compatibilism

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Age
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Age »

iambiguous wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:12 pm How about this rendition of determinism...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/26/opin ... ation.html

"For these reasons, I’ve sat out many of the debates about the simulation hypothesis that have been bubbling through tech communities since the early 2000s, when Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford, floated the idea in a widely cited essay.

"But a brain-bending new book by the philosopher David Chalmers — “Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy” — has turned me into a hard-core simulationist.

"After reading and talking to Chalmers, I’ve come to believe that the coming world of virtual reality might one day be regarded as every bit as real as real reality. If that happens, our current reality will instantly be cast into doubt; after all, if we could invent meaningful virtual worlds, isn’t it plausible that some other civilization somewhere else in the universe might have done so, too? Yet if that’s possible, how could we know that we’re not already in its simulation?


It would NOT matter one iota BECAUSE this is ALL happening in thee One and ONLY ACTUAL Reality.
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:12 pm "The conclusion seems inescapable: We may not be able to prove that we are in a simulation, but at the very least, it will be a possibility that we can’t rule out.


It does NOT matter BECAUSE we can ALWAYS get to thee One and ONLY ACTUAL and IRREFUTABLE Truth of 'things'. Or, get to Reality, Itself.

iambiguous wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:12 pm But it could be more than that. Chalmers argues that if we’re in a simulation, there’d be no reason to think it’s the only simulation; in the same way that lots of different computers today are running Microsoft Excel, lots of different machines might be running an instance of the simulation.


And, 'you', human beings, evolved to think about 'things' this way ONLY BECAUSE 'you' had already evolved enough to be able to first create computers, "yourselves". Before this 'this' would NOT have ever even been an issue.

Self-made IMAGINED worlds do NOT necessarily have absolutely ANY thing AT ALL to do with what is ACTUALLY REAL and True.
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:12 pm If that was the case, simulated worlds would vastly outnumber non-sim worlds — meaning that, just as a matter of statistics, it would be not just possible that our world is one of the many simulations but likely. Chalmers writes that “the chance we are sims is at least 25 percent or so.


Just making up SOME figure "one's" 'self', and then expressing that number, just like "veritas aequitas" does, does NOT make that percentile anymore 'real' NOR 'true'.
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:12 pm "Chalmers is a professor of philosophy at New York University, and he has spent much of his career thinking about the mystery of consciousness. He is best known for coining the phrase “the hard problem of consciousness,” which, roughly, is a description of the difficulty of explaining why a certain experience feels like that experience to the being experiencing it. (Don’t worry if this hurts your head; it’s not called the hard problem for nothing.)


It is ONLY called a "hard problem" to FOOL those who are NOT YET ready to SEE just how EASY, and SIMPLE, this so-called "problem" REALLY IS to SOLVE and COMPLETE.

Learn and understand what the 'being' referred to REALLY IS, then the rest just follows on from there, VERY EASILY.
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:12 pm "Chalmers says that he began thinking deeply about the nature of simulated reality after using V.R. headsets like Oculus Quest 2 and realizing that the technology is already good enough to create situations that feel viscerally real.

"Virtual reality is now advancing so quickly that it seems quite reasonable to guess that the world inside V.R. could one day be indistinguishable from the world outside it. Chalmers says this could happen within a century; I wouldn’t be surprised if we passed that mark within a few decades.


Okay. So, this is what 'you' and "another" 'thinks', but what has this got o do with ANY thing here?
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:12 pm "Whenever it happens, the development of realistic V.R. will be earthshaking, for reasons both practical and profound. The practical ones are obvious: If people can easily flit between the physical world and virtual ones that feel exactly like the physical world, which one should we regard as real?"
People are FREE to regard 'real' absolutely ANY thing that they like.

iambiguous wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:12 pm So, if we are in some extraterrestrial alien's "sim world", how would that be the same or different from hard determinism as the embodiment of nature itself?
That is one BIG IF. Now, IF 'you' are in some extraterrestrial alien's "sim world", or not, then what is 'it' the actual question 'you' are asking here is asking, EXACTLY?

It would NOT matter one iota if 'you' are in some extraterrestrial alien's "sim world" or in ANY OTHER world, 'you' are STILL HERE-NOW in this One and ONLY Truly Natural Universe.
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:12 pm Well, in part, I suppose, it would depend on whether this alien civilization was no less the embodiment of the laws of matter. Nature "programed" them to "program" us. And then going back to how it all fits into the ontological -- teleological? -- understanding of existence itself.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Age »

promethean75 wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 7:58 am Yeah that article is toying with the question of the nature of reality, what is real, not with the concept of causation. So SIMS or not, I still agree with Harris: freewill is an impossibility in any conceivable material system.The universe does not play dice.
What do the words 'free will' mean or refer to, to you?
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Age »

Skepdick wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 10:01 am
promethean75 wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 9:58 am Actually no, leibniz talks of individual monads made up of unique substances, which doesn't square with spinoza's substance monism. Here's the famous dispute: https://frankdevita.wordpress.com/2012/ ... d-spinoza/

One of the difficulties with spinoza is understanding what is meant by 'substance', tho. It appears to be an abstract term for 'matter', but he denies that in fact and alludes to the notion of substance as 'that which stands beneath'. Look spinz'll get pretty fuckin cryptic at times so you gotta watch em.
The debate is moot. What one means by "substance" and what one means by "meaning" is a debate over connotation not denotation.

To a Monist "substance", "matter" and "energy" and "the universe" connote AND denote the same damn thing. Is just words.

The stupidity of it all is born right in the question "What is the nature of the world?". The question is what triggers the very state of confusion.

What is the nature of the world?
What is the nature of nature?
What is nature?
What is the world?
Nature is nature!
The world is the world!
Nature is the world!

Part and parcel of the confusion is the notion of "a priori" vs "a posteriori". Such a metaphysic does not account for time itself being a metaphysical phenomenon.

There is no such thing as "time" to any metaphysician without memory. But memory is space. But space and time can be traded off against each other!

Uh! Oh! Down the infinite regress hole we go.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space%E2% ... e_tradeoff
There is NO infinite regression once one KNOWS what thee ACTUAL Truth IS, EXACTLY.
Age
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Age »

Do 'you', posters, here even YET KNOW that what 'you', human beings, have been essentially ARGUING and FIGHTING over for centuries and millennia now is just your OWN INTERPRETATIONS of what the 'words' you are using mean or refer to, EXACTLY?

And, to PROVE this IRREFUTABLE True, or False, just see if you can come together on AGREEMENT and ACCEPTANCE of what the 'words' you use in the 'this' VERSUS 'that' discussions ACTUALLY 'mean' or 'refer to'. Then 'you' WILL FIND the very reason WHY, for centuries and millennia now, 'you' are STILL FIGHTING and ARGUING over the EXACT SAME 'issues'.

The ARGUING and FIGHTING is NOT, and NEVER WAS, caused because of whether "one side" was right or not but because 'you' have and use DIFFERENT versions or definitions for the EXACT SAME 'word'.

FIND OUT what the 'words' ACTUALLY could 'mean' or 'refer to' with what ACTUALLY EXISTS, then the rest just FALLS INTO PLACE.

And to PROVE what WILL ACTUALLY HAPPEN, begin by coming together PEACEFULLY and FIND OUT what 'you' can ALL AGREE ON and ACCEPT as the DEFINITION or MEANING for the 'words' 'free will AND 'determinism'.

Then you are ABLE TO DISCUSS, LOGICALLY.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by promethean75 »

"What do the words 'free will' mean or refer to, to you?"

Judging from how I've seen you use the phrase and talk about what you think it means and implies, I conclude that you'd not understand anything I might explain to you, about it. So imma pass on this one, if I may. However, I will list some of the best writing on the subject you'll ever find, EXACTLY.

David Hume, Of Liberty and Necessity

Roderick M. Chisholm, Human Freedom and the Self

Peter van Inwagen, The Powers of Rational Beings: Freedom of the Will

Richard Taylor, Freedom and Determinism

Harry G. Frankfurt, Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility

Harry G. Frankfurt, Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person
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Immanuel Can
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Immanuel Can »

Age wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 10:37 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 6:22 pm
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 5:18 pm We clearly have a "failure to communicate" here. So, I'll leave it at that.
I'm sad to say that those words could be written across any conversation anybody here has ever tried to have with "Age."
YES, and for the EXACT SAME REASON. That is; I say and write 'things' here, and 'you', posters, ALL FAIL COMPLETELY to 'comprehend' and 'understand' those 'things'.
Yes...it's your sheer amazingness. We are unworthy...all of us...and the failure of all your conversations is in nowise on you. You're just too great... :roll:

There's an old saying, and it certainly applies here:
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Terrapin Station
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Terrapin Station »

iambiguous wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 10:27 pm From my frame of mind, if the human brain is entirely in sync with the laws of matter, then there was never any possibility of this friend not choosing the abortion.
So, for one, although it's frustrating that this aspect of the discussion never goes anywhere (I don't know if it simply doesn't register with folks when you say it, or if they're simply not interested or what . . .), I'm not a realist on "laws of matter." That is, I don't believe that there are literally something like laws that everything necessarily, deterministically works via.

"Laws of physics" are generalizations, ways that we think about some regularities that we observe. But I don't believe that there is any good reason to believe that there are literally laws somehow "behind" everything or somehow "embedded" in everything, and further, I think the idea quickly becomes rather incoherent, as I'm prone to nominalism (including) in the sense that I don't accept that any "real abstracts" exist ("real" there means "objective" or "mind-independent").
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Age »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:18 pm
Age wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 10:37 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 6:22 pm
I'm sad to say that those words could be written across any conversation anybody here has ever tried to have with "Age."
YES, and for the EXACT SAME REASON. That is; I say and write 'things' here, and 'you', posters, ALL FAIL COMPLETELY to 'comprehend' and 'understand' those 'things'.
Yes...it's your sheer amazingness. We are unworthy...all of us...and the failure of all your conversations is in nowise on you. You're just too great... :roll:

There's an old saying, and it certainly applies here:
Common now "immanuel can" you could NOT even ACT this STUPID and IGNORANT here, let alone be this STUPID and IGNORANT here.

I have continually STATED that I am here, in this forum, to LEARN how to BETTER communicate with 'you', human beings. So, this OBVIOUSLY MEANS that while 'you', human beings, are continually FAILING COMPLETELY to 'comprehend' and 'understand' the 'things' that I say and write here, then this IS MY FAULT COMPLETELY. As I am STILL in the PROCESS of LEARNING.

But, do NOT FORGET that I am also NOT necessarily saying and writing 'things' here for 'you', posters, to EVER 'comprehend' NOR 'understand'.

As I continually say as well, I am just USING 'you', posters, here to ACHIEVE my GOALS.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Age »

promethean75 wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:02 pm "What do the words 'free will' mean or refer to, to you?"

Judging from how I've seen you use the phrase and talk about what you think it means and implies, I conclude that you'd not understand anything I might explain to you, about it. So imma pass on this one, if I may. However, I will list some of the best writing on the subject you'll ever find, EXACTLY.
LOL HERE is a PERFECT EXAMPLE of one who ASSUMES what I think 'free will' means and implies, but NEVER took even one second to CLARIFY.

And, I could probably make a CERTAIN BET that this one REALLY has absolutely NO idea NOR clue as to what the words 'free will' even mean or refer to, to me. But, considering this one has ALREADY PROVED to be an absolute COWARD to CHALLENGERS I will NOT even try again.

Also, considering the Fact that YOUR ASSUMPTION is probably the EXACT OPPOSITE of what I ACTUALLY do MEAN and REFER TO EXACTLY, you, LAUGHABLE, "conclusion" that I would NOT understand ANY thing you might explain to me about 'free will' just PROVES how STUPID and COWARDLY these people REALLY WERE, back in those "OLDEN DAYS".

I would just ask them the MOST SIMPLEST and MOST STRAIGHTFORWARD of CLARIFYING QUESTIONS, in regards to what THEY SAY and CLAIM, and they would just consistently RUN AWAY and HIDE behind some ABSOLUTE LIE and/or EXCUSE. Which makes this all the more HILARIOUS to continue to OBSERVE and POINT OUT to 'you', FAR MORE OPEN and INTELLIGENT ones.

This one here is SO MUCH of a COWARD that 'it' can NOT even PROVIDE just a HINT of what the words 'free will' means or refers to, to 'it'.

I wonder if 'it' now EXPECTS us to LISTEN to 'it' if 'it' EVER says ANYMORE about 'free will'?
promethean75 wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:02 pm David Hume, Of Liberty and Necessity

Roderick M. Chisholm, Human Freedom and the Self

Peter van Inwagen, The Powers of Rational Beings: Freedom of the Will

Richard Taylor, Freedom and Determinism

Harry G. Frankfurt, Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility

Harry G. Frankfurt, Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person
LOL
LOL and,
LOL

This is what some call the "best writings about 'free will'.

Yet, NOT one of these writings has gotten 'you', human beings, hitherto when this was being written, ANY closer to what thee One and ONLY ACTUAL Truth IS here. In fact it could be argued that these writings have just caused MORE CONFUSION among 'you', human beings, in the days when this was being written.

Talk about making one of the MOST SIMPLEST and EASIEST topics in philosophical discussions to RESOLVE, FULLY, Truly FAR MORE HARDER and COMPLEX than it NEVER needed to be.
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Re: compatibilism

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Terrapin Station wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:20 pm "Laws of physics" are generalizations, ways that we think about some regularities that we observe. But I don't believe that there is any good reason to believe that there are literally laws somehow "behind" everything or somehow "embedded" in everything, and further, I think the idea quickly becomes rather incoherent, as I'm prone to nominalism (including) in the sense that I don't accept that any "real abstracts" exist ("real" there means "objective" or "mind-independent").
That's right. Calling the principles by which science describes the nature of physical phenomena, "laws," is probably a mistake. The so-called laws of physics (and the physical sciences generally) are not, "rules," or, "mandates," that physical existence is obliged to, "obey." They are only descriptions or explanations of what exists and how that existence is observed to behave.

Science neither asks or attempts to answer the question, "why things are as they are?" That wrong question is premised on the baseless assumption that existence is contingent on something else. Science assumes existence is what it is and only seeks to answer, "what is there and what is it's nature."

You are also right that so-called laws of science (like all other knowledge) do not exist independently of human minds. There is no Platonic realism. [But, "nominalism," is not quite right. It's, "conceptualism," that is the correct opposite of, "realism." But I pass on the epistemology for now.]

How is it that you managed to escape the mind-corrupting influence of the dominant academic philosophers, which most of those around here embrace? You must do that thing which is considered heresy by most philosophers--think for yourself.
Last edited by RCSaunders on Thu Jan 27, 2022 5:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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iambiguous
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:27 pm
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 3:58 am Indeed, the more you delve into it, the more perplexing -- exasperating -- it can become. An antinomy. On the one hand, it seems clear that if the brain is but more matter, it is not the exception to the laws of matter. On the other hand, it seems certain that we are in fact able to freely choose among options. It's somewhat analogous to the inhabitants of Flat World trying to grapple with the existence of our own three dimensional world. How to finally connect the two both theoretically and "for all practical purposes".
Right. And yet, we have to. Because you and I have to wake up each day, and decide whether "choosing" something is worth doing. So as tough as it is, it's not the sort of question that we can shelve until we find a practical application for it; the practical application is, in fact, everything we do, every day.

How ironic.
That's about it. Whether we are really free to choose doesn't alter the fact that it certainly seems to be that way. Also, the fact that the behavors that we "choose" [being wholly determined], choose [autonomously] or "choose" [an unfatiomable combination of both] results in very, very real consequences for ourselves and others. So, we take what amounts to a Kierkegaardian leap of faith to volition and, from the cradle to the grave, do what we do. Or, for whatever personal reason, decide to stop doing it and snuff ourself out.
Then the part where "for all practical purposes" those who lead successful, accomplished lives insist that it is all of their own doing, while those who lead lives that are anything but can think to themselves "well, it's all 'beyond my control' anyway".
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:27 pmYes, you've got it. And this brings us to the point where the ethicists become involved. For it's a matter of what they call "praise" and "blame."

To illustrate, if I win the Academy Award for best picture...do I deserve it? I'd like to think, yes. But if my production was merely the cumulation of previous inevitable forces, why am I on the podium, taking the award and smiling? Should not every Academy Award simply be given to "the Universe"? :wink:
That's always the part that I tend to focus on. Especially in regard to "moral responsibility". Since my main interest in philosophy revolves around the question, "how ought one to live in a world bursting at the seams with both conflicting goods and contingency, chance and change?", I can't help but wonder if I have any actual capacity to either ask or to answer the question...freely?
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:27 pmAnd on the other hand, if I am caught standing over a body, with a bloody knife in my hands, and I say, "Well, her death was inevitable, given the previous causal-material chains in play," is that an excuse for my actions? Should the only entity in jail actually be "the Universe," too?
Back to Leopold and Loeb and just how far one does take determinism in our lives.
If, an hour ago, God knows I am going to be typing these words, how could I not be typing them?
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:27 pmYou obviously ARE going to be typing them, then. But again, we need to realize what the shape of the problem really is: it's not with God's foreknowledge, or "omniscience," but only with the conjunction of omniscience with some sort of divine action of compulsion or force.

To say again: "knowing" is not "making." For you see, I did anticipate that you would, in some form, respond to this message. You might say I knew you would respond -- and as it turns out, it seems that my knowledge of that fact was correct, too. You might say I had "perfect foreknowledge" that you would respond.

Of course, my knowledge is never "perfect." Still, in this case, it was verifiably correct, and we cannot now doubt it, can we?
This distinction may be clear to you but it is not to me. If what God knows about me is everything [past, present and future] then there would be no distinction to make in my mind. If, for example, an hour from now, I walk out into the street and shoot dead the first person I see, where does an Omniscient God fit in there? From my frame of mind omniscience involves Him knowing I would do this and thus I must do it. My thinking and my acting would seem seamlessly intertwined in God's all-knowing vantage point. Otherwise it's "all knowing" with an asterisk.

Though I'm the first to admit I may well not be thinking this through correctly. But what does that even mean in discussions of God?
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:27 pmBut my question to you might be this: "Did my knowing MAKE you write back to me?" Did I seize your hand, and move it on the keyboard for you? Did I compel the surges in your brain, through my foreknowing of what you would do, so that you no longer had a choice but had to write back?

Or is the case much simpler? Can I know what you're going to do, and not make you do it?
More to the point, it would seem, is this: are the laws of nature making both of us just inherent/necessary components of an exchange toppling over like so many dominoes. If nature "seizes" me to type these words and then "seizes" you to read them, it's still the only possible reality in the only possible world. Knowing and making are interchangable in brains that, even in making a distinction, could never not make it.

We just don't know.
Same thing with regard to theodicy. Theodicy and so-called "acts of God". Natural disasters here on planet Earth that have destroyed the lives of millions. If God was only able to create planet Earth in accordance with the laws of matter then He is not really responsible for the natural disasters themselves.
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:27 pmWell, He'd at least be responsible for starting the causal chain and setting up the law-conditions that made the disaster possible. But you're right: it wouldn't necessarily mean he had personally engineered the rockslide or the tidal wave.
True. Unless in a way that goes back to what we don't know -- can't know? -- about existence itself the laws of matter themselves were responsibile for the existence of God. Or, we can go the route of Harold Kushner: God set into motion the laws of matter that resulted in "natural disasters" [or covid viruses] on planet Earth but He is not omnipotent.
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:27 pmBut as far as theodicy goes, Susan Neiman, in her book Evil In Modern Thought, comes up with a useful distinction between personal disasters (like murder or fraud, say, where there is a definite human agent involved) and natural disasters (like avalanches, earthquakes and cancers, where there is no discernable human agent responsible for what happened). And she says (quite rightly, I think) that any proper theodicy would have to deal with both kinds of "evil," not just shift everything to one or the other.

So that's a good way to structure the theodicy problem, I would think.
I think it comes back again to the mystery of mind itself. It's easy to grasp "external" constraints/compulsions in our life. Someone puts a gun to your head or circumstances all around you unfold such that you really have no viable option but to behave in a particular way. But "internally" your thoughts and feelings just seem -- viscerally -- to be all your own. In a way that is different from external factors.
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:27 pmThat's nicely put. I think that's right: we do seem to feel a kind of "existential" difference, don't we? And it's something that a Materialist or Physicalist explanation is going to have to say is nonsense. For them, it cannot be the case that internal and external inducements have any real difference, since ultimately, both must originate externally.

The short step toward the internal, just before we act, must be something that creates or induces the illusion of difference...but no real difference actually exists, they would have to say. Our "internality," like "externalities," are just physical-material actions.
That's basically what the "hard guys and gals" studying the human brain scientifically are up against. What is really going on chemically and neurologically in the brain that makes "I" different internally? The part where mind matter becomes willful. If it does.
But suppose there is no difference?

Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:27 pmYes, that would have to be what they would have to insist.
So, then it comes down to if they ever can. In, for example, our own lifetimes. In the interim, all of us seem to have little choice [pun in intended] but to take our own existential leap to free will, determinism or compatibilism. Though to me, compatibilism itself is still beyond my capacity to really grasp. Especially in regard to moral responsibility.
Then back to how we can finally know for sure.

Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:27 pmHere we do get into epistemology.

For we then have to ask, is that a reasonable expectation on our part? How much of what we call "knowledge" do we actually possess on a "for sure" basis? And if we don't need, in order to get up in the morning, to know "for sure" that there will be a floor beneath our feet when we put them down, how important is it for human creatures to possess "for sure" knowledge?

Doesn't high-probabilty knowledge function for us as if it were "for sure" in most things we do? Don't we feel quite secure in putting our feet down to the floor in the morning? And wouldn't we regard it as a little petty and "philosophical" in the worst sense of that word, if somebody were to say, "Well, you really didn't know for sure that the floor would be there"?
Yes, and then the part where we go out on to the very end of the metaphysical limb: solipsism, sim worlds, dream worlds, the red pill/blue pill from the Matrix.

This and Donald Rumsfeld's contribution:

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."

Especially in regard to the Big Questions in philosophy.
Only even when we do convince ourselves that we finally know for sure that might be only because given the laws of matter no less applicable to the human brain we were never able not to convince ourselves of this.
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:27 pmAh, yes...this is a major, major problem.

If my knowledge is actualy reporting to me not on the basis of things true but on the basis of whatever previous material-physical chains caused me to think, why should I trust the pronouncements of my own brain?

This is a very serious, but little realized, critique of the Materialist or Physicalists worldviews: if Materialism is true, then science is not a matter of truths being discovered; rather, its products are simply whatever the material-physical causes dumped into my material-physical brain. How should I privilege scientific "dumpings" of that kind above any regular "dumpings" of ordinary events?

It's like we would have to say, "The reason Galileo knew the Earth moved is because the material-physical causes of the universe made him think so," instead of, "Galileo knew the Earth moved because he had observed and calculated it." We would have to say it was material happenstance, not scientific knowledge, that was behind his discovery.

And, of course, the same would be true for all science. None of it would be anything other than material-causal phenomena. And material-casual phenomena do not, themselves have any view of whether it's better for us to see truth or delusions.
Yes, and this would be the case in regard to "I" in the is/ought world as well. Human moral and political and spiritual value judgments would seem entriely interchangable in the only possible world.

Only, for me, even given some measure of free will, "I" seems no less unable to establish objective moral truths in the absence of God.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

promethean75 wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 7:58 am Yeah that article is toying with the question of the nature of reality, what is real, not with the concept of causation. So SIMS or not, I still agree with Harris: freewill is an impossibility in any conceivable material system.The universe does not play dice.
Okay, but then the part where some conclude that you were never able to not agree with Harris. Any more than Harris was ever able to not come to his own conclusions about all of this.

Nothing escapes the laws of matter sustaining a universe that can only unfold as it must. Including this exchange itself. The human species is just particularly intriguing kind of matter.

The profound mystery of matter becoming aware of itself as matter interacting with other matter in the only possible reality.

Is it any wonder then that some can only imagine God as a possible explanation?

Not that they were ever able not to.
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Re: compatibilism

Post by iambiguous »

iambiguous wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:12 pm So, if we are in some extraterrestrial alien's "sim world", how would that be the same or different from hard determinism as the embodiment of nature itself?

Well, in part, I suppose, it would depend on whether this alien civilization was no less the embodiment of the laws of matter. Nature "programed" them to "program" us. And then going back to how it all fits into the ontological -- teleological? -- understanding of existence itself.
Skepdick wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 8:06 amThis doesn't in any way answer the actual question of determinism vs free will.

Being in a simulation doesn't in any way imply that the simulation is deterministic OR non-deterministic.
Being in a simulation doesn't preclude one from having free will either.

Creating a simulation doesn't in any way imply that the simulation is deterministic OR non-deterministic.
Creating a simulation doesn't bestow free will either.
And how exactly would one go about demonstrating this such that all rational men and women are obligated to agree? There are those in the simulation. There are those who created the simulation. There is nature with its immutable laws of matter wholly responsible for...both?

As with the absence of God, the absence of definitive proof that we are either in or not in an alien simulation means we can speculate until we are blue in the face but we have no God/alien race to go to for the "final answer".

Or so it seems to me. But I'm the first to admit I'm not thinking this through correctly. But then who is? If someone were able to provide us with the definitive answer, would s/he not be an actual "celebrity" by now? The talk of the town around the globe?
Skepdick wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 8:06 amThe question of free will vs determinism suffers from the worst self-deceiving sleight-of-hand there is - the mind-projection fallacy.

Determinism and non-determinism are both properties of the algorithms running in the simulation.
They are NOT properties of the simulation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondeterm ... rogramming

It remains fundamentally true that a deterministic; or a non-deterministic algorithm cannot determine whether the universe in which it finds itself is deterministic or non-deterministic!

The phrase "laws of nature" is also a mind-projection fallacy. Laws are mental constructs. They are properties of language and grammar. Laws of logic. Laws of arithmetic. Laws of geometry. Laws of the fundamental theory one is using to explain and interpret nature - laws of physics.

For all we know nature doesn't have any laws.
Well, this is what I call a "general description intellectual contraption".

What we need to do is to bring it down to Earth.

Meet Mary. She is pregnant and doesn't want to be. She decides to get an abortion. She gets the abortion. Others find out about it. Some support her, others condemn her.

How, given your assessment of free will, determinism, compatibilism and a sim world reality would you reconfigure your assumptions above in reacting to her behavior yourself?

Again, my own main interest revolves around moral responsibility. Is Mary morally responsible here? Is there a way to determine [even given a free will world] that she should perhaps be punished for killing her unborn fetus?
promethean75
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Re: compatibilism

Post by promethean75 »

"considering this one has ALREADY PROVED to be an absolute COWARD to CHALLENGERS I will NOT even try again."

I cannot thank you enough for deciding not to try again, Age, and am forever in your debt. I owe you one, bro.
Skepdick
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Re: compatibilism

Post by Skepdick »

iambiguous wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 5:54 pm And how exactly would one go about demonstrating this such that all rational men and women are obligated to agree?
If the universe is determinisitc - they've been programmed to disagree.
if it's not deterministic - they are choosing to disagree for whatever reasons.
iambiguous wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 5:54 pm There are those in the simulation. There are those who created the simulation. There is nature with its immutable laws of matter wholly responsible for...both?
I understand the concept of immutability. I've never seen or experienced anything immutable.
iambiguous wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 5:54 pm As with the absence of God, the absence of definitive proof that we are either in or not in an alien simulation means we can speculate until we are blue in the face but we have no God/alien race to go to for the "final answer".
The final answer is that there are no final answers. Welcome to the suck!
iambiguous wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 5:54 pm Or so it seems to me. But I'm the first to admit I'm not thinking this through correctly. But then who is? If someone were able to provide us with the definitive answer, would s/he not be an actual "celebrity" by now? The talk of the town around the globe?
Well, before you can identify the person who is thinking "correctly", I figure you'd have to address a bunch of questions: What would thinking correctly be like? What would answering the deep, important final questions be like? What would it be like to finally discover The Truth?

Heck... what would we, humans, do with it if we ever found it?
iambiguous wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 5:54 pm Well, this is what I call a "general description intellectual contraption".

What we need to do is to bring it down to Earth.

Meet Mary. She is pregnant and doesn't want to be. She decides to get an abortion. She gets the abortion. Others find out about it. Some support her, others condemn her.

How, given your assessment of free will, determinism, compatibilism and a sim world reality would you reconfigure your assumptions above in reacting to her behavior yourself?
Why would I even invest any energy in a reconfiguration?

If I don't have free will - I am behaving in accordance with my programming.
If I have free will - I am behaving in a way that I am indifferent to Mary's choices.
iambiguous wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 5:54 pm Again, my own main interest revolves around moral responsibility. Is Mary morally responsible here? Is there a way to determine [even given a free will world] that she should perhaps be punished for killing her unborn fetus?
I you believe in free will - surely you believe in one's freedom to reject one's moral responsibility?

Free will changes nothing in practice.

If we have free will - the murderer is morally responsible because free men created laws against murder, and a judge feeely chooses to enforce them.
If we don't have free will - the murderer was pre-programmed to murder and the judge was pre-programmed to sentence him to life imprisonment.

Nothing changes.
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