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

[pood]

Also, his two-sided equation stuff arguably has some merit and is certainly worth entertaining,

Gosh, I can't believe you gave him some credit. It sounds so strange coming from you.

if he weren’t so hyperbolic and dogmatic about his claims.

He was never dogmatic. Is it dogmatic to say that one plus one is two? No.

For example, one can be a compatibilist, as I am, yet reject retributive justice, as I do.

This shows me you don't understand how this knowledge of no free will, therefore no blame, extends. How can we punish people for wrongdoing when they can do no wrong?

It can certainly be argued that while we always act on our preferences, a lot of our genetics and our upbringing heavily influence our choices, and if we recognized this and stopped blaming people for what they do, forcing them into a defensive crouch of rationalizing their behavior,

OMG, you understand zilch. How can anyone be put in a defensive crouch of rationalizing their behavior when they are not being questioned?

Can you even read at this point? Why did you omit the rest of my quote? I was AGREEING that he may have a point on this. So, why don’t you back and read the clause you omitted after the comma, and see what I actually said?

 

[steve_bank]

Take out weird metaphor of eyes and you have a decent take on one of the principles of general semantics

What I took from GS was the idea we substitute symbols for reality as reality itself which lead's to a disassociation form reality leading to social ills, or something like that.

We look at something called 'chair' and we see nothing but the symbol.

'The map is not the countryside' which led me to see science as a symbolic map of reality not fertility itself.

 

[pood]

My point that you mutilated by omitting the last clause of my sentence (was that deliberate?) is this: By blaming and shaming people for their actions, we force them into a defensive chrouch of rationalization. If we stopped blaming people and recognized that a lot of bad behavior is heavily weighed by circumstances beyond our control — genes and upbringing — they may be inclined to make better choices, if for no other reason they will sense we have compassion for their lot in life. This is consistent with his claims. Try to pay attention, peacegirl.

 

[peacegirl]

Also, his two-sided equation stuff arguably has some merit and is certainly worth entertaining,

Gosh, I can't believe you gave him some credit. It sounds so strange coming from you.

if he weren’t so hyperbolic and dogmatic about his claims.

He was never dogmatic. Is it dogmatic to say that one plus one is two? No.

For example, one can be a compatibilist, as I am, yet reject retributive justice, as I do.

This shows me you don't understand how this knowledge of no free will, therefore no blame, extends. How can we punish people for wrongdoing when they can do no wrong?

It can certainly be argued that while we always act on our preferences, a lot of our genetics and our upbringing heavily influence our choices, and if we recognized this and stopped blaming people for what they do, forcing them into a defensive crouch of rationalizing their behavior,

OMG, you understand zilch. How can anyone be put in a defensive crouch of rationalizing their behavior when they are not being questioned?

Can you even read at this point? Why did you omit the rest of my quote? I was AGREEING that he may have a point on this. So, why don’t you back and read the clause you omitted after the comma, and see what I actually said?

I fixed it. I'm just so use to your criticism, I misunderstood.

 

[peacegirl]

My point that you mutilated by omitting the last clause of my sentence (was that deliberate?) is this: By blaming and shaming people for their actions, we force them into a defensive chrouch of rationalization. If we stopped blaming people and recognized that a lot of bad behavior is heavily weighed by circumstances beyond our control — genes and upbringing — they may be inclined to make better choices, if for no other reason they will sense we have compassion for their lot in life. This is consistent with his claims. Try to pay attention, peacegirl.

It's not a matter of them being inclined to make better choices. They won't be able to make choices that hurt anyone under the changed conditions because they won’t be able to justify it. They will have no choice but to refrain from hurting others, which is why will is not free. If will was free, they could hurt people in spite of this change in environment, but they would not be able to.

 

[steve_bank]

.

Anyway, thanks for having the link posted.

Peace out

When you get rid of causality you can imagine anything.

Gods. demons, magic spells, and most importantly somethings something form nothing.

Elaborate on what you men by causality being a gross level.

It's interesting that you went straight to what happens when you get to imagine. But gods demons etc would still be causal, no?

I don't mean that there isn't an arrow of time. I mean that our ideas of causality tend to be reductionistic in the same way as most physics and chemistry is. Dependent and independent variables and causes being describable in less than 14b years worth of writing.

But a short amount of time working with complex adaptive systems as such makes it quite clear that our notions of causality are not as generalizable as we tend to assume. Causality does not begin at the low level and transfer to each higher level of organization the way we think it would. Each level requires it's own causal language. Hence my use of the word gross.

There has been the emergent property arguments on the forum before.

The claim is sum is not always the sum of the parts. Philosophically you can make a case but not physically.

It of course can not be proven but the foundation in the Laws Of Thermodynamics says matter and and energy must always add up. Nothing from or too nothing.

A physical painting is the sum of physical parts. Aesthetics are emergent properties of art. Appreciation of art can not be derived from reduction of caliphs parts.

The argument can used to get around conservation and causality to support metaphysical claims.

As an engineer I was a member of the reductionist club. Physacly things must always add up.

The gas gauge in a car is never going to go up while drving.

 

[steve_bank]

My point that you mutilated by omitting the last clause of my sentence (was that deliberate?) is this: By blaming and shaming people for their actions, we force them into a defensive chrouch of rationalization. If we stopped blaming people and recognized that a lot of bad behavior is heavily weighed by circumstances beyond our control — genes and upbringing — they may be inclined to make better choices, if for no other reason they will sense we have compassion for their lot in life. This is consistent with his claims. Try to pay attention, peacegirl.

Take a chill pill.

 

[peacegirl]

Take out weird metaphor of eyes and you have a decent take on one of the principles of general semantics

See, that’s the thing. It’s not a metaphor. If it were a metaphor, he may have some decent stuff on, as you say, general semantics. If he had something like, for example, “while the eye strictly of course is a sense organ, we make sense of what we see by projecting our semantics and conditioning onto the external world.” Then when he says, “We project words onto an undeniable screen of substance,” this would make sense as a metaphor, Taken literally, of course, this is all nonsense, but he does have interesting things to say how semantics and conditioning color our view of reality.

It’s not nonsense at all. But like I said, take it or leave it. You will twist anything he writes to discredit him. I was just waiting for how long it would take for you to find a way.

Every educated person knows that the eyes are a sense organ, and if they come across a book that claims literally they are not, they will put the book aside. As noted, if author were speaking metaphorically, they may then go on to consider his argument. But they won’t as it now stands.

So the author wasn’t educated? You’re using the wrong word. Every person has been taught (not knows) that the eyes are a sense organ. How can I dilute his observations by tiptoeing around this concept just to get people to listen? I can’t do it. The reason we are able to be conditioned is because of how the brain and eyes work. Unfortunately, there’s no resolution. No pun intended.

 

[pood]

My point that you mutilated by omitting the last clause of my sentence (was that deliberate?) is this: By blaming and shaming people for their actions, we force them into a defensive chrouch of rationalization. If we stopped blaming people and recognized that a lot of bad behavior is heavily weighed by circumstances beyond our control — genes and upbringing — they may be inclined to make better choices, if for no other reason they will sense we have compassion for their lot in life. This is consistent with his claims. Try to pay attention, peacegirl.

Take a chill pill.

No need. Simply pointed out peacegirl mutilated my quote to omit its meaning. Not very nice to do that.

 

[peacegirl]

My point that you mutilated by omitting the last clause of my sentence (was that deliberate?) is this: By blaming and shaming people for their actions, we force them into a defensive chrouch of rationalization. If we stopped blaming people and recognized that a lot of bad behavior is heavily weighed by circumstances beyond our control — genes and upbringing — they may be inclined to make better choices, if for no other reason they will sense we have compassion for their lot in life. This is consistent with his claims. Try to pay attention, peacegirl.

Take a chill pill.

No need. Simply pointed out peacegirl mutilated my quote to omit its meaning. Not very nice to do that.

It wasn’t on purpose. I corrected it. Done.

 

[bilby]

It is her father.

?

 

[bilby]

Sight takes place for the first time when a sufficient accumulation of sense experience such as hearing, taste, touch, and smell — these are doorways in — awakensWha the brain so that the child can look through them at what exists around him.

OK. So, when a child sees the stars, is it the sound, taste, texture, or smell of them that lets him know they are there?

What are you talking about bilby?

I am asking a simple question. When anybody sees the stars for the first time, or indeed, any subsequent time, what informs him that they are there? Which sense is being employed? If none are, how dies he know the stars exist?

When a baby is born, he cannot focus his eyes until there is a desire to see due to the other senses stimulating this desire.

Leaving aside that this is a bald assertion, and that: a) That which is asserted without evidence can be rejected without evidence; And b) Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, it even fails to be a response to my question, which was not about babies at all.

But babies are what explains what is happening.

No, they aren't. When I look up and see the stars of the Southern Cross, I see them in the exact same pattern as everyone else. But I saw them for the first time as an adult - they aren't visible from where I was born and raised. So how did the knowledge of their positions get from them to me?

You cannot leave it out because you want to prove him wrong.

No, but I can leave it out because it's irelevant nonsense.

If you want me to accept that babies are relevant, you need to gove me good reasons to accept that. Just making apparently disjointed claims, and asking me to believe them before I read them is a non-starter.

This is exactly why READING THE ENTIRE CHAPTER is the only way you will be able to understand his full explanation. Without it, you're just guessing what he means.

Turnabout is fair play; Your response here is clearly not to the actual question I asked, but to a vaguely related question that you had a boilerplate answer for.

Stop being aggressive.

I am not being aggressive. I am just not agreeing with every word you say without question or hesitation. That's not aggression, it's reason.

You are not the ultimate arbiter of truth bilby.

Nor is anyone else. Lessans doesn't get to demand that I believe his false statements as a precursor to agreeing with his conclusions, and nor do you.

Goose sauce is gander sauce.

I cannot talk to someone who puts me on trial.

Then you should avoid discussion boards.

I will not be put in this defensive position.

You have been, so it's too late. If you want to know who put you there, look in a mirror.

If you won't defend your ideas, you will need to accept that they will never be widely accepted. Of course, that doesn't imply that they will if you do defend them - a defence is necessary, but is far from sufficient.

 

[bilby]

Ideas as to the mechanism of how something works can look to be completely valid, but the conclusions can be wrong.

Show where they are wrong.

This happens more than you may think. Even in criminal justice, all of the circumstantial evidence looks beyond a reasonable doubt and therefore justifies charging someone with a guilty verdict when in actuality he was innocent. This is not much different.

"Your honour, the evidence against my client is compelling, and I have no exhibits, forensics, or testimony whatsoever to offer in his defence. But you must agree that sometimes a person is found guilty, when he is in fact not guilty, and there is considerable history of guilty verdicts being overturned on appeal. Therefore I remain confident that the jury will find my client not guilty, and will apply an insane standard of reasonableness to any doubts they may have. The defence rests".

If my brief used this in his summing up, I would begin to wonder if I had accidentally retained a barista, instead of a barrister. He does make surprisingly good coffee...