compatibilism

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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

henry quirk wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 3:30 pm
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.
See, he gets it!

Yes, if we are that most extraordinary of matter that "somehow" acquired life and then "somehow" acquired consciousness and then "somehow" acquired self-consciousness, we would still be no less slaves to the laws of matter. Meat machines.

Only -- click -- from my frame of mind, henry possesses what might be called a meat-mind. Okay, we have free will. But if you don't think exactly as henry does about, for example, everything under the sun, you are a "moron". You are "simply wrong".

Meat machine. Meat-mind.

You're choice? 8)
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henry quirk
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Re: compatibilism

Post by henry quirk »

We, you and me, biggy, we're both free wills.

This means we can choose without payin' any mind to anything other than what we like.

It means I can, and do, recognize that both of us are free men with a natural, inalienable right to our individual lives, liberties, and properties; it means I choose to live a life where I self-direct, self-rely, and am self-responsible and where I leave you be.

It means you, seein' things differently, choose, when told to, by the majority, to bend over and take the full shaft without lube.

In other words: bein' a free will means you get to be wrong (and a moron).

Can't see how you, or anyone, can have any problem with that.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by BigMike »

iambiguous wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 6:20 pm
BigMike wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 5:46 pm
iambiguous wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 5:37 pm 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.
If I may, I'd like to say a few words about that. It's not a personal attack because that problem (or confusion, as I'd call it) seems to be a problem for both libertarians, indeterminists, and compatibilists.

The question is what it means to be forced, compelled, or coerced to do something in the context of determinism. When we say "force," we usually mean something much more nuanced and subtle than when someone grabs your hands and shoves a gun into your hand while pushing your finger to pull the trigger.

Your brain can do simple comparisons, so it's easy for it to figure out what it thinks is the best thing to do, or what it thinks gives your body the most satisfaction. For example, if you can choose between getting $1 or$1,000,000, most people's brains would choose the $1,000,000 option because that would be the best option for most people.

Now, the brain has evolved from primitive life forms. Its only goal is to make sure people live and have kids. The "survival of the fittest" principle has made sure that it finds the best way to do things. We would have died out a long time ago if we didn't have that inner drive for excellence. It's in our genes, and as we live and learn, our brains are hardwired to do things that work better and better.

And here is the point: The optimal response to any situation is provided by our brains' logic. The best response isn't the best because we want it to be, but because our brains inform us it is. This is true even when we do something stupid; in those cases our brain simply didn't have the necessary experience or knowledge to give us better "advice". Our response is ultimately determined, forced upon us, not by physical force but by the force of logic.

Does this make the term "to be compelled to do something" seem better, more acceptable?
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Re: compatibilism

Post by BigMike »

henry quirk wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:33 pm We, you and me, biggy, we're both free wills.

This means we can choose without payin' any mind to anything other than what we like.

It means I can, and do, recognize that both of us are free men with a natural, inalienable right to our individual lives, liberties, and properties; it means I choose to live a life where I self-direct, self-rely, and am self-responsible and where I leave you be.

It means you, seein' things differently, choose, when told to, by the majority, to bend over and take the full shaft without lube.

In other words: bein' a free will means you get to be wrong (and a moron).

Can't see how you, or anyone, can have any problem with that.
Permit me to state this unequivocally: I am not free will. I completely reject the absurd idea that people have free will. It is a non-existent thing.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Iwannaplato »

iambiguous wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 6:37 pm Only -- click -- from my frame of mind, henry possesses what might be called a meat-mind. Okay, we have free will. But if you don't think exactly as henry does about, for example, everything under the sun, you are a "moron". You are "simply wrong".
And if your not split and torn up about conflicting goods or knowing for sure if there is determinism or free will or.....
then you don't think exactly like Iambiguous does then you are a fanatical objectivist.

It's just not clear to me what higher ground you think you have over henry.

Yeah, yeah. You're not sure. But, in the end, that doesn't stop you from labeling people.
Henry labels people.
Other people label people
You label people.

And if it's determined, well, so far we can't have helped but to do that, though perhaps some pachinko chains of causation will lead to us stopping it.
And if we have free will....well, that would be embarrassing for a lot of people.
Choosing freely, whatever that would mean, to do...welll stuff.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by henry quirk »

BigMike wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:57 pm
henry quirk wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:33 pm
Permit me to state this unequivocally: I am not free will. I completely reject the absurd idea that people have free will. It is a non-existent thing.
Wasn't talkin' to you, BM, but to iambiguous.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

henry quirk wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:33 pm We, you and me, biggy, we're both free wills.

This means we can choose without payin' any mind to anything other than what we like.

It means I can, and do, recognize that both of us are free men with a natural, inalienable right to our individual lives, liberties, and properties; it means I choose to live a life where I self-direct, self-rely, and am self-responsible and where I leave you be.
Click.

See what I mean? He merely asserts -- insists! -- that things like this are true. He offers us absolutely no hard evidence -- empirical, experiential, experimental -- to back up these "thought up" dictums of his. He simply becomes the "authoritative source" by dint of his own definitional logic.

And then how he connects this to...God?

Now, to me, that's a meat-mind. A fulminating and fanatical objectivist. Only I'm the first to admit that "I" am entirely incapable of demonstrating that myself. It's just my own personal opinion rooted existentially in dasein.

And then of course because he has no substantive rebuttals to the points I raise here and on other threads, he resorts to making it all about me itself...
henry quirk wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:33 pmIt means you, seein' things differently, choose, when told to, by the majority, to bend over and take the full shaft without lube.

In other words: bein' a free will means you get to be wrong (and a moron).

Can't see how you, or anyone, can have any problem with that.
And he is not in the least bit embarrassed to be reduced down to posts of this sort.

And yet here I am still not able to convince myself that he isn't off the hook because even meat-minds are entirely a manifestation of the only possible reality in the only possible world.

What I wouldn't give to be able to believe that in fact we do live in a free will world and that, of his own volition, he does choose to post this ridiculous stuff!!!

Well, unless, of course, compelled or not, I'm wrong.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Sculptor »

iambiguous wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 5:37 pm From ILP:

Sculptor wrote: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?
You are talking rubbish.
No one knows the future, and each of us is a deterministic agent.

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.
Nonsense.
Meaningless fatalism.
Determinism means being able to make the future., without it you can freely act without consequences.

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?
I think you have a mental blcok.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Iwannaplato »

BigMike wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:54 pm
iambiguous wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 6:20 pm
BigMike wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 5:46 pm
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.
If I may, I'd like to say a few words about that. It's not a personal attack because that problem (or confusion, as I'd call it) seems to be a problem for both libertarians, indeterminists, and compatibilists.

The question is what it means to be forced, compelled, or coerced to do something in the context of determinism. When we say "force," we usually mean something much more nuanced and subtle than when someone grabs your hands and shoves a gun into your hand while pushing your finger to pull the trigger.

Your brain can do simple comparisons, so it's easy for it to figure out what it thinks is the best thing to do, or what it thinks gives your body the most satisfaction. For example, if you can choose between getting $1 or$1,000,000, most people's brains would choose the $1,000,000 option because that would be the best option for most people.

Now, the brain has evolved from primitive life forms. Its only goal is to make sure people live and have kids. The "survival of the fittest" principle has made sure that it finds the best way to do things. We would have died out a long time ago if we didn't have that inner drive for excellence. It's in our genes, and as we live and learn, our brains are hardwired to do things that work better and better.

And here is the point: The optimal response to any situation is provided by our brains' logic. The best response isn't the best because we want it to be, but because our brains inform us it is. This is true even when we do something stupid; in those cases our brain simply didn't have the necessary experience or knowledge to give us better "advice". Our response is ultimately determined, forced upon us, not by physical force but by the force of logic.

Does this make the term "to be compelled to do something" seem better, more acceptable?
I would say that in determinism there isn't really a 'you' to be forced. The you is a kind of epiphenomenon witness. I suppose it is 'forced' to experience. Stuff happens, you get to 'watch'. I put 'watch' in citation marks because of course the bodies sees. I mean, the perceiver that perceives whatever is happening. It notes the decisions that are made by the interaction of various causes, often including both external and interal. It is really forced to do, just to experience. Though 'forced' would imply some causal chain. Things happen and experiencing those things happens at the same time.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by henry quirk »

Iwannaplato wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:59 pmIt's just not clear to me what higher ground you think you have over henry.
Oh, biggy has what he believes is a sweet deal: he formally commits to nuthin', feels empowered to take everyone to task for their objectivism, and when called out on his own fulminations, he pleads I'm fractured! I can see the issue from all perspectives!. Take this...
iambiguous wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:16 pm
...for example. Aside from the heavy-handed strategy of talkin' to some audience instead of his opponent, what does he do here 'cept self-aggrandize and dismiss? And, as always, he ass-covers with...
Only I'm the first to admit that "I" am entirely incapable of demonstrating that myself. It's just my own personal opinion rooted existentially in dasein.
This is his MO.

And he wonders why I, and others, have no substantive conversations with him.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by BigMike »

Iwannaplato wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:24 pm
BigMike wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:54 pm
iambiguous wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 6:20 pm

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.
If I may, I'd like to say a few words about that. It's not a personal attack because that problem (or confusion, as I'd call it) seems to be a problem for both libertarians, indeterminists, and compatibilists.

The question is what it means to be forced, compelled, or coerced to do something in the context of determinism. When we say "force," we usually mean something much more nuanced and subtle than when someone grabs your hands and shoves a gun into your hand while pushing your finger to pull the trigger.

Your brain can do simple comparisons, so it's easy for it to figure out what it thinks is the best thing to do, or what it thinks gives your body the most satisfaction. For example, if you can choose between getting $1 or$1,000,000, most people's brains would choose the $1,000,000 option because that would be the best option for most people.

Now, the brain has evolved from primitive life forms. Its only goal is to make sure people live and have kids. The "survival of the fittest" principle has made sure that it finds the best way to do things. We would have died out a long time ago if we didn't have that inner drive for excellence. It's in our genes, and as we live and learn, our brains are hardwired to do things that work better and better.

And here is the point: The optimal response to any situation is provided by our brains' logic. The best response isn't the best because we want it to be, but because our brains inform us it is. This is true even when we do something stupid; in those cases our brain simply didn't have the necessary experience or knowledge to give us better "advice". Our response is ultimately determined, forced upon us, not by physical force but by the force of logic.

Does this make the term "to be compelled to do something" seem better, more acceptable?
I would say that in determinism there isn't really a 'you' to be forced. The you is a kind of epiphenomenon witness. I suppose it is 'forced' to experience. Stuff happens, you get to 'watch'. I put 'watch' in citation marks because of course the bodies sees. I mean, the perceiver that perceives whatever is happening. It notes the decisions that are made by the interaction of various causes, often including both external and interal. It is really forced to do, just to experience. Though 'forced' would imply some causal chain. Things happen and experiencing those things happens at the same time.
So, I tried to be consistent in making the point that it's our brain, not "us," that makes the decisions that cause our bodies to act. At the same time, I tried to write in a way that wasn't too repetitive and was more like how we normally talk.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

iambiguous wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 5:37 pm From ILP:

Sculptor wrote: 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?
Sculptor wrote:You are talking rubbish.
No one knows the future, and each of us is a deterministic agent.
Rubbish: "being compelled by your brain, wholly in sync with the laws of matter, to not agree with something that Sculptor's brain, wholly in sync with the laws of matter, compels him to assert must be true because as a deterministic agent he is compelled to post it here."

Past, present and future.
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.
Sculptor wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:21 pmNonsense.
Meaningless fatalism.
Determinism means being able to make the future., without it you can freely act without consequences.
Okay, bring this around to Mary aborting Jane.

Otherwise:

Nonsense: "That which your brain, wholly in sync with the laws of matter, compels you to post here so that Sculptor's brain, wholly in sync with the laws of matter, is compelled to accuse you of posting here".

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?
Sculptor wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:21 pmI think you have a mental bl[ock].
Well, given a free will world, if that is true of me, let's all try to imagine what that says about you.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Iwannaplato »

henry quirk wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:34 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:59 pmIt's just not clear to me what higher ground you think you have over henry.
Oh, biggy has what he believes is a sweet deal: he formally commits to nuthin', feels empowered to take everyone to task for their objectivism, and when called out on his own fulminations, he pleads I'm fractured! I can see the issue from all perspectives!. Take this...
iambiguous wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:16 pm
...for example. Aside from the heavy-handed strategy of talkin' to some audience instead of his opponent, what does he do here 'cept self-aggrandize and dismiss? And, as always, he ass-covers with...
Only I'm the first to admit that "I" am entirely incapable of demonstrating that myself. It's just my own personal opinion rooted existentially in dasein.
This is his MO.

And he wonders why I, and others, have no substantive conversations with him.
So, it's a bit like.
I: But I'm not like other men. I don't hate women.
W: Sometimes it sure seems like you do.
I: Jeez, sometimes you can be such a fucking ****.
W: Well, there, for example. Right now, that seems sexist.
I: Oh, but I'm the first to admit I'm not sure if you're a fucking **** or not.

Edit: Interesting. It wouldn't print my word beginning with C, but kept 'fucking'.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Iwannaplato »

BigMike wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:36 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:24 pm
BigMike wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:54 pm

If I may, I'd like to say a few words about that. It's not a personal attack because that problem (or confusion, as I'd call it) seems to be a problem for both libertarians, indeterminists, and compatibilists.

The question is what it means to be forced, compelled, or coerced to do something in the context of determinism. When we say "force," we usually mean something much more nuanced and subtle than when someone grabs your hands and shoves a gun into your hand while pushing your finger to pull the trigger.

Your brain can do simple comparisons, so it's easy for it to figure out what it thinks is the best thing to do, or what it thinks gives your body the most satisfaction. For example, if you can choose between getting $1 or$1,000,000, most people's brains would choose the $1,000,000 option because that would be the best option for most people.

Now, the brain has evolved from primitive life forms. Its only goal is to make sure people live and have kids. The "survival of the fittest" principle has made sure that it finds the best way to do things. We would have died out a long time ago if we didn't have that inner drive for excellence. It's in our genes, and as we live and learn, our brains are hardwired to do things that work better and better.

And here is the point: The optimal response to any situation is provided by our brains' logic. The best response isn't the best because we want it to be, but because our brains inform us it is. This is true even when we do something stupid; in those cases our brain simply didn't have the necessary experience or knowledge to give us better "advice". Our response is ultimately determined, forced upon us, not by physical force but by the force of logic.

Does this make the term "to be compelled to do something" seem better, more acceptable?
I would say that in determinism there isn't really a 'you' to be forced. The you is a kind of epiphenomenon witness. I suppose it is 'forced' to experience. Stuff happens, you get to 'watch'. I put 'watch' in citation marks because of course the bodies sees. I mean, the perceiver that perceives whatever is happening. It notes the decisions that are made by the interaction of various causes, often including both external and interal. It is really forced to do, just to experience. Though 'forced' would imply some causal chain. Things happen and experiencing those things happens at the same time.
So, I tried to be consistent in making the point that it's our brain, not "us," that makes the decisions that cause our bodies to act. At the same time, I tried to write in a way that wasn't too repetitive and was more like how we normally talk.
Yes, and I wouldn't go so far as to say your version was wrong, but I do think things like this are misleading at best, if one believes in the current neo-darwinism, current physicalism and the main forms of determinism.....
1-
The optimal response to any situation is provided by our brains' logic.
2-
Our response is ultimately determined, forced upon us, not by physical force but by the force of logic.
3-
The best response isn't the best because we want it to be, but because our brains inform us it is.
4-
Now, the brain has evolved from primitive life forms. Its only goal is to make sure people live and have kids.
(those aren't my brains only goals)

And 2 is very misleading since a) it need not at all be logical (nor is it ontologically so) and b) precisely because that forcing is subtle, we don't have a good way to know if it was logical in any particular case, because we are forced to think our evaluation is correct.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by BigMike »

Iwannaplato wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 6:18 am
BigMike wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:36 pm
Yes, and I wouldn't go so far as to say your version was wrong, but I do think things like this are misleading at best, if one believes in the current neo-darwinism, current physicalism and the main forms of determinism.....
1-
The optimal response to any situation is provided by our brains' logic.
2-
Our response is ultimately determined, forced upon us, not by physical force but by the force of logic.
3-
The best response isn't the best because we want it to be, but because our brains inform us it is.
4-
Now, the brain has evolved from primitive life forms. Its only goal is to make sure people live and have kids.
(those aren't my brains only goals)

And 2 is very misleading since a) it need not at all be logical (nor is it ontologically so) and b) precisely because that forcing is subtle, we don't have a good way to know if it was logical in any particular case, because we are forced to think our evaluation is correct.
I got it. The goal of my piece was to encourage readers to consider the concept of being forced, compelled, etc. in a broader context. It wasn't meant to be an exhaustive, in-depth guide on the subject.

I am, as you surely can understand, afraid to delve too deeply into the subject because there is really a lot of prerequisites when I used terms like "the best" and "the optimal." Other concepts like "objective functions," "feasible domains," "variables," "constraints," "perception," "our brains' limitations and flaws," etc. could not all be explained in the space available. I hoped the discerning reader would pose questions such as "the best in what sense?" and "in what context?" and come up with their own satisfying answers.

The point I am trying to get across is that there is really only one best option to one and the same objective, in one and the same context, and at one and the same time. A hypothetical "free will" would only have one best option to "choose" from. We are only motivated to act to meet certain needs (think of Maslow's pyramid of needs, for example) to achieve certain goals (think of "survival of the fittest").

Having said that, it would be intriguing to learn what objectives you think your brain has besides (survival and) spreading your genes.
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