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Posts by Obbe
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2018-11-11 at 2:15 PM UTC in should lanny stop pretending to be an important philosopher@Lanny yesterday I got "The myth of Sisyphus" and "Atlas Shruggged" I've never read anything by either author. Which books do you think I will like more? Which one should I read first? Do you like those authors?
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2018-11-10 at 10:40 PM UTC in Sam Harris on the Illusion of Free Will
Originally posted by PhD in Condom Mechanics I feel control of these words because they're a result of my intentionality. I have no problem with the idea that my intentionality is composed of non-intentional, deterministic subsystems. They're not categorically different. It's like saying my calculator didn't generate the graph I made on it.
When you make a mistake and do something you had no intention of doing you have exactly as much control over your actions as when your intentions work out the way you expect - but it doesn't feel like it. You feel responsible when you end up doing the things you expect yourself to do, when you behave and react in ways which are typical or characteristic of who you are. When you end up doing something unexpected or unintentional, it feels strange like you lost control. But in reality you never were in control, things just didn't happen the way you expected them to. That feeling of being in control, feeling responsible is an illusion based on your behavior matching your intentions. You agree that both your behaviour and your intentions are the result of complex chains of events which you have no influence over and which you did not intend. Therefore whether your actions match your intentions or whether they do not, they are not in your control. -
2018-11-10 at 6:33 PM UTC in Motivational Pictures Thread
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2018-11-10 at 2:54 PM UTC in Motivational Pictures Thread
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2018-11-10 at 1:39 PM UTC in Sam Harris on the Illusion of Free Will
Originally posted by PhD in Condom Mechanics Everybody acknowledged that. Nobody really "takes credit for" their heart beating either. They take credit for the things they take to be within their domain of control. There is no additional subject "self" to control it. You're basically just committing the homunculus fallacy, but for free will; there is no "double willing".
But there is no domain of control. You control the words you type in that post exactly as much as you control your beating heart, yet you feel responsible for the words. But if you were to make a spelling error while typing you would feel that you made a "mistake" even though you have no control over what your intention was. That feeling of being in control is illusory. -
2018-11-10 at 4:02 AM UTC in should lanny stop pretending to be an important philosopher
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2018-11-10 at 3:50 AM UTC in Sam Harris on the Illusion of Free Will
Originally posted by Mewsik All the answers lay in each and every one of us. Stop reading, stop watching videos and TV. Be silent, connect with other human beings who have not polluted their bodies with poison their entire lives, or surrendered them selves and their ability to listen to their own knowing in a serene and compassionately way … those who go inward and remember … truth!
This idiot is an alien. He has no connection with his soul .. the only thing that never dies. Well .. that once was true, souls are burning out at a rapid speed.
I like that. -
2018-11-10 at 3:48 AM UTC in should lanny stop pretending to be an important philosopherPhilosophers pretend to lead us back to reality on ways paved with more words of higher abstraction, like devils promising to lead us to Heaven. If the devil is the Father of Lies, words are surely the Mother. Paradise is a myth about a preverbal Consciousness, before men created words and subsequently mistook the symbol (idol) for reality (God); the Fall of Man and his Expulsion is the consequence of worshipping verbally fashioned images. The nemesis of abstraction is that the symbol becomes the reality, and the individual differences in the real world are occulted behind the Veils of Maja.
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2018-11-09 at 10:21 PM UTC in Motivational Pictures Thread
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2018-11-09 at 10:11 PM UTC in Atlantis Discovered?I don't know what you're talking about, but these videos were pretty interesting.
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2018-11-09 at 9:48 PM UTC in What is the meaning of life?Meaning isn't something things just have, meaning is something humans give to things. Life has whatever meaning you give it.
Some people don't give life any meaning and so they lose themselves, lose touch and fall into the void. -
2018-11-09 at 5:57 PM UTC in Sam Harris on the Illusion of Free Will
Originally posted by PhD in Condom Mechanics No, that's completely false; they have just as much influence over the ultimate causes of either event (which is none). But they have completely different relations as a proximal cause to either event, and that's what simply explains their feeling of responsibility (and the utility therein). We explicitly take responsibility for things that were a result of a state of our intentionality, and not things that weren't. Most people wouldn't "take responsibility for" generating shit in their lower torso either. I'm telling you, there's a perfectly reasonable way to validate that feeling, and that feeling is consistent with science in all ways but the specific one that serves an explanatory bridge.
Do you take responsibility for the way the "glutamates in your brain underwent their quantum processes"? Is that something you feel you freely willed?
Okay good, so we agree that "doing otherwise" is completely irrelevant, and the discussion is entirely about the responsibility aspect.
Then yes! The glutamates are an important element of my neurology and my neurology is the direct proximal cause of my consciousness and decision making. Why wouldn't "I" take responsibility for it?
I don't know why you would or wouldn't, but I do think most people don't feel responsible for some of the various unconscious processes our bodies perform, and do feel responsible for others, but really aren't. I feel like I'm responsible for the words I'm typing right now but whatever is going on in my brain making me think these thoughts and have this feeling is something I actually have no influence over. -
2018-11-09 at 4:05 PM UTC in Sam Harris on the Illusion of Free WillI don't think there a problem, just pointing out that most people feel responsible for the words they type but not for the way their body metabolizes the foods they eat, even though they they have just as much influence over the causes of these events. Do you take responsibility for the way the "glutamates in your brain underwent their quantum processes"? Is that something you feel you freely willed?
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2018-11-09 at 1:27 PM UTC in Sam Harris on the Illusion of Free Will
Originally posted by PhD in Condom Mechanics Ok, simple questions
1) Do you think most people would agree that their parents' behaviours toward them contributed to the way they turned out?
2) Do you think that whenever people make a choice, they make it completely apropos of nothing and in a total vacuum from their past experiences?
3) Nothing about our classical understanding of gravity was retained between Newton and Einstein, except the phenomenon of "attraction" itself. And practically all scientists believer in Newtonian gravitation for a very long time. Do you condone the continued use of the word "gravity" or is your first response to it that it doesn't exist and we should call it Grangpo?
Do you believe people don't feel responsible for when their immune systems start attacking them, but do feel responsible when they write something, even though both instances are caused by prior events they had no influence over? -
2018-11-09 at 12:08 PM UTC in Sam Harris on the Illusion of Free Will
Originally posted by PhD in Condom Mechanics It is fine if you want to say agency instead of will, but that's not the argument you've been making at all: the issue you've taken is with the word "free" not being applicable if there is any antecedent cause to an action. You need to justify why that is, because I'm perfectly happy to say that that sense of the word free is just stupid, we can both agree, and you're making a rather pointless and completely semantic argument
The point of repeating the "essay like responses" is to show that you can't articulate why the spoopy ghost is integral to your meaning of free will, other than it being part of the "common understanding" of the term, which is not even remotely close to being true; every single person was raised by a couple parents/guardians who probably have full awareness that the upbringing they're providing is going to shape their child. So what else?
No, see, this is the point: Sam Harris is unnecessarily joining the concept of ultimate self causation to free will.
When I say "you signed the contract of your own free will", no part of my statement necessarily implies that you are an ultimate causal engine.
Right, but I think most people do feel that they are ultimate cause of their intentions and decisions. I don't need you to agree. I don't believe most people associate their thought intentions and actions with the chain of cause and effect that came before, they feel like it's something they are in absolute control over, and when their bodies do something unexpected like sudden organ failure they feel like victims of their biology rather then the bosses, even though there isn't really a difference. -
2018-11-08 at 11:49 AM UTC in Legalization has made me quit smoking weedYeah too much packaging, too expensive, low supply... looks like the black market isn't going away anytime soon.
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2018-11-08 at 11:33 AM UTC in Sam Harris on the Illusion of Free WillI think agency is another another topic we already have a word for: agency. We've already talked about this before, I don't see the point of writing an essay-like response to repeat what we've already discussed many times. I don't think we actually disagree about any of that, it's just not what I mean by free will, it doesn't appear to be what Harris means by free will either. You agreeing that our actions are the results of factors we have no influence over is good enough for me, I think agency is another topic and you and Dennet are unnessiarily joining the two.
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2018-11-07 at 3:02 AM UTC in Sam Harris on the Illusion of Free Will
Originally posted by PhD in Condom Mechanics Everything else!
So what do you mean by this in relation to free will?
Originally posted by PhD in Condom Mechanics Because authenticity is irrelevant: imagine now that the book's city is also called La Riconda. Now, can you say La Riconda doesn't exist, or that La Riconda exists, but it doesn't float on clouds?
The argument of whether or not we can call it Riconda comes down to whether or not he cares about floating on clouds as a precondition for identifying LR with R. The word "La" is a deliberate red herring I left in to illustrate exactly this.
I don't know what Harris or Dennett would think about your metaphor. Free will is what I call the sensation of being in control of my thoughts and actions and intentions and the idea that I could have done something differently than I did if I could turn back time. If we agree that sensation does not reflect reality, that our thoughts and actions and intentions are caused by a variety of factors we have no influence over and that we could not have done differently than we did in the past, then I do not know what you mean by "everything else" in relation to free will.
Originally posted by PhD in Condom Mechanics Interesting. What do you think about this video?
I thought it was great to listen to them talk with each other about the differences in their arguments. After watching it I still agree with Harris. -
2018-11-06 at 10:26 PM UTC in Sam Harris on the Illusion of Free Will
Originally posted by PhD in Condom Mechanics We already agree there is no city on the clouds. But it is clearly useful to say "let's say the clouds are the mountain; we can visit Rinconda".
What is the specific usefulness of saying that if we already agree there is no city in the clouds?
It would be more authentic to say clouds and mountains are not the same things, and that we could visit the actual city of La Rincoda on the mountain in Peru.
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2018-11-06 at 7:14 PM UTC in Sam Harris on the Illusion of Free Will
