Freedomain Radio

Oh, then I am a determinist, since we can legitimately attempt to influence the minds and beliefs of others, and hold them to a higher standard, and also tell them that they are responsible for their actions.

I'm glad that I got that cleared up, so I can stop trying to debate something that we already agree on, which is scarcely a productive use of our time...

I find all this kind of a debate to be senseless and sophistic.

You claim that A is X, and not Y or Z, but so what? Even if you're right, what's next?

Stefan Molyneux:

OK.

Exactly what I was thinking!

Stefan Molyneux:

Oh, then I am a determinist, since we can legitimately attempt to influence the minds and beliefs of others, and hold them to a higher standard, and also tell them that they are responsible for their actions.

I'm glad that I got that cleared up, so I can stop trying to debate something that we already agree on, which is scarcely a productive use of our time...

 A consistent determinist can "legitimately attempt to influence the minds and beliefs of others," but can not "hold them to a higher standard" or "tell them they are responsible for their actions" (and remain consistent).

Well, if you say that determinists "cannot hold others to a higher standard", aren't you requiring that they compare their actions to a higher standard, which is not to hold others to a higher standard?

idontlikeyou:

 

 

 

  I am a causal machine who cannot act beyond his hardware and programming. 

You may very well be a Machine. 

I know I am not.

 They can hold others to a higher standard all they want but then they would be inconsistent with other parts of their worldview. It really depends on what you mean by a "standard" though. I personally like to be logically consistent, but I dont think of it as "holding myself to a higher standard," for various reasons its just what I prefer to do. I think part of the problem is that free willers think determinists must either believe in free will or cease acting and thinking, and that is not the case

Yes, as I say, there is no practical difference between our beliefs, and life is to short to quibble words...

Stefan Molyneux:

Oh, then I am a determinist, since we can legitimately attempt to influence the minds and beliefs of others, and hold them to a higher standard, and also tell them that they are responsible for their actions.

A higher standard than what?  The phrase "a higher standard" has no meaning in and of itself here as there is nothing for it to be higher than.  Please exlain the concept behind this rhetorical device.

Spratzaman:

find all this kind of a debate to be senseless and sophistic.

You claim that A is X, and not Y or Z, but so what? Even if you're right, what's next?

Determinism informs our concepts of morality, justice, and desert.  To claim that we possess an uncaused unconditional agency for choice assume that one person and one person alone bears all moral burden of their actions and that all desert and retributive justice are due to this agency alone.  To accept that we are causaul ends to an act tells us that we should bear a majority of the burden of an act but that the moral responsibility also rests in the formation of our actions.  It also informs us that the desert for our acts and retirbutive justice for our acts is not our alone but only primarily ours.  A free-willed justice system would punish the individual and seek vengeance.  A determinist justice syste would seek rehabilitation and prevention.  Determinism has also been used in collectivist arguments, though I am unfamiliar with them so I will not present them.

Free will presumes that man is an island, unique in the causual stream of reality and society instead of as a part of the society that both influences and is influenced by factors outside an individuals control.  Free will says that a person had options and chose the immoral one.  Determinism says the person made and will make immoral choices due to determining factors.  Free Will says that the rapist is responsible because he made a bad choice, determinism will say the rapist is responsible because he is a dangerous product of a cycle of abuse.  Both lock the person away but free will says the person is locked away as punishment for a bad choice while determinism says a person is locked away as a detterent and for the protection of society.  So you see free will and determinism greatly inform our concepts of justice, desert, individualism, and morality.

Saraphita:

You may very well be a Machine.  I know I am not.

That is an assertion not an argument.  Last I checked this is a forum and not a poll.

Stefan Molyneux:

Ah, but his response is pre-determined, as you say, he has no choice in his posts, so asking him to 'do better' denies your own argument.

And so it is the same contradiction every time...

Determinism is not the same as pre-determinism or fate/destiny.  To continue to assert this goes beyond simple afimiliarty with the arguments to equivocation.  His response is determined and his future response may very well be largely determined by this exchange.  No contradiciton exists as determinism is not static fate/destiny but dynamic calculation.  You should check out the links I provided or look into behaviorism and you will see further arguments and proofs of determinism along these lines.

P.s.

Were you aware that firefox spellcheck doesn't work in this editing field.  I never noticed how atrocious my first drafts were until I started reading what I'd posted.

Funny, the deterministic justice system you propose is the same sort we talk about here, though we also like to talk about free will.  Since there's a paradox, I'd suggest a checking of premises... are you arguing a man full of straw, or are have you seen the free will series on youtube?

Also, the free will you seem to be arguing against is some sort of supernatural agent disconnected from the body, which is free from the causal nature of the universe.  No one around here has ever proposed such a thing.  I, and most others around here, including Stef, acknowledge the causal nature of the universe but also acknowledge that the brain in general, and the human brain specifically, is an organ that seems to allow something that we recognize as choice.  I think this is related to the way the nerves in the brain create a sort of "epi-phenomenon" (I'm not exactly sure what this means, I've just heard a neuro-scientist talk about it ), which creates a situation where the brain as a whole is capable of more than just the sum of it's component parts.

Anyway, the place I typically disagree with determinists is that they say that people can be held responsible for their "bad" actions, yet they shouldn't be given credit for their "good" actions.  I find this stance to be contradictory, and likely a sign of some sort of mental block about giving or getting credit for their actions that has origins in their development.

And for the firefox spellcheck, it does work, it's just not enabled by default.  I right click and I'm able to turn it on for this field.

I think the 'determinist is nonsense' position remains the cosmological constant in an otherwise beautiful consistent frame work. I heard Stef say something in a podcast that each molecule in a watch can't tell the time, but the aggregate of molecules can, so a combination of things has properties that the elements themselves do not have. Each tiny object in the body works deterministic and behaves according to fixed laws, but the aggregate has a magic property to change it's mind disrespecting these laws. This disrespecting laws is not measurable on the outside of the individual (no gravity of thermodynamics can be violated), but the nerve impulses steering the actions are not a lawful deterministic consequence of previous events, but are interrupted by free will.

That opens the door to: each individual does not have the right to murder and steal, but the aggregate has properties that the individuals do not have, so it has the right to steal and murder.

Also the argument that you do not argue with a rock falling down a cliff and you do argue with a human being imo does not invalidate determinism. A rock does not have a sound input and muscles to change it's direction. A human has many sensors and actuators, so it can change its direction, but still everything could be deterministic.

I think I fully understand how weird this subject is, since you indeed assume free will with yourself and with others and it will be hard to have a long conversation without using language that assumes free will. But it is also impossible to talk or act without assuming determinism. If Stef says that your thoughts and views are like cement setting around you as you get older, you can say that he has confirmed determinism. The setting of cement is a very deterministic process, so your toughts and views are not open to free will, or at least not if you are old.

No, it is not the case at all that an aggregation of people has opposite properties, because the aggregation is an accumulation of like bodies. The body is an accumulation of unlike bodies, in that it contains a wide variety of different atoms, cells, organs and properties.

Saying that an aggregation of individual people can have opposite properties is like saying that if you gather enough rocks together, they are no longer subject to gravity, or if the forest becomes big enough, all the trees can suddenly fly...

nexalacer:

Funny, the deterministic justice system you propose is the same sort we talk about here, though we also like to talk about free will.  Since there's a paradox, I'd suggest a checking of premises... are you arguing a man full of straw, or are have you seen the free will series on youtube?

 

Not really, see below.  I see no paradox and I am arguing against libertarian (not in the political sense) free-will as it is put forward in the body philosophical writings.

nexalacer:

Also, the free will you seem to be arguing against is some sort of supernatural agent disconnected from the body, which is free from the causal nature of the universe.  No one around here has ever proposed such a thing.  I, and most others around here, including Stef, acknowledge the causal nature of the universe but also acknowledge that the brain in general, and the human brain specifically, is an organ that seems to allow something that we recognize as choice.  I think this is related to the way the nerves in the brain create a sort of "epi-phenomenon" (I'm not exactly sure what this means,

Then you are advocating compatibilism, not free will.  Free will is some sort of non-natural agent, another reason why I think free will is an inherently incorrect concept.  Also I see no evidence that humans are capable of true choice.  The brain, like a compiler, takes the factors (external stimuli, emotions, past experience, etc) and makes a choice.  The human could not make any different choice because the human does not exist beyond his brain, thanks to our complexity however we can imagine making other choices and from that the illusion of free will springs.  Emergence is only complexity not violation of causation.

nexalacer:

I've just heard a neuro-scientist talk about it ), which creates a situation where the brain as a whole is capable of more than just the sum of it's component parts.

Emergence is only complexity.  I'll also address this to Stef.  If a pile of rocks rolling down hill has enough distributed properties to produce an emergent property then the emergent property is not opposite of it's components.  Humans are not the opposite nor substantially different than the atoms that make up the body, it's just more complex.  1 hydrogen atom and 2 oxygen atom don't operate any differently than water, but one has different properties than the other due to the aggregation of smaller scale similarites.  To claim that humans are somehow different than the rest of the physical universe is plain old dualism.

nexalacer:

Anyway, the place I typically disagree with determinists is that they say that people can be held responsible for their "bad" actions, yet they shouldn't be given credit for their "good" actions.  I find this stance to be contradictory, and likely a sign of some sort of mental block about giving or getting credit for their actions that has origins in their development.

Then you haven't read many determinists.  A society operating under free-will awards and punishes someone because theymetaphysically deseve it through choosing the right option.  A society operating under determinsm reward someone in order to promote specific behaviour and punishes to deter specific behavior.  If the will is a fiction and choices derive from a determined mind then we must reavaluate the idea of desert.

In other words free will says that reward and punishment are or should be based on the idea of the choice in and of itself or that such things are decided by an objective external property (sort of a natural law of desert).  Determinist might say that reward and punsihment should be based on what actions we want to encourage and what actions we want to discourage.

nexalacer:

And for the firefox spellcheck, it does work, it's just not enabled by default.  I right click and I'm able to turn it on for this field.

Thanks.

idontlikeyou:

A society operating under free-will awards and punishes someone because they metaphysically deserve it through choosing the right option.  A society operating under determinsm reward someone in order to promote specific behaviour and punishes to deter specific behavior.

Does a society operate differently if people accept free will or determinism? That seems strange. Isn't this like saying:under Einsteinian physics nature would behave differently from Newtonian physics, if you all adopt Einsteinian physics we could see how. Nature behaves as it behaves, it is just a description that is more accurate or not.

pcrs:

idontlikeyou:

A society operating under free-will awards and punishes someone because they metaphysically deserve it through choosing the right option.  A society operating under determinsm reward someone in order to promote specific behaviour and punishes to deter specific behavior.

Does a society operate differently if people accept free will or determinism? That seems strange. Isn't this like saying:under Einsteinian physics nature would behave differently from Newtonian physics, if you all adopt Einsteinian physics we could see how. Nature behaves as it behaves, it is just a description that is more accurate or not.

Yes societies differ, they operate differently based on it's beliefs.  A society that believes men should be dominant works differently than a society that believes in gender equality.  A society that believes god has  final moral and legal authority will pass different laws and have different power structures than a secular society.  A society that believes one race is superior to another will have different customs for dealing with their own race than the ones they use for others.  Or a more extreme example to drive home my point, a society that believes in christian science will have different laws, traditions, and attitudes toward doctors than a society that believes in materialism.  While there is undoubtedly some static pressures that go into the formation of every society, the beliefs of those societies impact their customs, laws, attitudes, hierarchies, personal decision making, relation to other societies, and so forth.

I don't think the analogy you made is valid as einstein and newton proposed models for describing the, relatively static, universe.  Societies are also not completely static, as evidence by the obvious fact that societies operating under different beliefs behave differently.  And the ideas of free will and determinism are not models for describing societies but beliefs under which societies can operate.

idontlikeyou:

Societies are also not completely static as evidence by the fact that societies operating under different beliefs behave differently.

What would be different in our relationship if I believe in free will compared to me believing in determinism? Will you still don't like me? Since this is your name, I assume it is not depending on who you interact with. You don't like anyone here no matter what they believe.