Compatibilism in a nutshell?
Again, however, to speak of yourself as "uncompromising" is basically how those who embrace free will put it. In other words, they could have opted to compromise their convictions about free will but chose not to. You believe what you do about compromising...but you could never have believed otherwise.
Are you in sync then with the argument that this very exchange we are having is unfolding entirely in sync with the only possible reality in the only possible world? I was never able not to type these words, you were never able not to read them?
You have no free will! So deal with it!!
But what does it really mean to speak of consequences when all consequences -- and all that is spoken about them -- is entirely fated by whatever brought the immutable laws of matter into existence in the first place?
Consequences in particular are embraced by the free will folks. Why? Because it suggests a teleological component to our lives. That consequences matter because we are morally responsible for the things we do. Our freely chosen behaviors create the consequences.
Now, sure, this may all revolve around my own inability to grasp the argument of the compatibilists. Or, perhaps, around how words like determinism and free will and compatibilism are defined? As though how we define things in and of itself is not embedded in this...
Again, though, let's bring this back to Mary above.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.
Then those here who actually believe that what they believe about all of this reflects, what, the ontological truth about the human condition itself?
Then those who are compelled in turn to insist on a teleological component as well. Usually in the form of one or another God.
Meanwhile, philosophers and scientists and theologians have been grappling with this profound mystery now for thousands of years.
Either in the only possible reality in the only possible world or of their own volition.
She's pregnant and doesn't want to be. She chooses an abortion.
If she has no free will as BigMike understands it, how can how she deals with it not in turn be the only possible manner in which she could have dealt with it?
What crucial point -- that I was never able not to grasp? -- do I keep missing here?
On the contrary, you comprehend only that which your brain, wholly in sync with the laws of matter, compels you to comprehend. You may think you are certain or uncertain about something, but you were never able not to.
Right?
Same with Mary. She was never able not to abort her fetus. Just as those who argue that she is morally responsible for aborting it were never able not to argue that. Everything in the world unfolds as it can only unfold. No exceptions just because the matter is now living...is now self-conscious.
Again, unless I am not thinking this all through in the most rational manner...even though what I do think is true here is my only "option"?
I agree. But what we are agreeing about here seems not quite in sync.BigMike wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 6:41 pmRegardless, I am of the opinion that she cannot do anything different. In the words of Arthur Schopenhauer, "You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life, you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing."