Determinism

One can no sooner praise me for my superior intellect than they can blame satyr for his special needs, as all things proceed from nature with perfect necessity and order sub specie aeternitatis.

Free Will Is An Illusion, But Freedom Isn’t
Ching-Hung Woo says freedom is compatible with choices being determined.

Basically the standard argument:

But somehow this argument is then made to be compatible with freedom. Which makes no sense to me at all. And yet lots and lots of very intelligent people are able to make them compatible. So I’ve got to accept the possibility that the problem is me. In other words, there is just some snag in my thinking here – technical or otherwise – that stops me from reconciling what seems to be well beyond reconciling altogether.

Unless of course the snag is in their thinking.

Then the shift to the quantum world:

Here of course all bets are off. Cause and effect? Going all the way back to how the world of the infinitely small is intertwined in the world of the infinitely large?

Either we are understanding the quantum world only in the manner in which nature compels us to, or we do have some measure of autonomy in grappling with it…but are still [no doubt] years and years away from understanding everything there is to know about it.

Pick one, right?

Well, in a wholly determined universe [as I understand it it] your conjectures regarding the obscurity of Justice are necessarily in sync with my own conjectures regarding your conjectures regarding prom’s conjectures…going all the way back to whatever [whoever] set into motion the laws of matter going back to whatever [whoever] set into motion existence itself. Unless, of course, someone here can explain to us beyond all doubt how existence can only have always been.

Now, in a world where I take an existential leap to human autonomy, the obscurity of Justice is embedded instead in the manner in which I construe human interactions as embodied in the assumptions I make in my signature threads. Others can then peruse them and note how those assumptions are not in sync with their own assumptions.

Then we can note a particular context in which assessments of Justice are clearly at odds and bring our intellectual contraptions down out of the technical/scholastic/didactic clouds and explore our differences more substantively.

Okay, but my larger point is that who blames whom for what is necessarily subsumed [universally, essentially, objectively] in the laws of matter unfolding only as they must. And, until the hard guys are able to pin down once and for all how the human brain is the exception to the rule that is nature being synonymous with existence itself, each one of us as individuals takes our own subjective leap to that which we believe to be true “in our head”. But that in which none of us [to the best of my knowledge] is able to demonstrate is true for all rational human beings.

And, in the case of Justice, those objectivists who insist that what they think they know is true in their head need be as far as they go in arguing that others must share their conclusions or be, among other things, complete fucking morons or desperate degenerates.

Free Will Is An Illusion, But Freedom Isn’t
Ching-Hung Woo says freedom is compatible with choices being determined.

Complex, or too complex? And what of those who are willing to acknowledge that the complexity leaves them no choice [if there is an actual autonomous choice at all] but to take a subjective leap to one or another conclusion. And then to behave accordingly.

Instead, most of us ignore the gap between what we think we know here and all that can be known and simply embrace a set of assumptions that permit us to go about the business of living our life as though what we think is true really is as far as we need go. And that clearly works because there is no one around able to convince them that there is in fact only one correct way in which to think about it. And that their way isn’t it.

The genes do their thing and the memes are what they are…depending on when and where you are born, who you either meet or do not meet, what you either experience or do not experience. Out in any particular world in which, like everybody else, you are shaped and mold existentially given a particular confluence of variables derived from a particular constellation of contingency, chance and change.

That’s not the point though. The main consideration here is the complexity. The convoluted uncertainty embedded in all these factors that “I” aggregates into any one particular “sense of reality” from moment to moment. Most merely assume that their own understanding of this need be as far as they go. Others however are able to convince themselves that how they understand it is in turn how others are obligated to understand it as well. Only a very, very few become ineffably and inextricably fractured and fragmented in a swirl of ambiguity, confusion and uncertainty.

Free Will Is An Illusion, But Freedom Isn’t
Ching-Hung Woo says freedom is compatible with choices being determined.

Cue “compatibilism”. Which, try as I might, I am never able to reconcile with the manner in which I construe the existential relationship between determinism and value judgments “for all practical purposes”.

I’m not arguing that they are wrong, only that, so far, I am not able to grasp why [or how] on earth they are right. And even here I can only presume that [somehow] I do have the capacity to choose this. But if that is the case there is no need to speak of compatibility at all.

But: I do know where they will then take the exchange. To the argument that peacegirl comes back to time and again:

Ever and always it comes down to how you have come to understand the meaning of that word even though from my frame of mind you come to understand it ever and always as nature compels you to.

Something happens. Something happens because of the behaviors that I chose. I am therefore responsible for what happened because had I not chosen the behaviors that I did it would not have happened.

That is compatibilism?

Again: Huh?

It makes no difference how complex the intertwined factors are. It makes no difference that I am not able to untangle them in order to assess cause and effect in any particular context. It matters [to me] only that I either had some capacity to choose these behaviors autonomously or I did not.

This was explored in the film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button:

[b]A woman in Paris was on her way to go shopping.

But she had forgotten her coat and went back to get it. And when she had gotten her coat the phone had rung and so she had stopped to answer it and talked for a couple of minutes.

And while the woman was on the phone Daisy was rehearsing for that evening’s performance at the Paris Opera House.

And while she was rehearsing the woman was off the phone had gone outside to get a taxi.

A Cab comes to a stop she moves to get it but somebody gets there first, the cab drove off and she waits for the next one.

Now this taxi driver had dropped off a fare earlier and had stopped to get a cup of coffee.

He picked up the lady who was going shopping who had missed getting the earlier cab.

The taxi had to stop for a man crossing the street who had left for work five minutes later than he normally did because he forgot to set his alarm.

While the man, late for work, was crossing the street making the cab wait Daisy, finished rehearsing, was taking a shower.

While Daisy was showering the taxi was waiting outside a boutique for the woman to pick up a package which hadn’t been wrapped yet because the girl who was supposed to wrap it had broken up with her boyfriend the night before and forgot to.

When the package was done being wrapped the woman was back in the cab but the taxi was blocked by a delivery truck.

All the while Daisy was getting dressed.

The Delivery truck pulled off and the taxi was able to go while Daisy, the first to be dressed, waited for one of her friends who had broken a shoelace.

While the taxi was stopped, waiting for a traffic light, Daisy and her friend came out of the theater.

And if only one thing had happened differently…if the shoelace hadn’t broken or the delivery truck had moved moments earlier or the package had been wrapped and ready because the girl hadn’t broken up with her boyfriend or the man had set his alarm and got up five minutes earlier or the taxi driver hadn’t stopped for a cup of coffee or the woman had remembered her coat and had gotten into an earlier cab…

Daisy and her friend would have crossed the street and the taxi would have driven by them.

But life being what it is, a series of intersecting lives and incidents out of anyone’s control, the taxi did not go by and the driver, momentarily distracted hit Daisy and her leg was crushed.

Her leg had been broken in five places and with therapy, and time, she might be able to stand, maybe even walk.[/b]

Of course Daisy’s leg was no ordinary leg. It was the leg of a world renowned dancer. And now, because of these “intersecting lives and incidences out of anyone’s control”, her life was forever changed.

And this works the same for all of us, of course. We think we are free to go about the business of living our lives autonomously. But how exactly is this point to be determined?

In a large sense our intertwining lives are akin to countless balls on a gigantic pool table. We zig and zag, caroming into each other in ways no one can truly grasp. Yet we can potentially create havoc in another’s life simply by stepping back into our apartment to retrieve a coat.

You and Brian are like…brothers. Same quality of mind.
you’re like him, in twenty years…when Godo’s footsteps are heard on the door step.
Brian is version you, 2.0. Next generation nihilist.

Until peacegirl returns [compelled or not], I’ve sort of taken over this thread [compelled or not].

And [compelled or not] I’ve enacted a No Kids policy.

It’s an existential contraption, true, but that is rooted in my assessment [compelled or not] of “I” as the embodiment of dasein.

I gave you a chance [compelled or not] on another thread to demonstrate that you have the capacity [compelled or not] to approach philosophy more [as I like to put it] substantively.

You either do or you do not.

And that’s either compelled by the laws of nature or [somehow] we really do possess the capacity to opt for alternate arguments.

If so, then it’s your, uh, choice?

Wow, an ultimatum.

The outcome can be predicted.
A slew of repeating sentences, not veering off a script. A loss of my time, on a hypocrite, and an inevitable surrender to nature’s failed experiments.

I’ll leave you with this.
Nothing is inherently good/bad, but only in relation to an objective. Your refusal to admit that your objective is parity and subjugation to a collective, makes you a thinker of bad faith. A waste of time.
The only acceptable answers will b those that promote your objective, without admitting it.
Marxist utopia.

Better one from me, than one from nature.
Right?

In a wholly determined universe [as I understand it], things are only able to be predicted if there is a God; or if there is a teleological component to nature in a No God world that [obviously] has not been pinned down by mere mortals; a predictive component embedded in the laws of nature that is embedded in turn in a definitive understanding of existence itself.

On the other hand, that slew of repeating sentences is predicated solely on the assumption that mere mortals here on planet Earth do possess some measure of free well. Then the distinction I make is between that which is able to be demonstrated as true objectively for all of us [in the either/or world] and “personal opinions” rooted in dasein in regard to acquiring, assessing and then judging the moral and political values of others [in the is/ought world].

Here, however, I require the discussion to be illustrated. By being embedded descriptively in an examination of the relationship between conflicting goods out in a particular world [ours for example] pertaining to a particular context. Which I always allow the objectivists among us to choose.

I’ve already addressed this with you on the universal truth thread:

To which you responded…

As for the Marxist utopia, I have long since abandoned that rendition of objectivism. I merely note the extent to which Marxism is a vital component in regard to the role that political economy plays in our lives.

Nil is powerful.
The utopia of the all-levelling nil.

Note to others

What does he even mean, within the contexts of how I define nil?
More mental contraptions.

The only acceptable answer is:
We are all equally ignorant, so why not come to a common compromise where we all benefit, and stop all this fighting?

Under the one-god - who is known by many names - are we not all sinners?

We’ll need a context of course.

Note to others:

What on earth is this supposed to mean in the context of, among other things, our exchange here:

Is he going to address this substantively or not?

In regard to gun control or a subject of his own choosing.

Note to others,

Some minds become rigid, inflexible, and calcified. At this point in their life, they cannot bend but break and shatter. Handle appropriately.

We’ll need a context of course.

You choose it.

You know, assuming you have the autonomy necessary not to choose the one that nature compels. :wink:

Iambiguous wrote:

"But not before the existential trajectory of our lives largely determine the objectives embraced by any particular “I” out in any particular world understood in any particular way.

Then it comes down to differentiating that which one is able to demonstrate is true for all rational men and women and that which largely remains, subjectively, a “personal opinion”.

This is very fitting with simulated understanding of what it means in terms of subjective trajectories constructing objective standards within a diminishing spatiotemporal phenomenal world.
Beyond and beneath the present epoch, the distinction between them will become less distinct, and all humanity must involve in that new brave world, that will determine and reduce it’s distinctive features, until they become indistinct.

That realization proports to simulate it’s self toward constructing such objectives. The threat of a non objective world is axiomatically nil, and simulation regains it’s objective existential criterion .

That is the mode by which the ‘i’ escapes from it’s freedom.

It’s basic Abrahamic fatalism transferred into secular forms - i.e., fatalism.
We are all images of the one-god, so its order, its will, is confused as belonging to us.

It chooses. and we are its agency of choice, ro the chosen.
Simple shift in jargon.

In Christian lore, free-will is given, but prohibited to be exercised. It’s like a taunt a test of loyalty.
A method of explaining why an absolutely ‘good benevolent omnipotent, omniscient god’ would allow for ‘evil’ to exist.
It is implied that the ‘evil’ is man’s free-will, and this is what he must make amends for by surrendering it, willingly, to God’s only permissible Will.

A mind-fuck.
I apologize to Mowk the language officer.

.

From my frame of mind [and that’s all it is, my own personal opinion], this one sentence alone encompasses the gap between you and I in regard to philosophy as a tool in which to explore human interactions.

Again, unless you are only being ironic in posting here, this sort of thing is just intellectual gibberish to me. How would one embody it as use value, as exchange value, in any particular context. How do you do it?

Not that I’m not compelled to point out that you are compelled to make this point.

It’s all inherently tricky [if not surreal], isn’t it?

In other words, merely asserting this to be true makes it true. Why? Because he will assert in turn that he just [b]knows[/b] that he was able to freely choose to assert it and not something else.

Still, we need a context in which to explore it further. Abrahamic fatalism in what sense? Given what particular set of circumstances? And how would this relate to that which is of most interest to me regarding determinism: moral responsibility.

That’s not an argument countering what he wrote.

If one looks at Christianity, there are sects which strongly believe in free will and sects which are fatalistic.

I would say that the vast majority is in the free-will camp.