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Daniel Dennett Dead At 82

^Spinoza's point is that a conscious being's actions are every bit as determined as those of an unconscious being. As he states, "the soul acts according to fixed laws, and is as it were an immaterial automaton."
 
^Spinoza's point is that a conscious being's actions are every bit as determined as those of an unconscious being. As he states, "the soul acts according to fixed laws, and is as it were an immaterial automaton."
Yeah, well, I think he and Einstein are wrong. Or, speaking as a compatibilist, we are free to act on our determined motives, as well as to learn from experience and alter our motives for better outcomes in the future.
 
^Spinoza's point is that a conscious being's actions are every bit as determined as those of an unconscious being. As he states, "the soul acts according to fixed laws, and is as it were an immaterial automaton."
Yeah, well, I think he and Einstein are wrong. Or, speaking as a compatibilist, we are free to act on our determined motives, as well as to learn from experience and alter our motives for better outcomes in the future.
Ugh, it's no fair you being so much better a writer than me, and thus so much better able to encode the idea accessibly!
 
^Spinoza's point is that a conscious being's actions are every bit as determined as those of an unconscious being. As he states, "the soul acts according to fixed laws, and is as it were an immaterial automaton."
Yeah, well, I think he and Einstein are wrong. Or, speaking as a compatibilist, we are free to act on our determined motives, as well as to learn from experience and alter our motives for better outcomes in the future.
The determinist disagrees. As Waton puts it, "Our mind no more determines its thoughts and ideas than our body determines its actions; all are determined by existence."
 
^Spinoza's point is that a conscious being's actions are every bit as determined as those of an unconscious being. As he states, "the soul acts according to fixed laws, and is as it were an immaterial automaton."
Yeah, well, I think he and Einstein are wrong. Or, speaking as a compatibilist, we are free to act on our determined motives, as well as to learn from experience and alter our motives for better outcomes in the future.
The determinist disagrees. As Waton puts it, "Our mind no more determines its thoughts and ideas than our body determines its actions; all are determined by existence."
The HARD determinist disagrees. The SOFT determinist is called a compatibilist.

As for Waton, I don’t know who he is and don’t give a hoot about what he has to say about this or anything. Don’t give much of a hoot about Spinoza, either, who wrote some interesting things but who, like Aristotle, espoused ideas that have been supplanted by better ideas. In any case, appeals to authority are empty.
 
Peter Pan wants to believe in the magic freedom pixie dust.
Well, much like Tinkerbell, I think every compatibilist will generally accept your decision to disregard your ability to create degrees of freedom such that in that disregard you might as well not have that ability at all.

Maybe you should try reading some Crowley if you want to understand more about magic, though.

The subjects ARE quite intimately linked.
 
^What I have is the ability to align my will with the will of existence itself, and this is the only true freedom. Not everyone has this ability, but ultimately all mankind will have it. Read Kabbalah.
 
The Fetishism of liberty / Harry Waton.

This book examines the notion of free will from a determinist position. Waton was an expositor of Spinoza. Spinoza famously opined that if a rock in motion were conscious, it would believe its motion to be free, and that this is same as most people's understanding of their own actions as free.
And Spinoza happens to be one of your favorite philosophers! How... convenient. Oh yeah and Kabbalah bullshit. You had to throw that in there, lmao.
 
🙄
No, you very much have the free will to align yourself along any of a large number of freedoms. Spinoza is just another Calvinists jackass for the Candide of the world to use to continue their merry jaunt.
 
The secularist priesthood clinging to its primitive superstitions regarding free will. Pathetic.
 
The secularist priesthood clinging to its primitive superstitions regarding free will. Pathetic.
You clearly have not read my position on free will, which I have already posted. But whatever, it's not like it's going to make a difference because you're incapable of understanding anything that's not in line with your particular favorite philosophers' views. What a pathetic and close-minded way to live!
 
The secularist priesthood clinging to its primitive superstitions regarding free will. Pathetic.

Would you like to present an actual argument in your own words (not Waton’s) as opposed to childish slurs against people who know much more than you do?
 
^Nah, I've indicated what I think you should read. Go ahead, keep running cycles on your hamster wheels.
 
^Nah, I've indicated what I think you should read. Go ahead, keep running cycles on your hamster wheels.
No, you gave the medieval equivalent to "just watch these YouTube videos, man!"

Quite literally, medieval.
 
I acknowledge my references, unlike all these secularist gurus who fancy themselves creative genuises, but just recycle Kant, Kantian nanobots that don't realize they are in the service of the most superstitious anti-philosopher to ever live.
 
When a superior man hears of the Tao,
he immediately begins to embody it.
When an average man hears of the Tao,
he half believes it, half doubts it.
When a foolish man hears of the Tao,
he laughs out loud.
If he didn't laugh,
it wouldn't be the Tao.
 
I tell you what we gotta do. We gotta get
When a superior man hears of the Tao,
he immediately begins to embody it.
When an average man hears of the Tao,
he half believes it, half doubts it.
When a foolish man hears of the Tao,
he laughs out loud.
If he didn't laugh,
it wouldn't be the Tao.
Guess what? All religions say the same thing about their religion. You think this means anything?
 
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