decision if within those 7 seconds something changes the mind of the agent where he chooses not to act on that impulse. I don’t know if there ever will be a time that scientists will know exactly what choice you will make before you make it having a 7 second delay. More importantly, it wouldn’t matter what choice was made if the choice hurt no one. What scientists are trying to work on is determining if a person is a high risk, thus the intervention by scientists would be employed to identify those people and quarantine them. But this would be unnecessary if we knew that we could never desire to hurt anyone as a preferable choice under changed conditions of the new world.

Removed -

I’m sorry but my reaction here is the same. From my frame of mind [which might be the problem] you are arguing that 1] I’m not letting you move forward and that 2] I could only choose to not let you move forward.

What this amounts to [to me] is the assumption that if everyone thinks like you [and the arguments made in the book] this will be the future.

Again, as though in chosing not to do this now, which they could never have not not chosen, that’s the problem.

People don’t look at these relationships as you do now because they never could have chosen to look at them that way. Or, had the laws of matter been different, they could never have chosen anything other than to look at them as you do and to share them.

Either way it will only have been as it ever could have been.

As you noted above, someone else will have to figure out a way to explain to me how I could only have chosen to refuse to read what you have written and that you are justified in pointing that as the problem. I’m not arguing that people can’t alter their behaviors, only that in a wholly determined universe it would seem that these new choices are only as they could ever have been.

This part:

If I am not actually free to choose to read those chapters and you are not actually free to point that out to me, then this exchange would seem to be in sync with a wholly determined universe.

I don’t know how to not think of it like that if I was never really free to think about it any other way.

If I have the autonomy to make that choice myself then I am clearly missing your point of view. It makes no sense to me that you would argue that.

Sure, once I freely choose to do something I am never able to not choose to do it. But free-will advocates also embrace that.

I am now just all that much more confused about your point of view.

Yes, we’ve been over this. John makes a choice to set up the dominoes in a determined universe where he was never really free to say “no, I won’t set them up”. The dominoes were going to be set up by John. Period. Why? Because that is wholly in sync with matter [be it dominoes or brains] in sync with immutable laws.

But why would it not be reasonable to argue that in a wholly determined universe the brain merely shifts gears from the dream world to the waking world. The difference being that in the dream world we are oblivious to the brain creating a world while in the waking world we embody the psychological illusion that somehow “mind” [or “soul” for some] function on a level that transcends mere matter. “I” call the shots “for real” when I am awake.

Or maybe not?

Around and around and around…

We “veer” in the only direction that we were ever going to veer. In the only direction that we ever could have veered. But unlike the unconscious dominoes, we “choose” to topple in this new direction.

External constraint, internal constraint. It would seem to be all “at one” with nature unfolding as a matter mechanism.

If will is not free how is responsibility not just an inherent component of that? We think we are more or less responsible but it was never within our capacity to think any other way.

If the knowledge we acquire is knowledge that we are only ever able to acquire, then so too is our sense of responsibility. Then so too is that which we either achieve or do not achieve. It’s all and always in sync with the nature of existence itself.

From my frame of mind [still], you are telling me I need to do something I am either able to freely need to do or was only ever going to need to do…and was then only ever going to either do or not do.

“Compatibilism”

Craig Ross in Philosophy Now magazine

Try as I might I am unable to wrap my head around this. Even as a “theory” it doesn’t make sense to me. If prior events caused me to invent the theory, how can it be argued in turn that I was free to invent it? I was never able to not invent it but I still “willed” it’s invention.

The river is mindless. It chooses nothing. It volunteers nothing. It flows wholly in accordance with the laws of nature. A thing doing only what it must do. Period.

Or “period” to the extent this can be understood given the gap between what I think I know here and now and all that can be known about existence itself.

If my will is also wholly in sync with a brain wholly in sync with the laws of nature then my choosing to swim in the river is actually my “choosing” to swim in the river. A psychological concoction that is no less wholly determined.

No one forced me to go into the river but I was still never able to not go into the river.

That’s the part about being “free” that won’t sink in.

But something engenders the conscious mind like an illusion. The conscious mind can’t be its own cause.