Determinism

Here is Ambiguous citing Strawson in this forum:

“Strawson himself was optimistic that compatibilism could reconcile determinism with moral obligation and responsibility.” He accepted the facts of determinism. He felt that determinism was true. But he was concerned to salvage the reality of our attitudes even for libertarians, whom he described as pessimists about determinism."

May be there’in lies hidden poignancy.

Correct!!! There is no choice that could have been made but the choice that WAS made. Why are you trying to convince me when I know this is true? =;

The domino analogy is problematic because it presupposes the agent is nonexistent.

The reason you’re having a problem is because you are relinquishing the agent altogether, are you not? I don’t think you think you are, but actually I think you are not taking into consideration that choices are made not by antecedent events that force a chess move; they are choices made in the present based on what a person is considering.

Obviously Gandhi’s choice was wholly determined, so where is your disagreement? He chose [in the direction of what gave him greater satisfaction among the alternatives available to him] to be killed rather than to give up his fight for freedom. Where does any of this comment dispute “a wholly determined universe?”

We either have free will or we don’t. Just because our world is developing and different choices are made at different times in history that are different from what we would choose now, does not alter the FACT that we are moving in the direction of greater satisfaction every moment of our lives. I will state one last time, who is arguing with you iambiguous that everything unfolds as it could only ever be? #-o

History is what it is. It could not have been any different. The problem you’re having is you’re belief that I’m trying to change what could never be. That’s not what I’m doing. I’m just stating a simple comment that if a person doesn’t want to do something, nothing but nothing can make him do it. That’s it. Please take in what I’m saying because it doesn’t conflict with anything you’re saying, but it’s an important point as you will see if we get to move forward.

Yes, you’re right. The author said this in Chapter One, which you didn’t read because you don’t think it’s worth your time.

The government holds each person responsible to obey the laws
and then punishes those who do not while absolving itself of all
responsibility; but how is it possible for someone to obey that which
under certain conditions appears to him worse? It is quite obvious
that a person does not have to steal if he doesn’t want to, but under
certain conditions he wants to, and it is also obvious that those who
enforce the laws do not have to punish if they don’t want to, but both
sides want to do what they consider better for themselves under the
circumstances. The Russians didn’t have to start a communistic
revolution against the tyranny that prevailed; they were not compelled
to do this; they wanted to. The Japanese didn’t have to attack us at
Pearl Harbor; they wanted to. We didn’t have to drop an atomic
bomb among their people, we wanted to. It is an undeniable
observation that man does not have to commit a crime or hurt
another in any way, if he doesn’t want to. The most severe tortures,
even the threat of death, cannot compel or cause him to do what he
makes up his mind not to do. Since this observation is
mathematically undeniable, the expression ‘free will,’ which has come
to signify this aspect, is absolutely true in this context because it
symbolizes what the perception of this relation cannot deny, and here
lies in part the unconscious source of all the dogmatism and
confusion since MAN IS NOT CAUSED OR COMPELLED TO
DO TO ANOTHER WHAT HE MAKES UP HIS MIND NOT
TO DO — but that does not make his will free.
In other words, if someone were to say — “I didn’t really want to
hurt that person but couldn’t help myself under the circumstances,”
which demonstrates that though he believes in freedom of the will he
admits he was not free to act otherwise; that he was forced by his
environment to do what he really didn’t want to do, or should he make
any effort to shift his responsibility for this hurt to heredity, God, his
parents, the fact that his will is not free, or something else as the
cause, he is obviously lying to others and being dishonest with himself
because absolutely nothing is forcing him against his will to do what
he doesn’t want to do, for over this, as was just shown, he has
mathematical control.

I agree. They had to be freaked out but that doesn’t mean they have to continue to be freaked out out once they understand the true meaning of determinism and the amazing knowledge that lies behind that heremetically sealed door.

Of course minds can change according to new information. That being said, everything is being played out as it has to be, but that doesn’t mean war has to continue, hate has to continue, poverty has to continue, crime has to continue, once we are given the knowledge how to prevent these occurrences from continuing.

War seems
to be an inescapable feature of the human condition which can only
be subdued, not eradicated. But we must insert a question mark
between the empirical fact that a feature is characteristic of human
life as we know it, and the empirical claim that this feature is a
sociological inevitability.
Another reason that war is viewed as an
unfortunate and intractable aspect of human existence is due to
suffering itself, which sadly robs its victims of the ability to dream or
have the breadth of vision to even contemplate the possibility of peace.
The evil in the world has so constricted man’s imagination that his
mind has become hardened, and he shows contempt for anyone who
dares to offer a solution because such claims appear ludicrous and
unfounded.

No conflict here.

You are satisfied to be here otherwise you wouldn’t be here. You are able to choose not to answer me, not to engage, not to argue, not to debate, etc. You have absolute control over walking away, and there is nothing I could do to convince you otherwise, if your mind is made up. Nothing has the power to make you do what you don’t want to do, for over this you have absolute control, but this does not make your will free. I don’t know if you grasp this or not.

Humans are able to think and ponder and ruminate. In this respect humans differ from other species. Call it whatever you want. Bottom line: We are developing and we are progressing as we have always done from the beginning of time. Eventually this new world is going to become a reality not because of anything I’m saying, but because this is the law of our nature.

Just don’t leave out the agent.

The word “embedded” is misleading for it assumes, ONCE AGAIN, we, as agents have no say in what we choose.

Nothing up to this very instant could have been done differently.

We don’t have ultimate control. We have control only in the sense that nothing prior to the present moment could force us to do anything against our will. No domino, so to speak, can force us to choose something we don’t want to choose. Obviously in a situation where we were stuck on a train track and the train was coming, we would be hit like dominoes falling down one after the other. But that’s not the same issue.

So is this about you’re wanting to be right at all costs, or is this about trying to understand what this discovery has to offer before telling me I’m wrong? :-k

The faculty of using one’s will to make a choice from our present position that has grown uncomfortable to the next position we are now standing on does not in any way, shape, or form grant us freedom of the will where choice is free from our environment, genetics, and predispositions.

Compatibilism does not increase moral responsibility. It justifies blame and punishment which satisfies the status quo of our present penal and justice system. In so many words, it states that if a person is of sound mind, when given a choice that is not constrained by physical force, he can [freely] choose not to do harm to anyone. What I am presenting is not about reconciling free will with determinism, because there is no free will. Being able to say “no” to an action does not mean we have free will because the choice not to do it, is still within the purview of determinism.

The term ‘free will’
contains an assumption or fallacy for it implies that if man is not
caused or compelled to do anything against his will, it must be
preferred of his own free will. This is one of those logical, not
mathematical conclusions. The expression, ‘I did it of my own free
will’ is perfectly correct when it is understood to mean ‘I did it because
I wanted to; nothing compelled or caused me to do it since I could
have acted otherwise had I desired.’ This expression was necessarily
misinterpreted because of the general ignorance that prevailed for
although it is correct in the sense that a person did something because
he wanted to, this in no way indicates that his will is free.

If compatibility justified blame, rather then increase moral responsibility then
Strawson’s paraphrased words here may be proper at this juncture:

In his landmark essay, ‘Freedom and Resentment,’ P. F. Strawson (1962) sets out to adjudicate the dispute between those compatibilists who hold a consequentialist view of responsibility and those incompatibilists who hold the merit-based view.[9] Both are wrong, Strawson believes, because they distort the concept of moral responsibility by sharing the prevailing assumption sketched above — the assumption that holding persons responsible rests upon a theoretical judgment of their being responsible. According to Strawson, the attitudes expressed in holding persons morally responsible are varieties of a wide range of attitudes deriving from our participation in personal relationships, e.g., resentment, indignation, hurt feelings, anger, gratitude, reciprocal love, and forgiveness. The function of these attitudes is to express “…how much we actually mind, how much it matters to us, whether the actions of other people—and particularly some other people—reflect attitudes towards us of good will, affection, or esteem on the one hand or contempt,-.

Contemp may breed resentment, and this is the limit to where positivism can lead us.

On the other hand, the positivist approach lends to the judgement accorded thusly: and again return to him:

"sets out to adjudicate the dispute between those compatibilists who hold a consequentialist view of responsibility and those incompatibilists who hold the merit-based view.[9] Both are wrong, Strawson believes, because they distort the concept of moral responsibility by sharing the prevailing assumption sketched above — the assumption that holding persons responsible rests upon a theoretical judgment of their being responsible. "

The above justifies a positive approach, in some affinity with those, who are not in agreement with the idea that moral judgements can be settled on theoretical grounds, such as Kant, and even Marx. For if they were, then the famous synthesis would need to be based an a-priori synthetic base, (prior to the judgement)
This is cleverly denied by all positivist, and perhaps rightly so.

As a result, cupuld compatibility be excluded as manifested in resentment, or should they remain even as a contingent apparatus in measuring an assumeable degree of human will, to resist determination?

I’m not at all sure I’m making sense, but I’d be happy to rephrase if so desired.

Ill bump this to be sure.

ah i see what you’re doing. you’re asking how a determinist could blame a certain economic system for producing conflicts between people who don’t have the freewill to not produce those conflicts. indeed, there is a bit of an impasse here so long as a critique attempts to proceed on moral grounds. the only way around this problem is to replace the premise with a kind of hedonistic imperative and evoke a utilitarian point of view on the matter; we say despite whether or not capitalism is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ according to [insert favorite ethical theory], it produces a grossly disproportionate hedonic calculus in practice. and since ‘pleasure’ and ‘pain’ are states which are absolutely certain and free from the interrogating finger of philosophy - ‘how can you be sure you’re experiencing pleasure or pain’ is a question only and idiot philosopher would ask - the degree to which these states exist is the thing that should be brought into question when examining an economic system. so because capitalism produces a hedonistic calculus which results in a greater amount of pain and suffering in a majority, in exchange for a proprotionately smaller amount of pleasure and success for a minority, one would have to set the premise that the pleasure of the few over the majority is justified. but how can one do that? such a justification would be a value statement, a moral statement, and have absolutely no grounds other than as a simple emotivistic expression; the capitalist says ‘capitalism is good because X’, and this only means ‘i like it’. there is no quality ‘goodness’ out there in the world which would vindicate capitalism of its disproportionate calculus. and yet at the same time, one can neither say the majority should experience less pain and suffering, as that kind of claim would fall under the same terms.

it simply comes down to this simple question; why would a majority allow capitalism to persist when it creates this disproportion. again, we aren’t attacking or defending capitalism on the merits of it’s being either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in principle. we are looking at its material affects. we are asking why there are more empty houses than there are homeless people. we are asking why so many people die every day when there is sufficient aid and resources to keep them alive. we are asking why people are starving when there is so much surplus of food in the world that half of it spoils before it is ever used. we are asking why we willingly allow the cyclic crashes of the market to occur every so many years because of the accumulation of dead capital made stagnant. we are asking why so much money is being spent on military expenditures for countries to defend themselves against neighboring countries… all of which will eventually end up becoming economically interdependent, any fucking way.

but you must understand that there will never be agreement between the two warring classes that are involved in this silly nonsense. the capitalist is not concerned with any of these problems, while the worker most certainly is. and it is up to the working classes to resolve these ridiculous matters and change the calculus.

you might say that my approach here is like an amoral utilitarianism founded on a hedonistic imperative. i have simplified the problem and brought it out of the philosophical sophistry and haze that has so clouded the world for centuries. the atheistic randian capitalist says ‘there is nothing stopping me, nor can there be’… to which i reply ‘there is nothing stopping me either, nor will there be. now what do we do, mr. galt?’

and with that, 2000 years of philosophy does an enormous u-turn and arrives right back at thrasymachus. might is right. philosophical ‘reasons’ come after the fact, apropos to whatever sophistry one employs to defend their place of power.

whether ‘free’ or not, the gravity of the values of the working classes is enough to set the movement in motion without needing to justify it on any moral or ethical grounds. this amounts to the working class saying to the capitalist; 'that you are not free to do otherwise is irrelevant, as you are still a big fucking hemorrhoid in the asshole of the world. we don’t need to ‘blame’ you for anything. what is to ‘blame’ is neither here nor there and was never a question. the working classes don’t do metaphysics. that’s a philosopher’s nonsense.

The discovery to which this thread is dedicated solves the economic problem as it does many other aspects of human relation. I will post the Preface here in the hope that it will create some interest. Misplaced skepticism is a real problem for anyone who offers something that lies beyond the status quo. For the atheists among us, please understand that the word God was used only as a symbol for the laws that govern our universe. People are very prickly about this and will even refuse to read just because of this one word. Very unfortunate.

[i]Decline and Fall of All Evil: The Most Important Discovery of Our Times

PREFACE

My dear friends, relations, and people throughout the earth, the
purpose of this book is to clarify knowledge that must be brought to
light as quickly as possible because it can prevent what nobody wants
— a nuclear holocaust. With the world in turmoil and on the
threshold of an atomic explosion which could be started accidentally
and could very well destroy all civilization, I am announcing a
scientific discovery that will make war an absolute impossibility and
revolutionize the life of man entirely for his benefit.

Due to a
fantastic breakthrough, to the discovery of a natural, psychological law
that was hermetically sealed behind a logical theory that 98% of
mankind holds true, every bit of hurt that exists in human relations
can be virtually wiped from the face of the earth by something so
superior to punishment, as a deterrent, that people the world over will
be prevented from committing those very acts of evil for which blame
and punishment were previously necessary. Laugh if you will but your
smile of incredulity will be wiped from your face once you begin to
read the text chapter by chapter of which the first two are most
fundamental.

It is important to know that this book does not contain a theory
but an undeniable equation that can be scientifically proven. It has
no biases, prejudices or ulterior motives — its only concern is in
revealing facts about the nature of man never before understood.
Furthermore, so as to prevent jumping to conclusions, this book has
nothing whatever to do with communism, socialism, capitalism,
government, or religion; only with the removal of inaccurate facts that
have been passed along from generation to generation in the guise of
genuine knowledge.

There are those who may be blinded by this
mathematical revelation as they come out of Plato’s cave having lived
so many years in the shadows that distorted their beliefs into a
semblance of reality — and may deny what they do not understand or
don’t want to be true. Just bear in mind that any disagreement can
be clarified in such a manner that they will be compelled to say, “Now
I understand and agree.”

I am about to demonstrate, in a manner our
world’s leading scientists will be unable to deny, not only that the
mankind system is just as harmonious as the solar system despite all
the evil and ignorance that ever existed, but that the inception of the
Golden Age cannot commence until the knowledge pertaining to this
law is accurately understood. What is about to be revealed is
unprecedented. Soon enough everyone will know, without
reservation, that mankind is on the threshold of a NEW WORLD
prophesied in the Bible that must come to pass out of absolute
necessity when this natural law is stamped by the exact sciences with
the brevet of truth.

In view of the fact that the first two chapters must be read
thoroughly before any other reading is done, it is my hope that the
table of contents will not tempt you to read in a desultory manner.
Should you jump ahead and read other chapters this work could
appear like a fairy tale otherwise the statement that truth is stranger
than fiction will be amply verified by the scientific world, or by
yourself, if you are able to follow the reasoning of mathematical
relations. If you find the first two chapters difficult, don’t be
discouraged because what follows will help you understand it much
better the second time around.

This book was written in a dialogue
format to anticipate the questions the reader may have and to make
these fairly difficult concepts as reader-friendly as possible. There is
a certain amount of repetition for the purpose of reinforcing
important points and extending the principles in a more cohesive
fashion, but despite all efforts to make this work easier to understand
it is still deep and will require that you go at a snail’s pace reading
many things over and over again. When you have fully grasped the
full significance and magnitude of this work, and further realize there
has never been and will never be another like it because of what is
undeniably achieved, you will cherish it throughout your entire life.

Well, would you like to see what happens when science, the
perception and extension of undeniable observations, takes over the
problems of human conflict as the result of a fantastic discovery?
Would you like to see that the mankind system has been obeying an
invariable law just as mathematically harmonious as that which
inheres in the solar system; a law that allowed a prophesy to be made
thousands of years ago and verified in the 20 century? Would you
like to learn, though this book has nothing whatever to do with
religion or philosophy, that your faith in God will finally be rewarded
with a virtual miracle, one that will shortly deliver us from all evil?

If
you are sincerely interested in seeing this fantastic transition to a new
way of life which must come about the moment this discovery is
thoroughly understood, all I ask is that you do not judge what you are
about to read in terms of your present knowledge but do everything in
your power to understand what is written by following the
mathematical relations implicitly expressed throughout. Please
remember that any truth revealed in a mathematical manner does not
require your approval for its validity, although it does necessitate your
understanding for recognition and development. And now my friends,
if you care to come along, let us embark…the hour is getting late.

[/i]

I have an intuitive understanding that is sandwiched between my own stirring emerging suspicion, that will reinforce a kind of epistemic compatibility, which in turn will reveal two kinds of architecture , as the paradigm model, - which in turn will pose fear to the majority and optimism to maybe a few per cent.

That may be caused by the level of presumption becoming totally indecipherable to the majority , very near to the absolute sense.

If this approach trangresses on the basis of any kind of compatibility, then Peace Girl , i move for You to start, notwithstanding the above suggestion.

What do you even mean: “Sandwiched between my own stirring emerging suspicion, that, it will.” And what intuitive understanding do you have?

In terms of what You may have in mind, meaning, a reinforcement of the power of the intuitive understanding of the ‘should’ of the transcending quality. You indicated more slant toward the quantitative reach for a hypothetical goal: with which I’m in 100 % agreement, (and now it is a sorry historical fact that the bilateral U.S.-USSR agreement has been broken) the complete elimination of the threat of nuclear war, and at this point our fear coincides with more than occasional glances at the doomsday clock.

The link, is what matters, descriptively, perspectivelly, or politically . The triad that has been warned by neo-national socialists are almost identical with the one posed earlier in the years proceeding World War.II, not.overtly , but is systemically reducible. The term escapes me , and will introduce it , once I find it.

The above is intuitive and real, vis. more so, than merely stating that the symbol of that message is hardening
rather, reifying into more graspable notions.

Maybe that is why the unprecedented moves by a U.S. President to travel for meetings with a relatively insignificant political leader.

Somehow the feeling that this the direction overshadows the current one , that the military-industrial complex is taking.

The link during the cold war had created the hot line between presidents, and we have really little knowledge of the difference between the seeming cozy friendliness between Putin and Trump, which appears to again contraindicate the breakage of real political and military agreements of cooperation.

Again having no top secret credentials , one can merely guess where ‘real’ facts lie, and such absence of reality for most people, devolve real approximations into the realm of the symbolic or even lower. At this lowest source, if.focused, energy is magnified.

Living in a sociological pan-optic world, has been pointed out to be a.form of.paternalism, and in line with most post modern views, re-igniting the availability of needs by people as credible as Bergson et al.

Thank you for your response, but I’m not sure where this fits in to my previous post, other than to say that the doomsday clock is ticking, and that our intuition is trying to warn us of this impending doom. That’s why the knowledge I am presenting is so timely.

Of what though? Of everything that we think, feel, say and do?

If so, what does that seem to suggest then about this very exchange that we are having? What is not compelled here — even though no one has a gun to our head demanding that we type these particular words.

And how is the law of greater satisfaction not in turn just another inherent component of the laws of matter?

I’m lost again. How is their reaction to this “more careful clarification” not in turn on par with them having been deceived before? They were either always going to be helped by it or they weren’t.

And around and around we go…

My words are repetitive because in a wholly determined universe they were never able not to be repetitive. Moving or not moving “forward” is in turn either embedded or not embedded in the laws of matter. What is “GIVEN!” is either everything that I think, feel, say or do, or there is in fact some measure of autonomy eked out by “I” when mindless matter reconfigured into the mindful matter embodied in the human brain.

In fact, when I stress that…

You respond…

But then you seem to qualify that…

…and I fail to grasp it. The movement from lesser to greater satisfaction is no less encompassed in everything. But human psychology has evolved such that “I” is able to convince itself that it is freely choosing to move as it does. Just as, in my dreams, I am convinced that I am calling the shots when in fact it is really only my brain creating everything in this dream world. And me in it.

Basically we’re on the same page. I was only adding a qualification which is significant. It doesn’t change the fact that what we do, say, feel, and think are not of our own free will. It just means that nothing can force or compel us to do anything against our will. That’s what the standard definition of determinism implies, which then clouds who is responsible for an action. If the agent isn’t responsible for pulling the trigger, who is? It doesn’t mean he’s to blame; it just means he is the one that pulled the trigger. That’s all I wanted to establish.

You’re absolutely right, we are compelled to be here because we want to be here in the direction of greater satisfaction. If we didn’t want to be here, we would choose NOT to be here in the direction of greater satisfaction. Whatever choice we make when comparing options is in this direction because we cannot go in a direction that would give us less satisfaction than what a more satisfying option would offer, given our individual perspective.

It isn’t any different than just another inherent component of the laws of matter. What you need to bear in mind is that the agent (the I, the self, the decision maker) is responsible for making his decisions because nothing other than the agent can force a choice on him without his permission. In other words, he can’t say "my heredity made me do it, my history made me do it, my environment made me do it, my synapses made me do it, because nothing has the power to make him do anything he, AS THE DECISION MAKER, DOESN’T WANT TO DO. You will see why this is important, and it doesn’t conflict with the laws of matter.

Who is saying anything could be any different? But I’m hoping that with further clarification people will want to learn more to see how this law of our nature plays out hypothetically and eventually realistically.

You are right. You have chosen to keep repeating yourself in the direction of greater satisfaction. Whether you have to repeat yourself again is up to you because before you do something, you have a choice to repeat or not to repeat. Once you make the choice, it could never have been otherwise.

You talk about autonomy as if being able to do, think, say, and feel cannot be done without libertarian free will. This is why clarifying terms is so important. Autonomy, as I understand it, doesn’t give me free will. It just means I am making my own decisions. You are making a false distinction between mindless matter (the domino effect where we have no say in what we choose because there’s no will at all) and autonomy that gives us the ability to make choices. This rift has caused a problem in the free will/determinism debate for millennium. There is no contradiction if we use the term “free” in a conversation as long as it’s qualified to mean there is no physical constraint. IOW, there is nothing wrong with saying “I did this of my own free will” when it is understood to mean, "I did this ‘of my own desire’ because I wanted to. It doesn’t mean we are free to move in the direction of less or [dis]satisfaction (which would go against the laws of our nature). Again, once a choice is made in the direction of greater satisfaction [than what the present position offers], it could not have been otherwise.

Hmmm, I see why we’re having problems. Do you think you could justify yourself by saying, your brain or neurons made you pull the trigger? You as the agent didn’t give the consent? That’s why the author wrote that NOTHING BUT NOTHING can make you do anything you don’t give consent to, or anything against your will to do. This is very very important to understand before I can move forward.

=“peacegirl”]

Thank you for your response, but I’m not sure where this fits in to my previous post, other than to say that the doomsday clock is ticking, and that our intuition is trying to warn us of this impending doom. That’s why the knowledge I am presenting is so )timely.[/quote

And Thank You, for Your response, and again point to it as possibly the expected response to object, on some basis, and the disclaimer as to its essential utility within Your intent for this forum.

I did make room for this possibility, which in fact, appears unacknowledged.

In addition, the parting shot conveyed was the alternate to this possibility, that apart from this, would be greatful to hear the proposal out forward by the double invitation to new participation, one: by literally getting on board, and two: by getting informed as to the methodology by which certainty could be attained, esp. by careful reading of the first 2 pages.

For the above two reasons, it appears, even though Your response was adequate, it conveys a sense of limiting temporal space, of which Bergson speaks in relation to the authoritarian paternalism of panoptical reactive social psychology.

Again , this may be interpreted as some restraint on compatibility , or not, but for my part it does serve little to advance an illusory emergence based on pure imagination.

Therefore, I see no need to either dispense with it , or, embrace it as a qualification to expanding consciousness in other terms.

At any rate, I look forward to an actual beginning to the proposed way to deal with the nuclear management in ways You describe as a newer proposal.

I really was surprised to hear the interpretation of my query, as basically merely fixative recurring glance at the nuclear ‘doomsday’ clock, which fits in to the general discussion, , and how compatibility issues , can or need at all be factored in, especially in light of the disclaimer, into it.

This is especially of interest , because of the increasing and urgent need to correlate all formal factions within a more and more spectral and multi leveled expanding problem, not to mention those that substantially can have bearing on them from without .

Thanks.

I didn’t mean to say that your concerns don’t have merit, but that the knowledge I’m presenting solves these multi-level problems. No one seems that interested because they are skeptical, which is understandable. But skepticism shouldn’t prevent them from wanting to learn more.

…but I , we are very much interested, our veritable life may depend on it, Yours, mine, our kids, our communities and ways of life, forget my views which source from imagination, not mine, but from those archaic communes whose ethos develops from what Levi Strauss coins as based on a participation mystique, in addition to the facts people glean from serpent tongued institutions and political misadventurors and ego laden sceptical extremists! (To say the very least)

I am no such typical sceptic, assuredly.

At any rate, looking forward toward the spectral plan of development of Your thoughts, from imagination through symbol to actualization of outcome.

Hoping for no reoccurance to the 50’s ’ This is a test, only a test, in the event of a real nuclear emergency, please stay follow the directions…

Resume to tune in to Your regularly scheduled programming…

I posted the first three chapters but people seem reluctant to read what may be an investment of time without proof of benefit. I hope you take the time to read these chapters because they are the foundation for the rest of the book. If you feel it’s too long-winded, you can skip the introduction and go right to Chapter One. I have been explaining in this thread that although man’s will is not free, nothing can make him do anything against his will. These two principles (which are summarized at the end of Chapter One) are important to understand before moving to Chapter Two.

[i]Let me summarize by taking careful note of this simple
reasoning that proves conclusively (except for the implications already
referred to) that will is not free. Man has two possibilities that are
reduced to the common denominator of one. Either he does not have
a choice because none is involved, as with aging, and then it is obvious
that he is under the compulsion of living regardless of what his
particular motion at any moment might be, or he has a choice and
then is given two or more alternatives of which he is compelled by his
nature to prefer the one that appears to offer the greatest satisfaction
whether it is the lesser of two evils, the greater of two goods, or a good
over an evil. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible for will to be free
because man never has a free choice, though it must be remembered
that the words good and evil are judgments of what others think is
right and wrong, not symbols of reality.

The truth of the matter is
that the words good and evil can only have reference to what is a
benefit or a hurt to oneself. Killing someone may be good in
comparison to the evil of having that person kill me. The reason
someone commits suicide is not because he is compelled to do this
against his will, but only because the alternative of continuing to live
under certain conditions is considered worse. He was not happy to
take his own life but under the conditions he was compelled to prefer,
by his very nature, the lesser of two evils which gave him greater
satisfaction. Consequently, when he does not desire to take his own
life because he considers this the worse alternative as a solution to his
problems, he is still faced with making a decision, whatever it is, which
means that he is compelled to choose an alternative that is more
satisfying.

For example, in the morning when the alarm clock goes
off he has three possibilities; commit suicide so he never has to get up,
go back to sleep, or get up and face the day. Since suicide is out of
the question under these conditions, he is left with two alternatives.
Even though he doesn’t like his job and hates the thought of going to
work, he needs money, and since he can’t stand having creditors on
his back or being threatened with lawsuits, it is the lesser of two evils
to get up and go to work. He is not happy or satisfied to do this when
he doesn’t like his job, but he finds greater satisfaction doing one
thing than another.

Dog food is good to a starving man when the
other alternatives are horse manure or death, just as the prices on a
menu may cause him to prefer eating something he likes less because
the other alternative of paying too high a price for what he likes more
is still considered worse under his particular circumstances. The law
of self-preservation demands that he do what he believes will help him
stay alive and make his life easier, and if he is hard-pressed to get what
he needs to survive he may be willing to cheat, steal, kill and do any
number of things which he considers good for himself in comparison
to the evil of finding himself worse off if he doesn’t do these things.
All this simply proves is that man is compelled to move in the
direction of satisfaction during every moment of his existence. It does
not yet remove the implications. The expression ‘I did it of my own
free will’ has been seriously misunderstood for although it is
impossible to do anything of one’s own free will, HE DOES
EVERYTHING BECAUSE HE WANTS TO since absolutely
nothing can make him do what he doesn’t want to.

Think about this
once again. Was it humanly possible to make Gandhi and his
followers do what they did not want to do when unafraid of death
which was judged, according to their circumstances, the lesser of two
evils? In their eyes, death was the better choice if the alternative was
to lose their freedom. Many people are confused over this one point.
Just because no one on this earth can make you do anything against
your will does not mean your will is free. Gandhi wanted freedom for
his people and it was against his will to stop his nonviolent movement
even though he constantly faced the possibility of death, but this
doesn’t mean his will was free; it just means that it gave him greater
satisfaction to face death than to forego his fight for freedom.

Consequently, when any person says he was compelled to do what he
did against his will, that he really didn’t want to but had to because he
was being tortured, he is obviously confused and unconsciously
dishonest with himself and others because he could die before being
forced to do something against his will. What he actually means was
that he didn’t like being tortured because the pain was unbearable so
rather than continue suffering this way he preferred, as the lesser of
two evils, to tell his captors what they wanted to know, but he did this
because he wanted to not because some external force made him do
this against his will. If by talking he would know that someone he
loved would be instantly killed, pain and death might have been judged
the lesser of two evils. This is an extremely crucial point because
though it is true that will is not free, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
ON THIS EARTH CAN MAKE MAN DO ANYTHING
AGAINST HIS WILL. He might not like what he did — but he
wanted to do it because the alternative gave him no free or better
choice. It is extremely important that you clear this up in your mind
before proceeding.

This knowledge was not available before now and what is revealed
as each individual becomes conscious of his true nature is something
fantastic to behold, for it not only gives ample proof that evil is no
accident but it will also put an end to every conceivable kind of hurt
that exists in human relations. There will take place a virtual miracle
of transformation as each person consciously realizes WHAT IT
MEANS that his will is not free, which has not yet been revealed.
And now I shall demonstrate how these two undeniable laws or
principles — that nothing can compel man to do anything against his
will because over this his nature allows absolute control, and that his
will is not free because his nature also compels him to prefer of
available alternatives the one that offers greater satisfaction — will
reveal a third invariable law — the discovery to which reference has
been made.
[/i]

How, in a wholly determined universe, could I reach that juncture in my life where I either choose to try to convince you or not [as you try to convince me or not] and not choose only that which I was ever going to have chosen given the manner in which my brain/mind is just another inherent component of all that can ever be understood about existence itself?

No, it presupposes that any agent/entity [from subatomic particles to human beings to the multiverse] is quite the opposite of problematic. All is only as it was ever going to be given that all is only as it ever could have been.

As though my “relinquishing” is not in turn only as it ever must be. It’s just that when the agent/entity evolves into the human brain/mind it necessarily acquires a psychological component that predisposes it to think that it is choosing freely. Again, in the manner in which I construe a determined universe. When, in fact, “I” may not be wholly determined at all.

Unless, of course, the person in the present is considering only that which it was only ever able to consider. And then acting on that consideration in the only manner in which it was ever able to. Like imagining chess pieces with brains. They are aware of having moved as they do but they were never able to not move as they do.

He didn’t chose to be killed in the manner in which one chooses to be killed given some measure of human autonomy. In the latter instance he was able to choose not to be killed. Here in my view choice is circumscribed/circumvented by the components of my own argument: dasein, conflicting goods and political power. The assumption is that “I” has some capacity to choose freely but only as an existential contraption.

So Ghandi moved in the only direction that he was ever able to move. You call this him moving in the direction of greater satisfaction. Why? Because that is the only reaction that you were ever able to have. This exchange is necessarily embedded in a wholly determined universe and it embodies the “greater satisfaction” of both of us. But somehow you make it appear as though my reaction to all of this should be more in sync with your reaction. That somehow my missing your point is more egregious than you missing mine. Even though in choosing the points that we do we are necessarily in sync with our wholly determined existence. Necessarily in sync with whatever explains the existence of existence itself.

All I can do here is to appeal to others:

What really important point do I keep missing here? Assuming that we do live in a wholly determined universe. Which, from my frame of mind, assumes that I could never have not missed it.

Sigh…

I chose not to read it because I could never have chosen not to not read it. Not because others compelled me to not read it but because all of my choices must be in sync with the manner in which all matter necessarily unfolds [including my brain/mind] in a wholly determined universe.

Isn’t this why dualism has always been an important consideration in philosophy? How is the mind [or for some the soul] not just the brain?

Okay, but, if, one day, they are not freaked out, it is only because their new understanding was always going to be a part of a future that could only ever be. The past, present and future of “I” — how is it really different [for all practical purposes] from the past, present and future of those dominoes set up by an individual who was no less set up by the laws of nature. How [to nature] is “I” not just a thinking domino?

No, these things don’t have to continue. But in however they do continue it won’t be because of anything that you and I and others were able to freely choose to do. The dominoes toppling over onto each other may not make it to the end. A mistake in setting them up was made. But [per nature] the one setting them up was never able to not make that mistake. For both the dominoes and the one setting them up the past, present and future are what they are. What they were only ever going to be. The same with war. Any war.

No conflict and yet our reaction to these relationships are different. With respect to either an autonomous world or a wholly determined world. Yet both would seem to be subsumed only as they ever could have been in a determined world.

But: I could only have been satisfied in a determined universe. I have “absolute control” only in the sense that you were compelled by the laws of matter to say this. You could never have chosen freely not to say it. My mind was made up from the moment that existence itself began to unfold only as it ever could have given these laws of matter.

So, in some distant future that could only ever have been what it is, this new world will have progressed such that behaviors that you find unappealling will have given way to those behaviors that you do?

Is that actually what you are saying? Even though as this all unfolds “we, as agents, have no say in what we choose.”

Same thing tomorrow? next week? next month? next year? All the way up to the day we die? Nothing could have been done differently?

Back again to you insisting that, “nothing can force us to choose something we don’t want to choose.” And then you acknowledging that all that we come to want is all that we could only have come to want.

Unless I am misunderstanding how you connect the dots here. Given that somehow I had the capacity to not misunderstand this.

Well, if I did want to be right at all cost, I could never have not wanted to be. Right?

But my point is always that none of us have the capacity to claim that because none of us are able to demonstrate what actually is in fact right here going back to the explanation for existence itself.

We don’t even have the capacity to fully demonstrate that this exchange itself is unfolding either only as it ever could have or as we freely choose to twist and turn it.

Instead we have these arguments embedded tautologically in the assumptions we make about the definition and the meaning of words put in a particular order.

Sometimes this seems reasonable to me and sometimes it does not. The distinction I tend to focus on is the one between the either/or world and the is/ought world — in a No God world in which the assumption is made that I do have access to some measure of autonomy.

By defining determinism in this way, you are abdicating all responsibility for any choice made since, according to your definition, it’s not you doing the choosing; you’re just going along for the ride. Your definition of determinism differs from mine which is why we aren’t on the same page.

It’s not problematic in the sense that everything is mapped out the way it had to be mapped out, but it is problematic (which many philosophers worried about) in that a person could just excuse himself by saying, “I couldn’t help shooting that person because my will is not free.” That’s what Johnathon Schooler’s experiment tried to show when college students were told their will isn’t free. But there is an interesting take on this which needs explaining.

Maybe the idea that we have free will is because we have choice, and people don’t usually think beyond that unless they are interested in this topic and go deeper. Relinquishing the agent appears to be what you construe as determinism. I am saying that having agency does not negate determinism.

That is true, they would be aware of having moved as they did and that they were never able to NOT move as they did. But before a move is made, they have a choice. Compatibilists call this free will, which it is not. The word ‘choice’ though is misleading for it makes it appear that there is more than one possibility. In actuality, this is a delusion since the choice that is made (out of necessity) has to be the choice that gives greater satisfaction after all options are considered.

Gandhi was able to choose not to be killed (that was one of the choices available to him) but not at the cost of losing his freedom, and no ultimatum by his captors could make him do what he didn’t want to do when unafraid of death. I’m not sure where your comment regarding conflicting goods and political power comes into play. We know the capacity to choose freely is false even though it often appears as if we’re making a free choice.

Because I’m explaining a more accurate definition of determinism, and yes, it’s the only reaction that I was ever able to have.

I’m not missing your point, and I’m not saying one is more egregious than another. I’m saying one is more accurate. You cannot leave out the agent, and yet you obviously have no choice but to believe that agency equals free will. That is wrong and that is why my definition of “greater satisfaction” is a more accurate definition. Nothing can cause you to make the choices you make even in a wholly determined universe. You make the choices you make in the direction of greater preference or satisfaction based on the options under consideration, and yet still part of a wholly determined universe.

You have autonomy to do what you want to do, as long as your choices are not constrained by physical force. Even drug addicts are under a compulsion but they still have a choice to not take drugs, albeit difficult as we know it is to break an addiction. Having choice is what most people think free will to be. But, as we know, we don’t have a free choice to pick what is the least preferable among the alternatives that are under our present consideration.

Sorry, I withdrew some unprepared material.