A = I pushed John off a cliff
B = John hit the ground at high speed
C = John dies

What does it mean for B to "override" A? — Michael

Hello? Is this thing on? That is what I'm telling you - your analogy is flawed and does not represent the the nature of speech and its influence on others.

I adjusted your analogy to better represent the nature of speech but you didn't answer the question of who would be responsible for your death.

If you say something and I shoot you because I didn't like what you said, who is at fault for you being shot? Did you coerce me into shooting you?

So he isn't just arguing that some B is the "more immediate" cause of C; he's also arguing that A doesn't cause C. It is the "A doesn't cause C" that I take issue with. Nowhere have I denied that there are "more immediate" causes. — Michael

And what I'm saying is that your analogy does not take into account that the B can override A.

I claimed that if I push someone off a cliff and they fall to their death then I caused their death. NOS4A2 disagreed, claiming that "hitting the ground at a certain speed" caused their death. — Michael

Sure. Some say it isn't the falling that kills you. It is the sudden impact against the ground that does. So the point is that there are more immediate causes to one's death. That is all we are saying. If you want to go on with the red herring of how you had no choice but to fall because of me pushing you and gravity, etc. - that does not accurately represent what happens when someone speaks, which is why your analogy is faulty. But if your analogy was intended to show the causal chain of events and how there are causes that are more immediate than you pushing them, then you have shown just that and made our argument for us. Anything beyond that would be an inaccurate representation of what it is we are talking about - speech, as opposed to acts. You would effectively be using your analogy as an analogy of apples and oranges.

Speech is filtered through the brain. You pushing me off a cliff is not kinetic energy that is filtered through the brain.

Good one, although I’d say blue represents the input, yellow represents the processing, and green represents the output…It could work. — Fire Ologist

That doesn't make sense. What makes the blue the input and not the yellow when they both exist in equal terms prior to mixing them? What role does mixing the two colors play because you don't get green until blue and yellow are mixed? It is the mixing that is the process. A process is the interaction of two or more causes (colors) that produces a (single) output.

So, maybe the answer is, there is no “color” absent the eyeball and brain that receives light and processes it. Once processed, we perceive the color now constructed by the brain as the light reflected off of some object, now “seen” as whatever color our eyeball can make of whatever light it receives. Right? — Fire Ologist

Sure. Just as there is no you in this moment absent your mother and father having sex, giving birth to you and raising you.

Colors are the effect of prior causes - of light reflecting off an object, into your eye and processed in a way that informs an organism of the nature of the object the light was reflected off of, the nature of the light in the environment and the state of our eyes and brain. Because all of these things are within the causal chain that precedes the existence of a color, color can be used to inform us of the causes that preceded it. If I don't experience color, the issue could be that the object absorbs all light, or there is something different about the light in the environment (no light or the presence of a light filter on the light source, etc.), or my eyes and/or brain are not functioning properly.

I'm not sure that I would say that we perceive colors. We perceive the characteristics of the causal chain by way of the effects it leaves - color. I would only say that we perceived color when we start thinking about thinking, or perceiving perceptions - when we turn our mind back upon itself, like turning a camera back upon the monitor, or the microphone to the speaker, it is connected to.

No, no i didn't. I explained to you the concept of coercion and gave you the leading example. It is a legal and social norm that you seemed to be unaware of. I don't really care what your response is. — AmadeusD

That was my point - that I did something with what you said that you did not intend.

Feel free. This has precisely nothing to do with what is being discussed. Coercion is real, and in most cases you have no lead-in time whatsoever. That's why its a legal and social norm to expect bad behaviour from those under duress. — AmadeusD

Yet I showed that in that moment of duress I made a decision that did not play into the terrorists intent. I was not coerced. You left that part out of your response (cherry-picking) - the same tactic Michael has been using.

This makes no sense in light of what's being discussed. You can do whatever you want. Coercion is real. — AmadeusD

Those two sentences contradict each other. I did what I wanted in the moment of duress, so you have failed to show that coercion is real, or at least not as "forceful" as you claim.

No you didn't. You didn't even touch on either of these. If you think you did, I have literally no clue what to say. You also, were not talking about this - as explained in the very quote you've used. — AmadeusD

Yes, I did. Go back and read my response, that you seemed to ignore (conveniently), to your scenario of my family being held at gunpoint.

Which is not, in any way, represented by your example. I get the feeling you're trolling here? Sorry if not, but this is so far removed from actually engaging the content in this exchange I can't see much else. — AmadeusD

No. Trolling is cherry-picking people's posts and trying to gas-light me with your use of terms, like "force". You are the one that used the term. I am merely trying to get at how you're using it. If you did not mean "force" as a synonym for "coerce", then what do you mean?

Look, the fact is that coercion exists and is highly effective. It is a recognized social and legal norm. Bite the bullet. — AmadeusD

There you go again. What does "highly effective" mean in this context? It appears that you are begging the question. When does speech become coercive - only when people respond in the way you intend? What makes some people respond in the way you intend and some not? What percentage of the people that hear the speech and respond as intended qualifies as "highly effective"?

I claimed that if I push someone off a cliff and they fall to their death then I caused their death. NOS4A2 disagreed. You responded to his disagreement.

Hence why I asked you to clarify if you were agreeing with him re. not being able to cause someone's death by pushing them off a cliff.

Or was your reply to him unrelated to the context of his comment? — Michael

I was merely showing that your example is flawed as it does not accurately represent what NOS4A2 is saying, nor does it represent what we observe happen when people speak to each other.

I’m.not so sure about that. But then again Michael can’t define cause. So I guess anything goes. — NOS4A2

I see it as him dancing around the issue of what happens between the sound entering one's ears and a behavioral response. He seems to think that there is nothing else, but then how does one explain different responses to the same stimuli? It's the reason why his analogies constantly miss the mark.

The "what," ultimately, is axiomatic. There it is before you. No analysis can justify it being there before you. Logic might justify how it came to be there before you, but the fact of its presence before you lies beyond the reach of continuity. So, Heisenberg and Gödel alert us to the incompleteness of continuity.

The "how" is a narrative that distributes the "what." Herein lies meaningful continuity. When we seek answers, we seek a story that supplies those answers. The greatness of a story lies within the "how," not within the "what." A great story about mediocre things is more momentous than a mediocre story about great things. — ucarr

What is the "you" in this explanation, and what is the relation of "stands before it" - spatial, temporal, etc.? If you are describing a view doesn't that mean realism is the case? If solipsism is the case, then it would not be proper to call it a view, but reality itself with the only continuity being the loop of causation within itself. Continuity would be complete if solipsism is the case.

If solipsism is the case, then why does the "what" appear as the view of an external world if it isn't? It appears that way axiomatically. I respond to the "what" instinctively in a way that treats it as an external world. The instincts become part of the "what". The instinctive analysis and logic (integrating the "what" with another part of the "what" (memories (retained "whats")) (why do similar "whats" axiomatically integrate with similar memories) is part of the "what" as well.

How can one say that there is an incompleteness of continuity when one can predict which direction the causal continuity will go within one's own mind (perceiving, reasoning, etc. reasons precede and support conclusions) by using logic that can be applied to there being continuity beyond the mind that produces predictable "whats" in the same way that using logic to explain only the continuity of the mind will produce predictable results - conclusions will always follow reasons, etc.?

If I fail to apply logic to only the continuity of the goings on within the "what" then I fail to achieve predictable results within the "what" itself.

I think this distinction between the what and the how is very important. It is what allows us to see that meaning is finite. It is not just that, as Gödel asserted, each axiomatic system grounds itself within a more encompassing system ad infinitum, but that the changes over time in the stories and narratives we use to interpret experience aren’t logically derivable from each other. They dont fit one within the other in an infinite regress, but follow one another as a change of subject. — Joshs

I think the more important distinction that needs to cleared up is the "you" and the "what stands before it".

your analogy does not accurately represent what I said. Where in your analogy is the dampening or amplifying the kinetic energy and redirecting it for its own purposes?

Allow me to add it for you:
If the person you push grabs your arm at the last instant and pulls you with them, who is to blame for your death?

Yeah, you’re not convincing me, that’s for sure. Just another reason to show you can’t move anything above and beyond the kinetic energy inherent in the physical manifestation of your symbols. — NOS4A2

The system that receives the kinetic energy is capable of dampening or amplifying the kinetic energy and redirecting it for its own purposes.

The force would be whatever is causing the dilemma. The classic example is that someone has a gun to your head, and either you commit some heinous crime (say mutilate your wife) or your child dies, and they also have a gun to their head. No one would genuinely fault you for mutilating your wife to save three lives, over losing all three but refusing the coercive force of the guns and demands. — AmadeusD

Why would I believe that someone making such a demand would keep their word? I would rather us all die together quickly by gunshot than torture my wife and then we all die by gunshot anyway. No one would fault me in this response either.


Let's take your analogy and run with it. You intended to elicit a type of response from me in writing what you just did. I could then take this information and instruct my family that if such a situation occurred that I would give a signal that we would then fight our attackers at once. We would all die, some might survive, Etc. But the point is that I did something with your speech that you did not intend. I used it for my own purposes.

This is a little stupid. Coercive force doesn't obtain in the way you want. Though, if terrorist were screaming invectives at me (unbeknownst) and indicating what they wanted from me, I can do that, and probably should (given the same example as above or similar). — AmadeusD

Which I showed I cannot be coerced and would have good reasons to not do what they said.

The latter. But that isn't the type of force being spoken about here. I think what you mean is gravity/gravamen. Someone closer to me would weigh heavier on my heart saying that, as I could assume they have a decent basis. The stranger holds no weight at all as they have no basis to say so.
But again, this isn't coercive in any way. — AmadeusD

Sure it is. In talking about "weight" and "force" of speech, you are talking about its coercive power.

What "force" or "weight" does a known liar's speech have?

What other areas, things, concepts, experiences, might it depict? — Fire Ologist

Information and information processing? Input-output? Blue and yellow the input, mixing them together is the process, and green the output?

What color is the paint when the lights are out? We don't see paint. We see light.

I’ve come to the conclusion that most media portrayals of AI developing "its own motives" are based on flawed reasoning. I don’t believe that machines—now or ever—will develop intrinsic motivation, in the sense of acting from self-generated desire. This is because I believe something far more basic: not even human beings have free will in any meaningful, causally independent sense. — Jacques

That's because AI hasn't been programmed to acquire information for its own purposes. It is designed to acquire information only from a human and then process that information for a human. If we were to design a robot AI like a human - with a body an sensory organs (cameras for eyes, microphones for ears, chemical analyzers for taste and smell, tactile sensors for touch, etc.) and program it to take in information from other sources, not just humans, and use it to improve upon itself (it can rewrite its code, like we rewire our brains when learning something) and others, then it would develop its own intrinsic motives.

In this case, humans would simply be part of the naturally selective process promoting a design that allows the robot-AI to develop its own intrinsic motives. With humans and their minds now part of the environment, natural selection has become purposeful.

To me, human decisions are the inevitable product of evolutionary predispositions and environmental conditioning. — Jacques

Evolutionary predispositions and environmental conditioning determine our genes, but our genes have the current environment to deal with which could be different than the conditions prior (like having an over abundance of sugar in our diet). So our decisions are more of a product of our genes interacting with our current environment.

It appears to me that evolutionary selective processes would favor organisms that adapt more quickly to dynamic environments and approach new situations with an open mind to learn new things that might be advantageous or a detriment to one's fitness. It would also be helpful to have a good memory and an ability to pick out the finer details (have a higher resolution) of reality.

Our ancestors left the forest to live on the savannah. Just as an ostrich repurposes its wings, our ancestors repurposed our hands. Instead of being primarily used for climbing our hands became primarily used for tool-making, and that is what set off a chain of events in our brains over the past three million years (a very brief period evolutionarily speaking). If organs can be repurposed, why can't the brain, as in repurposing it for things other than just survival and reproduction.

I also reject the idea that humans possess some irreducibly mysterious cognitive abilities. Qualia, intuition, consciousness—they are all real phenomena, but I see no reason to believe they’re anything but products of material data processing. The brain, though vastly complex, is just a physical machine. If that machine can experience qualia, why not a future machine of equal or greater complexity? — Jacques

While I would agree with your last point, I don't know how a "physical" machine would experience qualia. The visual experience of a brain and its neurons, and of a computer and its circuits, is information. It is information because it is an effect of prior causes and the effect informs us of the causes - the environment's interaction with my body. While the world is not as it appears, it is as we are informed it is, and "informed" is not what just one sense is telling you, but includes integrating all sensory information (why else would we have multiple senses?)

This idea reminds me of Turing’s Halting Problem: the impossibility of writing a general program that determines whether any arbitrary program halts. — Jacques

This appears to simply be a projection of our ignorance of what can happen in the future. We can design an algorithm for a specific system that never interacts with an external system and it works. The problem is there are other external systems that interact. Our solar system is a complex interaction of gravitational forces and has been stable and predicable for billions of years, but an external object like a black hole or a brown dwarf could fly through the system and disrupt the system. It seems to me that every system halts at some point except reality itself (existence is infinite in time and space or existence is an infinite loop).


.

Sympathy is applied empathy as wisdom is applied intelligence.

That there are some who are not incited to violence just evidences the differences in people's ability to deal with various kinds of biographical information in the fact of some novel event. This is also true of what we would call coercion. Some will allow themselves to die before becoming a peeping tom. Others make a reasonable moral trade off. IT says nothing for the inciter/coercive force. — AmadeusD

What does "force" mean in this context? The force of one's words is dependent upon the listener as you showed in your first sentence. What "force" would their words have if they spoke in a language I did not understand? When someone that doesn't know you calls you a "selfish ass" as opposed to someone you know well calling you a "selfish ass" - which one has more "force"?

Point taken, but who gets charged with a higher crime - the inciter or the person(s) that committed the crime?

The fact that the person that committed the crime gets charged at all is evidence that we realize that people are in control of their own actions to some degree.

The fact that there are others that hear the same speech and are not incited to violence is also evidence that people are in control of their actions and that hate speech only has an effect on the misinformed or those that already had hate within them.

So, within your brain is the if/then directive. If you the glove does not fit, you must acquit. The glove does not fit, so you acquit. Explain how that was a choice. You had to acquit. You lacked the ability to do otherwise. — Hanover

What is a choice? It seems to me that you are not simply saying that free choice doesn't exist, but that choices don't exist.

The glove not fitting was only one aspect of the "evidence" (information) provided. There was other evidence (information) available. And OJ murdering his wife and the cops planting evidence can both be true. So, given all this you must deliberate on the information provided. That period of time when you have been provided the evidence and are going through it all and determining its value in reaching a conclusion of guilty or innocent is the moment of choice.

If "the glove doesn't fit" was the only evidence (information) provided, then yes, you are right, but it wasn't. That is why there was a choice - a deliberating process. The jurors had to pour over all the information and discuss the value of each in determining the innocence or guilt of OJ. It took time.

The more time it takes is relative to the amount of information one has. It also equates to more freedom, but if you don't like using that term to refer to this state-of-affairs that exists where an individual has more information to go through to make more refined decisions and that improves their individual fitness, that's fine - just as long as you agree that having more information at hand is better for an individual when making decisions and we should strive for us all having access to more relevant (less misinformation) information. I would like to live in a more informed (free) society than an less informed one, and if determinism determined that for me - I'm just fine with that.

This is why I am determined to inform others of this very fact - so that my voice might influence others to gather more information before making a decision (especially moral and political decisions), and to demand the media be less biased and simply report the facts, or that we have access to more and more varying sources to triangulate the truth - to spread the idea of freedom of thought and choice and speech.

Then you agree that having more information allowed her to make a more informed decision. You agree that more information gave her a choice whereas before there wasn't a choice to either accept that God is benevolent or not, which may lead to other choices like choosing to become an atheist or not.

No, she didn't have a change of environment. She still lived in the same house in England with her parents. She just chose to read her parents' Bible instead of her own due to curiosity about the adult version of the Bible. — Truth Seeker

Ok, then her environment did not change, but the information she had did.

This whole thing about dictionaries is obviously bad faith. There's plenty of concepts and meanings of words, in philosophy and elsewhere, that do not appear in the dictionary. — boethius

Like...?
Even if there were we would still need to define those words to understand what each other means and to avoid talking past each other.

The good faith thing to do is either ask what's the definition of things for our purposes here, or then good faith research such as starting on the wikipedia page for anarchism or then a visit to the library to see if there's any philosophical resource on the issue. — boethius

Which is exactly what I did. I'm asking for definitions of not only anarchy but of marxism/socialism in a thread named, "Differences/similarities between marxism and anarchism?"

Originally it comes from Greek "anarkhia" which literally means "without an archon". — boethius

That's nice. You've already provided a definition of anarchy that I thought you were happy with, and I agreed to. Now what about defining socialism and let's see where these definitions overlap and where they don't.

By experiences, I mean all experiences, e.g. the taste of mango, the experience of being told that Jesus is the only way to Heaven when you are four years old, the experience of having your face deformed by acid, the experience of being told that Islam is the only true religion when you are four years old and that only Muslims go to heaven and everyone else goes to hell forever, the experience of being raped when you are fourteen, the experience of winning a Maths competition when you are ten, the experience of watching what happens in slaughterhouses, the experience of inhaling the scent of red roses, the experience of being tortured, the experience of learning English, the experience of having malaria, the experience of coming fourth in the 100 metre sprint in the Olympics, the experience of being told that you have Schizophrenia due to bad karma in your previous life by your Hindu parents, the experience of falling in love when you are fifteen, the experience of being constipated, the experience of having an injection, the experience of being beaten by your parents for years and years, etc.

One's physical environment inevitably affects one's experiences. It also affects what nutrients are available to one. For instance, if you abduct me and jettison me in space without a spacesuit, I won't have any oxygen, water, food or heat. Hence, I will die within minutes. The physical environment also affects which genes are switched on due to epigenetics. — Truth Seeker

To taste a mango means a mango was in your environment, and so on for every other example you provided. Exactly - One's physical environment inevitably DETERMINES one's experiences. So maybe you should redraw your diagram to show the environment as the foundation that determines everything else - the nutrients you have available, your experiences and the genes that are activated.

Your friend had a change of environment from one where there was only the children's version to one where there was both the children's and adult versions. Our environment is where we get information from so by changing environments (like changing the channel to a different news source) we get access to new information.

This just doesn't make sense. It's like saying a computer program takes advantage of its algorithem to choose an outcome. The computer does whatever it's programmed to do. Choice isn't in the picture in that analysis. You will do whatever is advantageous to do if that is what you are determined to do, and not if not. — Hanover

A choice in that analysis would be an IF-THEN, ELSE IF-THEN, OR ELSE statement. That is basically the structure of a choice. Freedom comes in degrees that corresponds to the amount of information one has at a given moment. The more IF-THEN, ELSE IF-THEN, OR ELSE statements you have, or the more nesting of IF-THEN-ELSE statements you have, the more freedom you have. You can disagree with my definition of "free" here. All I care about is if you agree that the more relevant information one has the better it is for that individual and their choices.

We are all programmed to do what is best with the information we have at any given moment. I don't see a purpose for making a choice beyond this - to get the best outcome for myself. My point was that for me to get the best outcome requires an understanding that I can get there based on a choice that I make. I have more power to determine a certain outcome that is beneficial to me by making a choice, not by not making them. Outcomes do not occur randomly, or else there would be no reason to make a choice.

That doesn't make you freer. It just means you have more data driving your results. The role that data plays though remains determined if determinism is the case. — Hanover

Like I said, you can disagree with the term I'm using to refer to some state-of-affairs, all I care about is that you agree that the state-of-affairs exists.

You seem to be agreeing that the role data plays is important in determining an outcome and that the more data we have the better because it helps to ensure we get the outcomes we want.

I would have thought that religion falls under environment. What does it mean to be brought up to be Christian if not that they were raised in a Christian environment? Doesn't one's environment dictate one's experiences? What would an experience divorced from the environment one finds themselves in look like if the environment is a determining factor on one's choices? Wouldn't the environment be a determining factor of one's experiences? How does one acquire experiences if not by living in a particular environment?

Your friend acquired more information outside of her current experiences. She acquired new experiences, which allowed her to actually make a choice. Before, she had no choice because she didn't have access to new information.

I agree, but they are still not free from determinism. They are only free from the religion they were born into. Most humans remain within the religion they were born into. Only some humans either change religion or become secular. — Truth Seeker

But you used religion as an example of a determining factor of one's current choices. So how can you say they are not free from determinism if I just showed that one of your own examples did not have a determining factor in their current choices?

Aren't we saying that one factor can override, or diminishes, the determining power of one or more of the other three?

I disagree with your definition of free choice because having access to information does not make a choice free from the determining and constraining effects of genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences. — Truth Seeker

Would you agree that having access to more information equates to having more experiences?

Yes, as long as the individual can process the amount of information. Let's say, you are driving a car. While you are driving it, the passenger sitting next to you shows you videos on the laws of physics, the manufacturing process of cars, etc. All these information would overwhelm you and make you a worse driver. You don't need all of these information to drive the car well. You need to pay attention to the road to drive the car well and you need to know how to use tools such as the steering wheel, the gear stick, accelerator and clutch and brake pedals and mirrors, etc. — Truth Seeker

Exactly. Some information is irrelevant to the current goal. I am talking only about relevant information in some specific instance or issue.

I agree. Science is a much better source of information than culture, religion and traditions. Culture, religions and traditions often perpetuate ignorance, superstition and harmful practices. — Truth Seeker

Exactly. So we can say that the person that was raised in a religious environment acquired more information outside of the environment they were raised in to make a more informed choice. In essence, more information "freed" themselves from their upbringing. Their current ideas are no longer constrained by their upbringing. Now, how can an individual that was raised to NOT question one's religious beliefs start to question their religious beliefs?

I have defined defined free choice as the capacity to have access to all information to make informed decisions. If you don't like that definition that is fine, but do you agree that having access to more information is a good thing for an individual? Do you agree that the culture, the religion, and the traditions we are born into is not the only source of information about the world and can hinder an individual's access to more information about the world outside of society or the religion you were born into? We can dispense with the term, "free", as some have pointed out that it may be a nonsensical term, if that works. I am only concerned with an individual's access to information that is unhindered by society or others.

How would you describe, in detail, the deterministic causal chain on someone that was raised in a certain religious environment but ended up rejecting it later in life?

No. We experience the culture, the religion, and the traditions we are born into. No one is free from the determining effects of genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences. — Truth Seeker

That's what I said. We experience the society (culture, the religion, and the traditions we are born into.) we are born into. If the society is based on laws and an individual breaks those laws then how can you say that the culture, the religion, and the traditions we are born into has a deterministic effect on them? It would seem that genes overcame the determining factors of the culture, the religion, and the traditions they were born into.

We would quarantine law-breakers and potential law-breakers to protect potential victims of crimes. We have a duty to protect potential victims from being murdered, tortured, raped, robbed, conned, etc. — Truth Seeker

As I already pointed out, a law-breaker is an example of someone where the society had no determined effect on them. You quarantining them and adjusting their gene profile would be an example of having a determined effect, but only after they have shown that society had no determined effect on them.

Yes. Only something that has never existed is always free from determinism. — Truth Seeker

This is an odd thing to say. Something that does not exist can't make any choices, so you're pulling the rug out from under your own argument.

I didn't say what you claimed. I am saying that laws are part of our environment (e.g. the laws of physics and the laws of various countries). We experience consequences for breaking social laws. We currently don't have the means to break the laws of physics, but it does not mean that we won't ever develop the means to break the laws of physics. — Truth Seeker

What does that even mean? What would it look like to break the laws of physics if not to say that determinism is not the case and everything is random?

Whether someone obeys social laws or disobeys social laws depends entirely on their genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences. Given the fact that no human chooses to come into existence and no human chooses their genes, their early environments, their early nutrients and their early experiences, they do not deserve blame or credit for breaking laws or not breaking laws. We should change our legal systems to make them preventive, educational and restorative, by predicting who will break laws using their GENE Profiles and intervening to change their GENE Profiles so that they don't break laws. Those who do break laws should be quarantined until their GENE Profile has been altered so that they no longer break laws. Parents don't choose the genes of their children unless except in the case of designer babies, where traits are chosen in labs e.g. gender, eye colour, etc. Even in such cases, parents don't have total control over the genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences of their children. For instance, I don't have the capacity to choose the genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences needed to make my children all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful, even though I want to do it. — Truth Seeker

Why would we quarantine an individual if they are not the agent of their actions? Doesn't this not support the idea that an individual is responsible for their actions?

The implications of your argument is that it is society that is to blame for an individual's actions, not the individual, yet you are trying to use society to punish the individual for society's own actions in creating an environment that determines the individual's actions. If society is the cause of one's behavior, then are you quarantining the individual from society or the society from the individual? In doing so, are you not setting the individual free of society's influence? Why would you now need to adjust their gene profile?

Why would you even need to adjust the gene profile to match what society wants if society is what determined their behavior in the first place? I could also say that if you have to adjust the gene profile then society had no deterministic effect on them prior and now society is trying to have a deterministic effect on them. :roll: It's a total contradiction and trying to have your cake and eat it too.

Isn't is the accumulated effect of all four that creates unique individuals? If we make everyone the same that will stifle diversity and competition and by extension - progress.

Maybe, but if you assume that a proposition must be either true or false (LEM), then it follows that a proposition cannot be both true and false (LNC). Conversely, if you assume that a proposition cannot be both true and false (LNC), and that there are only two truth values (true and false), then it follows that a proposition must be either true or false (LEM).

I mean, suppose a marine biologist says, "Either all the fish are diseased, or they aren't." Would you really interpret that as, "Either all the fish are diseased, or else all the fish are not diseased"? I.e. "Either every fish is diseased, or else every fish is not diseased"? I simply do not see that as a plausible interpretation. — Leontiskos

I see your point which is why I pointed out that the word, "some" was not used. If it were then it would be obvious what you are saying. What if one were to say, "All fish are swimmers, or all fish are not swimmers"? How would that be different, if at all?

Just on it's face, "All narratives are true" simply does not fit observation when we are aware of narratives that contradict each other. All narratives can't be true by way of LEM.

Natural language is fuzzy, so I suppose it could be read like that, although that seems to be a stretch to me. Saying "all x are y or they aren't" is a simple disjunct between affirmation and negation of "all x are y." That's how I intended it at least. So, the objection of the possibility of narratives without truth values was brought up, but I don't think this affects the disjunct. If some narratives are neither true nor false, then obviously they are not "all true." The excluded middle here would instead be "all narratives are neither true nor not-true." Note though that the context is epistemology and presumably epistemology, since it deals in knowledge, deals in narratives that have truth values, if not exclusively, at least primarily.

I don't even like the term "narratives," to be honest. It's connotations seem perhaps inappropriate for epistemology. I would rather say perhaps "all knowledge claims." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Natural language is not fuzzy. It only appears that way in philosophy forums (language on holiday) when philosophers forget that language use is not just syntax but semantics in that language refers to states-of-affairs in the world. The scribbles are about states-of-affairs in the world. Just because you followed the syntactical rules of some language does not mean that you used language correctly. It has to point to some state-of-affairs as well - whether that state-of-affairs be in another country, on another planet, another person and their ideas and intentions, or all knowledge claims as opposed to some.

This is why the knowledge claim, "All knowledge claims are true" is simply false on it's face because we already know that some knowledge claims contradict each other and LEM. I don't even need to get to your other claim that "all knowledge claims are not true" to know that the first one is false. You start off with a faulty premise and it is faulty because it does not fit observation and follow the LEM. Adding the second claim as if it even relates to the first, or your use of "all" is an example of what language on holiday is.

No, I am saying much more than that. I am saying that even my wants must be free from determinants for it to be free. For example, I am thirsty right now. This want is not free from determinants. If I was a brick, I would not be thirsty. Because to be able to be thirsty, one needs to be a sentient biological organism, such as a human or a dog or a cow, etc. — Truth Seeker

Then what you're saying is that to be free of determinism is to not exist as any determinate thing (not exist at all). Is this why people say they are free when they die? When you're dead you can't make any choices - free or determined.

It is our genes, environments, nutrients and experiences that determine and constrain our choices. It is entirely evidence-based and logical. — Truth Seeker

There is evidence in how societies judge individuals for their actions that supports the idea that individuals are the final cause of one's actions and not their parents. You're saying that societies that judge individuals for their actions are not evidence that we are not entirely governed by the factors in the way you say we are? It's our parents fault for the genes they provided and the environment in which we were raised and the experiences and nutrients we consume. So why aren't parents being rounded up for their adult child's bad behavior? That is the implication of what you are saying.

Yes, you can do that. So can other humans. My model supports this. The fact that you want an outcome that is advantageous to you is due to your self-serving desire, which comes from your genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences. Your desires and your capacity to fulfil your desires are both determined and constrained by your genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences. — Truth Seeker

Then free choice is not having any goals at all. How can you make any choice - free or otherwise - without a goal in mind?

No, I am not saying what you are claiming.

Our choices are not free choices. They are determined and constrained choices. You can prove me wrong by teleporting, even though you don't have the genes, environments, nutrients and experiences necessary for teleportation. — Truth Seeker

But this is nonsensical. It is determinism that allows one to determine their own outcomes.

You have misunderstood what I said. No, I didn't choose to find the strawberry flavour tasty. I chose to buy the strawberry flavour because I found the strawberry flavour to be tasty. The reason I found the strawberry flavour tasty, instead of the chocolate flavour, is my unique mix of genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences. — Truth Seeker

Ok, so now you're focusing on your goals, not just your choices (the means you obtain your goal) and how they are determined. What you're basically saying is that freedom is being able to choose to do whatever I want whenever I want. But how can you make any choice without having options and how can you have options without having information? It seems to me that you must possess some kind of experiences (the acquiring of information) to be able to make a choice (free or otherwise).

How does uniqueness and ownership correlate to free will? Does the fact that something has an experience and a unique body entail freedom? I don't see how that works.

When you say you have the ability to listen and decide one way or the other, that suggests a libertarian free will. It's not that I disagree with that, but describe how you were able to transcend determinism and make that choice independently. — Hanover

I'm not saying I'm transcending determinism. I'm using determinism to my advantage to make a choice that determines an outcome that is advantageous to me.

I would say that uniqueness and ownership are characteristics of the will. Freedom is access to information. Free choices are informed choices. A will is free when it has access to information that allow it to make the most informed choice which improves one's chances of realizing the most beneficial outcome. We do not need access to all information, only relevant information - relevant to the goal.

Acquiring more information means that you have more experiences. So your experiences do play a role in the amount of freedom you can have when making a choice. Having more and different experiences than another means you have more freedom in making an informed decision that maximizes your benefit than another.

A free choice would be free from determinants and constraints. — Truth Seeker

So your saying we can only be free if we live in a world where prior events do not determine our choice, but also our choices would not determine the consequences. Meaning you might make a choice but there is no link between your choice and the goal you wish to realize. So why make a choice? You would be at the mercy of randomness.

No, that's not what I mean. Let's say my friend and I go to a shop. There are two types of ice-cream on sale - strawberry and chocolate. I don't like the taste of chocolate flavoured ice-cream.I do like the taste of strawberry flavoured ice-cream. Therefore, I choose the strawberry flavoured ice-cream. My friend likes the taste of chocolate flavoured ice-cream. So, he chooses the chocolate flavoured ice-cream. Neither I, nor my friend, chose which flavour we find tasty. — Truth Seeker

But you just said that you did choose the flavor which you find tasty.

The issue appears to be more about one's goals and not the means by which we obtain them. If you got the outcome you wanted then how were you not free? It seems to me that you're saying that freedom entails having the option to make a choice that works against your interests. Isn't it the opposite?

You have a choice, but it is not a free choice. It is a determined and constrained choice. A choice is the experience of choosing a behaviour from a range of behaviours, e.g. buying a lottery ticket or refraining from buying a lottery ticket. — Truth Seeker

What would a free choice look like - experiencing the option to go get ice cream when you see your child drowning in a pool and choosing that option? Are you saying that a free choice would be a random choice that comes to mind that is irrelevant to the current situation?

To be determined does not rule out being more or less self-determining and self-governing. To say that freedom requires that our actions are undetermined is equally problematic, since what is wholly determined by nothing prior is necessarily spontaneous and random, which is hardly "liberty." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Exactly. They seem to forget that there is a final determining factor to one's actions that lies within an individual, not outside of it. This is why they fail to explain why some people behave differently in the same environment. What would be the point in making a choice if the consequences do not logically follow from your choice?

He itemized four governing factors that determined behavior (Genes, early environments, early nutrients, and early experiences). Which of these is the "self" that "more or less" governs? And why do we add the new concept of "self" as a holistic entity when we already know the 4 factors that govern decision making. — Hanover

What is the self that is governed by the four factors?

One of the four factors is experiences. Aren't my experiences my own and not someone else's? Am I not the decider of which experiences I have? If I chose to listen to only one side of an issue, did not I not choose to constrain myself? Another was genes. Aren't we all genetically unique?

Either all narratives are acceptable/true/valid, whatever you want to call it, or they aren't.
— Count Timothy von Icarus

Note the form: <Either all narratives are [X], or else some narratives are not [X]>. "Which do you believe it is?" — Leontiskos

I didn't see the word, "some" in the original quote and that seems to make a difference. The original quote seems to be saying "either all narratives are true or all narratives are false", but that doesn't make any sense because there are narratives that contradict each other, so it cannot be that all narratives are true. But all narratives could be false in that we have yet to find the true narrative. This also doesn't seem to take into account that some narratives might be partially true/false.

If we were to narrow down the scope from "all" to "one" then if two people have opposing narratives - viewpoints that are the opposite of each other (god exists/god doesn't exist) - then yes one has to be correct and the other false, but if they do not AND they both have issues, then it could be possible that both are wrong. It seems to depend on where one narrative stands in relation with the other - if they are direct opposites (god exists/god doesn't exist) and how many conceptual holes each one has compared to the other. Many issues do not have black or white solutions. There can often be other narratives which might be a middle ground or might not - depending on how much of the two counter-narratives it overlaps or shares (only if it shares an equal amount of both of the other two narratives would it qualify as middle ground). If there are parts that the 3rd narrative does not share with either, one might say it is not a middle ground, but simply a 3rd possible narrative.

J and Srap Tasmaner in particular tried to say, "Let's take a step back into a neutral frame, so that we can examine this more carefully. Now everyone lives in their own framework..." Their "step back" was always a form of question-begging, given that it presupposed the non-overarching, framework-view. That's what happens when someone falsely claims to be taking a neutral stance on some matter on which they are not neutral* (and, in this case, on a matter in which neutrality is not possible). In general and especially in this case, the better thing to do is simply to give arguments for one's position instead of trying to claim the high ground of "objectivity" or "neutrality." — Leontiskos

When we hear about an issue for the first time and listen to the arguments that support one side or the other for the first time, and evaluate and compare the number and scope of conceptual holes in each for the first time, are we not taking a neutral position? Which position would we be adopting at this point if not one that says reason and logic are valuable methods for determining the truth of a claim? Is there another position one could take? Does it make sense to take the position that logic and reason are NOT methods for determining the truth of a claim? One might, but that would seem to undermine many of the other things that they have said. Is there a person alive that takes the position that logic and reason are NEVER useful methods for determining the truth of a claim? Could such a person survive in the world?

The essay is about individuals who pretend to be radical individualists but in fact rely on authoritarian, collective institutions that wield immense power. — RussellA

Using this same line of logic, an individual could pretend to be a radical collectivist but is actually an authoritarian radical individualist that consolidates power to become dictator. In essence they are an individual that views the citizens as their property. Stalin comes to mind.

How can we use the essay's explanation to distinguish between the two? Was Stalin a collectivist or a radical individualist that relied on authoritarian, collective institutions that wield immense power?

We all make choices, but our choices are never free from the determinants - which are genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences (GENE). Nor are our choices free from constraints. — Truth Seeker

Which genes, environments, nutrients, or experiences, or combination of the four, gives us the capability to have or make choices? You use the word, "choice", as something we possess, but your post seems to also say that we don't have a choice. Which is it? What is a choice?

Is the Matrix real? Reality has all but disappeared, according to post-modernists. So what has replaced it is a computer generated simulation that we interact with via technology. This fiction is called 'the Matrix' and we are called upon, as philosophers, to interpret it and speculate as to its existence. What we are left with is the 'Desert of the Real', a world destroyed, where the real has escaped us and we function merely as automaton to perpetuate the existence of this formation of today's late-capitalism.
Is the Matrix real?
Yes, I'll take the red pill
No, it's the blue pill for me — Nemo2124

Since I don't know if the Matrix exists or not, I take the red pill as an experiment. When I wake up in a "new reality", how do I know it is the true reality and not just another [part of the] program? How do the "Masters" know if their reality is a simulation or not?

The idea creates an infinite regress, and I don't think the "Masters" would create a simulation that creates its own simulations, or a simulation that includes so much time doing nothing - like waiting two hours in a waiting room in the doctor's or department of motor vehicles' office. What would be the point?

If you think that's a cop-out then we are on the same page. I am saying that there are some cases where it is impossible to say, "I am neither black nor white. I am perfectly neutral." If you think the Theist/atheist case is one of those cases, then that is the sort of thing I am talking about. — Leontiskos

Isn't the common thread of those cases where it is impossible is where the distinctions have been clearly defined and are in opposition (law of the excluded middle)? Atheism is the antithesis of theism. There is no middle ground, but there could be an absence of both (agnosticism). The cases where it is possible are cases where there isn't a clear distinction and\or the ideas are not contradictory - meaning that opposite sides can actually be integrated into a consistent middle ground.

Atheism could be thought of as an absence of any religious frameworks. The issue is when the theist tries to integrate their supernatural framework with the natural one, or even a moral one (why did God create the circumstances that allow childhood cancer to exist?).

Morality is subjective. Sure evil is the opposite of good, but what each individual interprets as good and evil can vary depending on the context (like them being in that situation instead of the person they are observing). Are there better ways to integrate socially (doing good things) that improve the fitness of our species - sure. Is the continued existence of human beings a good thing or a bad thing? What type of framework would an advanced alien species possess and have to say about that? To say that some behavior is moral or immoral is based on one's own subjective framework. There is no universal framework of morality if you're asking if there is some universal moral framework to judge a person's behavior by.

Those mindstates are either supervenient or overwhelmingly causative of the actions in question. This is a causal chain which is morally brought back to the inciter. — AmadeusD

and when the inciter claims that they were incited by another's speech, where does it end? All this does is create a society where no one takes responsibility for their own actions.