News:

In case of downtime/other tech emergencies, you can relatively quickly get in touch with Asmodean Prime by email.

Main Menu

neither free will nor predestination exist.

Started by Torlin, January 09, 2007, 10:14:39 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Kestrel

#15
Thanks Mastriani,
However, you didn't answer the thrust of my inquiry.
I'll rephrase;

Not only am I interested in how you reconcile the red, with the yellow, I would very much like to know how you account for making any judgment at all, positive or[/b] negative, when it is your position that people do not have free will and choose nothing?
The thing that I call living is just being satisfied, with knowing I've got no one left to blame. - Gordon Lightfoot

Mastriani

#16
Kestrel,

Essential problem with the proposed inquiry: judgment

Judgment means that any valuation is predicated upon a moral or ethical construct or other authoritative subjective, (i.e. lawful).  I have no such proclivities.

What is being expressed is instinctual valuation.  It is part and parcel of the "fight or flight" instinct.  Determination/discernment of any situation is paramount to survival.  Everything in environmental instance must be qualitatively assessed for fitness.  Example: you are hungry, you go to the fridge, pick up a food item, it has an awful smell : you don't eat it because you are suddenly overwhelmed by a sensation of nauseum. Was it your "decision" not to eat it?

Summarily, no.  It did not pass the valuation of fitness for comsumption because genetically we are inclined to test our environment, just as a caution, as it aids our ability to survive for ensuring procreation.  The food item in the example, has a negative valuation, as the smell is associated with something in historical information from genetics signaling danger.

Although in the hominid sphere, the inclusion of linguistics appears to cloud the issue, it only adds complexity.  The end result is the same.  We valuate for fitness, not as a choice, but as a matter of genetic history and survivability.  Hence, you do not ingest the food item, as your body recalls that nauseum prevents anything from going into the piehole.

There are many other spheres this discourse can and do fall into, but discertation is not particularly on my mind.  I'm certain you understand what I have stated here.
Praedatorious culminis; hominis necis


Kestrel

#17
Quote from: "Mastriani"Kestrel,
 What is being expressed is instinctual valuation.

Thank you.
That covers the blue.

And the "red" parts?
The thing that I call living is just being satisfied, with knowing I've got no one left to blame. - Gordon Lightfoot

Mastriani

#18
LOL, curious fellow aren't you?

As I stated, it is sarcasm, which is a linguistic expression of dominance.  Myself being an alpha specimen, it is natural for me to express such, in this case, through the only medium possbile; linguistic liberty.

In person, it would be a "bearing of weapons" sequence in the physical posturing.
Praedatorious culminis; hominis necis


Kestrel

#19
Quote from: "Mastriani"As I stated, it is sarcasm, which is a linguistic expression of dominance.  Myself being an alpha specimen, it is natural for me to express such, in this case, through the only medium possbile; linguistic liberty.

Were you to have forgone the sarcasm in your reply to donkeyhoty, how would you have worded your reply to his post?

Thank you for indulging me.
The thing that I call living is just being satisfied, with knowing I've got no one left to blame. - Gordon Lightfoot

donkeyhoty

#20
Matriani, you missed the point of my post completely, and the ideas of free will vs. determinism.  The reason these ideas are of such interest is because we have yet to figure out the exact workings of the universe.  This allows for the continuation of the argument ad infinitum, or at least until the Theory of Everything becomes gospel.  Regardless of, "Whatever imaginative construct you choose to use to make yourself feel important/necessary/useful" i.e.
Quote from: "Mastriani"Myself being an alpha specimen


Quote from: "Mastriani"The rest of that, barely qualifies for rhetoric, more along the lines of useless digital inanity. It's pixel punishment without due cause.
Argumentum ad hominem, and a red herring.  You chose not to answer the questions, because you either had a predetermined fight/flight response(determinism), or you chose not because of free will, or even because they have no good answer(rhetorical question).

It is also considered, "rather broadly really." that free will and determinism may coexist or not exist at all.

Quote from: "Mastriani"Nice argumentum ad hominem, historia indentidem ad infinitum, and yes I will continue, unabated. We are a hominid, a primate with overamplified traits. Welcome to reality.
Red herring.

Quote from: "Mastriani"As far as the blue comments, no, they are not "direct judgment", as there is no use of possessive pronouns which would indicate such position, linguistically or cerebrally. But, again, lack of inflection makes it easy to understand how you draw that into context. The commentary was against the post itself. Which is inherently devoid of personhood.
Of course, when the first word of your post directs it, personally, you need not add personal pronouns.  Unless you were being facetious in recognizing your ad hominem attacks.  (latin used sarcastially)


Quote from: "Mastriani"Was it your "decision" not to eat it?
Actually yes, it was your decision, but a decision has nothing to do with free will vs. determinism.  It is how that decision comes about, you are obviously of the determinism camp, and I am of the "agnostic" camp.

As you state there are many roads this discussion can take, hence the reason that free will vs. determinism, as well as whether they are compatible or not, can continue ad infinitum for us hominids.
"Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."  - Pat Robertson

Mastriani

#21
Allow me to elucidate for you donkeyhoty, as you are oblivious to what argumentum ad hominem actually is, and for the second time, you utterly misrepresent the obvious and easily provable.

To wit:
An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the person", "argument against the man") consists of replying to an argument by attacking or appealing to the person making the argument, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument. It is most commonly used to refer specifically to the ad hominem abusive, or argumentum ad personam, which consists of criticizing or personally attacking an argument's proponent in an attempt to discredit that argument.

Quote from: "donkeyhoty"
Quote from: "Mastriani"Anyone who studies genetics, theories of consciousness and cognition, will invariably find that the age old philosophical conundrum of "free will" is just another imaginative construct.
And the philosopher or anyone that studies philosophy would say, "Balderdash!"

warning: semi-rhetorical questions ahead

What if your closely held theories of consciousness and cognition turn out to be wrong?

Do you choose to overuse the word hominid, or is it just hard wired into your brain?
Here is an attempt to directly discredit the argument by attacking me, indicated by use of the pronoun " you " and taking issue with a word use that has nothing to do with my proposed position.
Did you choose to join the forum and make posts, or was the decision already made before you discovered said forum?
Again here.
And since you use homind in almost all of your posts, we should expect it in future posts.  Also, we can't blame you for its overuse, nor praise you for never using it again, since you were going to use it anyway, or stop using it if indeed you do stop.
And yet again here.
Thusly, you shouldn't blame G-dub and company for being morons and fucking everything up, it was without their permission that such events occured.  But since you already think them worthless, it stands to reason that you will continue to do so, because, of course, you have no choice in the matter.  Nor do I in writing this post.
And yet again here for the grand finale.

We're done here.
Praedatorious culminis; hominis necis


Mastriani

#22
Quote from: "Kestrel"
Quote from: "Mastriani"As I stated, it is sarcasm, which is a linguistic expression of dominance.  Myself being an alpha specimen, it is natural for me to express such, in this case, through the only medium possbile; linguistic liberty.

Were you to have forgone the sarcasm in your reply to donkeyhoty, how would you have worded your reply to his post?

Thank you for indulging me.

This one fails to be understandable as to its intended purpose of inquiry.

What exactly are you attempting to get me to justify?  That my position is not favorable towards others perspective?  If so, we can make it short:  it isn't, and won't ever be.
Praedatorious culminis; hominis necis


donkeyhoty

#23
Mastriani, you're doing the same thing, but you fail to recognize it.  In my case it was done purposely to elucidate the fallacy of your contentions.  

You have no good evidence, and fail to respond to the ideas proposed.  That's a red herring.  Your attempt to confuse the discussions at hand was handled well by Kestrel.  Try and actually respond to the questions posed by Kestrel or myself instead of attempting to sound intelligent and deflect the discussion. (purposeful personal attack)

If that's all you want to do then yes we're done here, that's about the most intelligent thing you've stated. (another purposeful personal attack)
"Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."  - Pat Robertson

Kestrel

#24
Quote from: "Mastriani"This one fails to be understandable as to its intended purpose of inquiry.
I understand.
I'm banking that one who can implement linguistic liberty, can also demonstrate linguistic discipline.

If you would be so kind.

QuoteWhat exactly are you attempting to get me to justify?  That my position is not favorable towards others perspective?  If so, we can make it short:  it isn't, and won't ever be.
Justify?
Absolutely nothing.

You've made your justification perfectly clear.
The thing that I call living is just being satisfied, with knowing I've got no one left to blame. - Gordon Lightfoot

Mastriani

#25
Quote from: "donkeyhoty"Mastriani, you're doing the same thing, but you fail to recognize it.  In my case it was done purposely to elucidate the fallacy of your contentions.  

You have no good evidence, and fail to respond to the ideas proposed.  That's a red herring.  Your attempt to confuse the discussions at hand was handled well by Kestrel.  Try and actually respond to the questions posed by Kestrel or myself instead of attempting to sound intelligent and deflect the discussion. (purposeful personal attack)

If that's all you want to do then yes we're done here, that's about the most intelligent thing you've stated. (another purposeful personal attack)

Testimony of one who does not understand argumentum ad hominem.

In order for me to be exercising ad hominem against you there is a requisite condition that states that you must have presented either an argumentative proposition or a counter proposition.  As there is no extant propostion to be found from your perspective, your straw man contention is dismissed.

In my first post in this thread, I presented the empirical fact that there are known conditions of reflexive/autonomous behavior from the mirror neurons.  This is one part of denouncement of the "free will" argument, as utter fallacy.  Add to this the empirical fact of the cytoskeletal structure of cell membranes being comprised of tubulin, the same material responsible for thought process creation in the hominid brain, it further denounces the possibility of "free will".  We are confined on both the biochemical and the cellular level.  No further evidence is required to dissolve that illusion of fancy.

As far as the "determinism" aspect, that is pure hyperbolic conjecture.  The simplest denunciation is logic: in order for "determinism" to be an actual process, the exigency of an objective observer, with a direct point of view perspective on all situations, yet outside the first person affectee, that has the capacity to act as the agent of cause for "determinism", must be met.  Since no such entity has been shown to be in evidence, it is also dismissed.

As far as responding to "ideas", it is without good purpose, when they are constructed of unsupportable imagination, and empirical evidence is already present to counter those illusions.  It would be much the same as playing "fetch" with an imaginary canine.
Praedatorious culminis; hominis necis


donkeyhoty

#26
Mast, this much is clear, you have no idea how to identify irony or sarcasm.  Also, your empirical evidence is conjecture.  Do these things actually debunk free will, or do you just contend that they do?  You are using the same false logic as intelligent design proponents.  Just because you think reflexive actions make free will a fallacy does not make it so.
Quote from: "Mastriani"No further evidence is required to dissolve that illusion of fancy.
Yes there is.  You have mentioned evidence of reflexive/autonomous actions.  This does not demonstrate that all actions are reflexive, nor does it take into account the control we can excercise over some of the body's reflexive actions, i.e. breathing(albeit, temporarily).  Nor, do you allow for the debunking of the empirical evidence by some future evidence to the contrary.

Quote from: "Mastriani"The simplest denunciation is logic: in order for "determinism" to be an actual process, the exigency of an objective observer, with a direct point of view perspective on all situations, yet outside the first person affectee, that has the capacity to act as the agent of cause for "determinism", must be met. Since no such entity has been shown to be in evidence, it is also dismissed.
Really?  You just solved one of history's most interesting philosophical questions.
And, you used faulty logic in your refutation of determinism.  You are assuming that you already know that which is unknown, the exact state of the universe.

Your understanding of empirical knowledge in philosophy is telling.  Let me give you a simple defintion of Fallibilism: since any empirical knowledge may be revised by further observation, any of the things we take as true may turn out to be false.

Moreover, you are far too reliant on empirical evidence in a discussion that is rooted in metaphysics.  

Quote from: "Mastriani"In order for me to be exercising ad hominem against you there is a requisite condition that states that you must have presented either an argumentative proposition or a counter proposition. As there is no extant propostion to be found from your perspective, your straw man contention is dismissed.
First off, you are identifying ad hominem attacks incorrectly.  An ad hominem attack by me would have been, "Mastriani overuses hominid in an attempt to identify himself as intellectual.  Overuse of a word is not intellectual.  Therfore, Mast's beliefs about mirror neurons are fallacious."  Identifying ideas and statements with a certain person has nothing to do with ad hominem.  I would have to make the claim that what you believe was false because of a personal trait, which I did not do, as I will illuminate later.  Although, you did use ad hominem in your attempted refutation.  This you accomplished by not recognizing what I was doing, and criticizing me for what you did not recognize.  Ever hear of the socratic method?
Quote from: "I"What if your closely held theories of consciousness and cognition turn out to be wrong?
This is a counter propostion that you have yet to answer.

Quote from: "I"Do you choose to overuse the word hominid, or is it just hard wired into your brain?, and Did you choose to join the forum and make posts, or was the decision already made before you discovered said forum?
Sarcastic, designed to see if you adhere to determinism, and if not, then what do you adhere to.  The so-called ad hominem attack is not because the contention of you overusing hominid has nothing to do with the question, it is only a hypothetical, personal example expressed to elicit a specific response.

Quote from: "I"And since you use homind in almost all of your posts, we should expect it in future posts. Also, we can't blame you for its overuse, nor praise you for never using it again, since you were going to use it anyway, or stop using it if indeed you do stop.

Thusly, you shouldn't blame G-dub and company for being morons and fucking everything up, it was without their permission that such events occured. But since you already think them worthless, it stands to reason that you will continue to do so, because, of course, you have no choice in the matter. Nor do I in writing this post.
Ironic, demonstrating problems with the deterministic position.  Once again, personal examples are used purposely to demonstrate the problems with free will vs. determinism.  Not once does it state, determinism is bunk because Mastriani overuses hominid.

Quote from: "Mastriani"It matters because of the inherent difference between objectivity and subjectivity.

It matters because what is left to subjectivity, becomes the object of hominid imagination, and a predicate of dissemination of non-evidentiary beliefs which do not benefit the species, or allow for the optimal conditions of edification or amelioration.
Some, such as Max Velmans, would disagree.  

If you are really that gung-ho about empirical evidence then why do you bother with a metaphysical debate that does not rely on it?  Especially considering the problems with determinism and the exact state of the universe. (see Laplace's demon, or regarding empirical evidence Brain-in-a-vat)  
Not ad hominem, but an honest question. i.e. I don't believe in christianity, so I don't bother with arguments about the holy trinity.
"Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."  - Pat Robertson

BGMA

#27
Here's a rough view of "scientific" determinism vs. free will that I heard somewhere on the net:

Picture a worm in the dirt near a sidewalk.  Pour a lot of water around.  The worm will crawl to the sidewalk.  Let it dry.  The worm will crawl back toward the dirt.  All worms will likely do the same, with very little variation.  A worm has almost no free will.

Picture a squirrel.  Pen the squirrel in a yard with a tree and some food and a dog on a leash.  The squirrel will take the food or climb the tree or test the limits of the dog.  There might be a little variation, but not much, from squirrel to squirrel.  A squirrel's brain is more complex than that of a worm, and the squirrel has many more options of action to choose from, but still not many.  A squirrel only has a little free will.

Picture a person, confronted with another person.  Now you have someone with hundreds of options of how to react to every single situation.  Some of those options are very unpredictable.  The threshhold necessary for a person to change from one choice of action to another is very small, possibly in some cases so small that quantum differences in the actions of atoms in the brain could push a person from one decision to another.

Additionally, a person is extremely sensitive to their surroundings, such that infinitesimally small differences in the surroundings can lead to major changes in course of action.  Finally, much of a person's actions happen after hundreds of complicated feedback loops within the brain, all of which can give rise to many different courses of action.  If I hit your knee in the right spot, you will kick, a non-free-will action.  But if I call you a jerk, you can laugh or call me a name or grimace or walk away or hit me or act confused or quietly seethe, and all of those actions can happen in a hundred different ways.  People have a lot of free will.

Mastriani

#28
QuoteFirst off, you are identifying ad hominem attacks incorrectly. An ad hominem attack by me would have been, "Mastriani overuses hominid in an attempt to identify himself as intellectual. Overuse of a word is not intellectual. Therfore, Mast's beliefs about mirror neurons are fallacious." Identifying ideas and statements with a certain person has nothing to do with ad hominem. I would have to make the claim that what you believe was false because of a personal trait, which I did not do, as I will illuminate later. Although, you did use ad hominem in your attempted refutation. This you accomplished by not recognizing what I was doing, and criticizing me for what you did not recognize. Ever hear of the socratic method?

No, it is you, as seems to be your habit, not knowing what you are talking about, yet again.

Ad hominem, which was already defined, states clearly, attacking the proponent, as opposed to attacking the argument.  There are no other necessary defining parameters.  Your attempted retreat is pointless and unsupported, the definition cannot be contorted to suit your weak minded retreat.

Presenting inquiries are not equated to presenting an argumentative proposition.  You seem to be utterly bereft of anything even resembling knowledge.

You can choose to speculate that the empirical evidence is conjecture, that's a personal choice.  It bears no, zero, qualitative validity.  You have offered no concrete proof to the contrary, only metaphysical speculation.  Also note, this is not my information/knowledge.  Mine is the exercise of reiterating what is known/expounded/researched by others, (i.e. professionals and academics).

For the last comment, what you posted in the quote above, is most telling.  You assume, incorrectly, that it is "Mastriani's" words that make the proof, and consistently make a point of using first person possessive with regards to the format of knowledge.  Again, instead of addressing the issue in context, you address the personhood behind.  Obviously, another instance of you lacking any useful information towards creation of a counter proposition.

Don't bother to attempt rebuke, you're summarily an uninteresting hominid, and easily dismissed.
Praedatorious culminis; hominis necis


donkeyhoty

#29
Masty, you're out of your element.  The empirical evidence you state does not prove anything regarding free will vs. determinism.  It only adds weight, albeit not much, to your position that they are both false.  A more widely held theory, the string theory, has adherents that find it to be deterministic and others that find it to be indeterministic.  The only empirical evidence that can debunk free will vs. determinism is the understading ot the entire universe, and that is not forthcoming.

You are a fundamentalist simpleton.  You fail to respond to direct questioning and evidence contrary to your opinion.  Like a recent fundie, saukhasi, you disavow or disregard the refutations of your beliefs.  You choose instead to rely on empty rhetoric.
Quote from: "Mastriani"Mine is the exercise of reiterating what is known/expounded/researched by others, (i.e. professionals and academics).
Actually yours is the excercise of the fundie, take a theory that supports your belief and contend it is the end all and be all, while disregarding anything to the contrary.

I will now be presumptuous and speak for everyone here.  We neither want nor need your empty contributions.  Don't go away angry, just go away.
"Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."  - Pat Robertson