'To say that you could have done otherwise, is simply to say that the universe could have been different at that exact point in time' — PeterPants
According to it, there is no source of action that is not an "external coercion" or "external impediment"; whether it is "felt" or not is really a matter of indifference. — John
i fully understand that, and actually thought i had basically said it..
My point was that this rules out the notion that at a specific instance in time, any given person could do one thing OR another. Its simply not true, in a given situation (the situation includes your brain state etc) you can and will do one thing. — PeterPants
determinism is not an assumption, its all there is evidence for, to assume there is anything outside of determinism is the magical doctrinal assumption. — PeterPants
what IM saying, is that if you go to any MOMENT, a single moment, not a period of time, a single instant in time, and everything in the whole universe is a particular way, every atom, every quantum state, all of it (obviosly including your body and brain) then the thing that happens next is determined by the current setup, and we as agents have NO INFLUENCE over that whatsoever. and that is precicely what most people believe free will is, the capacity to overcome determanism, to break it, to do something outside of what is determined by the universe. — PeterPants
quantum systems are not deterministic, they simply have variables that seem to be determined by randomness. :P
but none of that is here nor their, to claim that something on the scale of a human brain acts in an indeterministic way is absurd and baseless. — PeterPants
of course, but why would you assume thats the case, i see no evidence of this ability and thus see no reason to come up with explanations for it... — PeterPants
on your Sam Harris comments, i disagree, i dont think he is as ignorant of the more nuanced views as you think, i think he is arguing (as i am) against the only concept of free will worth arguing over, i see no reason to argue against more nuanced philosophical views of free will.
If you dont support this idea of free will, then whats the problem? so basically i dont understand this criticism you gave.
No... straw man alert straw man alert! :P
no no, its just the choices bit, of course our actions are influenced by morality and rationality, just like a computers actions are influenced by energy states, logic circuitry etc. its a wonderful and beautiful phenomena. — PeterPants
great then you agree with me, so why are you arguing against me?
wait... but you DID defend that sophomoric and ridiculous conception just before.. didnt you?
You implied that we could do multiple different things, based on our decisions entirely abstracted from determined reality... didnt you? — PeterPants
what if we make a computer that changes its own program, put it in a robot and it ends up killing people, it it then personally responsible for its actions? was it not an unfortunate series of events originating in a lack of foresight on whoever originally made the robot? — PeterPants
my argument is more about blame, the only place i see a lack of free will having an effect on how we think, is in blame.
i dont blame anymore, i recognize that peoples flaws have reasons, reasons beyond their control. 'bad' people are sick people, they need help not hatred. — PeterPants
if someone harms me, i hold them responsible, i expect them to apologize if they are a moral agent, i ask for them to make amends, all for pragmatic reasons, but i dont blame them, i blame their environment, their imperfect genes, the whole multitude of variables that led them to their current situation. — PeterPants
reason is reason, there is no theoretical/practical reasoning, what are you talking about? — PeterPants
so, im really confused about this practical / theoretical understanding thing. Id appreciate if you could explain further.
The way i see it (this should help you set me straight) is that we all create models of other peoples behaviors in our minds (theoretical models) these models are based on our real world experiences of people (derived practically)...
I dont see the difference, practical reasoning seems to just be intuition? surely not... you surely are not appealing to intuition over reasoning. — PeterPants
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