That's fascinating.

In the broader sense I think what we're looking at are regimes of cultural and ideological transmission that tend to find purchase in the unenlightened past, and in the intellectually darkened doorways of the present. wonders if a religion might emerge, but I would more specifically name it a "cult". Normally cults are physical, coherent and have charismatic leaders, but this cult is guided by its own autonomous and anonymous mob: an online Ouija board operated by sex-obsessed teens. - Teens can form international groups now. Another double edge of the digital age -. I call it a cult because they're ready to sacrifice (now in all varying degrees). Sacrifice literally means to make sacred; to worship. Cults, in my opinion, could be described as a group with a perverted object of worship.

As groups grow, their radical outliers become more numerous. I think the recipe for a violent incel is extreme sensitivity to emotional anguish, a severe lack of self-awareness, and the kind of ideological rhetoric which depicts their place in modernity as forever the sexually dispossessed misanthrope with only women and assholes to blame.

But so, how do these various groups influence events in the real world? — frank

Different groups affect the world in different ways. The flat earth community is run by shysters and every-once in awhile a celebrity will tweet about how the earth is flat, but beyond that they have marginal influence (though they will certainly derail the learning and intellectual development of any who fall prey to it). The alt-right is a bit more pernicious: they're slowly and subtly reviving racism and race nationalism, and while they're also a community largely run by shysters (and which intersects a broader but overall less pernicious reactionary right-wing political movement) they function as provocateurs in the political mainstream, and their main effect is to cause co-reactionary polarization. Antifa arrives in black-shirts to fight the fascists, the guy who turned up to hear about free speech is stricken with a bout of red-threat and wonders if the race nationalists actually have an argument to make. A kid makes a racist meme and an adult uses it to recruit ideological foot-soldiers in the cause against neo-hitler. Someone suggests censorship and as a result another tiny piece of the right is flung afar where patriotism blurs with emotional vigor.

I should point out again that these movements are generally characterized by identity defining emotional narratives as opposed to rational thought and analysis.

Explaining the actual position of these groups to an average "normie" is a seminar in absurdity. The flat earth community has accrued 1001 ridiculously obscure and scientifically misleading "gotchya" questions to throw at you (you will likely lose a "debate" against them). Antifa unironically believe that physical violence is a fair means of political participation. Incels believe that all women should be obligated to cater to their individual sexual needs. Ethno-state supporters believe that Alabama (or the Arctic, or a bunch of boats in international waters, or space) is the only hope for the survival of the white race. The alt-right as a whole takes the cake though. It's a smörgåscopia of the most absolutely ludicrous delusions that have ever existed.

If you enjoy absurdist humor or have morbid curiosity, the following is a summary of one of the more obscure and ridiculous genuinely held beliefs of many in the alt-right:



People actually believe the above. An uncomfortable number of them (just like the surprisingly bulged ranks of the flat-earthers) and their misguided views are uncomfortably difficult to dispossess them of.

But, saturating myself (seemingly masochistically) with the ideas of these groups was not without purpose. In understanding these groups I can see what it takes to actually dissuade them:

Mostly they're lacking in basic foundational knowledge (history, science and biology notably) which is why they have harder times understanding more nuanced models of reality, and which would otherwise facilitate communication. The world-views and basic set of operant truths of these groups can be so far removed from common understanding that they seem like foreign languages.

To have persuasive power over others requires that you speak their language and understand their (often emotional) set of reasons, and how to navigate and question those reasons without casting yourself as threatening opposition (all of these groups emotionally view themselves as counter-cultural heroes/martyrs). For a flat-earther it means lengthy exploration of fundamentals of physics and history of science (with pictures). For an alt-righter it means exploring evolution, genetics, statistics, economics, politics, anthropology, sociology, and everything in-between, while also somehow removing existing emotional hooks in a pain-free way (they're often barbed). For an incel it means exploring psychology (their own), their future, and human nature in general.

For instance, when an alt-righter asks me if I care about the survival of the white genome (as if it is an evolutionary imperative with normative implications), in order to have persuasive power in the interaction I need to take the question seriously. I can either argue that the demographic projections of the end of the white race are of the faultiest order (which they are), or I can try to render a more holistic portrait of biology and evolution: ethnicities and also genders can have different traits on average, which is a biologically influenced reality, but evolution does not operate on the level of race, it operates on the level of individuals, which is why no two members of the same ethnicity are exactly alike and why discriminating on the level of individual merit as opposed to ethnicity or race is the superior practice. It's also why I have an even stronger biological imperative to secure the future of my own individual genes as opposed to any random set of genes from those in my ethnic cluster, and would happily marry someone of a different ethnicity if I thought as an individual they are ideal (and therefore have ideal genes), and even if the rest of my ethnicity somehow ceased existing, my genes would continue existing in my offspring, and if they're good genes, will proliferate.

Such interactions are tedious, repetitive, obscure, at times incoherent, and piss-filled. Any verbal misstep triggers a landmeme and ends the exchange.

Culture war means peace, freedom means slavery. Ignorance is strength

Internet culture is something I've intentionally drenched myself in. I've been familiar with the term "incel" for many years...

"Involuntarily celibate"... The term became ubiquitous in some internet circles a few years ago, around the same time as a mass shooting carried out by someone claiming to be motivated by sexual rejection.

In the threatening videos he uploaded prior to carrying out his murder-suicide spree, he explained (with a kind of cringe that turned him into a "meme") that he was "the perfect gentlemen", and was thus driven to extremes because of how irrational the rest of the world is (women always go for ass-holes, why don't they recognize my perfection, etc...)

Originally the term was not used for self-identification, it was a pejorative label floating down a few main-streams and applied to a certain kind of person by other groups such as "MGTOW" (a slightly different tale), but eventually communities of self-proclaimed incels emerged in digital forums of various kinds.

It's an internet phenomenon to be sure. It seemingly requires some degree of anonymity, because complaining about how you cannot get laid in public is, known even to incels, as not conducive to getting laid. But with anonymity they can share and amplify their grievances which reinforces their emotional position.

Mostly they're children who lack self-awareness and social skills (the internet will do that to you if you aren't careful).

I hate to be so corny but Yoda was right, their fear of sexual failure (causing a nocebo effect in an already challenged mind) amplifies into anger, and anger into hatred.

The internet allows similar individuals (or at least people who react the same way to "memes") to coalesce into groups, and so while there have always been some incels, there have not always been social networks of them, and they've never openly recruited (how open their communities are is relative, suffice it to say you need to know where to look or wind up there organically).

There's a poorly studied psychiatric concept called "Folie en Famille" (or folie a deux) where delusions held by one individual can be imparted to others through close proximity and isolation from outside influence. Many internet communities which thrive on the insidious persuasive power of emotional appeals function as amphitheatres where the silliest kind of nonsense can be proliferated this way.

Alex Jones' "Info Wars", and the broader conspiracy circuit used to have the digital market fairly cornered on silliness, but in recent years (perhaps with the increasing numbers of internet users) many new and somehow sillier groups have formed. The "ethno-state supporting alt-right" is one such delusional group (they believe Jews own everything and control every nation on earth, that the white race is headed for non-existence in under 200 years, and that if a million whites moved to the arctic to found an "ethno-state" it would be Eden (jump cut to a frozen and lifeless Jack Nicholson)).

The flat earth community is another example (it started as satire ten years ago but then became real; a real Pinocchio). Communist "Antifa" is another good example. The Black Nationalist movement deserves an honorable mention as well.

Social justice warriors didn't cause the incel movement, both incels and SJW's are a phenomenon that can only exist when you have a bunch of narrow minded (usually just young and stupid) individuals grouped together and somewhat isolated from other groups, who proceed to emotionally validate and manipulate one another with the same passion for truth as can be found in any hostile mob.

The internet allows (stimulates even) the weirdos to unite. "Neurodiversity" is expanding and human culture stratifying as these disparate groups push in different directions.

This is from whence the creepy crawlies came.

In case one hasn't noticed the collectivization and homogenization of thought that has occurred as a consequence of globalization, has lately resulted in a general contraction of human intellect, towards basic primitive and instinctual imperative. This is clearly manifest in the ideals behind; Trumpsim, Brexit, Ecological denial, the supremacy of Capitalist ideology, the unquestioned authority of the Market, and the near Universal notion that; the primary objective of human existence (and socio-political function), is towards the acquisition of superfluous wealth, so that the contemporary 'God' of the Market and of the material-self can be serviced. — Marcus de Brun

You're not going to leave out communism are you!?

To be brutally honest in response to the OP: it's unfair to philosophy and generous to rap to on one hand aver that philosophy is dead and on the other proclaim rap Thought's new Madonna.

Firstly, a given bit of philosophy can stand or fall on its own merit, not on the prestige of the figures or folklore which surrounds it. Likewise, a given piece of rap music can stand or fall on its own merit, not the merit of the greater body of rap music.

It would have been good to give a positive definition of philosophy rather than pointing to a list of things which it's allegedly not.

Some rap is philosophical, some is about Gunz'n'Hoes'z. I really don't know how philosophical Gambino's "This is America" actually is though.

Philosophy is supposed to enlighten (I guess) and perhaps This is America achieves this, but it does so by seemingly cryptic visual metaphor and inspecific verbal cues such that we're left to play unending games of interpretation instead experiencing the methodical clarity that typifies good philosophy.

The post-modern arts departments (gender studies et al.) very much enjoy the game of deriving grand narratives by looking at specific objects through a myriad lenses. Normally they look at society to do this (i.e: through the lens of race, every sort of disparity between ethnic demographics appears caused by racism), and Gambino's "This is America" is like a bright and colorful popup book specifically designed to be viewed through such lenses; the jangliest set of keys; the most remarkable mobile.

When this song was released some channels were flooded with feminist analysis and meta-analysis of "This is America" as if it itself is the original subject of study from which worldly truth can be derived.

I don't mind the song, and it makes one or two worthwhile statements, but it's not philosophy. It was derived from (simultaneously criticizes and panders to) an increasingly tribal zeitgeist where the most broad and basic assessments become the most appealing. "This is America" is a meme that can be up-voted or down-voted with a single click of approval or disapproval; wholesale agreement or wholesale opposition. It's polarizing.

It's an interesting portrayal (the song), and it might be in some ways philosophical, but what we're doing here and now (the subsequent analysis of it) is the actual philosophy. If all Gambino has to do to dethrone philosophy is strike a few reminiscent poses and make a few political half-statements (while the rest of us scramble to figure out meaning), then philosophy was a poor king indeed.

Thanks for all - appreciate the comments. All due respect - this statement certainly sounds like you have taken a position - in your actions and in your thoughts. All that really remains is to acknowledge it as such. I would also assume you arrived at this position from reason, which is in conflict with your statement: — Rank Amateur

If you can convince me I've taken a hard position I'll happily fess up, but it's been years and years since I've done so (been foolish enough to take a hard position). Since I lack belief in god I have had to replace my moral and existential frameworks with things that aren't founded in theism. I lack belief, and so naturally I lack the religious intellectual paraphernalia that comes with it, but this does not equate to hard atheism.

I don't wear a diving cap because I'm not a diver, but to abstain from wearing a diving cap doesn't mean I'm a hard-anti-diver. I don't need to justify my irreligion with a hard claim, else everyone with their own religious narrative would demand a proper rebuke.

I'm waiting for a proper proof first.

I read into your comment that your definition of truth seems to lie only in what is fact. And reasoned beliefs of truth have less weight.

That to me is a very different position than indifference - which I would have no argument against. Although I am skeptical that any thoughtful person is truly indifferent to the question - Which returns me to my view that the agnostic is not a reasoned position - or even an absence of reasoned position - it is a hedge against the position of your beliefs and actions. — Rank Amateur

Some beliefs can be more rational than others, especially when they're supported by evidence. Holding positive beliefs about the existence or non-existence of god is unreasonable because there is no satisfactory evidence either way. Reason is a form of evidence; "reasoned beliefs" can be fine, depending on the quality of the reasons.

You say that my hard position (which I am telling you I do not occupy) is a hedge against my beliefs and actions...

Why? What actions are you imagining me carry out? What beliefs are you referring to?

Are you envisioning the immoral life of a hedonistic sinner who forces himself into hard atheism to counter his divine guilt?

In the same way that you are likely indifferent to the question of whether or not aliens exist out there in the universe, or whether Zeus existed, I have grown likewise indifferent to the broad (and vague) question of god's existence entirely. I no longer see it as an important question because there's no reliable way to answer it and I no longer gain anything by believing that god exists. Why should I bother?

I have no issue that my world view impacts my position - as I think yours and others does as well. — Rank Amateur

By virtue of not seeing a god anywhere, I don't therefore incorporate whichever doctrine I believe corresponds to ultimate truth into my behavior and decisions. But believe it or not, I do leave room in my worldview to be proven wrong. I don't know what's going on outside the observable universe (let alone everything within it), what came before it, what might come after it, or why.

I do believe things like: a big bang happened about 13.75 billion years ago which gave rise to space-time and matter, and that a slow evolution of complexity in the hierarchies and goings-on of matter eventually lead to stars, heavier elements, planets, water, proto-?RNA?-replicators, cellular life, multi-cellular life, complex biological organisms, complex learning brains, and us.

I believe these well reasoned and evidenced beliefs because my brain is one that prefers evidence-based modeling of reality (because it gives more reliable predictive power and hence greater power to maintain and increase the emergent complexity that we are inexorably a part of).

These beliefs really do impact my actions and subsequent beliefs. That I lack god-belief and its consequences is the wrong detail to focus on to try and understand my position. The list of things and gods which I lack belief in are unending, you'll never understand me that way.

I have no issue that my world view impacts my position - as I think yours and others does as well. — Rank Amateur

As a non-Buddhist my position is impacted by not believing in the God-Head, not believing in reincarnation, and not regularly reciting any number of mantras with supposedly mystical qualities. In the same sense with reference to Christianity, I don't pray to Jesus, I don't look to the bible to establish right and wrong, and the sabbath is for personal veneration, not papal.

...Everyone was so shocked to see the emperor without any clothes on. The fool should have bade everyone else get naked too, then to them he would have seemed regular and normal...

there are a few reasonable arguments for there being at one time an un-created - creator. I understand there are challenges. And I have acknowledged that the counter position is not un-reasonable. But the assertion that a theistic belief is un-reasonable is more rooted in a particular prejudice than in argument. — Rank Amateur

In my view, both the theist and hard-atheist views are unreasonable. In the past I've searched extensively for proofs of god (for and against) and I've never come across a clear and satisfactorily reasonable one. If you wish up to take up some such argument, I welcome you to do so, and it will be my pleasure to attack it should it prove less than reasonable.

and the addition of Pascal is not really for the mechanics of the wager, but for the need to bet.

The game is on, whether one acknowledges it or not. There either is or is not a God. — Rank Amateur

And why is there a need to place a bet exactly? Because if we don't God might hold our abstinence against us? What if the real test is to not hold unreasonable beliefs, and by making presumptions about god, you will actually be losing the bet?

I think you feel that there is a very large need to take a position with respect to your own beliefs because they encompass so much of your world-view (I don't mean this in a disparaging way, you seem like a nice person). But a Bhuddist feels a similar sense of urgency with respect to deciding whether or not reincarnation is real because similarly it encompasses much else in their belief structure.

There either is or is not flying spaghetti monster deity. The Pastafarians who worshship him will tell you that you must take an actual position on its existence, that you must take a position whether you want to or not.

Like the soccer-ball question, you would probably say that you simply don't care and that nothing seems to actually be at stake. For me, having emancipated myself from religion and theistic belief so long ago, there re almost no remaining god-shaped holes that I haven't already filled with something else. Whether or not god exists changes nothing for me as it very clearly does not reveal itself in this life, and presuming that god-belief is important for the next life is a presumption that comes out of nowhere and has no rational advantage over its rejection or negation.

I keep giving you comparisons which contrast with how you might honestly approach the actual question, and I'm only doing so to try and convey what the dichotomy looks like from a position where nothing other than the truth is at stake. I could claim that this life is actually a video-game, and that getting a high score is therefore the most important thing in existence... It's all either a video-game or not a video game and score either means everything or it does not mean everything. The game of deciding to believe this or believe it's negation is on whether one acknowledges it or not.

There a million and one such games. I would rather just play them by not playing instead of going through each one and making claims that require effort to substantiate. There is a very big difference between choosing to believe in the non-existence of something (broad) and rejecting belief in something specific (or likewise, broad).

But my real objection to agnostic or soft atheism - is, it is really a semantic hedge - disguised as reason. If our actions are the manifestations of our beliefs - most/all agnostics - are practicing atheists - just holding on to a hedge. Or as above - conversely - umpires in the argument - calling different positions in or out while sitting comfortably in the chair above the court, indifferent as to the outcome of the match. — Rank Amateur

Umpires exist because impartiality correlates with making accurate judgments. I'm not exactly impartial, but I'm not an umpire. It's more like a basketball court: you keep trying to sink a basket and we keep blocking you, but we don't care to carry the ball to the other end of the court for a basket of our own.

If we don't know the truth of something, there is nothing demanding that we take up beliefs in regards to said truth. If someone puts a gun to our heads and forces us to guess, so be it, but nobody is doing this. It's a humility; we don't have access to god-knowledge.

Ladies and gentlemen, Pascal has entered the building! :grin:

there either is, or is not an uncreated creator. There are no other options. That was called being black or white earlier, call it what you like, but it is a true statement. One can, chose by reason to believe either argument. — Rank Amateur

I agree that there either is or is not an uncreated creator, but I must ask by which form of "reason" one can establish a quality argument for or against the existence of uncreated creator? We can choose to believe whatever we like, but what logical or rational reasons are there to do so?

The problem that I'm facing is that the original claims theists make are broad, ambiguous, and unsubstantiated. From my perspective it's not a choice between black and white, it's a choice between green with yellow polka-dots or NOT green with yellow polka-dots; and when a Buddhist feeds me their claims it's mauve with lime stripes, or not. Uncreated creators, self-created creators, created creators, interactive creators, indifferent creators, loving creators, one creator, many creators, jealous creators, forgiving creators, vengeful creators, ambivalent creators, et cetra, et certa. White is actually is an amalgam of many colors; it's ill defined.

My answer is, I don't care if there is or is not a soccer ball in your closet. The question has no importance to me. — Rank Amateur

That's why the hypothetical uses a soccer-ball and not something you might have emotional stake in. If your answer to the soccer-ball question is that you don't care, how do you feel about the existence of Zeus (a non-deist deity to be precise)? Surely you care to take a position on the existence of leprechauns though, don't you want to get their pots of gold? I'm joshing but this does illustrate my take on your dichotomy. You can say it's either X or not X and therefore 50-50 or easy to address, but you would also be negating the rest of the overgrown theist alphabet.

If however you said if you guess correctly, I will give you 5,000 dollars I would work to try and answer correctly. If you said, if you guess there is a ball, and you are right, you get 100 million dollars, if you guess there is not a ball, and you are right you get 35 cents. I guess there is a ball. — Rank Amateur

If we're going to truly embrace the dice, I wish to point out that guesses aren't exactly free: we spend time, influence, energy, and freedom by choosing beliefs with sweeping ramifications in so many areas of life. With that in mind, welcome to Babylon's Casino!

Here we use monté-mono-theist-carlo rules, so you really only have enough resources to place one bet, so choose wisely! Have a seat at the roulette wheel! You could bet on red or black and address the broad question, but nobody knows what the odds pay for that and everybody knows betting on hard atheism actually pays out nothing. Alternatively you could bet on one of the many numbers of the roulette wheel. Making such a precise prediction from a guess is obviously more difficult than playing red or black and so the pay-outs are rumored to be better, but oddly the pay-outs are number specific so be careful what you bet for.

So you only get one bet from a sea of options in an ocean of games, and everything is a wrong answer but one, and there isn't always a consolation prize for getting it wrong...

What do you get for not playing?

You become free of the confounding influence of arbitrary beliefs that have no basis in reality, for better or for worse...

But if you absolutely must place a bet, do it somewhere where they actually comp you regardless in the form of something like community support or financial assistance (in this life).

there is no doubt that I am inexperienced- hence the name. However how does your point of what a position has going for it, pros cons, merits etc, apply when the position is, I have no position on the question?

That does not mean that on any particular item in the argument an agnostic can not have a valid or helpful view. But at its core equivocation is not a position. — Rank Amateur

Another way of looking at this is that soft atheists take the position of rejection both ways. We reject theist claims and arguments and we reject hard-atheist claims and arguments. We maintain that we're ignorant of the truth (soft-atheism) usually because we believe the truth is inaccessible (agnosticism).

Not a big fan of your soccer ball problem, it is just a conclusion with out a premise- — Rank Amateur

A conclusion without a premise huh? :)

YOU'RE RIGHT! It's just a random claim out of nowhere for which you have exactly zero means of confirmation or disconfirmation. To boot, it's equally plausible that there is a soccer ball in my closet as it is plausible that there is not, so it's not as if any reliable appeal to opinion can be made. On top of this, the existence/non-existence of a soccer ball would change nothing for you, so any emotional pull you might feel toward affirming the existence of god should not apply in this hypothetical...

But what is your answer to the soccer-ball query? Do you believe there is a soccer-ball? Do you believe there is no soccer-ball? Or do you lack belief?

From my perspective, god claims (for and against) are generally unsupported, just like a conclusion without a satisfactory premise (evidence). The tables I'm unfit to dine at are in the evidence-allergy section I assure you ;)

Perhaps just to cause confusion as an additional layer if rigor.

In high school one my teachers set all the answers to a multiple choice test as option B (a statistics test, har har :( ) and so the class spent the hour in frustration, assuming every question was a trick and second guessing ourselves. Kind of stupid of him now that I think about it...

And yet it's our future Monarch we are talking about/aboot. — Akanthinos

Monarch is such a misleading term though. Constitutionally Canada is independent: the "Crown" proper retains power over ceremony and a few emergency levers (vetoing legislation, dissolving parliament), but beyond that they ain't got shit. (sorry!)

If the British monarchy, even in Britain, tried to meddle in democracy through veto or dissolution of parliament for any reason that was uncouth, it would be defenestrated faster than a bucket of shit in old Rome.

As a Canadian I couldn't possibly care less...

Some jerks sceptered a dingy isle, handed down their divine right to rule, conquered some foreign lands, got put in their place by modernity, and now function as marionette like figure heads on an aging runway of indignity. The original "Toddlers & Tiaras"...

Obnoxious pomp and silly circumstance...

You're refusing to participate and engage in the topic of your own creation and you've been lazy and insulting towards good-faith replies.

If by "got my goat" you mean to say you've frightened it and every other goat away with your jackassery, then yes.

What are the odds you describe yourself correctly in the following question:

A: wise
B: foolish
C: foolish
D: foolish
E: foolish
F: foolish
G: foolish
H: foolish
I: foolish

You make me glad I am not you. To each their own.

Good luck with your conundrum.

It's evident you have not explained it well at all. By continuously saying this instead of responding properly you make it amply clear.

It's not us, it's your inability to explain.

If we do the weighted selection (with the redundant option being rolled for in the answer algorithm, not the guess algo), then 37.5 percent is indeed the result.

Imagine selecting option D on a test but your teacher/professor arguing that A was the correct choice; since they're the same they would have no choice but to mark it correct. If you made the 1/4 guess you would be right 37.5 percent of the time.

Do you even have an answer for me?

Blithering about us not getting it isn't helpful. As I've just shown mathematically and proven experimentally (with your interpretation of sampling), the odds of guessing the correct answer to that question are 37.5%. That's the product of your "conundrum". If we assume that the question is self-referential (you seem to maintain that it is not) then it becomes unanswerable because 37.5% (or 33% under a sensical interpretation of what multiple choice questions are) is not an option.

do you have a different solution in mind?

Are you able to explain the understanding that we lack instead of just telling us we're stupid?

If we take the question at its veiled-face value, the odds of guessing correctly actually turns out to be 3/8

We have at least a 1/4th chance of being right, and on top of that we have the scenarios of guessing A and the answer being D (making us correct) and the scenario of guessing D and the answer being A (also making us correct).

The odds of choosing A but the answer turning up D is (1/4*1/4) (in other words, 1/16 possible outcomes fits this win condition) and the same holds true for the scenario of guessing D and the answer being A

So the full odds are (1/4+1/16+1/16) which works out to (3/8) or 37.5%

If you don't believe me run the experiment yourself (it's Processing.js)



Since 37.5% isn't a possible answer, 0% of the time the correct answer will be guessed.

Since the correct answers to questions are normally not determined by random dice rolls which include redundant options (weighting the dice) we would normally calculate 33% as the outcome because we don't ascribe causal value to the existence of redundant options in multiple choice questions. (we also assume one of the answers is correct)

What is your username?

A: Jeremiah
B: Zarathustra
C: Epicurus
D: Jeremiah

This is where 33% chance of being right comes from (Michael explains this in detail).

If we randomly select a letter, 50% of the time we will choose A or D, and 25%-25% for B and C respectively. BUT, the odds of choosing one of four letters are not the same as choosing the response that happens to be correct because if A is correct then D is also correct, and vice versa, so we can actually eliminate D entirely from our list of possible unique outcomes.

You could put 1000 additional selections, all the name Jeremiah, but if to us there is an equal possibility of you being named Zarathustra as there is of you being named Jeremiah, then it doesn't matter. The odds of making random selections between duplicated options is not the same as the possibility of unique options being true in the end. Even if most of the time we end up with the name Jeremiah as a selection, if one out of three times that turns out to be correct then we will still be correct 33.3% of the time.

Like the above, normally the correct answer to a question does not recursively alter itself when you actually make a selection (your question uses our selection to revise the criteria, which thwarts attempts to solve it) so this is why the correct answer to your question is actually 0% (because the odds of selecting the correct answer are 0%, as 33.3% (which would not recursively alter itself) is not an option). It's a circular-false trilemma (a false dilemma with an unmentioned fourth option).

Alternatively I could just pen in an E) and assign it anything but 25%, and then A or D become correct answers. (If option E was also 25%, since it would not constitute a new unique option, the odds of guessing correctly would still be 33%, which isn't an option, making the real answer 0%).

The fun part of your question comes only from its recursive or self-referential nature, the doubled multiple choice is a separate issue entirely. Here's your question with that bit removed:

If you randomly select an answer to the following multiple choice question, what are the odds of selecting correctly?

A: 0/1
B: 1/3
C: 1/1

A recursively refutes itself. If we have 0% chance of guessing correctly because the correct option is not available, then if we select 0%, we're correct, therefore our chance of being correct must be greater than 0%, making us incorrect again. Much of the fun of your example is illustrated by option A.

B seems very enticing. If we assume one of the three answers is correct then B seems to hold with theoretical odds, so let's eliminate it as a possible option to induce more enjoyable confusion:

If you randomly select an answer to the following multiple choice question, what are the odds of selecting correctly?

A: 0%
B: 100%

The funny thing about A is that it can simultaneously be correct and incorrect (it paradoxically flits back and fourth as we chart our way around it's loop).

So if we select A, in a sense, we would be correct (because the correct answer of 50% is missing).

If we select B: 100%, it could actually also be called correct, because the only other option is A, which is technically correct, and so if B is also correct then B recursively verifies itself as correct because both A and B are technically correct. Both answers are simultaneously correct and incorrect because their criterion for being correct are self-contained and circular.

If to determine the current position of a coin (heads or tails) we had to flip it over, by doing so we change the truth of it's current position, rendering our result incorrect.

I think this better captures the peculiar nature of your original example. Perhaps another interlocutor could explain this with greater clarity.

The main problem is that "this question" grammatically and conceptually must refer to the multiple choice group (without any given criterion pointing to "correctness") or else it is a circular question.

The correct solution is your response + 1. What is your response?: the self-referential or recursive nature of this question makes it impossible to answer correctly.

If we presume that the question is not self referential then it seems answerable. And it is 33%.

I encountered a new set of notions out of the post-modern camp a few days ago (i guess it's not all bad!) which describes the essence of art almost exactly as you've formulated it.

Russian "Defamiliarization" (ostranenie), German "Distancing Effect" (Verfremdungseffekt), and Derrida's "Difference" (Différance).

It takes what is real by virtue of familiarity and presents it in an unfamiliar, magnified, or distorted way, thereby causing new perceptions and perspectives to emerge in the consumer.

This may not be the precise definition covering all "art", but it's a good start toward defining "good art".

I think I've made a mistake. It isn't self-awareness that is the cause of suffering but a misunderstanding of truth or of reality that is the cause of suffering. — TheMadFool

:meh: It's a good thing I charge per soliloquy!

A wise and happy sage knows the truth of this world and adapts his ego to it and is content.

A common man lacks wisdom and his ego suffers from this flaw. — TheMadFool

We only have so much control over our own egos, but 'lacking wisdom' and misunderstanding does tend to permit the rise of conflict.

And conflict can find even the wisest of seers. Take Leo Tolstoy as example: wise, accomplished, loved, self-loved, pampered and served. His wisdom for a time made him too clever for Jesus, and the result was suffering through an existential crisis. He specifically remarked how his commoner servants had no existential qualms with their lot in life and no crippling doubt about the hereafter.

In the end he fled from that precipice of wisdom, that cliff of knowledge, and back into his perched nest of familiar comfort. Was his ego too immature to drive or were his wings of wisdom too weak to keep him aloft? The humility and uncertainty that some wisdom can bring requires a certain quality to endure, something that might not be suitable for everyone; perhaps nothing is more frightening than knowledge.

I would agree that awareness of the world yields wisdom, and also that we can eventually adapt our egos to our worldviews, but then should not an unwise man have an unwise ego? Indeed they should. If you're gonna be dumb you gotta be "tough". If self-satisfaction is our aim then we should be adapting our egos to fit our perceptions. If it's wisdom then we should be adapting our perceptions to fit reality. Therefore the ego must suit the knowledge. It must progress as increased understanding demands greater confidence to navigate more challenging terrain while avoiding recklessness.

Too much ego and not enough wisdom and you'll crash on the rocks in pretentious style. Too much wisdom and not enough ego and you might fail to launch entirely. There's also something to be said about having too large an ego regardless of one's wisdom. An average egotist is just a douche, but a highly intelligent egotist has the makings of a demagogue and tyrant.

Ideally we stay in that narrow zone where we have the confidence necessary to challenge ourselves to improve but not the conceit to drown ourselves.

I got more than half way through this before becoming self-aware that it might be going a bit too far. Shakespeare has been poking and rattling around in my head lately (I'm on a quest to capture all 151 poké literary skills) and I got pot committed before noticing. Hopefully it suffices as an address of the OP:



To see, or not to see: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous action,
Or to take arms against a sea of foibles,
And by reflecting end them? To change: to grow;
A new; and by grow to say we begin
The heart-throbs and the thousand natural jaunts
That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a conflagration
Devoutly to be wish’d. To change, to grow;
To grow: perchance to reach: ay, there’s the stub;
For in that growth of change what heights may come
When we have re-shuffled this mortal coil,
Must give us un-pause: there’s self-respect
That makes profanity of so long strife;
For who would mourn the quips of timelessness,
The selfish wrong, the prideful man's conceit,
The pangs of jealous love, the law’s decay,
The insolence of youth and the burns
That patient stagnation of the worthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus break
With a bare-assed glance? who would fartels bear,
To shunt and regret under weary strife,
But that the dread of something after growth,
The discover’d identity from whose bourn
No inquisitor returns, puzzles the still
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than climb to others that we know not of?
Thus incontinence makes blowhards of us all;
And thus the future hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale lack of thought,
And achievements of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents run dry,
And lose the name of fortune.—Shield you now,
The wise Falstaff!—Seer, in thy horizons
Be all my sins forgotten.

I find much less to object to with the full context

I am not sure I understand here. Is it because he is imitative in the way Plato suggests in the Republic or do you mean that Picasso always founds new ways of presenting what he had previously presented. — Cavacava

What I mean to say is that a single painting or work of art might be analogous to a single scientific detail like "dwarf" in "dwarf planet". Comparing science to the study of a single artwork instead of the on-going body and process as a whole seemed vastly unfair in the analogy. The additional context makes it clear that its point was not to produce this effect, but I think my objection might be down to the authors somewhat loose usage of the terms art and philosophy (Do we define art/philosophy by specific products? By their processes? Their goals?). As he reassures us though, the issue is of mere taxonomy.

Yes, I wanted to bring that up, I don't agree with Harman that there is a finite interpretation, in fact I would strenuously argue against any finite limit, as long as there are humans there will be arguments about what is the correct way to interpret. I think the reason why masterpieces are masterpieces is because they continue to strongly affect their observers. — Cavacava

If there is a limit to variations in interpretation, it's not scientifically testable :)

The photo and the portrait are both mimetic, in a photo time is frozen as it presents a reality which as you indicate presents much more detail and more information. Yet it is still a simplified reality, since it presents a 3D object in 2D. The portrait distorts her face providing an overt commentary (to use your word) prior to any interpretation. Simplifying it as you suggest. While the figurative elements in the artwork may be simpler than the photo, the art work presents a much deeper view of the character in the portrait. It goes beyond the surface to the invisible in a way that is very difficult to replicate using a camera.

So then perhaps a goal of art is the communication of a way of understanding/experiencing by means of simplification and stylizing of its object — Cavacava

This definition resonates very strongly with what I consider to be good art. In addition to this, art which invents complexity which is not there in the first place (instead of simplifying and focusing), the dreaded abstract art, tends to say nothing at all by obfuscating and randomly distorting until all tangible meaning is lost. Anti-art.

Shakespeare came to mind when I was parsing a mental list of people I consider to be great intellectuals.

His prose was dense and bold, but graceful and rich in meaning. And his influence is utter mainstay.

If half of the fanciful depictions of the upstart crow can be half-believed, and if my take on
Shake's work is accurate, he was embroiled in a war of wits with his detractors, his patrons, himself, and the world.Trading gilded barbs with feathered friends seems petty from some perspectives, but for someone so immersed in the craft it would seem a display of respect to be worthy of public satire in the high style of the day.

We know his plays are great, but what did that greatness take? What was he like?

Clever. He was definitely clever. And perceptive (is that the same thing?). Also seemingly obsessive.

Why did he write 126 love sonnets for "a lovely boy"? Why are there so many double meanings in his writings which may have been cryptic even in their time?

I wonder how greatness in production corresponds to qualities in the individual. The qualities that enable people to produce great works might not be the same set of qualities that produces great people. Surely greatness in different areas demands different qualities. Beyond the boldness of taking risks toward worthy and noble goals, and a refusal to be dragged down by the petty and mundane, the qualities of greatness, including greatness of intellect, seems to extend in all directions.

The mark of a great intellectual is a great intellect :)

What do you think of when you hear that a person is an intellectual? Have there always been intellectuals among humanity? Or is this a more recent development (1500 years is fairly recent)?

To what extent is any great intellectual a product of his/her times? Are intellectuals influential? Or do they merely formulate and reflect? I tend to lean toward reflect. The influence of intellectuals is always very limited. — frank

Aye, there have always been intellectuals, though environmental circumstance certainly has a lot to say about how frequently they might emerge.

Some have limited influence, many have none, and the few take their lions share of influence, glory, and greatness (as they do with many things).

But what are the marks of a great intellect?

Is it the charisma to be popular? The scruples to be humble?

Is it a capacity for learning or the drive to do so?

Is it the present or future value or utility of their ideas and ideals?

Does "greatness" merely equate with "influence"?

To the aphid the ant is great, and to the ant, the spider. While masquerading as an antellectual I've encountered many-legged-foes greater than myself, some magnanimous and some cantankerous.

Here forced to define greatness of intellect, I lean toward the precise definition of magnanimity:

Magnanimity (derived from the Latin roots magna, great, and animus, mind) is the virtue of being great of mind and heart. It encompasses, usually, a refusal to be petty, a willingness to face danger, and actions for noble purposes. Its antithesis is pusillanimity. Magnanimity is a latinization of the Greek word μεγαλοψυχία, megalopsychia which means greatness of soul and was identified by Aristotle as "the crowning virtue". — Wikipedia

Harman's Pluto-Picasso comparison feels downright misleading:

Science explores the universe and things in it.

Art does not explore itself, that's the consumption of art (some art is surely self-exploratory, however), like science it tends to explore the universe and things in it.

Some art may be hard to paraphrase, but its meaning has finite strokes. No, study of a single Picasso does not reveal ever increasing detail because the Picasso itself is a limited study of something else.

"Science" is thought of as a larger body of work - a process -that spans many subjects, but a single work of art might amount to less than half a hypothesis. Trés gauche. The on-going creation of art does in fact reveal an ever lengthening list of (sometimes) true facts about the subject matter it captures...

If we're forced to compare art to science, it's hard to speak to its "goals" as the goals of scientific endeavors are varied (it is not merely the pursuit of knowledge). Likewise the goals of artistic endeavors are many.

What art is or does seems trappable though:

A scientific work yields descriptive and predictive power over the physical world by making rigidly defined and testable statements in procedural fashions. Artistic works can also yield descriptive and predictive power over things in the physical world, but they tend to do so without the organization, consensus, and rigidity which science demands as prerequisite.

Good science describes relationships that are hard to reduce.

Good art says things which are hard to paraphrase.

I think good art is indeed good because it "says something" that is difficult to compress or is very specific. In the case of Picasso, by distorting and removing so much, what remains is brought into greater focus.. Good art reveals, and it does so with ineffable style by using clever compositions of imprecise language.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but how many words can a Picasso fetch?

In high school I had a very talented art teacher who showed us his magnum opus which was a hyper-realistic painting of an old row boat tied to a dock. It was so realistic that I could not distinguish it from a photograph. Here was a work of art completed with more organization and rigidity than most other artworks, but he was almost ashamed of it and now I can gather why: it said little to nothing of value or intrigue. It was a painting imbued with skill beyond what I can fathom, and really that was the only remarkable thing about it. It's language was too precise. A grainy black and white photograph would have stated more.

What reveals more about the world and is harder to paraphrase, a photograph of a person or Picasso's portrait of them? In describing the photo, we would have a long list of details, and in describing the Picasso we might also need to list all the details which have been intentionally warped and omitted. It's kind of paradoxical that a photograph contains more information than a painting, generally (Picasso could probably have done what he did working from photographs to begin with) but a good painting even from a photograph can mean so much more. Photos tend to contain more data, but good art simplifies to magnify, making them more interesting and meaningful.

Science is the same way though: we observe vastly mixed phenomenon and try and bring fundamental parts and relationships into focus. Science seeks to highlight by simplifying and magnifying.

A painting is generally more interesting than a photo because the painting makes commentary. The commentary of the painting might be contained in the photograph but discerning it would require the lens of the artist (additional data perhaps).

So to conclude, good art says more with less. It trims detail into a kind of negative space where it becomes ambiguous, and what remains therefore becomes the object of focus. Often times we do not have suitable language for the things artworks communicate. The beauty of life, the curves of nature, the hubris of man. Such specific and contextual (lacking better terms) concepts and experiences are sometimes most efficiently expressed through a non-verbal medium, and if a work of art efficiently communicates a perception or notion I find worthy or interesting, I'll call it good art.

But I'm reluctant to discount prose; A picture can be worth a thousand words but a well written book can be worth thousands and thousands of pictures.

And the question that raises for me is, what does it matter if such a purported entity exists or not? — Wayfarer

Indeed, but even if we could prove full blown Yaweh nothing would really change.

And even if it's all an ultimately meaningless game of Jumanji that we play, there will always be a need for the kind of emotional catharsis that it can offer to the scorned on all sides of the fence, including those straddling the top, and also to those who have cognitively left the court.

Dear thread,

Atheists generally try to stake out the weak position of "lack of belief" instead of "belief in non-existence" because the former is defensible and clear while the latter is not. Hard atheism and soft atheism are fair distinctions.

In my experience most atheists are soft atheists...

The term "agnostic" implies soft atheism (if you don know either way, generally you lack belief but there are exceptions (i.e: i don't know but i believe because of faith)).

Coloquially agnosticism has come to mean the exact same thing as soft atheism ("atheism" has never really been about proving the non-existence of god(s), if we're fair: it has been about rejection) which is that there is no belief either way.

No belief is a tricky concept to behold for some people especially when ideas with emotions attached are at stake. Let me give you an unemotional example:

I make the claim that there is a soccer-ball in my closet.

You don't have access to my closet or any way to prove or disprove my claim.

Maybe it's a basketball instead of a soccer-ball, or maybe there is no ball at all in my closet (maybe I don't even have a closet :gasp: ).

Do you believe there is a soccer-ball in my closet? If not, do you then believe there is no soccer-ball in my closet?

Why must you have a "belief" either way? If you're not forced to decide, why bother?

This emotionally neutered analogy for the claim that god exists can be used to contextualize a wide gambit of these imperfect labels which we so ineffectually yet lovingly bandy and berate:

Agnosticism used to mean that we cannot have knowledge or evidence about god either way (it was a claim about empirical and epistemic limits, not about belief) (no access to the god closet)

Ignosticism goes further and says that arguing about the existence of god is incoherent because god might be any number of things (any kind of ball, or something jagged).

Theological non-cognitivism goes even further and says that all this talk is incoherent and circular to begin with because we have no access to god's closet and the descriptions we do have are of arbitrary human origin and therefore circular.

theser views are from whence the spaghetti monster came-a-flying and the claim that babies are not god believers was birthed. If you are dipped into its magical waters, you will gain the dem(a)i-go(gue)d like powers of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris...

We should all take a grain of salt with these labels though. They're not perfect and we shouldn't expect the world to always to conform to neat and discrete categories that can be easily defined.

If you ever find the delays which fussing over labels causes in a given discussion to be significant, why bother to use labels (a time saving device) in the first place?

I think it's just a brute fact @Posty McPostface.

If the multiverse is real, whatever membrane separates us is not permeable enough for humans to squeeze through.

Think of what it would be like if you had awareness of another you, let alone infinite yous.

If you prime could just drift through alternate yous and insert itself into whichever you it pleases it might not even be aware that it is doing so given the only perceivable difference might be a single indirectly observed wave-function collapse (where all events prior to the point of transition are the same). If you prime could perceive or inhabit any universe within the multiverse (including universes whose timeline has long since deviated from it's own), then it would arrive in or perceive a universe in which it has no account of previous events. (if you snapped your fingers to enter a universe where you had already won the lottery, some things would be different depending on how long ago your new universe deviated from your old).

If we're just talking about perception, then perceiving alternate yous would actually break certain elements of causation. You would be making P=nP (and it really probably sorta doesn't).

You could approach any problem solvable by trial and error, and by perceiving the outcome of the infinite alternate yous who try different combinations or solutions, you would instantly know the correct solution.

If you explore one room in a haunted house, you would actually be exploring every room. Spooky action at a distance...

You might also be able to see into the future and the past...

If one of you spends enough time outside the gravitational field of the earth or traveling at high enough speeds the time dilation will cause one to age more quickly and one more slowly. Depending on how the quantum link between all yous works, this would mean that a well aged space-faring you could return to earth at an earth time where you are 20 years younger than him. This means that if well-aged space faring you can perceive of an alternate you of his own age, on earth, then he would be seeing a future earth (and he could then change the timeline with that information). time travel is confusing but this makes it seem like broad awareness of alternate yous would be too game-breaking.

If we consider only the case of a single deviation in wave-function collapse as the candidate alternate universe that you want awareness of, we already have it in the form of interference patterns in the double slit test. But, something about higher forms of matter destroys the phenomenon and makes behavior more stable and singular.

When we ourselves walk through a double slit, we don't interact with our phantom selves on the other side until one of us crashes a third party.

If humans do move in waves we simply don't perceive it. It's a brute empirical limitation.

Because the multiverse doesn't know which you you are or the outcome you want (it doesn't give a shit in fact). Every-time you select the lotto numbers, there are millions of other yous in other universes each with a unique selection of numbers and it just puts you wherever. (and it if was willing to discriminate on your behalf, how would it know which you to favor? The math works out here with wonderful elegance:

The odds of you being a you with the correct combination of lotto numbers is

(The number of yous with the correct combination)
__________________________________________
(The total number of yous)

Since we can assume that there are an equally infinite number of multiverses for each possible lotto number selection that there are an equally infinite number of yous with each unique lotto number combination, we cancel the infinities and the odds then become:

1 times the number of unique tickets purchased by a given you
________________________________________
total # of lotto number combinations

Which mindbogglingly is the exact same calculation we would get if we just determined the odds of you winning the lottery in a single universe!

The universe truly is beautiful and mysterious :)

So, in conclusion. (A long-awaited conclusion to this thread.) You are saying that when we say Jack is blameless in the bribe scenario, this isn’t the same as the blamelessness he has in the gunpoint scenario. The latter blamelessness is the ordinary one which consists of us saying that he shouldn’t be punished. But in the bribe scenario it just means that he shouldn’t “burn in hell for eternity”! That’s the only consequence of his not having hard free will. But we can still blame him in this life. — tinman917

We are forced to hold him accountable in this life, so to speak, but that doesn't mean we should burn him at the stake in this life either. There's an old adage that says "the punishment should suit the (nature of the) crime", and one of the truths it points to is that the moral and physical retaliations we enact against transgressors ought to somehow address and be proportional to the causes, motivations, and nature of their crimes. This way instead of a moral system which functions like a gulag in sentencing every minor offender to obliteration, it attempts to rehabilitate and restore rather than maintaining justice through merciless counter-aggression. Understanding that Jack has no hard free-will in the bribe scenario makes it quite easy to forgive jack on an emotional level, and even though we may need to incarcerate him it would be irrational to suggest that Jack deserves to suffer for his guilt when we understand his actions were beyond his (hard) control.

So when we say about Jack in the bribe scenario that he has no (hard) free will and is blameless it seems to me we are saying nothing really. On the whole, I don’t find it a very satisfactory conclusion that we have arrived at. It doesn’t sound quite right to me! But there you have it. — tinman917

It seems a lackluster gem for such a long and narrow dig, but it buffs and appreciates well.

Most people tend to make moral decisions via a strange mix of intuition, emotion, and possibly the influence of some formal moral framework. Moral outcomes throughout human history have been truly diverse as a result (much like Art, it is a field where the whims of subjective emotion, intuitive interpretation, and cultural convention have produced many'a great failure and masterwork). The idea that we lack hard free-will becomes useful if we want to trim back this over-grown moral hedge and identify what is useful: many moral systems apply absolute moral guilt to individuals for their actions, and so they do things like torture in response, mistakenly thinking that for whatever reason, since they have hard free-will, they are ultimately to blame and therefore causing them to suffer somehow produces justice through equality of suffering; eyes for eyes. But if all we're doing is trading blows, violence and criminal behavior (immoral harm) will likely continue. Beyond the necessity of incarceration, if we're not addressing the prevailing causes of human criminality then we're not solving any problems.

Some will call me new fashioned, but I prefer a moral system which offers solutions instead of cyclical violence.

Our moral progression has been heading in this direction for nearly a millennium, perhaps. We're slowly extending more moral consideration to more and more people, our court systems are moving towards rehabilitation and away from deterrence through suffering; our moral, legal, and governmental philosophies are becoming better models of reality which take into account circumstances that better understand and predict the individual. Perhaps you can appreciate that some people can have emotional and cognitive difficulty in understanding that we are products of our biology and environment instead of possessing souls with inherent goodness or evilness and capable of sin through hard free-will. The long history of this quick and dirty answer to moral questions continues to set us back to this day.

In fact it has occurred to me in the past few days that the statement “we don’t have free will” is somehow meaningless due to a lack of falsifiability. Because there is no possible scenario of some agent choosing to do something “of their own hard free will” which would show that statement to be false! So saying it is saying nothing. — tinman917

It is indeed a highly unscientific claim to make. But vice versa, claiming that hard free-will exists seems even more unscientific given we cannot even offer a single coherent example of someone doing something of their hard-free will. Both claims are so unscientific that they're not even wrong. It's kind of like my atheism: I do not affirm or deny the existence of god (or hard free-will), but I'm certainly not going to pretend they exist without cause or evidence. We do have soft/compatibilist free will to worry about though, and if people weren't so caught up in their supernatural notions of justice and free-will our species wouldn't be so afflicted with excessive and violent confusion.

(By the way in your last message you say: “In addition to "hard free-will", I'd also like to introduce "compatibilist free-will" so that there can be no confusion.” But I think that this compatibilist free-will is the same as the “normal (soft) free will” that we have already been referring to!) — tinman917

Aye. Soft free-will is a fine term in my approximation, but we are in truth pointing to the general compatibilist or legal definition of free-will which has a long history of exploration in philosophy. Not everyone shares my position in these matters, and trying to keep this discussion condensed and clear isn't easy. And so to avoid teeth gritting by any future and critical readers it's good to make the effort!

OK so let me see if I’ve understood what’s been said so far. So the idea is that, when we say “there is no free will”, this means that all our choices are the outcome of prior factors. Such that any choice we make could not have been otherwise than the way it was. — tinman917

This is correct. The bolded statement amounts to a belief in "determinism", which undermines the possibility that hard free will exists. This is generally what people mean when they say "there is no free will", but specifically they mean that the decisions we make are inevitable due to internal and external causes which determine outcomes.

Clarification point. We should clarify that “could not have been otherwise” here is not meant in the same way as that same phrase when we are talking about normal free will. So, in my previous example, when Jack hands over the documents at gunpoint we would say “he couldn’t have chosen otherwise” where this refers to the fact that he was being coerced to do what he did by being threatened with being shot. But in the hard free will case the phrase does not mean that. It means something else. — tinman917

In addition to "hard free-will", I'd also like to introduce "compatibilist free-will" so that there can be no confusion. Compatibilist free-will is the idea that the decisions you make which are free from coercion and based on your own motives can be considered to be freely made; it's the every-day kind of free-will we use to hold people accountable for their actions.

Jack's lawyer could argue that it is unreasonable to expect him to have chosen otherwise in light of the coercive threat.

Is the idea that, because an agent has no hard free will, that then we don’t blame them? So we don’t blame Jack for handing over the documents to Mary in return for a bribe. We treat him as blameless in that scenario as we do if he had handed over the documents at gunpoint? — tinman917

It's a different kind of blame. We're all blameless in the sense that we all lack hard free-will, but in the sense of compatibilist free-will we still sometimes hold people accountable for their actions if they commit moral transgressions. If someone commits a crime of their own compatibilist free will (free from coercion) then we might expect them to commit such a crime again. We're forced to take action against them if only for our own protection. If someone is significantly coerced into commiting a crime, then it would not be reasonable to assume they will carry on committing crimes once the coercion has ceased, so what would be the point of incarcerating them?

In your last response you seem to be saying that the only sorts of punishment that are appropriate in cases of lack of hard free will are things like incarceration simply as a kind of preventative measure. That suggests you mean that we treat people who lack hard free will in the same way as ones who lack normal free will. Because in the latter situation preventative incarceration is also justified. (For example with regard to people diagnosed with certain “mental illnesses”.) — tinman917

If someone lacks compatibilist free-will and commits a crime, coerced, then I primarily need to take action against the coercion; the person pointing the gun at Jake has "practical/pragmatic moral responsibility" for the crime. In the case of mental-illness, we must still take preventative action against transgressors, but it's clear in such cases that causing them additional unnecessary suffering serves no justifiable purpose (we blame the disease instead of the person).

What does it mean to say that, in this case (bribe), Jack has no “absolute moral responsibility”? — tinman917

In short, it means that it would be unfair to force Jack to burn in hell for eternity for his crimes. It is to say that our actions are not sufficient reason to assign a kind of metaphysical ultimate blame or credit. If nobody has hard free-will, then assigning ultimate responsibility to individuals would not make sense given we could blame any number of causes in the chain of cause and effect which led to their actions (we could even try to blame the big bang or god).

You're probably thinking that this is a very peculiar kind of guilt/responsibility, and you're right! It exists because of the peculiarities of human moral development. If some people are just innately evil then it becomes emotionally easier to destroy them. It's a ruthless strategy and it defends itself well for obvious reasons. This is in part why an ideology that purports to send sinners to hell for eternity because they're inherently evil is the most popular set of religions.

This is also why Christian Americans are convinced that "homosexuals are born gay" and why it's politically and descriptively correct to say that "addiction is a disease". They got tired of having to blame and condemn one another for "sin" and immoral behavior and so had to undermine the compatibilitst sense of free-will as it applies to these situations by highlight coercion and absence of choice.

Then the first question is: what is it exactly about Jack’s choosing to give Mary the documents in this example that constitutes it being a not hard free will choice. — tinman917

it's not a choice made with hard free-will because he could not have chosen otherwise. While Jack's decision was relatively free and un-coerced in the regular every-day sense (such that we ought to pragmatically hold him accountable), ultimately Jack was not in control of the chain of causes and effects which inexorably led to his existence, development, the circumstances he found himself in, and his subsequent criminal behavior.

Imagine that Jack had a drug addiction he needed the money to satiate; or that he had a growing tumor pressing on a part of his brain responsible for empathy or critical thinking; or that he had been targeted and groomed for bribery by manipulative foreign agents. These situations convey different levels of direct external influence, but even when there are no direct external influences on a given decision, the growth and development of who we are is in part determined (beyond our control) by the experiences, stimulus, and responses we get from the environment that assist in shaping us into who we are (we're not completely blank slates, the biological component - our genetics - is also beyond our control).

If Jack is just a greedy bastard, we should probably lock him up and see what we can do about rehabilitation, but I don't blame him for being who he is in the sense of inherent moral guilt (he is not the true originator of his actions), and so torturing or obliterating him seems vastly unfair. (However, if we're incapable of incarceration for whatever reason, and his greed presents an existential threat to us, obliteration may become a necessity of self-defense).

The second question is: what are the ramifications? You would say, as you said before, that Jack has “practical responsibility” (due to his having “normal free will”) but not “absolute moral responsibility”. But what does it mean exactly to say he does not have absolute moral responsibility here? — tinman917

"We lack absolute moral responsibility" is a moral ramification of lacking hard free-will. It has to do with inherent guilt and blame: original sin, and says something about what we should do in response to moral transgressions. It means that when we retaliate against transgressors for our own defense, we should limit and temper the extent of our retaliation to what is necessary for our defense and useful for rehabilitation (also a kind of defense) because if we one day find ourselves in the position of transgressor, we would want others not to disproportionately punish us as a result.

The example of rapists is extreme but perhaps suitable to illustrate the difference: People who develop into rapists have often been the victims of sexual assault themselves, which can affect their subsequent development toward a penchant for sexual assault. Now, it's very obvious that if someone turns out to be a rapist we must incarcerate them for our own protection, but what should we do beyond that? It's possible we can never rehabilitate them and so they must remain locked up forever, but what standard of living conditions should we offer them? If they truly have no hard free-will, it's not like they're inherently evil or deserving of torture. If they can indeed be rehabilitated and safely reintroduced into society, would you not rather that instead of them being irrevocably condemned to suffering for reasons that in the end were beyond their control and can be corrected?

It seems clear to me that forcing convicts, regardless of their crime, to endure a life-long condition of suffering doesn't serve any justified purpose. It gives a feeling of pleasurable revenge to victims, and it deters though fear others committing crimes, but would you not rather live in a society that does not make an extreme example of you by housing you in inhumane conditions and forcing you to suffer instead of offering rehabilitation? Capital punishment is immoral in my view (if it can be avoided), as is "revenge", torture, and "eye for an eye" systems of justice.

want to remain focused on my initial query. Which is (to recap) that I am trying to figure out exactly what it means when people say that we have no free will. And what (if any) significance there is of this not having free will. — tinman917

When people say "we do not have free will" they are saying that our decisions are influenced and determined by a myriad of internal and external causal factors, acting within and upon the complex contraptions that we are, such that the outcomes of our decisions are not truly our own or determined by "us".

That's "no free-will" in a nutshell, and teasing out the difference between un-coerced will and hard free-will cannot be so easily condensed. When we ought to hold people accountable for their decisions, to what extent, and in what way, are questions that must be informed by the specifics of each individual case, as the presence of and mitigating factors determine what kind of response is appropriate. Since we cannot predict the future with certainty (especially our future decisions) we have an effective illusion of free will. We appear to be the originators of our actions because it is too difficult to fully account for all the factors that cause us to behave the way we do.

The following video is the first lecture in a very interesting series of lectures on human behavioral biology by Professor Robert Sapolsky (stanford). If you want to get a better sense of what people mean when we say "we have no free-will", the first 5 minutes of this video does an excellent job (I highly recommend the entire series).

Bet you're fun around the dinner table.

Vaga's mum: "Can you pass the salt, please?"
Vaga: *Consults "The Prince". Schemes furiously over next move.* — Baden

The dinner-time armistice accords were signed out of necessity on all sides following the battle of the bloody steaks. :) (there's something sacred about sharing food...). Humor is a universal seasoning however!

I do find the consistency with which people mindlessly stare at the the floor number display quite amusing though. I cannot be arsed to strike up a 20 second conversation with every stranger (and likely they feel the same) and so out of mutual respect everyone generally remains silent. Silence isn't pleasant though, and so their eyes go searching for something stimulating (which in a cramped 4x6x8 room happens to be a two digit LED number display).

Why do they keep staring though? Are they waiting for a miraculous event? Are they practicing their numbers? Are they just staring into the flames and day-dreaming?

Elevators are like inter-dimensional portals that for brief moments transform us into unwillingly caged animals instinctively awaiting escape. Silence becomes a bulwark against the riffraff, and pleasantry a mutual non-aggression pact. Something about being trapped together causes us all to become more judgmental...

I have suddenly become super anxious about motherhood. How embarrassing would it be if my son turned out to be a weirdo? — TimeLine

But think of how tragically uninteresting it would be to have a child who is average in every way. Their life marked by unremarkableness and inglorious standard... I cannot recall meeting a significantly intelligent person who wasn't "weird" in some way!

I have good news though! We're all weirdos in one way or another; it's downright inevitable to be surprised by one's children. Good thing too perhaps, as there's no way of knowing which current 'weirdness' will turn out to be tomorrow's 'greatness'. In order to improve on the omelette, you have to do some percievably weird things to a few thousand eggs (and granted you're bound to find some stinkers).

Humans are experimental, and whether you're at the top or bottom extreme of the bell-curve, you're "weird" by definition.

I'm ready to roll those dice.

To which I see your "nod" and raise you one more level of the "elevator" game.

Just as the elevator door is closing, with no eye contact, move your body close to the another passenger, invading their personal space and see the response. Many will stop the doors from closing, exiting quickly without explanation. A few will mumble about forgetting something before departing the elevator. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Ah yes, direct combat!

In a territory with many floors and only two elevators (one of which breaks down constantly) it is too precious a resource to risk that level of escalation so I've not yet employed it (although once I almost lost control of a nuclear warhead :) )

So about the answer to my “do you mean the following” question. Is that yes or no? — tinman917

Yes. Not having hard-free-will absolves us of absolute moral responsibility, but it does not absolve us of practical responsibility.

Previously you said: “But there are a few ramifications of lacking hard-free will.” Can you give an example of some agent doing something not of their own hard free will. — tinman917

Nobody seems to actually have hard free-will; it doesn't exist. I can only give examples of "reasonably un-coerced will".

I must admit that I’ve got confused by you introducing other concepts such as revenge and the responsibility of children for their actions! (Both of which raise other issues I think.) Can you explain what you mean without using those concepts? — tinman917

If we did have hard free-will (something I cannot even give a clear example of) then we could blame all of the mistakes someone makes on them instead of understanding that many external causes contributed to their immoral behavior. Using this reasoning, if someone grew up to be a criminal it wouldn't matter that they were, for instance, raised on the streets, because they have hard free-will, and therefore could and should have chosen to not behave immorally.

It doesn't make much sense to take revenge on someone if their actions were not truly their fault. Often times we need to retaliate to protect ourselves, but the distinct belief that our transgressors deserve to and should suffer only makes sense if we have the kind of inherent moral guilt that hard free-will would provide.

Revenge doesn't rehabilitate.

Atheist here!

Elon Musk should come out as trans-deist already so the term atheism isn't slathered by this kind of silliness (atheism is such a tortured non-tradition as it is). Not that Elon is all bad, and isn't the goose responsible for laying this particular bad egg, but he is popularizing some very silly ideas of late (including this one)...

Of course, simulation theory, such as it is, is probably stupid. The universe in some ways resembles our computational simulations, which are created in the universe and modeled after the universe. Surprise surprise? Self-simulating prophecy?

Do thespians wonder if it's all one big production? Do composers wonder if it's a song-like symphony? To an explorer it's a journey, to a runner it's a race. To the pious it's a test and to the rebels a cause.

What might philosophers with a background in physics, computational modeling, computer science, and anthropology/artificial intelligence wonder it all to be? Hmmm....

I'm forced to presume that things are determined akin to the machinations of a simulation, but all this other stuff about where it comes from, nested simulations, statistical bull-plop, is presumptive nonsense:

It's possible that an egg-laying dragon creates egg-like universes, and since egg universes can internally give rise to multiple universe-egg-laying dragons, there are nearly infinite universal eggs out there in a complex network of what we might call a Russian-nesting-dragon-egg-multiverse. Since there are nearly infinite dragon-egg-universes, statistically we exist in one of them, and naturally we must pay it forward by finding, assisting, or creating new universe-egg-laying dragons to continue the thermodynamically rebellious cycle.

I guess when one eschews the god-assumption one is then free to pick from an infinitely wide range of alternative assumptions... To each their own I guess...

I always win the elevator game!

You open with a cheeky nod upon entering the lift. But make it a nod of such subtlety that they cannot be sure if it was indeed a nod. If they return the nod then you respond with a friendly "Hi", which instantly puts them in their place. If they make the correct move and stare at you blankly or confusedly for 1-3 seconds instead of returning the nod, don't worry: you've entered the "mid-game".

Instinctively people have no clue what to do with themselves when standing in a moving elevator with other people, and so they tend to behave like hypnotized chickens by staring mindlessly at the floor indicator as it counts down the time remaining on their sentence. This is where we make our next move.

Instead of staring at the floor number display like a trained monkey, we cleverly fish some kind of knick-knack out of our pocket and pretend that we have important business with it. They will either look at your knick-knack (classic submission) or they will double-down and begin staring at the floor indicator with the force of 1000 suns in an attempt to deflect the knick-knack's existence.

If they look at your knick-knack, you simply smile and pop your eyebrows at them (the emotional equivalent of being physically eviscerated) and rest on your laurels. If they don't look at the knick-knack, fear not (we have them right where we want them!). Depending on how devoted to the floor indicator they are (strongly and positively correlates with the shininess of the knick-knack) we now must execute some variant of the comedic "double-take". Generally I prefer a slow motion single take, but as sir Patrick Stewart demonstrates in the following video, there are many variations

If they don't react to the comedy-take, then you've demolished them and can fart or cough -whatever- without fear of reproach.

Now, if they react to your comedy-take, and especially if eye-contact is made, then you're dealing with a grand-master. The end-game is much harder to train for as it is both seldom reached and highly circumstantial. I've only entered a handful of end-games myself, but luckily all my opponents immediately reigned by mentioning the weather. Good thing too. Lord knows what I'm capable of when backed into such a corner...

Can I clarify what you mean by this? Do you mean the following: if someone is lacking hard free will then they are not truly responsible, and so this has the ramification that it makes no moral sense to inflict any sort of punishment on them for whatever objectionable thing they might have done. — tinman917

It makes very little moral sense to inflict punishment for the sake of punishment (such as torture or revenge) if there is no hard free will. A good example is the case of child-like-innocence. When children misbehave we do not blame them for their misdeeds in the same way we would blame an adult. We realize they didn't know any better, and so the "punishment" we then inflict on them as a result is corrective, not punitive.

We spank children who misbehave not because they deserve it or we want them to suffer, but as a last resort to get them to behave or impart an important lesson. Often times we need to take action against transgressors, but once we've secured our own safety there's no utility in inflicting additional pain to the transgressor. (some people may make the argument that punishment for deterrence is a good enough utility to warrant the torture of criminals, but I do not assent to that position myself).

When you use the term “free will” here (and in the rest of your reply after this quote) do you mean hard free will or normal free will? — tinman917

Sorry to be inconsistent: yes I mean hard free will. Lots of people hate the idea of determinism and cling to the idea that they have hard free will. Some people feel existentially threatened by the idea that we lack it (it confuses their moral and existential frameworks). I blame "theism"...

Basically what you’re saying is that the idea that “we have no free will” is only saying that we have no “hard free will”. It’s not at all saying we don’t have (what we might call) normal (or “soft”) free will. Is that right? — tinman917

Good so far.

And, as you say, it’s very difficult to define what this hard free will is. Or even to give an example of it. It’s easy to give examples of normal free will. But, despite trying, I can’t come up with an example of someone doing something of their own hard free will. — tinman917

Indeed, it is almost as if to suggest an un-caused cause, which then makes calling that our will seem rather absurd.

So when people say “there is no free will” they are denying the existence of something where they can't really say what that thing is. And whatever they are denying the existence of doesn’t matter. Because, while the absence of normal free will makes a difference to the important issue of responsibility, the absence of hard free will doesn’t make any difference to anything. — tinman917

Pretty much! But there are a few ramifications of lacking hard-free will. Torturing someone to death for revenge (for instance) makes no moral sense if they are not truly responsible. In some situations where we have no other options, capital punishment may be required for the survival and safety of others, but to do it inhumanely would be a crime in and of itself. There are a few other ramifications but nothing major really. 99% of the same moral questions and dilemmas apply if we have no hard free will.

So is that it then? Or is there more to it? Because if all the above is right then there is no free will problem at all is there? But, I can’t help thinking I’ve missed something. — tinman917

Intuition tells people they have free will, experience tells people they have free will, and the unpredictability of their actions implies that people do have free will. Add to this the fact that we need free will to exist to hate and lay emotionally laden blame at the feet of our transgressors, and you can imagine the persuasive biases which cause people to believe in hard free will.

The hard problem of free will is actually proving that it exists (let alone define it), and while it really can be usefully simplified such as I have presented it, there are a vast plethora of approaches to answering the problem of free will

I'm just talking about Clinton's impeachment. — Michael

Indeed. Though I'm not fully clear on how the Clinton impeachment went down (was 10 at the time), I'm eager as ever to draw comparisons to previous impeachments and the situation Trump now finds himself in.