compatibilism

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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

Our Nietzschean Future
Paul O’Mahoney considers the awful fate Nietzsche predicts for humanity.
The second related but subtly different conception of our lack of freedom rests on the Nietzschean assertion that the body is the self. In other words, physiological processes (dimly understood though they are) contain or define the whole of the human person.
Spot the key point here? Of course: "dimly understood though they are". And that's always my point, isn't it? We grapple to understand our own measure of autonomy given the staggering gap between what we profess to know about anything at all and how that fits into what we know very, very, very, very little about regarding the existence of existence itself.

Thus: the whole of the human person?!!
On this view, consciousness is merely a function of biological processes beyond our control. This contention could also find support in some recent research. For instance, experimental evidence lends support to the idea that the common parasite Toxoplasma gondii may inhibit risk-aversion in its host. In other words, playing host to this parasite makes people significantly more disposed to taking risks.
And, yes, how utterly fascinating yet entirely perplexing this sort of thing can be. It's akin to all the other maladies our brains can be afflicted with: dementia, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, clinical depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, autism. All the bizarre conditions explored by those like Oliver Sacks.

In other words, all that we still do not understand about the brain chemically and neurologically. For me, in particular, the part that revolves around dreams. The way the brain itself creates "realities" "in our head" that we experience as though in the waking world but utterly beyond our control.
Much more banal is the increasing evidence that gut bacteria play a role in the regulation of mood, and determine our cravings for food. This research into our physiology seems to erode the possibility of free will. The bacteria or parasites to which we play host determine our moods and behaviour, and so our beliefs and lives, even while we cherish the idea that we ourselves determine our fates. Recent research has even suggested that the great marker of our humanity, consciousness, might be the result of the long-ago binding of the genetic code of the Arc virus into the human genome.
Over and again: what to make of this? The moods that we flit from and the behaviors that we choose [over time] regulated and/or determined by "gut bacteria"?!

By the Arc virus? https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... the-brain/

All of these [still mysterious] chemical and neurological interactions unfolding in our brain...and yet here most of us just shrugging that aside and insisting "I make all of my own decision!"
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

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Did John Calvin Believe in Free Will?
MATTHEW BARRETT at the TGC website
The Verdict Is In

So did Calvin believe in free will? That all depends on the meaning. If by free will one means that the unbeliever is in no way necessitated by sin, but has it in his power to either do good or evil toward God, then the answer is no. But if one means that the unbeliever is in total bondage to sin, sinning willfully yet under necessity (not coercion), making him utterly dependent upon God’s irresistible grace to liberate him, then Calvin is your man.
Again, reflect on this particular intellectual/spiritual contraption and tell us specifically in terms of your own behaviors why you believe you either do or do not have free will in relationship to sin and to God. How does Original Sin play out in your own interactions with others...interactions in which conflicts arise as a result of differing moral convictions.

And how [given free will] using the tools of philosophy did you yourself arrive at the most logically and epistemologically sound meaning of free will. Again, given 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.
All that to say, next time you are eavesdropping on an enticing theological conversation you can add some insight into the mumbo jumbo, and, like a good reformer, take your listeners back to the source himself.
Exactly! Let's scrap the "worlds of words" here and zero in precisely on your own behaviors. Connect the dots between what you think is true here and how that does impact on the behaviors you choose. And how that impacts on the fate of "I" -- yours -- on the other side of the grave.
promethean75
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Re: compatibilism

Post by promethean75 »

damn I just read about that Arc gene. bro what if the great leap from monkey to man happened becuz of some virus giving the brain an enhanced ability to reason and remember, thus making him more and more intelligent?

that's a mind blowing thought. that ALL THIS is becuz of a virus fucking with the brain of a monkey.

I mean I already know that consciousness is a useless by-product of evolution, but add the fact that it may have been 'kicked in' by a frickin virus? Bro.
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

Our Nietzschean Future
Paul O’Mahoney considers the awful fate Nietzsche predicts for humanity.
The final and strongest position undermining human freedom could be termed ‘cosmic determinism’. The argument starts with the premises that every physical effect must have a physical cause, and that we humans, being physical, are subject to this rule. We cannot be exempted from the chains of cause and effect in the material world. Therefore, everything we do or think is the result of prior physical causes, themselves the effects of still earlier causes back to the beginning of time.
Two words:

1] human
2] brain

Then "the gap" and "Rummy's Rule".

How to even begin to explain the grand canyon that clearly exists between matter in a rock and matter in the human brain. And we are all stuck here, of course. It's just that some will admit it and others won't. Some will actually go on and on and on pontificating about free will, determinism and compatibilism as though what they believe about them in their own brain really is as indisputable as 1 + 1 = 2.
This is a deeply materialistic form of determinism, and it is perhaps the form which has traditionally most troubled philosophy. I happen to believe that Nietzsche subscribes to this last and strongest form. Despite his distaste for the vulgar ‘mechanistic’ vision of the cosmos that it entails and his criticisms of the very notions of cause and effect, he is ultimately a cosmic determinist.
Okay, imagine you're Nietzsche. Imagine you do believe in this "deeply materialistic form of determinism". There you are penning your aphorisms about God and the Uberman. And all the while you're thinking, "I could never have not written what I am now writing. Absolutely everything that I think, feel, say and do, I think, feel, say and do in the only possible reality in the only possible world."

But then it dawns on you: "Now, how do I actually demonstrate this?"

And how is it any different for us?

Which brings me to what I call the "free will determinists" here. They argue that we have no free will. Yet still insist that those who don't agree with their own understanding of it are wrong. As wrong as those who do embrace free will would put it.
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

Sam Ruhmkorff
Hard Determinism
Hard determinists think that all human actions are causally determined by the laws of nature and initial conditions. At any moment, the state of your brain and your environment together with the principles that govern the behavior of matter necessitate the way that you will act.
Of course, the first thing that I would ask him is this: "Does hard determinism encompass the very point that you are making here about hard determinism?"

The truly, truly surreal assumption that it makes absolutely no difference at all what you say about free will and determinism because you were never able to say anything other than what you necessarily must say.

Then the part where there is really no way in which to confirm this because it is the human brain itself that would be tasked with doing so. We're stuck in "the gap"...seemingly with no exit. We simply cannot provide ourselves with a definitive explanation for why the human brain is even around at all. And we don't even know if the laws of matter are themselves behind the invention of God as the explanation.
In addition, hard determinists think that the causal determinism of all human actions means that no human actions are free. Your computer is a complicated machine, and you don't think it's free. You are much more complicated, but you too are a machine, and you lack freedom as well.
But then back [here] to those "free will determinists". They insist over and again that human beings lack free will. But then in post after post after post...I challenge you to differentiate them from the libertarians among us. Or the compatibilists who claim that determinism can even be reconciled with moral responsibility. Only it's all "explained" in a world of words that is never actually taken out of their heads and, in fact, demonstrated...scientifically? experientially? phenomenologically? experimentally? Instead, follow their "definitional logic" as, around and around and around, it goes.
I want to share with you two of my favorite quotes by hard determinists.

David Hume: "When [a prisoner] tries to escape, he chooses to work on the hardness of stone and iron rather than the inflexible nature of the jailer."

Baron von Holbach: "Man's life is a line that nature commands him to inscribe upon the surface of the earth, without his ever being able to swerve from it, even for an instant."
You tell me. Freely or not.
Belinda
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Belinda »

Iambiguous wrote:
The truly, truly surreal assumption that it makes absolutely no difference at all what you say about free will and determinism because you were never able to say anything other than what you necessarily must say.
But that is fatalism not determinism. You face your future unknowing what it will be. The cause of what your future will be is part choice and part chance. Your freedom of choice is relative to the extent and quality of your knowledge, your judgement, and your sympathy.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by phyllo »

Belinda wrote: Thu Jan 19, 2023 1:12 am Iambiguous wrote:
The truly, truly surreal assumption that it makes absolutely no difference at all what you say about free will and determinism because you were never able to say anything other than what you necessarily must say.
But that is fatalism not determinism. You face your future unknowing what it will be. The cause of what your future will be is part choice and part chance. Your freedom of choice is relative to the extent and quality of your knowledge, your judgement, and your sympathy.
It's not fatalism.

Fatalism says you can't avoid your fate.

It doesn't say that what you do makes absolutely no difference to anyone or anything.

What you say alters what other people do. What you do alters what other people do in response.
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

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Define "free".

Define "will".

Define "free will".
Of course, that's not the main difficulty here some suspect. No, instead, the more fundamental dilemma revolves around establishing whether any definition that we do settle on we settled on it only because we were never able to freely opt up to settle on any other definition. In a wholly determined universe.

Well, if, compelled or not, we choose, "choose", "choose" to just shrug off this part:

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.

Though, sure, feel free to do so. :wink:
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

Belinda wrote: Thu Jan 19, 2023 1:12 am Iambiguous wrote:
The truly, truly surreal assumption that it makes absolutely no difference at all what you say about free will and determinism because you were never able to say anything other than what you necessarily must say.
But that is fatalism not determinism. You face your future unknowing what it will be. The cause of what your future will be is part choice and part chance. Your freedom of choice is relative to the extent and quality of your knowledge, your judgement, and your sympathy.
Right, as though you can establish -- scientifically, experientially, experimentally -- that you either freely opted to post this or posted it only because you were never able to not post it in the only possible reality. As though in differentiating fatalism and determinism as you do you are able to establish that you did so autonomously and not because you were never able not to given that your own brain is itself wholly in sync with the laws of matter.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Belinda »

iambiguous wrote: Thu Jan 19, 2023 7:32 pm
Belinda wrote: Thu Jan 19, 2023 1:12 am Iambiguous wrote:
The truly, truly surreal assumption that it makes absolutely no difference at all what you say about free will and determinism because you were never able to say anything other than what you necessarily must say.
But that is fatalism not determinism. You face your future unknowing what it will be. The cause of what your future will be is part choice and part chance. Your freedom of choice is relative to the extent and quality of your knowledge, your judgement, and your sympathy.
Right, as though you can establish -- scientifically, experientially, experimentally -- that you either freely opted to post this or posted it only because you were never able to not post it in the only possible reality. As though in differentiating fatalism and determinism as you do you are able to establish that you did so autonomously and not because you were never able not to given that your own brain is itself wholly in sync with the laws of matter.
The element of human freedom is leaving as little as possible to chance. We all face our futures in a blend of choice and chance. We can't rule out chance, but we can, by reason and knowledge , increase the ratio of choice : chance to favour choice.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

Belinda wrote: Thu Jan 19, 2023 9:21 pm
iambiguous wrote: Thu Jan 19, 2023 7:32 pm
Belinda wrote: Thu Jan 19, 2023 1:12 am Iambiguous wrote:

But that is fatalism not determinism. You face your future unknowing what it will be. The cause of what your future will be is part choice and part chance. Your freedom of choice is relative to the extent and quality of your knowledge, your judgement, and your sympathy.
Right, as though you can establish -- scientifically, experientially, experimentally -- that you either freely opted to post this or posted it only because you were never able to not post it in the only possible reality. As though in differentiating fatalism and determinism as you do you are able to establish that you did so autonomously and not because you were never able not to given that your own brain is itself wholly in sync with the laws of matter.
The element of human freedom is leaving as little as possible to chance. We all face our futures in a blend of choice and chance. We can't rule out chance, but we can, by reason and knowledge , increase the ratio of choice : chance to favour choice.
Right, as though you can establish -- scientifically, experientially, experimentally -- that you either freely opted to post this or posted it only because you were never able to not post it in the only possible reality.
promethean75
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Re: compatibilism

Post by promethean75 »

"We can't rule out chance"

on the contrary madam i do think we can. when we say 'it happened by chance' and the like, we are really only recognizing that it was unexpected or unintended and/or without apparent reason. but this doesn't mean it happened by chance in that it wasn't caused or brought about by a certain order of events. neither could we call something truly random for the same reason. 
Belinda
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Belinda »

iambiguous wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 6:45 pm
Belinda wrote: Thu Jan 19, 2023 9:21 pm
iambiguous wrote: Thu Jan 19, 2023 7:32 pm

Right, as though you can establish -- scientifically, experientially, experimentally -- that you either freely opted to post this or posted it only because you were never able to not post it in the only possible reality. As though in differentiating fatalism and determinism as you do you are able to establish that you did so autonomously and not because you were never able not to given that your own brain is itself wholly in sync with the laws of matter.
The element of human freedom is leaving as little as possible to chance. We all face our futures in a blend of choice and chance. We can't rule out chance, but we can, by reason and knowledge , increase the ratio of choice : chance to favour choice.
Right, as though you can establish -- scientifically, experientially, experimentally -- that you either freely opted to post this or posted it only because you were never able to not post it in the only possible reality.
Freedom is relative physical freedom and to the psychological freedom of possessing as many choices as possible. However absolute so-called "Free Will" is impossible and often guarded by superstitions such as fatalism or predestination.

The meaning of a word is its use. I explain two common uses of 'freedom'.
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

From ILP:
Flannel Jesus wrote:I don't know what any of that has to do with the offer I made to you earlier of some ideas I want to discuss. You were asking how responsibility works in determinism, I was offering to have a conversation with you to work through the thought processes involved for the people that think that.
Click.

Then we're stuck. We apparently want to discuss determinism and responsibility [moral and otherwise] from different angles.

My own assumption here is that given human autonomy, Mary is not compelled to abort Jane and, after discussing her pregnancy with a friend, chooses to give birth instead and Jane is around to participate in this discussion herself.

But if Mary's brain, wholly in sync with the laws of matter, compels her to abort Jane, Jane was never not going to be toast.

Only then the truly surreal part:

Discussing all of this given that we seemingly have no way in which pin down the actual existential parameters of the "click" part:

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.

The analogy being those in Flatland never able to grasp the reality of our own three dimensional world.

Similarly with things like string theory, the suggestion that our three-dimensional world is embedded in turn in a reality that our brains even given autonomy may never be able to crack: https://www.space.com/more-universe-dim ... 0of%20time.

Then back to fitting that into this: https://youtu.be/m2YJ7aR25P0
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

Belinda wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 11:54 am
iambiguous wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 6:45 pm
Belinda wrote: Thu Jan 19, 2023 9:21 pm
The element of human freedom is leaving as little as possible to chance. We all face our futures in a blend of choice and chance. We can't rule out chance, but we can, by reason and knowledge , increase the ratio of choice : chance to favour choice.
Right, as though you can establish -- scientifically, experientially, experimentally -- that you either freely opted to post this or posted it only because you were never able to not post it in the only possible reality.
Freedom is relative physical freedom and to the psychological freedom of possessing as many choices as possible. However absolute so-called "Free Will" is impossible and often guarded by superstitions such as fatalism or predestination.

The meaning of a word is its use. I explain two common uses of 'freedom'.
Right, as though you can establish -- scientifically, experientially, experimentally -- that you either freely opted to post this or posted it only because you were never able to not post it in the only possible reality.

Anyway -- click -- my own interest in compatibilism revolves more around the relationship between determinism and moral responsibility. Some argue that even in a wholly determined universe we are still morally responsible for the behaviors we choose when those behaviors result in consequences that others are outraged by.

However, some determinists [presumably compelled by brains in sync with the laws of matter] argue that even the outrage that others feel regarding the consequences of the behaviors we "choose" are no less feeling it only because they were never able not to feel it...given that everything that we think, feel, say and do is inherently/necessarily "at one" with the only possible reality.

Dominoes all the way down as it were.
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