According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[BSilvEsq]

An SEP is something we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it's like a blind spot.

Thanks. I understood SEP to be an acronym for Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy -- https://plato.stanford.edu/ If SEP was intended as an acronym for Somebody Else's problem, I retract my prior questions and ask -- according to what classical sources?

 

[pood]

An SEP is something we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it's like a blind spot.

I thought it meant Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

 

[pood]

BSilvEsq beat me to it.

 

[Jarhyn]

Modal Fallacy. You do not know to a certainty that your body is in many places across space

Yes, I do know to a certainty. My body is composed of many atoms and many cells, which are all on different places across space.

Moreover this is smeared across a 4d tubelike volume in roughly human-shaped cross-section.

You rejecting this is just you pulling a classic escape from reason to try to duck out of being called on nonsense, rejecting reality and conservation.

Even if it were being simulated by a computer with memory physically organized in a vastly different way as space is, even then, the body itself of definitions and component parts and operations, even then it is smeared out across a variety of places in time across the calculation.

Even in a block it is smeared across the space of the block.

In fact, everything I know about the creation of bodies containing minds, even in graph models with whatever relationships they contain, the nodes are not in the same place, and are offset.

Whine all you want that the actuality of me has a repeatably observable shape, and that it's volumetric in nature.

Whine all that you want that I mock you for rejecting spatial non-contradiction in a discussion about determinism.

Be mocked.

 

[BSilvEsq]

I always find it amusing when people who get their views thrashed over them containing some particular kind of fallacy tend towards accusing others of engaging in the fallacy, almost as if they don't understand fallacies or logical reasoning at all.

The modal error which occurs most frequently is that which happens when a person imagines something as being possibly the case but the person asserts that something as being actually the case.

This error most commonly occurs when a person has not sufficiently imagined other possibilities which could be the case and/or when a person has not sufficiently dispensed with other possibilities that could be the case.

You have nailed it once again.

It is a modal error to identify one of many possibilities and then draw logical conclusions from that possibility as if the possibility were a fact. Before that, it is simple arrogance, hubris, or ignorance to believe that the identified possibility is a fact in the first instance.

Jarhyn's posts contain multiple assertions of fact, which deny contrary possibilities that he lacks any basis to deny. Because Jarhyn does not qualify his statements with terms such as "I believe" or "If" or "Accepting ___ to be true," etc., his statements are asserted as facts that must be accepted as true for purposes of engaging with him. Moreover, this is not simply a matter of linguistics. Rather, it is plain from Jarhyn's multiple posts that he is, in fact, wedded to paradigm that he accepts, axiomatically, as true and denies contrary possibilities.

I believe (and do not profess to know as a fact) that humans do not know, and are incapable of knowing, anything to a certainty. Within that belief, I necessarily accept that my belief may be wrong. Without regard to whether humans are capable of knowing anything to a certainty, however, I am relatively confident that Jarhyn is not the extraordinary human being (who I doubt to yet exist) who has such access to the secrets of the universe that he can accurately claim to know anything with certainty -- including the asserted facts that no two objects can concurrently occupy the same point (without regard to the number of possible dimensions), that "A" cannot equal "Not A", and/or that 1+1=2. Like most others, I live "as if" the foregoing propositions (and many others like them) are true. Unlike Jarhyn, however, I hold open the possibility that such propositions are false -- though I lack the mental capacity to wrap my brain around how that can be so, because my hardware, software, both or something else, seem to preclude me from doing so.

It is plain from Jarhyn's multiple posts that he is wedded to a paradigm (which also is the underpinning of science) that (i) there is a reality, (ii) humans are capable of discerning that reality, and (iii) math and physics are the tools by which humans are capable of doing so. Jarhyn seems to add computer science to the toolkit he trusts to be capable of being sued to discerning reality, and he also appears to believe that he has a sufficiently understanding of math, physics and computer science that he can use these tools to discern reality and root out false constructs. Within Jarhyn's paradigm, he rejects as preposterous any proposition that conflicts with his perception of reality based on his application of math, physics and/or computer science.

If Jarhead is the most extraordinary human ever to walk the earth, then his posts would would be entirely true and all contrary posts equally false. I very much doubt that is the case, but I am open to that possibility. If, however, Jarhyn's paradigm is simply one or many possibilities, then Jarhyn repeatedly commits the modal error of reasoning from his possible paradigm to necessary conclusions that reject all contrary possibilities.

So long as Jarhyn remains wedded to his paradigm to the exclusion of all others, the only rational conversation that can be had with Jarhyn must assume the truth of his paradigm and reason within it. That, however, is a conversation that belongs in a Forum on Math, Physics or Computer Science, and not one that belongs in a Forum on Philosophy, which is what I understand this Forum to be.

 

[bilby]

An SEP is something we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it's like a blind spot.

I thought it meant Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

That's not my problem.

 

[bilby]

An SEP is something we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it's like a blind spot.

Thanks. I understood SEP to be an acronym for Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy -- https://plato.stanford.edu/ If SEP was intended as an acronym for Somebody Else's problem, I retract my prior questions and ask -- according to what classical sources?

Douglas Adams?

 

[Jarhyn]

It is a modal error to identify one of many possibilities and then draw logical conclusions from that possibility as if the possibility were a fact.

This is some straight up circle jerking around a paradox of tolerance.

The one thing we know, in fact the first assumption of any sort of logical basis for determinism itself starts with logical noncontradiction and all spatial corollaries such as large scale conservation.

Rejecting THAT as a basis is like saying "you have to tolerate intolerance".

No, you don't. And in fact my basis for rejecting intolerance is because intolerance implies a contradiction, but how that is expressed is very difficult and not the subject of this thread.

Which is to say I reject intolerance for the same reason I reject contradiction in all the other myriad expressions people make.

If you want to offer a paradigm, offer one without contradictions and without demanding contradictions of some widely understood process and I'll listen, but you have not expressed any evidence you are capable of that and it requires education for most and definitely required education for me to get it.

 

[BSilvEsq]

It is a modal error to identify one of many possibilities and then draw logical conclusions from that possibility as if the possibility were a fact.

This is some straight up circle jerking around a paradox of tolerance.

The one thing we know, in fact the first assumption of any sort of logical basis for determinism itself starts with logical noncontradiction and all spatial corollaries such as large scale conservation.

Rejecting THAT as a basis is like saying "you have to tolerate intolerance".

No, you don't. And in fact my basis for rejecting intolerance is because intolerance implies a contradiction, but how that is expressed is very difficult and not the subject of this thread.

Which is to say I reject intolerance for the same reason I reject contradiction in all the other myriad expressions people make.

If you want to offer a paradigm, offer one without contradictions and without demanding contradictions of some widely understood process and I'll listen, but you have not expressed any evidence you are capable of that and it requires education for most and definitely required education for me to get it.

Entirely non-responsive to the comment to which it replies. This time is a non-sequiter.

 

[steve_bank]

Sorry Steve, but the brain is not reasonably speaking a "finite" state machine insofar as the states any one neuron can take up are continuous, and the neurons themselves move and change conformity over space in fairly unbounded ways.

Neurons have thresholds and are discrete. Vision is effectively digitized. Sensation of intensity of light or sensing heat can not be infinitely divided.

Jaryn's brain was in a state, received an input from my post, his neural 'state machine;' cycled to produce an output based on current states and the new input.

If the state machine metaphor fits, wear it. If nothing else it can serve as a talking point in terms of how buruied issues can manifest in the process of making a decision.

Asynchronous state machines do not require claocks for synchronization.

 

[Jarhyn]

Neurons have thresholds and are discrete. Vision is effectively digitized. Sensation of intensity of light or sensing heat can not be infinitely divided

Neurons can reproduce. They can move. They can die and vanish altogether.

They have an "open" ability to mutate in state.

As mentioned they are quite continuous, and with many neurons covering the continuity gaps of their neighbors.

Sensation of light might not be infinitely divided, for instance, but the depth or number of iterations of feature identification in a set of signals is massively larger.

In fact give how large that group is, owing to the fact that the network grows and dies and wiggles about and changes conformity over time, the computational capabilities of the network actually exceed any finite Turing machine, though in practice most network functions of most large language models can be retained by a Boolean network.

As long as the output can contain sufficient information along with prior inputs to regenerate a state, in fact, an LLM can act as a complete classical computer, completely reproducing Doom, for example.

As a result, making claims about what an even "smoother" action such as that of several neurons working in parallel would accord practically to limits on finite state machines to be unreasonable.

They are systems with "open" growth rules and without much quantization error, if any.

 

[The AntiChris]

classical Compatibilists (as contrasted with the pseudo-Compatibilists in this thread) claim to accept the same definition of Free Will or Freedom as is used by Incompatibilists,.

You're mistaken. They don't.

Incompatibilists hold that free will and determinism are mutually exclusive and, consequently, that we act freely only if determinism is false (SEP). In other words we only act freely if our choices are not determined by prior causes.

Classical Compatibilism at its most basic is the unencumbered ability of an agent to do what she wants - so understood, free will is compatible with determinism since the truth of determinism does not entail that no agents ever do what they wish to do unencumbered (SEP).

You place "(SEP)" after each of your two propositions.

I assume from the fact that you do not place quotation marks at the beginning and end of the sentences (or even within them) that they are nor direct quotes, but I welcome learning that the absence of quotation marks is simply an omission and that they are direct quotes. If they are direct quotes, can you please point me to where I can find them, so that I can read them in the context in which they are written?

If the sentences in your post are not direct quotes, can please direct me to the specific language in SEP that you are paraphrasing or summarizing, so that I can ascertain whether I agree or disagree with your paraphrasing?

As a general matter, I view the SEP as relatively authoritative on general historical information about classical philosophy, so I would be pleased to learn that my understanding of this subject is mistaken if that is the case.

Despite the fact that you pontificate confidently at length on compatibilism it's quite clear that your understanding of the subject is woefully lacking.

You should read: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Classical Compatibilism and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - compatibilist (Nondeterministic) Theories of Free Will

 

[BSilvEsq]

Thanks for your post. I will read the SEP entries again. As I asked before, if your prior statements are direct quotes, can you please provide a specific citation to where you got them, and if they are your paraphrasing, please identify the specific passage of the lengthy entries you are paraphrasing? Thanks much.

 

[The AntiChris]

Thanks for your post. I will read the SEP entries again. As I asked before, if your prior statements are direct quotes, can you please provide a specific citation to where you got them, and if they are your paraphrasing, please identify the specific passage of the lengthy entries you are paraphrasing? Thanks much.

Chapter 2.1 Freedom According to Classical Compatibilism.

Incompatibilist requirement for free will appears in the first sentence of the link I provided.

I didn't provide exact quotes, just succinct paraphrases for brevity. There is no misrepresentation.

 

[BSilvEsq]

Thanks again. I will read this and get back to you.

 

[BSilvEsq]

classical Compatibilists (as contrasted with the pseudo-Compatibilists in this thread) claim to accept the same definition of Free Will or Freedom as is used by Incompatibilists,.

You're mistaken. They don't.

Incompatibilists hold that free will and determinism are mutually exclusive and, consequently, that we act freely only if determinism is false (SEP). In other words we only act freely if our choices are not determined by prior causes.

Classical Compatibilism at its most basic is the unencumbered ability of an agent to do what she wants - so understood, free will is compatible with determinism since the truth of determinism does not entail that no agents ever do what they wish to do unencumbered (SEP).

You place "(SEP)" after each of your two propositions.

I assume from the fact that you do not place quotation marks at the beginning and end of the sentences (or even within them) that they are nor direct quotes, but I welcome learning that the absence of quotation marks is simply an omission and that they are direct quotes. If they are direct quotes, can you please point me to where I can find them, so that I can read them in the context in which they are written?

If the sentences in your post are not direct quotes, can please direct me to the specific language in SEP that you are paraphrasing or summarizing, so that I can ascertain whether I agree or disagree with your paraphrasing?

As a general matter, I view the SEP as relatively authoritative on general historical information about classical philosophy, so I would be pleased to learn that my understanding of this subject is mistaken if that is the case.

Despite the fact that you pontificate confidently at length on compatibilism it's quite clear that your understanding of the subject is woefully lacking.

You should read: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Classical Compatibilism and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - compatibilist (Nondeterministic) Theories of Free Will

OK. I have read the SEP entries you identified (for the umpteenth time, actually). They do not change my view of what I have been writing -- which was influenced by these very SEP entries, among other things, many years ago.

To begin, your first proposition is the following:

Incompatibilists hold that free will and determinism are mutually exclusive and, consequently, that we act freely only if determinism is false (SEP). In other words we only act freely if our choices are not determined by prior causes.

I fully concur with that first proposition, which is consistent with everything I have posted in this thread (and elsewhere) about Incompatibilism.

Your second proposition is the following:

Classical Compatibilism at its most basic is the unencumbered ability of an agent to do what she wants - so understood, free will is compatible with determinism since the truth of determinism does not entail that no agents ever do what they wish to do unencumbered (SEP).

In support of that proposition, you identify https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/#ClasComp. Your second proposition is an accurate summary of the position of Classical Compatibilism, but your second proposition also is materially incomplete -- which is why I had asked for a citation to what you were paraphrasing. After stating the position of Classical Compatibilism in words that are materially the same as the words you have used, the SEP discussion goes on to explain that Classic Compatibilism "fails" to overcome the fact that acceptance of Determinism logically precludes the any agent from ever doing what they wish to do unencumbered -- which is the very point that DBT and I repeatedly have been making. Specifically, SEP states, among other things, as follows:

Despite the classical compatibilists’ ingenuity, their analysis of could have done otherwise failed decisively. The classical compatibilists wanted to show their incompatibilist interlocutors that when one asserted that a freely willing agent had alternatives available to her—that is, when it was asserted that she could have done otherwise—that assertion could be analyzed as a conditional statement, a statement that is perspicuously compatible with determinism. But as it turned out, the analysis was refuted when it was shown that the conditional statements sometimes yielded the improper result that a person was able to do otherwise even though it was clear that at the time the person acted, she had no such alternative and therefore was not able to do otherwise in the pertinent sense (Chisholm 1964, in Watson (ed.) 1982, pp.26–7; or van Inwagen 1983, pp. 114–9).

and

So even if an unencumbered agent does what she wants, if she is determined, at least as the incompatibilist maintains, she could not have done otherwise. Since, as the objection goes, freedom of will requires freedom involving alternative possibilities, classical compatibilist freedom falls.

The SEP discussion of Classical Compatibilism concludes with the following observation:

The classical compatibilists failed to answer the Classical Incompatibilist Argument. What they attempted to do by way of the conditional analysis was deny the claim that if determinism is true, no one can do otherwise. But, given their failure, it was incumbent upon them to respond to the argument in some manner. It is only dialectically fair to acknowledge that determinism does pose a prima facie threat to free will when free will is understood as requiring the ability to do otherwise. The Classical Incompatibilist Argument is merely a codification of this natural thought. In light of the failure of the classical compatibilists’ conditional analysis, the burden of proof rests squarely on the compatibilists.

SEP proceeds to offer multiple post-Classical Compatibilist arguments that seek to harmonize the existence of Free Will with the acceptance of Determinism, the first of which SEP rejects and the others of which SEP states to raise arguments worthy of consideration. I have read the post-Classical Compatibilist arguments, the Modern Compatibilist arguments, and other more recent arguments, time and time again, and I am unable to follow their logic -- which is either too advanced for me or, as William James wrote, "a quagmire of evasion." Without regard to the various arguments that have been developed post-Classical Compatibilism, however, SEP very plainly and unambiguously rejects the logical coherence of the Classical Compatibilist assertion quoted in your post -- namely, that "free will is compatible with determinism since the truth of determinism does not entail that no agents ever do what they wish to do unencumbered."

As a lawyer with a college degree in philosophy, I have learned that the devil is in the details, and I work hard to flesh out the details when engaged in debate. If you view this as pontificating, so be it.

I am pleased to be proved wrong when that occurs, and I am open to logical arguments that are counter to my own. In the case of Compatibilism (even in the post-Classical or Modern eras), however, I just don't follow the logic of the arguments. Again, to quote William James (who was both a brilliant philosopher and pioneering psychologist):

"The issue . . . is a perfectly sharp one, which no eulogistic terminology can smear over or wipe out. The truth must lie with one side or the other, and its lying with one side makes the other false."

 

[The AntiChris]

OK. I have read the SEP entries you identified (for the umpteenth time, actually). They do not change my view of what I have been writing...

You've lost sight of what we (you and I) were discussing.

I initiated this current exchange in order to draw attention to your clearly mistaken belief about what compatibilists claim:

classical Compatibilists (as contrasted with the pseudo-Compatibilists in this thread) claim to accept the same definition of Free Will or Freedom as is used by Incompatibilists,.

Compatibilists do not claim to accept the same definition of free will as used by incompatibilists - that would be nonsensical. I provided supporting evidence and in response, rather than attempt to defend you original claim, you chose to write at length about what you see as the failings of compatibilism.

You should either admit you were mistaken or present evidence in support of your claim (quoted above). You need to understand that I'm not presenting a case for compatibilism I'm simply pointing out errors in your criticism of compatibilism.

 

[DBT]

For instance, Pood has endorsed constant conjunction and adequate determinism, which do not permit alternate choice or action, yet argues for free choice.

Yet I have pointed out that you have never yet defended the claim that determinism does “not permit alternate choice or action,” whereas I have pointed out that because determinism is a mindless descriptive process, it is not the sort of thing that can permit, fail to permit, or coerce, anything.

That determinism does not permit alternate actions is inherent.

determinism, in philosophy and science, the thesis that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable. Determinism entails that, in a situation in which a person makes a certain decision or performs a certain action, it is impossible that he or she could have made any other decision or performed any other action. In other words, it is never true that people could have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did.''

I await your answer to my longstanding request to explain how hard determinism paints pictures, writes novels, composes symphonies, and designs buildings.

The answer has been given multiple times;

Conditions on earth have evolved, microbes to multicellular organisms, to the point where creatures capable of writing, painting, landing spacecraft on other planets, etcetera, have evolved.

Our abilities were not freely willed, we played no part in deciding what we would become or be capable of, but how events unfold as the system evolves from past to present state, a species capable of art, science, books, music, where the present conditions, the current state of the world in turn determines future states of the system.

We have been over all this.

It's been done to death, yet here we are.

The cite you give also discusses soft determinism, which is different from hard determinism, so there are different definitions of determinism and not, as you keep insisting, a univocal definition.

The only difference is that compatibilists claim that free will is compatible with determinism and incompatibilists claim it isn't.

determinism as a system, it's terms and conditions, is the same.

Free will is the dispute, not the nature of determinism....unless it is claimed that alternate decisions and actions are possible.

Due to how determinism is defined, they are not possible. Whatever happens, must happen as determined. Will, for instance, is determined.

You keep mistakingly claiming that (hard) determinism does not “permit” alternative actions. As has been endlessly pointed out, determinism is a descriptive and not a prescriptive process, and thus in no position to “not permit” anything.

The given definition of determinism is a description of how the world works if it is deterministic.

If the world is in fact deterministic, everything happens as determined, just as defined.

The world may include truly random events, but that is irrelevant to compatibilism because that is the argument that free will is compatible with, not random events, but determinism just as it is defined to be.

The Britannica cite commits the modal fallacy, which has been explained to death.

You still have not explained how the Big Bang designs buildings, paints picture, etc. You just assert it.

Nah, no modal fallacy. Though Compatibilism may qualify as a modal fallacy due to its neglect to take the nature of will into account in its careful but erroneous definition of 'free will.'

Right, then. Still no answer to the question of how the Big Bang designs buildings, etc.

I gave you the answer, not only once but multiple times.

Basically, that the word determinism refers to how the world works. Determinism doesn't act upon the world. The world, if deterministic, evolves causally from past to present and future states.

It is not 'determinism' that builds structures and writes music and paints pictures, but the existence of people, a species that evolved the ability to do these things.

I don't know why you keep repeating the question, yet neglect to address the answer.

Because your answer is not an answer, it’s an evasion. I have already explained why.

You have expressed your point of view. A point of view that does not relate to the issue at hand.

It's not hard. It's not ''determinism'' that is writing music or creating art, it's people with the ability to do these things. Where determinism merely represents how, if deterministic, the world works and how events evolve, including the human race and our cognitive abilities.

Yet you keep invoking the strawman '''explain how the Big Bang designs buildings, paints picture, etc'' regardless.

The modal fallacy is yours.

This is in the style of a “no, not me, u r” sort of “argument.”

You have not demonstrated why I am supposedly committing a modal fallacy when in fact I have shown that you are committing one. So there we are.

No, the reason is given: the compatibilist definition of free will carefully sidesteps the means and mechanisms by which we think, decide and act, where free will is not the agency, but the non-chosen state and condition of the brain.

There lies the modal fallacy and the failure of compatibilism to make a case.

Kans has it summarized;
“It might be true that you would have done otherwise if you had wanted, though it is determined that you did not, in fact, want otherwise.” - Robert Kane

The above statement again simply reifies determinism as a prescriptive force when it is not. It is more accurate to say, “I did what I wanted to do because of reasons, and the fact that I was able to do what I wanted to do is a demonstration of my free will.”

There is no force. The system, a matter of causality, is not forcing anyone to do what they don't want, it simply evolves according to initial conditions and natural law. Where both what you want and what you do, according to the given terms, is fixed by antecentents.

It's not just that you are able to act according to your will, you do it necessarily. If your action is determined, it cannot be otherwise....which is clearly not a matter of free will regardless of how compatibilists define it.

''Wanting to do X is fully determined by these prior causes. Now that the desire to do X is being felt, there are no other constraints that keep the person from doing what he wants, namely X. At this point, we should ascribe free will to all animals capable of experiencing desires (e.g., to eat, sleep, or mate). Yet, we don’t; and we tend not to judge non-human animals in moral terms.'' - cold comfort in compatibilism.

 

[DBT]

Contrast the above with, “I’m an architect but I didn’t really design this building. In fact I am a meat robot (hard determinist Jerry Coyne) or a falling domino or a puppet carrying out instructions dictated by the Big Bang. Where the Big Bang got the mind, training, ability or inclination to design a building is beyond me, but I’m a hard determinist and that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

The brain can, in fact, determine to some extent its own internal structure and determine outputs, based obviously on antecedents. Clearly, as repeatedly noted, this does not mean denying that a lot of what we do is because of our genetics and upbringing.

The brain has plasticity. It grows new connections, it changes according to conditions, but whatever the brain can or can't do is a matter of neural architecture and life experience. In other words, everything that has happened in the past to bring us to this point in time and place as a part of the system, as events unfold, thinking, deciding and acting. A rational system, a responsive system, but a free will system, it is not.

 

[Jarhyn]

Regardless of what you want "compatibilism" to mean, Bruce, you are going to be at the mercy of the actual people who consider themselves compatibilists, here and elsewhere.

You can either decide to speak to "compatibilism" as you actually observe it in the wild, or speak to a straw-man.

We have discussed at lengths the failures of fatalism, and of libertarianism, and how those failures can be reconciled: by accepting that freedom is about relative momentary autonomy rather than idiotic contradictions, and ceasing with circle-jerking about "ultimate" causes, or trying to justify fucking contradictions in logical frameworks.

You are wrong no matter where you try to hide the set of all sets or necessitation or a definition of possibilities that, quite ironically, makes the exact error I have been accused of making in rejecting the possibility that possibilities remain possibilities when they do not exist at the exact same position.

Talk about a fucking modal error.

But hey, at least I'm going to be mature enough to recognize that because that can be twisted to say either thing, there's a problem with trying to use the demand for "possibility" to expand the things we acknowledge as "possible". As I think about it, it has already started sending up my "hackles" about "axioms about axioms" and "circular statements".

I suspect one statement ends up being "tautological", while the other ends up "contradictory"? But I'm not entirely certain and I don't care to do the exercise. I'll leave it to the reader.

As I said before, I think it ends up being a reflection of the "paradox of tolerance", but in a wider sort of class when someone says "how dare you reject the possibility of contradiction!" Here, the contradiction we are being expected to swallow is of a "spatial" sort.

The worst part here is that..."truth must lie with one side or the other" is completely incorrect. Both sides are wrong as far as libs and fatalists. They are both idiots clinging to a contradiction.