peacegirl
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2024
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- Basic Beliefs
- I believe in determinism which is the basis of my worldview
It is not contingently true that someone could have chosen to do what he didn't prefer to do (which is what you're saying) at that moment in time. And you can't prove it either because you cannot go back in time, undo what has already been done, and show that a person could have chosen otherwise given the exact same situation. This, by the way, is libertarianism. You just don't like being called a libertarian, but if you look like a duck, walk like a duck and quack like a duck, you are a duck. Logic can be a dangerous thing if it's invalid from the very beginning. We base all of our decisions on contingent events and circumstances, but you cannot say that a decision that has already been made could be anything other than the choice that was already made. It is true that we can change our decision at a later date if we find that after seeing how our decision turned out, we didn't like the result... but that's a different animal.Wrong. All contingently true propositions remain contingently true after the fact. Oswald killed JFK but he did not HAVE TO do that. Elementary logic eludes both you and DBT.You're wrong Pood. No one is saying before a decision is made that he must choose eggs over cereal before he has even decided. It just means that after the decision is made, IT COULD NOT HAVE BEEN OTHERWISE. You are mixing up before a choice which is still under consideration, and after a choice, which could not have been any other way. If you understood anything I wrote, you should know by now that there is nothing that can make us choose z if we don't want to choose z. There is no causal link from the past to the present such that z is the only choice possible, WITHOUT A PERSON'S CONSENT. If they don't consent to z, they will not choose z. They will choose y (or whatever choice they find the most preferable) in the direction of greater satisfaction.Once more, for the hard of reading:
Libertarians and hard determinists agree that determinism and free will are incompatible. The hard determinist rejects free will. The libertarian rejects determinism.
The hard determinist says given antecedents x and y, a person MUST do z. The libertarian says given antecedents x and y, a person can and will do whatever the hell he, she, or they wants.
The compatiblist accepts both determinism and free will. The compatibilist says that given antecedents x and y, a person WILL (but not MUST!) do z. Could he have done differently? Certainly. But to actually have done differently, antecedents would have been different.
Hope that helps. Not holding my breath.
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