>shows that the Self is an illusion
>Disproves free will
>Solves the is-ought gap
Let's talk about the most relevant philosopher of the last 20 years
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>shows that the Self is an illusion. >Disproves free will. >Solves the is-ought gap
>Solves the is-ought gap
lol
Refute him then
Look in the archive. This is an old discussion.
You can't, got it
>it's really simple see
>there are things that suck and things that don't so--
>THIS IS OBJECTIVE! OBJECTIVE!
>so, we orient ourselves away from the suck toward the unsuck and--
>GO PUT YOUR HAND ON A FRICKING STOVE!
>as I was saying--
>TRUMP HAD TO LOSE! I DON'T CARE IF THE FBI COVERED UP THE BODIES OF MURDERED CHILDREN BEING FOUND IN HUNTER BIDEN'S BASEMENT!
>so yeah, I've solved the is-ought gap
he's right about trump
trump and his goons are anti-american scum, we don't live in a dictatorship nor should we
>his goons
LOL
I actually haven't read or listened to anything Sam Harris has said or done. I put him in the same category as Jordan Peterson or Yuval Harari - overhyped garbage that'll be forgotten about in a decade. With that said, if you can give me his best argument, and I believe it's a good argument, then I may be persuaded to give him a chance, but as it stands it seems like sensationalised doctrine (ironic given he's supposedly a le rational atheist).
Lol almost spat out my beer.
If you have free will, is it completely free and unpredictable, even to yourself? If so, then isn't it just random? If you have a personal will that pulls in particular directions, did you choose that will or is it a set of inclinations you find yourself in possession of? Harris makes the point that you don't actually author your thoughts or inclinations, they merely arise in your experience, and you no more author them than you do the words you are reading form my post right now.
I've already had this thought after reading about Young's double slit experiment and wondering if that's what free will is (i.e. random actions caused by quantum behaviour). If this is all Harris has to offer then I'm afraid he's pedaling 100 year old science at this point.
Pure projection.
Is all dump does yes
>alphabet agencies should cover up wrongdoing (e.g. the serial murder of children) in order to control the results of a democratic election
He has TDS.
This is correct tho, but only if the right does it, because the right is the correct side
No, it's only correct if I do it. You can be my VP but if you ever FRICKING QUESTION OR CONTRADICT ME AGAIN I'll have you executed.
false flag
living in a dictatorship would probably dignify you.
In your experience, there will be intrinsically unpleasant phenomena. There is no judgement required, certain experiences exist as unpleasant. To ask "ought you to avoid unpleasantness generally?" is nonsensical, life is characterized by avoiding unpleasantness (mark this closely, I mean generally, of course people choose the lesser of two unpleasantnesses frequently, but the eye is always to avoid some particularly intimidating unpleasantness). Let's try an example, if you wish to disprove me, you may seek out some minor unpleasantness and say "see? I have chosen unpleasantness for no reason and thus disproved you!" unfortunately, this would merely prove me right again, since you are seeking to avoid the unpleasantness of having to endure that I am right and you are wrong, so you chose a lesser unpleasantness.
People seek pleasant experiences. End of story. There is no room for objective oughts. At best you can argue that some actions will lead to preferable results for this or that person. But even that can’t be verified except by the person himself.
And that bridges the is-ought gap how exactly? have you even read Hume?
>In your experience, there will be intrinsically unpleasant phenomena.
This is a truism and accepting it doesn't mean I have to accept Harris. For example, Harris's argument does little to draw on the substance of such negative experience and simply labels it as bad (because it ought to be seen so). This doesn't solve the is/ought gap but rather sidesteps it in order to make an argument for an oversimplified egalitarian utilitarianism.
>"ought you to avoid unpleasantness generally?"
There are sadists who take pleasure in inflicting pain and even masochists who enjoy having pain inflicted on them. Basically, Harris has to make a hedonistic argument that weighs the social whole over any given individual. However, it's obvious that the tyranny of the majority has been a thing throughout history and benefiting a potentially corrupt majority could mean unjustly destroying an individual. You see such a perversion when Sam argues open democracy should be undermined and justice for murdered children should be ignored in order to hobble Donald Trump. Trump ought not to be president therefore what is must be rationalized in such a direction. Notice the sleight of hand now that the moral costs of going along with such a dictate have been brought up?
Harris's arguments are laughable. Stating that discomfort is something we seek to avoid is an obvious observation and doesn't address the nature of discomfort at all. Harris doesn't actually address the is/ought gap and shifts the weight of his argument onto this truism in order to put forward a grade school level egalitarian utilitarianism that's rooted in a simplistic hedonism. We see such fall apart when it comes to something like the example of trying to justify the subversion of democracy by actively denying justice to those harmed (i.e. this is an overtly perverted rationale) in order to secure a political outcome Sam believes, possibly wrongly, is necessary. He's an idiot, anon.
I think the point is that whatever you are arguing in favor of, you do so because you believe it to be the best thing. How is it that you measure this? It must be along some kind of utilitarian lines, maximizing some good, otherwise you risk increasing misery for no positive return, which I think is a decent definition of evil. To observe that words have definitions which map on to reality cannot be hand waved away as a "truism", because it is mapping on to objective experience.
Let's take the example you indicated regarding sadists and masochists. Now, if seems plain that these types often DO seek each other out, particularly in regards sexual relations. On what grounds can we condemn them? I submit the only thing which you could reasonably point to is that some aspect of this relationship causes greater harm to one, both, or society, than the good that it produces in the temporary thrill of each party. Any other appeal is spurious. There is no "ought" which is separated from a reasonable assessment of the manifest experiences of human beings, and the whole enterprise of morality, society, and law is to negoticate these experiences in a way to maximize the general well being of all. All rights stem from this, and can be argued, not merely from some philosophical position on the primacy of the individual or any such thing, but rather, that any society which safeguards individual rights will cause prosperity and well being for all.
In short, it likely does boil down to a disagreement on what the word "ought" means to begin with.
>THE FBI COVERED UP THE BODIES OF MURDERED CHILDREN BEING FOUND IN HUNTER BIDEN'S BASEMENT
is this the new thing rightoids believe now that they can't pin anything on Biden?
It's what Sam Harris said when justifying the fact alphabet agencies and the MSM covered up the influence peddling scandal in order to control the outcome of an election.
Harris is my intellectual hero.
A israelite using a buddhism mask like Leatherface
He has serious Trump Derangement Syndrome.
>IF TRUMP IS ELECTED IN 2024 THEN AMERICANS WILL NEVER VOTR AGAIN
that the Self is an illusio-
retroactively refuted by Sri Shankaracharya (pbuh)
Explain how
It all depends what you mean by Self, the capitalization of the first letter is suggestive of the Upanishadic Atman. One can indeed argue that the relative self i.e. the egoistic-psychological identity is an illusion, but one cannot successfully argue the same of the Upanishadic Atman since Shankara explicated a correct understanding of it which is impervious to any refutation. You can take each and every argument ever made against Atmans by Buddha and by every Buddhist philosopher and writer who ever lived and they all fail to refute it. Sam Harris is known to be sympathetic to Advaita so I would assume he writes about the relative self being an illusion and not the Atman.
How do I get into Buddhism? At some point I thought I understood it but I'm really just the typical westerner who didn't get it at all. Is there even a chance to get any understanding by reading just a few books?
Listen to some Alan Watts. Even if your get nothing out of it, he's entertaining.
All his lectures are available in Sam's meditation app waking up
>Self is a highly polysemous word
WOOOOW
And Benj Hellie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertiginous_question
His sense of self and his will was so broken by one man, he completely invalidated himself and his efforts. Nobody will even take him seriously again.
Who broke him?
u know who
u think about him every day, u seethe endlessly about this one guy
>define definitions
>define the definitions you defined
>I think your definitions are subject to my interpretation
>hah! you've defined it wrong!
sam harris has never said or disputed anything worth interest, he's a mindless creature who exists only by his ability to be part of a conversation which never mattered but is talked about loudly.
>his ability to be part of a conversation which never mattered but is talked about loudly
Good line.
oh weary traveller, sit awhile and unload your burden; the fight you see, a glimmer. two appear as one, as the fight continues on, but no fight is this
Prove that free will exists right now
I choose not to.
what if you were predetermined to choose that
I would have chose differently.
but how could you know which one you were predetermined to choose? By this logic you could only have free will 50% of the time
>only have free will 50% of the time
So it exists then. Thanks for playing.
prove to me you are real. keep in mind any answer you give, I'll think you're a bot. yet I require a nebulous answer that I've already decided upon. this is pre-determined, after all
Atheists are fools.
>predetermined
>choose
Denying freewill is for dindunuffins.
>What use does it have?
None, it's useless, just like their man-made creation superstition.
>god is real and made me and has control of everything
>but he totally gave me free will trust me bro
ah yes the stupidest possible position
you took your time getting here
>freewill doesn't exist because I want to sodomize my neighbor without being held accountable for my choices
>I DINDU NUFFIN
Don't you have some BLM riot to attend, you dumb gay commie/pinko? It's an election year after all.
Who needs free will when I have a handy little martyr to die for all my sins
Jesus will just forgive me lol
It doesn't even work like that, read the Bible
>21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
>if there is a God, he'd totally think like me!
I'm interested in what other intellectual nuances you've gathered in you 12 years of living
Denying that there is no free will, only the will of God, is new age Christian nonsense
No matter how you reason it (you) have an input on what you're going to do next. You can cope by saying that it's all predetermined but that just leads you back to God, whom most free-will denialists don't believe in anyway, so ergo it exists.
you have the ILLUSION that you have an input on what you're going to do next. You're just jumping to a conclusion based on your own (highly fallible) perception.
And determinism is not a cope based in religion it is arguably the side that is backed more by science.
>you have the ILLUSION that you have an input on what you're going to do next.
Prove this without resorting to sophistry.
genetic heritage, place of birth, upbringing and experience; those are not choices
And a person can be entirely reduced to those specific circumstances and nothing else? Why does that necessarily mean that a person does not have an input on their decisions, that there is no will acting within them? If so, what then is the ultimate causer of all these causes, if not God?
Again, what is the foundational cause of everything if we assume an unbroken chain of causality in the universe?
And thus far determinists are saying that we should just assume we don't have free will because it feels like we don't.
>Again, what is the foundational cause of everything
Why are you assuming there must be one? Even St Thomas Aquinas admitted that a series of causes of the type we're talking about could at least in principle extend back through time infinitely (meaning that at least in principle it would be possible for the world to have always existed in some sense, he believed that I'm reality that wasn't the case because of the bible but admitted that there's no philosophical argument against the possibility of it)
>entirely reduced
say you're born with an iq of 60, are you defined by being moronic? or perhaps you'll forrest gump your way thru life and defy the limits set upon you? or you'll just drool on your chin and shit yourself, but hey, it's free will, right?
>determinists are saying that we should just assume we don't have free will because it feels like we don't.
I think most determinists would also say that it feels like we have free will
But that's exactly why you should be skeptical of it because your brain is designed to trick you into feeling a lot of things
It's just in reality there is more convincing evidence that the universe is indeed deterministic
>It's just in reality there is more convincing evidence that the universe is indeed deterministic
Determinists are such moronic morons. No. Science as a practice exists because of the Christian belief in determinism. And that belief was completely upended 100 years ago, and neo-Christians are still coping about it. Additionally, determinists don't address the halting problem; even if our fate is determined, that says nothing about whether it can be predicted.
>your brain is designed
Correct.
Place of birth? What are you going to start asking about star signs next?
very valid counterpoint, of course where and to whom you're born into is similar to tabloid astrology click bait.
Spoken like a true Aries
Because free will has to break from the principle of causality
If anybody could prove this either way well the whole issue would be solved wouldn't it.
You're basically saying "just assume you have free will because it feels like you do"
They can't. Fedoras/libtards don't believe in responsibility and they're ironically as close as it comes to not having free will.
Yes, it is indeed a choice. Often a self fulfilling prophecy.
So what you just said, that assertion itself must be an illusion.
Because I said so, prove that I'm wrong
stop talking as if you exist.
I’m not well-versed in philosophy at all but the argument against determinism that has always stuck with me is the fact that we can’t ‘know’ that the beliefs we have are true if we are determined to believe them. One of these beliefs is the belief in determinism, so therefore we can’t ‘know’ for sure that it is true. Also there’s an argument by a guy called Plantinga that is similar to this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_argument_against_naturalism
The most committed determinist I know in real life is a constantly depressed woe-is-me type and I find it pathetic to actually believe you have no agency at all. To me it’s in the same kind of category as solipsism; it seems self refuting.
>The most committed determinist I know in real life is a constantly depressed woe-is-me type and I find it pathetic to actually believe you have no agency at all. To me it’s in the same kind of category as solipsism; it seems self refuting.
Probably the most intelligent thing said in this entire thread
To me it’s the exact same thing as solipsism, only that solipsism has at least a sense of self at the very fundamental level.
You also can’t know if your beliefs are true if you just randomly select them or use magic “free will” to choose them. Our belief systems must survive. Our brains literally only exist as they are because they evolved over millions of years to interpret reality accurately. The problem is that modern society asks us to develop beliefs that were previously irrelevant for survival. Now people have opinions on everything: politics, ethics, religion, ethics, aliens, etc. How exactly do you test those beliefs? Well, you can’t. There’s no life-or-death test that will conclusively prove that lots of these beliefs are actually beneficial. And by the way, some beliefs may be useful for some time, but eventually become useless or even detrimental.
All of this makes perfect sense in a deterministic universe. There’s no need to posit some sort of willing force that “chooses” to believe things. How exactly do you choose what to believe anyway? Can you choose to believe that 2+2=5? No. All of your beliefs are decided by complex algorithms in the brain, but there is an illusion that “you” caused those beliefs. But if you can just choose beliefs willy nilly, then how is that better than determinism?
So it was determined that you would believe in determinism?
All beliefs were determined. The beliefs that last presumably last because they give an advantage. What is the advantage of determinism? On the individual level, it may not be so useful (yet). But scientific progress relies on a fundamental determinist assumption. That’s how we seek causes and try to understand phenomena. Imagine never trying to solve human issues and just blaming everything on free will. In fact, why even punish people? Why should we expect that a criminal will repeat the same actions in the future? If everything is just free will, then the last shouldn’t affect the future. Punishment only makes sense in a deterministic universe.
It depends on how you define “true.” For me, it’s synonymous with “that which helps you survive.” But what you’re getting at is that a belief may help a certain individual at a certain time, but not necessarily everyone else, or perhaps not in the future. And that’s true. Ancient humans believed a lot of things that we view as false, but it helped them survive in some way. A lot of our current beliefs may be viewed as false in the future. So what? That’s the nature of evolution. Beliefs can be thought of like a trait. They can be diverse and evolve over time depending on the environment.
>But scientific progress relies on a fundamental determinist assumption.
No?
>Imagine never trying to solve human issues and just blaming everything on free will
Imagine actually believing humans can meaningfully change and take responsibility for their actions.
>Why should we expect that a criminal will repeat the same actions in the future?
Now you are being silly. Why should you even expect that he would do that again even if the universe is deterministic? All it tells you is that this man was always going to kill this person but there is no contradiction in saying that this was the only person he would ever kill. So why punish him at all?
> All it tells you is that this man was always going to kill this person but there is no contradiction in saying that this was the only person he would ever kill. So why punish him at all?
The reward systems in his brain are not configured properly. Same reason we punish dogs. AI learns in a similar way. Also, punishment deters others from behaving badly. It affects their reward systems as well. This is pretty simple. Whereas if you believe in free will, then you have the problem of explaining why we actually punish people. You can’t unless you refer to determinism and psychological causal manipulation.
>The reward systems in his brain are not configured properly.
What "reward systems" are you talking about and where are they located in his brain? Who is this "he" we are speaking of?
>Same reason we punish dogs.
you kill your dog when he does something wrong? How can he learn if you kill him?
>Whereas if you believe in free will, then you have the problem of explaining why we actually punish people.
And what problem is that? We say that we should punish him because he bears responsibility. you cannot say that if determinism is the case because individuals are not causally potent.
> you kill your dog when he does something wrong? How can he learn if you kill him?
I refuse to waste time with someone as illogical as you. This is just embarrassing.
my man, you are a walking contradiction. You should be just fine with someone as illogical as me, considering you spend your entire life with yourself. Not that you actually exist, of course.
>The reward systems in his brain are not configured properly.
And why should we punish him for that? He didn't choose to be like this.
To attain preferable outcomes of course. So what if a dog can’t help that it shits j the floor? Is that a good reason to not punish it, and let it keep shitting in the floor? Jesus Christ, you people do not think
>So what if a dog can’t help that it shits j the floor?
what's the point of punishing it if it is hardwired to shit on the floor? It cannot really learn anything since knowledge isn't real according to you.
>To attain preferable outcomes of course
You can attain preferable outcomes whilst believing in free will. You can't really "attain" anything under determinism since "you" don't actually exist.
> what's the point of punishing it if it is hardwired to shit on the floor?
to influence its behavior so that it doesn’t do it in the future you fricking mongrel
>to influence its behavior so that it doesn’t do it in the future
How can you influence anything under determinism? You can easily do that under free will by saying that you choose to punish the dog and the dog has the capacity to make choices based on external stimuli. Ultimately, under free will, the source is the dog, under determinism, the source is whatever tickles the determinist the most.
Explain the contradiction of a universe that is completely deterministic while also having biological organisms that make decisions and have conscious experiences, and possibly even the illusion that their actions are not determined by physical and chemical reactions.
Easy. The universe is not completely deterministic, lol.
Yes, you should talk more like a machine about yourself and others for the rest of your life and not like an actual person to avoid contradiction.
I’m asking you to imagine a universe that is deterministic. What is the absolute limit of biological evolution that could occur in such a universe? Could bacteria exist? Worms? Fish? Rats? Birds? Dogs? Elephants? Chimps? Humans? Why is any of this impossible in a deterministic world? Supposing that our universe is not deterministic, why couldn’t there exist a deterministic universe that looks exactly like ours?
I have no idea what you are getting at. Anything is possible I suppose.
Are you asking me why I think decisions are impossible under determinism? It's because they are, you say so yourself. Decisions and experiences are just "illusions"
Now, do you think that a rock makes the decision to fall down when I drop it?
If a deterministic universe could lead to biological life, then you have no way of knowing if this universe is deterministic or if it’s the universe that has free will. That is, unless you think it’s IMPOSSIBLE for a deterministic universe to lead to intelligent humans who believe in the illusion of free will. Making decisions is simply a matter of doing whatever desire is greatest in the moment. For intelligent life, this can involve abstraction. But all of this could be deterministic.
The same exact thing can be said about an indeterministic universe. So how can you know that this universe doesn't have free will unless you explain how it is somehow IMPOSSIBLE for an indeterministic universe to exist. You are basically asking the skeptic question "is it possible that you are wrong?" with more unnecessary effort. Problem is, same can be asked about anything.
>Making decisions is simply a matter of doing whatever desire is greatest in the moment.
very vague and doesn't really say anything
Of course we can’t know if the universe is deterministic or not. The problem is that the deterministic universe makes much more sense. Free will is literally magic and gives us no explanatory or predictive power whatsoever. The society that embraces determinism will outcompete the society that does not. We will develop genetic engineering to the point that “sin” will be washed away not through free will, but through good genes. Do animals, or even humans, in the wild need redemption? No, they are adapted to their environment. Modern humans are not. That is why our algorithms “choose” so many bad choices. But go on believing in free will, and that someday someone will magically decide to actually use their free will, and do what’s best for them at all times. We’ve been waiting for thousands of years and this still hasn’t happened.
And that’s why I think this universe is deterministic, and why we would be better of believing that it is so.
>The problem is that the deterministic universe makes much more sense.
Not really, the problem is that determinists cannot decide on which specific material condition is the ultimate cause of some behavior, whether it's genes down to particles. Some, like you, will change between whatever tickles their fancy the most in the moment without ever realizing the massive leaps they are taking. If it's particles in the void, then genes are not the prime determinant, nor is it some vague marxist economic condition.
> Free will is literally magic and gives us no explanatory or predictive power whatsoever.
You've already said that we cannot really know whether the universe is deterministic or not so why complain about uncertainty or "magic"? Free will does not deny cause and effect. It claims that people possess free will which is the ability to choose what action to take. Under free will, choices have their sources in people. Under determinism, choices don't even exist! The language you are speaking is according to you pure nonsense.
>But go on believing in free will, and that someday someone will magically decide to actually use their free will, and do what’s best for them at all times. We’ve been waiting for thousands of years and this still hasn’t happened.
What on earth are you even talking about? You haven't even explained what doing "what's best" is. But of course, bad choices do not exist under determinism because choices do not exist. There is no meaning under determinism. People who think otherwise literally are too moronic to understand determinism.
Free will is not "magic" because ontological materialism is false and idealism is true, Subject can exist without Object but Object can't even be conceived of without Subject
>but hurr you can't describe Subject using objective qualities
by definition, Subject is pure Being
unfalsifiable nonsense. Imagine spewing that garbage in real life. I would be ashamed of myself.
Not "unfalsifiable", you don't seem to understand what "unfalsifiable" means. You can literally test it yourself.
>if Object without Subject is NOT inconceivable, you should be able to conceive an Object that exists without Subject
You obvs can't because you'd be a Subject thinking of such Object, whence
>Object without Subject is inconceivable
>How can you influence anything under determinism?
Changes in input to a deterministic system result in changes in output.
>Ancient humans believed a lot of things that we view as false, but it helped them survive in some way.
difference being that they actually believed those things whereas you only believe that those things are true if they "help you survive"
You are basically saying that knowledge is impossible (which is itself a knowledge claim) as everything we think and know is actually just some inexplicable predetermined programming.
Define knowledge. You can’t. It’s just something we label beliefs that we are really really really confident about. This isn’t a problem for me. All beliefs are survival strategies, including this one. End of story.
>Define knowledge. You can’t.
>proceeds to give his definition of knowledge
A shitty one, but still. Why pretend that determinism is true if you cannot even prove it by your own admission? It doesn't help you survive in any way. In fact, you live your life as if you exist and that you can make decisions.
You are not self-aware. Which I'm sure is fine considering you don't actually exist.
>You can’t
> proceeds to give his definition of knowledge
Keyword: “You.” My definition makes sense, and is always applicable. People say “I know” even when they aren’t absolutely certain of a thing. People “know” things that they later believe are false. So where is your definition? Or your definition of truth?
> Why pretend that determinism is true if you cannot even prove it by your own admission? It doesn't help you survive in any way
Like I said, determinism is at least valuable for science. Knowing how genes and environment cause behavior is extremely important. I myself will believe that my children will be greatly affected by the genes of the woman I choose, and how we raise them. The experiences and habits instilled in them will affect the rest of their lives. I will not expect them to just “free will” their way through life. That’s nonsense.
I think the problem in this thread is that we are all using different definitions of determinism. No advocate of free will can deny the importance of genetics and environment in regards to behaviour. However, he denies that the ‘individual’ has NO control over his behaviour, and his actions are fully determined.
>No advocate of free will can deny the importance of genetics and environment in regards to behaviour.
sure they can, if they are a libertarian. Nobody has ever found a way to prove definitively that genes or whatever material condition tickles your fancy determine behavior. It's a leap of faith. You are describing compatibilism or soft determinism.
A chess AI has “control” over the moves that it makes. But the algorithms are still deterministic. The same is true for humans. We just have a conscious sensation of causing actions (because the thought or feeling of doing something always precedes that action, so we associate the thought or feeling as the cause. But the thought or feeling itself arises due to complex algorithms in the brain.) No one arguing against free will is arguing that an individual does not make decisions, or that he only does what external influences want him to do. The crucial difference between determinists and those who believe in libertarian free will is that a determinist believes that we could theoretically create a human that is both genetically wired and conditioned by experience to make healthy decisions. Whereas a person who believes in free will ultimately will say “just use your free will bro lol”
>complex algorithms in the brain
wait, so is it algorithms that exist in the brain or is it the environment? Make up your mind.
>No one arguing against free will is arguing that an individual does not make decisions
but if determinism is true then individuals cannot make decisions. It's like saying the rock made the decision to fall down the slope when I dropped it.
>Whereas a person who believes in free will ultimately will say “just use your free will bro lol”
No, a person who believes in free will believes that people can gain knowledge and improve themselves and have the capacity to choose right and wrong.
Does a chess engine have free will?
>Does a chess engine have free will?
I don't think so because it doesn't have a mind. Also, does the rock make a decision to fall when I drop it. I could metaphorically say that it did, but that doesn't mean that it really did make a literal decision to move towards the earth when I let it go
>My definition makes sense, and is always applicable.
Not really as it implies flat-earthers possess knowledge.
>So where is your definition?
probably in the dictionary.
>determinism is at least valuable for science.
not necessarily. It certainly doesn't seem to hold much ground in quantum physics. Even so, you could subscribe to Berkeleyan idealism, which posits that only minds can cause things, and it wouldn't affect your view of science in any practical way.
>Knowing how genes and environment cause behavior is extremely important.
problem is that it never seems to get to any fundamental reduction and no one can seem to agree which one it is.
>I will not expect them to just “free will” their way through life.
that's to bad. Because I will. Seems better than to believe that everything I say when I talk about "myself" or "others" and decision is pure nonsense and yet I still can't seem to talk like this. Seems more like the case where you don't actually believe in determinism in any serious sense, you just say you do and yet your intuition seems to tell you otherwise.
A belief does not necessarily have to be true in order to be beneficial to survival.
the Bible says we do
All proof is impossible. This is infantile epistemology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma.
Anyone who does not recognize this is just a larping, religious nut.
"Proof" to who? If you think, you prove your existence to yourself. Therefore, one proof is possible.
What am I supposed to do with the knowledge that the self is an illusion and that free will is not real? How is a person expected to react or act based on this information? What use does it have?
He only attacks free will because it’s s Christian thing.
Bingo!
A Christian thing to attack free will? Christianity has been wrapped up in determinism for a long, long time. Harris attacks it because he, like other uneducated pseuds such as Dawkins or Sagan, doesn't realize he's perpetuating Western Christian thought in its final form. No free will, a mechanistic universe, and an invisible-omnipresent god are mainstream Christianity.
Not necessarily. Aquinas was a compatibilitist, which is mostly free will only limited by a creator. Free will exists within reason.
Christianity is a religion of freedom. But it's a religion focused on reflexive freedom, freedom from being ruled over by desire, instinct, circumstance, and passion. One is no longer internally decided, a slave to sin and desire, but is reborn in the Logos, actualizing one's deeper, inner desire for what is truly good.
Christianity was always a compatibalist religion. Determinism isn't incompatible with freedom. Leibniz developed the principle of sufficient reason in a defense of free will. For an act to be free, to be truly ours, we have to have reasons that we understand for acting the way we do. This entails that our actions are determined by the world and that acts have determinate effects.
An act caused by nothing that existed prior to it isn't "free," it is just arbitrary. The idea is to be self-determining, not undetermined.
There is no problem here with science. Physics is deterministic. There is poor evidence that is is reductive and smallest. Indeed, "fundemental" particles are less fundemental than universal fields. But if we aren't reducible to mindless blobs of stuff, of epiphenomenalism is false, which it almost certainly is, then we can be relatively more or less self-determining, exactly the sort of freedom Christians care about. Freedom to do the Good, to become good people and live for God.
>Inb4 some tiny minority position like Calvinism is brought up as if that is representative.
There are like 2 billion Catholics, Orthodox, Orientals, Coptics, etc. Reformed are a small and declining minority and don't represent most of the history.
>How is a person expected to react or act
That's the cool part
You don't
You're supposed to subscribe to his meditation app and learn how that actually can end all your mental suffering
for a monthly payment of $9.99, who could resist!? he's a scientist ™
The illusion of self implies open individualism which means you should be good to others. The lack of free will means the causes of our actions depend on genetics and environment, which should make us more concerned with eugenics, genetic engineering, and behavioral conditioning.
>the causes of our actions depend on genetics and environment
And who invented genetics and the environment, moron? homies really think picrel is the most plausible explanation instead of the soul.
there is no definitive proof that motor proteins mechanicaly walk along the filaments, yet it is the only model shown in molecular biology animations. It is the "humans and bananas have 60% DNA in common" of late 10s and early 20s of 21st century
>The illusion of self implies open individualism which means you should be good to others
how? there are no "others"
>The lack of free will means the causes of our actions depend on genetics and environment, which should make us more concerned with eugenics, genetic engineering, and behavioral conditioning.
we shouldn't do anything because free will does not exist. You have no power. Now you are going to do some moronic compatibilist bullshit
It's more likely that free will is an emergence phenomena than it is an illusion.
emerging from what?
Deez nuts
Extremely complex physical processes that are so alien to our current understanding that it's reasonable to posit the language we'll eventually use to describe them will sound nothing like our current formulations as they relate to materialism.
Atheism is for anti-intellectuals. They say the most moronic things then get offended and shocked when people don't agree with them.
What difference does it make if you have free will or not?
You can only act as if you had one, anyway.
caste systems exist throughout the world; belief or defiance of those creations are integral to who you are. disbelief alone doesn't make them go away.
you get to not take responsibility for your choices and actions. very handy.
Atheists wear women's clothing and chop off their wieners.
'Nuff said.
I don't understand how someone can simultaneously be a determinist and have meltdowns over politics and society. By his own logic, the world is exactly the one way it can possibly be, so might as well lean back and make peace with it. Unless he enjoys his own anger so much that he justifies it by pretending he's determined to be angry.
Deep down, he thinks that he's such a smart boy that he is above it all. In reality he's just rich because his mom created The Golden Girls.
All of this is refuted by him being israeli, since the days of Spinoza israelites have a innate contempt for metaphysical libertarianism they enjoy foisting on the rest of the population through passive aggressive nepotism
He also solved palestine, is there anything this man can't do?
There is this trend saying that lack of free will means no responsibility, but that's not the only way of seeing it. It's still your will, you aren't causa sui but it's still who you are, you just *are* either a sheep or a goat. There is another expression, being "rotten to the core", determinism doesn't get rid of this notion.
>There is another expression, being "rotten to the core", determinism doesn't get rid of this notion.
What do you mean by this? I don't understand.
Not sure where anon is coming from, but from a hyper Calvinist perspective, free will doesn’t exist and God can damn individuals to hell because of total depravity—where every thought and motive is wicked. Doesn’t matter that people didn’t choose to be wicked, they still are. It’s like a wienerroach being unable to comprehend that it’s gross and a pest, but from the homeowner’s perspective it deserves to be squished.
Basically this but I think it also works without theism.
If you murder someone, let's say, then you have the brain of a murderer, you have the body of a murderer, you have the genes of a murderer, everything about you is a murderer.
Some people probably only identify with the voice in their head and the body and its impulses pull that conscious voice in one direction or the other but one could argue that your physical self is much more real than any fleeting voice or self image.
In the words of Žižek: 'When people ask me why I am for the death penalty, well it's because Sam Harris is alive.'
Where is the mechanistic explanation that we have free will? Seems like a pretty open and shut case unless we get new evidence.
Trying to even describe how we could be the authors of our conscious thoughts will stump people - for a good reason.
It's funny that we think we are free decision making agents for some thoughts, but happily enjoy the cognitive dissonance of our brain micromanaging hundreds of decisions (e.g. breathing, swallowing, blinking) without us even noticing it the majority of the time.
The most effective way to prove Free Will is simply to ignore the haters
these two chuds wore the same outfit
The suits aren't even close to being the same cut or having the same texture, pleb.
Looks the same to me
Hence my pointing out you're a pleb.
Nah, you are a snob actually
I'm not the one judging people on their outfits. I'm judging you.
Hence a snob
When you're a pleb I'll bet everyone seems like a snob. Anyway, it's far more snobbish to judge someone based on how they're dressed.
How did I judge anyone?
It's obvious from your post but we could get into whether or not you were subconsciously grouping them together because your political beliefs lead you to otherize people. Not saying it's necessarily the case, only you can truly meaningfully reflect on such a thing, but I can see how grouping together chuds lessens cognitive load.
Hegel had already solved the is-ought gap.
The gap only exists in outmoded substance metaphysics where everything is reducible to mindless purposeless "balls of stuff," anyhow. Reductionism and smallism are bankrupt though. If intentionality can emerge through something like "strong emergence," then the concept of "good" that comes with it can too.
Positivism was always moronic. Nominalism is also dumb. Plato already had us on the right track, and then we decided we should try to remake the world in the mold of bits Lego like stuff smashed together, which was never a well supported idea, and now seems downright falsified.
>I support Israel because before I'm anything, I'm a israelite
Frick this butthole
Ctrl+f israelite
Ctrl+f israelite
Ctrl+f zionist
Ctrl+f israel
Ctrl+f idf
Ctrl+f adl
Ctrl+f antidefemation
TKD
I think people who earnestly believe and bother to defend free will must have some weird insecure attachment to it.
>free will
kek, meant to say determinism. Goodnight anons.
All of the particles of matter and all of the energy in the universe from the beginning of time knocked around together in cataclysmically complex ways over vast oceans of time to get to the moment where you would condemn free will through a Freudian slip. Determinism doesn't need defenders when you witness something like that lol
>Determinism doesn't need defenders
then stop defending it, lol. Go about your live and pretend that you don't have free will
No need to pretend, also every action occurs just as it was always going to occur. Your reaction to this very post will come to exist just how it was always going to come to exist, you are helpless but to read the words and feel what comes, just as I am helpless but to type them and post them.
Time for bed
>oy vey
he refuses to admit he was wrong about SBF
>israelite too moronic to understand the difference between what heppens in his mind and what happens in extension
>too arrogant to just shut up
the problem of handing out credentials to midwits
>self is an illusion
Okay, why am I(the universe) experiencing life through only this lens? Because uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...
>yeah, free will is just an illusion that I experience
You do not experience any any specific phenomena of "free will" hence "free will" is not an "illusion"
>shows that the Self is an illusion
>Disproves free will
Stalin's existence completely obliterates his thought.
Stalin was a completely sovereign individual of a freedom of will never before seen. He could do whatever he wanted and feel good about himself yet had self control. He was bound by nothing.
Stalin was a being of utmost self and this homosexual is a shadow in the cave.
Based and truly "Red" pilled. Stalin was a Hercules of the will, a giant. Mao was very based too. They still make capitalists and their willing slaves absolutely SEETHE.
The greatest thing about Stalin is he didn't give a frick abut communism or Marxism or Christianity or any bullshit ideology. He just did what he wanted.
He's the ubermensch Nietzsche predicted. Complete master morality with almost no weaknesses. He's the zenith.
Mao was similarly based tbh.
Mao was more like Hitler. He was ideological and a bit stupid.
Everything about how Stalin acted, how he got to power, and his life before, is different. He wasn't bound by duty or really had any goal.
He simply had master morality, iron nuts, what Heidegger would call anticipatory resoluteness, and an ability to out manoeuvre everyone.
He liked Mozart too and that completes it for me.
cringe
If he could do whatever he wanted why didn't just get up instead of having a heart attack and dying on the floor?
to say there's something else beside "the worse posisble outcome for everyone is bad" is to simply not understand english
this is the same as saying "well, why should "should" mean the way you think it is?" I think should means differently
If "bad" ever means anything, it means "worst possible outcome for everyone"
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He's a israelite.
His mother got rich from the golden girls.
Sam has never worked a day in his life.