Freewill exists

In one sense all-of-reality is an illusion [in the 3 perspectives above], thus that will cover freewill, consciousness, and the self. [Ref: Kant]

In the relative sense, i.e. conditioned by humans, all-of-reality is real. Example, if you are standing on a track with an oncoming train, you cannot insist ‘you - the self’ and the train is not real!

However in the absolute sense, there is nothing real.
In the absolute sense, there is no real things-in-themselves, no freewill, no self, no God, etc.
Example; the self, there is no absolute independent self that survives physical death as a soul that can go to heaven or reincarnate into something else.
There are no absolute things-in-themselves that are absolutely independent of the human conditions.
There is no absolute God that is independent of the human conditions.
There is no absolute free will independent of the human conditions.

I agree, we can consciously will freely but such apparent free-will is always conditioned by the human conditions, thus a relative freewill not an absolute freewill.

Prismatic,

You make some type of “mystical” argument here which raises serious red flags in terms of inconsistency. You argue that NOTHING is absolute reality, except of the absolute reality of nothing being real. This is not a necessary logical error, however, you did not support your argument as to why one should believe that this exception is true. You merely stated it as truth, in contradiction to the rest of your argument (which I agree with).

Actually, it is a contradiction to this regard: no absolutes, except illusion

Well if illusion is the only absolute, then illusion itself is also illusion, which leaves us with absolutes, absolutes mind you, that you are using to make your argument in the first place, which, now, is a direct contradiction.

These discussions are zero value if they don’t cause a change in power.

Like oh now I understand, free will does/does not exist in this way, so I can now go about this way, or that way, which is better for me.

Ironically to stop believing in free will gives people a lot of freedom. “oh its determined that I want to do this so Ill do it and not doubt the ethics of my decision.”

Its a fad. But does it really change your life?


LESSON 1

Free Will is made out of discipline.

Y? o.

Because, your honour, discipline incorporates the hardest facts that are already given, so it incorporates what is clearly, objectively deterministic, hardness, laws and so, and as it incorporates all that, it still is something of itself and that which that is is increasingly free to itself.

So Chaos in a system is due to the system functioning very powerfully. So that entities of irreducible behaviour take place inside of it.
Thats not given. The weakest forces are the most predictable.

Oh dear, you don’t even know what a logical fallacy is.

“Someone says they don’t exist” is presented as a logical contradiction, not a logical fallacy, though on closer inspection it is not even a logical contradiction. A logical fallacy means the logical structure has a flaw, a logical contradiction just means two terms cannot be both true given a logical structure that isn’t flawed.

Invert your example to “Someone says they do exist”, and that is a logical fallacy: Begging the Question - the conclusion is already assumed in the wording. One can therefore logically conclude (since “exist or don’t exist” covers all possibilities exhaustively), that “Someone says they don’t exist” doesn’t contain a logical fallacy. Either that or the statement itself is invalid because there is either a semantic or syntactic flaw with the subject and/or predicate.

If your example were to contain the “Tu quoque” fallacy like you’re trying to pull, then out of the two options available, that leaves us only with a semantic and/or syntactic flaw with the subject and/or predicate. If this is the case, then we might look at how your example suggests a paradox similar to the liar’s paradox: if someone says it’s true that they don’t exist, they don’t exist to say they don’t exist, but through the act of saying, they demonstrate existence, and you go round and round. However upon closer inspection it’s more like Zeno’s paradox, which turns out not to be a paradox if you simply unpack it. Unpacking it reveals, as I keep saying, the problematic notion of the “identity” of the “someone”. Now it becomes clear that there is an issue of the False Dilemma fallacy in presenting only two options: either “someone existing” or “someone not existing”. The third option being that there is existence that contains within it what is incorrectly isolated “identity” of the “someone”. Now the congruence of the sentence itself is exposed as flawed - and not the implications of the sentence, given its assumed coherence.

Either that or the example doesn’t contain the “Tu quoque” fallacy afterall - take your pick. But this is all stuff I’ve already brought up, I saved the best 'til last:

The hilarious thing is that not only do you not understand what a logical fallacy is, you don’t seem to realise you would be committing the “Tu quoque” fallacy yet again if you were implying that the problem with “Someone says they don’t exist” being because their actions say they exist even if their words say they don’t, is that someone is not acting on what they are saying - and therefore what they’re saying is wrong. You’re trying to offer “a basic counter example of a so called logical fallacy” by committing the very same logical fallacy, as proof that logical fallacies can be countered?! :laughing: So even on what you call “basics” you fail.

Basically on all sides, everything you say demonstrates that you are a newcomer to logic and you are pretending you can swim way out of your depth.
The reason you don’t think I’m as smart as I think I am is because you’re not smart enough to realise I am. If you were, you wouldn’t make that remark - how is someone supposed to recognise what smarter looks like if they’re not smart enough to know what it looks like?
You need to learn some humility as soon as you can - learn to admit where you are, err on the side of caution until you’re sure you’re where you say you are. It’s great that you want to fill boots that are way too big for you, and I commend your new interest in logic - it will help with your ambitions, the more you learn about it. But to get there, put aside your pride, ego, and premature declarations of your brilliance until you know what you’re talking about and you can legitimately back it up - we’ve all been beginners once so there’s no shame. Good luck.

There seem to be conflicting interpretations of truth, or value - which I distinguish as either truth or utility.

The way to truth is to figure out how things are regardless of what anyone thinks or feels - zero personal agenda, attempting to eliminate all bias and mixing up your findings with the findings of others to see what they all have in common. The so-called “Objective” approach.
The way to utility is to figure out what is most valuable to yourself - like you are recommending in your post. Learn the truth of who you are in relation to the world, use your biases to your advantage and self-actualise to the max. One might call this the “Subjective” approach.

Objective truth has zero value if you are taking the subjective path to change your power for the better for you, because they are opposite and mutually exclusive in their ideal forms, methodologically speaking.
But subjective truth (truth “to you”) has zero value if you are taking the objective path to get to answers that hold up better overall than ways proposed by wishful thinkers with an agenda.

This is the difference between intellectuals like Sam Harris and self-help gurus like Jordan Peterson. You might broadly associate the objective path with cooperative behaviour and the subjective path with competitive behaviour, perhaps even with the analytic versus continental schools of philosophy respectively.
Which one holds value depends on what you’re after.
It makes sense, then, how the subjectively motivated tend towards the wishful thinking of Free Will and how it can seem true “to you” regardless of what empirical testing and logic without fallacy will lead you to, which will be Determinism.

I’ve already mentioned, perhaps on another thread - there have been a flood of active “Free Will” threads recently - that siding with Free Will is peacocking. You’re going all in or nothing, by taking absolute credit for what can most directly be attributed to you regardless of any factors that played a part, but also taking absolute blame in the same way. The bigger the ego and the higher the opinion of one’s self-worth regardless of what anyone else points out, the more extreme the attraction is to Free Will. Hard Determinism requires one to transcend ego, or at least channel it to causes as great and beyond you as possible (provided you have the mental capability to do so). You don’t need much mental capability to be more instinctual and selfish, siding with Free Will, but to go the other way you do need plenty of what is the defining factor of humans compared to other animals: the frontal cortex.

Either extreme probably makes one insufferable, with the moderates in the middle more agreeably ascribing to some degree of Compatibilism. But for one path to be “right” or at least “more right”, one first has to establish whether it’s better to be smarter or more dumb. Not actually a loaded question with an obvious answer, by the way. Obviously I side with smart, but I can understand not siding that way. Especially since not being smart rules out Determinism, and less smart people hate attention being drawn to this fact about them - instead gravitating towards other avenues that they can call a superior type of smartness: a self-defense mechanism incorporated into their attitudes and behaviours from an early age. This entrenchment combined with a lack of intellect makes it impossible for them to dislodge - and why would they want to? Of course the high risk high reward road is so attractive when you have nothing to lose, and even if you do lose, denial is easier the more dumb you are. Peacocking portrays the illusion of winning to others and yourself, even if it is covering up a loss.

Without yet calling anyone smart or dumb, it might be interesting to see what people think of this deconstruction of the debate on a meta level. From my experience there does seem to be a significant psychological component that resists rationality when it comes to establishing one’s stance with regard to Free Will et al. or refusing to. Disagreement by Free Will advocates in the usual way will be expected, but in doing so they somewhat prove my deconstruction to be right.

It does cause a change of power, for an individual. It’s the shifting of one’s life. I was never arguing that determinism doesn’t exist because cause and effect clearly exists. But within the “confines” of determinism there is an infinity of possible cause and effect scenarios, that is where our ‘freedom’ lies… Which is a choice and pursuit of understanding of that infinity of cause and effect scenarios. I argue that determinism itself does not create a confinement in the first place unless without consciousness.

If you think determinism creates a confinement then you say there is no higher or lower state of consciousness or states of people, when it is clearly observable in society that such exists. To imply a absolute free will doesn’t exist, one would have to demonstrate an end to wisdom, which would stem from an end of evolution/change or cause and effect itself.

So to imply there isn’t a free will is to imply there is a confinement which how can there be confinement when wisdom and our ability to attribute value, is ongoing?

Genetics can’t be used as a deterministic confinement example either, due to our ability to alter genetics via environment and yes, environment /does/ shape genetics and we have a decent amount of control over environment.

Laugh it up with your gymnastics of obfuscation.

You brought up that “fallacy” because when I backed you into a corner, you simply stated that neither you nor I existed. We have no identity either in itself or relative to other.

And you wonder why I soured to you.

I have a logical fallacy for you:

When you lose an argument, just say the arguers doesn’t exist…

What’s a good Latin name for that?

It is impossible to understand and recognize Power, without granting the existence of Free Will.

Without Free Will, all is powerless. Biology has no power. Nobody has power. You have no choice. You have no chance, to defy “Fate”. Destiny is set. Power would be an illusion. Survival would be an illusion. All is according to “one big master plan (God’s Plan)”. Thus, you must, by necessity believe in the Jew-Christian-One-God. This is the reason-why those who deny Free Will (Silhouette) expose their nature. They are believers in Absolute Slavery, the Absolute-One-God.

No other gods, except theirs.

Free Will means choice. It means you have a chance. It means nothing and nobody is all-powerful. Power is relative, to sacrifice and risk. You make your sacrifices. You take your risks. You may lose. But you may win. And everybody competes to win. And it is when achievements and victories are won, that anybody “feels free” to begin with. Some, though, like Silhouette want a rigged-game, in their favor. Everybody lose-loses, except them, except the rigged-system. A crooked Casino. No matter which game you play, no matter the bet, the House always wins. So too, do they want their One-God, to always win. “Always His Master Plan”.

To them, there is no such thing as Denial or Doubt. You cannot doubt, even if you want to. All Doubts are illusions. Because you cannot defy (((His Plan))).

This is Silhouette’s mindset.

Ad refutatus disappearicus

I don’t want to laugh at you, I just can’t help it. Help me to not laugh by learning logic before you claim expertise - your misuse is rife, and this is the exact same experience I had with another newcomer to logic on another Free will thread that lasted far too long. Like I quoted before - chess with a pigeon.
I’ve been thoroughly exhaustive in my process of elimination just now and you call it obfuscation - you can’t make this kinda stuff up :laughing:

I brought up many many fallacies that you were making because when make arguments they’re riddled with fallacies… I always find the truth easy, but others seem to find it so hard.

The “Ship of Theseus” has been a problem dating all the way back to the ancient Greeks, and you’re acting like I pulled the objection out of my ass in desperation. The philosophical ignorance in this place is just astounding. I mean, for a place that would presumably attract people who love philosophy, there’s certainly some here who never seem to have done very little before. That’s fine if they understand they’re beginners, but if they claim expertise, mastery or even genius - that’s not going to fly I’m afraid.

I know why you soured to me, it’s because I call you out on your shit. I’m not here to make friends and I couldn’t give a shit what anyone thinks of me - I’m just here to grow myself and hopefully teach others so they can grow too. Emotion has no place in rational debate, so love/hate me all you like - just learn how to argue.

I’ve had the same experience before, of something who I kept backing into corners thinking they’ve backed me into one. It’s when you don’t know what’s going on because you’re out of your depth and still can’t shake the perception of yourself as superior - standard Dunning Kruger effect, which to an extent I guess can’t be helped. The trick is a change of mindset, learn to learn: insist to yourself that you are wrong and the other person is right and work it through to see if it works without assuming anything - maybe even adopt their line of thinking as best you can as your own for a while. Don’t simply assume you’re right from the outset, because as soon as you lose an argument and the air clears, you’ll think you’ve won and you’ll learn nothing. This other guy who I mentioned continually misunderstood and misrepresented basic concepts, he also completely lacked the cognitive ability to understand my point of view, and now spends his time on this forum trying to dirty my name by misrepresenting my point of view and mentioning my name over and over - a petty, desperate and vengeful catharsis, obvious to anyone with half a brain. He’s quite easy to spot.

But Ecmandu, I have faith in you that you’ll not sink to his level and honestly search yourself for any signs that you could improve yourself philosophically in any way.

I can help teach you some logical concepts if you want, I only get frustrated with people who insist they are more than they are, and/or people who insist that something wrong is right. Otherwise I’m actually quite an amenable guy and a good teacher. A win-win situation, if you’re interested.

Ahh… the Theseus eh?

I already showed in my platonic forms thread that there are an infinite number of iterations to each instant, and that this is absolute chaos; the inability to discern something. Yet we have no problem calling the Pacific Ocean an ocean and we have no problem calling the Nile river the Nile river the Nile river. The ship of theseusness of the ship of Theseus.

What this gets to is object permanence in spite of knowing that it’s impossible to use the nouminous as an infinitely changing property. Since we can use the name as continuity over time, this proves platonic forms, platonic forms, not defined as the perfect ocean, but a template of oceanness. In this way, we can prove platonic forms exist, as it would be impossible to even name objects as an ILLUSION!!

Let’s get to the core of identity:a=a

We know for a fact, that even the two a’s being separated by space, makes it impossible to be the same a.

Yet, like the ocean, we know the ocean is still the ocean, and a=a (identity) still holds.

Like I stated earlier, it’s the sweet spot of perceptual acuity that allows us to formulate ANY equality, even the ones you are trying to make. What this means is that it’s a direct contradiction that you’re making to assume through equality that an equality doesn’t exist outside out perceptual acuity. You’re contradicting yourself.

All you managed to do, was to prove platonic forms, and not god.

You must have a continuity of consciousness (platonic form - just like the ocean exists), to be able to make your argument. This solve as identity!!

U iz conphused.
I said freewill consists of discipline. But you answer as if I said freewill doesn’t exist.
Weird.

But it goes to show that things aren’t logically determined but rather free agents. No way anyone could predict your response.

I largely agree with your thinking. Free will is a higher order paradigm.

I was just clarifying my position, it pretty much is discipline and it takes discipline/humility to achieve understanding.

It does.
Cool, thanks for clarifying.

Errr… you speak like you’re overly familiar with the Ship of Theseus thought experiment, and then you reel off “The ship of theseusness of the ship of Theseus” like it’s a simple thing. Do you actually understand the issue with it, or are you just ignoring/forgetting it/pushing it aside?

It was Heraclitus who so wisely and astutely said “You can never step into the same river; for new waters are always flowing on you. No man ever steps into the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he is not the same man.” and yet you have no issue speaking of oceans like clearly and precisely identifiable things in spite of their constant changing and the profound ambiguity of where a river ends and an ocean starts.

Your “solution” is simply to appeal to essence - a throwback to pre-Existentialism. Concretely it’s obvious that identity is especially dubious in cases like the aforementioned, and it’s only through the generalisation of abstraction that you can hope to wave your hands at some kind of identity, template and permanence. If you observe from really far away, the ocean/land divide appears distinct - so just stand far enough back from anything and then even things like identity can be clear, right? Stand really far back and Platonic forms can exist!

The aversion to examination and precision… it’s one way of living your life - as the proverbial armchair philosopher.

Is it impossible to name objects as an illusion? What about illusions? A small oversight from someone standing so far away from reality, perhaps. “Stand at the right distance and any illusion can seem real” seems to be your whole point…

Continuity solves as discrete identity? Don’t you mean it’s the exact opposite? It’s possible to think of the ocean as a discrete identity, therefore identity has no issue…

Are you going to ignore the variation in range or size of these “sweet spots” of perception, depending on what you’re identifying? For some things this range is huge - clearly identiable things are identifiable from close to far away e.g. trees, cars, human bodies. Some things are only clearly identifiable from really far away like oceans, either where you’re so far from any rivers leading into it that you can’t see he issue of where it starts, or you’re so far above that these rivers become too hard to make out, or if you look so quickly to one or take a snapshot so it appears like it is not constantly changing. Some things are only “identifiable” from so far away conceptually, into the generalisation of templates; and even at this level of abstraction they aren’t that clearly definable.

The birth of identity is in the ability to ignore contradictory evidence. It’s in the opposite of clear and careful observation, critique and precision.

There you go: identity is the child of ignorance.
Pray to the god of willful blindness and even the most vague identities can exist, and the most abstract realms of templates are your guiding lights.
I think this is where you want to be.

Silhouette,

Nice try, but all of these “anti illusion” theories of no identity as the solution rely on the infinite regress of objects, and since nobody can count an infinity, even god itself, this forces the proof of platonic forms, not only as a solution to this problem, but it also solves the infinite regress of existence never beginning, without contradiction (something from nothing), by showing that eternal templates (not infinitely regressive) explain how we can see objects out of infinity without actually having to process a full infinity (which would take forever)

I already demonstrated to you why this has to be the case. An infinity cannot be itself without existing, which, even though the infinity exists, forces the finite, which is why we have identity and part of why existence exists instead of not existing.

Ecmandu assumes that whatever he imagines must by default be true but he has yet to convince anyone else of this

You’re a subjectivist. You don’t believe that definition is the the description of self evident dilineations.

Are you the big badass man who doesn’t believe that you exist like silhouette??

By calling me a worthless price of shit (which yes, you are doing), you deny objectivism.

And so I think likewise of you. I do exist. Self evidently. That’s why you replied to my post.

Were there a competition for the most ridiculous non sequitur ever this would be a serious contender for that position
And it wasnt your post that I was replying to either so your eyseight is fading as well as your ability to reason logically
I knew I should have stayed away from this thread oh well never mind