cynicist

That is all that matters. If you aren't looking forward to seeing your therapist then you aren't sitting down with the right person. Although you are talking about very intimate things, keep in mind that they are professionals that provide a service for which you are a customer, and if you are dissatisfied then you are just as free to cancel on them as you would be for a dentist that you fear is doing a bad job on your teeth.

It's not like bitcoin is exactly mainstream at the moment. For the vast majority of people it is useless today (as they have no idea how it works or how to use it) so I don't see how banning it would make the situation worse. Now if it were banned, that would increase its value for those currently using it. The utility of transferring money electronically with minimal transaction fees is huge. I think the only reason it's not bigger is that many people see it as a scam or a bubble. If the government were to ban it (like Russia did) that would be an affirmation that it is a disruptive technology and criminals would be even more into it than they already are. All things being equal, but they never are. You should be comparing a banned bitcoin to the dollar. A ban won't stop individual transactions, currency transfer, value store, etc. As people watch the price of things in dollars going up and the price of things in a bitcoin black market going down, which do you think they will gravitate towards? I haven't heard the call yet so I'll come back after I hear the arguments in more detail but they seem pretty weak at first glance.

Oh man this is cool, I like the spontaneous organizing here. I'd love to join you guys for a convo sometime! I have to agree that infantilization is worse than being neglectful, it's actively destructive in the same way that a vampire or leech feeding off your body and sapping your energy would be. The worst part is how subtle it is: If you challenge it you will hear something disarming like, "but I care about you, I just want the best for you!". It's much harder to process for the child and fight against. The comment you made comparing the intelligence of infants to that of dogs struck a chord with me, because I always felt more like a pet than an individual with my parents. They did the bare minimum for me and would yell and hit when I displeased them. I have a cat myself that I feed and clean up after, and it makes me wonder why they bothered to have children rather than get an animal. At times he's loud and annoying if he wants something from me, but obviously I don't do much more than play with him a little and let him outside. He can be cute but that's pretty much the extent of what he's capable of bringing to the table. The parallels to my childhood are stunning. (The McDonalds example was hilarious btw) I'm off to watch Tangled now lol.

And to use your example to explain what I mean specifically. To the observer though, this process looks like: Determinists look at the last situation and say, "AHA! It's all causal. The fly landed on his leg and then he shoo'd it away". It's like, yes, he would never have shoo'd it away had the fly not landed on his leg beforehand, but that doesn't mean that was the only action he could have taken. Am I explaining this clearly?

A chill tune.

All inputs are not from previous causes, that's what I've been saying this whole time lol. For human beings previous causes are one factor, a very strong factor obviously, but not the only one. Reason and imagination are examples of inputs that are not limited to prior causes alone, if they were then you could not actually call them reason or imagination. (you would say they are the illusion of thinking and creativity, because it is all the result of antecedent causes) Those complex systems are what make free will possible and also distinct from the choices of other animals, I'm not confusing them for free will. I'm not sure what part of that was unclear, but let me know. You are looking at the past and only seeing some of the events that led to a particular course of action. You aren't seeing all the possibilities that the human had considered before making their decision because those aren't visible. If everything I do is the result of prior events, then any claim I make of choice or thought that is not determined by history is an illusion. Your computer example is great, because we aren't even under an illusion that they are thinking or reasoning when executing programs. We acknowledge that they cannot do those things BECAUSE they are given prior instruction through programming. So if we are given the same 'instruction' through prior causes, then we are no different from machines in that regard.

I'm pretty sure you just replied without reading anything that I posted, or at the very least skimming it. The whole point of my post is that this 'will' exists as part of the causal chain, not outside of it, so why are you strawmanning me? This is the insane thing about determinism that its advocates don't seem to understand. If causality obliviates free will then reason goes down too, and if you can't reason then you can't know the truth anyway. I for one am not going to be talked out of possession of my own mind. The worst part about it is that free will can't exist without a deterministic universe. There is no such thing as truly random or 'outside of causality', if there was then we wouldn't be debating it because matter would be too unstable and unpredictable to support us. The very consistency that allows us to be around is the same consistency that lets us predict the future and makes free will a possibility. And yet people point to time being linear and consistent as if that's an argument AGAINST free will.

What do you think is more likely, what you said or her being bullied and raised with religion? We don't know the reasons why of course, but if I were to bet on it, I don't think she was raised with peace and tolerance.

Thanks for the input. I don't have any lesbian friends so I'm going to correct myself based on this. I thought that perhaps if I saw the woman as 'unavailable' I might not be affected the same way, but it's probably just wishful thinking You are right about the distinction between intimate and superficial, that is where the main disagreement is here.

Yeah absolutely, that cleared things up for me too. I was just reiterating on what Searle was saying, that logically if the mind is a product of the body rather than something distinctly separate from it, then it must have some neurological basis in the brain. I see how my analogy could give the wrong idea though, maybe I can clear it up or create a better one. Honestly, I have a hard time understanding consciousness as some weird artifact or by-product rather than an integral part of the "biological machine", so I hadn't considered the idea you mentioned (epiphenomenalism).

Here's something fun

Yeah things can get confusing there even when you know it's a professional relationship. Without that clear line of separation it's much worse. And the reasons why, right? Since if it's a temporary thing, like she thinks you have some issues to work out or aren't financially stable, these are things you can work to improve in the hopes that a future romantic relationship is possible. If it's something permanent like, "You just aren't my type" then that is going to be something that lingers in the friendship. I don't see how you couldn't feel awkward and miserable from that point on, to feel strongly for someone and have your feelings go unrequited for failing to meet her standards. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think anyone who says it wouldn't bother them is likely just telling themselves that it shouldn't matter, in a mistaken attempt to overcome their own nature.

Yes of course we were. Had we made different choices it would have been a different past. Given the exact same history, circumstances, etc (if you could "rewind" time) the actions would also be exactly the same. Human beings are not random, I don't go from making breakfast one day to attempting to murder someone for sustenance the next. We use reason and logic to make decisions. And given all the exact same factors, we would make the same decisions, but that doesn't mean we have no control over our decision-making. For example I bought my Nexus 4 smartphone because it met certain criteria, namely it was the best phone on the market at the time for the price. If I rewind time then my criteria for choosing a phone would be the same, and the Nexus 4 would have the same characteristics, so naturally I'm going to choose it again. That's not the same as not having any choice. (I could easily change my criteria and therefore my resulting choice, or I could be influenced by a new phone coming out that meets my criteria better) Now since you can't actually rewind time, that's not a useful way to look at it. Any change you make (including repeating the same action a second time under similar circumstances) is going to affect the future outcome. What I'm saying is, since you can never ever get the exact same conditions (even thinking about it changes the variables) what you are saying seems to have no relevance to the real world. Free will is about looking into the future to anticipate where we will be and using that information to guide our actions to a particular end, through our ability to conceptualize. If we did not have our abstract thinking capacity then we would be looking at the next 20 minutes trying to figure out where to get the next banana from, like other apes. However, since we can think in terms of lifetimes, our will is free relative to other animals. Our capacity for choice/planning/etc is greatly enhanced by this ability. I don't think you understood my point in saying that. Since a rock is reactive, the way it interacts with causality is very limited and relatively easy to predict. Once you add another dimension to it like with biological organisms, you get interactivity, which is another mode of relation to causality. Now, not only are you affected by prior causes, but you can actually BE a cause in a direct sense. Animals obviously take it to another level with their memory capacity and limited intelligence, the natural result of which is expanding the pool of possible actions based on their greater prior history and capacity for future planning. And human beings take it to the most complex level we know of atm: We are able to conceptualize things like time and act accordingly, to compare our states to possible ideals, which results in a limitless potential for action. (well, limited by our imagination at least) This is why we call that capacity free will and why animals do not have it. It's just a term to explain what we see which clearly separates us from other beings. It describes the result of an obvious phenomenon, a higher order of intelligence. There is no magic or mysticism involved, but at the same time human behavior is not determined like a rock. (we would need to be purely reactive in order for that to be the case)

Oh well yeah. It takes specific instances and generalizes them into principles. If you don't do that then what you have is not a moral rule, just "Here is what I did in Y situation". The standard applies to the goal of being good, but morality itself is not being good but a description of the rules that distinguish it from evil. If you keep reading that bit on page 33: In other words, if your goal is to understand the universe, then you should use the scientific method. In the same way that if you want to be good, you should do X. There is no obligation to be moral though.

Well by my analogy I meant that all conscious functions are caused by neurological processes, that they are not separate things but the same thing translated to a higher form. (mind/body problem) The bit perfect part is you taking my analogy too far hehe. (I'm not saying that it can't be reduced to that level since I obviously don't know, but I doubt it maps 1:1 like computer code does) Hmm, this seems to contradict what I heard in the video but I may be misunderstanding something. Starting at 5:57, Searle says the following: Oh oops I see in my prior post I said consciousness when I should have said conscious functions. I think I get what you mean now. I'm not saying that all of consciousness is encapsulated in a particular part of the brain, but that the various parts that make up consciousness are reducible. Does that make sense? Well I think more specifically their claim is that not only is it reducible to neuronal activity, but that this neuronal activity is necessarily determined by antecedent causal factors in the environment and nothing else, and that's why free will/choice is an illusion. The first point I'm more inclined to agree with (to some extent it has to be, even if its not a 1:1 relationship since the mind is not separate from the physical body) but the second is just silly. Yeah that's what I was talking about at the end of my longer post. This is really obvious just looking at the existence of life. (which is not just reactive but interactive)

Another beautiful instrumental piece by Oskar Schuster. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmdkHv5fYvc

Ok, that was hilarious.

Lol, I like the "O" face. Judging by that I'd say she's looking at college loans.

The only thing I'm unclear about is how the mother is prejudiced against gays here while the grandfather is not. I assume it's a religious thing where they are picking different parts of the bible to take seriously, and in that case the grandfather is just as culpable for infecting his daughter with that brand of mental illness.

I am so conflicted hearing stories like this. On the one hand I feel awful for the people who have to suffer under these conditions, but on the other hand you would think that after seeing the results of this war on price, people might be more clear on the causes of their economic trouble.

Great videos. I love how he explained conscious functions as a low level neurologically based processes being translated to some higher level form. I always viewed it that way as well but I thought of it in terms of programming. Look at machine code vs a high level computer language like python or javascript. The higher level instructions mean the exact same thing as the translated machine code, but we wouldn't call them the same thing, because one is human readable and the other isn't. In the same way I look at conscious processes as corresponding to lower level neurological activity in the brain, but in a form that is advantageous to us if that makes sense.

I had to take a break from this thread to avoid a mental breakdown but I really wanted to address this. What about the linearity of the causal chain precludes free will? Again, I just don't understand where this line of thinking is coming from. The linear aspect is what makes free will possible!@#! Time goes one way, yes, absolutely, but since it has a predictable consistency we know that and can plan for that, we are able to affect causality by interacting with it differently. A rock has past movement altering its future course in the present, but we can predict how events will unfold and guide our actions accordingly, in addition to being guided by past experiences. And unlike other animals we can do it in an abstract way, which is how we are aware of our own mortality. (and which gives us a much more advanced capacity for planning) Why is that hard to understand? And No no no no. Choice is a requirement for human intelligence. The ability to make choices implies the ability to anticipate causality. We make decisions based on expectations and plan in order to bring those expectations to fruition. If choices were ephemeral, how would planning work? Clearly part of intelligence has to include keeping track of choices relative to our plans. If our choices weren't recursive in this way, how would we ever succeed at anything beyond simple tasks? (I'm talking about the shallow form of planning that a chimpanzee requires for simple tool-making compared with the depth of planning required for building a motherfucking space shuttle) Oh I love this. So free will is an illusion because you know, brain chemistry + causality and stuff, but no, consciousness isn't! How are things like consciousness and reason exempt from causality then? If they are just as determined as choice, then how they not also illusory? You can't pick and choose what phenomenon you like as exempt from this rule, let's have some consistency here... The universe is deterministic/causal (i.e. predictable) but we are aware of that and can use that to our advantage (due to time being linear). Human beings are not random. Think of it in terms of a purely random number generator vs a pseudo-random one that uses various seeds to improve the randomness of the results. The former does not exist, we are of the latter type, and the seeds we use to generate our pseudo-random decisions come from the past, our present state, and our imagined future. (even our attempts to make changes influence the future changes we attempt to make) What makes us special relative to other animals is just our ability to abstract and how that widens the pool of possibilities available to us. The main problem that occurs in debates like this is when you assume that just because the universe is deterministic, that everything within it responds to causality in the exact same way. The very fact that life exists contradicts this idea, and yet determinists plow on in apparent ignorance of this crucial point. Btw, I think I'm going to periodically return to this thread just for the humor of it.

UPB is not an ethical theory. It is a framework for evaluating ethical theories using logic. I have no idea what you mean by "when generalized in a certain way". An imperative is when you declare an action to be necessary. A moral imperative certainly exists if your goal is to be good, but what is the basis for a moral imperative (for morality to be necessary in other words) when you do not have that goal? I'm not seeing circularity at all. Can you explain that a bit better? Morality = The standards/principles/rules that distinguish between right and wrong Virtue/Goodness = Behavior in accordance with those moral standards So one word describes the standards themselves, while the other describes behaviors that follow those standards. Where are you getting the idea that UPB results in a moral obligation? The application of UPB is evaluating proposed moral theories for basic consistency.

Lol yes I did. Thank you for the correction.

Reminds me of what Stefan always says about repressing emotions, that you can't selectively choose what emotions you want to experience, it's all on or off like some huge lever. I didn't think about that in terms of sociopathy, what they must also be losing along with their conscience. Definitely going to be avoiding these people as much as possible.