choupolo


Aaaagh, dont talk about penis pain - its one of those things that is too painful even to imagine!

You don't have to imagine it. Just google "kids in a sandbox".

I contradicted myself, sort of.  I don't believe in choice so I don't like when people place blame on others.  You ever notice how blame is always very shallow.  Nothing is as simple as it seems, complexity is complex because it includes everything.  Nothing is isolated, anything that's isolated would not exist.  So cause and effect has it's dirty hands on everything. 

People will say something like Lisa failed her math exam because she didn't study.  But why didn't she study?  Maybe it was because mommy forces her to take 2 hour piano lessons every night.  Why does Mom do that, could she be trying to live vicariously through her child because she failed to meet her own personal goals.  Why did Mom not meet her perceived goals?  Maybe she failed too many fucking math tests lol. 

My point is that all cause and effect can theoretically be traced back to the Big Bang (perhaps even further than that.  Imo choice is an illusion that is perpetuated by the fact that we couldn't possibly perceive all the variables involved in the equation. 

That being said I have no problem correcting what's wrong or evil.  Sometimes the best way to do that is to just watch it die.

Yep, even when it comes to making a decision, in the end its just a bunch of electrical impulses organised in the brain over a certain nerve pathway.  The pathways are shaped somewhat by what you've experienced in the past, and decision making parts of the forebrain are then thought to guide your subsequent actions, based on the stronger connections.  Its how subtle advertising when you're not acutely aware of it (Derren Brown style) suckers us all at some point.

You were only ever going to make that one choice you did years ago - and no matter how much you think about the other possibilities back then, if you lived that time again, you would make the same decisions. 

So as you say, everything that has gone by was always going to be that way from the very beginning.  Theres a sense of fate there which is common to Islam too. 

The sense of freewill only comes from the fact that right now, from our perspective, when we're faced with a number of options next week, shall I or shan't I sleep with the bosses hot daughter - we feel like we've got the choice.  And that choice feels like ours, just like our hand feels like ours only because its attached to our body.  But in the end, you'll only ever make the one choice.

Loco - I said I didn't want to even imagine it let alone see it!

Are you sure you had them cut out? It would break open the stitches if you did that and you'd be eating more blood than burger.

I had to chew with my front teeth. Hell, I even ate chips the day after the surgery and I didn't get dry socket, or whatever its called. I had a cousin who got dry socket and said his gums got infected. Doesn't sound pleasant.

Agent Ghost


I contradicted myself, sort of.  I don't believe in choice so I don't like when people place blame on others.  You ever notice how blame is always very shallow.

Agent, you say you don't believe in blame? In my opinion, denial of free will or moral responsibility does not logically entail denial of blame/punishment. As a determinist, I believe people are "causal fields" - ie they are subject to cause and effect based on the variables of their environ/condition. By blaming or punishing someone, we are setting about a change in their causal field, and it is no longer the same as it was before. Additionally, if an individual knows of someone who was punished for certain actions, this also brings about a change in their causal field vicariously. Many determinists like to think that because everything is caused, blame/punishment is pointless. This is not the case.

choupolo

You were only ever going to make that one choice you did years ago - and no matter how much you think about the other possibilities back then, if you lived that time again, you would make the same decisions. 

So as you say, everything that has gone by was always going to be that way from the very beginning.  Theres a sense of fate there which is common to Islam too.

Determinism should never be confused with fatalism or perfect predictability. If you could indeed go back in time, and had the same memories as you do now, your causal field would be different and hence you may settle on a different choice.

Many determinists like to think that because everything is caused, blame/punishment is pointless. This is not the case.

Yep like saying that whatever will happen will happen, then sitting on your arse not doing anything.  What you do still makes a difference, its just that you were always going to do that. 

Determinism should never be confused with fatalism or perfect predictability. If you could indeed go back in time, and had the same memories as you do now, your causal field would be different and hence you may settle on a different choice.

Sure if you went back with knowledge of your decision's outcome, of course you may choose differently.  I'm saying that the circumstances and memories you had back then would have always been that way - so if it happened again you would have made the same choice.

So then I'm not seeing how determinism is different to fatalism?

I would love to time travel - I would go back and kill the other me, just to see what happens.

choupolo

Sure if you went back with knowledge of your decision's outcome, of course you may choose differently.  I'm saying that the circumstances and memories you had back then would have always been that way - so if it happened again you would have made the same choice.

I agree with what you say there. My comment about fatalism and perfect predictability was directed to your comment of:

So as you say, everything that has gone by was always going to be that way from the very beginning.  Theres a sense of fate there which is common to Islam too.

This statement seemed a little too sweeping and read a lot like something a fatalist would say. Saying that everything that has gone by was going to be that way from the beginning suggests that there is a pattern or unavoidable path that everything will travel down. The variables in the universe are infinite in number and no one path is predetermined.

However, I may have misunderstood what you were trying to say.

Uhuh, I was actually trying to say that.  Although the variables in our universe are vast and unmeasureable (making it unpredictable), I dont believe they are infinite or that there is any element of randomness.  

So if the principles of determinism apply to every moment - there could only be a single possible path from the beginning.

Dyu mean to say that if you started the universe again from the Big Bang in exactly the same circumstances, you dont think we would have ended up here talking about this today?  What in determinism would have interfered?

I dont understand how determinism doesn't equate to predetermination.  Am I being dumb? :s

From my understanding, determinism does not mean predeterminism.

Determinism asserts that all effects have a cause.

Predeterminism is a religious concept. To decide something in advance. Has an intentional connotation.

Urgh. My brain hurts  However, I think we're on the same page. I'm just being thrown by the semantics of predeterminism and when you said "it was always going to be". Determinism has no underlying goals or purpose. It's just cause and effect. As I said before, I think I misunderstood what you were trying to say.

In my opinion, determinism is an poor name to call this ontological viewpoint, as it can result in a lot of misinterpretation by definition. Cause-ism is much better IMO

edit: spelling/thought organising.

Agent, you say you don't believe in blame? In my opinion, denial of free will or moral responsibility does not logically entail denial of blame/punishment. As a determinist, I believe people are "causal fields" - ie they are subject to cause and effect based on the variables of their environ/condition. By blaming or punishing someone, we are setting about a change in their causal field, and it is no longer the same as it was before. Additionally, if an individual knows of someone who was punished for certain actions, this also brings about a change in their causal field vicariously. Many determinists like to think that because everything is caused, blame/punishment is pointless. This is not the case.

Where does choice fit into this though?  I understand the effects of punishment.  All we're doing is giving a different name for the same process that occurs with everything.  It's the carrot and the stick, everything will always tend for the carrot, even if we make the wrong choice and receive the stick.  We feel the need to punish someone for the same reason we feel the need to do anything, it's necessity.  The so called choices we make works based on always heading for the carrot. 

Even if I literally have a stick in one hand and a carrot in the other I can even hit myself with the stick.  If I get a sturdy enough stick and get a good swing I can probably crack my own skull.  Objectively speaking, if you're shallow in the variables you consider.  You might say well this is proof of choice.  I don't like carrots so lets say I was holding a bottle of beer instead.  On the surface the bottle of beer is more compelling than hitting myself with a club.  But you still have to consider why would I choose the club, if I chose the club it would only be because something is more compelling than the beer.  Maybe I wanted to prove a point, maybe I'm a masochist, maybe I like to shock people.  Everything will take the shortest path, even when it's not the shortest path it's more compelling for some reason.  Math never changes.

We're on the same page I just take it one step further.  Like I said nothing is isolated.  You say individuals have causal fields,  I say the entire universe is one causal field.  Look at the US or any democracy.  They just voted for a black president.  Last year, I laughed at the possibility.  I believed that a black president would not be compelling to most Americans.  Almost half the population voted for McCain but with all the variables considered Obama won.  McCain never stood a chance.  Everything had influence because nothing is isolated, otherwise it would be nothing.  Solar flares influenced the election, I don't know how but they did.  The sun is a huge influence on us.  We should call ourselves the Sun people.  I wonder how many people didn't vote cuase it was raining?  A zit on a T-Rex's ass had influence on the election.  Everything is related, it's a 4 dimensional web of cause and effect.  It's already woven, we're just travelling through.

I recognize that everything is both a cause and an effect.  So in this sense people deserve blame for being the cause of a bad effect.  However i don't believe it was in their power to be any other way.  Also it's pointless to label anything as bad or good as we couldn't possibly measure all the consequences of an action.  A bad action can have extremely positive results long term and vice versa.  I don't believe in choice.  When I look at the spacetime continuum I visualize everything as one big explosion.  We're just pieces of carbon from the explosion.  We kid ourselves into thinking anything we do is important.  Whatever we do, the ultimate outcome is the same regardless.

You don't have to imagine it. Just google "kids in a sandbox".

Yeah. Catheters feel like that. Although, it wasn't all bad...

...I got to watch Mythbusters as they did it.