Supposing that all actions are deterministic, what is the purpose of cognition, and consciously planning your actions?
Does the "planning" determine your action, or is the "planning" already determined? If the conscious planning is already determined, is it then merely a way of understanding your actions and communicating them to others? — Daniel Sjöstedt
and the planning was itself determined — Samuel Lacrampe
Supposing that all actions are deterministic, what is the purpose of cognition, and consciously planning your actions? — Daniel Sjöstedt
Kant understood that both everyday life and scientific knowledge rests on, and is made orderly, by some very basic assumptions that aren't self-evident but can't be entirely justified by empirical observations. For instance, we assume that the physical world will conform to mathematical principles. Kant argues that our belief that every event has a cause is such an assumption; perhaps, also, our belief that effects follow necessarily from their causes; but many today reject his classification of such claims as "synthetic a priori." Regardless of whether one agrees with Kant's account of what these assumptions are, his justification of them is thoroughly modern since it is essentially pragmatic. They make science possible. More generally, they make the world knowable. Kant in fact argues that in their absence our experience from one moment to the next would not be the coherent and intelligible stream that it is.
I am not a determinist, but I suppose they would say by the same laws that move objects and animals in determined ways, namely our genes and external forces in the environment.By what? — Rich
Feelings are not infallible. A friend once told me of his experience in being hypnotized. He said that while under, he felt that he wanted to do the things the hypnotist was telling him to do, and only realized that it wasn't his choice once he snapped out of it. Pretty scary stuff.And what is it that makes us feel like we are planning and choosing? — Rich
Thomas Aquinas has a similar reductio ad absurdum argument for free will:Supposing that all actions are deterministic, what is the purpose of cognition, and consciously planning your actions? — Daniel Sjöstedt
say by the same laws — Samuel Lacrampe
outcomes are always unknown. — Rich
The contradiction in a lot of modern thinking is that it presumes that this rational ability is the product of the very thing that it is setting out to explain. — Wayfarer
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