Determinism

Indeed, all behaviors would seem to be entirely obligatory on our part in a determined universe.

But: What determines how we behave? Isn’t it how we think and feel?

But: if how we think and feel is in turn entirely determined, then [it would seem] anything that we come to realize that prompts us to be less inclined to blame is in turn but one more inherent, necessary component of nature unfolding only as it every could have.

From my frame of mind, once you conclude that the human brain is itself just another manifestation of matter unfolding by obeying immutable laws, then everything we come to think, feel, say and do – or come to realize – is but in fact what it could only ever have been.

How can anything be excluded unless you are able to demonstrate that mind as matter is a very, very different kind of matter indeed.

And that leads to discussions of God or how living matter can reach the point where it is able to consciously speculate on why [sans God] there is something instead or nothing at all. And why this something and not another something instead.

First of all, I’m not sure who you are addressing in this post. I hope it’s not me because the discovery I am trying to bring to light is not compatibilism. We have no FREE will and therefore we are not morally responsible. How could we be held responsible if the only choice that was made (looking back in hindsight) was the only choice that could have been made. But amoralism is not the result. In fact, it is not about moral and amoral; it is about what can be justified and what cannot.

The confusion arises due to the word choice. We have options, but it’s never a free choice not because we are dominoes without a say, but because we can never move in a backward direction, or a less preferable direction whenever a choice is being made. Therefore when making comparisons to decide which choice is the most satisfactory, only one choice can ever be made in the direction of greater preference.

The nail was hit on the head. We can never glance back as far as determinism, or the choice made being the only one which could have been made in order to move forward-----implies a pre chosen state of being or mind that has the appearance of having more choices, not of actually having them.

What peace girls is saying, is that appearance changes into reality after a choice was made. That is compatible with the missing parts in the process of reasoning, as to what is the optimal basis of a progressing route whereby choices are made.

Therefore, forward, determination is not absolutely bound by circumstances even beyond our control.

Reversely, a reduction into less symbolic manifestation appears to want to confirm a required sought after priority.

Necessarily, we must choose what nature prescribes is a modal fallacy.

We must necessarily choose what gives us greater satisfaction based on contingent factors that feed into one’s preference is not a modal fallacy. Nature does not prescribe. It is descriptive only.

Well, yes, but isn’t the modal fallacy based on attaining more pleasure basis of primal instincts of survival, and only if survival is described as
more pleasurable then being killed killed by a more voracious Neanderthal, then can we discount the fallacy.

We can discount the fallacy because nature does not prescribe. You can replace greater satisfaction with pleasure although not everything we find satisfyingly is pleasurable. I may save someone from harm and risk dying in the process. This may be in the direction of what gives me greater satisfaction but I certainly wouldn’t call it pleasurable.

Basically, it would be fallacious to presuppose that instinctive pleasure toward supposing a pleasurable after life rather then the contrary would not evolve from a cro magnon man even from a lower derivation , , because in Neanderthal man the conscious choice of attack/retreat was already evident, the instinctual pleasure of survival implies the transcendent reduction , as a solution to the paradox.

Therefore to connect pleasure with existence is primordial and instinctual.
With subordinate mammals the consciousness manifested in early man is not supported by activities and artifacts implying conscious capacity to make choices. But early man usually buried his kin, and implies a consciousness of the connection.
Such connection, does not negate the natural perhaps unconscious content of various differing evolutionary preceptions of the content.

Therefore the fallacy is an inductive presumptive hypothesis based on the reduction of phenomenological awareness limiting determinism to a purely conscious manifestation, and has to be modified, or at least augmented by the instinctual determination, that does invalidate the fallacy.

And I think , even then, Your thesis can stand, but not without the arguable idea, that lower forms with as yet undeveloped will, can not be presumptive of a total denial of predetermination . in other words , an almost total reliance on instinct may not cut an animal from a human and lead to a conclusion which define mostly pure determination from natural causes, because the intermediary of primitive man can attain consciousness of partial awareness.

Paleontology has evidence for this factual progression, and too label this purely fallacious because of a modern notion of an existential reduction, misses the point.

I feel You may not accept this in Toto- on anthropological basis, however so
much transcendentilism has been nullified on its face, that it reminds of the theory that is protested against too much.

To over emphasize so much signification on conscious meaning per se, indicates the fact that science is merely a component of analysis of all that already is in the analysand.

Life moves constantly in one direction which is away from a state of dissatisfaction to a state of greater satisfaction. If you were satisfied to remain in one position you would never move from the spot you’re on. Just because humans are able to use language in order to contemplate what option would be the most satisfying does not change the direction of all life. This also does not mean we always understand the reasons behind a choice on a conscious level. Many of our preferences are based on factors that are just below the surface of our conscious awareness. Animals also move instinctually toward what satisfies whether it’s pruning themselves, scratching an itch, or foraging for food, without being aware of what they are doing on an intellectual level. You have misinterpreted the claim.

Moreover, determinism is an invariable law that doesn’t change with time. Will is another word that can cause confusion. In this context it means desire. Without a will or desire to accomplish a goal (regardless of the developmental age) we could not progress because will (or desire) precedes action.

Let’s try it one more time. Above in reponse to what I bolded and underlined above, I ask you if you think there is one or one obvious conclusion when you ask that question. Sometimes people use this rhetorically, asking a question like that. I even said it seemed like you were implying there was one obvious negative conclusion about what it says, but I couldn’t be sure. You never answer this.

Did you think you knew why I left like that? Did you think others would draw the same conclusion because there is an obvious one?

And sure, there is all sorts of room for misunderstandings, but if we don’t actually respond, when acting as if we are, these things cannot possibly be cleared up, even in those cases where it is possible.

You do write responses to my posts, but they are not responses to what I write, often. Can you respond directly to the above and not write in the timeless general abstract manner you do about our differences and actually respond to what I write?

That is exactly what peacegirl thinks is going to happen and he is glad about that.

And he also agrees with that.

And he would agree with that.

And his telling people this, he thinks, might be part of those causes and effects which inevitably lead to people moving past blame.

It might lead to that. It might not. I don’t see it always leading to that.

(something gives me the impression peacegirl is a man. I can’t remember what it was. apologies if I’m incorrect)

oh my GOD… peacegirl is a man?! gah… uhhhhuh!

I think we are both missing each other’s point . My point is, an answer to Yours that sure, we are advancing toward some object through which the pleasure principle leads us, unto the Freudian Thanatos , however at a point. a pre reflexive point , man has sublimely passed into the age of a myth, and then everything changed.

He started.to bury his kin, with a sublimination of some hidden expectation that this appeaewmt appearent death is not real, that there is something hidden-look at the burial of the body. as an act of.literal hiding it, preserving it, from lower forms of life.

He has gone into the world of the myth. the mythical world of the imagination.

This is very significant, it is a form of transplantation, from the world of the senses.

Pleasure is not restricted to human beings, animals feel pleasure in coitus, but that pleasure, produces the seed without which evolution, could not proceed to posit the idea of choices.

The primal point revolves against the existential solution to mortal threat- advance to fight or retreat , when two primal combatants face each other.
What determines the action that needs to be taken?

The pleasurable feeling of over coming an assailant caused by the perpetuation of that pleasure . Higher pleasures evolve as the become more objectively associated with more cohesion with more ideally formed attachments.

The point is the evolving identification of pleasure in the other as object, begins with a naturally determined evolutionary determination, exactly as You describe it. The based of which are existential, and not cognitive. However the basis only address the behavioral responses to changing forms of adaptation with and within a genetic code. The code supplies the unanswered question, which in that early age was unanswerable. This is the foundation of the tranacensentally reducible answer as to why and how the instinctual basis determine the connection of the pleasure principle with the content of the objective notion of Thanatos: which even to this day remains shrouded .

The supposition that more and more will be revealed, with the passage of time, is again implied with the upper notions of transcendental evolution, and it is for that hope, that science is a servant of. The overcoming of this tragic birth, as progressing from the representation toward the reality of objective truth, as an absolute. We have come very far indeed sin a few centuries , while primitive, yet hopeful man goes back in time maybe 50 to one hundred thousand years. It is a pleasure to understand the coming of near perfect compatibility between what is presented and what is hoped for, in order to avoid the tragic consequences of passing from this tragedy into some kind of self fulfillment that is able to interpret the code to its ultimate goals.

The ultimate is feared with every new incarnation, perhaps working reversely, due to an increasing impatience with the rate of change , since the imposition of the break up of Thetic consciousness has lot the ability to appreciate the literal miracles which have transmitted closer and closer into the very code it’self.

[quote=“Meno_”]

Meno, I don’t quite understand how your explanation nullifies the immutable law of greater satisfaction. You seem to be using your philosophical analysis to discuss motives. This is not about motives. It is one statement of fact ONLY! Could you be more succinct and tell me exactly where this natural does not hold? I already stated that’s this is not the pleasure principle because we do many things that are unpleasurable (like saving another human being at the risk of us dying in the process) but give us satisfaction.

peace girl,

Meno, I don’t quite understand how your explanation nullifies the immutable law of greater satisfaction. You seem to be using your philosophical analysis to discuss motives. This is not about motives. It is one statement of fact ONLY! Could you be more succinct and tell me exactly where this natural does not hold? I already stated that’s this is not the pleasure principle because we do many things that are unpleasurable (like saving another human being at the risk of us dying in the process) but give us satisfaction.

Philosophical analysis is supported by palaanthropological facts here.

Personally I would severely discount my pain by an extreme pleasure of saving someone’s life.

But here is the rub, the conversion of neurological pain into psychological pleasure.


Could you be more succinct and tell me exactly where this natural does not hold?

In cases of tightly half morally encompassing duties, where the imperative to act invalidates the archaic notion of preservation of the self toward a motiveless leap towards the preservation of others. That is not based on an instinctual state, and here
the fallacy becomes auspicious.
But that too can be phenomenally transcended by an indirectly determined natural method. Do the modal fallacy may be transcended by the same token by which Jesus spoke in parables and Nietzsche in aphorisms.

Many people would do the same, but I would not call it pleasure. That’s misleading.

You are, once again, trying to negate this law by bringing in irrelevant factors. What motivates you to choose psychological pleasure over neurological pain may not be what someone else chooses. This doesn’t disprove the “greater satisfaction” principle. It proves it. This principle cannot be denied, which is proof that man does not have free will because he can only go in one direction.


Our instinct for self-preservation may be replaced by the desire to help someone else in an emergency situation. We may act counter to our instinct in a situation that requires it. Where does this nullify anything I’ve said?

It’s not a fallacy. That is a mistake on your part. We are compelled to choose the greater of two goods, the lesser of two evils, or a good over an evil. It is impossible to choose the lesser of two goods, the greater of two evils, or an evil over a good. You have not shown me an example where this principle fails. Looking back in history only confirms that man never had free will because his actions were necessitated by the urgency for survival during that time period. Self-preservation is the first law of nature yet there are exceptions when a dire situation calls for a person to sacrifice his well-being for the well-being of another.

Before, during or after something happens. Before, during or after anything happens. What parts here [including human interactions] are not embedded in matter unfolding only as it ever could have in a wholly determined universe?

What can we know about something, about anything in a wholly ordered universe that we were ever free not to know? or free to know in a different way?

Well, we make choices and then once that happens, we can’t go back and unmake them. That part is certainly the case.

Hitler chose the Final Solution. That is a historical fact. But was this choice a historical fact only because he could never have not chosen it? That of course is what is at stake here. If everything the human brain as mindful matter chooses is always in sync necessarily with the laws of matter, then when folks blame Hitler for acting in an atrociously immoral manner, that too is just an inherent manifestation of a wholly determined universe.

And when some imagine that as having appalling implications for human interactions that too is just more dominoes toppling over as nature marches on.

Our consent. Our choice. And, yes, those autonomous aliens note that most of us are convinced that we are giving our consent to the choices we make.

But who perhaps is fooling themselves here about the nature of that consent, those choices? The “compatibilists” with their “psychological freedom” embedded in an ontologically determined world? Those like peacegirl who seem obsessed that no others force us to choose what nature compels us to choose? Like in not forcing us to choose others have freely chosen to do that!

Or, yes, yes, yes, it’s me here. I’m just not getting what is crystal clear to others about the existential relationship between determinism, the human brain, the human mind and the choices it makes.

[quote=“peacegirl”]

Many people would do the same, but I would not call it pleasure. That’s misleading.

You are, once again, trying to negate this law by bringing in irrelevant factors. What motivates you to choose psychological pleasure over neurological pain may not be what someone else chooses. This doesn’t disprove the “greater satisfaction” principle. It proves it. This principle cannot be denied, which is proof that man does not have free will because he can only go in one direction.


[quote=“Meno_”}In cases of tightly half morally encompassing duties, where the imperative to act invalidates the archaic notion of preservation of the self toward a motiveless leap towards the preservation of others. That is not based on an instinctual state[/quote]
Our instinct for self-preservation may be replaced by the desire to help someone else in an emergency situation. We may act counter to our instinct in a situation that requires it. Where does this nullify anything I’ve said?

It’s not a fallacy. That is a mistake on your part. We are compelled to choose the greater of two goods, the lesser of two evils, or a good over an evil. It is impossible to choose the lesser of two goods, the greater of two evils, or an evil over a good. You have not shown me an example where this principle fails. Looking back in history only confirms that man never had free will because his actions were necessitated by the urgency for survival during that time period.[/quote peace girl

peace girl:
You have a knack for. revealing prima facea paradigm
The fact of choosing good over evil exactly examplifies the struggle between Chirst and the Antichrist between Jesus and Nietzsche, even though the latter washed his hands by pronouncing himself to be above it!(good and evil)

Here is a decision to be made!

These were Pontius Pilate’s exact words.

Good and evil are relative terms although most people would consider not being shot by a sniper to be good when compared to the evil of being shot.

I think this comes closest to my own frame of mind here. In the manner in which I have come to understand the nature of determinism [though, sure, I may well be wrong] [b][u]nothing[/b][/u] escapes the clutches of mother nature’s immutable laws.

There are our desires. And these desires propel/compel us to feel greater satisfaction about certain things. And this sense of greater satisfaction about certain things propels/compels us to choose different behaviors.

But how is this not all “as one” to mother nature? Then the crucial question becomes teleology. Is there a God behind it all? Is there as aspect of nature [going back to the existence of existence itself] that allows for something analogous to “meaning” and “purpose” in the lives we live?

Such that someone like peacegirl can speak of things like peace and prosperity and progress “in the future” as though mere mortals here and now can actually pin them down? Or in fact have any actual freedom here at all in effectuating these changes?

Though I am the first to admit that human autonomy may well be applicable here. But that however is when I introduce dasein, conflicting goods and political economy into the is/ought world.

So, naturally, most folks are likely reject my frame of mind. I’m either suggesting that nothing that we think, feel, say or do, is not “beyond our control”; or I’m suggesting that even if we have some control, “I” in the is/ought world is largely an “existential contraption”.

Unless of course I’m wrong. And, come on, given the gap between what I think I know here and now and all that can be known, what are odds that I am actually right?!

I merely suggest in turn that this is applicable to others here too: the objectivists, the nihilists, the naturists, the deontologists, the Kids, the serious philosophers, the ranters and the ravers…everybody.

They are embedded, but they are contingent on antecedent events. IOW, the choice we make cannot be dictated until the choice is made. That would be a modal fallacy.

What we know and what we don’t yet know is perfectly ordered. We were never free not to know or to know in a different way because there was no other way it could have been in a wholly determined universe.

I don’t like the domino example because we do get to choose (albeit unfreely) dominoes don’t.

We are giving consent to the choices we make.

I’m not obsessed iambiguous. Nature does not prescribe behavior, which implies that we must choose what it dictates. Nature is not a dictator.

You’re making it more difficult than it actually is.