compatibilism

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BigMike
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Re: compatibilism

Post by BigMike »

iambiguous wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:12 pm
BigMike wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 9:40 pm I find it incomprehensible that some individuals consciously disregard the fact that humans can remember and, as a result, learn, despite being repeatedly reminded of this fact. Unfortunately, these skills deteriorate as people age or as a result of certain neurological conditions that make their brains sluggish and make comprehension difficult or impossible. In fact, we may have witnessed the manifestations of this decline in recent forum posts.
Click.

See, there he goes again. The hardcore determinist finding something incomprehensible as though he had the option to find it comprehensible instead.

Things being unfortunate even though there was never any possibility of them being any way other than as the laws of matter compel all material things to be.

Noting that we may be witnessing something that we were never able to not witness other than as we must.


So: What do I keep missing here in regard to his own rendition of determinism?
What you fail to realize is that evolution has provided you with some survival strategies. You have a brain, as opposed to the randomly bouncing pool balls on a pool table. You should learn how to use it.
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

BigMike wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:21 pm
iambiguous wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:12 pm
BigMike wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 9:40 pm I find it incomprehensible that some individuals consciously disregard the fact that humans can remember and, as a result, learn, despite being repeatedly reminded of this fact. Unfortunately, these skills deteriorate as people age or as a result of certain neurological conditions that make their brains sluggish and make comprehension difficult or impossible. In fact, we may have witnessed the manifestations of this decline in recent forum posts.
Click.

See, there he goes again. The hardcore determinist finding something incomprehensible as though he had the option to find it comprehensible instead.

Things being unfortunate even though there was never any possibility of them being any way other than as the laws of matter compel all material things to be.

Noting that we may be witnessing something that we were never able to not witness other than as we must.


So: What do I keep missing here in regard to his own rendition of determinism?
What you fail to realize is that evolution has provided you with some survival strategies. You have a brain, as opposed to the randomly bouncing pool balls on a pool table. You should learn how to use it.
Click.

See, there he goes again. The hardcore determinist accusing me of failing to realize that which I was never able not to realize if my brain matter is wholly in sync with the immutable laws of matter.

Instead, as with all the other free will determinists, he merely assumes that "somehow" when nonliving mindless matter did evolve into living mindful matter here on planet Earth, our thoughts "somehow" -- God perhaps? -- stopped being anything but randomly bouncing pool balls or anything but randomly falling dominos and acquired this thing we call autonomy or volition.

How? Why? Well, if not God, then "somehow".

Then this extraordinary matter is actually able to learn things. For example, it learns that only if you finally come to agree with everything that BigMike tells us here, are you not what, say, henry quirks calls "a moron".
BigMike
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Re: compatibilism

Post by BigMike »

iambiguous wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:35 pm
BigMike wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:21 pm
Click.

See, there he goes again. The hardcore determinist accusing me of failing to realize that which I was never able not to realize if my brain matter is wholly in sync with the immutable laws of matter.

Instead, as with all the other free will determinists, he merely assumes that "somehow" when nonliving mindless matter did evolve into living mindful matter here on planet Earth, our thoughts "somehow" -- God perhaps? -- stopped being anything but randomly bouncing pool balls or anything but randomly falling dominos and acquired this thing we call autonomy or volition.

How? Why? Well, if not God, then "somehow".

Then this extraordinary matter is actually able to learn things. For example, it learns that only if you finally come to agree with everything that BigMike tells us here, are you not what, say, henry quirks calls "a moron".
Well, all I can say is that some people are smart enough to see how learning and memory fit nicely with determinism. Others, unfortunately, are doomed to live in eternal ignorance. Your ignorance, however, neither establishes free will nor refutes determinism.
CHNOPS
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Re: compatibilism

Post by CHNOPS »

BigMike wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:45 pm
iambiguous wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:35 pm
BigMike wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:21 pm
Click.

See, there he goes again. The hardcore determinist accusing me of failing to realize that which I was never able not to realize if my brain matter is wholly in sync with the immutable laws of matter.

Instead, as with all the other free will determinists, he merely assumes that "somehow" when nonliving mindless matter did evolve into living mindful matter here on planet Earth, our thoughts "somehow" -- God perhaps? -- stopped being anything but randomly bouncing pool balls or anything but randomly falling dominos and acquired this thing we call autonomy or volition.

How? Why? Well, if not God, then "somehow".

Then this extraordinary matter is actually able to learn things. For example, it learns that only if you finally come to agree with everything that BigMike tells us here, are you not what, say, henry quirks calls "a moron".
Well, all I can say is that some people are smart enough to see how learning and memory fit nicely with determinism. Others, unfortunately, are doomed to live in eternal ignorance. Your ignorance, however, neither establishes free will nor refutes determinism.
I'm smart enough too.
bobmax
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Re: compatibilism

Post by bobmax »

Belinda wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 7:27 pm If love is supernatural how might love translate into the natural, temporal , and relative ? In other words, how can natural beings , which we are, receive anything from supernatural being?
The word "supernatural" is easily misleading.
Because it is difficult not to make it refer to another world, the supernatural world.
In fact we can only think in terms of existence.
That is, we only think of something that is somewhere.

But there is an unbridgeable difference between existing and being.
Being allows to exist.
Through love.

Even paradoxically, being does not exist, being is.
Not existing, being for existence coincides with nothingness.

So that love springs from being / nothing.

This is as far as we are concerned, insofar as we exist.
However, we exist but we are not.

There are many signs that suggest our not being.
Such as the lack of free will.
And the same love, only mysteriously simmers but we can never say that it really exists.

But if you rely on love, if you place it as what really matters, if it becomes for you the foundation of all life... then you will see how the nothingness of being is the true reality.
While existence is a mere temporary emanation of it.

The book of the beloved Marguerite Porete "The mirror of simple souls" can be an opportunity to perceive the authentic reality.
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

Moral Responsibility and Determinism: The Cognitive Science of Folk Intuitions
Shaun Nichols,Joshua Knobe
The dispute between compatibilists and incompatibilists must be one of the most persistent and heated deadlocks in Western philosophy. Incompatibilists maintain that people are not fully morally responsible if determinism is true, i.e., if every event is an inevitable consequence of the prior conditions and the natural laws. By contrast, compatibilists maintain that even if determinism is true our moral responsibility is not undermined in the slightest, for determinism and moral responsibility are perfectly consistent.
Fully responsible? How can they be responsible to any degree at all "if every event is an inevitable consequence of the prior conditions and the natural laws"?

That's the part I can't come to grips with from the compatibilists...

"Mary, my brain, wholly in sync with the laws of matter, compels me to tell you that you were never able to freely opt not to abort Jane. But my brain also compels me to tell you that you are morally responsible for having done so."

In other words, whatever "for all practical purposes" that means.
The debate between these two positions has invoked many different resources, including quantum mechanics, social psychology, and basic metaphysics.
And whatever the hell we do here.
But recent discussions have relied heavily on arguments that draw on people's intuitions about particular cases. Some philosophers have claimed that people have incompatibilist intuitions others have challenged this claim and suggested that people's intuitions actually fit with compatibilism.
Either way, our intuitive, visceral, "gut feelings" are among the most mysterious reactions we have. Neither wholly rational nor wholly emotional nor even wholly conscious, it just seems to bubble up from "somewhere" inside us.

Thus...
But although philosophers have constructed increasingly sophisticated arguments about the implications of people's intuitions, there has been remarkably little discussion about why people have the intuitions they do. That is to say, relatively little has been said about the specific psychological processes that generate or sustain people's intuitions.
Which takes us to the part where the sheer complexities of human psychology itself -- partly ego, partly superego, partly id/ partly conscious, partly subconscious, partly unconscious/partly genes, partly memes -- may be the place to go in figuring out exactly what that "somehow" is in explaining human autonomy.

Also, the mind-boggling mystery of human dreams. The part that seems perplexing [to me] beyond ever grasping.

Thus...
And yet, it seems clear that questions about the sources of people's intuitions could have a major impact on debates about the compatibility of responsibility and determinism. There is an obvious sense in which it is important to figure out whether people's intuitions are being produced by a process that is generally reliable or whether they are being distorted by a process that generally leads people astray.
Then this part:

1] it hasn't been pinned down yet
2] it's not likely to be pinned before any of us here shuffle off our mortal coils
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

BigMike wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:45 pm
iambiguous wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:35 pm
BigMike wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:21 pm
Click.

See, there he goes again. The hardcore determinist accusing me of failing to realize that which I was never able not to realize if my brain matter is wholly in sync with the immutable laws of matter.

Instead, as with all the other free will determinists, he merely assumes that "somehow" when nonliving mindless matter did evolve into living mindful matter here on planet Earth, our thoughts "somehow" -- God perhaps? -- stopped being anything but randomly bouncing pool balls or anything but randomly falling dominos and acquired this thing we call autonomy or volition.

How? Why? Well, if not God, then "somehow".

Then this extraordinary matter is actually able to learn things. For example, it learns that only if you finally come to agree with everything that BigMike tells us here, are you not what, say, henry quirks calls "a moron".
Well, all I can say is that some people are smart enough to see how learning and memory fit nicely with determinism. Others, unfortunately, are doomed to live in eternal ignorance. Your ignorance, however, neither establishes free will nor refutes determinism.
There he goes again...

On the other hand, okay, sure, as with those like phyllo, maybe he is on to something really, really important that I'm just not able to grasp yet.

But it still seems to me that if the brains of the smart people are hardwired by nature in exactly the same way as the brains of the dumb people, then smart and dumb are really interchangeable in the only possible reality. You can think of yourself as one of the smart people but that's only because you were never able to not be one of the smart people...and were never able not to think that.

It's like patting yourself on the back for winning the chess tournament when you were never able to lose it. It all strikes me as a hollow -- a really, really, really hollow -- "victory".
BigMike
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Re: compatibilism

Post by BigMike »

iambiguous wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 1:46 am
BigMike wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:45 pm
There he goes again...

On the other hand, okay, sure, as with those like phyllo, maybe he is on to something really, really important that I'm just not able to grasp yet.

But it still seems to me that if the brains of the smart people are hardwired by nature in exactly the same way as the brains of the dumb people, then smart and dumb are really interchangeable in the only possible reality. You can think of yourself as one of the smart people but that's only because you were never able to not be one of the smart people...and were never able not to think that.
Surely you can see where that line of thought goes wrong. Your assumption that "the brains of the smart people are hardwired by nature in exactly the same way as the brains of the dumb people" is completely false.
First, our brains are different at birth because our parents gave us different genes, and different brains to start with. Second, the brain is continuously "hardwiring" new memories. Your brain is hard-wired with each of your long-term memories, or memories that last longer than about 30 seconds. How can our brains be hardwired "in exactly the same way" if we don't have the same parents and memories? The answer is that they can't. So, people who remember the "smart" things to do in a given situation will act and be seen as smarter because of it. There is no mystery there; it makes perfect sense.
Belinda
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Belinda »

bobmax wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 9:31 pm
Belinda wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 7:27 pm If love is supernatural how might love translate into the natural, temporal , and relative ? In other words, how can natural beings , which we are, receive anything from supernatural being?
The word "supernatural" is easily misleading.
Because it is difficult not to make it refer to another world, the supernatural world.
In fact we can only think in terms of existence.
That is, we only think of something that is somewhere.

But there is an unbridgeable difference between existing and being.
Being allows to exist.
Through love.

Even paradoxically, being does not exist, being is.
Not existing, being for existence coincides with nothingness.

So that love springs from being / nothing.

This is as far as we are concerned, insofar as we exist.
However, we exist but we are not.

There are many signs that suggest our not being.
Such as the lack of free will.
And the same love, only mysteriously simmers but we can never say that it really exists.

But if you rely on love, if you place it as what really matters, if it becomes for you the foundation of all life... then you will see how the nothingness of being is the true reality.
While existence is a mere temporary emanation of it.

The book of the beloved Marguerite Porete "The mirror of simple souls" can be an opportunity to perceive the authentic reality.
I appreciate absolute being, i.e. the eternal, authentic reality , existence itself. Moreover whatever word it's called by , it's not another world, a supernatural world, but is as close as one's skin if not closer than one's skin. It's what Spinoza called Natura Naturans in conjunction with Natura Naturata.


'Love' is a vague word that we apply to the most banal of partialities such as a hot bath, a good story, ice cream. Better is the word 'caring'. Caring is a spectrum ranged between caring for one's self through own immediate family and caring for the entire creation. Caring is what current morality is based on. One of the most important dicta of Jesus is the importance of impartial caring.
bobmax
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Re: compatibilism

Post by bobmax »

Belinda wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 11:18 am I appreciate absolute being, i.e. the eternal, authentic reality , existence itself. Moreover whatever word it's called by , it's not another world, a supernatural world, but is as close as one's skin if not closer than one's skin. It's what Spinoza called Natura Naturans in conjunction with Natura Naturata.


'Love' is a vague word that we apply to the most banal of partialities such as a hot bath, a good story, ice cream. Better is the word 'caring'. Caring is a spectrum ranged between caring for one's self through own immediate family and caring for the entire creation. Caring is what current morality is based on. One of the most important dicta of Jesus is the importance of impartial caring.
Yes, the word "love" has been overused by superficial use.
The same thing happened with the word "God".

It would be better to avoid its use in all those situations where it is evident that we are not dealing with the absolute.

Lovers, before saying "I love you" should be more cautious.
Maybe starting with "I like you", and then "I want to take care of you", leaving the "I love you" to the rare moments where you really feel lost. And even then there is always the risk of exaggerating...
Because that love is either truly absolute or it isn't.

Can there be true love?
It is only up to you to answer.

Faced with the death of the beloved, where everything is lost forever, pain digs into us showing nothingness.

Will Love be able to triumph over Nothing?
Iwannaplato
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Iwannaplato »

BigMike wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 7:34 am
iambiguous wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 1:46 am
BigMike wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:45 pm
There he goes again...

On the other hand, okay, sure, as with those like phyllo, maybe he is on to something really, really important that I'm just not able to grasp yet.

But it still seems to me that if the brains of the smart people are hardwired by nature in exactly the same way as the brains of the dumb people, then smart and dumb are really interchangeable in the only possible reality. You can think of yourself as one of the smart people but that's only because you were never able to not be one of the smart people...and were never able not to think that.
Surely you can see where that line of thought goes wrong. Your assumption that "the brains of the smart people are hardwired by nature in exactly the same way as the brains of the dumb people" is completely false.
First, our brains are different at birth because our parents gave us different genes, and different brains to start with. Second, the brain is continuously "hardwiring" new memories. Your brain is hard-wired with each of your long-term memories, or memories that last longer than about 30 seconds. How can our brains be hardwired "in exactly the same way" if we don't have the same parents and memories? The answer is that they can't. So, people who remember the "smart" things to do in a given situation will act and be seen as smarter because of it. There is no mystery there; it makes perfect sense.
He's not saying that there is no difference between the brains. Nor is he saying that some are not smarter than others. The last line of his post should have made this clear.
It's like patting yourself on the back for winning the chess tournament when you were never able to lose it. It all strikes me as a hollow -- a really, really, really hollow -- "victory".
See, it's in the context of determinism. It's like the slightly taller mountain being proud of being two meters higher than the one beside it. When really, it's just two inevitable consequences not set in motion by the mountains themselves.

It's like two people falling from an airplane and one feeling proud that they will land and die a couple of second after the guy across the aisle who got sucked out first.

Of course he can't help but feel proud, if he does, but it's silly.
BigMike
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Re: compatibilism

Post by BigMike »

Iwannaplato wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 1:48 pm
BigMike wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 7:34 am
iambiguous wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 1:46 am
Surely you can see where that line of thought goes wrong. Your assumption that "the brains of the smart people are hardwired by nature in exactly the same way as the brains of the dumb people" is completely false.
First, our brains are different at birth because our parents gave us different genes, and different brains to start with. Second, the brain is continuously "hardwiring" new memories. Your brain is hard-wired with each of your long-term memories, or memories that last longer than about 30 seconds. How can our brains be hardwired "in exactly the same way" if we don't have the same parents and memories? The answer is that they can't. So, people who remember the "smart" things to do in a given situation will act and be seen as smarter because of it. There is no mystery there; it makes perfect sense.
He's not saying that there is no difference between the brains. Nor is he saying that some are not smarter than others. The last line of his post should have made this clear.
It's like patting yourself on the back for winning the chess tournament when you were never able to lose it. It all strikes me as a hollow -- a really, really, really hollow -- "victory".
And I just said:
So, people who remember the "smart" things to do in a given situation will act and be seen as smarter because of it. There is no mystery there; it makes perfect sense.
I meant that people who study and learn how to do something, like play chess, tend to get better at it. And that is fully determined. Is that really such a hard idea to grasp?

Are you saying that when I tell my child to study hard, I'm wasting my time because, if the universe wants it that way, she will study hard no matter what? Am I not part of the same universe that influences her choices?
Iwannaplato
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Iwannaplato »

BigMike wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 2:25 pm Are you saying that when I tell my child to study hard, I'm wasting my time?
Nope. And no, those ideas are not hard to grasp. But they are not responses to what he was saying there.
BigMike
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Re: compatibilism

Post by BigMike »

Iwannaplato wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 2:45 pm
BigMike wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 2:25 pm Are you saying that when I tell my child to study hard, I'm wasting my time?
Nope. And no, those ideas are not hard to grasp. But they are not responses to what he was saying there.
Well, I don't see any problem with determinism at all. So I'm struggling to see what his problem is.
Iwannaplato
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Iwannaplato »

BigMike wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 2:56 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 2:45 pm
BigMike wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 2:25 pm Are you saying that when I tell my child to study hard, I'm wasting my time?
Nope. And no, those ideas are not hard to grasp. But they are not responses to what he was saying there.
Well, I don't see any problem with determinism at all. So I'm struggling to see what his problem is.
Well, he'll speak for himself. But I think 1) he finds it a bit depressing and 2) he thinks that other people seem not bothered by it and even, perhaps, on some level people haven't really faced the implications of determinism. IOW they get it in their heads (that was metaphorical), but don't really believe it on an emotional level, or they would be bothered more than they seem to be.

So, if they seem very proud about being smart, perhaps they don't quite get that this is being proud of something that simply happened, like the weather. You won the lottery of genes and parenting. Or the lottery of genes that gave you more discipline than your peers.

A domino that hits two dominos in a chain of dominos has no reason to be more proud than the one that hits just one in a chain.

Stuff happens and you got that vantage point on the unfolding inevitable chain.

I don't have his reaction, on an emotional level. I am not sure why, but I don't. But I can understand it, I think.

And I do think that people can have a belief in their thinking verbal portions of their brain without really, deeply feeling the implications of their beliefs. In fact I think most people don't really FEEL the implications of their beliefs. They are compartmentalized and may not even know this. So, much as I can find communicating with Iambiguous a cross-purposes confusion, I can connect with him on this issue.
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