Philosophical Speculations

We should legalize violence. Why coddle people that can't defend themselves? While we're at it let's relegalize chattel slavery. This. Is. Sparta!!! We should put radium back on the market. Make your next special time glow with a radium condom!

There is limited agency, there is no free will. There are apparent choices with imprecisely predictable outcomes, but they're entirely predetermined by prior states.

I did answer your baseless accusation of hypocrisy. I'm open to an entire spectrum of responses, unlike the "free" free will imaginer that will have a narrow range, probably driven by emotions.

Brad Walker wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 12:56 am We should legalize violence. Why coddle people that can't defend themselves? While we're at it let's relegalize chattel slavery. This. Is. Sparta!!! We should put radium back on the market. Make your next special time glow with a radium condom!

There is limited agency, there is no free will. There are apparent choices with imprecisely predictable outcomes, but they're entirely predetermined by prior states.

I did answer your baseless accusation of hypocrisy. I'm open to an entire spectrum of responses, unlike the "free" free will imaginer that will have a narrow range, probably driven by emotions.

There's a big difference between allowing people to physically hurt other people and allowing people to freely choose whether they want to take out a loan against their paycheck or buy soda at a grocery store. In other words, you want to decide what is bad for people and then outlaw them from considering those things. That's exactly how you treat an infant.

What's the point if it is all predetermined, anyway? How can you judge some actions to be "predatory" if they were destined to happen and there is no real intent behind them? I'm not accusing you of hypocrisy, rather I'm pointing out that you are unaware of some beliefs which motivate your thoughts and actions in life. Well all have that problem.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 1:13 amHow can you judge some actions to be "predatory" if they were destined to happen and there is no real intent behind them? I'm not accusing you of hypocrisy, rather I'm pointing out that you are unaware of some beliefs which motivate your thoughts and actions in life. Well all have that problem.

The same way we can judge relationships in nature to be predatory without ascribing intent. What am I unaware of exactly?

Brad Walker wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 3:22 am

AshvinP wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 1:13 amHow can you judge some actions to be "predatory" if they were destined to happen and there is no real intent behind them? I'm not accusing you of hypocrisy, rather I'm pointing out that you are unaware of some beliefs which motivate your thoughts and actions in life. Well all have that problem.

The same way we can judge relationships in nature to be predatory without ascribing intent. What am I unaware of exactly?

Then we need to distinguish between how we are using the word "predatory" for animals and for humans. Despite the insistence of behaviouralist theory, we intuitively grasp a qualitative difference between the two. We would never insist on putting an animal on trial for their predatory behavior, yet we almost always insist on putting a human on trial for theirs.

I think you are unaware of how deeply these concepts are instantiated in your psychology/biology and culture. We cannot simply detach them into free-floating concepts and then suddenly "believe" they are not true.

We don't put animals on trial because it's easy to establish what they did, have no other aspirations of them, and they're lower on the food chain with no "rights" or means to protect themselves. It has nothing to do with the definition of predation. Humans prey on themselves. You're welcome to my poker game where you can exercise your agency.

I'm entirely aware of how deeply this is embedded. I'm perpetually bemused by how poorly free will is understood, current discussion case in point, and how desperately people cling to it.

Brad Walker wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 5:22 am We don't put animals on trial because it's easy to establish what they did, have no other aspirations of them, and they're lower on the food chain with no "rights" or means to protect themselves. It has nothing to do with the definition of predation. Humans prey on themselves. You're welcome to my poker game where you can exercise your agency.

So we shouldn't put a homeless person on trial who walks into the police station with the murder weapon and confesses?

The point is you are transferring the word "predation" to the human only because it supports your a priori conclusion that the human individual is mechanistic and conditioned like an animal. All of these rationalizations you are employing to undo the qualitative distinction we intuitively know to be true will be found wanting.

Brad Walker wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:54 pmFree will is an erroneous intuition.

Free will is undead.

So let me get this straight ... If I happen to believe in free will, to the free will denier I'm deluded and I have no choice to believe otherwise, yet a free will denier is also completely deluded in trying to convince me otherwise, precisely because I can't change my mind about this, but nevertheless they have no choice but to try to convince me otherwise. Carry on if you must, but If there is choice, I'm not sure why one would.

Dana hits the point here. In a similar sense, here:

Brad Walker wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 1:04 am Society could be less predatory if people got over the illusion of free will.

words like "could be ... if ..." should have absolutely no meaning if everything is predetermined at the Big Bang.

But anyway. The problem is of completely different nature here.

Brad, I'm not saying that you don't understand your own idea about determinism/free-will but I'll say that it has nothing to do with these ideas as used in science and philosophy.

You are confusing restriction with determinism. Or in other words, you are confusing determinism (in the philosophical sense) with our ability to determine, to control the flow of events by restricting the possible paths that they can take.

Imagine that you are granted super powers and you become the mastermind above planet Earth. You implement your own ideas about the perfect social order. It resembles a complicated automation. Every action activates the next - a perfect clockwork mechanism. You make it thus that when a human agent wakes up, there's an exact program that tells him what to have for breakfast, at what time to go to work, etc. Now you observe from your cosmic perspective and sigh with relief "Finally! Peace and quiet".

But what you have done is that you have implemented a deterministic ideology over humanity, as the perfect social system. In the same manner you may have implemented perfect capitalism, perfect communism or whatever.

Your system has absolutely nothing to do with whether reality is in itself deterministic or not. As long as everyone conforms with the rules that you have created, the system works. Human agents may conform because their deterministic religion says that it's their destiny, predetermined form the time of the Big Bang, that they should follow their daily program. Or they may feel that there are also other alternatives but they simply wholeheartedly believe in this system, in the same way that you believe it is the best.

You see, to implement ducts and pipes through which human activity is restricted to flow, says nothing whatsoever about the true nature of that activity. You can implement this system even if human activity is completely free in its nature.

Confusion arises because you are looking for a way to justify, to prove that your system is the perfect system. You are not happy if the human agents simply prefer the system over other systems. You want them to be convinced that there are no other alternatives, that this was all predetermined at the time of the Big Bang.

The idea about such a system in no way follows from the idea about determinism of the Universe (in the philosophical/scientific sense).

Determinism of the Universe couldn't care less whether life results into barbaric of enlightened civilizations.

PS: To make clear - I don't know if will is free or determined as seen from some perspective outside the Universe. As long as we are inside, we can never know this, in the same way can't know if we live in a simulation or in a simulation within another simulation within another simulation ... (I can elaborate if needed)
But even the most fervently convinced in determinism, physics student, knows that he can't lay back and let the Big Bang decide whether he'll take his exam, but sits on his bottom and starts studying hard.

Maybe the bottom line is this: taking our ability to determine and automate as expression of free will, helps also to determ and automate as carefully as we can, without hurting ourselves in the process. Without freedom, we can't accept responsibility.