/lit/ - Literature

God and/or dualism.

You either need a soul, something external to the universe, or a consciousness that exists above or separate to the physical.

>>4028817
sometimes I change my mind
checkmate determinists

Quantum Mechanics

>>4028834
No, the schrodinger equation doesn't scale up.

>>4028834
>Quantum Mechanics
How so?

>>4028845
He's suggesting that it allows 'random' into our descriptions of empirical events.

Not really at the moment. Chapter 2 of Saul Smilansky's Free Will and Illusion covers the status quo of the issue, the major stances and attempted refutations of it, etc. Dennett is kind of pop-y but he also covers some modern refutations like Nagel and QM, I think in Elbow Room?

Basically no though, not right now. If it's any consolation, a lot of people go through the phase where determinism seems like a REALLY REALLY REALLY BIG DEAL and then forget about it completely within a year or two. I can't precisely explain how, but if you keep doing philosophy and junk you'll arrive at a vaguely mystical ability to go "nah that would suck so it isn't true lol". That is when you become a theosophic deist and start getting laid.

It is proved that the soul weighs 21 grams, and we don't know how the soul works, so determinism must be wrong. Not trolling

>>4028834
QM is the most appalling example, aside from maybe the "nothing came before the Big Bang because time started at the Big Bang!" thing, of scientists being childish retards who should stay out of philosophy.

Even Einstein said it, God doesn't play dice. A lack of demonstrable causation doesn't mean no causation. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And we can't even intuit stochastic "logic" or events, they are completely unobservable anywhere in nature except in our inability to grok probabilistic particle behaviour.

If anyone replies to hard determinism with QM, sterilise him and you will be doing the human race a favour.

No, because, just like its opposite, it is based on a wrong presupposition that guides us into looking for a justification to the means we use to justify.

>>4028853
>Then forget about it completely within a year or two.
It always pops back up when discussing anything related to human behaviour. Inevitably, some things get attributed to "environmental conditioning," then the see-saw game of trying not to let everything fall to the determinism side of 'conditioning' begins.

>>4028822
>sometimes I change my mind

Yes, yes you do. Like you were always going to do...

two stage model of free will.

thank you based william james.

cause and effect isn't real, it's just a working hypothesis.

>>4028881
You can trash anything based on it being a linguistic representation of reality. Cause and effect is the best description we currently have.

>>4028863
>Even Einstein said it, God doesn't play dice

Einstein was proven wrong in that regard.

>>4028885
>Cause and effect is the best description we currently have.

Nah it's not, dualism is a better description of reality.

This guy gets it

>and then forget about it completely within a year or two. I can't precisely explain how, but if you keep doing philosophy and junk you'll arrive at a vaguely mystical ability to go "nah that would suck so it isn't true lol". That is when you become a theosophic deist and start getting laid.

>Now it is the charge against the main deductions of the materialist that, right or wrong, they gradually destroy his humanity; I do not mean only kindness, I mean hope, courage, poetry, initiative, all that is human. For instance, when materialism leads men to complete fatalism (as it generally does), it is quite idle to pretend that it is in any sense a liberating force. It is absurd to say that you are especially advancing freedom when you only use free thought to destroy free will. The determinists come to bind, not to loose. They may well call their law the "chain" of causation. It is the worst chain that ever fettered a human being. You may use the language of liberty, if you like, about materialistic teaching, but it is obvious that this is just as inapplicable to it as a whole as the same language when applied to a man locked up in a mad-house. You may say, if you like, that the man is free to think himself a poached egg. But it is surely a more massive and important fact that if he is a poached egg he is not free to eat, drink, sleep, walk, or smoke a cigarette. Similarly you may say, if you like, that the bold determinist speculator is free to disbelieve in the reality of the will. But it is a much more massive and important fact that he is not free to raise, to curse, to thank, to justify, to urge, to punish, to resist temptations, to incite mobs, to make New Year resolutions, to pardon sinners, to rebuke tyrants, or even to say "thank you" for the mustard.

>>4028892
>Nah it's not, dualism is a better description of reality.
Dualism is a terrible description. The materialist description functions perfectly without needing dualism crowbarred unnecessarily into it.

Martin Heisenberg (that's right, Martin) is a good read on it.

>>4028892
>dualism is a better description of reality.

go to school, kid. christ.

>>4028899
>>4028903

nah, read some Plato m8s

>implying the forms don't exist

>>4028900

>>4028908
lol

>>4028914
I'm serious, the theory of forms is a great description of reality.

Determinism tends to be a total materialist position, even a logical positivist position. However, the tendency of these philosophies to declare consciousness (and therefore, freewill) to be entirely due to chemical structure of the brain fail to answer the question: Why then are we even conscious? Surely a better program exists.

It is within the confines of consciousness that we exert free will and consciousness is itself beyond the material.

Also, in consciousness, we are not necessarily a continuation of our present state's trajectory. Consciousness in idealism is the anti-derivative whereas determinism sees it as the future continuation of the present, the derivative. As we can conclude that things that were once inevitable continuations of the present moment that never came to pass in eventuality, we can assume that determinist trajectory of events is flawed and that reality functions through free agents.

>>4028892

>>and then forget about it completely within a year or two. I can't precisely explain how, but if you keep doing philosophy and junk you'll arrive at a vaguely mystical ability to go "nah that would suck so it isn't true lol". That is when you become a theosophic deist and start getting laid.

i realised my ability to ignore/change/percieve reality a while back too. was a real breakthrough.

>>4028817
there isn't one. The Rasenna correctly predicted the Roman Empire lasting for ~12 centuries. All hail Tinia!

>>4028919
>the theory of forms is a great description of reality.

>>4028921
'Consciousness' is one of a few conceptual place holders, a convenient truth to give us a 'self' to try and grasp.

>>4028929
>He says, "Nothing endures, nothing is precise and certain (except the mind of a pedant).... Being indeed!—there is no being, but a universal becoming of individualities, and Plato turned his back on truth when he turned towards his museum of specific ideals." Mr. Wells says, again, "There is no abiding thing in what we know. We change from weaker to stronger lights, and each more powerful light pierces our hitherto opaque foundations and reveals fresh and different opacities below."
>[...]

>>4028939
>In other words, Plato turned his face to truth but his back on Mr. H. G. Wells, when he turned to his museum of specified ideals. It is precisely here that Plato shows his sense. It is not true that everything changes; the things that change are all the manifest and material things. There is something that does not change; and that is precisely the abstract quality, the invisible idea. Mr. Wells says truly enough, that a thing which we have seen in one connection as dark we may see in another connection as light. But the thing common to both incidents is the mere idea of light—which we have not seen at all. Mr. Wells might grow taller and taller for unending aeons till his head was higher than the loneliest star. I can imagine his writing a good novel about it. In that case he would see the trees first as tall things and then as short things; he would see the clouds first as high and then as low. But there would remain with him through the ages in that starry loneliness the idea of tallness; he would have in the awful spaces for companion and comfort the definite conception that he was growing taller and not (for instance) growing fatter.

the anti-Platonists are the scum of the earth.

>>4028941
>the anti-Platonists are the scum of the earth.
Yes, I hate it when other people are correct too.

>>4028863
> Einstein making a statement of opinion is meant to be proof of a hard claim
> Thinking that modern science believes that nothing came before the big bang
> Philosophers in charge of understanding evidence-based reasoning

>>4028861
>>4028861
> Not trolling
Seems legit.

>>4028863
You are a massive dork

>>4028937

But why is it that we need convenient truths and selves to try and grasp? Would we not function just the same without consciousness?

People think that Plato and Aristotle were engaging in some kind of mysticism when they said that "the Good" was the ultimate idea that all human activities aim towards.

This isn't mysticism, it's the most practical picture of reality that's ever been proposed. If you say that philanthropy, justice, temperance, health, politeness, civilization, etc., are "good", then there must be some absolute measure, "The Good", which you are comparing these things to, if this is not the case then all of our ideas are complete nonsense and mysticism, you might as well say that "these things aren't good, we're just 'conditioned' to think that they are", which is the silly reductionist view.

Materialists have the wrong picture of reality. Reality is made up mostly of ideas. The "material world" is mostly unavailable to us, whereas the metaphysical world of ideas is immediately available as soon as we start thinking. "I" is a metaphysical concept, as are Good and Evil, Beautiful and Ugly, Wealth and Poverty, etc. Nature has no concept of "Good", "Beautiful", or "Wealth", and it has no concept of their opposites either.

When you look at a car you don't immediately see a list of measurements, materials, equilibriums, etc. But you do perceive things like "fashionable" or "luxurious" or "power" or "speed". Power is a measurement in science, but in normal human reality Power is a metaphysical concept. Speed is a measurement in science, but in regular human language speed is a feeling or idea.

nah m8 sometimes the particles just go clear through the lead like there's no slits; it's really more determinism either way is the B- student of the bell curve of what will be.

>>4028968
>But why is it that we need convenient truths and selves to try and grasp?
Because it helps to discuss a boat without having to refer to the sail+deck+mast+hull... with each of those subdivided too. "Boat and self exist" is a convenient truth because they are, surprisingly enough, convenient. With self, it also helps a child to navigate the world: in future – you do X and your future 'self' will experience pain, you do Y and it will experience pleasure; in past – your past 'self' did X so your present is responsible.

They are 'convenient' for us in numerous ways. It may not be an ultimate truth, but most of us couldn't learn reality and then act in it without them.

>Would we not function just the same without consciousness?
Maybe. There are two sides to ponder:
A) consciousness can be attributed to the collection of physical parts that make up the body, and is an illusion that stems from an ignorance of self.
B) a computer simulation that accounted for every atom and neuron in the human brain still wouldn't be self-aware, and would just parrot back responses that gave the illusion of a subjective experience.

>>4028863
I just wanted to tell you that i hope you die

I have free will. I can choose whether or not to type out this post. The determinist notion that "I was predestined to make that choice" is a useless after-thought. In fact, it's not even a coherent thought at all, because the idea of predestination does away with choice altogether. If you say choice doesn't exist because it can resolved into a sequence of little events then you'll also have to reduce identity, "I", into nothingness as well because apparently that would make it too a sequence of little events. So the idea that "you don't have free will" is another incoherent idea, because in that case the "you" doesn't exist either.
Determinism is like the reverse Cogito ergo sum. Instead of "I am" it's "I'm not", or more appropriately, it's ". . .", because not that I don't exist it would be nonsensical for me to say anything.

>>4029005
>I have free will. I can choose whether or not to type out this post.

>>4028997
>They are 'convenient' for us in numerous ways. It may not be an ultimate truth, but most of us couldn't learn reality and then act in it without them.

The thing is though, those truths ARE the ultimate truths. The fact that they are convenient is neither here nor there. In fact, there are times when the idea of selfhood is not convenient.
The concept of "I" isn't a noble lie that we tell ourselves because "we couldn't get along with out it", it's a fundamental truth. If that isn't true then you may as well do away with the concept of truth altogether (like the Buddhists who do away with every concept).

it may be true, but it's not exactly very useful

Hey materialists, if ideas don't exist then why do you even have the idea of "materialism"? Shouldn't you do away with all ideas like a zen buddhist?

checkmate.

stuff that's happened in the past definitely happened that one way though right, and you can see why everything happened based on previous stuff
i don't think that it means that when people in the past made decisions they didn't have free will, it's just that with their free will they made those particular choices and their free will was informed by a huge deal of circumstances that all came together and now it's happened, that's the only way it will ever have happened
and that will also be the case for everything else that has yet to happen

>>4028983
>if this is not the case then all of our ideas are complete nonsense and mysticism, you might as well say that "these things aren't good, we're just 'conditioned' to think that they are", which is the silly reductionist view.

It's only silly because it's painful for you, and not the answer you want to cling to.

'Good' or 'tall' as a form are already conceded to be abstract concepts that don't accurately capture the physical; but they always have the same clawing back at an ideal, 'median average' of 'ness'; a 'tallness' or 'bitterness' that is cunningly inserted into the sum devided by the aggregate parts. The centre point can never be found. What is ignored is that any 'ness' is still not inherant in the physical, and always remains not only conceptual, but relative.

It's a nice family-friendly notion to have a 'good' that resides above the physical in ideas, but it will never be more than a linguistic concept that has a personal meaning to the user, programmed slightly by inter-subjective values, and ultimately resting as a personal concept with it's own unique characteristics.

'good' is never part of the material, and the material is always a primary description - good is a concept above that. The vegan who thinks it is good to save animals, the carnivore who thinks meat tastes good, and the rapist who thinks children feel good when chained to a radiator and sodomised - all share a subjective variable notion of good conditioned by a tentative link to childhood pain and pleasure.

>>4029014
ultimate truth and convenient truth ARE Buddhist concepts.

>>4028983
>then there must be some absolute measure

the absolute measure is that i want to be treated that way. that's it. it's not "good" it's smart.

>>4029024
>'Good' or 'tall' as a form are already conceded to be abstract concepts that don't accurately capture the physical

"Physical" is an abstract concept too.

>but it will never be more than a linguistic concept that has a personal meaning to the user

Nonsense, linguistic concepts don't have "personal meanings".

>. The vegan who thinks it is good to save animals, the carnivore who thinks meat tastes good, and the rapist who thinks children feel good when chained to a radiator and sodomised

They are all aiming for the same Good.

>>4029031
there's no such thing as a Buddhist concept.
the Buddhist concept is "the concept of no concept".

>>4029014
>The thing is though, those truths ARE the ultimate truths.
No, it's not an ultimate truth that a 'boat' exists. The boat is a concept applied to the parts that make up the idea you have called boat. We have a collection of, mostly wooden, objects that you have tagged with your concept of 'boat'.

>>4029039
>Nonsense, linguistic concepts don't have "personal meanings".
You going l8 Wittgenstein? If so, they do, the personal meanings just don't matter.

>>4029005

that makes sense, i think. hard to tell. these things almost always read very poorly.

>>4029039
>"Physical" is an abstract concept too.
The physical is the reality that language describes.

>Nonsense, linguistic concepts don't have "personal meanings".
Of course they do.

>They are all aiming for the same Good.
They are all aiming at a conditioned inherited idea programmed into them by pain and pleasure. The good of one person is not the good of another.

>>4029045
apart from all of them.

>>4029048
No, boat is the ultimate truth, the idea.

>We have a collection of, mostly wooden, objects

The idea of boat has nothing to do with these.

We see a "boat", we don't see a collection of mostly wooden objects, and even if we did break it down into those objects you could still break it down in to molecules and eventually atoms and then quarks. Even science respects metaphysics and strives towards some basic idea, "atom" that can be used to make up everything else.

>>4029057
>The physical is the reality that language describes.

Reality is an abstract concept.

>The good of one person is not the good of another.

Nonsense, every person has the same Good, the Good exists independently of people.

>>4029058
yeah, those aren't buddhist ideas. Those are just tips for noobs so that they can eventually do away with all ideas. It's like Wittgenstein's ladder that you are supposed to throw away once you've climbed to the top.

>>4029059
actually we don't even see a boat, we just see some colors arranged in a certain way and think 'boat'

if this board can't run the platonist off i'm leaving.

>>4029059
See, in the materialist reality even "atoms" don't really exist. "Atom" is just a metaphysical model that scientists use to try and explain a group of phenomena that actually exist.

>>4029068
We won't miss you.

>>4029073
I'll miss him.

>>4029059
>No, boat is the ultimate truth, the idea.
It's called a convenient truth.

>The idea of boat has nothing to do with these.
A 'boat' has everything to do with it's aggregate parts. That's all it is.

>We see a "boat", we don't see a collection of mostly wooden objects.
You're right, there are some metal and canvas ones too. and we tag this collection with 'boat.

>and even if we did break it down into those objects you could still break it down in to molecules and eventually atoms and then quarks.
Exactly. Now you are getting it. Everything you describe is comprised of impermanent parts.

>Even science respects metaphysics and strives towards some basic idea, "atom" that can be used to make up everything else.
You misunderstand. Nobody is denying that a physical boat exists. just the concept of boat. It's still sat floating in the water, just as a collection of impermanent pieces with the concept of boat applied over the top.

>>4028853

I had this experience with solipsism. But hey looks like a duck quacks like a duck

>>4029067
you are speaking incoherently.

you say that "we don't even see a boat, we just see some colors arranged in a certain way and think boat", but that doesn't make sense, because by your own standards there is no "we" that does this "seeing", "we" and "seeing" are just abstract concepts that we "add to physical reality".
So you can't even say that there is such a thing as color or sight, because these are just abstract concepts that are added to reality. Really, you are not allowed to say anything at all, because language is riddled with metaphysical ideas that have no connection whatsoever to your perfect "reality" that consists purely of "physical material" (of course your reality doesn't actually consist of physical material, because physical material is just a metaphor for something else that cannot be grasped by language)

>>4028853
>>4029080

http://youtu.be/ugLwXlpJi6o

You can never know if determinism is true or not, so you should always act as if you had free will, because if determinism was true it wouldn't hurt, but if determinism was false and you acted as if it was true you'd be fucking up your life.

>>4029082
...and he finally grasps the significance and purpose of convenient truths.

>>4028861
Go back to reading the new Langdon novel, please.

>>4028841
>>4028863
>>4028958
Just as an ignorant request - does anyone have anything more to say re this quantum shit of which I know nothing?

If there's an element of chance at a minute level, why does it not scale up? If there might be an underlying determiner for the smallest things, but we can't see it, does anyone besides this anon consider it reasonable to assume one? Just looking for some knowhow.

>>4029075
> Nobody is denying that a physical boat exists. just the concept of boat.

That doesn't make sense. How can you add an adjective and deny the noun? An adjective by definition some something that describes a noun. You can't add the adjective "physical" and deny the noun "boat". "Physical boat" is just like "good boat" or "yellow boat", none of them call in to question the idea of "boat", if anything they assert it.

Really you shouldn't say "physical boat" at all. You shouldn't say lamp either, because lamp too is just an abstract idea made up of physical things. You shouldn't say mother or father, or government, or country - you should just look at everything, nod and say "physical". Somebody tells you to look at that boat, and you shake your head, point at it and say "physical". Some body introduces you to their friend, you shake your head, denying the existence of the metaphysical idea of "friend", point at the thing and say "physical". Eventually you will stop saying "physical" too, because you realize even that is just an abstract word for something else, and you will learn to be silent.

>>4029082
>So you can't even say that there is such a thing as color or sight, because these are just abstract concepts that are added to reality.
Yes.

>>4029086

Lol, all aboard the grad student poonani train

>>4029088
This is incredibly dumb.
How would one change the way they act?
A reply foreseen: no matter what you do the outcome would be the same so why do anything?

Nope. Try reading just one book on the subject, just one.

>>4029082

you didn't refute anything he said, you just repeated it in a sarcastic manner.

language is an invention. it's a coathanger for reality. and it has profound effects on us.

>>4029096
>How can you add an adjective and deny the noun?
Because we're using the noun 'boat' as a place holder to save us from naming everything that comprises it.

>>4029082

>Wut up William James

>>4029104

that's a good question:

one man believes in determinism
the other doesn't

what is different about their behaviour?

Oh hey. It seems this thread placed an order for a healthy dose of Korzybski.

Lets have a look, we have one extra large linguistic construct, a small pepsi, and a triple the map is not the territory.

>>4029110
>>4029109
You people are clever but you are both fools.

>Young people today can fairly often be heard saying wise things. That youth speaks you will hear sure enough on closer listening. For what a wise man doesn’t fail to see – that everything he says is about himself (that’s how selfish he is!) – the young man indeed fails to see (that’s how enthusiastic he is!). What the wise man does, namely understand everything as being relevant to himself, always taking himself to be a case in point, the young man fails to do; he makes the demand but fails to implicate himself – or indeed, the demands he makes being what they are, he implicates hardly anyone else either. You would think it was a drunken deity speaking, from his free manner with people, from the way his head swims in a fantasy of supposedly being able to grab for himself the monster product of generations of inhumanly exacted exertion; least of all would you believe it was an individual human being speaking..

If either of you were to actually take what you said seriously, if you actually believed what you said about there being no self, no mother or father, no government, no country, etc., if you took any of that seriously then you would not be here having this conversation. You wouldn't be engaging in conversation at all. Thankfully though, you aren't as insane as you would have us believe, you are just pretending to be insane because it's fashionable and clever.

>>4029119
how do i into emergent properties

>>4029119
I knew a kid at college who said "I don't really exist, 'I' is just an idea and not reality", so I slapped him across the face and when he complained I said, "sorry, I was under the impression that you didn't exist".

>>4029136
No you didn't, that's just a cute story you heard from someone else

>>4029119
>If either of you were to actually take what you said seriously
Why wouldn't we take it seriously? It's been demonstrated that everyone ITT is happy to play with convenient truths. I'm smoking a cigarette and having a beer right now. I don't deny that my cigarette exists entirely, I just deny the concept on a fundamental level. I have tobacco, paper, and a filter, with the concept of cigarette applied to it. I'm happy to use the concept to discuss it because it's convenient. I don't see what's so controversial about this basic idea.

A may even take out my microscope and hunt for the elusive 'cigaretteness' inherent in it, but I doubt I'll find it. All I will find is tobacco, paper, and a filter, and I'll use the fabricated concept of cigarette for ease.

>>4029148
ok, so what you are saying is that you are fundamentally a liar and deceiver, and you happily admit that you like to lie and deceive even yourself.

In that case I should not talk to you, nor should anybody else.

>>4029151

Where's that conclusion coming from?

>>4029151
>nor should anybody else.
kant's not taking your side in this one bro

>>4029153
You, or he, is saying that everything he said is a "convenient truth", in other words, is a convenient lie, that he uses just to get along. In other words, he's telling complete lies to us and to himself just so he can indulge in conversation and smoking cigarettes, which makes him a treacherous liar and a selfish idiot.

>>4029151
lol get a load of this child. reminds me of babby's first existential crisis. "nothing means anything let's go crazy!"

>>4029151
On some levels you are correct. On others you have completely missed the point. It's a convenient 'truth' not a 'lie' for a reason.

>>4029119

i take what i said seriously. i'm not pretending, i'm just constantly forgetting. i lose myself in actions that i actively tell myself constantly goes against what i 'believe' in. i forget what i value. i forget everything. life seems to be a constant cycle of forgetting and remembering, probably, i think, due to 'time' (the construct [time is not time. nothing is anything. things are things. we have words for nothings, no words for anythings]).

so, if you are pointing to contradictions you assume exist in how i lie my life and what i say, well, i say, they are not contradictions, if anything, they strengthen my argument. why? because i believe it, and because i have now forgotten the point of this comment.

but yes, i am vry srs.

>>4029162

So not believing that words correlate to an absolute form of what we collectively agree they represent makes speaking tantamount to lying? You know that's insane right?

He's saying the same thing as the word good. good doesn't exist, but it's beneficial to use as a concept.

If the truth is that good doesn't exist, it's not a lie to say that you think something should be treated as good.

>>4029177
but there are no facts, tehre are only interpretations

>>4029183
>>4029162

>>4029178
i fcuking love when i remember how to take off the peanut butter foil seal again without using a knife. i need to write that shit down next time if it ever happens, i think i just imagined it's excellent

surprised to be debating this really. someone posted the map is not the territory earlier. that maes perfect sense to me. i'm not sure how a person could not believe/understand/realise it.

i'm also not sure what this has to do with the OP anymore either (maybe i forget). but, to answer OP in my own way, it doesn't matter. determinism or not, if it doesn't sit well with a person, then they will fight it, ignore it, change it, until it suits them. and yes, you can say "well, of course they would! they were meant to!" but this has no effect on the individual, they will continue to fight it. and that's what is really important, i think.

humans are in a unique position to declare wrong is right. we have power over our own context.

Eternity. There was never a 'get go'

>>4029162

is your mother your mother, your ma, your parent, your guardian, mrs hilda smith, daughter of mrs smith, a mass of atoms, a bag of bones, a hole for mr smith to plug, or is she all of these things and more? and would you like to address her by her full name at every meeting, her full name being, of course, every word we have and have ever had? no, because that would be inconvenient. in a world of complications language offers an elegant solution to the mingling of souls, even though, it holds its own dangers, many of which do nothing but further convince the indidual they are an idolated being in an empty world.

and yes, i am talking about myself, as rightly said, always..

>>4029183
>If the truth is that good doesn't exist, it's not a lie to say that you think something should be treated as good.

It's absolutely a lie. Saying something should be treated as good is as useful as saying that something should be treated as a poggaragadingo if you're going to assert that good doesn't exist.

>>4029184
I see everything like we are inside a giant blue balloon stuck inside someone's bedroom. The balloon is flexible and wont break and we spend out time pressing it against the objects in the room to get a feel for what's there. All we have is the impression of an object coming through our side of the blue rubber. We have a rough blue idea of what's there, and it's a representation, a description, a language to capture what is actually there. It will never be what is there, and sometimes we get it really wrong. The bedroom is reality, and the blue balloon is our abstraction of it through language and mathematics. Everything we see here is in different shades of blue, stretched lighter and compressed darker sometimes, but never reality. Language and concepts are always blue and never really reality.

>>4029210
> and would you like to address her by her full name at every meeting, her full name being, of course, every word we have and have ever had? no, because that would be inconvenient.

It's not got to do with convenience, it's got to do with truth. I wouldn't call my mother a mass of atoms or a bag of bones, because my mother has nothing to do with atoms or bones. My mother has bones and atoms, but to say she is bones or atoms is complete nonsense. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts - which contradicts the reductionist view that something is just the sum of its parts.

>or is she all of these things and more?

She is none of those things, she is one thing.

>>4029214

>uuuuuuuughhhhhh... not worth arguing with

>>4029214

>lie
>good
>bad

those are a few words where their arbitrary nature quickly comes into focus.

>>4029216
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H25lz7gchaw

>>4029221
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Ffr1U7KMY

>>4029220
and the contrary, those are the things that are the least arbitrary. If you say that good is arbitrary then there would be no reason to get out of bed of morning or to continue living. If you say that truth and lies are arbitrary then we wouldn't be asking people in court to swear by the truth, because if a murderer says that he is not a murderer then he we can't say he is telling lies, "because it's arbitrary".

>>4029218
>The whole is greater than the sum of its parts - which contradicts the reductionist view that something is just the sum of its parts.

so why do you insist on placing your faith in words which do nothing but reduce their being? we all need to use language, sure, but many of us have realised that they are nothing more than placeholders.

>It's not got to do with convenience, it's got to do with truth

well, truth is much more than a few noises from human throats.

>She is none of those things, she is one thing.

impossible. there are no single things.

>>4029231
>impossible. there are no single things.

single things and there relations is all there is, but once you take these single things and their relations together you can in the last reduce them to a single thing. So in the end, single things is all that exist.

All hail Plato, father of Western thought.

>>4029221
Fucking greedy and ironically named Bliss Corporation.

>>4029231
>impossible.
You just blew away your chance of being taken seriously.

>>4029237

what, because of a word? funny.

>>4028908
>>/x/>>

>>4028863
>sterilizing people because of your beliefs
>doing the race a favor

KANT WOULD LIKE TO HAVE A WORD

>>4028861
This is a myth that was disproved, like the whole "out of body experience" thing.

>>4028927
>tfw you realize how much easier it is to change yourself than it is to change the world

How do I not become a useless drug addict?

>>4029245
No, not exactly. It's because you don't understand how Logic works.

>>4028983
>>4028983
>>4028983
>>4028983
>>4028983

>>4029341

yes, i've been turning away from logic for a while now.

>>4029235
>2013
>taking Plato seriously
sure smells like first year uni students in here

>>4029371
>2013
>providing no argument whatsoever
sure smells like /lit/ in here

>>4029065
you don't know a thing about Buddhism. I bet you've never even meditated or read anything by a Buddhist or Buddhist scholar. (Alan Watts doesn't count as one)

>>4029381
>(Alan Watts doesn't count as one)
My Buddha can out mantra your Buddha

>>4029381
>>4029384
om mani padme hum, anon

>>4029384
>>4029387
aren't you so enlightened

>>4029400
it's why i have to kill myself

>>4029400
Nirvana's not for everybody.

>>4029214

The "if you believed it you wouldn't do anything and kill yourself" argument is very similar to theists asking atheists how they can live without believing in God. "If you really believed in no afterlife and that you were a small insignificant speck etc."

Just because I don't think their is an absolutely right political system doesn't make it illogical to have an opinion on privacy rights

look this isn't really a question for people messing about with language. it just boils down to what we understand about the physical qualities of the universe. how does matter behave, all that... and even then, who the hell can even begin to address this "problem"? is everything influenced intangibly by everything else ? im sure there is some physicist out there intelligent enough to prove or disprove determinism, but real talk, determinism is just mystic-speak, an overarchingly vague idea

>>4028817
nope

Read what wittgenstein wrote about free will!

>>4028853
> forget about it completely within a year
> become a teosophic deist
> start getting laid

fuck thats me aha

Just as there's no solid argument for it.

>>4029095
Look up the uncertainty principle

>>4030507
Lmao you don't actually know anything about physics, do you?

>>4028817
no, there has never been anything even remotely able to contradict the laws of physics.

still, thinking otherwise is fun i guess

>>4029333

>>4030523

This is silly

>laws of physics

what are you doing

>>4030521
Nothing has been able to contradict the laws of physics because as soon as something does the laws of physics are changed or extended to accommodate them. Do you even science?

>>4030509
why would u choose to insult him rather than enlighten him to how hes wrong. you're never gonna make it with that attitude bro.

>>4030525
The laws of physics are man-made. The map is not the territory. The model is not reality.

>>4030528

I'm saying that you should really refer to them as theories/models. Newton is pretty archaic.

>>4030528
>The map is not the territory.

Brofist.

>>4030539

>>4030540
>He hasn't read Korzybski

>>4030556
>he's actually proud of the level of namedropping korzybski and his stupid map phrase gets on here

>>4030528
>The laws of physics are man-made

say that to yourself as you walk off a cliff

>>4030539
>>4030528

Yeah...

>quantum physics

First Cause

Determinism doesn't work beyond the natural world and it doesn't work with our universe. It would have required a beginning that started an infinity ago: a logical impossibility.

So no.

>>4030539

Shut the fuck up with this shit. It can be said about anything, even what you've just said.

Pyrrhonism existed a long, long time ago. Now fuck off.

>>4030657
>Shut the fuck up with this shit.
Would you like some salve to rub on your sore ass?
>It can be said about anything,
It is said about everything language based.
>Pyrrhonism existed a long, long time ago.
Pyrrhonian Skepticism ≠ General Semantics. Now fuck off.

So what was "there" before the plank epoch?

>>4030767
That fluff that you always find at the bottom of your pockets and in your belly button.

>>4028817
>events

There's the problem. The distinction between events, things, people etc. is conceptual, not actual. There is no one event that causes another, there is just happening and it's neither one nor many.

No.

>>4028834
I agree, It makes sense, but you can't really prove or disprove that our observation of events changes them, since it can be argued that your observation of the event was meant to happen, and it can be argued that all of the past events leading up to your observation of the event were random and indeed, you could be observing a number of different things. In the end it comes down to you're opinion which is a product of your surroundings, and that could be random or caused by prior events, and so we find ourselves without an answer

my mind was blown about 3 times reading this thread

>>4029148
>A may even take out my microscope and hunt for the elusive 'cigaretteness' inherent in it.

>2013
>using methods of the natural sciences to reveal substance.

>>4031145
>2013
>Supposing something that has no effect on empirical observation needs to be factored in when it's completely undetectable and has no relevance.

>>4030869

Your mind was destines to be blown 3 times while reading this thread from the very picosecond the big bang occurred.

>>4031158
>completely undetectable and has no relevance.

It's detectable and has relevance every time you convey meaning to someone else. Cry some more about the objectivism of human experience is unattainable, we can only be in contest of who's grasp of the transcendent ideas is proven to be most advantageous to us, or just dominant by the sheer number of people who agree. To say that the idea people hold of the cigarette isn't relevant to us is moronic.

I see no one has ever heard of Chaos Theory, then.

pic unrelated

Humans obviously have free will over their actions

I can choose whether I want to drink water or juice, become an engineer or an actor, or any number of infinite choices I can make.

Free will is simply another property of matter. Alone, atomic particles such as protons, neutrons and electrons exhibit no particular behavior by themselves, but when arranged in certain formations they gain additions properties and behaviors which we can observe as chemical and nuclear reactions. Such properties did not exist before chemical arrangement, but did come into existence when arranged in that certain manner. Something cannot come from nothing, so we can conclude that those chemical properties of matter are inherent in the nature of matter itself, only which can be observed when matter exists in a particular form.

This principle can be extended to the idea of free will, as biological entities are the most complex and intricate machines in the universe. This complex arrangement of matter revealed the property of free will, the human mind being the most complex and well developed of all biological species.

>>4028863

No, QM proves that certain events are truly random. The math bears this out. You're just going to have the deal with the philosophical implications of events with no discernable "causality" -- we know this is how the universe works.

>>4031217

>QM proves that certain events are truly random

that is an unscientific statement. QM proves NOTHING of the sort, some only interpret it that way, outside their appropriate scientific purview

>>4031216
>any number of infinite choices
Nope. You have finite amount of choices, not infinite. It will just be a very long list of choices.

If commit *such* a basic error you have successfully diminished your chances of being taken seriously.

>>4031225
If you*

>>4031188
>It's detectable
'cigaretteness' is a detectable property? Please tell me how you arrived at that conclusion without resorting to empirical observation of the cigarette or peoples behaviour.

>has relevance every time you convey meaning to someone else.
Nobody said the construct 'cigaretteness' had no relevance. The relevance is to anything outside observation and presently undetectable. Once it is detected and observed, or an uncounted for element that is detected by it's absence, then it becomes relevant as we can use it in our description of reality.

>the objectivism of human experience is unattainable
is is attainable and accounted for.

>To say that the idea people hold of the cigarette isn't relevant to us is moronic.
Again, this is your bad reading comprehension – see above. Nobody said that the construct of a cigarette or cigaretteness isn't useful or relevant in certain models, just that it's a construct invented by us within a particular linguistic framework, and doesn't really exist.

>>4031224
>purview
please stop. i know it's you.

>>4031240
who? I've only made two posts in this thread so far. Sorry if my lingo is not up to snuff for you, oh holy one

>>4031225
Ok, so I have a google +x^google amount of choices I can make. That still does not mean that they are my choices to make; what choices are presented do not matter, it is the power to make that choice that does.

>>4031268
>google +x^google
What

>That still does not mean that they are my choices to make
Are you contradicting your previous post? I didn't read all of it by the way. I stopped at "[...] or any number of infinite choices I can make.".

>what choices are presented do not matter, it is the power to make that choice that does.
I wasn't even addressing that point.

>>4028817
Given that thought is immaterial and a willed action not necessarily caused by the brain...
>mfw people freely deny they have no free will
>mfw people think reality exists in their neurons

>>4031268
>a google +x^google amount of choices
googol

>>4031232
>Again, this is your bad reading comprehension – see above. Nobody said that the construct of a cigarette or cigaretteness isn't useful or relevant in certain models, just that it's a construct invented by us within a particular linguistic framework, and doesn't really exist.

And my point was using methods that investigates objects of the material world
to account for concepts that resides in the abstract world of ideas is moronic.

I agree with everything you wrote though.

>>4031301
>>mfw people think reality exists in their neurons
You silly tripfag.

>>4028817

Despite users on this board always sticking their nose up and claiming to be 'intellectuals', all I see is angry kids yelling, name-dropping, and throwing out straw-man arguments. As a result, I'll try and make this as

There are two main arguments against it.

#1 - Our consciousness exists outside of our physical realm.

Counter #1: There is no proof that this is true, However, neuroscience and psychology make great strides all the time, and every year we learn more and more about how our decisions are influenced by inner mechanics. Given this path, it is more logical to assume that all our decisions boil down to physical brain mechanics at some level than to assume that we transcend the physical.

However, our current understanding is still limited, so I cannot conclusively state that everything is physical. There is a possibility that our consciousness exists in other plane. However, I will contend that this plane, like any reality, must be a system made up of interactions. Interactions mean patterns, and patterns mean laws. So determinism would still exist in that reality, it would just follow different laws than our reality.

#2 - Randomness exists; Schrödinger's, Werner Heisenberg, etc.

Counter #2: There is absolutely no evidence that random events can occur. Many people misinterpret the ideas/notes put forth by the two above as being evidence of quantum indeterminacy, when in fact they argue for determinism. The idea is that both the cat/electrons obey physical laws and follow a chain of causality. However, observing/measuring them would introduce an event that's effect would make the observation/measurement inaccurate.

All this is simply a commentary on the observer effect; That certain systems we cannot observe without changing those systems. But a 'system' still exists, and the entities within it still follow patterns and laws of causality.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I believe determinism is the more logical belief, which is somewhat depressing...I would love to be proved wrong, but due to humanities natural inclination towards self-delusion and an over-developed superiority complex, it is difficult to get into a rational man-to-man conversation with anybody about the subject without their argument devolving into "BUT MUH FREE WILL!".

The fact is, even if one believes determinism to be true (as I do), how does does one implement that believe in his/her life? Do I not wish for vengeance after the death of a close friend because his killer wasn't technically in control of his own actions?

>>4031420

*As a result, I'll try and make this as calm a response as possible.

>>4031385
>using methods that investigates objects of the material world to account for concepts that resides in the abstract world of ideas is moronic.

Why so? any abstract idea or concept results from the material world, and is used in conjunction with the material world. If we want to analyse an idea like 'beauty' or 'tall' we can do so using empirical methods. Even the example the original guy used with cigarette can – and I'd argue should – be used with material methods; it is, after all, a construct applied directly to the material.

We have the first layer, the material; a layer above that, the language that directly describes the material; then the realm of linguistics above that which deals with concepts like 'good', categories of material like 'cigarettes', and upper level structures and frameworks. They all tie in to the material at some level, and all have a branch of study that observes the phenomenon associated with them.

Holing them over your head and saying they are excluded from empirical observation is silly. You may not observe 'good' or 'cigaretteness', but you can observe every single association, including the human behaviour which created the constructs in the first place. As long as the observation has the underlying sceptic beer coaster for the analysis to sit on, there really isn't anything else.

Granted, concepts can also be taken to abstract models, but all of these have a link to the material that can't be severed.

>>4031442
Thanks for clarifying. You know your shit.

>>4031420
>There is no proof that this is true, However, neuroscience and psychology make great strides all the time
>consciousness
>to be verified empirically

Stopped reading here. You obviously haven't had any exposure to philosophy whatsoever.

>claiming to be 'intellectuals'
Le ironia

>>4031666
>You obviously haven't had any exposure to philosophy whatsoever.
Perhaps he has, which is why he knows qualia and the hard problem of consciousness can easily be explained as neurological functions, with no need for dualism or magical souls to be added. Sure, you can add them, but they wouldn't change anything at all. You obviously haven't had any exposure to neuroscience whatsoever, or you would know that your outdated philosophy of mind problems aren't really problems at all.

Put down Descartes, Nagel and co. once you know their contentions, and pick up pic related. Only knowing one side of the argument really exposes your ignorance.

>>4029005

The identity of self is completely dependent on the perspective of the viewer; whether or not you're a set of causes and effects or not doesn't change who you are and what you feel. The world is pretty illusory homeboy.

>thus everything that happens was bound to happen from the get go

That doesn't follow. You're conflating determinism and fatalism. But, I agree, the determinism part does seem sensible.

>>4031676
The following is written all over your sophomoric extravaganza: "I have no absolute idea what I'm talking about."

It was a painful read, junior.

>>4031676
Nothing you said makes the other post less shitty. Even though the guy you responded to is also a retard because his greentext is not a valid summary of the other guy's post...

>>4031685
Was that supposed to be irony or plain old hypocrisy?

>>4031681
>You're conflating determinism and fatalism.

How could the two be different? As far as I can tell fatalism is just a term for determinism used by people who think determinism is a bad thing (because they cling to naive and sentimental beliefs and don't understand that whether or not determinism 'holds true' does not change how it feels to do things and to make decisions).

>>4031685
Might I add: that psychoanalysis of yours was top-notch amusing as well. You should go on stage.

>>4031676
>Perhaps he has, which is why he knows qualia and the hard problem of consciousness can easily be explained as neurological functions

That's fucking bullshit, though. They cannot be 'explained' at all physically. Qualia are not subject to the scientific method, you retard, because they are intrinsically not inter-subjective.

>>4031690
No, I'm not a retard, retard. My greentext perfectly validates and indicates his laughable and narrow-minded reasoning.

What now, we are going to empirically verify 'time'?

Just shut the fuck up.

>>4031707
>perfectly validates

You obviously don't know what 'to validate' means...

>>4031700
>That's fucking bullshit, though. They cannot be 'explained' at all physically
They "can easily be explained as neurological functions."

Seriously, attempting to explain how neuroscience completely covers subjective experience to a first-year philosophy student is like trying to convince a fundamentalist of evolution. Just read more, you'll get there. Read some GS to understand why your confusion is there in the first place, then read a neuroscience text book.

>>4031707
Your angst uninformed rage against empiricism is cute. Keep it up, squire.

>>4031709
I do, though. I pointed out to his grossly one-sided perspective of all the possible perspectives one can look at arguing about consciousness. And it was a valid, wrapped-in-greentext objection.

>>4031721
lol. considering even neuroscientists and top philosophers can't explain it, i doubt it kid. there are theories, none of them testable.

>>4031724
I don't think you have any idea how to reason, at all. Give me a call when you manage to come up with an actual, coherent argument.

>>4031729
Why? When I can just greentext my ignorance and call people junior and kid to cover the fact that I have no fucking idea what I'm talking about. It works for you.

>>4031721
Holy fuck, that post. All that amusing dogmatism, irrationality, /b/esque pseudo-propositions and general impotence of philosophical inquiry.

>>4031728
>top philosophers
top lel.

There isn't any debate left. All we have are people trying to crowbar things like dualism into it again and declaring that there are unanswered problems. A neuroscientist knows that 'the hard problem of consciousness' it's as meaningful as the 'the hard problem of ipod functioning'; every function not only understood, but functions perfectly as an operation of it's aggregate parts and conforms to testable methods - ie, damage to an oligodendrocytes cluster in the cingulate sulcus produces the predicted change in subjective experience.

The the hard problem of consciousness is is only a problem to dreadlocked philosophy undergrads circle-jerking over qualia with no understanding of the interaction of occipital and temporal lobes with the limbic system.

>>4031743
Stop. You are finished. You have no argument, so take your buzzwords and superstition back to /x/. I can remember what it was like when I first read Descartes too, but it doesn't give you justification to interrupt the adults. Read Hume or Ryle next.

>>4031745
fine, disregard philosophers. bring the neuroscience. so far you're displaying more ignorance in that field.

>>4031745
(1) Keep telling yourself that, (2) keep playing your logically inconsistent language-game and (3), most important of all, keep living under a rock.

Time to screenshot your current and previous shitposts.

>>4031753
I have read both the philosophy and the neuroscience. What you are doing is akin to saying cars run on pixie dust, and saying mechanics have no business trying to explain cars. All I'm doing is asking you to look at mechanics first.

>>4031757
i'm not doing anything. i entered this thread two posts ago. give the neuroscience behind the subjective experience. no vague terms, no links. imagine i'm your professor and i think you're full of shit.

>>4031745
There is no point reasoning with them. /lit/ hates anything vaguely /sci/ related.

>>4031762
>reasoning with them

this is what's so hilarious about the "empiricists" of this board. they're the most irrational and emotionally driven posters on the board. never any empirical facts, just insults and word vomit. give me some science for fucks sake.

>>4030533
>the concept of laws as a nomic regularities.
>outdated
Not really. A theory has to do with epistemology, a law has to do with metaphysics. We make theories about the laws: theories are human mad, physical laws aren't.

>>4031749
>You have no argument
I believe you are projecting, again. So far you have simply name-dropped various "proper" names and disciplines, but have failed to put forth any argument that would be worth considering. From the very beginning, it only took me to read >>4031676 to acknowledge that you have no idea what you're talking about. You read stuff; perhaps contemporary data/findings of neuroscience, but you don't seem to be reading any contemporary philosophy, which, as you see, correspondingly reflects on your inability to reason properly. You are logically impotent.

Let me refer back to: >>4031685

Shit's chaos.

>>4031216
>Humans obviously have free will over their actions
>implying you can retrospectively verify that another choice than the one made has been had the potentiality to come into being

laughing pederasts.exe

>>4031420
>I believe determinism is the more logical belief, which is somewhat depressing
Why? I see a lot of people tend to find it depressing (this is why there's a lot of people who try to argue against determinism, not because free will is easier to explain, but because looks like free will is something easier to deal with), but I don't really get why. It's depressing to live under conditions you don't like, e.g. not being free from a political or social perspective, but being determined by nature it's something much more neutral. We are determined by nature because that's the only possible way to exist. This doesn't mean your life is less worthy since nature's determinism is so complex you can still feel free about a lot of decisions and have more courses of action than you can ever imagine.

>>4031216
Being able to make choices means you have a will, not that your will is free from the deterministic nature of reality.

>>4031760
>give the neuroscience behind the subjective experience
Sure, first look at the Phineas Gage problem. In his case it was the frontal lobe, but it has been done with every region: when a part of the brain is removed, damaged, or altered, subjective experience changes. We can change 4 things: perception, sensation, volition, and consciousness. There is no dispute here, and we have everything from lobotomy and electroshock therapy to neurological implants that complete an axonic afferent circuit (artificial components to replace neurons) to demonstrate this.

What does this mean for subjective experience? It means that it is a function of the brain. We can't rule out a soul yet, but we can chase it around the brain with a scalpel and conclusively say that it's not needed. Emotional states like empathy can be 'cut out' – the collection of somatic dispositions that get incorrectly labelled as 'self' are all a function of the material, with absolutely no need for 'mind' to be separate. We can reduce, increase or completely change the characteristics of 'mind' with predictable outcomes.

>>4031782
I believe you are projecting, again. So far you haven't even mentioned ANY "proper" names or disciplines, and have even failed to put forth any argument that would be worth considering. From the very beginning, it only took me to read >>4031666
to acknowledge that you have no idea what you're talking about. You haven't even read stuff; not even contemporary data/findings of neuroscience, you don't even seem to be reading any contemporary philosophy, which, as you see, correspondingly reflects on your inability to reason properly. You are logically impotent.

Let me refer back to: >>4031685

>Ctrl + F Compatibilism
>0 Results

Disappointed again, /lit/.

Worst thread ever.

>>4031811
what didn't you like about it? i feel like every branch of philosophy has reared its head itt.

>>4031818
Having read through it, this has actually been a pretty decent thread.

>>4031807
Aww, how cute, except, that I wasn't even arguing for anything. I was simply pointing out to the guy's erroneous reasoning.

You, on the other hand, chimed in and in favor of neuroscience, dismissed philosophy entirely; several people objected, but you kept ad-homining everybody and never really provided any legitimate set of propositions. You have also been projecting from the get go. "Only knowing one side of the argument really exposes your ignorance." made me lol heartily, especially.

>>4031836
projecting *and* name-dropping*

>>4031798
"Man can indeed do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wants".

>>4031836
You gave some terrible unsubstantiated greentext against neuroscience, and 20 posts later still haven't demonstrated that you know anything of either philosophy or neuroscience. It's my fault for taking your shitty troll bait, but my point still stands. Read both philosophy and neuroscience, and don't reject either side without understanding it. Now fuck off and troll another thread.

>>4031845
>you can't will what you want
>if you could will what you want you would also have to be able to will to will what you want
>and to will to will to will what you want
>etc
>free will would imply an infinite succession of wills to will
>making a decision is an event in time
>therefore an infinite feedback loop to will would take infinite amount of time
>free will would paralyse us
>nobody would do anything
>only by determinism can we be free to act

Determinism is the metaphysics of the cultural relativist manchildren, who want to believe that "truth" is something that happens by chance and "conditioning".

Every mature, sensible person believes in free will.

>>4031849
>You gave some terrible unsubstantiated greentext against neuroscience
Lmao

Yeah, because pointing out to some stoner's positivist belief that something abstract as 'consciousness' will be verified empirically, and not, rigorously and logically argued for, surely is, without a doubt, unsubstantiated.

Please do something about your clinical and logical retardation, unless you are willing to embarrass yourself further.

>>4031877
>willing to amuse yourself further.
huh? YOU are amusing me. Not only are you arrogant, your ignorance makes that arrogance hilarious as it has no basis.

Your primary confusion seems to be that you have just become aware of the scepticism that lays beneath any description of reality, and are using this to write off any description of consciousness that came from empirical observation.

Every attempt you have made at joining in the discussion has demonstrated you ignorance of the topic.

>>4031884
>because pointing out to some stoner's positivist belief that something abstract as 'consciousness' will be verified empirically, and not, rigorously and logically argued for, surely is, without a doubt, unsubstantiated.

Thinks he can argue for consciousness without any empirical observation.
Jesus wept.

>>4031896
"No propositions, merely projections." -- write it on your forehead and you will successfully depict your sophistic pattern of reasoning and whichever corrupt judgement(s) it happens to spew out.

I'm out. Have fun crying into your pillow, junior. And brush up on your Logic, too.

>>4031908
>Thinks he can argue for consciousness without any empirical observation.
We are not arguing for consciousness, we are reducing it to a function of it's physical parts. Some people want to keep a magical soul or a 15th century model of dualism and are getting upset that empiricism shows it's not required for a functioning model of subjective experience. They cling to the idea that the model must be incorrect, and things unaccounted for, but refuse to learn the model and just scream at it from a safe distance.

>>4031927
Yet another empty post of name-calling to avoid a discussion.

>>4031908
Perhaps you should take a lesson or two in reading comprehension, retard. That's not what I was saying, at all.

>>4031941
>You
>Saying anything coherent
You have shitposted for hours now and still haven't said anything that wasn't a strawman or name-calling exercise.

>>4031936
>Yet another empty post of name-calling to avoid a discussion.
He's happy to mock the scientific method from a position of ignorance, but doesn't want you to ridicule the soul that he believes in. That's why he's just spamming buzzwords and insults and refusing to engage in conversation.

>are there good arguments against determinism?
Yep, even that which is true can be proven.

>>4031876
Worst troll ever.

>>4030654
>first cause
If everything has to have had a first cause, then anything other than infinity is a logical impossibility.

>>4031301
>Given that thought is immaterial and a willed action not necessarily caused by the brain...
neuroscience called, it said you're a retard

>>4031996
With the existence of the universe came time, meaning there was no before, as time did not yet exist. It's like asking what's south of the south pole or north of the north pole.

I learned that from Stephen Hawking. ^_^

:3

>>4030654
I love it when ignorantfags try to use quantum mechanics to disprove determinism. It's just so beautifully pathetic and retarded.

>>4032014
Well, probabilistic determination is a kind've massive fuck-you to determinism. Doesn't affirm voluntarism though.

>>4031845
>>4031865
fuck it

>>4032008
I know you're joking, but seriously, how can first cause be reconciled with the big bang?

>>4032020
You mean classical determinism. We're arguing about the possibility of free will. The old notion of cause/effect being outdated (specially when we talk about quantum level, where shit works nothing like anything we've ever experienced) means we cannot predict or trace a linear cause/effect relation for everything. This still leaves no hope for free will, even worse: we are determined by shit we cannot even possibly predict.

>>4032024
Oh, wait, let my try:
>First cause = Big Bang

It would be too stodgy to read Anna Karenina immediately after War and Peace?

>>4032029
>we cannot even possibly predict

but that's what the probabilities are for.

>>4032050
>X will happen
>X will probably happen

>>4032029
>unpredictable determinism

aka random variation and then lawful selection. two stage model of free will.

>>4032056
Protip: something happening at quantum level cannot affect you.

>>4032064
who said anything about the quantum level. just look at unicelluar organisms:

"Evidence of randomly generated action — action that is distinct from reaction because it does not depend upon external stimuli — can be found in unicellular organisms. Take the way the bacterium Escherichia coli moves. It has a flagellum that can rotate around its longitudinal axis in either direction: one way drives the bacterium forward, the other causes it to tumble at random so that it ends up facing in a new direction ready for the next phase of forward motion. This 'random walk' can be modulated by sensory receptors, enabling the bacterium to find food and the right temperature."

>>4032055

but predictions are always based on probabilities not prophecy.

>>4032056
>unpredictable determinism

>aka...
Infinite-valued determinism:

"The problem of 'indeterminism vs. determinism' is the failure of pre-modern epistemologies to formulate the issue properly, the failure to consider or include all factors relevant to a particular prediction, and failure to adjust our languages and linguistic structures to empirical facts.

We can resolve this in favour of determinism of a special kind called 'infinite-valued' determinism which always allows for the possibility that relevant 'causal' factors may be 'left out' at any given date, resulting in, if the issue is not understood at that date, 'indeterminism', which simply indicates that our ability to predict events has broken down, not that they aren't effects following a cause."

>>4032064
>Protip: something happening at quantum level cannot affect you.

pffffffffffffffffffffffahaahaahahaahaah

Determinists are absolutely pathetic.

>we aren't dogmatic guys! It's everybody else that is dogmatic! We are just telling the truth!

>they say that we have no free will because all of our actions can be reduced to the movement of atoms in a chain of cause effect
science actually points out that there are things smaller than atoms that aren't governed by cause and effect
>b-b-b-but you can't say something that small has any effect on you
and this right after saying that something as small as an atom not only has an effect on us, but more or less forms everything that we are.
pathetic, absolutely pathetic.

>>4032074
See:
>>4028841

>>4032064
What about superconductivity?

>>4032080
doesn't make a difference

the determinist argument relies on the base, smallest level being absolutely deterministic, so that they can say that all higher levels must also be deterministic, as they are each determined by their lower level. So once it is proved that the lowest level is not deterministic then entire deterministic argument of "atoms and chains of cause and effect" completely falls apart.

Serious question: how do determinists keep from blowing their brains out?
I mean, if every time I looked at my sister or my father was a deterministic machine my life would start to seem pretty hopeless.

Either they don't really believe what they say, or they are too cowardly to accept the consequences of it.

>>4032074
If we accept that cause and effect clearly functions on the macro level, then it does not matter whether the most basic level is stochastically or causally determined. Your actions are nonetheless the result of input that you cannot control.
The idea of free will is a bit bizarre, if you really think about it. If you were to be enacting your own will without any type of reaction to input, then what exactly would be causing your actions? How could we say there was any sort of coherent agent behind those actions? It doesn't make sense. An assortment of random actions would not be the exercise of free will, just the lack thereof in a less ordered environment. The only explanation would be, as others here have mentioned, a non-physical 'self' of some sort, but - as has also been pointed out - that would presumably be subject to some other rules of cause-and-effect.

>>4032084
Again, that's a good argument against physical determinism as a universal outlook, but it does nothing to promote voluntarism.

>>4032098
>he idea of free will is a bit bizarre, if you really think about it.

Free Will is common sense, it's the doctrine that I can choose whether or not to eat a ham sandwich, that I can choose whether or not to watch a film, and that a man that commits a murder could have chosen to act otherwise and is therefore guilty.

>If you were to be enacting your own will without any type of reaction to input, then what exactly would be causing your actions?

My will.

>>4032084
>the determinist argument relies on the base, smallest level being absolutely deterministic.
Right, they rely on the atom and not subatomic particles being deterministic.
>as they are each determined by their lower level.
The Subatomic level is irrelevant as it doesn't scale up – there is no current model that unifies GR with QM
>So once it is proved that the lowest level is not deterministic
It isn't proven. Pic related is the current equation, and all it describes is that we can't yet explain the actions of subatomic particles in certain circumstances.
>then entire deterministic argument of "atoms and chains of cause and effect" completely falls apart.
It's water tight, as cause and effect accurately describes everything above the atomic level.

>>4032095
pic related

>>4032106
>Free Will is common sense
It's highly illogical.

>>4032108
>It's water tight, as cause and effect accurately describes everything above the atomic level.

How is that even useful? How does that even add anything to our understanding of reality?

Cause implies effect, effect implies cause. To say "things that happened are caused by things happening before them" is useless tautology. I don't see how it has any bearing on anything, least of all the existence of free will.

>>4032095
>how do determinists keep from blowing their brains out?

They wait and see if they'll do it.

>>4032113
well then not doing it would be an equally futile gesture

I was right, you are cowards.

why has no one unified gr with qm yet?

*puts on sunglasses*

because no one has been determined to.

>>4032106
>My will.
So, did your will decide its own initial state? Because, lacking external input (since cause-and-effect is non-applicable in this hypothetical scenario), then only stochastic changes and those changes determined by its initial state can occur. So its initial state is crucial, and unless it is self-determined, then free will is senseless.

>>4032106
>I think I have freewill therefore I do

>I chose to eat a ham sandwich and not an egg salad

These are some of the most common arguments. Of course the arguers rarely consider the deterministic effects of their environment on their lives. If one looks hard enough there is usually a chain of cause and effect throughout a person's life which have led to their current place and mindset

Free will IS common sense, but common sense is just that, common, PLEBIAN almost

>>4032032
what caused the big bang?

>>4032068
We are talking of predictions that his maximum accuracy is a percentage. The problem isn't a matter of absolute knowledge, it's that some predictions we *think we know all the elements involved in, can only possibly be made in percentages.

>>4032066
>who said anything about the quantum level
Probabilistic determination implies it. Talking about probabilities on a newtonian physics scale only means it's too difficult for us to take into account all elements involved in the prediction; but to counter determinism, probabilistic determination at quantum levels (where stuff we don't know if can be really predicted happens). But it can only mean that apparent indeterminism is only determinism but working at another level.
That randomness in the way living beings behave is only a limitation by the observer.

>>4032074
1) You are a faggot.
2) We don't know if quantum level events are indeterministic. It's only a possibility of explaining something about a level we don't really know much shit about.
3)There is a difference between quantum level and atomic level, you fucking retarded piece of shit. How can a single sub-atomic particle affect you? It takes millions of millions of them to do so.

>>4032131
>So, did your will decide its own initial state?

yes
it does that every moment it comes into being

>>4032064
>Protip: something happening at quantum level cannot affect you.
why can't it affect something, that affects many other things that affect you, thus affecting you by proxy?

>>4032139
>3)There is a difference between quantum level and atomic level, you fucking retarded piece of shit. How can a single sub-atomic particle affect you? It takes millions of millions of them to do so.

wow determinist, you really are this weak, aren't you

>atoms can affect you, because it only takes a few trillion atoms to have an effect on you
>quarks can't affect you, because it takes quadrillions of quarks to effect you, and that's just too many!

lol

>>4032095
>Either they don't really believe what they say, or they are too cowardly to accept the consequences of it.

No man. I've tried incorporating the doctrine into my life and nothing really happened. It's one of those things you learn as probably true but it's not some magical atom bomb in your mind that destroys you when you realize that it's true.

In fact the only bad part about being deterministic is trying to explain it to friends like you who view it as some sort of ebola virus of the mind

what is the determinist view on how I should bring up my kids

"you should bring them up in the way you will inevitably bring them up" is just useless mysticism to me

worst
philosophy
ever

>>4032154
so you are one of the people who don't really believe it, but just say you do (presumably because you think it sounds clever)

your friends view it as an ebola virus of the mind because that's what it really is.
determinism is as destructive to humanity as any virus

>>4032117
>I don't see how it has any bearing on anything, least of all the existence of free will.
It has two levels. The top is macro factors - environmental conditioning, suggestion, influence. The idea that 95% of the population of Cambodia are Buddhists. Every single one of their kids could decide to become Jewish, but they are 'conditioned' and probably will be raised, just like their parents, to be Buddhist. look at clusters of things like this through models like Granovetter and you can see that people are heavily influenced by factors like these, and the closer you explore them, the more you see that the decision of the individual was in the hands of genetics and programming from the outside environment.

The second level is the micro level, from atoms up to neurons, and describes how the behaviour of every cell in the human body can be predicted. Watching one neuron, we can see the electrical activity will spike if certain ones around it are stimulated and we can work out from these to to predict larger (and if we had a full simulation, all) other factors: we know that if I clap my hands behind you your ganglion neurons will fire, this will travel down to the limbic system, back up to the motor neurons and you will jump; we can also see adrenalin spikes, and a host of other predictable actions, and all this ties in to the macro level. The atoms beneath all of this, the building blocks of the chromosomes that make the neurons, are all accurately described by cause and effect too. We have not found anything external to this description, and all human behaviour can be predicted if you have the variables.

>>4032095
determinism can be quite beautiful tho, given how complex the causal interactions really are. strange attractors and all that.

>>4032095
I'm a determinist and it doesn't depress me at all. I have always, since I've been able to think somewhat critically, thought that we act the way we do because of prior causes, I just didn't know there was a name for it. When, say, my brother would get angry, I understood that he was angry because he was hungry, or tired, or sick, or he had some sort of mental illness that messed with his brain's chemistry. Whether or not I knew the specific reason for his anger, I knew there existed a reason, or a cause. He hadn't willed to be angry and say mean things. I would be much more depressed if I were to find out that people did and said all of the stupid things they say using their own free will. Also, once you realize the deterministic nature of the universe, you're able to empathize with people more easily. You understand that, given the circumstances each person is in and their biological makeup, the only way anyone can act is the way they act.

>>4032165
yes, but you only think it's beautiful because you are determined to think that, so you don't actually think that it's beautiful, your atoms and your surroundings and your social conditioning think it is beautiful.

>>4032157
>philosophy should tell me what to do or it's useless
If you are predisposed to check out stoicism, I am causally inclined to recommend it.

>>4032157
That's fatalism, champ.

>>4032095
>Serious question: how do determinists keep from blowing their brains out?
Open eyed resignation to personal nature.

>>4032173
go on then, what can the determinist say about how I ought to bring up my children>

>>4032167
>Also, once you realize the deterministic nature of the universe, you're able to empathize with people more easily.

Once you realize the deterministic nature of the universe you aren't able to do anything.

>>4032161
>so you are one of the people who don't really believe it, but just say you do (presumably because you think it sounds clever)

what is this even founded on? I mean, this is ridiculous.

"Since you're not a gibbering depressed lunatic you don't ACTUALLY (no true scotsman fallacy etc) believe in X idea that I disagree with"

it's absurd really

>determinism is as destructive to humanity as any virus

I hate to break it to ya but shit like city planning, economics, warfare, what have you already kind of accept this, at least on the scale of the individual human

If you must know it was the Foundation series that got me on this idea. Of course the exception was a psychic being who fucked the course of history for the galaxy. Other than that Seldon predicted shit for hundreds of years accurately. Seemed pretty logical to me

>>4032177
>what can the determinist say about how I ought to bring up my children
Determinism isn't a prescriptive value system, it is a description of empirical events.

>>4032168
right. but i was also determined to have this subjective experience that gets to use all of these meaningless words to describe whatever this is. being a part of some larger process isn't so bad.

>>4032189
>I hate to break it to ya but shit like city planning, economics, warfare, what have you already kind of accept this, at least on the scale of the individual human

No, they don't think in terms of the individual, they think in terms of crowds.

>>4032187
>Once you realize the deterministic nature of the universe you aren't able to do anything.
That is untrue. Determinism is only paralytic if you are predisposed to be paralyzed. Determinism doesn't change the fact that you act within your own nature.

>>4032199
You aren't being a part of some larger process, you are the larger process. Or more accurately, you are the small process, the medium process, and the large process, because really there is no difference between the small processes and the large process in your view.

>>4032177

What this guy >>4032189 said.

Also, as a determinist, I would say you should live your life as though you do have free will. But when someone does something to irritate you, or if someone does something wrong, remind yourself that they couldn't have done it any other way.

>>4032204
fair enough

>>4032201
>Determinism doesn't change the fact that you act within your own nature.

Determinism denies that I have my own nature, in fact it denies that I have anything of own, asserting that everything that is I is actually something external to I.

>>4032200
Exactly. I know I strayed a little off with that example but still, in these systems humans are expected to act as humans, ie very predictable on many levels

I wasn't saying they dealt in terms of the individual, I was saying the individual wasn't even considered because one man acting alone is a non-possibility

>>4032081
This starts happening at quantum level, but the observable effect isn't observable until it starts affecting the atomic level. I mean, the question is: indeterminism only can possibly happen at quantum level (and it's probably a new kind of determinism we still don't really understand). The quantum level is the smallest scale we know about, everything is made of quantum particles, the problem is something happening at such little scale doesn't affect us: only when something is big enough to affect the atomic scale can.

>>4032084
What falls apart is the old notion. The point is: nature is more complex than we thought, this still gives us no remote evidence of the existence of such a thing like free will.

>>4032095
Everything being deterministic doesn't change we being able to think and making decisions: >>4031793

>>4032138
Go ask a physicist, I'm not an expert on this subject.

>>4032106
>Free Will is common sense,
Yes, if you are uneducated.
>hurr I'm going to use social norms to make a judgment about metaphysics
I don't know why this kind of retarded argumentation surprises me, it comes from someone that believes in free will...

Determinism makes it easier to approach women.

>>4032189
>Determinism isn't a prescriptive value system, it is a description of empirical events.

So how would it describe the empirical event of my having a child and all the empirical events that consist in my raising it?

>>4032210
>Determinism denies that I have my own nature
No it doesn't, it merely says that you do not choose your nature.
>in fact it denies that I have anything of own, asserting that everything that is I is actually something external to I.
That's just selfish, why do you have to have? Why do you have to choose? Just be.

>>4032210
>asserting that everything that is I is actually something external to I.

yes which is why it meshes so perfectly with sprituality. See determinism isn't depressive it's liberating as fuck

>>4032188
>If you must know it was the Foundation series that got me on this idea.
For me it was the butterfly effect scenario. I remember as a kid hearing that "a butterfly flapping it's wings in London could cause a hurricane in New York" and thinking it was the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

It was years later, and probably brought up by that dumb Ashton Kutcher film, that I remembered the butterfly and pondered it. Only this time realising that the wings flapping for a single second would displace air molecules, which would have a very minor effect on the photosynthesis of a leaf due to a few less C02 molecules, and that one leaf would always.... and I could see how the entire would was a giant web of cause and effect. Then when I discovered determinism and the lack of free will it just made sense.

>>4032148
I don't see how this shit-post has anything to do against our will being entirely determined by physics.
Keep it up, greentext retard.
Something happening at quantum level is your best argument (which still implies everything is determined by physics) for free will. What a fucking genius at nitpicking you are.

>>4032210
"your own nature" would just mean "your determined future path"

>>4032213
>Go ask a physicist, I'm not an expert on this subject.
>my pastor explained it to me, I don't remember what he said so trust me in that it makes sense
Don't hand wave it away, what caused the big bang?

>>4032157
Why are you expecting a theory about metaphysics to explain you how to raise your kids? Do you suffer from severe autism?

>>4032222
it was the simpsons episode where the travel in time and homer steps on a bug that did it for me.

>>4032219
>So how would it describe the empirical event of my having a child and all the empirical events that consist in my raising it?
None of us have the scope of knowledge or mental ability required to know that. Are you familiar with Laplace's Demon?

>>4032228
well all of the other metaphysicians from Plato to Kant have used their metaphysics to explain how I ought to raise my kids, I think determinists must be pretty poor if they can't live up to the standard that every metaphysician before them has met.

>>4032161
You are just too stupid to understand determinism, don't worry.

Why everything being determined or not should change the way you act? You will still do what you want, idiot.

>>4032168
>yes, but you only think it's beautiful because you are determined to think that, so you don't actually think that it's beautiful
lol this is top level logic.

>>4032227
Are you retarded? The Big Bang wasn't caused. It happened creating time. This is why there's no before.

>>4032239
alright how about this. Since you know you can't control your kids, you just let them do they what they want.

Imagine, a philosophy that says fuck it to parenting. Kids just get to be kids, refreshing huh?

>this is just my take, since you're begging for an answer

>>4032239
>a singer can sing parenting advice to me! you should be able to piano it to me!

>>4032239
>hurrr I know everything from Plato to Kant, but I forgot the ought-is problem part
Go read Hume, go.
They used ethics, not metaphysics. Holy shit, I'm just starting to believe only mentally challenged people believe in free will.

>>4032245
>it just happened
truly the laziest explanation for the origin of the universe, on par with
>God just made everything

>>4032239
>how I ought to raise my kid
Why are you getting hung up on this?

Usually babbys first anti-determinism rant is "But why put murderers in prison if they had no choice."

>>4032253
Except this is a conclusion physicists reached using mathematics and knowledge about the laws of nature. Are you seriously this retarded?

>>4030835

>you can't really prove or disprive that our observation of events changed them

ust thinking about that in terms of the effects of language on a person. language is a way of seeing things, it seems, but the problem is, i think, in how often langauge can show things in a damaging way, leading to damaged thoughts...because language is leading -- but where does it lead us?

>>4032249
>>4032256

I just think it's funny how a lot of determinists believe that they can hold this view of the entire cosmos and at the same time think it has no impact on daily life. It's absurd to think that.
That's like a Christian saying that if he sins he will go to hell and then spending his entire life behaving as though sin and eternal punishment in hell doesn't exist.

Of course determinism has an impact on how you behave in daily life, so I'm trying to figure out what it is.

>>4032252
>They used ethics, not metaphysics.

Their ethics were based on their metaphysics.

>>4032257
>Except this is a conclusion physicists reached using mathematics and knowledge about the laws of nature.
Until the scientific method can be applied to it, it is educated guesswork and nothing more. The world's best astronomers came up with the idea that the stars are fixed on a plane suspended above the earth but that wasn't fucking right.

Lesson learned today: only kids and retards believe in free will.

I'm really amused, I think I never discussed anything with people this dumb on /lit/ before (including Fagulous and Quentin).

>>4032267
Metaphysics alone don't tell you anything about ethics. That's something all philosophers from Plato until today know. Of course all your knowledge system is based on your cosmovision. But pretend a theory about metaphysics is going to change your ethics means you are an undergrad.

>>4032267
>determinists believe that they can hold this view of the entire cosmos and at the same time think it has no impact on daily life
It doesn't really impact me at all. Maybe once ever few months I think about the entire universe being an interwoven mesh of causes and effects, the rest of the time I have shit to do. Determinism is a conclusion, and once you reach it there really isn't much left to think about. Sure, you might spend a little while thinking "did I have any choice in picking that one?" and playing back through various scenarios to see where the influence came from, but eventually this goes and you just live your life as normal.

It's kind of on the same scale as when you first figure out life has no 'meaning' - it's worrying for a little while, then you realise there's nothing you can do about it and it really doesn't matter anyway.

>>4032267
hmm.. well it's akin to religious people saying God has a plan for all of us. I think he does, what with determinism being a thing and all this life and mischief and intrigue on Earth. It doesn't always work but knowing that I've done things in life that match up to a course of events is kind of cool.

Also it helps assuage bad feelings against other people, since they are just the way they are.

Finally, for myself, I think there's a common way to approach people that will work on everyone, since us being essential machines means there's a code to us, meaning that any given point I can learn more about the code and further my own abilities with other people.

I really do think more in terms of spirituality at this point than cold hard philosophy, but looking at it objectively I see no reason for free will as we are thinking about it to truly exist, it's just a logic thing

If a person DOES have free will, you can assume he will try to act in a way that is best for himself and what he believes, which can be roughly calculated anyway

>>4032269
>Nitpicking like a motherfucker
Hod this post can refute anything I'm arguing? Did I imply science doesn't change over time? Because I think one must be pretty retarded to assume I imply so.

>>4032275
Have you tried debating the guys who believe in Cartesian dualism, or the ones who believe in platonic forms? That opens up a whole new realm of idiocy.

>>4032222
hah, nice dude thx for sharing :D

>>4032296
>insisting that the scientific method be applied to scientific discoveries before calling them fact is nitpicking
Jesus fucking Christ, how does that cool aid taste?

>>4032275
>Lesson learned today: only kids and retards believe in free will.

Don't be hard on them, there's always been a high influx of people with no experience of philosophy here. There is still a subjectivity/objectivity debate in at least one thread every day. Just try to point them in the right direction.

>>4032267
>That's like a Christian saying that if he sins he will go to hell and then spending his entire life behaving as though sin and eternal punishment in hell doesn't exist.
This explains why Christians commit no crimes.

Determinism means free will doesn't exist. This doesn't imply you should start being a dick because of it. If the point of you having certain values was only having a soul with free will, then your whole moral system is shit.

>>4032290
Metaphysics has a large impact on ethics.

Plato would not have been able to speak about virtues and the Good if he didn't have his theory of forms.
Kant would not have been able to speak about the categorical imperative if he didn't have his pure rational a priori knowledge.

>>4032291
>It doesn't really impact me at all.

How can believing that you and everybody you love is an automaton not impact you? Either you don't really believe it, or you are too cowardly to accept its consequences, and when you say that you think about it only once every few months it leads me to believe that you are too cowardly to accept its consequences. Even then, however, it still has some impact on you. Do you really believe that this pernicious view of the Universe has not affected you in some way? Do you really believe that you have not, in some cases, used this cosmological view of yours as an excuse for some of your failings, or as an excuse to avoid having to aspire to the things that you admire, or to persuade yourself not to be envious of the things you think are better than yourself, "because they aren't actually better than me, they just got luckier in the chain of cause of effect"?

Determinism has poisoned your morals, it has poisoned your social life, your sex life, your relationships with your family members, your hobbies, your education, everything.

>>4032303
We were arguing about determinism. You tried to get something wrong from my posts until we reached the fucking Big Bang. And now, your only pathetic attempt at arguing anything is saying science isn't absolutely perfect? Whoa, I'm impressed, but this has anything to do with free will being pointless.

>>4032310
I don't mind people being ignorant. But people being ignorant and proud of it are retarded. Their pathetic attempts at reasoning wouldn't be irritating with a little bit of humility.

>>4032210

but the self is a lie. there is nothing outside the self that controls the self, there is no self.

>>4032316
>How can believing that you and everybody you love is an automaton not impact you? Either you don't really believe it, or you are too cowardly...
Wow. This is like watching someone have a bad trip after injecting reality.

Just try to calm down. I can see the realisation has jolted you more than most people, but everything will be okay.

>>4032316
>Plato
Aristotle talked about virtues and the Good, and didn't have Plato's theory of forms.
>Kant
No. Duty is based on reason. You don't even need the pure rational a priori to talk about the categorical imperative, the only thing you need is being a pietist nutjob.

Metaphysics are part of your cosmovision. Your cosmovision includes a justification of the way you act. But pretending something about ontology is going to change the way you treat your parents is pretty retarded.

>>4032330
I don't believe in determinism, I think it is a lie and I'm glad that the people who talk about it don't really believe it.

Even if total "physical" determinism is true, it still doesn't rule out what we normally call "free will".
As usual with modern thought/philosophy, Hegel provided the answer (or at least where we begin with providing the answer): his account of the free rational will,( in the philosophy of right and the logic), as a self-reflexive, self-monitoring system which is the cause of its own causes is a complete answer to even total determinism. Obviously, the full exposition of the answer and how we can know it depends on a longer answer.

>>4032335
>But pretending something about ontology is going to change the way you treat your parents is pretty retarded.

Of course it is. If I believe in Plato's theory of forms then in my relations with my parents I am going to actualize as fully as possible the ultimate form, the Good.
If I believe in Kant's reason then in my relations with my parents I am going to try and fulfill my duty according to categorical imperative.
If I believe in determinism then in my relations with my parents I am going to do . . . what I'm going to do.

>>4032324
>We were arguing about determinism.
Fuck off, I was discussing the big bang and you jumped your attention whoring ass into my conversation so I responded.

>>4032351
You can't believe in something that's too difficult for your brain to handle. But don't worry, you will grow up some day... maybe.

>>4032358
m8, when I was 16 I was a "determinist" too, it's not very hard to think about atoms and "social conditioning", it's about as hard as it is to imagine a snooker ball hitting another snooker ball in to a pocket.

>>4032355
This changes your justifications, not how you act. Your cosmovision includes a view on metaphysics. But your actions won't change for an ethically trivial discovery.

Realizing free will is retarded and we live in a physical world where everything is determined by physical laws doesn't change the fact that you are human, have a brain, make decisions and do what you want.

>Oh, no! Newton's physics weren't the ultimate scientific paradigm! Lol I can rape little girls now

>>4032356
If you care so much about the Big Bang why don't you go ask your teacher? I thought high-school textbooks already explained it.

>>4032372
>injects self into a conversation
>gets told
>proceeds to get pissed about the topic of the conversation
>gets told
>insults
Truly, you are a quality poster.

>>4032377
>>gets told
Are you the anti-determinism kid ITT?

Son, you have been thoroughly spanked by multiple people. You're just to dumb to see it.

>>4032377
>gets told
LOL yes. Like I've read tons of intelligent arguments refuting anything I've said.
We stopped talking about the self because there were no arguments against its existence being bullshit. But I don't know how this has anything to do with what I was saying about determinism not having significant moral implications.

>>4032382
>Are you the anti-determinism kid ITT?
God no, I'm the big bang guy.

>>4032384
>We stopped talking about the self because there were no arguments against its existence being bullshit. But I don't know how this has anything to do with what I was saying about determinism not having significant moral implications.
I'm the big bang poster.

>>4032391
Well, I don't even know what's your problem with the Big Bang other than being too lazy to google some explanation of how vacuum collapsed into the Big Bang.

>It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century . . .

>>4032395
>. . . Examples are scarcely needed of this total levity on the subject of cosmic philosophy. Examples are scarcely needed to show that, whatever else we think of as affecting practical affairs, we do not think it matters whether a man is a pessimist or an optimist, a Cartesian or a Hegelian, a materialist or a spiritualist. Let me, however, take a random instance. At any innocent tea-table we may easily hear a man say, "Life is not worth living." We regard it as we regard the statement that it is a fine day; nobody thinks that it can possibly have any serious effect on the man or on the world. And yet if that utterance were really believed, the world would stand on its head. Murderers would be given medals for saving men from life; firemen would be denounced for keeping men from death; poisons would be used as medicines; doctors would be called in when people were well; the Royal Humane Society would be rooted out like a horde of assassins. Yet we never speculate as to whether the conversational pessimist will strengthen or disorganize society; for we are convinced that theories do not matter.

>>4032399
>But there are some people, nevertheless—and I am one of them—who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy's numbers, but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long run, anything else affects them. In the fifteenth century men cross-examined and tormented a man because he preached some immoral attitude; in the nineteenth century we feted and flattered Oscar Wilde because he preached such an attitude, and then broke his heart in penal servitude because he carried it out. It may be a question which of the two methods was the more cruel; there can be no kind of question which was the more ludicrous.

>>4032402
>Now, in our time, philosophy or religion, our theory, that is, about ultimate things, has been driven out, more or less simultaneously, from two fields which it used to occupy. General ideals used to dominate literature. They have been driven out by the cry of "art for art's sake." General ideals used to dominate politics. They have been driven out by the cry of "efficiency," which may roughly be translated as "politics for politics' sake." Persistently for the last twenty years the ideals of order or liberty have dwindled in our books; the ambitions of wit and eloquence have dwindled in our parliaments. Literature has purposely become less political; politics have purposely become less literary. General theories of the relation of things have thus been extruded from both; and we are in a position to ask, "What have we gained or lost by this extrusion? Is literature better, is politics better, for having discarded the moralist and the philosopher?"

>>4032394
>doesn't know
>GO READ A BOOK
no sir, you go read a book

>>4032404
>. . . Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good—" At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.

>>4032405
I don't know what? Physics? Of course I don't know physics. The Big Bang is still the best theory we got about how the universe started.

>>4032434
You clearly don't know enough to argue for its validity or you would.

>>4032406
so in conclusion, don't go around like children believing that saying that the Universe is entirely deterministic and the human beings have no free will doesn't matter and is probably of less practical importance than the color of trousers you are wearing. You have to take responsibility for what you believe, you can't just go around spouting nonsense flippantly because you believe it's clever and because you kind of think that it's true. If you really believe that you have made this great discovery about the Universe and about the human will then you better figure out how that affects the Law, Politics, Ethics, Education, etc., otherwise you will be doing more harm than good by spreading things that you in a flippant way you believe are "true" but in a more serious way you couldn't really care less about.

>>4028834
>>4030835
this plus we don't experience consciousness on a sub atomic level so theorizing about how microcosmic events which are extraordinarily difficulty to observe affect our macro-cosmic existence seems silly at this point doesn't it? Especially considering that every other scrab of evidence and logic based around our current understanding of the universe seems to back up determinism.

Even if we want to consider that QM contradicts the tenants of determinism, which I think in theory it could, it's currently far too inconclusive to be useful. It's possible though, who the fuck knows.

>>4032438
Oh Jesus...
All this started with >>4032032
And then the question:
>>4032138
Nothing! The Big Bang IS what happened creating the Universe. How, exactly? Well, the vacuum exploded. It happened because the physical laws made it happen, creating time and matter. It happened, and there is a physical theory about how such a thing is possible. I'm not an expert on physics, but by the moment, looks like the best answer. Sounds logic. Asking what existed before time was created is stupid, because time started there with matter.

>>4032463
So you agree that it's merely best guess?

>>4032443
Determinism has no real consequence. What should have consequence is having free will. If I was free I would be able to change what I want, and life would be a lot easier for me, but I can't. You are the one who doesn't act consequentially, since you behave like a determined being but say you have free will.

>>4032472
Of course it's best guess. Like gravity being an Universal law, or my brain not being made of uranium.

>>4032476
>Of course it's best guess.
OK then.
>Like gravity being an Universal law, or my brain not being made of uranium.
Yeah, but those have been tested via scientific method.

>>4032480
I've never seen my brain, and I don't know if gravity still works millions of years light away from the furthest star we can see.

>>4032474
Determinism would have massive consequence in Law, because we would no longer be able to say that criminals were responsible for their actions.
Determinism would have massive consequence in politics, because we would never be able say that any individual politician had responsibility for his legislation. Determinism would have massive consequence in ethics, because we would no longer be able to praise people for being good or admonish people for being bad, because it would not be praising or admonishing them, it would be praising or admonishing the "cause and effect" and the "conditioning" that produced them. Determinism would have massive consequence in Education, because it would shift focus from the responsibility of the student to study and to learn, to the surroundings which cause a student to want to study and to learn.

>>4032490
>I've never seen my brain
other people have
>I don't know if gravity still works millions of years light away from the furthest star we can see.
that's some serious bullshit, why would that make a difference?

>>4032494
>other people have
Not mine.
>why would that make a difference?
Because if gravity doesn't work somewhere on the Universe, then it's not an Universal Law.

>>4032506
>Not mine.
What does the scientific method have to do with your specific brain?
>Because if gravity doesn't work somewhere on the Universe, then it's not an Universal Law.
The scientific method has been applied, we have no reason to believe the findings are anything else.

>>4032491
>Determinism would have massive consequence in Law, because we would no longer be able to say that criminals were responsible for their actions.
Law has nothing to do with reality.
Anyway, you do what you want, you make decisions based on preferences. You are just too retarded to understand determinism doesn't mean that you are rational, conscious and can choose your course of action over different possibilities.
>Determinism would have massive consequence in politics, because we would never be able say that any individual politician had responsibility for his legislation.
"Hurr dur I don't understand what determinism is" part 2.
>Determinism would have massive consequence in ethics, because we would no longer be able to praise people for being good or admonish people for being bad, because it would not be praising or admonishing them, it would be praising or admonishing the "cause and effect" and the "conditioning" that produced them
But people ARE conditioned. You were taught how to behave by your parents and society. Anyway, you can still choose. Determinism doesn't mean you can't think. You can do what you want, that's not a problem. You still can't choose what you want, you just want it. Even when you don't do what you would like to it's only because there's a greater think you want to do (e.g. not stealing money because you don't want to end up in jail).
>Determinism would have massive consequence in Education, because it would shift focus from the responsibility of the student to study and to learn, to the surroundings which cause a student to want to study and to learn.
Kids can choose to study or not. Anyway it's a known fact that kids that live on problematic areas or have problems in their homes have more difficulties in their studies.

tl,dr: You want to criticize what you don't even know. Because that isn't how determinism works, retard. Nobody said determinism means you can't think or choose. of course you can't, because you are determined to choose what you want after calculating what is your preference.

>>4032519
>What does the scientific method have to do with your specific brain?
If my brain was green, scientists would want to find an answer, because that would be something we think is impossible.

>we have no reason to believe the findings are anything else.
That's the point. This is why I think the Big Bang is the best theory: the scientific method has been applied and we have theories about the Laws of Universe and physics. And according to these laws, physicists have made equations according to which it makes sense to believe such a thing as the Big Bang being the "First Cause" of the Universe makes sense.

>>4032545
>of course you can't, because you are determined to choose what you want after calculating what is your preference.
Meant to say "of course you can".

>>4032552
>Big Bang
>Cause

>>4032141
That makes zero sense. Your will decided what it would be? If the will is this object separate from physical and neurological phenomena, then how could it, before its own existence, have willed itself into being? It would have to exist in some place outside of existence, which situation would require that the question be asked again of its initial state of "non-existence," or whatever we would wish to call that place beyond existence.

>>4034357
Stop applying logic to that poster's claims. It's useless. Take this whole thread as evidence.