“Revolution in Thought: A new look at determinism and free will"

[pood]

Since you know so much about logic, peacegirl — much more than I do! — why don’t you tackle the Paul argument?

 

[peacegirl]

You see, DBT and peacegirl have charged me with playing word games with respect to this discussion, and compatibilism in particular. The exact opposite is true: THEY are playing word games. I am playing LOGIC games.

Logic games are even worse than the word games that DPT and myself are not displaying! If your proposition is wrong, everything that follows is wrong. I have said many times that determinism does not state, before the fact, that anything must be chosen before it is chosen. That’s how you are defining it, and it’s not the definition you even agreed upon.

Neither determinism nor logic states that that after something was chosen, it HAD to have been chosen. This is your claim, and it is false as a matter of logic.

Of course it does. Your version of soft determinism (which is another way of sneaking in free will) says it could have been another way at that moment in time. Determinism, the way it's defined, and you've agreed upon, says it could not have been any other way at that moment in time. You can't ever prove that a person could have chosen otherwise because you cannot undo what has already been done, therefore the most you can do is try to use logic to prove what cannot be proven. Compatibilism is contradictory because it is impossible to have no free will and free will (the way they define it), simultaneously, unless their definition tries to make it appear coherent. Definitions are often a play on words and have no bearing on reality such as "soft determinism," which is just another made up word to convince us that certain people were free to act otherwise (after the action was performed) while others were not free to act otherwise. That's not how determinism works.

Logical Fallacies | Definition, Types, List & Examples​

Published on April 20, 2023 by Kassiani Nikolopoulou. Revised on October 9, 2023.

A logical fallacy is an argument that may sound convincing or true but is actually flawed. Logical fallacies are leaps of logic that lead us to an unsupported conclusion. People may commit a logical fallacy unintentionally, due to poor reasoning, or intentionally, in order to manipulate others.

 

[pood]

You see, DBT and peacegirl have charged me with playing word games with respect to this discussion, and compatibilism in particular. The exact opposite is true: THEY are playing word games. I am playing LOGIC games.

Logic games are even worse than the word games that DPT and myself are not displaying! If your proposition is wrong, everything that follows is wrong. I have said many times that determinism does not state, before the fact, that anything must be chosen before it is chosen. That’s how you are defining it, and it’s not the definition you even agreed upon.

Neither determinism nor logic states that that after something was chosen, it HAD to have been chosen. This is your claim, and it is false as a matter of logic.

Yes it does. Your version of soft determinism (which is another way of sneaking in free will) says it could have been another way at that moment in time. Determinism, the way it's defined, says it could not have been another way at that moment in time. Completely different concepts. The former is incoherent because it is impossible to have no free will and free will simultaneously, unless the definition tries to make it appear that it is coherent. But definitions are often a play on words, which is the case here.

Logical Fallacies | Definition, Types, List & Examples​

Published on April 20, 2023 by Kassiani Nikolopoulou. Revised on October 9, 2023.

A logical fallacy is an argument that may sound convincing or true but is actually flawed. Logical fallacies are leaps of logic that lead us to an unsupported conclusion. People may commit a logical fallacy unintentionally, due to poor reasoning, or intentionally, in order to manipulate others.

peacegirl, I KNOW what a logical fallacy is. You and DBT commit them all the time!

Would you like to tackle the Paul argument?

 

[pood]

You see, DBT and peacegirl have charged me with playing word games with respect to this discussion, and compatibilism in particular. The exact opposite is true: THEY are playing word games. I am playing LOGIC games.

Logic games are even worse than the word games that DPT and myself are not displaying! If your proposition is wrong, everything that follows is wrong. I have said many times that determinism does not state, before the fact, that anything must be chosen before it is chosen. That’s how you are defining it, and it’s not the definition you even agreed upon.

I’ve said nothing of the kind. You are writing gibberish.

 

[pood]

You are saying, among other nonsense, that a contingent proposition becomes necessary after the fact. That is flat wrong. Let’s hear from an expert, Norman Swartz, professor emeritus of philosophy at Simon Fraser University.

Just as the expression “truth-value” is a generic term encompassing “truth” and “falsity”, the expression “modal status” is a generic term encompassing “contingent”, “necessarily true”, and “necessarily false”.


Finally, no proposition ever changes its modal status. We will call this principle “The Principle of the Fixity of Modal Status“. And for the purposes of assessing the deterministic arguments we note especially: no contingent proposition ever ‘becomes’ necessary or impossible.

 

[peacegirl]

You are saying, among other nonsense, that a contingent proposition becomes necessary after the fact. That is flat wrong. Let’s hear from an expert, Norman Swartz, professor emeritus of philosophy at Simon Fraser University.

Just as the expression “truth-value” is a generic term encompassing “truth” and “falsity”, the expression “modal status” is a generic term encompassing “contingent”, “necessarily true”, and “necessarily false”.


Finally, no proposition ever changes its modal status. We will call this principle “The Principle of the Fixity of Modal Status“. And for the purposes of assessing the deterministic arguments we note especially: no contingent proposition ever ‘becomes’ necessary or impossible.

Nothing becomes necessary or impossible before the act because we cannot predict with complete accuracy what a person will decide to do. It becomes categorically false that the act was not a necessary one after the act was decided upon based on how determinism is defined which means that once an act is performed, the individual was compelled to that action due to internal and external reasons. I have asked you this before, but you never answer. What is the benefit of compatibilism? How does it serve humanity? How is the outcome of this ideology any different from libertarianism? Is it more about compassion for the criminal where rehabilitation is a priority rather than dishing out harsh punishment? Please help me understand.

 

[pood]

You are saying, among other nonsense, that a contingent proposition becomes necessary after the fact. That is flat wrong. Let’s hear from an expert, Norman Swartz, professor emeritus of philosophy at Simon Fraser University.

Just as the expression “truth-value” is a generic term encompassing “truth” and “falsity”, the expression “modal status” is a generic term encompassing “contingent”, “necessarily true”, and “necessarily false”.


Finally, no proposition ever changes its modal status. We will call this principle “The Principle of the Fixity of Modal Status“. And for the purposes of assessing the deterministic arguments we note especially: no contingent proposition ever ‘becomes’ necessary or impossible.

Nothing becomes necessary or impossible before the act because we cannot predict with complete accuracy what a person will decide to do. It becomes categorically false that the act was not a necessary one after the act was decided upon based on how determinism is defined which means that once an act is performed, the individual was compelled to that action due to internal and external reasons. I have asked you this before, but you never answer. What is the benefit of compatibilism? How does it serve humanity? How is the outcome of this ideology any different from libertarianism? Is it more about compassion for the criminal where rehabilitation is a priority rather than dishing out harsh punishment? Please help me understand.

The act was not a necessary one after it was performed. It was not necessary at any time. Are you going to tackle the Paul problem?

 

[pood]

You are saying, among other nonsense, that a contingent proposition becomes necessary after the fact. That is flat wrong. Let’s hear from an expert, Norman Swartz, professor emeritus of philosophy at Simon Fraser University.

Just as the expression “truth-value” is a generic term encompassing “truth” and “falsity”, the expression “modal status” is a generic term encompassing “contingent”, “necessarily true”, and “necessarily false”.


Finally, no proposition ever changes its modal status. We will call this principle “The Principle of the Fixity of Modal Status“. And for the purposes of assessing the deterministic arguments we note especially: no contingent proposition ever ‘becomes’ necessary or impossible.

I have asked you this before, but you never answer. What is the benefit of compatibilism? How does it serve humanity? How is the outcome of this ideology any different from libertarianism? Is it more about compassion for the criminal where rehabilitation is a priority rather than dishing out harsh punishment? Please help me understand.

If an argument is true, the consequences that may follow from it are irrelevant. You don’t get to claim that an argument is true, even though it is false, because it allegedly “serves humanity.”

 

[pood]

Nothing becomes necessary or impossible before the act because we cannot predict with complete accuracy what a person will decide to do. It becomes categorically false that the act was not a necessary one after the act was decided upon based on how determinism is defined which means that once an act is performed, the individual was compelled to that action due to internal and external reasons.

You just don’t understand, either because you don’t want to or are unable to do so. Even if it were true that the individual were “compelled” in any way to do something, the act was still not necessary.

 

[peacegirl]

You see, DBT and peacegirl have charged me with playing word games with respect to this discussion, and compatibilism in particular. The exact opposite is true: THEY are playing word games. I am playing LOGIC games.

Logic games are even worse than the word games that DPT and myself are not displaying! If your proposition is wrong, everything that follows is wrong. I have said many times that determinism does not state, before the fact, that anything must be chosen before it is chosen. That’s how you are defining it, and it’s not the definition you even agreed upon.

Neither determinism nor logic states that that after something was chosen, it HAD to have been chosen. This is your claim, and it is false as a matter of logic.

Determinism states that after something was chosen, it HAD to have been chosen due to causes.

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.

Determinism | Definition, Philosophers, & Facts | Britannica

Determinism, in philosophy and science, the thesis that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable. Determinism is usually understood to preclude free will because it entails that humans cannot decide or act otherwise than they do.

www.britannica.com

 

[peacegirl]

You are saying, among other nonsense, that a contingent proposition becomes necessary after the fact. That is flat wrong. Let’s hear from an expert, Norman Swartz, professor emeritus of philosophy at Simon Fraser University.

Just as the expression “truth-value” is a generic term encompassing “truth” and “falsity”, the expression “modal status” is a generic term encompassing “contingent”, “necessarily true”, and “necessarily false”.


Finally, no proposition ever changes its modal status. We will call this principle “The Principle of the Fixity of Modal Status“. And for the purposes of assessing the deterministic arguments we note especially: no contingent proposition ever ‘becomes’ necessary or impossible.

I have asked you this before, but you never answer. What is the benefit of compatibilism? How does it serve humanity? How is the outcome of this ideology any different from libertarianism? Is it more about compassion for the criminal where rehabilitation is a priority rather than dishing out harsh punishment? Please help me understand.

If an argument is true, the consequences that may follow from it are irrelevant. You don’t get to claim that an argument is true, even though it is false, because it allegedly “serves humanity.”

It doesn't have to serve humanity to be correct (which it isn't), but you cannot dismiss what is central to this discussion (i.e., moral responsibility). What is different about compatibilism versus libertarianism in terms of consequences, or do you not care about this? I've said this so many times I can't keep count; we either have no free will or we do. We don't have a little bit of determinism and a little bit of free will. If free will is used colloquially, we can say I did this of my own free will (because I wanted to), but that does not mean we have free will of any kind in the free will/determinist debate and how these terms are defined.

 

[peacegirl]

Nothing becomes necessary or impossible before the act because we cannot predict with complete accuracy what a person will decide to do. It becomes categorically false that the act was not a necessary one after the act was decided upon based on how determinism is defined which means that once an act is performed, the individual was compelled to that action due to internal and external reasons.

You just don’t understand, either because you don’t want to or are unable to do so. Even if it were true that the individual were “compelled” in any way to do something, the act was still not necessary.

Actually it does. You were compelled to choose Coke after you chose it. You were free to choose Pepsi, if you had wanted to (you didn't have a gun to your head that forced you to choose Coke), but you didn't want to for your personal reasons. IOW, it could have been chosen, but it wasn't chosen, because it gave you less satisfaction after thinking it through. You believe that preference is circular because what you prefer is obviously what you prefer, and you wouldn't choose what you don't prefer, but this is an important observation, not something that is trivially true. After you make a choice, you preferred it because what you preferred less wasn't an option. You can test this over and over and you will see it is an invariable law of our nature. Additionally, every single move we make is in the direction of greater satisfaction than what the previous position offers.

Your desire to take a bath arises from a feeling of unseemliness or a wish to be refreshed, which means that you are dissatisfied with the way you feel at that moment; and your desire to get out of the bathtub arises from a feeling of dissatisfaction with a position that has suddenly grown uncomfortable. This simple demonstration proves conclusively that man’s will is not free because satisfaction is the only direction life can take, and it offers only one possibility at each moment of time.

This is exactly why will is not free and why we are compelled to move in the direction of greater satisfaction when we are dissatisfied with our present position. We cannot move in the direction of dissatisfaction which goes against the movement of life itself. Animals don't even move in this direction, and they don't have the attribute of contemplation. This does not mean that our options are always satisfying. It just means that among the available options, we are compelled to choose the least unpreferable option, or the least of the evils that we are faced with.

 

[pood]

Nothing becomes necessary or impossible before the act because we cannot predict with complete accuracy what a person will decide to do. It becomes categorically false that the act was not a necessary one after the act was decided upon based on how determinism is defined which means that once an act is performed, the individual was compelled to that action due to internal and external reasons.

You just don’t understand, either because you don’t want to or are unable to do so. Even if it were true that the individual were “compelled” in any way to do something, the act was still not necessary.

Actually it does. You are mixing up the meaning of necessary which makes it appear that it was necessary that you choose Pepsi before you chose it.

I’ve said nothing even CLOSE to that. I’ve said JUST THE OPPOSITE. You can’t even follow a simple argument.

 

[pood]

And, for the thousandth time, the opposite of determinism is not free will. The opposite of determinism is INdeterminism.

 

[peacegirl]

To summarize, what you seem to be saying is that we need a new definition of determinism, not the definition that is traditionally used, which is that a combination of past events combined with the laws of physics cause events to happen without deviation, including human actions. This is the hard determinist position that DBT espouses, that human will is not free because what we do now, is determined by the past. You, on the other hand, seem to be saying that we lack free not because of that kind of determinism, but because of a different kind, which is our inner nature which compels us to move in the direction of what we believe to be greater satisfaction, whether it is or not. Is that correct?

No. How DBT defines it is correct in that we have no choice in what we do. It is in keeping with how it’s defined by the author. He just explains it differently.

 

[peacegirl]

And, for the thousandth time, the opposite of determinism is not free will. The opposite of determinism is INdeterminism.

False! Again, you’re playing word games. Free and determined are opposites. We may call something UNdetermined because we don’t know the causes but that is not the opposite of determinism. You’re all mixed up!

 

[pood]

And, for the thousandth time, the opposite of determinism is not free will. The opposite of determinism is INdeterminism.

False! Again, you’re playing word games. Free and determined are opposites. We may call something UNdetermined because we don’t know the causes but that is not the opposite of determinism. You’re all mixed up!

No, it’s you who are mixed up. You can’t even follow a simple argument.

 

[peacegirl]

And, for the thousandth time, the opposite of determinism is not free will. The opposite of determinism is INdeterminism.

False! Again, you’re playing word games. Free and determined are opposites. We may call something UNdetermined because we don’t know the causes but that is not the opposite of determinism. You’re all mixed up!

No, it’s you who are mixed up. You can’t even follow a simple argument.

You can't even accept the simple fact that free will is the opposite of determinism. We have absolutely no basis for communication if you can't even accept this truth.

 

[peacegirl]

Nothing becomes necessary or impossible before the act because we cannot predict with complete accuracy what a person will decide to do. It becomes categorically false that the act was not a necessary one after the act was decided upon based on how determinism is defined which meansC that once an act is performed, the individual was compelled to that action due to internal and external reasons.

You just don’t understand, either because you don’t want to or are unable to do so. Even if it were true that the individual were “compelled” in any way to do something, the act was still not necessary.

Actually it does. You are mixing up the meaning of necessary which makes it appear that it was necessary that you choose Pepsi before you chose it.

I’ve said nothing even CLOSE to that. I’ve said JUST THE OPPOSITE. You can’t even follow a simple argument.

What do you think compelled means? I have explained to you, without success, that preference is the driving force when two or more alternatives are being considered. It is necessary when choosing between meaningful differences that we choose the more satisfying option, not the less. Someone might get greater satisfaction risking his life to save someone in trouble. This is not the pleasure principle. I don't think you understand a word I've written. Back to the example you gave, it was necessary that you choose Coke over Pepsi but not before you chose it. Looking back, it was predetermined because, given the same exact conditions and what considerations you were using to make your choice, you would have always chosen Coke over Pepsi. There is no parallel world where you would have chosen Pepsi. It's all imaginary. You keep bringing up the fact that you could choose Pepsi at a later date. Of course you could. We are not talking about a later date; we are talking about the same exact conditions that led you to choose Coke. I already said you cannot prove compatibilist free will just as you can't prove libertarian free will because you can't go back in time, undo what has already been done, to prove a person could have chosen otherwise. If you don't like what I'm saying, continue with your flawed modal logic. For the umpteenth time, it wasn't necessary that you choose Coke if you hadn't wanted to, but you wanted to since choosing Pepsi at that moment gave you less satisfaction; therefore, it was an impossible choice. To repeat: you were free to choose Pepsi, but your desire to choose Coke won out after thinking it through, which then made Pepsi an impossible choice. If it was impossible to choose B (Pepsi) at that moment because it gave you less satisfaction, you were not free to choose A (Coke). Choosing what you prefer more over what you prefer less is a compulsion over which we have no control. BTW, using Norman Swartz as being some kind of authority because he is emeritus in philosophy is an "appeal to authority," which will get you nowhere.

 

[pood]

And, for the thousandth time, the opposite of determinism is not free will. The opposite of determinism is INdeterminism.

False! Again, you’re playing word games. Free and determined are opposites. We may call something UNdetermined because we don’t know the causes but that is not the opposite of determinism. You’re all mixed up!

No, it’s you who are mixed up. You can’t even follow a simple argument.

You can't even accept the simple fact that free will is the opposite of determinism. We have absolutely no basis for communication if you can't even accept this truth.

You don’t get to DECLARE something is true. You have to DEMONSTRATE it.

The opposite of determinism is INdeterminism. If you say the opposite is “free will,” you are BEGGING THE QUESTION — do you have any clue what that means?