Heh, fair.

but I want it to...

Heh. I've heard. In fact I think I've put off reading him so long probably because I heard he disliked Jazz, at which point I thought "No man could be a good thinker and dislike Jazz" :D -- so petty.

Looking over Lecture 10 again I can see these are just my little prejudices getting in the way. The real thrust of Lecture 10 is what resistance is, and all the prior examples are him trying to outline what it is not in order to get at what it is.

There we go. If that sounds right I think it all clicked for me finally.

Right -- I think expressions of elitism automatically incur some kind of disdain from me, but you're pointing out significant differences.

I wouldn't expect such language to go down well in a union hall, though :D I can hear the jeers already...

I suppose I don't see the appeal, but for reasons already stated. I don't see it as beautiful, though I don't know if it's ugly either. Determinism appears to me to be entirely inconsequential to my way of thinking or being; a kind of metaphysical toy.

OK, that helps me understand better.

I think I can get used to it, and it's not as difficult as some other stuff I've read, but I might have a look at the original English translation by Ashton to see if it reads any better (but even if it does this doesn't mean it's as accurate) — Jamal

I think I can get used to it too. And I prefer accuracy to readability.

The excessive use of pronouns reminds me of Norman Kemp Smith's translation of Kant. (could be a choice thing -- breaking out the German words that are compact into explicit English sentences which explicitly state, if repeatedly, the meaning)

I'm not sure how else to put it, but I still see this as incorrect.

While I think determinism is impossible to determine empirically, I also don't believe it's true. There are patterns, but if some of those aren't predictable then to call them "determined" looks different from what I thought determinism to be claiming. Something like Dennet's claims about how that one particular event could not be different in the course of things.

I generally take probability as an empirical reality rather than a fudge-factor for our ignorance. Uncertainty figures into scientific thought so much that it seems reasonable to treat it as real as all the rest.

I think we believe in universal causation because that seems to be what we observe everywhere, and we also have coherent understandings of why we think we are free (because we cannot be aware of all the forces acting on us, as Spinoza noted) and why we cannot predict everything (because very slight variations in initial conditions amplify to create great differences in outcomes when it comes to the complex systems whose behavior we are not so good at predicting). — Janus

To my mind that begins to look like a ghost -- we can explain it, but we can't say it's certainly the case.

For instance -- Spinoza has an explanation for determinism, but another explanation for thinking we are free is we're born free and so know it as well as we know our bodies, and we can't predict everything because some events are connected by chance rather than necessity.

It seems that, except when it comes to human and some animal behavior, causation is the paradigmatic mode of thought. — Janus

And if Hume is right, while true that it's paradigmatic, it's also just a habit unjustified by logic.

The puzzle there is how intentions which are themselves understood to be the outcome of brain processes, and which are themselves outside of the animal or human ambit of awareness, can really be free of causation. — Janus

I'm more tempted to inverse this -- How can we believe in universal causation (determinism) when we know we are free and can't predict everything?

When they do not behave in the way we have predicted is it not due to unforeseen conditions which when discovered causally explain the anomaly? — Janus

Sometimes. And sometimes it's given "the shrug" -- "Idk, because there are too many possible causes"

Usually that's when you figure out it was a bad experiment after all, or you mess something up.

But every once and again they are discoveries, so unexpected consequences that teach us something.

Following this path, we treat possible worlds not as metaphysical entities but as stipulated language games within which we can evaluate the truth of particular propositions, of how things might otherwise have been. And essential properties are not discovered, nor the attributes of Platonic Forms, but are decided by virtue of keeping our language consistent. They are a thing we do together with words.

There's a lot more that can be said here, but I have to go do other things, an there is enough there for now. The Law of Diminishing Returns applies, too. Is any one reading this? — Banno

I am sir.

I'm glad to see your explicit rendition of possible worlds, because that was my fuzzy notion but you've made it explicit.

So chemical elements do not always combine in predictable ways? In the absence of understandable faults and unusual conditions electrical and electronic components don't always function as predicted? — Janus

Yup!

Much of the time they do -- but not always always. That's why it's still a science. We get it wrong sometimes, in the details.

Can you give an example of a stochastic cause? — Janus

Theoretically I think of a stochastic cause as, using Hume's notion of a necessary connection between events, a set probability between events.

So if I flip a quarter then 50% Heads 50% Tails.

We explain events causally not stochasitically. — Janus

I don't think those exclusive. There are necessary causes and stochastic causes, and others harder to define than these mathematical constructs.

The observed invariance of chemical and electrical processes, which are what constitute everything we observe. — Janus

Maybe it's a professional hazard, but "invariance" is not what I see in chemistry or electrical explanation.

Predictions have improved, but "invariance" seems wrong to me.

It changes, if at a slower rate, but does change.

Genes and the pachinko machine appear stochastic, as does the coin toss, but I think we have reason to believe they are not really stochastic, and merely appear so to us due to our inability to model all the conditions in play. — Janus

What reason?

Actually the question in the OP was whether the idea of the PSR is inextricably bound to the idea of determinism . The OP specifically stated that the concern is not with the truth of the PSR and determinism. — Janus

Yeah. I started there with

↪flannel jesus Wouldn't that just mean that insofar that determinism is true there is a/(some version of the) PSR must be true, namely, the one wherein reasons are causes and there are no other explanations worth considering with respect to the PSR, or something like that.

I think I'd be more inclined to accept the inference from determinism to the PSR than the inference from the PSR to determinism just because reasons and causes need not be one and the same, so it seems obvious to me that one can hold that everything has an explanation without everything having a cause. — Moliere

I'm still thinking that if we accept determinism then the PSR is easy to establish, but cuz of stochastic events the reverse does not hold cuz we can explain events stochastically.

Only in a thread claiming things about determinism and the PSR :D

Though I'd emphasize my viewpoint here: it's not the quantum level as much as there are natural stochastic processes, such as the pachinko machine, or the genes one is born with. At least empirically speaking.

For my part the addition of uncertainty in classical mechanics is enough to warrant some kind of stochastic reasoning with respect to causality. It may be stupid, but determinism may also be reading into phenomena more than is warranted.

I think any decent definition of 'universe' would involve it being a closed system. If not, it is at best part of some larger structure, just part of a universe. — noAxioms

I think that begs the question.

Though to be fair to you -- to say the universe is a closed system is more or less to affirm the conservation laws are true and applicable to all that we can observe and make inferences about.

A physical coin flip (like Pachinko) should be a reasonably deterministic process. If all state is known to enough precision, the outcome is computable. Still, classical physics is not empirically deterministic, as illustrated by things like Norton's dome. This does not falsify ontic deterministic interpretations, which give cause to all events. — noAxioms

It doesn't falsify it, but I have to begin to wonder what this ontic determinism is -- if it's not empirically determined it can't be falsified.

So why believe it?

That mirrors my experience with anarchist spaces. Disputes, yes -- violence? No. It's all handled by talking through it with everyone. (EDIT: I ought mention that "violence" means "killing, or trying to kill, in order to reach a political objective" -- sometimes disruptive individuals have to be dealt with. But at most what I've seen there is removal from the premises by a group carrying out the disruptive individual. No death, or imprisonment)

What's a better or worse simplification shouldn't be an emotional question, so apologies for my part for that. — boethius

S'all good. I could have been less snarky and more friendly. But no need to apologize for expressing peevishness; we understand one another better through it.

These themes also highlight the focus in anarchism of individual example. Being willing to be the first one to refuse military service on moral grounds (and so be immediately executed) is just as, if not more, important to the anarchist movement as writing a book or being involved in party politics in one way or another. Likewise being willing to be the first one to not beat your children to see what happens, put the hypotheses that they will literally go insane to the test. — boethius

That's a good point. A fellow worker noted to me the importance of the IWW could be seen by its continual involvement in new issues that then became normal. That it wasn't the number of shops organized or membership numbers but the overall effect and continual vigilance at being at the front of positive social change that made it important.

OK I think I've figured it out -- if you've ever just "felt suspicious" of an idea in a philosophical text I think that's it because I can't really pin something down in the text. And I probably "feel suspicious" just because I've thought about happiness a lot in my own thoughts so it's harder for me to disentangle my thinking on the topic because of emotional attachment to it, on a philosophical level.

Oh, sorry. Anarchists.

Oh, for sure.

Bad actors abound.

But just to warn you, it is fairly popular in my experience in this subgroup.

For lack of a better term "identity politics" is largely viewed favorably by anarchists I've worked with.

From a theoretical standpoint it makes a lot of sense, though. Racism is a hierarchy where white people are held as higher than black people. Patriarch is a hierarchy where men are held as higher than women. And all the other -ism's mostly follow that same pattern.

And, really, it's not like it's backed up by nothing. Minority issues are nothing new, they've just been rebranded as "woke", somehow. There are statistics about violence against minorities and all the rest we can go into if we're wondering if there's something objective about these stances, or if they're just ways of identifying one's tribe.

But generally anarchists have soft hearts for the lesser, and so such language isn't hard to pass muster among anarchists insofar that it looks like the oppression they're used to seeing everywhere.

Yup. That's a true description of the big picture in various attempts.

Also, if it wasn't clear, do not read Robert's Rules of Order unless you want to kill your desire to learn anything ever(at least at first -- it's a much later book if you're still interested in further study). It's important, but damn parliamentary procedure is a snoozer to read.

:rofl: Well that's reassuring...

Okiedoke. Then it's just a wondering on my part where I'm not fully following everything.

Would there be no central government at all then? It has been stated earlier, and I read it in The Conquest of Bread yesterday, that there would still be federation between these small groups. As such how would that happen? — unimportant

In the ideal there would be no central government at all. Federations could exist in various ways but they wouldn't be run by officers who are elected to the position for a set term, but rather it would just be someone's job to serve as a communication network.

So in our municipalities you have some representative that you can appeal to in the event that you have some political interest in the business of the city. Were a city run anarchically rather than going to a representative who would then bring whatever case they deem worthy of bringing before the officers of the city you would bring the proposal to the decision making body, and you would advocate for it.

The extremely exciting part of this is learning parliametary procedure through the thrilling epic known as Robert's Rules of Order, in terms of a practical blueprint for making collective decisions.

Basically there wouldn't be representatives, and what representatives do in our society would be all of our responsibility. How we go about that will be up to us, but there are previous ways of collective debate we can riff from and modify to suit the needs of a particular collective.

Also, I tried starting ND today.

I can see what you mean @Jamal about how the difficulty has gone up a few notches. I've had to reread several sentences just due to the sheer number of pronouns, and the parts that I've understood so far are only because we've gone over them in the lectures prior -- so I'm glad we started with something to at least give me some footholds into the material!

You have a talent for concision. :up: — Jamal

Thanks :)

I find myself conflicted often with his various remarks on happiness, and ideology, and especially the use of the term "bleating" -- reminds me of Nietzsche's disdain for the herd.

There's part of me that agrees a lot with him on happiness in that there is nothing shallow or deep about happiness -- but I'd say the same of suffering and melancholy and pain. And I like his approach because I get the sense that the essence of something comes forth through this back-and-forth process -- but there's still this element of desire as a lack that I generally think is a common but wrong way to think on happiness since I don't think happiness is something that even can be fulfilled or pursued so much as worked towards by stopping doing what we think will make us happy and starting doing what will actually make us happy. But that's not as tragic as Adorno's philosophy :D

:up: Sounds good. You got outvoted @hypericin :D

I will submit something. I suggest we post them to the main forum, maybe with a prefix like [PF Essay]. They are topical, after all! — hypericin

The plan as I understand it is to post them in the Phil. Writing Activity 2025 subforum, whose contents appear on the front page. I'm good with adding a PF Essay tag in addition to the title of the paper so that it's easily discernable without clicking on the sub-forum, though clicking on the sub-forum ought to filter out for the essays alone if that's what someone wants to focus on.

It's a good line. I hadn't heard it before. And it's good to set against the impression that anarchism is ... kinda boring. — Jamal

:rofl:

Hey, I don't know what's wrong with the rest of the world but reading old translations of 150 year old political theory is :fire: -- keeps me up all night.

Easy. The whole thing says that for a closed system, the system (described by one wave function) evolves according to the Schrodinger equation, which is a fully deterministic equation.

Non-deterministic interpretations involve what Einstein apparently detested: the rolling of dice. A good deal of interpretations involve this. — noAxioms

Yes -- but maybe Einstein was wrong.

Is the whole universe rightly described as a closed system?

With all due respect, you are ignorant of anything else as far as first hand experience. And that is a fact. — Outlander

So how can you claim:

5,000 years of recorded human history where wars are waged and the stronger or larger force takes and destroys from the weaker or smaller force is an "assumption?" — Outlander

Unless you have first hand experience of 5000 years? Or is recorded history enough?

Something I found interesting in this lecture is the connection of speculation to depth, and thereby speculation to the appearance/essence distinction. Part of me wonders if it is better to read it as "essence" since he makes the remark about how Marx was enough of a Hegelian to maintain essence in his philosophy, but I'm not sure. Either way I can see avoiding debates on essentialism is a good idea :D -- I'm just thinking out loud on how to interpret him.

So a quick summary as I understand it: Philosophy is resistance to the facts as they appear. It engages in speculation in order to probe the depths of the phenomena, and while Adorno emphasizes that this is never a complete process it's something that philosophy must do in order to obtain depth, or even be a worthwhile philosophy. He makes some notes about how there's a false depth which is bound up with suffering such that expressions of happiness are taken as a mark of shallowness, and Adorno notes how this is to miss depth for what depth is about. Depth expresses human suffering rather than says "I am suffering, so I am wise" -- analogy to the artists who give impressions, and thereby were more metaphysical painters than the ones who painted explicit scenes of people "touching the source".

:up: Cool.

Just wanted to make sure it's a bit of an analogy to the Big Picture -- something like a negotiated middle for people trying to do anarchist things in a world dominated by states.

:up:

Yup. That's one way to think on it. Though one can be part of a housing or grocery co-op without being an anarchist, of course, these are some real examples that give an idea of how it works. (for instance, a co-op could be owned by everyone but still run on hierarchical principles of hiring workers that work for the co-op, which would be a hierarchical social relationship and so not really in accord with the whole idea)

After I'm done with this lecture I'm going to skim over Adorno's notes for lectures 11-25 and bring things up here if I find them interesting. What I won't be doing do is reading "The Theory of Intellectual Experience," which is printed first alongside the notes to lectures 11-25, and then in full in an Appendix, because this is just the introduction to ND, and we'll be coming to that very soon. — Jamal

Cool.

It was my understanding that we'd be switching over to ND after Lecture 10.