Okay, but how is all of this not in turn necessarily subsumed in a determined universe? From my frame of mind, what you seem to be distinguishing in regards to “I” here is the difference between having a compelled “choice” in a determined universe and having a free choice in a universe in which human autonomy exists.
What becomes paramount for you is being able to use the word “choice”.
The same behaviors will unfold only as they were ever able to, but once we “choose” to “find” these new ways, nature will then be in sync with the future as you imagine it. It is still as though our conscious minds are the driving force behind nature’s laws and not the other way around.
Hence:
If someone is doing something to you that do not want them to do, how is them doing it and you not wanting them to do it not also necessarily embedded in the laws of matter unfolding only as they must?
That is true.
How then is it not also true of our “finding” those “better ways”? And that’s before we get to the part where, with respect to any particular set of conflicting goods, we arrive at conflicting assessments of what constitutes a better or a worse future.
For example, is the future better under capitalism or socialism? Ask the folks in these camps to explain what it means to “move in the direction of greater satisfaction”.
From my frame of mind, once you accept that the universe and all that is in it [including “I”] is matter unfolding in sync with its own laws, how does anyone or anything “escape” what simply is?
It certainly can keep you more relaxed.
And this is basically the charge hurled at the determinists by the free will libertarians among us: determinism is just a frame of mind that allows the losers among us to accept their fate as beyond their control.
On the other hand, I still grasp in turn that “I” may well have some capacity to choose freely. It is just not accomplished in a way that is fully understood by either science or philosophy. Or, for others, by theology.
We can only move in the direction of greater satisfaction each and every moment of time, therefore free will is an illusion although a persistent one.
Again, you assert this as though those who do argue for some measure of autonomy are just plain wrong. They must be wrong because you must be right. But all of this is “proven” only by the assumptions that you make in your arguments. Unlike the physicists and neuroscientists, you [and the author] don’t seem to offer the sort of evidence that is subject [empirically] to experimention, prediction and replication by others.
It is true that some ideas grow and are believed to be big truths. But…you have to separate the chaff from the wheat. Is it possible that this discovery is more than an personal truth? You are skeptical, which is fine, but you believe based on the odds that this can only be what you described in your 7 stages. I ask you to please contain your skepticism and give this knowledge half a chance. Is that asking too much?
But: in separating the chaff from the wheat, is this not too just the illusion of choosing to do so freely?
I never said any choice was free. You are the one doubting determinism.
You “choose” to separate the wheat from the chaff here only as you were compelled to by the laws of nature…and I’m the one who doubts determinism?
And you ask me to contain my skepticism as [from my point of view] someone who believes in free will would. As though of my own volition, I can choose to step back, rethink the arguments, and then choose to see things as you do. Instead, in a determined universe, I am only “choosing” to do these things.
Of your own volition, you can choose to step back, rethink arguments, and possibly see things more clearly but only if you desire to do so.
Back again to that. My desire.
Perhaps an understanding of that is embedded in this…
“You may notice that there are so to say two levels of free will. On one hand you can do anything you will – and this is undeniably the freedom of mind – on the other hand however you can’t change your will.” Arthur Schopenhauer
If you are not able to desire other than that which the laws of nature compels your brain to propel you to desire then what you “choose” is only free nominally.
The psychological illusion of freedom that is no less inherently embedded in the laws of matter.
Your choice to rethink arguments does not mean you have free will. Your definition of these terms is different than mine which is why we don’t see eye to eye.
But how are the definitions that we “choose”/“desire” not in turn subsumed in nature unfolding autonomically per the laws of matter?
To repeat: You are given the ability to choose, but it’s not a FREE choice because of the reasons given.
Think about this. Who or what gives us this ability not to make a FREE choice? God? Nature? “I”?
We don’t know. That ever and always goes back to the explanation for existence itself.
The choice you make is the choice that could never not have been made, but that does not mean determinism forced a choice on you like bowling pins being knocked down.
This still makes no sense to me. If the human brain is compelled to invent the game of bowling in a wholly determined universe, it seems at best we can point out that the brain reconfigured into “I” had “chose” to invent it unlike the pins that had no “choice” in falling down.
Nothing was ever able to be other than what it must be but at least “I” am not a mindless bowling pin or domino.
IOW, you can’t say, “due to my lack of free will my causal chain made me speed up in a school zone. It was already embedded in the laws of matter that I run over a child.” That’s not how determinism works.
If I can’t say it, it was only because I was compelled never to say it. The child will be run over only because the laws of matter set into motion a sequence of cause and effect such that the child was never not going to be run over.
That’s how I imagine determinism working “for all practical purposes” out in the world of human interactions.
But I’m the first to admit my understanding of it may well be wrong.