New Discovery

No, only when it is determined that we do in fact live in a universe where there is some measure of human autonomy, will folks be free [up to a point] to act on a finding. Your finding for example. Or mine. In the interim, given a wholly determined universe, we act on findings that we were never able to not act on. And never able to not find.

How are not all contexts wholly in sync with nature’s way?

Thus…

The laws of nature are either embedded in a teleological component of Existence, or they are not. One can imagine a God prescribing or proscribing human behaviors. But nature? Wanting to kill or not wanting to kill is neither here nor there to nature. It is just nature evolving into matter evolving into minds necessarily compelled to want or not to want anything.

But this in turn can only be an assessment that I was never able not to make.

Just as this…

…is an assessment that you were never able not to make. Either determinism encompasses all matter or the human mind is somehow the exception. After all, our desiring would seem [to me] to be no less in sync with the laws of matter.

Think about it. The distinction that I am making here is one that I am compelled to make and it is flawed? Indeed, this is precisely why some will embrace the idea of a wholly determined universe. Everything that they think, feel, say and do, they are off the hook regarding. “Flaws” are no less the embodiment of nature than “perfection”.

Then back to this:

Nature is a domino not choosing to topple over and nature is a human being “choosing” to topple over the domino. The domino was never not going to topple over and the human being was never not going to set it up to topple over.

Just as the future is only going to be what it must be but somehow we can “choose” to see it as you do and make it a “progressive” furture.

Why are people reluctant to give up on fixed ideas in a determined universe if not because being or not being reluctant [again regarding anything] is what they are ever and always compelled to be?

In my view, another flagrant assertion. You believe this and that makes it so. You still have no capacity to actually demonstrate that this is true. And the problem of responsibility has always revolved around the extent to which it can be demonstrated that we are responsible for choosing one thing rather than another. And the only way that makes sense is if we are not compelled to “choose” instead. You keep insisting what to me are two contradictory things:

1] that I am confused over the meaning of determinism
2] that I was never able not to be confused over the meaning of determinism.

Or, rather, so it still seems to me.

What then is the “for all practical purposes” relationship between nature and any and all desires that I have? Aren’t they begotten by life on earth evolving into human brains evolving into human minds wholly in sync only with the laws of matter?

Well, you are not of your own free will sharing this discovery, right? And it’s not a question of whether it is “fine” that I am not sharing in it [here and now], but that I was never really free myself to share in it. To choose to share in it. Although, depending on what nature has in store for me in the future, I might one day “choose” to share it.

I shift where nature compels me to. Just as you do. In a determined universe. And “control” here revolves entirely around a complete understanding of existence itself.

Well, it will take as long as it must in order for the future to be what it must.

Do I or do I not have any real choice in how I perceive determinism. In the past, in the present or in the future?

How is my “consent” not also synonymous with nature? How are the people shooting or being shot or explaining why they were not in turn also wholly synonymous with nature’s way?

We can learn only that which nature, in unfolding inexorably, enables us to learn. Call it a “prescription”, call it something else. It is what it is because it is what it is.

No, with God it is possible to imagine the existence of meaning and purpose behind existence. And “sound principles” as being in sync with God’s will. With nature – nature as this profoundly mysterious explanation for existence – “sound principles” suggests that nature is as it is because it is in fact “sounder” than being some other way.

And we don’t know why it is this way at all.

Again, as though the choices that I am making here allow you to accuse me of this. I am not at all free to make choices more in sync with your own, but somehow the problem seems to rest here [in your mind] with my “flaws”.

Genuine? How can that not be but one more word that we were compelled to invent in order to sustain an exchange as it was, in turn, compelled to be?

Cancer is a biological imperative built into the evolution of life on earth. Some get cancer. Some don’t. And someday someone may well find a cure for it. But how is any of this not wholly in sync with whatever nature necessarily has in store for us in the future?

Peacegirl,

You presented your case.

Iambig provided a response.

Why not accept it as a disagreement and move on? What is gained by continuing the conversation with him?

Determinism, the way it’s accurately defined, does not mean we aren’t able to act autonomously or with thought based on contingent events and sudden changes. Just because we can’t act outside of natural law does not mean we can’t change course or think independently. We’ve been through this.

Determinism encompasses all matter. The human mind is no exception but you are ignoring an important adjunct to this understanding, which I will state again: Nothing but nothing has the power to force you to do anything you make up your mind not to do, for over this you have mathematical control. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.

Regardless that they are the embodiment of nature, they are still flawed and need correction. If I say that 2+2 is 5, that is also no less the embodiment of nature but I would appreciate being corrected.

Human beings are not dominoes. They are not “choosing” to topple over the domino unless there is a pile up on the highway, or something similar.

You can choose to learn more, or not choose to learn more, in the direction of greater satisfaction. Either way, once you make a choice, you could not have done otherwise.

I understand that, but repeating how many centuries it took for the truth to be accepted may help to prevent the same thing from happening again. Just knowing what has happened in the past can serve as a reminder.

You can’t be serious. I offered the first three chapters. You have not read it yet you seem to be so sure it’s a flagrant assertion! Wow! :astonished:

But it has been demonstrated. Do you have any conception of what the discovery is about in order to come up with such a charge?

You are. Definitions mean nothing if they do not symbolize reality. The way determinism has been defined causes a false dichotomy where none exists.

I never said that you were never able not to be confused but that does not take away from the fact that it needs correction.

The only reason the terms are contradictory to you is because you don’t understand how I’m using the term “responsibility”. For example, if a person runs a red light and injuring someone, he is responsible no one else but that doesn’t mean he is responsible in the sense that he could have done otherwise. But this is only part of the equation. This alone will not prevent a person from slowing down rather than speeding up if that is what gives him greater satisfaction. The feeling of hurting someone when he knows in advance he will not be blamed for this careless act, WILL STOP HIM.

That is very true. All I am showing is that this law of our nature, when applied to our environment, will cause us to veer in a new direction but still in keeping with deterministic law.

No one is denying that iambiguous. The only thing I am trying to bring out is that nothing from the past can cause us to do anything against our will, not nature, not our parents, not even our genetics. IOW, a person can’t say nature forced him to shoot that person. He shot that person because he wanted to. At that moment it gave him greater satisfaction than not to shoot, for whatever reason. Does that make sense?

What is done is done, but that does not mean in the next instant you [in the here and now] may decide to share it. Either way, each moment offers a new set of possibilities.

Call it nature if you will but you cannot say nature made you share it. You may desire to share it because you find it compelling and want to pass it on, in the direction of greater satisfaction but that is a far cry from saying you were forced to share it against your will, which is the problem with the conventional definition.

Once again, nature doesn’t compel. You, as part of nature, are compelled to choose what offers you greater satisfaction from moment to moment. That is the direction of all life. This direction is beyond our control, as is the fact that nothing can make us do what we choose not to do. If you could allow me to show you where these two principles take us, we would make progress.

Very true. None of us know what our efforts will produce or what the future will be. It will be what it must be, in the final analysis.

If you are given different ways of looking at it, you have a choice based on what makes more sense to you. The choice in how you perceive determinism is not a free one. We all know that.

Your consent is also synonymous with nature since nothing can make or force you to do what you do not consent to. This is an important observation because many people when questioned will say, “This person made me do it,” or “I didn’t agree to it; I was forced into it.”

Along with the truth that it is what it is because it is what it is, humanity is developing at a consistent rate. It’s exciting to see what is ahead knowing that we have the ability to prevent war and crime.

We don’t have to know the reason for why nature is the way it is, or if God exists. All we really need to know is that we are moving toward a world of peace and brotherhood as a result of this knowledge (which you haven’t read).

I am pointing out that your analysis is flawed. This is not an accusation; it’s a statement.

Again, I am not accusing you for being mistaken. I’m just pointing it out.

What is wrong with the word genuine? You say this is but one more word that we are compelled to invent? I’m not inventing this word.

Again and again you keep repeating what I already agree with. All I am saying is that life progresses as it must, which is to do better with each succeeding generation. That is how life works.

Hell, you could make this same point about many things. Relating to disagreements revolving around religion or morality or politics or art or…

This time it just happens to revolve around one of the biggest quandaries of them all: human autonomy.

The existential implications of it clearly fascinate her as much as they fascinate me. And who knows when an argument that another makes might finally begin to sink in.

Sometimes, as with our own discussion of Communism and objective morality, it makes sense to move on. Or, rather, it did to you. But that doesn’t make a world that precipitates such conflicts go away.

Then I’m back to the part about dasein. Grappling with all the variables in your life that come together “here and now” to predispose you to make one decision rather than another.

Only here the very nature of that choice itself is at stake.

I’m asking her why she is choosing to stay- what she is getting out of this when all you do is repeat the same point. You see yourself as a domino and she does not see herself that way. Apparently neither of you have a reason to change.

Of course, from my point of view, you were no less making the same points over and over and over again in our own exchanges.

As she tends to as well in our effort here.

All we can do then is to situate those points out in the world that we live in.

And, no, I do not think of myself as a domino. I am instead unable to make up my mind as to whether or not the choices that I make are [at least in some respect] of my own volition.

I merely suggest in turn that even to the extent that they are, “I” in the is/ought world is the embodiment of dasein in a world of conflicting goods that are, as often as not, “resolved” in favor of those with the political and economic power to actually enforce particular sets of behaviors.

I’m not sure.

Human autonomy meaning free will. Why don’t you use the term “free will?” The is a semantic problem not a genuine contradiction.

This discussion fascinates me only because of its value once we understand that responsibility increases with this knowledge, not decreases.

Conflicts will naturally go away when the first blow of hurt goes away.

And when the decision that predisposed you to making a decision that requires punishment no longer exists, our problem is solved.

The nature of choice is not at stake. As long as man can deliberate and compare, choice will remain. What matters is that when this principle is put into effect, the choice to hurt another will be the least preferable alternative rendering this option an impossibility under the changed conditions.

Of course your choices are of your own volition or desire. Could they be anyone else’s? But… just because your choices are of your own volition (or free will, according to compatibilism) does not, in actuality, grant you freedom of the will due to the fact that you are never given a free choice since you are compelled to move in the direction of what offers you greater, not less, satisfaction, and only one choice can be made each and every moment of time. Moreover, when there is no more need for government because the conflicts have been resolved, how can there be political and economic powers that create an unfair advantage?

[i]Decline and Fall

There is no mathematical standard as to what is right and wrong
in human conduct except this hurting of others, and once this is
removed, once it becomes impossible to desire hurting another, then
whatever value existed in asking for and giving advice has been
permanently done away with.[/i]

Doesn’t that support his position that you are not really making a choice?

But he says that he’s not making a choice.

That’s the point that he keeps repeating which seems to directly negate your ideas about choice, decision, responsibility, etc.

How can you cross that fence between you?

Yeah. I’m used to this.

You hammer on the same thing over and over. Then when someone addresses that consistent message, you shift entirely.

Of course, you could never not respond in this way. And you will always respond in this way until you don’t.

You can think of yourself as an actor with choices or you can think of yourself as a domino without choices.

Why pick one over the other? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Can you switch around from one to the other? Are you better off adopting one view?

You hit the nail on the head. It’s difficult when there are only one or two participants because it seems to shut off any further curiosity by others. It surprises me that there has been so little interest in this discovery.

Why pick one over the other? Because one is true and one isn’t. Of course, if you are pushed down like a domino and hit another person who also falls down, this is not what we are talking about. This falling down is not of your own volition because something is being done to you due to physics. Choice, although not free, does exist. We choose every single day of our lives. Can you think of a day where you don’t deliberate over options to decide which one is the most preferable in your eyes?

I don’t know if I can cross that fence between us because he defines determinism as being forced, by nature, to say, act, and do. He is just a domino with no autonomy or free will. I keep telling him that nothing (not heredity, background, nature, parents, or God himself) has the power to force a person to do what he does not want to do, for over this he has mathematical control. It is okay to say I was compelled, of my own free will, to do what I did if it means I did something of my own volition because this is what I desired. This does not mean will is free although many philosophers define free will in this way. When I bring this up he back peddles to include the fact that he does have a choice which is embedded in natural law. He vacillates back and forth on a whim saying one minute he is a domino with no choice, and the next minute he says he has a choice which would mean he has some kind of autonomy. This doesn’t jive either since someone can have autonomy (independence) and still be under the control of determinism.

Autonomous, if I am wrong about any of my interpretation, please correct me. I don’t want to state anything that is a misrepresentation.

I think that discussions of determinism and free-will have little value. You end up making the same decisions , using the same process, no matter what label you stick onto life. Nothing really changes.

Well, no. Both are maps used to navigate through life. Both are true in some ways and false in others. Both are simply tools which can be picked up, used and discarded.

You can think of yourself as not deciding anything … the universe is deciding. You can think of yourself as not even being here. If there is no ‘you’, then there is nobody making decisions.

You are 100% incorrect.

[i]Decline and Fall of All Evil

Since my discovery
would bring about the greatest change in all of history, it appeared
that this man would be willing to let me explain my findings. By
convincing him on the phone that it was now possible to put a
permanent end to all war as a result of my discovery, he agreed to
meet me on a Sunday afternoon in Washington, D.C. Our
conversation went as follows:

“I’m really not a scientist, Mr. Lessans, and in all probability you
should be talking to someone else. Your claims are absolutely
fantastic, but I want you to know that even though I wrote an article
about science, I am not a scientist. Besides, after you hung up I
became more skeptical of claims such as yours because they not only
sound impossible but somewhat ridiculous in view of man’s nature.
Frankly, I don’t believe your claims are possible, but I am willing to
listen if it doesn’t take too long and if I can see some truth to your
explanation; I do have another engagement but I can devote at least
one hour. Would you get right on with it?” I then told him the story
about the earth being flat and he smiled at this, and then told him
that a theory exists regarding man’s nature that is accepted as true by
98% of mankind, and I pointed out that this theory is actually
preventing the decline and fall of all evil because it has closed a door
to a vast storehouse of genuine knowledge.

“I will be as brief as possible, Mr. Johnston, but in order for me to
reveal my discovery it is absolutely necessary that I first show you its
hiding place because they are related to each other.”
“What is this theory?” he asked.

“You see, Mr. Johnston, most people believe consciously or
unconsciously that man’s will is free.”

“What’s that? Did I hear you correctly? Are you trying to tell me
that man’s will is not free?”

“That is absolutely right, Mr. Johnston. I don’t believe it; I know
this for a mathematical fact. My discovery lies locked behind the door
marked ‘Man’s Will is Not Free,’ just like the invariable laws of the
solar system were concealed behind the door marked ‘The Earth is
Round’ — until some upstart scientist opened it for a thorough
investigation.”

“I have always believed it to be free, but what difference does it
make what I think; the will of man is certainly not going to be
affected by my opinion, right?”

“That part is true enough (do you recall the comparison), but if
the will of man is definitely not free isn’t it obvious that just as long
as we think otherwise we will be prevented from discovering those
things that depend on this knowledge for their discovery,
consequently, it does make a difference. The opinion of our ancestors
that the earth was flat could never change its actual shape, but just as
long as the door marked ‘The Earth Is Round’ was never opened
thoroughly for an investigation by scientists capable of perceiving the
undeniable but involved relations hidden there, how were we ever to
discover the laws that allow us now to land men on the moon?”

“Your door was opened many times through the years by some of
the most profound thinkers and never did they come up with any
discoveries to change the world.”

“It is true that determinism was investigated by people who were
presumed profound thinkers, but in spite of their profoundness none
of them had the capacity to perceive the law that was hidden there.
Most people do not even know it is a theory since it is preached by
religion, government, even education as if it is an absolute fact.”

“Mr. Lessans, I don’t know what it is you think you have
discovered but whatever it is, as far as I personally am concerned, it
cannot be valid because I am convinced that man’s will is free. Thank
you very much for coming out but I’m not interested in discussing
this matter any further.” And he would not let me continue.
[/i]

We can deny anything or believe anything. We can even believe we’re worms thinking we’re people. There has to be a solid basis of communication or there’s no way a sensible discussion can take place.

One needs to understand the other person’s POV in order to communicate or discuss effectively.

That’s certainly possible.