compatibilism

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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

BigMike wrote: Sun Aug 07, 2022 11:14 am In either case there is no free will. The real challenge is how to deal with it.
Compatibilism in a nutshell?
BigMike wrote: Sun Aug 07, 2022 11:14 am Certainly not! I believe myself to be an uncompromising determinist.
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!!
BigMike wrote: Sun Aug 07, 2022 6:41 pmI agree. No one has free will. What I meant about dealing with it, was that lack of free will has consequences. One such consequence, of course, is that there can be no moral responsibility.
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...
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.
Again, though, let's bring this back to Mary above.

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?
BigMike wrote: Sun Aug 07, 2022 6:41 pmI'm not certain I fully comprehend your question regarding Mary.
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"?
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."
I agree. But what we are agreeing about here seems not quite in sync.
Belinda
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Re: compatibilism

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henry quirk wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 5:15 pm B,
The shot should be able 100% to hit the animal in its head or its heart.
Even on a range, the best marksman won't score 100%.

In the dark, with only a hand-light, with moving targets, no one will make head or heart shots.

It's just not possible.
Well okay, but you know what I mean. Culling wild animals is not easy as a practical task. I confess I don't know the strategies of people who are licensed to kill, but I can find out as can you.
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henry quirk
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Re: compatibilism

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Culling wild animals is not easy as a practical task.
Yeah, I know. And yet: the fox population here is down, so we musta done sumthin' right.
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

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henry quirk wrote: Sun Aug 07, 2022 3:45 pmI eat animals, B. I hunt, shoot, dress & clean, cook, and eat animals, B.

I have no intention of rethinkin' diddly.
Henry in a nutshell. He has no intention of rethinking how he thinks about free will and animal rights.

And yet -- click -- he insists in turn that he has been wrong about these "big stuff" issues in the past. And that, "given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge", he could very well conclude that he is wrong again.

But not really, right?

He has spent years creating this either/or rendition of the is/ought world "in his head". It's all "somehow" linked to his God who may or may not explain it to him someday.

In the interim, however, he nestles down into his own political prejudices derived existentially from the life he lived in order to rest assured that he himself really, really, really understands the way the world works.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Belinda »

henry quirk wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:04 pm
Culling wild animals is not easy as a practical task.
Yeah, I know. And yet: the fox population here is down, so we musta done sumthin' right.
https://pestsmart.org.au/toolkit-resour ... -of-foxes/
Belinda
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Re: compatibilism

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Belinda wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:13 pm
henry quirk wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:04 pm
Culling wild animals is not easy as a practical task.
Yeah, I know. And yet: the fox population here is down, so we musta done sumthin' right.
Right? In the short term maybe. And does your "right" include minimising suffering?

https://pestsmart.org.au/toolkit-resour ... -of-foxes/
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henry quirk
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Re: compatibilism

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Belinda wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:15 pmminimising suffering?
That wasn't on anybody's list of priorities, no.

And: it won't be on our list of priorities when we do it again.
BigMike
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Re: compatibilism

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iambiguous wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 5:36 pm 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?
I like to believe that my actions and arguments reflect my beliefs, if that's what you mean by being in sync. But I am no fatalist. When I'm hungry, I find something to eat. I don't just sit around and wait for the universe to feed me out of the goodness of its heart.

I believe that my activities are driven by survival instincts reinforced by hormones to satisfy specific physical, biological, and social needs comparable to those proposed by Maslow. And in doing so, I am likewise programmed to do it in the most energy-effective manner possible (for my little brain), given the circumstances I find myself in at any given time. My experiences, memories, and knowledge, all of which are physically manifested as strengthened synapses and the growth of new axon terminals in my brain, play a significant role in the optimization process my brain does to choose the most effective course of action. So what I do today will most likely have an impact on my actions tomorrow that they could not have had otherwise, especially if I can remember what I did today, or yesterday as the case would be, since the memory of it would mean that the event caused changes to my brain. Today, I have no options. But what about tomorrow? What I do today will, perhaps only as a statistical bias, impact all of my tomorrows. And, as part of my brain's efforts to make things better in the long run, it may be best for me to constrain (in the sense of temporarily limiting my feasible domain) what I do today. My brain will, at any rate, do what it thinks is best, and that thing will become my will. It is essential to emphasize that my will does not dictate what is best, and consequently does not dictate what I do; rather, my brain's ultimate answer, which is conveyed by and results from the logic built in my neural network, determines my will.
Last edited by BigMike on Tue Aug 09, 2022 9:23 am, edited 3 times in total.
Belinda
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Re: compatibilism

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henry quirk wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:23 pm
Belinda wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:15 pmminimising suffering?
That wasn't on anybody's list of priorities, no.

And: it won't be on our list of priorities when we do it again.
How inefficient!
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Re: compatibilism

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Belinda wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 12:22 am
henry quirk wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:23 pm
Belinda wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:15 pmminimising suffering?
That wasn't on anybody's list of priorities, no.

And: it won't be on our list of priorities when we do it again.
How inefficient!
Inefficient would be holdin' each fox's paw and easin' it's passage into the fox afterworld.

Efficient is offin' a whole bunch, in a short time, when they're all bunched together.
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

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iambiguous wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 5:36 pm 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?
BigMike wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 8:11 pm I like to believe that my actions and arguments reflect my beliefs, if that's what you mean by being in sync. But I am no fatalist. When I'm hungry, I find something to eat. I don't just sit around and wait for the universe to feed me out of the goodness of its heart.
Okay, then you and I think about "no free will" differently. As I understand it -- compelled or not -- if the human brain is just more matter entirely in sync with the laws of matter, what you think and feel and say and do, whether in regard to what you believe or how you act, is all inherently, necessarily intertwined in the only possible reality. And how can that not be fated, destined?

You're hungry because biologically we are hard-wired to need food. Just as wolves and bears are. But these animals don't pull back and think about it philosophically. It's all instinct. With us however it can also be philosophical. But what if that is also just another manifestation of the brain as matter wholly in sync with the laws of matter?

Again, you dream that you are hungry. And, in the dream, just as in the waking world, you feed that hunger. But it's all a chemical and neurological "reality".

Sure, the waking world hunger and satisfying it with food may be different. But where is the definitive proof that it is?
BigMike wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 8:11 pm I believe that my activities are driven by survival instincts reinforced by hormones to satisfy specific physical, biological, and social needs comparable to those proposed by Maslow. And in doing so, I am likewise programmed to do it in the most energy-effective manner possible (for my little brain), given the circumstances I find myself in at any given time. My experiences, memories, and knowledge, all of which are physically manifested as strengthened synapses and the growth of new axon terminals in my brain, play a significant role in the optimization process my brain does to choose the most effective course of action. So what I do today will most likely have an impact on my actions tomorrow that they could not have had otherwise, especially if I can remember what I did today, or yesterday as the case would be, since the memory of it would mean that the event caused changes to my brain. Today, I have no options. But what about tomorrow? What I do today will, perhaps only as a statistical bias, impact all of my tomorrows. And, as part of my brain's efforts to make things better in the long run, it may be best for me to constrain (in the sense of temporarily limiting my feasible domain) what I do today. My brain will, at any rate, do what it thinks is best, and that thing will become my will. It is essential to emphasize that my will does not dictate what is best, and consequently does not dictate what I do; rather, my brain's ultimate answer, which is conveyed by and results from the logic built in my neural network, determines my will.
Again, from my frame of mind, you speak of what you believe, of what you remember, of what you do, etc., as though there was still this gap between your material brain and "I". It's not all entirely just your brain...there's this "will" that makes you an important component of your life and "somehow" keeps your behaviors from being fated and destined.

That's the part I don't get. That's the part no one really grasps objectively because it is still subsumed in 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.

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.
As though "logic" here is a part of you that "transcends" the fate of all matter that is not us.

In fact, discussing this can get so convoluted -- even surreal -- it's no wonder that most just skip this part and go right to God.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by BigMike »

iambiguous wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 7:10 pm
iambiguous wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 5:36 pm 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?
BigMike wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 8:11 pm I like to believe that my actions and arguments reflect my beliefs, if that's what you mean by being in sync. But I am no fatalist. When I'm hungry, I find something to eat. I don't just sit around and wait for the universe to feed me out of the goodness of its heart.
Okay, then you and I think about "no free will" differently. As I understand it -- compelled or not -- if the human brain is just more matter entirely in sync with the laws of matter, what you think and feel and say and do, whether in regard to what you believe or how you act, is all inherently, necessarily intertwined in the only possible reality. And how can that not be fated, destined?

You're hungry because biologically we are hard-wired to need food. Just as wolves and bears are. But these animals don't pull back and think about it philosophically. It's all instinct. With us however it can also be philosophical. But what if that is also just another manifestation of the brain as matter wholly in sync with the laws of matter?
In my (my brain's) previous response, you (your brain) may replace the word "I" with "my brain" in every case, and it would still be consistent with the point I (my brain) tried to get across. So, too, in this response. And, whenever I use the word "you", feel free (poor choice of words) to replace it with "your brain" if you must. Everything I do is "fated, destined," as you put it, and as I very well may have put it but for the laws of physics. I think you are trying to create a disagreement where none exists.
Now, when I look at a blue sky, I am very much aware that there is nothing blue about it at all. I am cognizant of the fact that the perceived blueness is merely a bizarre shorthand representation of electromagnetic waves with a wavelength of 450 nanometers. I don't know how you perceive "blue", nor does it matter as long as we agree to use the same word "blue" when referring to electromagnetic waves of a particular wavelength. I am a "weak" epiphenomenalist in that I think, and I might be completely wrong about this, that everything I perceive as mental is merely a shorthand representation of brain activity in different regions of my brain. But my conviction that we have no free will does in no way depend on epiphenomenalism, "weak" or "strong". It's just my way of coming to terms with the color blue, Prince's "Purple Rain", anger, and everything else I perceive mentally but is actually physics. When I said that
my brain will, at any rate, do what it thinks is best, and that thing will become my will,
the will I’m referring to is perceived, just like the blueness of the sky, it’s not real.
Let there be no misunderstanding: The universe is physical. As Leucippus said: "Naught happens for nothing, but everything from a ground and of necessity." And that included thoughts, choices, and every "mental" activity. In fact, he even said that the "soul" was made of atoms.
As though "logic" here is a part of you that "transcends" the fate of all matter that is not us.
I thought I had made it clear the "my" logic is physically hardwired in my brain by synapses of various strengths and axon terminals making various connections between neurons, like railroad tracks: Whatever my brain concludes is the result of nerve impulses (action potentials) following the neural network like trains on a track. Trains cannot leap to a new track that leads to a different destination, and nerve signals in my brain cannot jump to neurons that it is not actually connected to in order to arrive at a different conclusion than what the rules of physics mandate.
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Re: compatibilism

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henry quirk wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:23 pm
Belinda wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:15 pmminimising suffering?
That wasn't on anybody's list of priorities, no.

And: it won't be on our list of priorities when we do it again.
Not minimisng suffering is inefficient When you brutalise yourself you harm yourself in the sense of self-harm.
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Re: compatibilism

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Belinda wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 11:15 am
henry quirk wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:23 pm
Belinda wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:15 pmminimising suffering?
That wasn't on anybody's list of priorities, no.

And: it won't be on our list of priorities when we do it again.
Not minimisng suffering is inefficient When you brutalise yourself you harm yourself in the sense of self-harm.
❓
Belinda
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Belinda »

henry quirk wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:28 pm
Belinda wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 11:15 am
henry quirk wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 7:23 pm

That wasn't on anybody's list of priorities, no.

And: it won't be on our list of priorities when we do it again.
Not minimisng suffering is inefficient When you brutalise yourself you harm yourself in the sense of self-harm.
❓
Killing animals without the requisite skill to minimise their suffering is brutal. If you shoot foxes without seeing properly you can't aim for the head.

If you are carelessly brutal you harm yourself because if you repeat brutal actions they seem to become normal, especially if you are with brutal companions.
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