Free will and determinism

[2PhiloVoid]

What has "Freedom From Religion" got to do with this thread? (And why is it capitalized.)

...because very often, Hans, where there's smoke, there's fire, ................ even if it's just a little smoke.

 

[Hans Blaster]

...because very often, Hans, where there's smoke, there's fire, ................ even if it's just a little smoke.

That doesn't answer what you think is going on? What is this "smoke"?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

That doesn't answer what you think is going on? What is this "smoke"?

Actually, where subterfuge vs. subterfuge is at play in a public forum thread on Ethics and Morality, and the clashes coming out of that opposition create social and political stakes, the real question is "What is this fire?"

The fire in this thread is the felt need to propose an obscuring, dousing effect via counter appeal to authority and/or science so as to displace a perceived, reified social disorder brought about by more bourgeois (or currently seen to be as "bourgeois") proponents in society, proponents identified as those existing among various institutions of Christianity.

In my view, the unfortunate thing is that the world and our perceptions about its problems are more complicated than what either the Bourgeoisie or the Proletarians feel they are ............. or that either Liberal Secularists or Conservative Christians perceive they are.

A discussion on the hypotheticals of both "free will" and "determinism," as they are thus abstractly identified and labelled in an attempted operative manner, doesn't actually bring any resolution in the midst of the ongoing, unfinished opposition.

 

[Fervent]

Do you know what a cat is? When you see a cat the photons hit your eyes etc etc etc and the signal triggers the memory you have of a small furry animal that likes mice. And no, I'm not going deep into the details of how memory is stored and how it is activated.

I'm still waiting for your details on the what, when and how something immaterial outside this system changes physical matter inside the system.

I've repeatedly asked a specific question, and you keep going on about irrelevant things rather than giving a direct answer to the direct question. You say that the symbols themselves are in some way physical, so what is the physical characteristic of the symbols that carries the meaning? What physical trait of the symbols is leading to our reaction to them?

 

[o_mlly]

No.

Yes.

This is an odd way to do it.

No, not at all.

Gravity is the curvature of space-time. It is a pseudo force.

That does not answer the question you put regarding your ignorance of how free will arose. Materialists are as ignorant as to how gravity arose as they are free will but while affirming the existence of the former are seemingly reticent to affirm the latter. ?

 

[Hans Blaster]

Actually, where subterfuge vs. subterfuge is at play in a public forum thread on Ethics and Morality, and the clashes coming out of that opposition create social and political stakes, the real question is "What is this fire?"

The fire in this thread is the felt need to propose an obscuring, dousing effect via counter appeal to authority and/or science so as to displace a perceived, reified social disorder brought about by more bourgeois (or currently seen to be as "bourgeois") proponents in society, proponents identified as those existing among various institutions of Christianity.

In my view, the unfortunate thing is that the world and our perceptions about its problems are more complicated than what either the Bourgeoisie or the Proletarians feel they are ............. or that either Liberal Secularists or Christians perceive they are.

obscuring: that's how I read this comment. (Or was it evasion?)

 

[Fervent]

That does not answer the question you put regarding your ignorance of how free will arose. Materialists are as ignorant as to how gravity arose as they are free will but while affirming the existence of the former are seemingly reticent to affirm the latter. ?

There's a fairly obvious reason for such reticence.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Yes.

You are wrong about emergent properties. You wrote:

An emerging property is one that science observes but cannot explain its cause.

You are protraying emergent properties as just some "excuse" used when we don't understand things. This is simply not true. There are plenty of emergent properties that we do understand how they work and where they arise.

No, not at all.

That does not answer the question you put regarding your ignorance of how free will arose. Materialists are as ignorant as to how gravity arose as they are free will but while affirming the existence of the former are seemingly reticent to affirm the latter. ?

I already told you how gravity emerges. It is well known.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

obscuring: that's how I read this comment. (Or was it evasion?)

No, I think the term "obscuration" fits the specific denotative referent that I have in mind better than does "evasion."

I mean, then too, it's not only subterfuge that is at play, but also, where Marx would be brought in ultimately, a matter of ideological sabotage.

Rather than relying upon Robert Sapolsky, I'd instead begin to engage this sort of threaded topic by bringing in a bit of analytical evaluation on one hand and more equanimously toned Christianity on the other to critique both sides, such as would be respectively juxtaposed by the following two sources (that I have):

​

Block, Ned, ed. Readings in philosophy of psychology. Vol. 1. Harvard University Press, 1980.​

​

Dueck, Alvin, and Kevin Reimer. A peaceable psychology: Christian therapy in a world of many cultures. Brazos Press, 2009.​

 

[Hans Blaster]

No, I think the term "obscuration" fits the specific denotative referent that I have in mind better than does "evasion."

I mean, then too, it's not only subterfuge that is at play, but also, where Marx would be brought in ultimately, a matter of ideological sabotage.

Rather than relying upon Robert Sapolsky, I'd instead begin to engage this sort of threaded topic by bringing in a bit of analytical evaluation on one hand and more equanimously toned Christianity on the other to critique both sides, such as would be respectively juxtaposed by the following two sources (that I have):

​

Block, Ned, ed. Readings in philosophy of psychology. Vol. 1. Harvard University Press, 1980.​

​

Dueck, Alvin, and Kevin Reimer. A peaceable psychology: Christian therapy in a world of many cultures. Brazos Press, 2009.​

Now you're mentioning "Marx". This is getting weird and more further afield. What does any of this have to do with free wil, or "freedom from religion" or even Sapolsky? (You complained about reliance on his writings by @Bradskii )

 

[o_mlly]

You are protraying emergent properties as just some "excuse" used when we don't understand things. This is simply not true. There are plenty of emergent properties that we do understand how they work and where they arise.

Nope. The scientific argument for emergent properties is a property observed to exist but the complexity in the number of possible causes and their combinations leaves us well, dumbfounded as how to explain the cause of the novelty just observed.

You observe free will. You don't know how it arose, so it is an emergent property of man. Similarly, you observe gravity, but you cannot tell us how it arose, so it is an emergent property of matter. Offering theories of how a force works does not answer the question of how the force arose, ie., came to be.

 

[Fervent]

Nope. The scientific argument for emergent properties is a property observed to exist but the complexity in the number of possible causes and their combinations leaves us well, dumbfounded as how to explain the cause of the novelty just observed.

"Emergent" is only a scientific sounding word, rather than an actually scientific one if by "scientific" we're meaning something that aligns with making predictions or explaining historic events. It can be replaced with words like "mysterious" or "miraculous" without any loss in actual scientific value, only a perception of such phrases being less scientific. It feels like it explains something even though it is empty of any sort of explanatory power.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Now you're mentioning "Marx". This is getting weird and more further afield. What does any of this have to do with free wil, or "freedom from religion" or even Sapolsky? (You complained about reliance on his writings by @Bradskii )

Despite our common formative backgrounds via figures like Carl Sagan, I do not give prime place to the power of Occam's Razor or to sheer scientific reductionism. As an academic who is influenced not only by the hard sciences, I'm equally influenced by Philosophy and the "soft sciences" and so, I see the world in relational webs and wholes where others see merely isolated phenomenal ventures for empirical study.

Furthermore, epistemic goals ALWAYS have a presence where both concepts are being presented and truth claims for the establishment of those concepts are being promoted and touted as being "justified truths."

So, I see interlaced connections between the fact that Sapolsky is front and center in this thread within the context of Bradskii's chosen avenue for affirming "determinism" over "free will," and that both Bradskii and Sapolsky are atheists/agnostics, also both of whom have certain ideological perspectives and predilections that feed into politics, none of which are elements which I think can be simply cut apart with an ideological scalpel being that these cited nuances are organically connected.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Nope. The scientific argument for emergent properties is a property observed to exist but the complexity in the number of possible causes and their combinations leaves us well, dumbfounded as how to explain the cause of the novelty just observed.

You are confusing science and apologetics now. They are *DEFINITELY* not the same.

I wrote several posts over the last few weeks discussing emergent properties including examples that were not about brains and free will. Calling something an "emergent property" is *NOT* just making an excuse for why we don't know how it functions. Emergent properties are all around you. In fact most of the things you think are properties of matter and materials are actually emergent. A large number of them are fully or partially explained by the underlying properties from which the new properties emerge.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Despite our common formative backgrounds via figures like Carl Sagan, I do not give prime place to the power of Occam's Razor or to sheer scientific reductionism. As an academic who is influenced not only by the hard sciences, I'm equally influenced by Philosophy and the "soft sciences" and so, I see the world in relational webs and wholes where others see merely isolated phenomenal ventures for empirical study.

Furthermore, epistemic goals ALWAYS have a presence where both concepts are being presented and truth claims for the establishment of those concepts are being promoted and touted as being "justified truths."

Not sure where you are going (and I have read the rest).

So, I see interlaced connections between the fact that Sapolsky is front and center in this thread within the context of Bradskii's chosen avenue for affirming "determinism" over "free will," and that both Bradskii and Sapolsky are atheists/agnostics, also both of whom have certain ideological perspectives and predilections that feed into politics, none of which are elements which I think can be simply cut apart with an ideological scalpel being that these cited nuances are organically connected.

I don't see the "politics" here, nor why you think "freedom from religion" is involved. (It's an odd turn of phrase, that I rarely see used.)

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Not sure where you are going (and I have read the rest).

I don't see the "politics" here, nor why you think "freedom from religion" is involved. (It's an odd turn of phrase, that I rarely see used.)

That's alright, Hans. What I write here is in line with and successive to everything I've also already written in this thread. I don't expect you to have read everything I've written in an accumulative manner, but just know that what I'm saying now specifically follows upon everything I've said previously.

Have a peaceful day.

 

[o_mlly]

"Emergent" is only a scientific sounding word, rather than an actually scientific one if by "scientific" we're meaning something that aligns with making predictions or explaining historic events. It can be replaced with words like "mysterious" or "miraculous" without any loss in actual scientific value, only a perception of such phrases being less scientific. It feels like it explains something even though it is empty of any sort of explanatory power.

Our interlocutors know well the definition of "emergent" but refuse (free will?) to accept it. From 2021 and 2022:

• Can scientists believe in modern miracles?
• Moral absolutism as compared to the advancement of technology

 

[Bradskii]

I've repeatedly asked a specific question, and you keep going on about irrelevant things rather than giving a direct answer to the direct question. You say that the symbols themselves are in some way physical, so what is the physical characteristic of the symbols that carries the meaning? What physical trait of the symbols is leading to our reaction to them?

It's been explained to you that a physical process occurs which prompts whatever part of the brain is relevant to match the input to your memory of whatever the input it. But it's not relevant. You have been asked to explain that which you have claimed. You've not even made any attempt yet. So please stop trying to divert from that and please explain how an undetectable something from outside the known process changes physical matter within the process.

How does it do this, where does it do this, what is changed and when? Don't forget to do your neurology homework - it'll help with the answer.

 

[Bradskii]

Actually, where subterfuge vs. subterfuge is at play in a public forum thread on Ethics and Morality, and the clashes coming out of that opposition create social and political stakes, the real question is "What is this fire?"

The fire in this thread is the felt need to propose an obscuring, dousing effect via counter appeal to authority and/or science so as to displace a perceived, reified social disorder brought about by more bourgeois (or currently seen to be as "bourgeois") proponents in society, proponents identified as those existing among various institutions of Christianity.

In my view, the unfortunate thing is that the world and our perceptions about its problems are more complicated than what either the Bourgeoisie or the Proletarians feel they are ............. or that either Liberal Secularists or Conservative Christians perceive they are.

A discussion on the hypotheticals of both "free will" and "determinism," as they are thus abstractly identified and labelled in an attempted operative manner, doesn't actually bring any resolution in the midst of the ongoing, unfinished opposition.

Just...what? This is a thread about free will. It's in the section of the forum that doesn't necessarily concern itself with religious matters. You might have noticed that any religious options for the source of free will have been ignored. You are free to write them but I won't be reading them.

If you want to start as thread on 'proposing an obscuring, dousing effect via counter appeal to authority and/or science so as to displace a perceived, reified social disorder brought about by more bourgeois (or currently seen to be as "bourgeois") proponents in society, proponents identified as those existing among various institutions of Christianity' then off you go.

Although I might suggest you aim for something a little less verbose and aim for clarity in the thread title.

 

[Fervent]

It's been explained to you that a physical process occurs which prompts whatever part of the brain is relevant to match the input to your memory of whatever the input it. But it's not relevant. You have been asked to explain that which you have claimed. You've not even made any attempt yet. So please stop trying to divert from that and please explain how an undetectable something from outside the known process changes physical matter within the process.

How does it do this, where does it do this, what is changed and when? Don't forget to do your neurology homework - it'll help with the answer.

A process in which the meaning of the symbols is apparently irrelevant, so again I can only repeat my question. What's the physical characteristic?