Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

(Oct 31, 2020 10:32 PM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]And that refutes what? I know it's fun to sound smart, just quoting smart people, but the real test is if you can digest that into arguments of your own. Otherwise, you're just a fan-girl.

Says the podcast fanboy.

Syne Wrote:Again, if you think you're just a puppet to natural drives and external forces, that's exactly the life you get. And you don't seem to see how believing in moral relativism leads directly to devaluing life.

Well, the view that a person holds about the afterlife is bound to affect the value given to this current life. Even if there isn’t freewill no one knows what the day will bring, but from the looks of it, we better quit fussing over freewill and start prepping. Never thought I’d say that.

My father in-law is an over the top republican, wealthy, but old. He’s demanding that we head to his house if things get ugly. He’s a gun nut and has been stocking up on ammo for years. I told him that he should come here because we have the muscle and the sharp shooters. He said that we couldn’t transport it all and that he has more than the Hawthorne Army Depot. I texted my mother in-law and asked her to stock up on my favorite muffins—just in case. She said, "Done deal!" I replied, "Just kidding, I hope."

Oh, I'm so fucking tired of all of this bullshit.

(Nov 1, 2020 12:47 AM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]

(Oct 31, 2020 10:32 PM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]And that refutes what? I know it's fun to sound smart, just quoting smart people, but the real test is if you can digest that into arguments of your own. Otherwise, you're just a fan-girl.

Says the podcast fanboy.

The difference is that I usually formulate my own arguments. The only verbatim is what I cite with links, and even then, it comes with my own commentary. I know, that must be hard to comprehend, when you typically just parrot what you've been told.

Quote:

Syne Wrote:Again, if you think you're just a puppet to natural drives and external forces, that's exactly the life you get. And you don't seem to see how believing in moral relativism leads directly to devaluing life.

Well, the view that a person holds about the afterlife is bound to affect the value given to this current life. Even if there isn’t freewill no one knows what the day will bring, but from the looks of it, we better quit fussing over freewill and start prepping. Never thought I’d say that.

I've never understood why people think an afterlife should devalue life. Does expecting to live another 30 years devalue your previous 30? An afterlife is just more life. Does our ability to transplant lungs mean you should take up smoking? Of course not. That's ridiculous. You're lungs and your life are valuable, even if they could be restored in some way.

And just objectively, those who believe in an afterlife generally value the lives of babies more. That's contradictory to the notion that an afterlife should devalue life. So it seems only your comprehension of others is lacking.

Quote:My father in-law is an over the top republican, wealthy, but old. He’s demanding that we head to his house if things get ugly. He’s a gun nut and has been stocking up on ammo for years. I told him that he should come here because we have the muscle and the sharp shooters. He said that we couldn’t transport it all and that he has more than the Hawthorne Army Depot. I texted my mother in-law and asked her to stock up on my favorite muffins—just in case. She said, "Done deal!" I replied, "Just kidding, I hope."

Oh, I'm so fucking tired of all of this bullshit.

I presume you also live in one of the areas more prone to rioting, looting, and arson wildfires. If you're tired of it, quit voting for it.

(Nov 1, 2020 03:11 AM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]The difference is that I usually formulate my own arguments. The only verbatim is what I cite with links, and even then, it comes with my own commentary. I know, that must be hard to comprehend, when you typically just parrot what you've been told.

No you don't. If you did, I wouldn't have been able to link your arguments with Peterson's. I haven't been told anything. I read and I also add my two cents.

Syne Wrote:I've never understood why people think an afterlife should devalue life. Does expecting to live another 30 years devalue your previous 30? An afterlife is just more life. Does our ability to transplant lungs mean you should take up smoking? Of course not. That's ridiculous. You're lungs and your life are valuable, even if they could be restored in some way.

It's not just more life. It's paradise.

Syne Wrote:And just objectively, those who believe in an afterlife generally value the lives of babies more. That's contradictory to the notion that an afterlife should devalue life. So it seems only your comprehension of others is lacking.

Yeah, born sinners. Leftists need victims and Christians need sinners.

Syne Wrote:I presume you also live in one of the areas more prone to rioting, looting, and arson wildfires. If you're tired of it, quit voting for it.

Way to double down on false premises. [golf clap]

The idea behind determinism sort of puts off free will as an impossibility. But, practically speaking, we believe (even if say, it's not objectively true) that we have free will, that the quality of our lives is partially chosen for us, and chosen by us...no? Free will could be an illusion, but does it matter if we believe that our choices...matter?

If we have absolutely no free will, why are we held morally culpable for crimes and such in society?

(Nov 1, 2020 04:06 AM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]

(Nov 1, 2020 03:11 AM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]The difference is that I usually formulate my own arguments. The only verbatim is what I cite with links, and even then, it comes with my own commentary. I know, that must be hard to comprehend, when you typically just parrot what you've been told.

No you don't. If you did, I wouldn't have been able to link your arguments with Peterson's. I haven't been told anything. I read and I also add my two cents.

Oh, you mean Peterson talking about the field of evolutionary psychology? Yeah, how on earth would two people know the same things about the exact same field? 9_9

Been told, read, what's the difference? If you can't connect any dots between what you quote and what you purport to be arguing, your two cents ain't even worth that. You seem to expect people to just read your mind.

Quote:

Syne Wrote:I've never understood why people think an afterlife should devalue life. Does expecting to live another 30 years devalue your previous 30? An afterlife is just more life. Does our ability to transplant lungs mean you should take up smoking? Of course not. That's ridiculous. You're lungs and your life are valuable, even if they could be restored in some way.

It's not just more life. It's paradise.

Not all afterlife is paradise. And even among those that are, there's a huge difference in behavior from Christians who defend babies and Muslims who are suicide bombers.

Quote:

Syne Wrote:And just objectively, those who believe in an afterlife generally value the lives of babies more. That's contradictory to the notion that an afterlife should devalue life. So it seems only your comprehension of others is lacking.

Yeah, born sinners. Leftists need victims and Christians need sinners.

Just accepting the fact of human nature, demonstrable for anyone who bothers to look, while leftists try to convince people they are helpless for political gain.

Quote:

Syne Wrote:I presume you also live in one of the areas more prone to rioting, looting, and arson wildfires. If you're tired of it, quit voting for it.

Way to double down on false premises. [golf clap]

Puleeze. Unless you already moved (like you mentioned you might), you live in CA, where there have already been rioting, looting, arson, wildfires, and epidemic homelessness to boot. And if you vote, you vote Democrat. If not, do tell us how much you've thrown away your vote on third-party candidates or which Republicans you've voted for. Otherwise, what I said clearly stands.

---

(Nov 1, 2020 07:12 AM)Leigha Wrote: [ -> ]The idea behind determinism sort of puts off free will as an impossibility. But, practically speaking, we believe (even if say, it's not objectively true) that we have free will, that the quality of our lives is partially chosen for us, and chosen by us...no? Free will could be an illusion, but does it matter if we believe that our choices...matter?

If we have absolutely no free will, why are we held morally culpable for crimes and such in society?

While I agree with you that there is no moral culpability without free will, I think determinism is necessary to free will. It's just that neither determinism nor free will are absolute. You cannot choose to do absolutely anything (only a god could), and without some determinism, your choices would not have predictable and meaningful consequences. IOW, some cause and effect must exist for your choices to be related to their desired consequences in any meaningful way. Otherwise the result of any choice is random.

And yes, even if not true, the belief in free will has been found by many studies to have a positive effect. So it's rather sad to be someone who doesn't believe in free will. Because simply having the ability to choose to believe (illusion or not) would help your life. Pascale's wager, but applicable to this life rather than the afterlife.

(Nov 1, 2020 07:12 AM)Leigha Wrote: [ -> ]The idea behind determinism sort of puts off free will as an impossibility.

It's incompatibilism that really does that. What its flavors have in common is that they choose conceptions of free-will (FW) which make the latter just that: incompatible with determinism. 

The so-called "hard determinism" flavor thus circularly concludes that FW is not the case (if determinism is the case).

Alternatively, incompatibilism's libertarianism flavor (which is pro-FW) rejects determinism because of that.

Its "hard incompatibilism" flavor goes a step further and conceives FW as incommensurable with both determinism and indeterminism.

A fourth flavor might be "adequate determinism", that takes a mitigated view about both its namesake and FW (as opposed to absolutes).

The situation is vaguely similar to Pluto having once been defined as as planet, but then the definitions/rules were changed so that now it gets slotted as a dwarf planet. The prescriptive "experts" of an enterprise simply modify their "word-game" to get the result their motivated reasoning desires beforehand (in the case of Pluto, though, it was also prompted by adjustment to "new" empirical knowledge).

Quote:But, practically speaking, we believe (even if say, it's not objectively true) that we have free will, that the quality of our lives is partially chosen for us, and chosen by us...no? Free will could be an illusion, but does it matter if we believe that our choices...matter?

The Earth would not be like it is today (i.e., technological civilization and its various effects) if our choices did not matter or if our bodies were like rocks that lacked the internal apparatus to make decisions. We actually made the future we occupy -- we collectively chose it. The capacity to deliberate and select is "will", and "free" is not having external agencies (entities that have agendas) obstructing one in that regard (always).

Quote:If we have absolutely no free will, why are we held morally culpable for crimes and such in society?

Elimination of FW also nullifies or undermines the objectivity of science (and naturalism-oriented philosophy), what with the experimental approaches, interpretations of data and conclusions of its practicioners being compromised by supposed agencies and influences beyond the inner workings/operation of human bodies. Elimination of FW thereby becomes suspect itself, as its product veers back around to inflict the bite of doubt upon the impartiality and "independence from puppet-mastery" of its adherents.

But we can have FW -- it's simply a matter of switching from one metaphysical word-game to another one (either to a different sub-member of incompatiblism or a leap to compatibilism). Or just leave the whole mess behind. We know when we're being forced to do something we don't want to, without the need of philosophical proclamations. The distinction could not be made unless we were also familiar with the opposite. 

Many people feel that "randomness" has something to do with free will. While I don't see it that way, it can still be preserved for finicky folk.

A specific _X_ event that is genuinely random (not chaotic) is one that does not conform to any pattern, principle, calculation or "precognition of the gods" that could predict it. (Though it might still be corralled in a general way by statistical probability.) A random event should arguably also lack a cause.

Thus even something as fixed as a block-universe can (in theory or elusive ontological fact) contain aspects that qualify as random -- they simply can't be captured by algorithm, pattern, law, etc.

In contrast, only the past is fixed in a Growing Block-Universe (GBU). For instance, if we contend that there are "future happenings" which will not conform to regularities and lack causes, then on those grounds they are still going to be retrospectively classifiable as random once they exist and become the past.

Ironically, those occurrences would still belong to the "future" for people in eras that precede them yet further in the past of GBU, and indeed we in this moment could likewise only delusionally believe we're in the "present" edge of a Growing Block-Universe. That's why GBU as a third option or proposal in philosophy of time is potentially messed-up and perhaps slides or collapses into either Presentism or Eternalism.

Presentism limits existence to a process of ephemeral changes which near-immediately replace/annihilate each other one after the other. Eternalism allows those differences (stages of development) to substantively co-exist. (The so-called "flow of time" in the latter is instead consciousness throughout a brain's worldline being broken-up into increments corresponding to chunk-sequences of neural states. There is actually no "flow" in Presentism, either, since there is no past for whatever supposed _X_ to transit from and no future for it to transit to. Only "now" exists.)

(Nov 1, 2020 07:41 AM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]Puleeze. Unless you already moved (like you mentioned you might), you live in CA, where there have already been rioting, looting, arson, wildfires, and epidemic homelessness to boot. And if you vote, you vote Democrat. If not, do tell us how much you've thrown away your vote on third-party candidates or which Republicans you've voted for. Otherwise, what I said clearly stands.

Get a grip.

This is one fallacy that you need to work on.

I’m not judgin'—I’m just sayin'.

(Nov 1, 2020 02:59 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]

(Nov 1, 2020 07:41 AM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]Puleeze. Unless you already moved (like you mentioned you might), you live in CA, where there have already been rioting, looting, arson, wildfires, and epidemic homelessness to boot. And if you vote, you vote Democrat. If not, do tell us how much you've thrown away your vote on third-party candidates or which Republicans you've voted for. Otherwise, what I said clearly stands.

This is one fallacy that you need to work on.

I missed this post entirely: https://www.scivillage.com/thread-7402-p...l#pid30785

But I can only work on premises I'm aware are faulty.

I was never aware that you had ever said anything of the sort, but I clearly gave you the chance to correct me (bolded). I have no idea why you wouldn't just correct me over something I never responded to and clearly had never seen.

Quote:Syne: While I agree with you that there is no moral culpability without free will, I think determinism is necessary to free will. It's just that neither determinism nor free will are absolute. You cannot choose to do absolutely anything (only a god could), and without some determinism, your choices would not have predictable and meaningful consequences. IOW, some cause and effect must exist for your choices to be related to their desired consequences in any meaningful way. Otherwise the result of any choice is random.

And yes, even if not true, the belief in free will has been found by many studies to have a positive effect. So it's rather sad to be someone who doesn't believe in free will. Because simply having the ability to choose to believe (illusion or not) would help your life. Pascale's wager, but applicable to this life rather than the afterlife.

I agree with your insights in terms of viewing determinism strictly in a secular sense. Many philosophers believe that determinism is sort of a dictated way of life...that due to past events, there can only be 'x' amount of choices you or I could make in any given day. Any illusion of free will would be just that, an illusion, but that our ''will'' is largely determined by a domino-like effect of events that have led us to this point. It is a convincing argument I guess, but it suggests that because of 'x' events that have happened in my life up to this point, joining this website for example and replying to your post in this very moment, is an inevitable effect from all of the ''pre-determined'' causes that came before it. 

Now, if you believe in God, you'll have a different idea of determinism, in that God has foreknowledge of every single event that is about to happen, before it happens. This doesn't mean God is the cause of these events, necessarily, it just means He is omniscient, and in my humble opinion, He exists ''outside of time.'' He isn't bound by the same physical constraints as His creation. That said, there are a few variants on that idea, going from some theists submitting that God may not know all future events, yet that doesn't mean He isn't omniscient. (So, contrary to your point above, God's omniscience and therefore a theistic view of determinism, would be ''absolute,'' in my opinion.)

There's also the sticking point of free will when it comes to a theistic view of determinism - if you and I have free will, then does this mean that God isn't sovereign? I see God as sovereign, yet He didn't wish to have humans behave as drones, or puppets, where He is pulling our strings, so to speak. The relationship that one has with God, in whatever religion he/she follows, is one of choice...one of a willingness to know God. The free will it takes for me to pray for example, I still believe comes from God's grace, but I still have to do it. And in that choice that I make, my faith grows. So, for me, I can see God being omniscient, and yet wanting me to have a choice to serve and love Him. I find this belief to be a beautiful attribute of God. 

From a purely secular view, I'm not sure a ''hard determinist'' would be able to escape the inevitable trajectory of becoming a nihilist. But, spiritually speaking, determinism means something different altogether.

There's so much to say, I may not be adequately making my point, but these are just some ideas fluttering in my mind about it all.

---

(Nov 1, 2020 02:17 PM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]

(Nov 1, 2020 07:12 AM)Leigha Wrote: [ -> ]The idea behind determinism sort of puts off free will as an impossibility.

It's incompatibilism that really does that. What its flavors have in common is that they choose conceptions of free-will (FW) which make the latter just that: incompatible with determinism. 

The so-called "hard determinism" flavor thus circularly concludes that FW is not the case (if determinism is the case).

Alternatively, incompatibilism's libertarianism flavor (which is pro-FW) rejects determinism because of that.

Its "hard incompatibilism" flavor goes a step further and conceives FW as incommensurable with both determinism and indeterminism.

A fourth flavor might be "adequate determinism", that takes a mitigated view about both its namesake and FW (as opposed to absolutes).

The situation is vaguely similar to Pluto having once been defined as as planet, but then the definitions/rules were changed so that now it gets slotted as a dwarf planet. The prescriptive "experts" of an enterprise simply modify their "word-game" to get the result their motivated reasoning desires beforehand (in the case of Pluto, though, it was also prompted by adjustment to "new" empirical knowledge).

Quote:But, practically speaking, we believe (even if say, it's not objectively true) that we have free will, that the quality of our lives is partially chosen for us, and chosen by us...no? Free will could be an illusion, but does it matter if we believe that our choices...matter?

The Earth would not be like it is today (i.e., technological civilization and its various effects) if our choices did not matter or if our bodies were like rocks that lacked the internal apparatus to make decisions. We actually made the future we occupy -- we collectively chose it. The capacity to deliberate and select is "will", and "free" is not having external agencies (entities that have agendas) obstructing one in that regard (always).

Quote:If we have absolutely no free will, why are we held morally culpable for crimes and such in society?

Elimination of FW also nullifies or undermines the objectivity of science (and naturalism-oriented philosophy), what with the experimental approaches, interpretations of data and conclusions of its practicioners being compromised by supposed agencies and influences beyond the inner workings/operation of human bodies. Elimination of FW thereby becomes suspect itself, as its product veers back around to inflict the bite of doubt upon the impartiality and "independence from puppet-mastery" of its adherents.

But we can have FW -- it's simply a matter of switching from one metaphysical word-game to another one (either to a different sub-member of incompatiblism or a leap to compatibilism). Or just leave the whole mess behind. We know when we're being forced to do something we don't want to, without the need of philosophical proclamations. The distinction could not be made unless we were also familiar with the opposite. 

Many people feel that "randomness" has something to do with free will. While I don't see it that way, it can still be preserved for finicky folk.

A specific _X_ event that is genuinely random (not chaotic) is one that does not conform to any pattern, principle, calculation or "precognition of the gods" that could predict it. (Though it might still be corralled in a general way by statistical probability.) A random event should arguably also lack a cause.

Thus even something as fixed as a block-universe can (in theory or elusive ontological fact) contain aspects that qualify as random -- they simply can't be captured by algorithm, pattern, law, etc. 

In contrast, only the past is fixed in a Growing Block-Universe (GBU). For instance, if we contend that there are "future happenings" which will not conform to regularities and lack causes, then on those grounds they are still going to be retrospectively classifiable as random once they exist and become the past.

Ironically, those occurrences would still belong to the "future" for people in eras that precede them yet further in the past of GBU, and indeed we in this moment could likewise only delusionally believe we're in the "present" edge of a Growing Block-Universe. That's why GBU as a third option or proposal in philosophy of time is potentially messed-up and perhaps slides or collapses into either Presentism or Eternalism.

Presentism limits existence to a process of ephemeral changes which near-immediately replace/annihilate each other one after the other. Eternalism allows those differences (stages of development) to substantively co-exist. (The so-called "flow of time" in the latter is instead consciousness throughout a brain's worldline being broken-up into increments corresponding to chunk-sequences of neural states. There is actually no "flow" in Presentism, either, since there is no past for whatever supposed _X_ to transit from and no future for it to transit to. Only "now" exists.)

I'm having trouble (yet again) quoting and replying to that exact quote...so, for now, I'll reply to what I've bolded from your quote, above. lol

It's funny you post that, I recently read a thread in Reddit, where the topic was about determinism, and the original poster states that he believes humans are no different than say rocks, just a differently arranged set of atoms. What? What a dismal way to go through life, I thought. Others felt the same as me, and questioned him as to the value he finds in life. I'm not sure why people feel our existence is random, that the universe is random...but even if I were to wake up tomorrow and believe that, why would life have no moral meaning, or purpose? Why do some so profoundly feel the need to connect randomness with purposelessness? I'm not judging what others choose to believe, but I don't think that it's an either/or proposition.

(Nov 2, 2020 03:43 AM)Leigha Wrote: [ -> ]I agree with your insights in terms of viewing determinism strictly in a secular sense. Many philosophers believe that determinism is sort of a dictated way of life...that due to past events, there can only be 'x' amount of choices you or I could make in any given day. Any illusion of free will would be just that, an illusion, but that our ''will'' is largely determined by a domino-like effect of events that have led us to this point. It is a convincing argument I guess, but it suggests that because of 'x' events that have happened in my life up to this point, joining this website for example and replying to your post in this very moment, is an inevitable effect from all of the ''pre-determined'' causes that came before it. 

Now, if you believe in God, you'll have a different idea of determinism, in that God has foreknowledge of every single event that is about to happen, before it happens. This doesn't mean God is the cause of these events, necessarily, it just means He is omniscient, and in my humble opinion, He exists ''outside of time.'' He isn't bound by the same physical constraints as His creation. That said, there are a few variants on that idea, going from some theists submitting that God may not know all future events, yet that doesn't mean He isn't omniscient. (So, contrary to your point above, God's omniscience and therefore a theistic view of determinism, would be ''absolute,'' in my opinion.)

There's also the sticking point of free will when it comes to a theistic view of determinism - if you and I have free will, then does this mean that God isn't sovereign? I see God as sovereign, yet He didn't wish to have humans behave as drones, or puppets, where He is pulling our strings, so to speak. The relationship that one has with God, in whatever religion he/she follows, is one of choice...one of a willingness to know God. The free will it takes for me to pray for example, I still believe comes from God's grace, but I still have to do it. And in that choice that I make, my faith grows. So, for me, I can see God being omniscient, and yet wanting me to have a choice to serve and love Him. I find this belief to be a beautiful attribute of God. 

From a purely secular view, I'm not sure a ''hard determinist'' would be able to escape the inevitable trajectory of becoming a nihilist. But, spiritually speaking, determinism means something different altogether.

There's so much to say, I may not be adequately making my point, but these are just some ideas fluttering in my mind about it all.

I don't view determinism, nor divine predeterminism, as absolute. I think the same quantum randomness that allows for causal input from the present (meaningful choices) also means the future cannot, in any but a probable sense, be predicted. Now, that doesn't mean that god can't have a plan, including for your own life, but it does mean that nothing is actually set in stone. God knows everything that is logically possible to know (omniscience), which excludes the truly random, much like god making a square circle is logically impossible, both just by definition. This is similar to how god cannot do logically contradictory things, like create a rock so heavy it cannot lift, but is still omnipotent. I think this freedom, and logical consistency, is intentionally built into the very fabric of the universe.

As the breath and image of god, we are the hands of god and act with his authority. This is how god's sovereignty is expressed and why behaving badly in his name is blasphemy.