Determinism
Mon Feb 18, 2019 1:43 pm
promethean75 wrote:
i haven’t read the book because i don’t believe anything more can be said on the matter.
Just because you believe nothing more can be said on the matter doesn’t make it so. Why sell yourself short?
promethean75 wrote:
… the metaphysical subject of freewill was resolved centuries ago,
No it wasn’t. It has yet to be resolved.
promethean75 wrote:
… and since then philosophers have only restated the matter in their own unique way… though none of this was really necessary. a quicker way would be to point those interested toward classic philosophers like hume, spinoza and nietzsche… and more modern philosophers like wittgenstein, chisholm, taylor and frankfurt. of course one can write their own book, and i don’t doubt that it would sell somewhere, but there’s really nothing new to be said in this matter, fortunately or unfortunately (whichever you prefer).
[i]So you believe these philosophers had the last word on the subject?
Determinism, as it’s presently defined, implies that we are forced, against our will, to do what we do based on antecedent events, when NOTHING has the power to make us to anything against our will. We have absolute control over this.[/i]
promethean75 wrote:
if i may point out here, forms of compatibilism or ‘soft determinism’ usually get their currency from distorting and/or importing into otherwise ordinary terms certain hidden premises which aren’t made explicit. in the above instance, you’re implying that the ‘will’ and the ‘we’ are somehow free from the causal constraints that the body is subject to.
That’s not what I said. I said most lay people, when they think of free will, believe that’s what they have if there are no external constraints (such as a gun to their head). This is how compatibilists define free will also.
promethean75 wrote:
this would be to introduce a cartesian substance that is not subject to the same natural processes that the body, in which it exists, is subject to. your version of compatibilism dissolves when you realize that there is no such agency that is causally exempt from the forces that order everything else in nature.
Compatibilism doesn’t dissolve because there’s no agency; it dissolves because it’s contradictory. It’s a semantic shift in order to justify the dishing out of just desert. You could not have read what I posted because I never said that we are causally exempt from the forces that order everything in nature. What I did say is that nothing can make us do anything against our will, if we don’t want to do something. Conversely, I said that our choices can only go in one direction, which is WHY will is not free. If it was free, we could choose either/or, but that would make a mockery of contemplation, which is for the sole purpose of deciding which choice, under our particular circumstances, is preferable.
promethean75 wrote:
once you realize there is no ‘we’ in the sense of there being an ‘I’ that acts upon the body rather than through it - or i should say ‘as it’ -, whether or not a ‘we’ has ‘absolute control’ is a nonsensical quest.
It is anything but a nonsensical quest. It is the most important quest of all time because it has the power to prevent from coming back that for which blame and punishment were previously necessary, as part of our development. At this juncture, it is important to clarify what is meant by responsibility. With your reasoning someone could say "I wasn’t responsible for shooting that person because there is no “I”;, ontologically speaking, I’m just part of a causal chain. Nature did what it wanted through me, but not of my own accord. Do you see a problem with this reasoning? Regardless of the reason for my pulling the trigger, the responsibility for making the choice (not the moral responsibility which invokes blame) was mine because nothing has the power to force me to do what I prefer not to do. Can you please sit with this for a moment before telling me I’m wrong? You have no conception at this point why this distinction is important.
promethean75 wrote:
there are not two separate entities working together here; it’s not the ‘self’ and the self’s ‘body’. it’s not the agency and the thing the agency acts upon. rather there is a single ontological substance, if you will, acting simpliciter.
The conventional definition implies that we are puppets on a string where we are forced to do what the software program (or natural law) tells us we must. But this is a false conception because the software program cannot make us do anything we don’t want to do since the agent (the “I”, the self) must give consent before an action takes place. The fact that there’s agency and the thing the agency acts upon does not mean two separate entities exist. It just means that the agent is not a passive recipient to whatever unfolds without any say in the matter. But …(and here it is again) the choice of the agent not to perform an action is also part of our alignment with nature’s law because this is an inherent attribute of man. We have absolute control to say no to an action (nothing can make us do anything against our will; you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink), and no control over what we find preferable since we are compelled to move in the direction of greater satisfaction, and only one choice is possible at any given moment in time.
prometheus75 wrote:
and yet, we cannot get around the problem of having to decide in praxis. built into this causal chain of events is that peculiar situation involving our neurology… that lapse of time in which manifold processes are not brought to the foreground in consciousness. it’s this peculiar detail in nature that gives rise to the illusion. you all know this already.
Even though neuroscience tells us that things are going on below our conscious awareness, the choices we make (even if we’re not sure of all the underlying reasons that we choose something) are done with our conscious awareness. Exceptions could be deep hypnosis where one is being controlled by another person’s suggestion, but even here, I wonder if one would do something egregious and against his moral underpinnings.
prometheus75 wrote:
but now let’s be clear. even though there is no freewill, we’d be mistaken to use the word ‘determine’ as an alternative. as you’ll see (in the below quote), the meaning of this word in the various ways we’ve learned to use it and make sense out of it, cannot be counted on to describe the process without yielding confusions. we are finally forced to say that things ‘just happen’, and continue living and interacting with people as if we really did have freewill. what then is the function of the lie of freewill? i call it the most recent form of moral subterfuge; it serves no other purpose than as a means for giving praise or placing blame, depending on whether or not we find a person agreeable or not.
Very true. Blame and praise are opposite sides of the coin.
prometheus75 wrote:
in this way it is a form of control and/or manipulation. it solicits admiration from those who we favor with praise, and fear/guilt from those who we reprimand with blame. you could even say that the degree with which a person uses these means is proportionate to their power and understanding. the weaker and more confused a person is, the more they rely on these means to understand their valuing of others. one who truly understood the truth (a spinoza, for instance… an almost impossible height) would have nothing but praise for everything, since they recognize the perfect order of nature in its totality; that things must happen as they do and could not happen any other way. this of course does not render one into a passive stoic who resigns into quietism. one still ‘wills’, only they no longer blame, no longer dread, no longer fear. as i said, an almost impossible ‘level’ of wisdom to reach. what spinoza said was ‘as difficult as it was rare.’
[i]Because Spinoza was dissatisfied with theology’s explanation of
good and evil, he opened the door of determinism and looked around
quite a bit but did not know how to slay the fiery dragon (the great
impasse of blame), so he pretended it wasn’t even there. He stated,
“We are men, not God. Evil is really not evil when seen in total
perspective,” and he rejected the principle of an eye for an eye. Will
Durant, not at all satisfied with this aspect of Spinoza’s philosophy,
although he loved him dearly, could not understand how it was
humanly possible to turn the other cheek in this kind of world. He
also went in and looked around very thoroughly and, he too, saw the
fiery dragon but unlike Spinoza he made no pretense of its
non-existence. He just didn’t know how to overcome the beast but
refused to agree with what common sense told him to deny.
The
implications really need no further clarification as to why free will is
in power. Nobody, including Spinoza and other philosophers, ever
discovered what it meant that man’s will is not free because they never
unlocked the second door which leads to my discovery. The belief in
free will was compelled to remain in power until the present time
because no one had conclusive proof that determinism was true, nor
could anyone slay the fiery dragon which seemed like an impossible
feat. Is it any wonder that Johnston didn’t want to get into this
matter any further? Is it any wonder Durant never went beyond the
vestibule? Are you beginning to recognize why it has been so difficult
to get this knowledge thoroughly investigated? [/i]
It is true that confusion arises due to definition only. There can be no meeting of the minds when everyone has a different definition of what determinism and free will mean. Definitions mean nothing where reality is concerned unless they reflect accurately what is going on in reality. For example, we are not denied a will in determinism. Moreover, the knowledge I am presenting is not prescriptive. It does not say we must choose so and so because determinism prescribed that this must be so. It is descriptive ONLY. It is also not anthropomorphic because we’re not attributing man made characteristics to laws of nature; we are part of the laws of nature. I’m not sure if my response will satisfy Rosa’s take on the misuse of words because that is the crux of the problem but not in the way she’s describing. I’m hoping that people will be interested in a more accurate definition of determinism. This correct definition, and the corollary that follows, reconciles determinism with moral responsibility. Will is not denied us, it’s just not a free will. By keeping the will intact, it removes the alienating nature of traditional thought that has confused the free will/determinism debate up until the present day.