I find I have firmly landed as a hard determinist. — Brook Norton
our behavior is compatible with both the existence and the nonexistence of free will — TheMadFool
That suggests that that notion of “free will” is not a useful one, and probably not what ordinary people mean, what the term was coined to refer to. Look instead to paradigmatic cases where ordinary people say something was or wasn’t done of someone’s free will, and figure out what’s different between those cases. I guarantee it’s not whether or not the universe was deterministic, and consequently ordinary people don’t really mean “free from determinism” when they say “free will” — and any sense of “free will” that is taken to mean that surely is irrelevant to actual human life. — Pfhorrest
Having gone through a journey of discovery, I find I have firmly landed as a hard determinist. — Brook Norton
That makes you a compatibilist. Can you tell me how that's possible? — TheMadFool
determinism can be true and people can still have free will — Pfhorrest
Because as I see it. in determinism everything is factual. All the causes, all the effects, they are all factual matters.
While with incompatibilist free will, then you have the agency of the choice as inherently subjective, validating the idea of emotions, and the concept of subjective opinion. — Syamsu
But I am having a heck of a time finding any writing that addressed how we should live our mental lives as a hard determinist. — Brook Norton
I don't know. Communists have emotions? Ninotschka (from that movie about communism)? It seems to be based on systematically replacing emotions with the scientific socialist formula. — Syamsu
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.