compatibilism

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Belinda
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Belinda »

iambiguous wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 8:08 pm
Belinda wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 11:54 am
iambiguous wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 6:45 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.
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.
Future events are not "dominoes all the way down" because future events are possibilities only. Not only is nobody omniscient, but also future events are chancy.

Absolute so-called Free Will is not a possibility because past events, although they may be forgotten, can't be undone and the whole circumstances of past events amount to necessity so the past can't be otherwise than it was. The past necessarily happened: the future is no more no less than possibility.
promethean75
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Re: compatibilism

Post by promethean75 »

"but also future events are chancy."

"the future is no more no less than possibility."

these are excellent examples of the nonsensicality of philosophical statements. no offense B and thank u for the opportunity. but how can the 'future' or 'future events' be 'chancy' or only 'possibility' if they don't yet exist?

perhaps you are trying to describe how things that will happen in the future, come about? if so, they come about by and through certain orders of causes and effects. one wouldn't really describe these orders as 'chancy' would one?
Flannel Jesus
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Flannel Jesus »

promethean75 wrote: Mon Jan 23, 2023 3:50 pmif so, they come about by and through certain orders of causes and effects. one wouldn't really describe these orders as 'chancy' would one?
Why is this out of the question? I find the proposition decidedly within the realm of possibility.
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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.

Freedom is Dead and We Have Killed It

Let us assume that one of the following two situations obtains at some not-too-distant point in the future: either that definitive scientific proof is provided of the unreality of human choice or that although conclusive proof of this unreality is not yet attained, the balance of evidence suggests it.
What this points to for some however is just how surreal all of this is. Suppose the opposite occurs. One day it is announced that the scientific community is all in agreement that 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.

...has been cracked. The human species has acquired some measure of autonomy. On the other hand, that, in and of itself, might just be but another inherent manifestation of a wholly determined universe...the only possible reality.

But how to wrap our heads around human brains discovering that which human brains could never have not discovered: that we really are just nature's dominoes toppling over onto each other on cue.
In either scenario, the ideas of human freedom and moral responsibility must be renounced by any honest and thoughtful individual who weighs the evidence.
Again: weighs the evidence only as it ever could have been weighed because human honesty and thoughtfulness themselves are no less psychological illusions.

Same with this...
Imagine next that this becomes the conventional wisdom, spreading irresistibly until the idea has taken hold of humanity, compelling a new and unprecedented reckoning with our nature.
Again, what am I missing? It's as though the author here is suggesting a wholly determined "human condition" but is still asking us to imagine things just as a libertarian might? The whole point is that the "reckoning" is compelled.

So, sure, I'm thinking, "it must be me...I'm just not getting his point". When his point [to me] seems to be that I was never able to freely opt to get it.

Then just more of the same...
Only in imagining this has one begun to contemplate the crisis which Nietzsche predicts, and with which he envisages his name being associated. A world in which deterministic ideas have become moral principles, really believed in and lived by the vast majority of humankind, defines the dimensions of the Nietzschean crisis.
A "crisis" that could never have been otherwise? How to encompass human brains discussing a crisis when the brains themselves could never have not discussed it other than as they are compelled to by the immutable laws of matter. Then me necessarily typing these words and you necessarily reading them.
Here, the conviction that a human being cannot realistically be held accountable for their actions is the norm. This would be a world in which there is no longer any concept of criminal responsibility. No longer would blame or merit be possible. The task confronting humanity as a whole is to wrestle with and reckon with the consequences of this new conventional wisdom. There are good reasons to believe that humanity, confronted with this refutation of its most cherished and sustaining illusions, would ultimately destroy itself.
Same thing. A conviction that could have not been a conviction. Concepts that could never have been otherwise. Responsibility that is no less a psychological illusion "somehow" built into the human brain when matter acquired life here on planet Earth. Reasons that are neither good nor bad when all reasons are only as they must be.

Ultimate destruction only because there was never the possibility of no destruction. Just as ultimately Mary aborts Jane because there could never be a reality where she didn't.
What then is to be done if humankind is to survive passing into this Nietzschean era where belief in the freedom of the will has been renounced?
What then is to be done?!!! Exactly as the libertarian would put it, right?
Belinda
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Belinda »

promethean75 wrote: Mon Jan 23, 2023 3:50 pm "but also future events are chancy."

"the future is no more no less than possibility."

these are excellent examples of the nonsensicality of philosophical statements. no offense B and thank u for the opportunity. but how can the 'future' or 'future events' be 'chancy' or only 'possibility' if they don't yet exist?

perhaps you are trying to describe how things that will happen in the future, come about? if so, they come about by and through certain orders of causes and effects. one wouldn't really describe these orders as 'chancy' would one?


Possibility and not yet existing are the same. If an event is impossible it will not only not exist yet, it cannot exist.

I describe the future as in part "chancy" because I believe existence is made by man and other sentient animals. Existence is not an exact fit for anyone's intentions but is a posteriori.
promethean75
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Re: compatibilism

Post by promethean75 »

"Why is this out of the question? I find the proposition decidedly within the realm of possibility."

apologizes FJ but i don't understand the question.

"I believe existence is made by man and other sentient animals. Existence is not an exact fit for anyone's intentions but is a posteriori."

i feel like you had an idea but u explained it wrong there. prolly a much better way to say what you were tryna say. as it stands I don't even know what any of that means. i call for a do-over.
Flannel Jesus
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Flannel Jesus »

promethean75 wrote: Mon Jan 23, 2023 10:39 pm "Why is this out of the question? I find the proposition decidedly within the realm of possibility."

apologizes FJ but i don't understand the question.
You made it sound like it's obviously impossible that casualty could work in a "chancy" way. I don't think it's obviously impossible, I think it's very possible. I'm asking you why you seem to think that description of reality is so obviously incorrect.
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

From ILP:
Flannel Jesus wrote:
iambiguous wrote:
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.
That doesn't mean we're stuck.

You started this conversation with incredulity that anybody could have compatibilist views.
No, I start all discussions of free will by noting the gap between what any of us think that we know about it "in our head" and all that none of us really grasp for certain about it 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.

The part where our brains are explaining something when we have no capacity to grasp the limitations of brain matter itself going all the way back to where the human condition itself fits into why there is something instead of nothing and why it is this somethng and not something else.

Then -- click -- the part where "here and now" I am not myself able to grasp how compatibilists can reconcile determinism and moral responsibility. The part where Mary asks, "if I was compelled by my brain to abort Jane -- never able not to abort her -- how can I be held morally responsible for doing so?" Unless of course in a wholly determined universe as some understand it, the compatibilists themselves are never able to not insist that she was morally responsible.

Then the more we try to untangle all of these profound imponderables the more tangled up we get.

Then those rabid objectivists among us like peacegirl finally able to grasp the implications of that for their own dogmatic "my way or the highway" convictions.
iambiguous wrote:
But what I still find fascinating is how some will argue that...

1] Mary was never able not to abort her unborn fetus but, that...
2] Mary is still morally responsible for doing so
Flannel Jesus wrote: And then I offered to explain some arguments
Okay -- click -- you are able to opt freely to offer explanatory arguments. Or -- No Click -- you are offering us only what you could never have not offered us. The part where we are all stuck.
Flannel Jesus wrote: Honestly it kind of rests on exactly what you mean by "morally responsible". I can make a case for a form of moral responsibility that is completely compatible with "she couldn't have done otherwise".

And I can also make a case for the argument that lessening determinism doesn't actually give her more responsibility for her actions.
Okay -- click -- let's hear it.
Flannel Jesus wrote: It doesn't matter that we have different angles for that conversation to continue. The only thing that matters is that you care enough to understand the other angle, in order to resolve your incredulity.

If you don't care to understand the angle, then your subsequent approach to the conversation makes total sense. But if you do care to understand the angle, the angle you're fascinated by apparently, then all you have to do is listen. Put your angle to the side for the duration of a conversation and listen. Ask questions, answer questions, have a conversation, try to sate the curiosity you apparently have in this angle you say you're fascinated by -- that doesn't seem massively difficult to me. If I was fascinated in another position, that's exactly what I'd do: find someone who says they understand it, and listen to them.
No, the only thing that matters to some is that we have no capacity -- scientifically, experimentally, experientially, empirically etc. -- to demonstrate that what we do care about we opted freely to care about it.

Or have you accomplished this?
Flannel Jesus wrote: The offer's still on the table for you to do that. Committing to listen to another person doesn't mean committing to changing your mind, it just involves having a conversation and trying to understand. That's it. I trust you to be able to do that, and there aren't a lot of people on this forum I'd rather do that with than with you pal. So if you're as fascinated as you say you are, there's the offer.
Again, sure, there's a part of me that is no less convinced than the libertarians that I possess the free will necessary to listen to the arguments of those convinced that they are free to offer such arguments.

So -- click -- let's hear it.

On the other hand, tonight I might have a dream in which I listen to someone reconcile determinism and moral responsibility. And, in the dream, I am no less convinced that it is not a dream at all. That I am of my own volition choosing to listen. But then I wake up and think, "wow, that 'reality' was entirely the creation of my brain, chemically and neurologically!"

Then, of course, those who will absolutely insist that with the waking brain, it's all different. They "just know" that it is.
promethean75
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Re: compatibilism

Post by promethean75 »

"You made it sound like it's obviously impossible that casualty could work in a "chancy" way. I don't think it's obviously impossible, I think it's very possible."

when u look carefully at what the word means in ordinary language and in specialized mathematical language u see that it makes little sense to describe causality as 'chancy' becuz nothing about it is similar to what is being described by ordinary and mathematical language.

for example, Joe's chances are slim. this is a prediction that Joe won't get the job or make the yellow light. but whether or not he does makes no difference. whatever ends up happening was the effect of antecedent events, forces, processes, material circumstances, etc.

the 'chances' of these things happening is something altogether different than how they happen, why they happen.

u know what i mean, Vern? when mathematicians talk about chaos and probability and randomness and all that shit, they aren't describing why things are ordered as they are, but how they are ordered as they are, incidentally, at any given time in any given system.

order, necessity, and causality as absolute features of the material universe are understood almost purely a priori and must be deduced through reasoning alone from self evident truths (your boy spinz did a joint on that)... becuz like 'freewill', causation isn't observable either. cue Hume.

but u see what i mean when I'm like wait why did he just describe causality as chancy.
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

From ILP:
Flannel Jesus wrote: You invited me to give you a rundown of the thought process I have, but this post of yours indicates you'd rather focus on your own thoughts than mine. If you want to know why someone is a compatibilist, you'll have to do more listening. I'm here to explain the thought process as it works for me. That's what I thought you were interested in when you said "let's hear it".
Click.

Simply unbelievable. Well, given my own [compelled or not] reaction, of course.

If you wish to pursue these "it's all about iambiguous" word games, let's just move on to others instead.

On the other hand, if you do have an interest in encompassing your own understanding of compatibilism given this...
What would you tell Mary if she asked you "if I was compelled by my brain to abort Jane -- was never able not to abort her -- how can I be held morally responsible for doing so?"

Then [from my frame of mind] this part:

Unless of course in a wholly determined universe as some understand it, the compatibilists themselves are never able to not insist that she was morally responsible.
...let's hear it.

Forget that I am here altogether. It's just you and Mary. It is all about being "streamlined" with her. Only provide her with an actual argument that compatibilists might give explaining to her how, even though there was never any possibility of her not aborting Jane going back to whatever set into motion the laws of matter [including "somehow" living brain matter], she is still morally responsible for doing so. Just not in the way that the libertarians might encompass free will.
Flannel Jesus wrote: I'm sure everything I've said sounds very rude, but I started this thread for a reason, to offer a very specific service to you, and I want to focus on that and only that.
No, it sounds ridiculous. It sounds like the sort of "wiggle, wiggle, wiggle" intellectual contraption posts I get from AJ over at PN in regard to race and Jews.






Note to the compatibilists here:

Same thing. Pretend that I am not here at all. It's just you and Mary and the surreal assumption that -- click -- you do have free will and can opt to choose of our own volition how determinism and moral responsibility are compatible.


Oh, and for her and the other God World folks, have a go at reconciling an omniscient God with human autonomy.

And an important point is that, given whatever measure of free will I might have, I flat out admit this may all be about me simply not understanding compatibilism in the most rational manner.
Flannel Jesus
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Flannel Jesus »

iambiguous wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 8:50 pm From ILP:
What's the point of posting your response to me here and not ILP?

You asked me to explain something to you, and then instead of engaging with me in my explanation you tangented off into your own take. If you want my take, listen to my take. If you don't want it, keep doing what you're doing.

But skip the cross posting shit please
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

Flannel Jesus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 8:53 pm
iambiguous wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 8:50 pm From ILP:
What's the point of posting your response to me here and not ILP?

You asked me to explain something to you, and then instead of engaging with me in my explanation you tangented off into your own take. If you want my take, listen to my take. If you don't want it, keep doing what you're doing.

But skip the cross posting shit please
Click.

Different audience.



How about this...

In a wholly determined universe as some understand it, I was never able to not post it at both forums.

Now, for the compatibilists among us, please explain how you reconcile this with my still being responsible for doing so.

In other words, I was never able to freely opt to not post it at both forums, but I can still be scolded justly by you for doing so.



Note to Mary:

Maybe next time.
Flannel Jesus
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Flannel Jesus »

iambiguous wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 11:13 pm
Flannel Jesus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 8:53 pm
iambiguous wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 8:50 pm From ILP:
What's the point of posting your response to me here and not ILP?

You asked me to explain something to you, and then instead of engaging with me in my explanation you tangented off into your own take. If you want my take, listen to my take. If you don't want it, keep doing what you're doing.

But skip the cross posting shit please
Click.

Different audience.



How about this...

In a wholly determined universe as some understand it, I was never able to not post it at both forums.

Now, for the compatibilists among us, please explain how you reconcile this with my still being responsible for doing so.

In other words, I was never able to freely opt to not post it at both forums, but I can still be scolded justly by you for doing so.



Note to Mary:

Maybe next time.
Randomness doesn't give you responsibility. If you accept the concept of responsibility in an indeterminate universe, and the only difference between indeterminism and determinism is randomness, and it's true that randomness doesn't grant you responsibility, then you have exactly as much responsibility in a deterministic universe as you do in an indeterminate one.
Belinda
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Belinda »

promethean75 wrote: Mon Jan 23, 2023 10:39 pm "Why is this out of the question? I find the proposition decidedly within the realm of possibility."

apologizes FJ but i don't understand the question.

"I believe existence is made by man and other sentient animals. Existence is not an exact fit for anyone's intentions but is a posteriori."

i feel like you had an idea but u explained it wrong there. prolly a much better way to say what you were tryna say. as it stands I don't even know what any of that means. i call for a do-over.

Thanks for inviting a second chance.

Existence, the world each of us see around us, is something living creatures have to deal with if they want to stay alive. Men try to make sense of what we see around us so we can try to predict what will happen next. Whatever happens next and what happened in the past is a matter of how a man explains and describes it. There is no perfect man who knows it all.

There may be great laws of nature, of science, or of God but nobody can be sure they know all that for certain, or even if such great laws even exist.
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phyllo
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Re: compatibilism

Post by phyllo »

Flannel Jesus wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2023 8:47 am
iambiguous wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 11:13 pm
Flannel Jesus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 8:53 pm

What's the point of posting your response to me here and not ILP?

You asked me to explain something to you, and then instead of engaging with me in my explanation you tangented off into your own take. If you want my take, listen to my take. If you don't want it, keep doing what you're doing.

But skip the cross posting shit please
Click.

Different audience.



How about this...

In a wholly determined universe as some understand it, I was never able to not post it at both forums.

Now, for the compatibilists among us, please explain how you reconcile this with my still being responsible for doing so.

In other words, I was never able to freely opt to not post it at both forums, but I can still be scolded justly by you for doing so.



Note to Mary:

Maybe next time.
Randomness doesn't give you responsibility. If you accept the concept of responsibility in an indeterminate universe, and the only difference between indeterminism and determinism is randomness, and it's true that randomness doesn't grant you responsibility, then you have exactly as much responsibility in a deterministic universe as you do in an indeterminate one.
He doesn't think it's about randomness.

He thinks free-will gives you some sort of magic mojo which lets you respond in an unlimited way in any situation.
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