compatibilism

[Belinda]

What you describe, Iambiguous, is the God-eye view from omniscience. No man is omniscient nor can be.

Men have to live as if we have free will, as if we originate and must take responsibility for our actions. This for two reasons. Firstly, in order to stay alive a man must believe and philosophers must pretend that he has original voluntary control.

Are you proposing that in order for people to survive, they must live a lie and that philosophers must promote the deception about free will?

Secondly, society must punish evil doers and criminals so that others are deterred. The upholders of society must believe, or if they are philosophers they must pretend, that people who are not children or mentally disabled have original voluntary control.

Would you not agree that the main goal should be to stop people from doing bad things and that punishing them is more of a way to teach them than an end in itself? Or are you saying that punishment is the only way to get people to behave and be civil?

It's no lie that there are two aspects of reality. While aiming to be good and just we have to cope with this imperfect world. Philosophers too are only men.

To stop people doing bad things it's safer to bet that human nature is inherently fearful and greedy, While religions try to instill faith in goodness and providence, most people experience quite the opposite.When it's possible to teach criminals and potential criminals to be courageous and loving then by all means do so. My bet is it's safer to deter Putin than to educate him

[henry quirk]

They believe that they need to "pretend" in order to avoid the feelings that they are being forced to do things and/or that they have no control over they actions. They believe determinism to be ... a forced life without any personal control.

If I'm causally determined, just a meat machine, then anything, everything, I think, say, or do (including pretending) cannot be other than what it is. I literally have no choice.

[BigMike]

It's no lie that there are two aspects of reality. While aiming to be good and just we have to cope with this imperfect world. Philosophers too are only men.

It is impossible for one and the same thing to belong and not to belong to one and the same thing at one and the same time. There is only one "aspect of reality", not two, in one and the same context.

To stop people doing bad things it's safer to bet that human nature is inherently fearful and greedy, While religions try to instill faith in goodness and providence, most people experience quite the opposite.

This seems to be more about your preferred response (it's easier to just punish them than to educate them) than an end goal (to change them).

When it's possible to teach criminals and potential criminals to be courageous and loving then by all means do so. My bet is it's safer to deter Putin than to educate him

As people age, their behavioral habits become increasingly rigid and more difficult to alter. However, we should not use punishment as the first and only solution, which we all too often do. I believe that hardened criminals beyond the age of 30 should likely be incarcerated, but I would defer to those who are more knowledgeable in psychology and criminology than I am. But I think I would simply execute Putin.

[BigMike]

They believe that they need to "pretend" in order to avoid the feelings that they are being forced to do things and/or that they have no control over they actions. They believe determinism to be ... a forced life without any personal control.

If I'm causally determined, just a meat machine, then anything, everything, I think, say, or do (including pretending) cannot be other than what it is. I literally have no choice.

I am not a meat machine, unlike you. I possess memory and the capacity to learn. You should consider the implications for a person with these talents, yes, in a deterministic world. Are you able to see what this may entail?

[henry quirk]

They believe that they need to "pretend" in order to avoid the feelings that they are being forced to do things and/or that they have no control over they actions. They believe determinism to be ... a forced life without any personal control.

If I'm causally determined, just a meat machine, then anything, everything, I think, say, or do (including pretending) cannot be other than what it is. I literally have no choice.

I am not a meat machine, unlike you. I possess memory and the capacity to learn. You should consider the implications for a person with these talents, yes, in a deterministic world. Are you able to see what this may entail?

I'm no meat machine: I'm a free will (just like you). I self-direct, self-rely, and am self-responsible. Causal determinism doesn't apply to me (or you). If it did, then, as I say: anything, everything, I or you think, say, or do (including pretending) could not be other than what it is. We, you and me, would literally be incapable of choice.

[BigMike]

I'm no meat machine: I'm a free will (just like you).

I'm not a free will.

[iambiguous]

From ILP:

The whole moral argument against determinism is bogus.
It is a typical sort of fallacy argumentum ad consequentiam

It seems we have to pretend that free will exists because of moral responsibility?

Sadly if people could act freely without the deterministic qualities, of rehabilitation, punishment, deterrence, and isolation there would be no purpose to the penal system.

The entire edifice of the penal system can only work if determinism is true. And can only work effectively if people realise that determinism is true and design their "Correctional Facilities", with that in mind.

How is this not preposterous in a world where everything and anything relating to the penal system unfolds in the only possible reality in the only possible world?

Other than in a world where, in turn, Sculptor was never able to not post it?

If hard determinism is true, we realize only that which we were never able not to realize...and design only that which we were never able not to design.

On the other hand, in coming back to what we still don't fully grasp in regard to this...

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

...who is to say what is ontologically -- teleologically? -- going on here?

We all may or may not be just dominoes toppling over onto each other inherently and necessarily; and then going back to however the dominoes came into existence in the first place.

Uh, God?

[henry quirk]

I'm no meat machine: I'm a free will (just like you).

I'm not a free will.

Then you're a meat machine.

[BigMike]

I'm no meat machine: I'm a free will (just like you).

I'm not a free will.

Then you're a meat machine.

If you insist, but one that possesses memory and the capacity to learn, more like a biological computer, perhaps?

[BigMike]

On the other hand, in coming back to what we still don't fully grasp in regard to this...

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

Define conscious and self-conscious matter, please.

[henry quirk]

I'm not a free will.

Then you're a meat machine.

If you insist, but one that possesses memory and the capacity to learn, more like a *biological computer, perhaps?

*meat machine

[BigMike]

Then you're a meat machine.

If you insist, but one that possesses memory and the capacity to learn, more like a *biological computer, perhaps?

*meat machine

When stated in this manner, I have no objections.

[henry quirk]

If you insist, but one that possesses memory and the capacity to learn, more like a *biological computer, perhaps?

*meat machine

When stated in this manner, I have no objections.

[iambiguous]

What you describe, Iambiguous, is the God-eye view from omniscience. No man is omniscient nor can be.

Men have to live as if we have free will, as if we originate and must take responsibility for our actions. This for two reasons. Firstly, in order to stay alive a man must believe and philosophers must pretend that he has original voluntary control.

Are you proposing that in order for people to survive, they must live a lie and that philosophers must promote the deception about free will?

Secondly, society must punish evil doers and criminals so that others are deterred. The upholders of society must believe, or if they are philosophers they must pretend, that people who are not children or mentally disabled have original voluntary control.

Would you not agree that the main goal should be to stop people from doing bad things and that punishing them is more of a way to teach them than an end in itself? Or are you saying that punishment is the only way to get people to behave and be civil?

First of all, exchanges of this sort unfolding in a wholly determined world are construed by hard determinists as unfolding only as they ever could have.

So, any points of view, either in sync or in conflict, are interchangeable in the only possible world.

Though, sure, there may well be a God that set the "human condition" into motion. And this omniscient God "somehow" implanted autonomy into our souls at the moment of conception. And this autonomy is "somehow" reconcilable with an omniscient God.

And "somehow" BigMike, in being a "free will determinist" excludes his own argument from all this. His argument, though never able to not be anything other than what it must be, is still superior to those who don't share it.

Or something like that.

Though, again, I'm always the first to admit that I almost certainly don't grasp all of this definitively myself. You know, going back to a definitive explanation for existence itself.

[iambiguous]

On the other hand, in coming back to what we still don't fully grasp in regard to this...

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

Define conscious and self-conscious matter, please.

That's not the point, the determinists are compelled to say. The point is that until the "hard guys" in the scientific community are able to explain [one way or another] how lifeless matter evolved into living matter evolved into conscious matter evolved into self-conscious matter, then, in presuming determinism is true, any definitions we come up with are no less compelled by brains wholly in sync with the laws of matter.

Now here, however, the "soft guys" in the philosophical community are exchanging "worlds of words". They exchange arguments in which one set of definitions and deductions are said to be superior to all the other sets. They can go on post after post after post and almost never bring their definitions and deductions down to earth...making them applicable to, say, Mary aborting Jane.