I agree with henry quirk, and that's a nice example with hunger and feeding. I'm a compatibilist, though I put much more emphasis on determination than free will and I understand free will in a very narrow sense. I find the criticism of determinism here truly ridiculous, as most of you simply demonstrate your ignorance of it and it's also remarkable how people ignore the problems with free will. As henry said, it's not all black and white.
So what is your choice, choice or determinism?
Do you really think that's a valid criticism? Do you really think you have a choice in believing in determinism vs believing in free will? Well, I don't know about you, but what I believe in is based on my observations and experiences. I don't base my beliefs on what I want to be true because I care about ACTUAL truth. I can only believe something that convinces me. F.e. if you showed me you have a pen I can't "choose" not to believe that a pen exists. I don't have a choice in that matter. Determinists can just simply say that the fact that you can believe both is also predetermined, since us humans are very different.
We're philosophizing, but the (Determinist) truth of the matter is that we cannot change our minds anyway!
That's not what determinism says. You, as a few others here, completely misunderstand it. Determinism simply claims that everything is predetermined by natural laws and whether you will change your mind or not is also predetermined and everything you said and will (or will not) say is predetermined. Although, I do find determinism to apply much better to animals and inanimate objects than humans.
Free will has enough problems with humans as it is, and it doesn't even address animals and the outside world.
But Materialism? No, I can't save it from Determinism. If it's suppositions are true, then Determinism seems inevitably to follow.
Depends on your definition of determinism. I, for one, would disagree. Materialism is true and yet I'm a compatibilist, not a determinist. It's true that everything which occurs, occurs due to natural laws and not according to our will. Can you "will" yourself to start flying when you jump from a window? If you are saying that something breaks natural laws that's an extraordinary claims which requires (extraordinary) evidence.
Even the chemical reactions in our brain from which our consciousness emerges are a result of natural laws acting upon atoms. Such consciousness still acts by natural laws and only has VERY limited free will.
We can choose to eat a cake or a sandwich. We'll probably choose cake if we ate something salty before or didn't eat anything sweet for a long time. We can't, however, survive f.e. only by eating oil or trying to eat something our body can't digest, like wood. And if we want to survive we can't choose not to provide nutrition for our body because we're going to die. For fucks sake, we can't even choose when to be sexually aroused! Some people get sexually aroused even when they don't want to, others CAN'T get sexually aroused even when they want to! We can't choose our blood type, our body type, our sexual orientation, our IQ, some of our preferences etc. etc.
More importantly, I don't believe in pure Materialism. It's pig-headed and reductional. We all know we have nebulous things like a "self" or "soul" of some kind.
The concept of a "self" isn't contradictory with materialism, the concept of a "soul" might be. Depending on your definition of it. I agree with self, no evidence for anything such as a "soul" though, and all the evidence we have suggests no such thing exists.
It's not up to materialism to describe literally EVERYTHING. F.e. evolution and psychology studying it reveal why humans are moral and why we think our choices matter etc.
Subjectivity? We're not all the same, so we won't experience everything the same and have exactly same thoughts about it. I don't see how that is in any way contradictory with materialism.
Besides, what do you suggest instead of materialism? Idealism/Spiritualism? They just assert the answers and don't support them with any evidence whatsoever and are often too unrealistic and logically fallacious, just a lot of verbal diarrhea. Dualism? A modern version of it I can understand and maybe even accept. But it still doesn't explain anything, just says that there is something more than our senses.