There isn't really a 'freewill problem'.

[DBT]

It's directed at you. If your will is free from the above things, then your will is free, because free does not mean free from every possible constraint. It's relative. When people in ordinary situations ask whether something was an act of free will, the above concerns are what matters.

Nothing is free from causal determination except for subatomic particles. But some things are free in the limited sense you have mentioned. Yet, you do not allow the will to be free in any sense, not even a limited sense, even though it plainly is. A choice that is made under threat of bodily harm is not as free as a choice made without such a threat, all else being equal, even if neither choice is free from the laws of nature that describe how the brain responds to stimuli. Do you disagree?

But it goes deeper than just free from this is or that constraint, as related to your examples. It is also a question of the mechanisms of decision making, the state of the neural architecture determining the decision that is made in any given instance in time.

The same can be said of any object in the universe at any given instance in time, above the level of quantum randomness. Yet, the word 'free' may still be used in limited circumstances to describe the state of that object relative to some other condition. You have not demonstrated why this cannot be permitted in the case of will, while it can be permitted in the case of (say) a flag freely blowing in the wind, a dog free of its leash, or a society with freedom of the press. The flag, the dog, and the society are all determined on a basic physical level in exactly the same way that the decision-making process is determined on a basic physical level. Yet, it makes sense to differentiate a free flag from a bound one, a free dog from a leashed one, and a free press from a state-controlled one. Why does it not make sense to differentiate a free will from a constrained one?

The words free, freedom, etc, are commonly used....a rock may be dislodged from a mountain ledge, and without apparent restrictions or impediments, freely fall to earth. Then the question in relation to causality, does the rock have actual freedom, the ability to have done otherwise, during the time it is falling freely?

 

[The AntiChris]

The same can be said of any object in the universe at any given instance in time, above the level of quantum randomness. Yet, the word 'free' may still be used in limited circumstances to describe the state of that object relative to some other condition. You have not demonstrated why this cannot be permitted in the case of will, while it can be permitted in the case of (say) a flag freely blowing in the wind, a dog free of its leash, or a society with freedom of the press. The flag, the dog, and the society are all determined on a basic physical level in exactly the same way that the decision-making process is determined on a basic physical level. Yet, it makes sense to differentiate a free flag from a bound one, a free dog from a leashed one, and a free press from a state-controlled one. Why does it not make sense to differentiate a free will from a constrained one?

The words free, freedom, etc, are commonly used....a rock may be dislodged from a mountain ledge, and without apparent restrictions or impediments, freely fall to earth. Then the question in relation to causality, does the rock have actual freedom, the ability to have done otherwise, during the time it is falling freely?

What's the difference between 'freedom' as "commonly used" and 'actual freedom'?

What's the source of your definition for 'actual freedom'?

 

[ruby sparks]

If it is inevitable, then there is no choice.

If you say so. But do you not think the 'Go'-playing software program 'AlphaGo' selects (chooses) board game moves after considering options? Personally I would say even 'Deep Blue' did it in the 1990's when playing chess. Agents make choices. Your brain system enacts choices.

There is no possibility for a change within that framework, because it is inevitable.

I'm not sure what you mean here or how you're seeing the difference between choice and change, but I offered an example of change; I decided to go for a run but at the penultimate moment I changed my mind (or to be precise my mind changed).

Hypothetically, a future 'AlphaGo self-driving car' would both choose and change repeatedly, just as it goes along (eg a swerve if a deer suddenly bolts across its path).

Or, when at a junction on one trip, it might turn left if the road it is turning onto is clear of traffic. On another trip, at the same junction, it might turn right if there is heavy traffic already going left. It may automatically decide (possibly using data from previous road trips) that on the second occasion it might encounter more traffic jams if it went left. It is also possible that a random or stochastically determined output might play some role in causing it to go one way instead of the other.

Those are just two simple, illustrative scenarios which don't include all the factors and causes, which would be very numerous (weather, time of day, urgency of journey.......one could go on and on and on) or weighing them against one another . Human systems tend to call this brain activity 'deliberating' when it happens consciously, but even when pretty much the same type of activity, including forward and backward predicting, is happening non-consciously (such as is happening, we assume, in Deep Blue or AlphaGO board game programs) it's all cognition.

Now, you could, and some people might, say that such a sophisticated car would have some free will. At the end of the day, I personally wouldn't. But you could validly use the term (I disagree with DBT on this). Then you might be a compatibilist. Plus, you would be talking about a type of 'machine' free will which in this case is (a) non-conscious and (b) happening automatically and inevitably (barring possible random effects) in whatever circumstances pertain at any time.

 

[PyramidHead]

The same can be said of any object in the universe at any given instance in time, above the level of quantum randomness. Yet, the word 'free' may still be used in limited circumstances to describe the state of that object relative to some other condition. You have not demonstrated why this cannot be permitted in the case of will, while it can be permitted in the case of (say) a flag freely blowing in the wind, a dog free of its leash, or a society with freedom of the press. The flag, the dog, and the society are all determined on a basic physical level in exactly the same way that the decision-making process is determined on a basic physical level. Yet, it makes sense to differentiate a free flag from a bound one, a free dog from a leashed one, and a free press from a state-controlled one. Why does it not make sense to differentiate a free will from a constrained one?

The words free, freedom, etc, are commonly used....a rock may be dislodged from a mountain ledge, and without apparent restrictions or impediments, freely fall to earth. Then the question in relation to causality, does the rock have actual freedom, the ability to have done otherwise, during the time it is falling freely?

No, but the sense in which you are defining 'freedom' makes it a useless word, because nothing satisfies that definition. Is there any reason to use words that don't refer to anything when talking about commonplace things?

 

[Treedbear]

...
Now, you could, and some people might, say that such a sophisticated car would have some free will. At the end of the day, I personally wouldn't. But you could validly use the term (I disagree with DBT on this). Then you might be a compatibilist. Plus, you would be talking about a type of 'machine' free will which in this case is (a) non-conscious and (b) happening automatically and inevitably (barring possible random effects) in whatever circumstances pertain at any time.

And those same people would have to think the car should be punished. But that's silly. But then if the car's software has a bug it needs to be rehabilitated. Or it needs to be recalled and banned from the road. It should be ostracized and have it's picture on bill boards as a warning.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Brain is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the existence of a mind.

Really? There are many examples of brain without mind but not a single example of mind without the presence and electrochemical activity of a brain.

If you have an example of mind without brain, please share.

I'd like you to take a moment and re-read my post, please.

Nah, he'd need to be able to borrow a brain somewhere to do that.
EB

 

[Treedbear]

...

...
Prevention has no particular meaning in a deterministic framework. ... Prevention becomes an illusion.

... It becomes a matter of ascertaining what is possible and what is probable. As a general rule if something along the lines of prevention appears to be important it's more probable that it will occur than if it were disregarded. That's not an illusion.

If possible and probable contains more than one element in the set, then it is not deterministic. If multiple possibilities exist prior to action being taken, then that action is not deterministic. Unless you're using a special version of deterministic that is at odds with the mathematical definition.

We seem to be using different versions of possible and probable. Or perhaps only of the word possible. In my understanding both refer to a prediction of future events based on past and current conditions. They are both widely used when describing circumstances that have nothing to do with free will, but are only limited by the quality and completeness of available information. There is no Platonic idealisation of the word that is useful when describing reality. Probable is a way to assign a relative value to what is considered possible. It can change when conditions become more certain.

 

[ruby sparks]

...
Now, you could, and some people might, say that such a sophisticated car would have some free will. At the end of the day, I personally wouldn't. But you could validly use the term (I disagree with DBT on this). Then you might be a compatibilist. Plus, you would be talking about a type of 'machine' free will which in this case is (a) non-conscious and (b) happening automatically and inevitably (barring possible random effects) in whatever circumstances pertain at any time.

And those same people would have to think the car should be punished. But that's silly. But then if the car's software has a bug it needs to be rehabilitated. Or it needs to be recalled and banned from the road. It should be ostracized and have it's picture on bill boards as a warning.

Or crushed and shredded if it can never be fixed and it costs too much to quarantine it.

To me, there would still be punishment and a need for punishment in a world without a belief in free will.

Maybe it depends what you meant by punishment. There might be less retributive punishment, for example. I'm guessing that is what you in fact meant.

Punishment might also have less moral opprobrium attached. There might also be more of a focus on causes.

 

[ruby sparks]

Interesting documentary on Channel 4 last night, about the cases of 8 men on death row in Arkansas, USA. There were many issues raised during the programme, but there was one case which caught my eye, a guy called Marcel Williams, who had murdered a woman and had assaulted (raped?) two others, and might have killed them if he could, it's not clear. He locked one in a cupboard, which is where she was discovered.

To cut a long story short, it came out during his series of appeals against his death sentence that he had had almost the most awful upbringing a child could possibly have had, including repeated violent physical assaults and beatings and sexual abuse from his mum, and that's just the start. His defence lawyer from the original trial could hardly speak for crying when he was apologising to him (at an appeal) for screwing up his defence (Williams' traumatic life circumstances before the crimes were not raised in his trial). The woman he had raped and locked in a cupboard appeared at an appeal hearing and said that when she realised what he had gone through in his life, that despite what had happened, she could understand and she openly in fact forgave him, to his face. Williams himself was full of remorse. As far as could be told, he was not suffering from a medical condition or disability, at least it was not raised during the programme, and he knew the difference between right and wrong.

So they executed him anyway. But aside from that, aside from whether he deserved clemency and temporarily assuming he was not deemed not responsible for reasons of insanity or mental disorder, I suppose one question is, did he do what he did of his own free will? Secondly, does anyone here think they would have done differently if they had been him?

 

[Treedbear]

...
Now, you could, and some people might, say that such a sophisticated car would have some free will. At the end of the day, I personally wouldn't. But you could validly use the term (I disagree with DBT on this). Then you might be a compatibilist. Plus, you would be talking about a type of 'machine' free will which in this case is (a) non-conscious and (b) happening automatically and inevitably (barring possible random effects) in whatever circumstances pertain at any time.

And those same people would have to think the car should be punished. But that's silly. But then if the car's software has a bug it needs to be rehabilitated. Or it needs to be recalled and banned from the road. It should be ostracized and have it's picture on bill boards as a warning.

Or crushed and shredded if it can never be fixed and it costs too much to quarantine it.

To me, there would still be punishment and a need for punishment in a world without a belief in free will.

Maybe it depends what you meant by punishment. There might be less retributive punishment, for example. I'm guessing that is what you in fact meant.

Punishment might also have less moral opprobrium attached. There might also be more of a focus on causes.

Sorry I was being a bit flippant. To me punishment does imply retribution. Maybe fallout from my Catholic upbringing. And a car having free will was too good not to use as an example of how the concept of free will is misconstrued. Nevertheless punishment is primarily used as a demonstration of force in order to make someone conform to some hierarchy. That might work with parents and their children but with responsible adults it tends to aggravate an already established problem. I watched a segment on the 60 Minutes program last weekend about how the Germans have a prison system totally based on rehabilitation and has a much lower recidivism rate than in the US. Sometimes rehabilitation isn't appropriate either and the only option is removal from society.

 

[DBT]

The same can be said of any object in the universe at any given instance in time, above the level of quantum randomness. Yet, the word 'free' may still be used in limited circumstances to describe the state of that object relative to some other condition. You have not demonstrated why this cannot be permitted in the case of will, while it can be permitted in the case of (say) a flag freely blowing in the wind, a dog free of its leash, or a society with freedom of the press. The flag, the dog, and the society are all determined on a basic physical level in exactly the same way that the decision-making process is determined on a basic physical level. Yet, it makes sense to differentiate a free flag from a bound one, a free dog from a leashed one, and a free press from a state-controlled one. Why does it not make sense to differentiate a free will from a constrained one?

The words free, freedom, etc, are commonly used....a rock may be dislodged from a mountain ledge, and without apparent restrictions or impediments, freely fall to earth. Then the question in relation to causality, does the rock have actual freedom, the ability to have done otherwise, during the time it is falling freely?

What's the difference between 'freedom' as "commonly used" and 'actual freedom'?

What's the source of your definition for 'actual freedom'?

I gave the definition of 'actual' freedom as the ability to have done otherwise under the same circumstances, regulative control, etc, as per the arguments already given and discussed;



If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:
1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise
2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control
3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible
4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable
5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will


This is not just a matter of 'free will' alone, but the nature of freedom in general....the distinction between something moving 'freely' and having 'freedom'
- the ability to have done otherwise.

 

[DBT]

The same can be said of any object in the universe at any given instance in time, above the level of quantum randomness. Yet, the word 'free' may still be used in limited circumstances to describe the state of that object relative to some other condition. You have not demonstrated why this cannot be permitted in the case of will, while it can be permitted in the case of (say) a flag freely blowing in the wind, a dog free of its leash, or a society with freedom of the press. The flag, the dog, and the society are all determined on a basic physical level in exactly the same way that the decision-making process is determined on a basic physical level. Yet, it makes sense to differentiate a free flag from a bound one, a free dog from a leashed one, and a free press from a state-controlled one. Why does it not make sense to differentiate a free will from a constrained one?

The words free, freedom, etc, are commonly used....a rock may be dislodged from a mountain ledge, and without apparent restrictions or impediments, freely fall to earth. Then the question in relation to causality, does the rock have actual freedom, the ability to have done otherwise, during the time it is falling freely?

No, but the sense in which you are defining 'freedom' makes it a useless word, because nothing satisfies that definition. Is there any reason to use words that don't refer to anything when talking about commonplace things?

What is freedom if not the ability to have done otherwise under the same conditions? If we are just as subject to causation as a 'freely' moving object, a falling rock or the moon in orbit around the earth (unimpeded), albeit with far greater complexity of behaviour, how can we have 'freedom of will or action? We may be unimpeded in our actions, bur so is the Moon. Our actions are based on our will, which in turn is determined by brain state and condition, which is not open to conscious regulation, or able to be different in any given instance in time.

 

[DBT]

I'd like you to take a moment and re-read my post, please.

Nah, he'd need to be able to borrow a brain somewhere to do that.
EB

Sour grapes, as expressed by an arrogant Ponce.

 

[The AntiChris]

What's the difference between 'freedom' as "commonly used" and 'actual freedom'?

What's the source of your definition for 'actual freedom'?

I gave the definition of 'actual' freedom as the ability to have done otherwise under the same circumstances,

Ok. Thanks, but that only answers the first part of my question.

If 'actual freedom' doesn't reflect common usage, bearing in mind dictionary definitions reflect common usage, from where do you get your definition of "actual" freedom?

 

[DBT]

What's the difference between 'freedom' as "commonly used" and 'actual freedom'?

What's the source of your definition for 'actual freedom'?

I gave the definition of 'actual' freedom as the ability to have done otherwise under the same circumstances,

Ok. Thanks, but that only answers the first part of my question.

If 'actual freedom' doesn't reflect common usage, bearing in mind dictionary definitions reflect common usage, from where do you get your definition of "actual" freedom?

That dictionaries reflect common usage doesn't mean that dictionaries may not include uncommon or arcane usage;

freedom
1.2 The power of self-determination attributed to the will; the quality of being independent of fate or necessity.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Interesting documentary on Channel 4 last night, about the cases of 8 men on death row in Arkansas, USA. There were many issues raised during the programme, but there was one case which caught my eye, a guy called Marcel Williams, who had murdered a woman and had assaulted (raped?) two others, and might have killed them if he could, it's not clear. He locked one in a cupboard, which is where she was discovered.

To cut a long story short, it came out during his series of appeals against his death sentence that he had had almost the most awful upbringing a child could possibly have had, including repeated violent physical assaults and beatings and sexual abuse from his mum, and that's just the start. His defence lawyer from the original trial could hardly speak for crying when he was apologising to him (at an appeal) for screwing up his defence (Williams' traumatic life circumstances before the crimes were not raised in his trial). The woman he had raped and locked in a cupboard appeared at an appeal hearing and said that when she realised what he had gone through in his life, that despite what had happened, she could understand and she openly in fact forgave him, to his face. Williams himself was full of remorse. As far as could be told, he was not suffering from a medical condition or disability, at least it was not raised during the programme, and he knew the difference between right and wrong.

So they executed him anyway. But aside from that, aside from whether he deserved clemency and temporarily assuming he was not deemed not responsible for reasons of insanity or mental disorder, I suppose one question is, did he do what he did of his own free will? Secondly, does anyone here think they would have done differently if they had been him?

We're just in the middle of a similar case here in France, only worse as to the crimes, but less as to the sentence (no death penalty here). Society definitely has to be protected from such people, which makes a very long prison sentence necessary, but it is also a case of diminished responsibility, which calls for limited punishment. Diminished responsibility is just another way to describe the subversion of somebody's free will.

This sort of "psychological" descriptions help us to make sense of what we human beings do and are necessary as part of our living together in increasingly complex societies.
EB

 

[The AntiChris]

Ok. Thanks, but that only answers the first part of my question.

If 'actual freedom' doesn't reflect common usage, bearing in mind dictionary definitions reflect common usage, from where do you get your definition of "actual" freedom?

That dictionaries reflect common usage doesn't mean that dictionaries may not include uncommon or arcane usage;

freedom
1.2 The power of self-determination attributed to the will; the quality of being independent of fate or necessity.

Why would you choose an uncommon/arcane usage to represent your notion of 'actual' freedom? (particularly when absolutely nothing in our adequately deterministic universe would qualify as 'actually' free under this definition)

This logically implies that you view common usages as not representative of 'actual' freedoms (are these illusory/mistaken?). This explains why you insist that any attempt to describe will as free in the common usage sense fails because it would not be true (actual, real?) free will.

The problem I have with your argument is that I don't accept that the common usage sense of freedom is not representative of "actual" freedom. As far as I can tell you don't provide any argument as to why your (self-confessed) uncommon/arcane usage is the only one that qualifies as "actual" freedom - you just repeatedly assert it.

 

[ruby sparks]

....but it is also a case of diminished responsibility, which calls for limited punishment. Diminished responsibility is just another way to describe the subversion of somebody's free will.

Here's the kicker though, not only would you or I have done what those guys did if we were in their shoes, we would, it seems impossible to avoid concluding or explaining, do the same as anyone if we were in their shoes and subject to all the myriad things which continuously affect them (or that they were born with). If afreewillism is true (and I think it likely) then we all essentially have the exact same level of diminished personal responsibility. The fact that a 'normal' relatively non-damaged person (presumably such as you and I) doesn't murder is actually, it seems, down to the good fortune of not having experienced certain things or been born with them in our biology. We might even call our experiences privileged. We cannot, ultimately, take any personal credit for being non-murderers.

Now, I realise that's controversial, and counter-intuitive, and really tricky and challenging to know what to do about, or even to know what's possible to do, and more to the point it's not known for sure yet (so we should refrain from calling for dramatic changes to the way things are done in society). But to me, those paradoxes and mindfucks are not good reasons to avoid absorbing the likelihood into one's worldview. We don't know for sure there's no god. Many of us don't believe in one because it makes no sense, or we say that what some call evidence for it is in fact not actually good evidence. You think of raising your arm and it goes up. That doesn't mean you, the person your system calls speakpigeon, really, actually freely willed it any more than a prayer being answered means god intervened. It could just feel like it, or convincingly seem to be true.

I get that you and probably many others don't want to get into free will all the way. You are happy to run with a pragmatic sort of concept of free will, the sort that you say most people think they have. That's fine, although purely as a respectful side note I wish you wouldn't inject the word ideology so much when talking about others who prefer to dig deeper. I would not be surprised if such things about ideology were said about atheism (still are) or about those who questioned whether the earth is at the centre of the universe when most people thought it was, or when it was pragmatic to think of the sun as rising and falling over the earth, as it indeed still does, pragmatically-speaking, for most situations involving earthbound creatures. Which is probably why the words sunrise and sunset are still used. But we know they're not really accurate or correct terms. Imo, there are enough non-ideological scientific and philosophical signs and arguments to suggest that free will is not what most people think it is, or at least enough reasons to doubt.

 

[PyramidHead]

No, but the sense in which you are defining 'freedom' makes it a useless word, because nothing satisfies that definition. Is there any reason to use words that don't refer to anything when talking about commonplace things?

What is freedom if not the ability to have done otherwise under the same conditions?

As I said: that's a useless definition. Please prove me wrong by naming one thing larger than an electron that can be said to have "the ability to have done otherwise under the same conditions".

 

[Speakpigeon]

....but it is also a case of diminished responsibility, which calls for limited punishment. Diminished responsibility is just another way to describe the subversion of somebody's free will.

Here's the kicker though, not only would you or I have done what those guys did if we were in their shoes, we would, it seems impossible to avoid concluding or explaining, do the same as anyone if we were in their shoes and subject to all the myriad things which continuously affect them (or that they were born with). If afreewillism is true (and I think it likely) then we all essentially have the exact same level of diminished personal responsibility. The fact that a 'normal' relatively non-damaged person (presumably such as you and I) doesn't murder is actually, it seems, down to the good fortune of not having experienced certain things or been born with them in our biology. We might even call our experiences privileged. We cannot, ultimately, take any personal credit for being non-murderers.

Remember your debate with PyramidHead? It seems to me you're talking as if we were disincarnate moral beings, merely dwelling in, but separate from, the flesh-and-bones adobe of our earthly bodies. You and I would have had merely the good fortune of inheriting a good-bloke body, so to speak, and should be mindful of the fact that we could have just as well been stuck within the body of a serial killer.

Well, me, I don't see things the way you do. I'm not some disincarnate spirit. Who I am is entirely specified by my body, and what my body does. When I think about myself, there's nothing I can think of that has not something to do with my body, including my souvenirs, my personal identity, my biography, and what other people may remember about me, which will always have something to do with what my body did.

So, I don't mind taking personal credit for the things I do well, just as I can't stop looking now and then at what I did wrong over the years and think I'm a serious dumbfuck. It can be unpleasant at time but the alternative, looking at my body as if I had absolutely nothing to do with it, seems worse to me. And I'm confident this goes for most of us here and elsewhere.

Sure, if I had been this guy, I would have done exactly the same thing.

Now, if you can think in those terms, i.e. being somebody you're not, I don't see why you should stop there and not think in terms of doing something you're not doing, and then having to explain why you eventually nonetheless did what you did without having to make any choice about it. So, you think you don't have free will because your will is actually entirely within your body, so to speak, and you're not this body you're in now? Isn't that a somewhat confused way of looking at this problem?

Me, I'm my body, and my body has free will. Ergo, I have free will. No big deal and it explains what I do, most of the time, without having to observe my own body to see what my neurons are actually doing and therefore "deciding". I don't even know how to go about that any different.

Now, I realise that's controversial, and counter-intuitive, and really tricky and challenging to know what to do about, or even to know what's possible to do, and more to the point it's not known for sure yet (so we should refrain from calling for dramatic changes to the way things are done in society). But to me, those paradoxes and mindfucks are not good reasons to avoid absorbing the likelihood into one's worldview. We don't know for sure there's no god. Many of us don't believe in one because it makes no sense, or we say that what some call evidence for it is in fact not actually good evidence. You think of raising your arm and it goes up. That doesn't mean you, the person your system calls speakpigeon, really, actually freely willed it any more than a prayer being answered means god intervened. It could just feel like it, or convincingly seem to be true.

And that would sort of be true about every little piece of knowledge we thought we knew about the world, including the whole of science itself. And then, henceforth, what shall we say or talk about? Or wouldn't it be better that we just shut the fuck up because, well, nothing we say could therefore make any sense?

I suddenly feel like the second Wittgenstein all of a sudden.

I get that you and probably many others don't want to get into free will all the way. You are happy to run with a pragmatic sort of concept of free will, the sort that you say most people think they have. That's fine, although purely as a respectful side note I wish you wouldn't inject the word ideology so much when talking about others who prefer to dig deeper. I would not be surprised if such things about ideology were said about atheism (still are) or about those who questioned whether the earth is at the centre of the universe when most people thought it was, or when it was pragmatic to think of the sun as rising and falling over the earth, as it indeed still does, pragmatically-speaking, for most situations involving earthbound creatures. Which is probably why the words sunrise and sunset are still used. But we know they're not really accurate or correct terms. Imo, there are enough non-ideological scientific and philosophical signs and arguments to suggest that free will is not what most people think it is, or at least enough reasons to doubt.

If saying that the Sun is rising is saying a falsehood, then saying anything at all is a falsehood. I really don't see why it would be true to say that the Earth is rotating, but false to say that the Sun is rising. We describe what are basically our mental representations of the various aspects of the world we happen to be interested in in the moment. We get to agree or disagree among ourselves about those descriptions. But depending on who you're talking with, people will agree or they will disagree with what you said. And then, how do you know who is right? Insisting on the idea that the Earth, really, is, actually, rotating, is merely to switch from one perspective to another, from one context to another where these perspectives make sense. So, yes, Galileo was right, yes, Newton was right, but then Einstein came along and we're now saying that, actually, the real world isn't really like Galileo and Newton thought it was. They were, let's say, less wrong than the Pope at the time of Galileo. But less wrong is not correct. Nearly true isn't true at all. And, presumably, a lot of what Einstein said is just less wrong that was Galileo and Newton said, that is, still not true. Personally, I don't think there's much we can say that's actually true as we think of what being true means. Insisting that the Earth is rotating and therefore the Sun is not rising is just electing to ignore or disregard the reality of other people's life. Which is just another way of disregarding reality. Still, I can understand that. It's reasonable to do it. And we all do it. Just because there's much too much of reality and not enough of our little brains. And we shouldn't be confused about people talking of the Sun rising in the sky. They're actually not saying that the Sun is like a little red balloon going up in the atmosphere.

I'm not interested in doing ideology but some people are, obviously. But I'm not saying that people who disagree with me are horrible ideologues. I say, some are. And it should be good enough that you would know by yourself what it is you're doing.
EB