If you study the weather, — unenlightened

Dude, I didn’t read your post yet when I wrote the below. Sounds like a similar page out of a similar book.

The only uniquely human aspect of this is talking about it. — Vera Mont

I agree. There is a problem of identity wherever we “identify” some unified thing. The identity of a “person” (so far) seems no different than the identity of a quantum field or the continent of Europe.

A unity (like a person, or Europe) is like a hurricane. It materializes out of thin air, is always in motion and changing its shape, at its eye it looks like a calm sunny day, at its fringes it looks like a light rain, but when it’s on top of you, a distinct clear unit called Hurricane Sandy cannot be denied.

We give hurricanes personal identity just like we identify ourselves. Names to help point at moving changing growing dying objects.

And I don’t see a problem with change and motion in the mix. When we say “I am” why can’t we complete the thought with “I am becoming?” A person (like any unity) does not have to either be fixed and permanent, or not exist at all. We can still make distinctions about things that are moving and changing - we affix permanence to them to point them out in space and time, for a little while, while they are here.

Essence may be undone in the becoming (just as essences come to be for a time in the becoming), but there are still essential features that distinguish a hurricane from a person, from me to you, from a quantum field…

But I wouldn’t want to deny the abyss either. Personal identity is. But personal identity is a fleeting thing.

Only God can save us from the becoming.

”Is a Utopian society possible?”

The angle of my question is … whether it’s philosophically possible.

What would Joy feel like without pain, what would riches mean without poverty or what would health mean without sickness. What would life mean without death? — kindred

By philosophically possible I take you to mean theoretically or rationally possible.

I don’t think it is theoretically possible to even imagine this life without pain or deprivation or suffering. These things are part of existence. So any possible Utopia would have to incorporate responses to these as they arise (as opposed to eliminating them). Like instead of never feeling hunger, you would be able to find good food available when hungry; instead of no pain, you would be able to get good medical attention when hurt, etc.

So we would need technological advances and political advances, but most of all, true humble service and charity and compassion towards others to build and live in a Utopia.

But sure, it’s philosophically possible. If all 8 billion of us wanted to, we could decide to stop lying, stop stealing, stop assaulting, stop killing, stop hating and judging, stop oppressing - we have that in our bag of theoretically possible tricks. But none of us care that much, or love that much, or trust others that much, and all of us judge others too harshly, and make ourselves feel better or safer by putting others down or oppressing or killing them.

So a Utopia is probably ONLY theoretically (philosophically) possible.

The mind is always constructing …. which triggers … the body...

Why does this misfiring of mind take place — ENOAH

The mind itself IS the misfiring. All else obeys the firing. But the misfire, the mind, does not, and this creates anxiety in a world that is firing.

a physical account is produced by making our words fit the world, while an intentional account supposes that we can change the world to fit our [words]. — Banno

I revised your quote because I think you are right there anyway. Take out the “supposes” too, because it is no different than “desires or intentions or fears, etc.”

An account of something physical (like the physical world) is produced by making our words fit the world; while an intentional account is produced by making the world fit my words (my ‘own’ words, my intentions, desires, myself, etc.).

Words to fit the world of other things besides me and besides my words, but now, accounted for as words - that’s a physical account.

Or, words can instead fit something (any else than solely/simply physical), like the world of thinking, where words are made to fit anything at all, where one intends something like “not this word but that one”, shaping a new world, bent not towards the physical world but to somewhere more specific, in the mind, or for another minds, now made of words in the accounting.

I love the short phrases that say a lot.

:up:

Do you think people who think more in images than in words are more prone to anxiety, worse attention, but on the other hand, more open to visions and revolutionary ideas? What helps you? For me, it's writing a journal. Tell me what is your voice — MorningStar

Anxiety is a sort of state where you are physically in one world (about to walk on stage to deliver a speech to 500 people), but psychologically/mentally detached - somewhere else, into your fears, maybe unable to walk on stage.

Thinking itself is like a non-emotional, but similar relationship with the world - you suspend or postpone the flow of thing to come; you treat the world that you are in as an object of thought. So thinking itself is like a ground for a more emotional relationship such as anxiety.

I don’t know if thinking more visually leads somehow to more anxiety (I do think visually and certainly get anxious). I think someone who thinks often ( which can be anyone of any intelligence) is more prone to anxiety.

If we don't have conscious control of how our intuitions shape our choices, do we have free will? — wonderer1

We don’t know where intuition really comes from just like we don’t know where desires come from - so the question of do we have free will remains unanswered, but I don’t think intuition makes it more difficult to answer - it was always difficult/impossible.

if asked about determinism, most people would say they have not heard of it, and would need it explained? — Patterner

I think most people see consciousness as something they know, and determinism as something they have a sense of, but don’t really know (as most people aren’t philosophers) but they get the idea of fate and lack of real control, and illusion sometimes defeating what was thought to be a free choice.

Logic operates on the side of the theory. Physics operates on the side of the model. — Tarskian

That would be one way physics on the one side, could explain logic on the other. But then explanations themselves are theories, so how could physics itself describe anything - logic does the talking.

Logic might more easily describe physics.

Or is the question more:
Does physics entail logic?
Are the pieces of logic physical things - brain functions?

I didn't think this OP was sprawling. I'll have to take another look. — isomorph

It could use a summary but I think I see you saying we in the west have much to learn - in method and in practical wisdom - from the east. And I agree with that.

You may be saying the west has been too narrowly focused to take a better view of the big picture. In which case I would disagree - I see logic, epistemology, metaphysics and early science embedded in Eastern thought, just as I see a mystical One, the essential place of paradox, the Negation (the empty, the nothingness), and the issues with “self” and language, all throughout Western philosophy, as well.

The East is better at pulling pearls of ethical, political, practical wisdom out of it. The West has been better at dissecting it and treating life/experience as a subject of scientific study.

But we are all looking at and for something that would unify all of us, any of us, it we found it. I don’t think East or West are better. Both hold wisdom and both hold mistakes. But I also think each could benefit from each other to build something more illuminating than either alone.

Consider these two sentences:
1. “This sentence has five words.” Or
2. “The sentence ’this sentence has five words’ has five words in it.”

Sentence number 2 is about something. Number one isn’t. The reader has to make 1 be about itself. In the sentence “This sentence has five words” you don’t know which sentence the speaker is taking about without being the speaker and pointing back to the sentence. Number 2 tells you what it is referencing, tells you what it is about.

Number 1 is a puzzle game, with missing pieces you have to bring with you to play; Number 2 is about counting words.

“This sentence is false” isn’t about anything that can be true or false. “Grammar is false” similarly isn’t about anything that can be true or false.

“Punctuation is true.”

What?

a statement declares a fact; it does not in addition instantiate that fact to a given truth value. — Devans99

Right. A statement is about something, and, as a statement is separate from that something.

But “this statement is false” is about itself.

So it has no content to refer to other than the fact that it is a statement.

a statement is associated with but distinct from a truth value. — Devans99

Right. And there is nothing distinct from this statement to adjudge its truth value, to adjudge its content.

I agree it is not a statement, meaning it is not about anything. Not in the normal use of statements. It’s a fun logical puzzle, where the exercise of playing with it can yield some content about logic and language and truth. But if you don’t bring that content with you, it says nothing about anything, like saying “this statement is Fred”.

Make existence great again. MEGA

I’m working on it..

I was saying choices don't have meaning, and aren't "actual" choices. — Patterner

:up:

The "me" is the physical events. — Patterner

Yes. I think I understood that.

Another certain group of physical events takes place, and we call the overall activity thinking. — Patterner

Yes, and in another certain group of physical events we call the overall activity “me choosing.”

So if all of the physical events are deterministic, what do we make of that choice?

If we say that choice can still be made out of me thinking, but me thinking is in turn made out of deterministic physical events, what do we make of that “me”?

I think the difficulty here is determinism makes it hard to explain what we experience (objects like “me” and activities like “deliberation”); non-determinism makes it hard to explain how our experience is even possible (who/what the hell am I to influence the causal chain).

Are personal changes roughly equivalent to volitional decisions? — ucarr

The mind, however it comes to be (such as consciousness with/in/of the brain) is simultaneous with decisions (judgments, choices) directing reason (logic, language, law). So yes, decisions/choices/judgments are bound up in it. (I have no real idea how, but I also don’t see chemistry or biology alone as ever accounting for what we are doing right now in this conversation).

You don't think personal cognition can evolve? — ucarr

I think the brain can evolve (over at least tens of thousands of years), and our minds can influence the physical world, so in the mix, personal cognition can evolve as our brains evolve; we may get faster at doing logic, higher percentages of higher intelligence in the population, able to multitask better, but thinking we are all subject to a king, and then discovering all men are created equal isn’t evolution in a non-metaphorical sense.

Zen Buddhists generally believe in determinism — flannel jesus

And they think the self is an illusion as well. And desire, which supports choice, is a frustration of the real.

Thank you for expressing to me your thoughts on the matter — flannel jesus

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe these thoughts and expressions have been determined since my youth and I am taking credit for them like a fire takes credit for boiling water. In any case, since you are giving me credit for “my” thoughts, you are welcome.

You think anarchy a companion to evolution? You think social welfare programs a perversion of nature? — ucarr

Not a perversion of nature. I think it is good that humans have removed themselves from nature. Charity, and saving the weak are good.

Chemistry spit out a creature that is not only chemical, but lives and evolves, being now biological. Biology spit out a creature that deliberates and uses language to promote rights and laws, being now human. So now, the changes to humanity are not merely evolutionary (biological), they are personal. The personal is of a different category than the biological (subject to evolutionary forces), just as the biological is of a different category than the chemical.

And there is no hierarchy here. Humans may in fact be “better” than a chemical, or an amoeba, but I’d rather just say humans are different, doing things unlike anything done in nature, like an amoeba does things unlike anything chemical.

We won’t evolve to be a better society. We have to invent it whole cloth and then constrain any biological instincts or physical forces that frustrate our invention.

The word evolution when applied to recorded human history is used as a metaphor. Human society is not an environment the same way the Galapagos was an environment for finches. It’s not survival and mutation that brought democracy to topple kings or voting rights to all citizens. We can, like poets, see what we do as like what the ants do and the bees and the other monkeys. But we can see a fire burning as a living animal, consuming, moving itself, etc. These are metaphors, not actual accounts of observed facts.

Nothing else in the universe makes metaphors. This is the human.
Nothing else in the universe makes laws either.

So in the end, if you take away God, we are left with faith in humanity to build any progress. No chemicals or evolutionary forces to guide us. Just us.

But we build all the strife between us as well. We build the problems we are trying to build solutions for.

So I just think it is realistic to be skeptical of human progress from humanly created problems. I don’t have faith in humanity.

But I love humanity, and I love evolutionary forces, and chemicals. Which is why I still believe in God. My hope is for grace for all of us, because we are lousy at being the top of the food chain.

The fall of humanity into an inherently sinful nature had been a pretty good myth for checking human deceitfulness. In the wake of its obliteration by rationalist, materialist science and logic, what do we have in its place? — ucarr

The way I see it, humanity evolved to remove itself from nature, so now the weak sometimes proliferate, and the strong are kept down, the mutation is ostracized, and evolutionary forces are frustrated. That’s humanity.

Not long ago (maybe 8,000 years ago plus) looking beyond nature for guidance, we turned to our God.

More recently, maybe 2,000 years ago plus culminating in the enlightenment, finding that God was illusion, we have replaced faith in God with faith in humanity.

But humanity got us into the trouble with evolution in the first place. So we are rudderless, either having faith in humanity anyway, or simply accepting we are a mess and likely going to stay that was for a long time to come.

And like I said, we currently prefer feeding the mess and creating extra strife in order to organize our governance. Which is why I offered simple acceptance of the mess as the way of our human world.

Faith hasn’t been obliterated by materialist science. Faith remains necessary to set any goals. God as goal has been refuted by science, but replaced with humanity’s self-assessment of “human progress” as goal.

I think — flannel jesus

I think that what “I think” is determined by me.

In a deterministic world, “me” is determined just as much as the thoughts thrust upon it, so “me” may as well drop out of the equation - “me” can’t direct or redirect any cause to any effect, because “me” is determined to choose exactly what was caused. So choice is non-existent, and “me” is metaphor for “it” which is now simply consciousness sensing as much of the determined flow as it can fathom, never able to learn more than it has been determined to learn, never able to step aside and direct even itself.

That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If it makes sense to you though, keep on keeping on. — flannel jesus

But how does the phrase “make sense TO ME” make sense in a deterministic world? How do “you” make sense to you, if there is only a causal chain - where do “you” fit in there any differently than a heart beat? And the word “choice” becomes a metaphor for simply two relay racers passing the baton of cause and effect.

We have tag team politics - good cop, bad cop - and the assessment of which is the bad cop and which the good varies amongst the voters, but essentially it's all tactics. — Bylaw

Totally agree. Because the only way our politicians know how to win an election is to divide the people into those for one and against the other.

Intended by whom?
— flannel jesus
Beats me. — Patterner

In a deterministic world, equating “I choose” with “consciousness telling me what to do” is a metaphor. Nothing is actually “telling” anything. It’s cause and effect. Determinisim.

I don’t tell my heart to beat, or my stomachs acids to break down food. That just happens in my body.

If I have to choose vanilla or chocolate ice cream and “I choose” the vanilla because I there is only enough chocolate for one serving and I want my wife to have the option of chocolate or vanilla, in a deterministic world, I didn’t choose - vanilla was bound to be what I ate because of all the things the led me to that fork in the road. It’s not because of what I want that after eating ice cream there is still both chocolate and vanilla left for others. I can believe I was a great guy leaving others both flavors, but due to all of the influences and motions in my brain, just like I don’t tell my heart to beat, I don’t tell my mind what to think, and so the “choice” of vanilla was not because of anything “I” “decided” - it was determined, as I was determined to think and believe what I was determined to think and believe. My “choice” really just happened in my body like everything else about me - caused with or without my consciousness.

And I agree with Patterner that I have no idea how to explain the ontology of non-determinism. If I am free, then no matter what causes lead me to a fork in the road, in order to be free, choosing X or Y at that fork comes from nowhere else but me.

The way I see it, one needs a “self” in order to make a choice, and this “self” must be able to account for all causes prior to it (or enough of them) to seize control of the causal chain and insert this self in it by making the sole determination of outcome. The self seizes control, and the self creates its own choice; then the body acts. I don’t know how, but if the world is deterministic (and it may be), then there is nothing real about “myself” or “my choice” or “freedom”.

It is just as hard to explain what is going on in my head when I delude myself into making a choice in a deterministic world, as it is to explain what is going on in my head in when I make a choice in a world where there is room for freedom. It’s a bitch. But if the world is deterministic, there need be no talk of “I” and “choice” and “I am responsible” or anything that springs from or includes “I”. That seems delusional to me as well.
If “I” can be undetermined by the world, free to deliberate and make a choice, talking about what I do makes more sense to me, but talking about how this can even be possible sounds delusional.

So I choose to believe “I can choose” and demonstrate what is the case in so doing, but not how that is possible.

Bravo! Keep on refuting me. — ucarr

I didn’t think I was taking any sides, or trying to refute anything. Didn’t mean it that way anyway.

"Now ladies and gentlemen, I want you to look straight up. Do you see that? You think what you see is blue, don't you? No, no. It's not blue, it's green." — ucarr

One of our problems is, that could be a quote from any candidate on every side.

Wish more people saw that.

Shadows of puppets for all of us political activists.

And we like it that way.

The republicans are told the democrats are a threat to democracy, and the democrats are told the republicans are the threat.

There is a threat to democracy, but it is division itself. WE are the threat, and how we treat each other.

In the meantime, speeches and finger pointing inspire votes, and power is pooled, and goes to our representatives in government. Our representatives. Duly elected to represent some faction and keep us divided because that’s the only way to win elections.

There needs to be more goodwill. Just as a baseline for conversation.

Simple maturity, that gives respect regardless of whether it is earned.

No one has all the answers. We need each other as much if not more than we need our government. We need a better attitude towards those we disagree with. First. Or the platitudes and exaggerated emotions will fuel the same old pleasures we take when we divide ourselves, when we belong to a group, the best people on earth group, to feel better about “our side.”

“At least I’m not a stupid, evil [check your party affiliation and insert highest polling sub-human identity type].”

There is no way to debate politics anymore.

It’s all slogans and talking points.

Soaked in hyperbole and metaphor.

“The most consequential election of our lifetime, with democracy itself hanging in the balance!” (Crowd cheers.) Just like the last election and the three before that.

It’s all fabricating the right anecdote or statistic to yell louder about “we” and “they”.

The only agreement on both sides is that we all have hate for the other side.

And all the division is repackaged by the media for our consumption and purchase, as we feed only on ourselves, shooting ourselves in the foot by playing along.

And I don’t blame the politicians - who would want that job.

It’s us, dividing against our neighbors and friends, unwilling to think skeptically about our own opinions, or treat opposing views with any good will.

So much bullshit, like a finely layered onion pulled out of the latest candidate’s ass.

Everything I just wrote above has been said before just as well. Probably around 1776.

What it means for me to choose is precisely for the part of the causal chain that is "me" to causally go through a decision making process, and then interact with other things that are also part of the causal chain to enact (or try to enact) the output of my decision making process. — flannel jesus

You come to a fork in the road and the cart is rolling forward and you may either go left or right.

Left or right is going to happen. So when you go left and the fork is behind you, what caused this left?

To me, in a deterministic world, there was no choice made here. What caused left can be found by adding up all of the things in the causal chain.

If one of those things in the causal chain is “your choice”, then you’ve added in an individuated “you” who made that choice. If this you is only comprised of causes before this you (like everything else must be comprised) and if this you functions only accordingly to necessity (as everything else functions), then there could never have been a you that could have possibly made any other choice but to go left. So there was no choice, and choice is an illusion having nothing to do with where you went at the time you hit the fork in the road. You didn’t choose left, you played out the deterministic forces that pushed things left.

If you think you live in a wholly deterministic world, then the notion of a choice, and a free agent who claims “my” choice, are unicorns, not actual efects, not actual causes, not part of any chain, just words.

I'm not adding to it, i'm part of it — flannel jesus

That’s a contradiction. You say you are a part of the causal chain. All of the parts add up to the chain. So what do “you” add to the chain of determined causes and effects? All of the other parts add up to the state of affairs. You say you are part of the causal chain - what part is “you” specifically. What is individuated as “you” in the causal chain?

I’m saying, once you admit there is a “you” - a thinking, deliberating, believing thing - you have individuated a thing that can be free to choose, not a thing that can only serve as a pass through for causes from outside it to effects following it.

If we were things like robots, we’d be part of the causal chain. “Self” awareness breaks the chain, can make a rational decision as “my choice” and by acting on that choice rejoin the causal chain.

Add to that the question of how these webs of physical interactions ever got the idea that they are not completely subject to physical interactions. — Patterner

Wondering if I am free requires freedom to happen. A machine that honestly wonders whether it is free or not has freed itself from the machine. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have found space to outside of the causal chain to wonder about anything.

We're part of the causal chain — flannel jesus

What do “you” add to the causal chain, if “your choice” is determined? What happens when the chain bumps into “you” if the effect of “you” is determined?

If “my choice” is caused by something that is not my choice, it is not “my choice”.

The answer to me is that the act of choosing is the same act of creating the self that chooses. I exist while I am choosing. I individuate myself in the moment of choice. If all is determined, the “I” is not individuated, and “my” “choice” are illusions at best but not existing and not part of the causal chain.

Self detemination is self creation.

I prefer to have my beliefs caused by rational thought and evidence, not beliefs without causes. — flannel jesus

The issue is are they “my” beliefs. Not whether they are based on reason. What causes “you” to claim your beliefs are “yours”. Regardless of whether they have been built of rational thought and evidence. How are they “your” beliefs if they are wholly determined by a causal chain?

Of course I use reason and evidence to base my beliefs. But one they are my beliefs and I act on them, I am the cause of those effects, I am the determinant. Not the causal chain without me.

Do you really have a solid reason to believe this? — flannel jesus

No. It’s like proving matter exists. Seems plain to me that there is a “me” as a distinct body and my awareness of this (my mind) is distinct within that body, but I can’t prove it.

That fact that I can believe I am free means to me that I have to be free, because I have a belief without causes. So that is the best proof.

My beliefs define or carve out the “me” - when so believe, I create myself, and this creation is outside the causal chain, or it wouldn’t by “my”.

but I can (I believe) make some predictions about how they would act — I like sushi

So this is a thought experiment in psychology?

This conversation seems predicated on causality to me - if it were free of the casual chain, we would just be writing random stuff. You're writing to me as if you read what I wrote, indicating that your words are not free from the casual chain. — flannel jesus

That is beautiful!

I agree language is functioning to convey meanings and yours and my logic is functioning to respond meaningfully to each other. All can be causally determined steps.

But to say what I just said, I had to step out of the causal chain, look back on the causal chain, and then re-enter the chain with this post. So whether I post anything is not determined. I am in the act of freely choosing to respond. My response has its determinants. But responding at all is not determined by anything other than my free choice.

I don’t know how this is the case. But to say I am not free would seem to mean “I am not” since of all is determined, this post was not my choice, and the “I” that chose to post did not so chose.

Determinism means there is no “I”, the agent that is free from the causal chain to deliberate about when to think, choose which thoughts to believe, and choose which thoughts to express.

Maybe I am not free, but that means maybe I am not me.

And that means this whole conversation isn’t a conversation between two individuals, but an outpouring of many many other causal determinants.

I think you lost sight of the train of conversation — flannel jesus

I don’t think I ever had sight of it.

Anyway, thinking, to me, is the ground and a condition of freedom. It is because we can think at all about anything, that we might be free. So having your own thoughts are determined, and then basing choices on those thoughts as determined, (so no choice), makes no sense to me.

This conversation means we have access to freedom from the causal chain. We are freeing ourselves right now.

So I am having a hard time deliberating (building a free choice) over whether it is better to believe in freedom or determinism.

1) Consequence is being used separate from any concept of causality. — I like sushi

A consequence is an effect. So “consequence is being used separate from…causality” is confusing and needs more explanation.

And I have no idea why that is important to your experiment.

Note: Neither group KNOWS if their belief is True or False. — I like sushi

If neither group knows the truth of freedom or determinism, then, to them, the truth of freedom is irrelevant. Your question in the thought experiment as THEY would put it is : “since we don’t know whether freedom or determinism is true, which is better to believe?”

Or

The question is what Group belief is better? — I like sushi

But you are asking me, from outside the two groups, which group’s belief is better.

So I get to know choices are real, but the people in the experiment don’t know this.

- A choice not to choose is still a choice.
- A choice to deny that you can choose is a choice.
- A choice to believe there is no choice, against your better judgment, is a choice. — I like sushi

So all of the people in the Group that believe in determinism are morons, making all of these choices, in a world they don’t know choices are real.

- Would person A and person B faced with the same scenarios act in the same manner assuming they were biologically identical BUT possessing the opposite beliefs as outlined?
- Is having the ability to choose your fate better than not having to choose your fate?
- If person A and person B live out their beliefs and then believed they were wrong and took on the opposing belief how would this effect them? — I like sushi

I have no idea. Your first and third questions seem like psychology questions to me.

The second question is “ability to choose fate” better than “not choosing your fate?” Why is the scenario relevant to this question?

Your fate can sometimes suck - so wouldn’t it be better if, when it looked like it was going to suck, you had the ability to choose your fate?
But if you have the ability to choose, or change your “fate” then it wasn’t really “fate” at all.

So this question is not clear enough to me even though I tried to answer it and gave you my reasons.

Yes but determinism isn't telling us "don't think" — flannel jesus

So you are free to either think or not think, and nothing but free will decides when you think or don’t think.

So how is that a world of determinism?

From my perspective your reply looks a little like this example (as with many others here):

What is your favourite film genre? Why?

Answers:
- Horror films.
- I like rock music.

Why?

Answers:
- There is no objective answer
- I like rock Music

See my frustration now? — I like sushi

I see that I’m frustrated.

We don’t understand the question anymore. And this analogy isn’t clarifying.
(Why did you place “I like rock music” under both sets of answers? Confusing.)

I’m sure you have something you are going after, but I’m not seeing it.

You seem to be looking for an objectively correct answer. There isn't one. — Patterner

I agree “better” raises the subjective, or at least the relative- better for what? For instance.

I also agree it is unclear what is being asked.

If we are free, is it better to believe we are free, or to believe we are not free?

So that’s your question.

If I assume I am free, am I still free to believe I am not free?

If so, how could it be better to believe what I already assumed cannot be?

If I assume X so I can move on and base a question on that assumption, don’t I already believe X to be the better assumption?

How can I choose to believe X or not-X, if I assumed X in order to ground the possibility of choice? Not-X can’t be believed anymore, as it is already assumed not to be believed.

Are you asking a sociological, or political, or ethical, or psychological question? Seems they would only be worth pondering if we don’t assume anything. If we assume we are free, then we should ask what is the function of that assumption if we could also believe we are determined?

Once you assume freedom, you can’t believe determinism is better (you’ve ready made the best assumption in order to pose your question).

So your question is already answered by your assumption of non-determinism. Of course it is “better” to believe your are free - you already believed that was better before you asked your question.

You need to state clearly what you are looking for - what is your hypothesis? What is the object of your question? Ethics?

Because none of my answers seem to make sense to you. And I keep trying to connect.

If determinism is true, aren’t we all, in a sense, always told what to think?
— Fire Ologist

I certainly don't have a sense of always being told what to think. I'm curious as to why you would think of it as you described above. — wonderer1

Metaphorically.

You read what I wrote, and you replied. And I read what you wrote. I am replying now.
If, as I reply now, all is determined, not by choice or free will, but out of some conditions and functions and circumstances forming this reply, then either I am being “told what to say” or maybe, I don’t exist at all, and “I” is just as illusory as “choice”, in a deterministic world.

It’s like we are in the causal chain so deeply, that even if we suppose anything we say is something in itself, those words did not come from us, they just happened like everything else is happening. Determined.

….just like metaphorically, if determinism is true, and just for a moment you pretend “you” are an agent such as “me” or “electron” or “planet”, aren’t we all, in a sense, always told what to think and do?

Either I am told what to do, or there is no I at all, and cause/effect seizes all free agency, if all things are determined.

Is it better for them to wander into the future under the assumption their actions have zero causal effect on anything… — I like sushi

Well, if, in fact, all action is determined, it’s the exact opposite of “wandering” anywhere.
There is no more wandering in a deterministic world, where nothing can possibly wander off course and everything remains set on a fixed immutable path.

… or is it better for them to believe their choices are meaningful and can effect outcomes — I like sushi

Belief itself is a type of wandering off course. How are we to think we are doing anything at all when we say “I believe” about anything at all, when everything is determined and fixed? What can we make of the moment of “choosing”? Is it “my” belief anymore if I was destined and determined from outside this “my” to have this “belief”?

I asked quite specifically if Non-determinism is true. What is the better choice to believe in Determinism or Non-determinism — I like sushi

Didn’t you say to assume we do NOT know whether non-determinism is true or not?? I think you mean: whether determinism or non-determinism is true, is it better to believe in one or the other anyway.

And I answered you clearly, and gave you my reasoning. I said it’s better to believe non-determinism is true, because this allows me to hold other people accountable. I can say to some idiot “stop it!” and the idiot might actually stop because we both believe non-determinism is true (he is free to do it just as he can freely chose to stop it).

But I needed to narrow the question before I could start to answer it, because of the use of the word “better.” I had to fill in politics or ethics to as “accountability” to determine which is “better”.

However, I think you are looking for a logical answer - which is logically better; which is most reasonable.

I don’t think you can answer your question on those levels without addressing whether determinism or non-determinism are even adequate to describe the experience of having any beliefs in the first place.

Which is better to believe: X or Y?
I think a belief is a choice. I believe there is biological-like life somewhere else besides earth. I choose this, freely, as my belief defining a belief of mine, and so carving who and what I am in some small way. That’s what a belief does and where it lives.

So now you ask “Which is better to believe: X or Y?
What if X stood for “there is no such thing as choice.” (no choice is synonymous with no freedom and synonymous with non-determinism).

Now the question itself is confused. Because you haven’t addressed the the elephant that sits prior to a question about whether X or Y is better - the elephant of whether X or Y each are and if so, what they are.

If to believe requires a choice, or if believing is choosing, then how can it be possible (let alone better) to believe we are determined?

How is “belief” possible, in a world where each event is determined, or where at least some events are not determined?