Biological Will

So the whole thing with historical materialism and determinism got off the ground when the young hegelians, marx being one of them, sought to establish the primacy of the material relations of people over their ‘ideas’, rather than maintaining the hegelian notion of spirit holding primacy over the material… one such example would be the Cartesian second substance acting on matter in the form of freewill. It was becoming more and more important to check the theory of freewill during and after the industrial revolution because it distracted thinkers away from the reality of material life. You’ll see an example of this at work in the ridiculous claim that ‘people choose to be in poverty’:

socialistworker.org/2011/10/28/ … aterialist

But all this stuff is pretty complicated and we don’t really want to get all philosophical. So forget it, wendy. Let’s get out of here…

A “victim” of cause?

Or a victor through cause?

I mean it works both ways, right? Determinism is the attribution of the cause of said flaws and the way to determine how to rectify them.

It’s like Free Will proponents forget that Determinism is the exact way to determine how figure out problems in the first place, and instead jump straight to “well you’re just using it as an excuse”. Well no, it is a model for applying reasons for things happening… it’s a reason for the bad stuff for sure, and a reason for the good stuff and everything else. It’s an acknowledgement of what causes the change either way, and an understanding of what causes the change in the other.

You need to be able to see both sides to “get” Determinism I guess. It seems like suspicion about how you could “use it for evil” is all the Free Will proponents see. I’m no victim, I seek to master all that’s going on - and Determinism is the way to understand how to cause this, that, and what caused this and that - and so on.

Sil wrote

You do not have the freedom or the will to rectify them, no? You are not an active participant in your future, nor a participant who determined his past either. Everything else determined your past and everything else, not you will determine your future.

If you can’t see how the past manifests as the present and how you make choices in the present that decide both your past and your future then you may be screwed.

This isn’t true at all, and sounds more like Sil hyperbole. We can identify the causes and choices rather easily. The random man chose to walk outside of his house or apartment. He did not choose to get shot by a stray-bullet. The shooter chose to drive-by attack his rival gang, or to fire his gun off in the middle of the city. He did not choose the unintended target. Accidents happen, but, the shooter did choose to shoot and the victim did choose to step outside, leading to an unintended and accidental circumstance.

Ultimately, as common sense does and should dictate, when you are firing your gun, it is your responsibility to ensure the bullet goes where it ought to. The above is a case of negligence and the shooter is at fault. It maybe an accident but it is a crime nevertheless. The next problem begins when the Shooter begins denying responsibility for shooting an innocent bystander, and refuses to pay for the harm. That is when the law-system and retribution takes effect. If he will not own-up to paying the harm back then society enforces the retribution, and sends him to jail or worse.

You can claim that “nobody is at fault” but that doesn’t make it true. According to Determinism, somebody or something is always at-fault. So your position is contradictory. You cannot be a Determinist and have a general attitude that “nobody is at fault” for crimes and harm, unless you further admit, that humans are incapable for causing things, which humanity is not. I think your issue is more a matter of who gets to decide the cause and place the actual blame, which admittedly, can be erroneous. But it is necessary, which is why people elect Judges and Juries.

It sounds personal and so you do admit a vested emotional interest. Maybe you’re innocent, maybe not. But who are you trying to convince, exactly?

I’ve mentioned countless times now that power and willpower are fundamentally connected with freedom and free-will. Everybody can and does “want to be free” but fewer are willing to actually do work, take risks, and prepare sacrifices. Historically, the “masters” of society are the ones who did so, and won. Victory, Success, and Achievement underpins the social elite. Most often, such positions are earned, whether you agree with how it was done or not, resulting in a disparity of power (and freedom) within the society.

People generally get upset when the difference between rich and poor, master and slave, is too profoundly different, unjust, and readily apparent throughout the society. Slaves tend not to complain when they are well-fed, treated well, housed, and generally comfortable. But if you start whipping, beating, raping, killing the slaves, then they revolt.

It’s all context.

I’m not afraid of all that goes on, are you?

The system does profit from the crimes and faults of underlings. But why not? If random injustices happen, and they don’t let to revolt, then the System will overlook them. Innocent men have been killed on death-row and executed, throughout history. That doesn’t stop the System. What does stop the System, is grave-injustice on a mass scale. Brutalizing a slave population for centuries, will lead to revolt. Intentionally genociding and exterminating specific political or ethnic groups, will lead to revolt. Injustice beyond the scale of normalcy, is historic. One person going to jail for standing at the wrong place at the wrong time, in the middle of a police-riot, will not lead to revolt. Justice and Injustice has a scale, and some deeds are heavier than others. Most are content and happy with the Western system, and if the cost/sacrifice is some males go to jail who shouldn’t, or stay in jail too long, then society would accept that injustice in favor to keep general peace.

Your problem, and Prom’s too, is conflating the application of ‘Determinism’, to yourself, to humanity, and seem to ignore the fact that humans Cause and “are Caused”. If you admit that humans Cause then you must admit a moral agency. People do things, and, should or must be held accountable. That is the process of Determination as you just admit. A man runs a stop-sign in his car. He causes a car accident and 2 adults and 2 young children are killed. Who is at fault? Who caused what?

Your history of posts suggest that “nobody is at fault” because the infinite series of causes passively-led to the event, the harm, and there’s no point to “blame” anybody. But your reasoning, and Prom’s, are both wrong. Because Cause involves factors of power and freedom, in the form of Choice. People choose to do things, and either choose to take responsibility for them, or not. People lie about their choices too. Lies are common, and often hide the real causes of things. Indoctrination is another factor. People believe in causes that aren’t true, and false, for hundreds or thousands of years.

Because you are willing to ignore all the causes which go into things, humanity, and existence, and your posts precede you (in this thread and in Advanced Freedom), to further push your position on ‘Determinism’, you seem unable to make any sort of progress, and your position is borderline Intellectually Dis/Honest.

Yes, it’s such a problem when Determinists ignore the main foundation of their doctrine: that humans cause and are caused. Such a deep problem. It’s almost as though that’s exactly what we say at the core of our points?

We cause, the things we cause cause, and the things that caused us causing were caused in the first place. Clearly I’m ignoring cause here, obviously.

Get outta here dude, c’mon. Are you real?

I bet you’re some Google bot designed to sucker people into wasting their time pointing out the obvious instead of doing something productive. Great job though, Google - but now I’ve figured you out, what’s your next plan? Is this bot gonna reset again, continue to ignore all my arguments, try and flood the next few posts with the same repeated nonsense? Try something new to distract me, this is boring.

Oh I have the will. I’m entirely active in my future, but I can’t claim to have determined my past - that sounds backwards. Unless you mean even further in the past before the point that I was involved in determining such a past event? Not exactly sure what you’re getting at here.

You seem to be under the false impression that Determinism means “everything else except me” determines - obviously no. I determine and determined, everything does. All willers will, all non-willers don’t will, it’s determined whether they will or not, and their will (or not) determines what it does (or it doesn’t). Try and formulate your point without using causation, because every time you do, you support Determinism.

I don’t get this weird assumption that somehow a Determinist doesn’t determine their future, nor did they they determine their past before it happened… Certainly nobody determined the past after it happened, that seems obvious enough.

You mean if I can’t see exactly what Determinism says?

I think I’m good, thanks for your concern though.

Good Sil, now next you should admit that people are “free from causality” because there is no absolute “Causality” that applies to everybody and everything.

And you should further admit that many aspects of life, humanity, and existence are Un-determined. Then we will be on the same page.

“No absolute causality” was my point all along?

Bots don’t even listen to your words anymore :smiley:

Nirvana fallacy strikes again!

Do another one!

My 3+ arguments are feeling lonely. Address them and maybe you will get to be on the same page as me.

it is because the question of what can be done with freewill has been so neglected and abused by those institutions in which the truth of the thesis is so critically important, that i am so adamant about taking the privilege of using the thesis, away from it. let us suppose that having freewill was never a question… and then let us look at what is expected of those who have it (say, in a court of law). in order to place blame and guilt upon the defendant, the court has to convince the defendant that the crime was not only illegal, but ‘wrong’, irrespective of it being illegal, and that the defendant was able to understand (and agree on) the ‘wrongful’ nature of the crime, and finally that the defendant’s intention during the commission of the crime was not to do what he thought was reasonable, despite the coincidence of it being ‘wrong’. all three of these expectations are nonsense, and yet the court cannot proceed without them. for it is not enough to simply say ‘defendant x was the cause of crime y’, leave it at that, and punish him. this approach would be in the form of a strict consequentialism (which would dehumanize and reduce people to automatons), but the ethical foundation of the law is deontological; ergo, it has to justify its authority on the grounds that there are objective values of right and wrong and that everyone has both the knowledge of the values and the ability to transphenomenally choose freely among them (unless they’re deemed insane).

now until this point it wasn’t at all gravely important whether or not we really have freewill, because the consequences of that thesis being true or not had no such gravity yet. what i have done is show you a place where the truth or falsity of the thesis is incredibly important in regards to honesty and competence… and there is no other place than a court of law in which such virtues matter so much. so by revealing this fundamental flaw, i’ve essentially torn the foundation out from under the civil contract of western civilization. i’ve killed the epistemological head and the body has followed.

so what you don’t yet realize is that this is a dead horse and has been for centuries. the privilege of granting the thesis of freewill has been thoroughly abused where it matters the most, and this is even after the fact that i’m granting a thesis which isn’t true in the first place. give them an inch and they take a mile.

what is left to do is restructure everything from bottom to top if one wishes to participate in a lawful society that is honest and competent. nobody has to do this, of course, and can continue living as the ignorant buffoons that they are presently. it makes no difference to me; it’s all quality entertainment. but if you want to do what you guys call the ‘right’ thing, what you guys always thought you had founded your civilization on, but had not, you’ll begin by taking a critical look at society to root out the things that make the compound nature of these problems possible at all. i’ve written extensively about these things over the years, but have never felt it was important to inform a few random people at a forum of this information… so while there is a consistent system of thought here, there is no organization to any of it. here and there i drop a gem, and then walk away.

but all these ideas are moving in a single direction, a straight line, toward a basic premise; here is a way to stop this nonsense. if you do not accept this way, stop complaining about crime, because we anarchists aren’t going to hear it. in fact, if you keep bitching, we just might turn it up a notch.

Exception can be made in the court of military justice, where hierarchies of are not formed along the same lines of justifying either in cases of recognition or the effective use of power.

In the case of breach of fidelity a showing may be made pertaining to affiliation to best social interest, but any indication of unjustified charges of incompetence may be ruled an irrelevant catch 22, contradicting the very premise upon which such is founded.
In fact, some libertarians and objectionists of actual combat, who equivicate war with helll and madness, may still be held responsible for breach.

The chain of command works in terms of absolute coordinated reliance by all it’s members regardless if their own particular view as, as not compatible absolutely over matters of life and death contingent on their civil , legal applications and their various dereviations and configurations.

it’s not something to be afraid of, but something to scoff at because it’s so ugly and tasteless. i’d sooner live under the jurisdiction of the gestapo than i’d want to live in a society controlled by those who on account of their frailty and weakness, have to scramble about and lie to keep their power. western capitalism and all its intrinsic corruption is not at all ruthless, my friend. it doesn’t have the moral integrity, competence or conviction to be ruthless. it rather accidentally holds power, not because of its fortitude and constitution, but because those it has duped are so stupid and easily manipulated. ew i know! let me use one of your favorite analogies; capitalism is feminine.

But Das Capital is masculine, an enterprise of Belgian, Holland and Germanic origin. So the competitive nature of it’s beginning contrasts with it’s international outgrowth. Or, does it? More likely the competitive nature of it at times becomes critically determinative , to cut down the competition, among those who understand that determinancy as an existential partial threat.

Partial yet, and the motive behind impartiality is NWO.

However that dynamic changes on it’s face for the following reason:

It is actually spelled “das Kapital”. It means capital in the sense of an investment asset, and is the original German title of Karl Marx’s three-volume work “Capital. … As for the “das”: in German, there are three genders for nouns; it’s called “das Kapital” because the word is neuter and not masculine or feminine.

What does that suggest? A synthetic neutralization by which markets can be extended , at least to my mind, although this may be reading into it.

Partiality is not to be feared, but the reductive causation to transcendental objectlessness, implied.

Then the contradiction becomes tantamount and all encompassing, projectively unto the outside.

This is why Trumpianism is playing hide and seek with it.!

Wait a minute. ‘Das’ means ‘the’? Wtf. All this time I thought karl was speaking in an English slang idiom. Like I thought he laid out a scientific/economic description of what capital is, and then was like ‘now das capital, my nigga!’ You know… like ‘that’s capital’, except more colloquial for us urban proletariates living the thug life.

How embarrassing. Have my credentials as a Marxist sympathizer now been completely stripped from me?

You don’t need the “exact same” universal conditions do prove that choices lead to different outcomes. This should be common sense…

Whoever brought free “from matter” into all this??? I don’t remember doing so. This must be your presumption from the onset, correct???

Freedom is relative to expectations concerning reality, and the very nature of reality.

Again, what is possible for one person, isn’t necessarily so for another.

lol no…

You have things backward, as usual. The mind is informed about the world, to make rational decisions about it, and that leads to free-will.

So much for your “three arguments”. Anything else???

I disagree… the US is built on a secular-christian metanarrative concerning morality. The action is illegal, but it doesn’t need to be immoral. All that matters, in the US, is that the action is legal or not, not whether it’s moral or immoral. You are not judged based on right or wrong, which leads to an Amoral society, but whether you did or did not commit a crime. Essentially, the sentencing and punishment is most reflective of “right or wrong”. Ideally, if you did something wrong, the judge is responsible for convincing you of this, and ensuring that it does not happen again. But this is presuming too much.

Not necessarily, different societies have different legal systems, rules, and feelings of right or ‘wrongness’.

In some countries, nudity is acceptable and not an issue, for US, based on Puritan Colonialism, nudism is illegal and strictly punished.

Who’s really complaining, though?

Not really,but partially, perhaps.
At any rate , as partiality is concerned , let me drop some more comic relief for the sake of expediency.

An incredulous guy asks the angry scientist : " What do you end up with if you cross a tiger with a parrot?"

The guy is bewildered. " I dunno he chirps" " What?"

The scientist answers forlornly, " I don’t either but if he starts to talk, you had better to listen"

But, at the same time, your point is well taken of the consequent rise to that level of contradiction ; creating an objective whereby such matters can be settled in a courtly manner, then resorting to forewell to arms. Machiavelli had it right, and the insufferable public opinion can not transcend it’s own sense of ineptitude.

naw dude you don’t get it. if positive law cannot be substantiated by some set of ‘self-evident moral truths’, it’s practice will always be tyrannical; you’re under arrest because what you did was illegal. was it ‘wrong’? who the fuck cares. get in the car.’

now if you do it this way, you cut off your nose in spite of your face. what you want to do is create a society in which everyone can agree on what they all should and shouldn’t do, unconditionally, so that what is illegal isn’t just a matter of some power capriciously demanding what it’s citizens can do and not do. if you can’t convince a nigga that he should not have wanted to commit crime x, you’ll never get his cooperation, much less his willingness to ‘correct’ his behavior. as the moustache so gracefully put it not verbatim; punishment today does not restore anything. it either breaks the punished or makes him a greater enemy of the state. and you know why? because your state is all kinds of fucked up… a fuck up not the least of which is this bullshit about freewill.

now i can live happily in such a society, but i’d rather it be run by the gestapo. it’s more honest, and i’d rise in the ranks because i’ve still got some fascism in my blood. you know what they say; an anarchist is a closet fascist.

Western Civilization is about Freedom/Liberty/Free-Will.

In China, you wouldn’t even have an outlet to complain. Or if you did, you would be thrown in jail and punished more severely than the crime itself. I think you’re being too cynical.

When you know what I know, the only thing left to do is flip a coin. Heads; you become a Tyler Durden. Tails; you become a Diogenes.