New Discovery

[peacegirl]

Peacegirl,

There are differing variations of determinism, such as "soft-boiled determinism."

What I mean by "the truth of the matter could be a combination of both" is that some things we believe or do could be determined or influenced by factors apart from the will, while other things are the result of the will.

Many influential factors come into play when making choices, but the choices we make come from our will, our desire, not that of another. IOW, you can't force me to make a certain choice and I can't force you because no one can do that. In fact, no one can force someone to do what he makes up his mind not to do, for over this he has absolute control.

For example, I subscribe to the position of free-will (more specifically: limited autonomy), that we have the ability to do certain things based in self-generated willing, but I also believe we can acquire genetic predispositions and socially acquired dispositions that unwittingly cause us to perceive or behave in certain ways. One can, of course, override some of these things, if he or she becomes aware of them and desires to do so.

The way you are using the word "autonomy" does not conflict with the truth that man's will is not free. It just means you are free (i.e., nothing is physically constraining you) to choose one thing over another when deliberating. It is okay in a colloquial sense to say I did something of my own free will or desire, but that does not grant you freedom of the will. Do you see the difference? Given the cultural, psychological, economic, or genetic factors that influence one's choice indicates that we are compelled to choose the least dissatisfying, or the most satisfying of the alternatives being considered.

Free-will is something so intuitively and patently obvious. For anyone to obstinately deny it and, furthermore, to promote the position of militant determinism, with such alacrity, it causes one to wonder...

Not having any free-will... It's, actually, a rather morbid and unhealthy notion.

Free will appears true superficially, but when you understand what the true meaning of determinism is, it does not take away from your freedom whatsoever. In fact, it increases it. It also increases one's responsibility, the opposite of what many philosophers down the ages believed.

I understand that, as philosophers, we have a duty to acknowledge the truth, whether it be beautiful or ugly, comforting or ghastly, but to go on an intellectual crusade, promoting determinism, with such zeal, is questionable...

Obviously, your interpretation of determinism compels you to react this way, but your understanding is limited. You are going by the conventional definition which would turn us into automatons and take away what people hold most dear; their self-made authorship. Moreover, if will is not free the question then becomes: How can we not hold people responsible for their acts of crime when we know they didn't have to do what they did had they not wanted to? You would really get a lot out of the book, Decline and Fall of All Evil. I believe it would change your entire perspective. I'm on a crusade because this knowledge has the ability to change our world for the better by eliminating the causes that lead to war, crime, and poverty.

http://www.declineandfallofallevil.com/ ... rDxqGhUFoI

[iambiguous]

Given my own understanding of determinism, anything/everything I know or don't know, like anything/everything you know or don't know, is always in sync with the laws of matter inextricably unfolding like nature's clockwork.

So, whether we seem to be either in sync or out of sync about anything is simply part of the "brute facticity" that is existence itself.

Everything that happens or has happened or will happen is in part of the "brute facticity" that is existence itself. Does that mean we can't progress? Does that mean that we are mere cogs in a wheel? Although what occurs could only be that which could occur does not mean that our "unfree" choices are meaningless.

Once again, from my frame of mind, you are agreeing that everything we think, feel, say and do is inherently, necessarily intertwined in the "brute facticity" that encompasses the existence of existence itself...but that somehow this "progress" you speak of is dependent on others choosing to think about all of this as you do. As though they really are free to do so.

And [of course] "progressive" behavior revolves around your own understsanding of what that means in a world where you could never have understood it other than how you were compelled to.

And, yes, if the laws of matter propel/compel everything that we do, being described as a cog in nature's wheel seems reasonable to me.

Again, you speak of something not being "necessarily caused" when, from the perspective of many determinists, even "choosing" to point that out is a necessary component of whatever is behind the existence of existence itself.

It should be understood by now that all that we do is a necessary component of whatever is behind the existence of existence itself. But there is a thing called cause and effect. There are things that cause other things to occur. That's what I meant by the comment above.

Okay, what aspect of human interaction is not wholly in sync with cause and effect as prescribed by nature?

"I" don't freely identify myself as anything. Instead, the evolution of life on earth has culminated in brain matter able [inherently/genetically/biologically] to convince "I" that it does choose things of its own volition.

No one does anything of their own free will, although the phrase can be used informally to mean "of my own desire." You refer to the belief that "I" choose things of its own volition to mean something that cannot be altered because it's inherent in our biological make-up. What is inherent in our biological make up is not the folk idea that we have free will, but that we move away from dissatisfaction to satisfaction every moment of our existence. As I already stated, the idea that we can choose freely is not a false observation if it is qualified to mean "I chose eggs over cereal" because I desired eggs more than I desired cereal at that moment, and nothing external constrained me from choosing what I most desired.

We are hopelessly "stuck" here then. Well, for now. Perhaps nature's laws of matter will "unstick" us at some point in our wholly determined future. But one thing we can surely count on is that if we do get "unstuck" it will be because nature finally compels me to see things your way.

Right?

Determinism does not mean there aren't contingencies that we base our ideas and actions on. You are creating a false dichotomy between the idea of free will based on contingency, and determinism based on no contingency. That's folly.

I am creating only what I was never able to not create. What "I" construe to be "contingency, chance and change" in my own moral narrative is only my brain functioning in my waking hours as it functions in my dreams at night.

Your brain is obviously construing whatever it is going to construe in your own moral narrative. I am only pointing out that determinism does not mean we don't base our actions on contingency, chance and change. We often make choices based on contingent events chance events, and sudden changes in events that propel us in new directions.

But how could my perception of contingency, chance and change not be just another inherent manifestation of nature? In an autonomous universe, the manner in which I understand them is crucial because the things "I" choose are profoundly predicated on, embedded in, and sustained by the manner in which I can never fully understand and control them. But in a determined universe how I think I understand and control them is only as I was ever able to.

And to speak of "folly" in a wholly determined universe as though you were ever free to speak of something else instead, is precisely the sort of thing that free-will advocates embrace.

No iambiguous. I can call something folly even though I know it could not have been otherwise.

Yes, you "choose" to call it folly. Meaning the laws of nature compelled you to. Just as the laws of nature compel the libertarians among us to think that they choose -- choose freely -- to call it that.

I am engaging in "folly" because I don't share your own understanding of the "choices" that we make. While at the same time never really being free to share it. At least with respect to nature marching on inevitably.

The word folly means lack of understanding. I used the word correctly because it involves a lack of understanding on your part, even though you refer to it as a lack of sharing my understanding.

But any lack of understanding on the part of either of us is always compelled by nature. The "folly" for me here [given my current understanding of determinism] is that any misunderstandings on the part of either one of us in this exchange are perfectly natural.

But least I am willing to concede that I may actually have some measure of free will. I just don't know how to pin that down once and for all here and now.

You'll never be able to pin it down because we don't have the free will you're talking about. Moreover, there is no way anyone can prove that we have this kind of free will. But I can still say, "I did something of my own free will" without it being contradictory --- as long as it's qualified.

And this seems preposterous to me because you have no real capacity to demonstrate this beyond the internal logic sustained in the assumptions you make about the human brain, the human mind and nature. In your argument itself.

You should take your conclusions to those who actually perform experiments on the thinking brain. Those who, using fMRI technologies, test their conjectures about free will and determinism on people who are actually in the process of "choosing" or choosing something.

Then why do you keep bringing up free will?

Because, in a wholly ordered universe, I'm compelled to?

You are not compelled in advance of you doing it. Tomorrow you may not be compelled to bring up free will, if your desire is not to bring it up.

Back again to my desire in turn being an integral part of nature's laws.

Our choices are based on contingent experiences as we move about through our everyday lives. The choices we make are the only choices we could have made. I don't like the domino analogy because it isn't analogous in the most important aspect.

Meanwhile, that which you "choose" to construe to be the most important aspect here is the only thing you were ever able to "choose". Dominoes don't "choose". But then human brains don't choose either.

Of course human brains choose. Would we be given the ability to contemplate options and not be able to choose one of those options? It would be making a mockery of contemplation.

"Given the ability", "contemplate options" "making a mockery...". What does any of this mean in a world where we are compelled to think it means only that which nature commands. Then back to understanding if nature itself has any capacity to choose here. Which [of course] takes most men and women to God.

We have minds that think and can therefore change a particular trajectory, dominoes cannot.

The dominoes don't "choose" to topple over as they must, while we don't freely choose to do anything other than what we are compelled to do by nature.

It's still a poor analogy. If I was in a pile-up on the highway (God forbid), you could use this comparison but that's about it.

God forbid? You mean Nature forbid? But if nature has no meaning or purpose embedded in its laws, than the dominos falling, the cars piling up and the human brains that brought both situations into existence were never going to not unfold as they must.

The autonomous aliens see someone setting up the dominoes only as she was ever able to and then watch the dominoes topple over only as they were ever able to.Then they note how you are compelled to point out that this is a big difference.

It is a big difference where the difference counts. I don't care about what the autonomous aliens have to say. It's all made up.

As though I was ever really free not to make them up. As though you were ever really free to care that I did.

Then this:

My imparting this knowledge can prevent war and crime. I am not trying to understand the nature of existence. You changed topics.

There it is. The part that I keep coming back to. You need some way to reconfigure the world around us today into a better, more progressive place for human beings to live. You can't actually do that "in reality", so you need to "think up" a way to understand the choices we make so that if others come to think of them in the same way, that better, more progressive world is possible.

That's called being visionary. It is not changing what is, but it is allowing new ideas to take us to a place where we can envision what could be.

Call it whatever you must. Nature either allows new ideas to reconfigure the world into your own wholly compelled rendition of progressive behavior, or it doesn't. But you are either free or not to acknowledge that your thinking here is more in sync with my own speculation about your motivation: to sustain your own psychological understanding of a "comforting and consoling" frame of mind.

There's only one way anything can unfold, and that's the way it has unfolded. That doesn't mean that you are fated by matter to do that which you choose not to do.

In your head, you are able to reconcile here what to me are contradictory points of view. But, like me, you have no way in which to demonstrate it other than by way of an "argument". You can predict a better future but you are unable to organize others to actually start bringing it about. Or are you?

Of course there's a way to start bringing it about. It's spelled out in the economic chapter.

But that merely avoids my point. You and the author were compelled to "bring it about" by writing a book and making an argument. Others are compelled to either read it or not read it. But either way, the future [like the present] is already inherently a continuation of the past. Once nature's laws set us in motion we are only ever going to "choose" what must be.

Thus...

But, either way, it is only as it was ever meant to be given the laws of matter unfolding inexorably as nature's "mechanism" for sustaining existence itself.

You're right, and now nature's mechanism is giving us answers so that existence will be sustained.

From my frame of mind this is you attributing to nature the capacity to choose a future more in sync with your own "choices". Almost as though Nature should be thanking you for showing her the way.

Ultimately, it seems to come down to this:

You keep going back to the idea that determinism means that we have no choices. Looking back, yes, we could not have chosen otherwise but we are given choices every time we consider one option versus another. We're not robots that are programmed before a choice is made. That's the big argument in the free will/determinism debate. Necessarily, you do not have to do anything nature demands that you do unless you desire to. IOW, nature cannot compel you against your will to do anything you don't desire to do.

From my perspective, if in "[l]ooking back...we could not have chosen otherwise", it means that our choices are for all practical purposes robotic. Nature's laws program us to think and feel and say and do only what we could never not think and feel and say and do. And feeling here includes our desires. They are no exception to the rule. Nature is my "will".

This author spent the last half of his adult life reading, studying, observing, and analyzing his findings. There is definitely a way to prove that the argument is wrong. If, under the changed conditions, a person could still desire to hurt others when all justification is removed, then he would be wrong. Empirical proof will be the ultimate judge.

My reaction here is that you are pointing this out about him as though he should be lauded for "choosing" to do something that he was never really free not to. As though any conditions that change in the future were ever going to not change. As though people can be "corrected" if only they come to understand these relationships as you and he do. Even though they can only understand what nature compels them to.

And what is his empirical proof [here and now] that confirms his predictions about this more progressive future?

You had the capacity to choose to think about all this differently but "capacity" does not mean you could have chosen to think about all this differently. Your mindset took you in a certain direction based on your life experiences and all of the factors that led you to making this particular choice. You had no free will or autonomy to choose other than what you chose.

Exactly how I would put it! Only instead of choose, I'd be compelled to opt for "choose".

However you want to frame it, you were compelled to "choose". Choose or "choose", your pick.

You mean however I "want" to frame it. I "want" only what nature compels me to want given my own understanding of determinism.

You can't not want what nature compels you to want because they are one and the same.

Over and again: Exactly what I would say!

Only nature hasn't allowed me to think up a better, more progressive future if only others are compelled to think as I do.

On the other hand, maybe nature will change its mind. Whatever that means.

You don't have to think up a better, more progressive future because it's already been thought up based on sound principles.

This makes sense to me only to the extent that you are able to explain who or what decides that the laws of nature are based on "sound principles". The laws of nature simply exist. They necessarily link "in my head" to "out in the world" in a way that can only be wholly/fully understood when existence itself is understood.

Now, the existence of an omniscient God and "sound principles" makes sense. If God knows everything of course His principles will be sound. But nature in a No God world? How on earth does that work?

And here you are like many, many others insisting that what you think is true here comes closest to explaining it all. You even include a more "progressive" future in the mix of assumptions. Though never in a million years will you describe this explanation as a psychological defense mechanism rooted inherently in a human brain rooted necessarily in nature itself.

How comforting and consoling can that be?

This is not about getting people to think as I do. That is called persuasion. This is revealing facts about our nature never before understood.

Why would you come to ILP if you weren't intent on persuading people to embrace your own assumptions here? After all, it is in grasping these assumptions that the progressive future hinges on.

Once we see how this new world can be achieved, people will be compelled to move in this direction because they will want what they see.

Or: Once we are compelled by nature to either see or not see how this new world can be achieved people will either be compelled or not compelled to move in this direction because nature will have either compeled or not compeled them to want what they see.

[peacegirl]

Given my own understanding of determinism, anything/everything I know or don't know, like anything/everything you know or don't know, is always in sync with the laws of matter inextricably unfolding like nature's clockwork.

So, whether we seem to be either in sync or out of sync about anything is simply part of the "brute facticity" that is existence itself.

It's not about what seems to be true. It's about what IS true.

Everything that happens or has happened or will happen is in part of the "brute facticity" that is existence itself. Does that mean we can't progress? Does that mean that we are mere cogs in a wheel? Although what occurs could only be that which could occur does not mean that our "unfree" choices are meaningless.

Once again, from my frame of mind, you are agreeing that everything we think, feel, say and do is inherently, necessarily intertwined in the "brute facticity" that encompasses the existence of existence itself...but that somehow this "progress" you speak of is dependent on others choosing to think about all of this as you do. As though they really are free to do so.

That is very true. Only when people act on a finding can there be success based on that finding.

And [of course] "progressive" behavior revolves around your own understsanding of what that means in a world where you could never have understood it other than how you were compelled to.

And, yes, if the laws of matter propel/compel everything that we do, being described as a cog in nature's wheel seems reasonable to me.

It depends on the context.

Again, you speak of something not being "necessarily caused" when, from the perspective of many determinists, even "choosing" to point that out is a necessary component of whatever is behind the existence of existence itself.

It should be understood by now that all that we do is a necessary component of whatever is behind the existence of existence itself. But there is a thing called cause and effect. There are things that cause other things to occur. That's what I meant by the comment above.

Okay, what aspect of human interaction is not wholly in sync with cause and effect as prescribed by nature?

Nature doesn't proscribe or prescribe behavior, therefore nature does not cause an effect. The word 'cause" is misleading. Nothing causes a person to kill. He wants to kill for various reasons, which gives him greater satisfaction in his motion from here to there.

"I" don't freely identify myself as anything. Instead, the evolution of life on earth has culminated in brain matter able [inherently/genetically/biologically] to convince "I" that it does choose things of its own volition.

No one does anything of their own free will, although the phrase can be used informally to mean "of my own desire." You refer to the belief that "I" choose things of its own volition to mean something that cannot be altered because it's inherent in our biological make-up. What is inherent in our biological make up is not the folk idea that we have free will, but that we move away from dissatisfaction to satisfaction every moment of our existence. As I already stated, the idea that we can choose freely is not a false observation if it is qualified to mean "I chose eggs over cereal" because I desired eggs more than I desired cereal at that moment, and nothing external constrained me from choosing what I most desired.

We are hopelessly "stuck" here then. Well, for now. Perhaps nature's laws of matter will "unstick" us at some point in our wholly determined future. But one thing we can surely count on is that if we do get "unstuck" it will be because nature finally compels me to see things your way.

Right?

Nature doesn't compel or cause a behavior. Our circumstances give rise to desiring one alternative over another but we are not caused by external forces since nothing has the power to do that.

Determinism does not mean there aren't contingencies that we base our ideas and actions on. You are creating a false dichotomy between the idea of free will based on contingency, and determinism based on no contingency. That's folly.

I am creating only what I was never able to not create. What "I" construe to be "contingency, chance and change" in my own moral narrative is only my brain functioning in my waking hours as it functions in my dreams at night.

Your brain is obviously construing whatever it is going to construe in your own moral narrative. I am only pointing out that determinism does not mean we don't base our actions on contingency, chance and change. We often make choices based on contingent events chance events, and sudden changes in events that propel us in new directions.

But how could my perception of contingency, chance and change not be just another inherent manifestation of nature? In an autonomous universe, the manner in which I understand them is crucial because the things "I" choose are profoundly predicated on, embedded in, and sustained by the manner in which I can never fully understand and control them. But in a determined universe how I think I understand and control them is only as I was ever able to.

The distinction you're making is flawed. The things you choose as an autonomous being are no different than the determined being who thinks in a certain way --- because the two are one and the same.

And to speak of "folly" in a wholly determined universe as though you were ever free to speak of something else instead, is precisely the sort of thing that free-will advocates embrace.

No iambiguous. I can call something folly even though I know it could not have been otherwise.

Yes, you "choose" to call it folly. Meaning the laws of nature compelled you to. Just as the laws of nature compel the libertarians among us to think that they choose -- choose freely -- to call it that.

How is your repeating this over and over again helping to clarify the fact that determinism does not mean we are compelled to choose what we do not prefer to choose? A domino has no choice. We do have a choice, although it's never a free one.

I am engaging in "folly" because I don't share your own understanding of the "choices" that we make. While at the same time never really being free to share it. At least with respect to nature marching on inevitably.

The word folly means lack of understanding. I used the word correctly because it involves a lack of understanding on your part, even though you refer to it as a lack of sharing my understanding.

But any lack of understanding on the part of either of us is always compelled by nature. The "folly" for me here [given my current understanding of determinism] is that any misunderstandings on the part of either one of us in this exchange are perfectly natural.

It is. That is why this knowledge may take thousands of years to be brought to light not because it's untrue, but because people are reluctant to give up fixed ideas.

But least I am willing to concede that I may actually have some measure of free will. I just don't know how to pin that down once and for all here and now.

You'll never be able to pin it down because we don't have the free will you're talking about. Moreover, there is no way anyone can prove that we have this kind of free will. But I can still say, "I did something of my own free will" without it being contradictory --- as long as it's qualified.

And this seems preposterous to me because you have no real capacity to demonstrate this beyond the internal logic sustained in the assumptions you make about the human brain, the human mind and nature. In your argument itself.

You should take your conclusions to those who actually perform experiments on the thinking brain. Those who, using fMRI technologies, test their conjectures about free will and determinism on people who are actually in the process of "choosing" or choosing something.

There is no way that free will can be proven by an MRI. Determinism has been supported by neuroscience but it doesn't solve the problem of responsibility.

Meanwhile, that which you "choose" to construe to be the most important aspect here is the only thing you were ever able to "choose". Dominoes don't "choose". But then human brains don't choose either.

Of course human brains choose. Would we be given the ability to contemplate options and not be able to choose one of those options? It would be making a mockery of contemplation.

"Given the ability", "contemplate options" "making a mockery...". What does any of this mean in a world where we are compelled to think it means only that which nature commands. Then back to understanding if nature itself has any capacity to choose here. Which [of course] takes most men and women to God.

You are confused over the meaning of determinism unfortunately. You are making a mockery of contemplation because you are of the idea that we don't contemplate in a determined universe. You're wrong.

We have minds that think and can therefore change a particular trajectory, dominoes cannot.

The dominoes don't "choose" to topple over as they must, while we don't freely choose to do anything other than what we are compelled to do by nature.

It's still a poor analogy. If I was in a pile-up on the highway (God forbid), you could use this comparison but that's about it.

God forbid? You mean Nature forbid? But if nature has no meaning or purpose embedded in its laws, than the dominos falling, the cars piling up and the human brains that brought both situations into existence were never going to not unfold as they must.

As I stated, nature does not cause; neither does heredity, God, your status, your income, your being an expert of some kind. Only your desire based on conscious and unconscious factors lead to the choices that you ultimately make.

The autonomous aliens see someone setting up the dominoes only as she was ever able to and then watch the dominoes topple over only as they were ever able to.Then they note how you are compelled to point out that this is a big difference.

It is a big difference where the difference counts. I don't care about what the autonomous aliens have to say. It's all made up.

As though I was ever really free not to make them up. As though you were ever really free to care that I did.

Then this:

My imparting this knowledge can prevent war and crime. I am not trying to understand the nature of existence. You changed topics.

There it is. The part that I keep coming back to. You need some way to reconfigure the world around us today into a better, more progressive place for human beings to live. You can't actually do that "in reality", so you need to "think up" a way to understand the choices we make so that if others come to think of them in the same way, that better, more progressive world is possible.

I am not reconfiguring anything. I'm sharing a discovery. If you don't want to partake in trying to understand this discovery, that's fine. Others will. It does not necessitate that everybody understand this knowledge for it to work, just as it didn't take everyone to understand Edison's discovery of the lightbulb for us to enjoy the benefits.

That's called being visionary. It is not changing what is, but it is allowing new ideas to take us to a place where we can envision what could be.

Call it whatever you must. Nature either allows new ideas to reconfigure the world into your own wholly compelled rendition of progressive behavior, or it doesn't.

Stop shifting your responsibility to nature, as if nature has this kind of control. It doesn't.

But you are either free or not to acknowledge that your thinking here is more in sync with my own speculation about your motivation: to sustain your own psychological understanding of a "comforting and consoling" frame of mind.

You obviously are in an embedded groove where you cannot see beyond your own take on how the world may or may not work. And that's okay because no one is depending on you.

There's only one way anything can unfold, and that's the way it has unfolded. That doesn't mean that you are fated by matter to do that which you choose not to do.

In your head, you are able to reconcile here what to me are contradictory points of view. But, like me, you have no way in which to demonstrate it other than by way of an "argument". You can predict a better future but you are unable to organize others to actually start bringing it about. Or are you?

Of course there's a way to start bringing it about. It's spelled out in the economic chapter.

But that merely avoids my point. You and the author were compelled to "bring it about" by writing a book and making an argument.

Are you saying there are no discoveries yet to be made? Obviously, we can only go at a certain rate which is out of our control.

Others are compelled to either read it or not read it. But either way, the future [like the present] is already inherently a continuation of the past. Once nature's laws set us in motion we are only ever going to "choose" what must be.

True. It took two thousand years for people to finally accept that the earth is round, so who knows how long it will take to bring this discovery to light.

Thus...

But, either way, it is only as it was ever meant to be given the laws of matter unfolding inexorably as nature's "mechanism" for sustaining existence itself.

You're right, and now nature's mechanism is giving us answers so that existence will be sustained.

From my frame of mind this is you attributing to nature the capacity to choose a future more in sync with your own "choices". Almost as though Nature should be thanking you for showing her the way.

Not at all. I am thanking nature for showing us the way at long last.

Ultimately, it seems to come down to this:

You keep going back to the idea that determinism means that we have no choices. Looking back, yes, we could not have chosen otherwise but we are given choices every time we consider one option versus another. We're not robots that are programmed before a choice is made. That's the big argument in the free will/determinism debate. Necessarily, you do not have to do anything nature demands that you do unless you desire to. IOW, nature cannot compel you against your will to do anything you don't desire to do.

From my perspective, if in "[l]ooking back...we could not have chosen otherwise", it means that our choices are for all practical purposes robotic. Nature's laws program us to think and feel and say and do only what we could never not think and feel and say and do. And feeling here includes our desires. They are no exception to the rule. Nature is my "will".

Nature and your will are synonymous, if that's how you want to perceive determinism. The only caveat is that nature CANNOT force you to do anything without your consent. I've said this before. People often say, "He made me shoot that person." That's incorrect because no one has the power to do that. This is not a trivial observation.

This author spent the last half of his adult life reading, studying, observing, and analyzing his findings. There is definitely a way to prove that the argument is wrong. If, under the changed conditions, a person could still desire to hurt others when all justification is removed, then he would be wrong. Empirical proof will be the ultimate judge.

My reaction here is that you are pointing this out about him as though he should be lauded for "choosing" to do something that he was never really free not to. As though any conditions that change in the future were is ever going to not change. As though people can be "corrected" if only they come to understand these relationships as you and he do. Even though they can only understand what nature compels them to.

You are not saying anything profound by repeating this over and over again. Does that mean no one can be corrected because he could only understand what nature compelled him to? Why do people go to school then? The teacher will just keep repeating that the child only knew what he could have ever known.

And what is his empirical proof [here and now] that confirms his predictions about this more progressive future?

I told you that if his observations are correct, his conclusions will also be correct. His first observation is that man can only move in the direction of greater satisfaction. That is an invariable law.

You had the capacity to choose to think about all this differently but "capacity" does not mean you could have chosen to think about all this differently. Your mindset took you in a certain direction based on your life experiences and all of the factors that led you to making this particular choice. You had no free will or autonomy to choose other than what you chose.

Exactly how I would put it! Only instead of choose, I'd be compelled to opt for "choose".

However you want to frame it, you were compelled to "choose". Choose or "choose", your pick.

You mean however I "want" to frame it. I "want" only what nature compels me to want given my own understanding of determinism.

You can't not want what nature compels you to want because they are one and the same.

Over and again: Exactly what I would say!

Only nature hasn't allowed me to think up a better, more progressive future if only others are compelled to think as I do.

On the other hand, maybe nature will change its mind. Whatever that means.

You don't have to think up a better, more progressive future because it's already been thought up based on sound principles.

This makes sense to me only to the extent that you are able to explain who or what decides that the laws of nature are based on "sound principles". The laws of nature simply exist.

That is true. Nature doesn't prescribe. But we can learn from nature through observation and utilize those laws in ways never before thought possible.

They necessarily link "in my head" to "out in the world" in a way that can only be wholly/fully understood when existence itself is understood.

Now, the existence of an omniscient God and "sound principles" makes sense. If God knows everything of course His principles will be sound. But nature in a No God world? How on earth does that work?

You're getting off onto a tangent about God. The word God was used throughout the text to mean the laws that govern our universe. One of those laws is that man's will is not free. We never knew the importance of this law and its implications until now.

And here you are like many, many others insisting that what you think is true here comes closest to explaining it all. You even include a more "progressive" future in the mix of assumptions. Though never in a million years will you describe this explanation as a psychological defense mechanism rooted inherently in a human brain rooted necessarily in nature itself.

How comforting and consoling can that be?

OMG, you are the one making assumptions that this must be some kind of psychological defense mechanism. You're way off base iamiguous.

This is not about getting people to think as I do. That is called persuasion. This is revealing facts about our nature never before understood.

Why would you come to ILP if you weren't intent on persuading people to embrace your own assumptions here? After all, it is in grasping these assumptions that the progressive future hinges on.

Because persuasion isn't the right word. I can persuade someone to believe in something only because of my zealousness. That's not what I'm trying to do here.

Once we see how this new world can be achieved, people will be compelled to move in this direction because they will want what they see.

Or: Once we are compelled by nature to either see or not see how this new world can be achieved people will either be compelled or not compelled to move in this direction because nature will have either compeled or not compeled them to want what they see.

True, but when a genuine discovery is made, it is human nature to want to understand how that knowledge can be applied for the betterment of all. If someone finds a cure for cancer, are we not going to use that knowledge in order to help those suffering? Progress moves humanity forward.

[iambiguous]

Once again, from my frame of mind, you are agreeing that everything we think, feel, say and do is inherently, necessarily intertwined in the "brute facticity" that encompasses the existence of existence itself...but that somehow this "progress" you speak of is dependent on others choosing to think about all of this as you do. As though they really are free to do so.

That is very true. Only when people act on a finding can there be success based on that finding.

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.

And [of course] "progressive" behavior revolves around your own understanding of what that means in a world where you could never have understood it other than how you were compelled to.

And, yes, if the laws of matter propel/compel everything that we do, being described as a cog in nature's wheel seems reasonable to me.

It depends on the context.

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

Thus...

Okay, what aspect of human interaction is not wholly in sync with cause and effect as prescribed by nature?

Nature doesn't proscribe or prescribe behavior, therefore nature does not cause an effect. The word 'cause" is misleading. Nothing causes a person to kill. He wants to kill for various reasons, which gives him greater satisfaction in his motion from here to there.

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...

Nature doesn't compel or cause a behavior. Our circumstances give rise to desiring one alternative over another but we are not caused by external forces since nothing has the power to do that.

...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.

But how could my perception of contingency, chance and change not be just another inherent manifestation of nature? In an autonomous universe, the manner in which I understand them is crucial because the things "I" choose are profoundly predicated on, embedded in, and sustained by the manner in which I can never fully understand and control them. But in a determined universe how I think I understand and control them is only as I was ever able to.

The distinction you're making is flawed. The things you choose as an autonomous being are no different than the determined being who thinks in a certain way --- because the two are one and the same.

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:

How is your repeating this over and over again helping to clarify the fact that determinism does not mean we are compelled to choose what we do not prefer to choose? A domino has no choice. We do have a choice, although it's never a free one.

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.

But any lack of understanding on the part of either of us is always compelled by nature. The "folly" for me here [given my current understanding of determinism] is that any misunderstandings on the part of either one of us in this exchange are perfectly natural.

It is. That is why this knowledge may take thousands of years to be brought to light not because it's untrue, but because people are reluctant to give up fixed ideas.

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?

You should take your conclusions to those who actually perform experiments on the thinking brain. Those who, using fMRI technologies, test their conjectures about free will and determinism on people who are actually in the process of "choosing" or choosing something.

There is no way that free will can be proven by an MRI. Determinism has been supported by neuroscience but it doesn't solve the problem of responsibility.

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.

God forbid? You mean Nature forbid? But if nature has no meaning or purpose embedded in its laws, than the dominos falling, the cars piling up and the human brains that brought both situations into existence were never going to not unfold as they must.

As I stated, nature does not cause; neither does heredity, God, your status, your income, your being an expert of some kind. Only your desire based on conscious and unconscious factors lead to the choices that you ultimately make.

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?

There it is. The part that I keep coming back to. You need some way to reconfigure the world around us today into a better, more progressive place for human beings to live. You can't actually do that "in reality", so you need to "think up" a way to understand the choices we make so that if others come to think of them in the same way, that better, more progressive world is possible.

I am not reconfiguring anything. I'm sharing a discovery. If you don't want to partake in trying to understand this discovery, that's fine. Others will. It does not necessitate that everybody understand this knowledge for it to work, just as it didn't take everyone to understand Edison's discovery of the lightbulb for us to enjoy the benefits.

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.

That's called being visionary. It is not changing what is, but it is allowing new ideas to take us to a place where we can envision what could be.

Call it whatever you must. Nature either allows new ideas to reconfigure the world into your own wholly compelled rendition of progressive behavior, or it doesn't.

Stop shifting your responsibility to nature, as if nature has this kind of control. It doesn't.

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.

Others are compelled to either read [the author] or not. But either way, the future [like the present] is already inherently a continuation of the past. Once nature's laws set us in motion we are only ever going to "choose" what must be.

True. It took two thousand years for people to finally accept that the earth is round, so who knows how long it will take to bring this discovery to light.

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

From my perspective, if in "[l]ooking back...we could not have chosen otherwise", it means that our choices are for all practical purposes robotic. Nature's laws program us to think and feel and say and do only what we could never not think and feel and say and do. And feeling here includes our desires. They are no exception to the rule. Nature is my "will".

Nature and your will are synonymous, if that's how you want to perceive determinism.

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?

The only caveat is that nature CANNOT force you to do anything without your consent. I've said this before. People often say, "He made me shoot that person." That's incorrect because no one has the power to do that. This is not a trivial observation.

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?

You don't have to think up a better, more progressive future because it's already been thought up based on sound principles.

This makes sense to me only to the extent that you are able to explain who or what decides that the laws of nature are based on "sound principles". The laws of nature simply exist.

That is true. Nature doesn't prescribe. But we can learn from nature through observation and utilize those laws in ways never before thought possible.

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.

Now, the existence of an omniscient God and "sound principles" makes sense. If God knows everything of course His principles will be sound. But nature in a No God world? How on earth does that work?

You're getting off onto a tangent about God. The word God was used throughout the text to mean the laws that govern our universe. One of those laws is that man's will is not free. We never knew the importance of this law and its implications until now.

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.

And here you are like many, many others insisting that what you think is true here comes closest to explaining it all. You even include a more "progressive" future in the mix of assumptions. Though never in a million years will you describe this explanation as a psychological defense mechanism rooted inherently in a human brain rooted necessarily in nature itself.

How comforting and consoling can that be?

OMG, you are the one making assumptions that this must be some kind of psychological defense mechanism. You're way off base iamiguous.

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".

Once we see how this new world can be achieved, people will be compelled to move in this direction because they will want what they see.

Or: Once we are compelled by nature to either see or not see how this new world can be achieved people will either be compelled or not compelled to move in this direction because nature will have either compelled or not compelled them to want what they see.

True, but when a genuine discovery is made, it is human nature to want to understand how that knowledge can be applied for the betterment of all. If someone finds a cure for cancer, are we not going to use that knowledge in order to help those suffering? Progress moves humanity forward.

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?

[phyllo]

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?

[peacegirl]

Once again, from my frame of mind, you are agreeing that everything we think, feel, say and do is inherently, necessarily intertwined in the "brute facticity" that encompasses the existence of existence itself...but that somehow this "progress" you speak of is dependent on others choosing to think about all of this as you do. As though they really are free to do so.

That is very true. Only when people act on a finding can there be success based on that finding.

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.

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.

And [of course] "progressive" behavior revolves around your own understanding of what that means in a world where you could never have understood it other than how you were compelled to.

And, yes, if the laws of matter propel/compel everything that we do, being described as a cog in nature's wheel seems reasonable to me.

It depends on the context.

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

Thus...

Okay, what aspect of human interaction is not wholly in sync with cause and effect as prescribed by nature?

Everything we do is in sync with nature's way but...nature cannot force us to act in a way that we ourselves are not in sync with, or give permission to. In that respect I don't think it is accurate to say we are just cogs in a wheel. To be a cog in a wheel you would have no choice but to do what you're being forced to do. That is not the definition of determinism I am using. We've been through this already.

Nature doesn't proscribe or prescribe behavior, therefore nature does not cause an effect. The word 'cause" is misleading. Nothing causes a person to kill. He wants to kill for various reasons, which gives him greater satisfaction in his motion from here to there.

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.

That is true, our brains are necessarily compelled, based on multivariate factors, to want or not to want anything. But this does not remove autonomy in the way it's normally defined, nor does it have to be excluded since contingent events are always coming into play. Autonomy and determinism (the way it's accurate defined) are not mutually exclusive, which is what you have come to believe.

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

Just as this...

Nature doesn't compel or cause a behavior. Our circumstances give rise to desiring one alternative over another but we are not caused by external forces since nothing has the power to do that.

...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.

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.

But how could my perception of contingency, chance and change not be just another inherent manifestation of nature? In an autonomous universe, the manner in which I understand them is crucial because the things "I" choose are profoundly predicated on, embedded in, and sustained by the manner in which I can never fully understand and control them. But in a determined universe how I think I understand and control them is only as I was ever able to.

The distinction you're making is flawed. The things you choose as an autonomous being are no different than the determined being who thinks in a certain way --- because the two are one and the same.

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".

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.

Then back to this:

How is your repeating this over and over again helping to clarify the fact that determinism does not mean we are compelled to choose what we do not prefer to choose? A domino has no choice. We do have a choice, although it's never a free one.

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.

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.

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" future.

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.

But any lack of understanding on the part of either of us is always compelled by nature. The "folly" for me here [given my current understanding of determinism] is that any misunderstandings on the part of either one of us in this exchange are perfectly natural.

It is. That is why this knowledge may take thousands of years to be brought to light not because it's untrue, but because people are reluctant to give up fixed ideas.

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?

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 should take your conclusions to those who actually perform experiments on the thinking brain. Those who, using MRI technologies, test their conjectures about free will and determinism on people who are actually in the process of "choosing" or choosing something.

There is no way that free will can be proven by an MRI. Determinism has been supported by neuroscience but it doesn't solve the problem of responsibility.

In my view, another flagrant assertion. You believe this and that makes it so.

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!

You still have no capacity to actually demonstrate that this is true.

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?

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

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

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

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.

Or, rather, so it still seems to me.

God forbid? You mean Nature forbid? But if nature has no meaning or purpose embedded in its laws, than the dominoes falling, the cars piling up and the human brains that brought both situations into existence were never going to not unfold as they must.

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.

As I stated, nature does not cause; neither does heredity, God, your status, your income, your being an expert of some kind. Only your desire based on conscious and unconscious factors lead to the choices that you ultimately make.

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?

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?

There it is. The part that I keep coming back to. You need some way to reconfigure the world around us today into a better, more progressive place for human beings to live. You can't actually do that "in reality", so you need to "think up" a way to understand the choices we make so that if others come to think of them in the same way, that better, more progressive world is possible.

I am not reconfiguring anything. I'm sharing a discovery. If you don't want to partake in trying to understand this discovery, that's fine. Others will. It does not necessitate that everybody understand this knowledge for it to work, just as it didn't take everyone to understand Edison's discovery of the lightbulb for us to enjoy the benefits.

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.

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.

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.

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.

That's called being visionary. It is not changing what is, but it is allowing new ideas to take us to a place where we can envision what could be.

Call it whatever you must. Nature either allows new ideas to reconfigure the world into your own wholly compelled rendition of progressive behavior, or it doesn't.

Stop shifting your responsibility to nature, as if nature has this kind of control. It doesn't.

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.

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.

Others are compelled to either read [the author] or not. But either way, the future [like the present] is already inherently a continuation of the past. Once nature's laws set us in motion we are only ever going to "choose" what must be.

True. It took two thousand years for people to finally accept that the earth is round, so who knows how long it will take to bring this discovery to light.

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

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.

From my perspective, if in "[l]ooking back...we could not have chosen", it means that our choices are for all practical purposes robotic. Nature's laws program us to think and feel and say and do only what we could never not think and feel and say and do. And feeling here includes our desires. They are no exception to the rule. Nature is my "will".

Nature and your will are synonymous, if that's how you want to perceive determinism.

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?

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.

The only caveat is that nature CANNOT force you to do anything without your consent. I've said this before. People often say, "He made me shoot that person." That's incorrect because no one has the power to do that. This is not a trivial observation.

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?

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."

You don't have to think up a better, more progressive future because it's already been thought up based on sound principles.

This makes sense to me only to the extent that you are able to explain who or what decides that the laws of nature are based on "sound principles". The laws of nature simply exist.

That is true. Nature doesn't prescribe. But we can learn from nature through observation and utilize those laws in ways never before thought possible.

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.

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.

Now, the existence of an omniscient God and "sound principles" makes sense. If God knows everything of course His principles will be sound. But nature in a No God world? How on earth does that work?

You're getting off onto a tangent about God. The word God was used throughout the text to mean the laws that govern our universe. One of those laws is that man's will is not free. We never knew the importance of this law and its implications until now.

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.

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).

And here you are like many, many others insisting that what you think is true here comes closest to explaining it all. You even include a more "progressive" future in the mix of assumptions. Though never in a million years will you describe this explanation as a psychological defense mechanism rooted inherently in a human brain rooted necessarily in nature itself.

How comforting and consoling can that be?

OMG, you are the one making assumptions that this must be some kind of psychological defense mechanism. You're way off base iamiguous.

Again, as though the choices that I am making here allow you to accuse me of this.

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

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".

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

Once we see how this new world can be achieved, people will be compelled to move in this direction because they will want what they see.

Or: Once we are compelled by nature to either see or not see how this new world can be achieved people will either be compelled or not compelled to move in this direction because nature will have either compelled or not compelled them to want what they see.

True, but when a genuine discovery is made, it is human nature to want to understand how that knowledge can be applied for the betterment of all. If someone finds a cure for cancer, are we not going to use that knowledge in order to help those suffering? Progress moves humanity forward.

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?

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.

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?

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.

[iambiguous]

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?

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.

[phyllo]

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?

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.

[iambiguous]

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.

[peacegirl]

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?

I'm not sure.

[peacegirl]

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

[peacegirl]

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.

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?

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.

[phyllo]

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?

I'm not sure.

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

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.

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?

[phyllo]

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.

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.

[phyllo]

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?

[peacegirl]

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.

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 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.

[peacegirl]

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?

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?

[peacegirl]

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?

I'm not sure.

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

Absolutely not. I consider my best option, and if I feel that the discussion is not going anywhere, I will choose not to continue which will be my preferable choice in the direction of greater satisfaction. This is an invariable law.

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.

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?

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.

[phyllo]

It surprises me that there has been so little interest in this discovery.

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.

[phyllo]

Why pick one over the other? Because one is true and one isn't.

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.

Can you think of a day where you don't deliberate over options to decide which one is the most preferable in your eyes?

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.

[peacegirl]

It surprises me that there has been so little interest in this discovery.

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.

You are 100% incorrect.

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.

[peacegirl]

Why pick one over the other? Because one is true and one isn't.

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.

Can you think of a day where you don't deliberate over options to decide which one is the most preferable in your eyes?

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.

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.

[phyllo]

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.

You are 100% incorrect.

That's certainly possible.

[peacegirl]

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.

You are 100% incorrect.

That's certainly possible.

I hope you keep an open mind. That's all I am hoping for. If not, I will move on because there seems to be very little interest. It's okay to be skeptical, but to think that there is nothing more to be discovered is a killer of new knowledge.

[iambiguous]

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.

Again, there's my bottom line here and yours.

Mine: how we define determinism in a wholly determined universe is how we could only ever have defined it. Just as any gap between how we define it and the way it really is reflects nature's way.

Yours: that I'm still trying to grapple with.

We've been through this.

From my perspective: There you go again!

We were never really free not to have been through this. But somehow the natural fact of it is still the embodiment of my flaw and not yours.

Now, I'm not arguing that we are either free or not free. I'm merely pointing out that here and now I don't have access to either an argument or a demonstration that convinces me one way or the other. Why? Because, like you, I don't have access to a complete understanding of existence itself.

Okay, what aspect of human interaction is not wholly in sync with cause and effect as prescribed by nature?

Everything we do is in sync with nature's way but...nature cannot force us to act in a way that we ourselves are not in sync with, or give permission to.

So, everything that we do is necessarily in sync with nature's way. But, unlike dominos, we "choose" to be in sync with nature. Even though that "choice" must in turn be subsumed in everything.

And how would the "definition that you are using" -- "choosing" -- not also be subsumed in everything?

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.

That is true, our brains are necessarily compelled, based on multivariate factors, to want or not to want anything. But this does not remove autonomy in the way it's normally defined, nor does it have to be excluded since contingent events are always coming into play. Autonomy and determinism (the way it's accurate defined) are not mutually exclusive, which is what you have come to believe.

The laws of nature would compel particular brains to define determinism "normally". Just as the laws of nature compel my brain not to. Just as how your brain defines an "accurate" definition of determinism is compelled by whatever set into motion the laws of nature.

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.

My brain is wholly determined by the laws of matter. And that would seem to include my brain ignoring your important adjunct. My brain cannot freely choose to lead the horse to water. The horse's brain cannot freely choose to drink the water.

Instead, nature unfolds such that I was never not able to lead it to water and it was never not able to drink or not drink it. Only the horse's brain is not able to reconfigure its "choice" into a philosophical quandary like mine "chooses" to.

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".

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.

If you could never not say that 2 + 2 = 5, and someone else could never not correct you, and you could never not have appreciated it...

We're just stuck here. I am still -- necessarily -- at a loss regarding your own -- necessary -- rendition of determinism defined.

...I was never able not to be confused over the meaning of determinism.

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.

Nor does it take away the fact that any correction that is made was only ever going to be.

The only reason the terms are contradictory to you is because you don't understand how I'm using the term "responsibility".

And the only reason I was not able to understand how you are using the term "responsibility" was because I was never able to understand it. Nature had other plans. Plans that are reflected only in her immutable laws. Laws that we still have no complete understanding of.

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.

In either context, what this person knows is a natural fact.

Thus:

But if nature has no meaning or purpose embedded in its laws, then the dominoes falling, the cars piling up and the human brains that brought both situations into existence were never going to not unfold as they must.

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.

That is how I would put it. We veer or do not veer because we must. We want or do not want to injure someone because we must. The consequences are what they are because that is quite simply nature's way.

Nothing at all that unfolds is other than as nature compelled it to.

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.

If you could allow me to show you where these two principles take us, we would make progress.

Bingo. If I could allow you to show me...". But: however I want to sustain what I construe to be my greater satisfaction here is all at one with nature itself.

Then back to you concuring with me...

Others are compelled to either read [the author] or not. But either way, the future [like the present] is already inherently a continuation of the past. Once nature's laws set us in motion we are only ever going to "choose" what must be.

True. It took two thousand years for people to finally accept that the earth is round, so who knows how long it will take to bring this discovery to light.

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

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.

There is no final analysis here other than that which is necessarily in sync with nature unfolding as it must. "I" am just along for the ride.

...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.

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).

Again, from my own necessary frame of mind you have yet to demonstrate to me that this "knowledge" is anything other than an argument -- a world of words -- wholly in sync with the internal logic of its own assumptions. Not only am I compelled to "choose" not to read it but I am compelled in turn to note that your own assumptions regarding "peace and brotherhood" in the future are just existential contraptions, rooted in dasein and conflicting goods. And, as well, in the assumption that we do have some measure of autonomy in choosing to understand them as we do.