Biological Will

Oh yeah, I forgot to compliment you on the musical backing to your first vocaroo recording - …And Justice For All title track

I wonder which came first though, James Hetfield and the others cutting their hair or the end of the original Metallica style. Heavy Music was changing in the 90s, with grunge acts and the incorporation of rap tending towards Nu Metal where long hair was no longer a thing except for Glam Metal. I wonder too how much the death of Cliff Burton and replacement with Jason Newsted influenced their change in style. For me, I actually like a choice few songs in the Black Album and even Load/Reload, but St. Anger was when I had to put my foot down, which I’ve not had cause to lift ever since - funnily enough aligning with the next change in bassist. Sorry to say though, I actually like the Bob Seger cover

No raised eyebrows if thinking in absolutes, if presupposing an exact description. However was Samson such exact figure it, was he so complex as to create a double perceptive quality between such, estimates range, so as to make cutting of his hair not am absolute measure of good & bad?

If so such differences may vary the motive that Delilah may have had in mind.

This:

The characterization of Samson in the Hebrew Bible: saint, savage, or Philistine?

Daryl I. Bay
Abstract
The reader of narrative must realize that any “character is not perceived by the reader directly, but rather mediated or filtered through the telling of the (implied) author, the narrator, or another character.” The purpose of this thesis is to reconstruct as closely as possible the view of Samson that the narrator of Judges held and thus presented in the context of the Judges narrative. Was Samson a saint who provides a godly model for the timeless community of faith?8 Or was he a savage who acted antithetically to the ideal will of God? In reality of course, the answer lies somewhere in between. Our concern is how Samson is portrayed in Judges 13-16.9

C.E. Morrison
King David ranks among the most intriguing persons in the Hebrew Bible. The Second Book of Samuel tells the story of David’s kingship-his public successes and his private foibles. The narrator’s rehearsal of this story, as questioning as it is vivid, glimpses the secrets of David’s heart. In this commentary, Craig E. Morrison focuses on the aesthetics of the “art of the telling”: how does the narrator succeed in breathing life into his portrait of David? How does he draw the reader into his story? This commentary is intended to accompany the reader’s encounter with this ancient masterpiece so that one might cheer with David as he dances before the ark of God and weep with him as he grieves the death of his rebel son Absalom. Morrison’s careful reading of 2 Samuel brings the reader face-to-face with David, whose multifaceted character eludes facile labels. © 2013 by Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved.
Read more

The Call Narratives of the Hebrew Bible had been the subject of many commentaries. However, they have never been read from a process theology perspective. The analysis here takes this approach, drawing upon some process concepts such as the initial aim, the subjective aim and the creative advance. Ignoring for the moment the psychological or historical aspects of the narrations, this study attends to the basal lures the authors inscribed in their texts. In them is found a call to leave behind well-established, secure modes of thinking and doing, and replace them, in an act of continuity as well as of rupture, with new ways of interaction and mutual becoming with ourselves,
When God appears in the story:
Jean-Pierre Sonn
© 2008-2019 ResearchGate GmbH. All rights reserved.

The point is that the modality within who h interpretation is made is of many levels, and characterisation is off the reason for its variance, and thus it may be the cause of a jump to judgement.

It is the understanding of basic structural varience between two primary antithetical charecteriasations which give rise to the multitude of value infused judgements in between.

That is what implies a cause between primary and secondary differentiation, and the etymology ofnthe primary has direct need to get to know . or get in touch with the source.

Otherwise , the presumption , of raising eyebrows, may become as unfathomable as merely a sign of an unfounded displeasurable , source, albeit open , not closed to the reduced acquisition of the real motive.
Therefore Jesus saying " Forgive them Father, for they know not of what they are doing" becomes more ind
ucive.

Sorry Silhuette I simply had to squeeze this in.

I think the (Physical-Pathological) mechanics of Freedom are quite simple.

Those who are less free, or un-free, look upon a Free Man with great envy. They grow envious and self-hateful, when out-shined. A Free Man is a brilliant light, casting shadows upon all others. Those who are lesser, rather than compete and become individuals themselves, take the easy-way-out. They would rather pull Him down, into Hell, with them. They would rather extinguish the light and brilliance of Freedom, because they know internally, they do not have it within themselves.

Perhaps then there is only a hateful, spiteful, Resentful reaction to (biological) Freedom. Directed inward at first (Self-Hatred, Nihilism) and then finally, when the slave begins to confront his chains, toward the one who is Free.

Freedom is a Creative process. Those who are most Free, are most Creative. This is displayed in Art, when there are Superior artists over the vast amounts who are inferior, mediocre, and easily forgotten. But a great work of Art impresses upon all. Same with the face of a beautiful woman. Same with a great act of Heroism, from any man of action or warrior. Freedom impresses upon all the lessers, the inferiors.

Wouldn’t this then also mean that the Abrahamic God, “The Creator” is by definition, a representation of Absolute Freedom???

It’s no wonder then why the contradiction arises, in the slave-mass. To love their Creator on one hand (Jealous of His Freedom), but hate and despise Him on the other (because they will never hope to gain even a fraction of such freedom).

Better to live one second of Freedom in life, than forever without it.

^ streamable.com/yv4gb

I really did cover most or all of your criticism in the “Advanced Freedom” thread, against Silhouette.

You have simplified the position down to the matter of “Causality-itself”. Your position is weak, based on Epistemology. If freedom only corresponds to what humans know as caused or causality then freedom is only based on one person’s knowledge or another’s. That’s a bad argument, and a weak argument. You could go deeper, into “Hard Determinism”, as Silhouette has. He, and maybe you, would then say that Causality operates “outside” human understanding. But then you have no Scientific support. “Science” only backs Causality insofar as Causes 1) can become Known, 2) can show evidence, and 3) can be Replicated. If these three requirements are not fulfilled, then it’s not “Science”. And Silhouette has made this error repeatedly.

You can keep stepping backward though, to Ontology and Existentialism. “All Was Caused”. It’s religious. It’s a matter of faith. It’s not based on Known-Causes. So your guessing at Causality, is no different than guessing at or “believing in” Free-Will. Same difference.

You can backtrack all you like, but the arguments become weaker. I believe I’d already made a very strong case and analysis against Determinism, and for Free-Will, in the Advanced Freedom thread.

If you’re lazy then I’ll rehash the main points here. Until then, you haven’t refuted Free-Will in anyway. Nor have you provided anything remotely convincing on behalf of ‘Determinism’.

I am, I am… philosophically lazy, I mean. I used to get into this shit, but then I figured out everything that matters, and have been on vacation ever since.

And no please don’t rehash the main points… not for me, anyway. I’m good. Let me spare you the trouble.

But when a book and head come into collision, is it always the book that sounds hollow? (stole that one from big schop)

“Determinism” is almost purely scientific, until it becomes religious and another article of faith. You can go that far with Determinism if you want to, but IMO, it’s simply a weak argument and unconvincing. I will layout some points from the other thread.

The Pragmatic argument is applicable here: IF Determinism and Free-Will are both matters of faith only, and neither can be supported by Science (both are Un-falsifiable), THEN is it more useful to believe in one than the other? Does it matter if a slave believes he is free, or that a free-man believes he is a slave? This position is Utilitarianism in a nutshell.

In the other thread, the main questions and points-of-convention were before the Pragmatic/Utilitarian argument. What leads any particular individual to come to “believe in” either Determinism or Free-will??? Silhouette balked at this, because he was defeated. Perhaps you can provide some answers. It’s not easy and simple. You have to consider that any person alive, today, may have had generations or centuries of ‘Nurturing’ that could lead him/her to a position of Free-Will, or, Determinism.

I like History. I think it’s easier to boil everything down to Abrahamic ideology and see what floats to the top. Many or most ‘Determinists’ are ex-Christian-Priests, now “Secularized”, but preaching the same crap today as 500 or 1000 years ago. Language has changed, the ideas have not…

By the way, my position to the Pragmatic/Utilitarian argument is this:

Freedom and Un-freedom, cannot be ‘faked’. A slave cannot merely pretend to be Free. And I don’t think a free-man can merely-pretend to be a Slave. They might be able to fake it for awhile. But those who are free, or those who are slaves, eventually will catch-on. It’s about Attitude. A free-man, is prideful, and eventually his pride will show through. He’s simply too proud to mimic the submissions and broken-humility of a slave. Similarly the slave, pretending to be free, will never demonstrate a fraction of the creativity or “thinking outside the box” of a free-man, nor will a slave relate to Privilege and Opulence, Excess and Hedonism.

This may be an example of excess.generalization. how You perceive slavery to be.

There are all kinds of slavery, even the kind that expresses itself as concerned as to the perception of the kinds of.slavery there may inhabit one’'s mind and / or.soul.

Left.unsaid, it is near impossible to separate those who are really free from those who have been emancipated.

useful for what? imagine a world in which we give no credibility to our predictions. scientists know causality can’t be proven so they make no effort to calculate the speed and trajectory of a shuttle re-entering the atmosphere. they just wing it (pun there?). uh houston, hume argued that there is no logical connection between events so don’t bother figuring our course. we’re just gonna go for it. or an advertisement for a dandruff shampoo: don’t buy our product just because every time it’s ever used the customer’s dandruff problem is cured. that’s just a coincidence. the shampoo use isn’t causally related to this, just contiguous. or putting gas in your car. don’t ever do it just because when there’s gas in your car, it runs. you can’t possibly prove that contributes to what causes your car to run.

such a world would be ridiculous. so you tell me me whether or not it’s more ‘useful’ to believe causation exists.

and why would it be any less ridiculous to think that causation affects everything in the world but humans. or wait, it affects humans to some extent. the involuntary organ functions and cellular processes. but then there’s a special case when this causation doesn’t affect the human… and that’s when he ‘chooses’. okay, now we need to explain how this process of ‘choosing’ somehow magically avoids the direct influence of causation.

in any case, while the burden of proof lies on both the determinist and the freewillist due to the unfalsifiability of each theory, the burden of proof for the freewillist is MUCH heavier… because if he denies causation, he’s gonna have a helluva time explaining how and why nature exists with such regularity. 'nah there’s no causation. what made your hand hurt when you put it in the fire has nothing to do with the fire. the event ‘experience of pain’ and ‘sticking hand in fire’ were just contiguous. just some random shit. no need to worry.

this is a strange idiosyncrasy you have. i, personally, would never mention anything about a ‘slave’ when engaged in a metaphysical discussion about freewill/determinism, since neither of these, if true, would have any relevance to his circumstances as a slave. the guy can go for a walk or not. this has nothing to do with how and what causation is. the guy can own a goat or not. this has nothing to do with how and what causation is. the guy can envy his master or not. this has nothing to do with how or what causation is. the guy can want to gain some privileges, or even emancipate himself from his master’s control, or not. this has nothing to do with how or what causation is. the guy can worship one or twenty gods, or not. this has nothing to do with how or what causation is. the guy can be a great sketch artist, or not. this has nothing to do with how or what causation is. the guy can have the deluxe edition 300 on blueray, or not. this has nothing to do with how or what causation is. the guy can ‘pretend’ to be courageous and ambitious, or not. this has nothing to do with how or what causation is.

this is what i mean when i say you STILL aren’t on the right page. you’ve got this scattered-brained mish-mash understanding of what is going on here and you’re not able to fathom that how you ‘feel’ about yourself or others - whether one is slavish or noble or strong or creative or prideful, etc. - is absolutely irrelevant to the question of whether or not there is metaphysical freewill.

i think what you need is the hooked-on metaphonics starter kit, and you can probably get one from amazon.

maybe i can put it like this for you. freedom is a very real feeling, a very real state of affairs that happens in the world everyday… but freewill is not. two entirely different domains here. maybe it’s the ‘free’ part of the word that confuses you.

It’s not mutually-exclusive.

Without Free-Will, there is no Agency. And without Agency, there is no Morality. The legal system goes out the window. Nobody is to blame for anything, because nobody is the cause of anything. Cause only exists after Free-Will. You choose to live your life as you have. You have nobody else to blame, except yourself. Therefore, you are morally and legally culpable for your crimes, as imposed by society against you.

Do you fail to understand how, without Free-Will, “you” are never the “cause” of any action? You are an effect, always pointing the finger elsewhere. That’s not how reality works. It’s not how biology works. And “Science” is no different. Even the causes of Rocket Science, the determinations of calculations and predictions, are a matter of Choice/Risk. You can be wrong. That’s why Causality is no exact science. The very obvious, common sense fact, that rockets can explode and veer off trajectory, proves the fact that ‘freedom’ is a matter of Aim.

If a rocket misfires or hits the wrong target, whose “fault” is it, what Cause? The Scientist? The Rocket?

The Almighty God? The mere (re)action of seeking a cause signals evidence toward the premise of Free-Will. You are taking a chance, a risk, always. It seems to me more, with every passing thread or post, that Free-Will predicates and comes before “Determinism”. There is no “Determinism” without Free-Will existing beforehand. Free-Will is The Cause of Causality. The source, Un-caused.

On the contrary, all of it matters. All examples either make the case and argument for Free-Will, or against it. This is what Silhouette missed, or outright ignored. If you cannot offer even one possibility for “Freedom” then you are merely arguing in bad-faith, an intellectual dishonesty.

I’ve already painted the picture for “Hard-Determinism”, a universe and existence where all possibilities of “choice” are illusions (compared to what?) of the mind. Yet you cannot do the same by inverse? Then perhaps Freedom is an impossibility for you, as it is with Silhouette. You cannot even imagine a universe where an organism, an entity, anything, can be ‘Free’ in any possible way. Absolutely, not even relatively, not even by ability.

You waver back and forth there. You already admitted that some organisms are more ‘Capable’ than others. So why aren’t they freer? And if they are freer, then you must admit to all the implications involved, something that Silhouette was too cowardly to do (since it destroyed his position completely).

Let me reiterate as I have, maybe elsewhere, my position on “Free-Will”.

Freedom is one thing; Will is another. The “Will” can be claimed by Determinism. Will is, perhaps, the very mechanistic “deterministic” drive, of life. And so, organisms are not “free” from the Will. But freedom extends from the the Will. Freedom is an extension of Will. I’ve said as much before, perhaps a very reaction to life and living.

Because organisms live, we Desire. And because we fulfill Desire, we seek the next Desire. And because evolution satisfies one Desire after another, after another, after another, making a mountain of genealogy from one organism to the next, an image (Silhouette would say “illusion”) of Freedom appears. What-if all Desires could be fulfilled? What if all imagination could manifest?

What if an organism gained power over its environment?

This is how I already presented and connected the Will-to-Power with Free-Will. All of these impulses come from the Biological Will.

I know you think I’m a dickhead but I swear I’m not trying to hassle you, dude.

streamable.com/bw307

Is that what I think? I find it hard to dislike my doppleganger.

When you abstract ‘Will’ beyond biology and organic life, then I would call it “Force”, “Energy”, “Law”, etc. You’re going to the chemical and Elemental level. Rocks and stones, seem to have their own ‘Nature’. Rocks are heavy and they fall down. Rocks are massive and dense, Earth. Water is less heavy, fluid, and in movement. Air is “freer” still, moving all directions and the phenomenon of wind. Fire is “freest” insofar that it is gaseous, hot, moving all directions, chaotically.

Life is a different phenomenon, and ‘freer’ than non-living matter. A bacteria cell is ‘freer’ than a rock, water, air, fire. A tree sapling is freer than that. A fish is freer than that. An insect is freer than that. A bird is freer than that. A mammal is freer than that. Consider it a degree of motion. Motion proves the obvious. By using a standard of motion, to ‘decide’ or ‘determine’ what is free and what is, all life is freer than all non-life. Organic matter is ‘freer’ than non-organic. Because life has degrees of Agency.

Outside of Life, there is No Will. Life is the barrier of Will. Will is, essentially, Desire, and an extension of the survival instinct. It is common to all life.

Based on these simplifications, my positions do not change. You, and other Determinists can claim that “all life and all things are Determined/Caused”, but that doesn’t really mean much at first. Again, it’s an epistemological argument. How do you know what is Caused and what is not, what is Determined and what is not? Silhouette has to balk and ignore, dodge this question at all costs. Because if admits that he doesn’t know, then he cannot then claim that “All is Determined”.

You can step back much further. “All physical objects, with mass, are aspects of Causality, and therefore Determined”. But this is a weak argument, and it is not coherent with Science. Because Science revolves around the Known, not the Unknown. Science revolves around Evidence, and what can be Proved, and what can be Repeated. If you cannot repeat a Phenomena, if it is “one-time-only”, if it is in the depth of space, then it’s not “Science”. It’s theory, and faith, no different than Religion. Proper science revolves around methods of determination. If you cannot prove something, then it is not Scientific.

If a proposition is not Falsifiable, then it is not Science. This is why “All Causality” is an Appeal to Authority fallacy, when you try to throw Science into the mix.

Basing Determinism and Cause on what is Known, is fine. I’d call that “Soft Determinism”. And you have made a good case for it, on sporadic occasions. All things appear to have shared and common causes; all things appear to follow “Natural Laws”, patterns, flows. All matter, for example, is effected by Gravity. And Gravity is caused by the massiveness of planets and other forces (motion x mass).

But insofar as such physical forces are unknown and unaccounted for, they are obviously Undetermined.

If forces are Undetermined, then so too are some, or many, or most of the aspects of life, are also Undetermined.

Is life more complex than non-organic matter? Clearly, it is. A rock cannot move of its own accord. But it can be moved.

Agency is the Paradigm shift. Once you add Agency into the mix, the Will is Undetermined.

Therefore it is Free.

So all agency acts or representations and propositional evaluations of freedom and determination can only apply to organic materiel and systems.
The application of freedom or determination are equally uncertain, except from the point of arguability.
One would expect the whole difference partial to humam understanding ,- therefore the freedom of strict causality in inorganic sub stance- are equally falacious. Or, am I misunderstanding You? Probably! Tell me why or is it close to an approximation.

dude, you’re still equivocating ‘freewill’ with physical movement, ability and complexity. none of these quantifiable values change the quality of what the ‘will’ would be if it existed. you merely have an increase in the expression of the ‘will’… not a change in the quality or nature of the ‘will’. this means that a living organism does not possess a different kind of ‘will’ which governs it’s behavior, than the kind of ‘will’ that governs the behavior of rocks and trees and shit. of course, a living organism has more freedom of movement, but this fact in no way means some other kind of ‘will’ is responsible for it, or that it is ‘free’.

and ‘desire’ is hardly a point of origination of this new kind of ‘will’ you think exists, for the same kind of forces responsible for the movement of those rocks and shit are responsible for the physiological processes and states in your body that produce such desire. i’m not talking about the intentionality of the thinking and anticipating and planning and foresight involved in the commission of a desired behavior, either. these things are the last stages in a series of physical events in your body that you have no control over, much less any knowledge of - except for correlating mental events with physical events as a neurologist might do when observing regional activity in the brain.

i don’t know, but based on the evidence i’m making the reasonable inference. we’re at a stalemate, if you haven’t noticed. only i’ve got more pieces on the board than you do, so i scored more points. you’ve got a queen, bishop and five pawns left. i’ve still got a queen, both rooks and a knight.

hell will freeze over before you convince me that anything is random or chaotic in nature. random in that you can’t perceive any pattern or order, or chaotic in that you can’t predict any future state… but these are problems of observation, not nature. verily, i say ‘indeterminacy’ simply can’t exist.

but this isn’t what your arguing… or rather you’re arguing it accidentally by implying there is no causation. in fact, you need causation in order to present an argument for ‘freewill’ because freewill is not a theory of indeterminism. your problem, which has already been pointed out to you by sil and myself weeks ago, is that you are relying on a kind of substance dualism in order to define your ‘agency’ here, because you insist that what causes joe to go to the neil young concert is something different than what causes an earthquake. 'course i don’t know why joe would want to go to a neil young concert. after the dissolution of crosby, stills, nash and young (or who i like to call ‘crosby stole the hash and neil sang’), neil young became an incredible bore.

do you wish to have such extravagant pride as to maintain the peasant simplicity of such nonsense, you raper of logic? no, because you’re better than that, urwrong. cease and desist with such tomfoolery at once and take your seat at the table with the real philosophers.

You do know that most of the definitions of the will are regarding expressing right? That the will is expressing? Thought/thinking being expressed by choice.

Not sure which definition you’re using or thinking to use, but Will is exactly that of which you say choice or expression has no effect of demonstrating or showing it is free in use. When will literally stands for expressing and choice of expression.

Yes! And how delightful that you should mention this. A modal verb turned into an entity by philosophers… and then all the nonsense follows. The whole thing is a gynormous category mistake sans Gilbert ryle (bless his positivist heart).

So if one has more available choices or options out of will than another, what’s that? No freedom still? There’s a higher and a lower, which end of the spectrum are you on? Be wary, your thoughts and choice, determine what happens next with and to your will.

If will is expression or choice of experience/expression and if everything has a basic will and is alive by instinctual experiencing, then what is a free will? The ability to act past instinct, control over and for individuality.

We are the entity that makes language, the entity that uses language, the entity that makes choices that language derives out of for explanatory purposes.