ProfessionalTeabagger

Therefore the standards are dependent on neurons and neurons are following a deterministic process. So the standards are determined by the neurons and just like consciousness they are subjective and/or illusory, right?

If you are reasoning to a conclusion then you must have some standard by which you can compare that reasoning and the conclusion. We are both using a standard of reason, evidence, truth. It's not just rank opinion, right? So the neurons in our brains must have some knowledge of this objective standard because they are going through a process that is, in principle, supposed to move closer or arrive at the standard. So what standard are the neurons using to reason through to a conclusion?

Sure, but doesn't that contradict your claim that "all things appear to be the effects of causes and causes of effects". The causal determinist position requires that a first cause exist. Unless you wish to posit that this first cause is supernatural wouldn't you have to concede that non-causal events can occur that are within the laws of reality? What standard are the neurons using?

What standard is the deterministic process using to reason through to a conclusion?

It's got nothing to do with tautologies. Pointing out that my comment is somewhat tautological is irrelevant. I can say logic will always be the same or truth will always be the same or whatever. What have tautologies got to do with the fact that we can compare our beliefs and actions against ideal standards? I don't know why you assume animals have any rationality behind their morality. As I said, if they have then that doesn't negate my general point. Maybe animals do have some form of primitive free will but it doesn't matter. I'm just using a generally accepted distinction between animals and humans. If I start talking about whether animals HAVE rationality and can understand abstract concepts then we're not going to get anywhere. What the hell does it matter right now? Surely you can understand the point without having to of on some side argument about whether animals are rational or not? As for psychopaths they can have the capacity to understand morality. They just have no conscience. One of the main points of something like UPB is that you can prove right and wrong to a psychopath.

We have perfect knowledge that these constants will always be the same and we can compare or beliefs and possible actions against them. What have tautologies got to do with this? I'm pretty sure animals can't do it but even if they could it would just mean animals can do it too and we've yet to discover that. I'm aware that animals show something that could be called moral behavior but it's not rational. We could not hold an animal morally responsible, only causally responsible for something bad it did. I'm talking about rational morality, knowing the difference between right and wrong. Humans naturally uses these ideals. Children for example start using rational standards early on. Some of the most logical people may not actually know anything about logic or philosophy. We have evolved to process it and follow it. Some humans may NOT have free will but all functional humans may have the capacity. We are the rational animal.

In terms of ideal universal standards they can. For example you can predict that logic will not change, that A will =A in the future. Objects and animals cannot do this. Our capacity to conceptualize in in unchanging abstracts may mean our relationship to causality may be radically different from everything else in the known universe. Sure, animals have some sense of the future but it not just different in degree but in kind from our own knowledge. We have a unique intelligence that can comprehend universal abstractions. You might say the example with the dog could demonstrate a very slight bit of pull but compared to us it is negligible. As I've said before, highly intelligent animals may be displaying a kind of proto-free will. It would make sense that animals closest to us in intelligence would show some sighs of this. The free will comes into the example with the human ability to compare its decisions and beliefs against universal ideals. Unlike animals or objects you have rational criteria upon which to act. Your mind can predict and simulate future events and make a final choice. With something like morality say, you can test justifications that support any proposed action. If those justifications logically fail then you can know that action cannot be morally justified. Hence objective morality / UPB. There's no animal that can do that. I don't think it has any bearing if the information about universals comes from the external world. The universals themselves, like the laws of logic, may still be a-causal in the sense that they may be eternal. The consistency of matter and energy from which things like logic are derived still existed even when there were no minds to understand it or form it into concepts. If things like that are eternal then it might be said to be un-caused or a-causal. So our minds, being able to conceptualize in abstractions, may be tapping in to something that is a-causal. It's not that free-will GIVES us access to ideals and universals but that because we have access to them we HAVE the capacity for free will. What was the cause of the first effect?

What does "claiming property" mean? If you mean arbitrarily claiming that something as property then the person that does that immediately sets a universal standard. The other person can also just claim the "property" back. It doesn't logically work because neither of the people actually created any property. That's the difference between statism and freedom. The state "claims property". The free person creates property.

Cheers. I was just thinking about an old thought experiment regarding determinism. In determinism every event is pre-determined but what if you had a super computer that could precisely predict one event? Couldn't you then change that event, thereby changing the outcome and getting round determinism? You'd then have to suppose that the computer would also have predicted this change and further changes which seems to create a paradox and the only way out is to make a final choice. My idea is that our minds, because they can predict the future perfectly, are like this super-computer. We can essentially hot-wire causality. Sorry to go on about my crack-pot theories but it's so much fun to speculate about this subject.

That's an interesting point. Your reactions to being attacked by the man are more like determinism I believe. Your instincts and body simply push you to react as best you can at the time. But with free will you have access to ideals and universals that are unchanging (and possibly a-causal ) so you have access to perfect future knowledge. Animals have virtually no access to this knowledge so they are all push. Our unique human capacity gives us a lasso into the future that allows us to pull ourselves rather than always be pushed like all other non-human things. So my hypothesis is that Determinism is the push and free will is the pull. Yes, you'd be fundamentally the same as a rock only with the illusion that's there's a you that has any control over anything.

Under causal determinism it really doesn't matter morally if you hit the dog. It's the same as getting stung by a bee or hit by a falling branch. Everything is force. Debating for example is just atoms pushing other atoms. It's no different if I make an argument to convince you or use a brain washing technique to convince you. In a sense you ARE a dog.

But you didn't tell them what to do to improve their future behavior because you can't change your OWN future behavior. So if you can't change your own behavior you can't change someone else's.

I'm not sure one CAN leave the country. Sure, you can usually leave the physical borders but because state holds the legal and moral right to initiate force they can follow you if they're so inclined. You can only really minimize the oppression of the state but never truly escape it. Even if you go live in some godforsaken place that no state wants you are still in effect IN the country. The state created the situation were the only places to go are shitty.

I guess you're a very generous person then?

Yes I get it. It's like an epiphenomenalism position. The physical neurons fire and cause the mental (consciousness) but the mental cannot cause the physical. So would it be correct to say you believe the neurons in your brain are causing the neurons in my brain to fire and that out consciousnesses play no causal role?

Okay then. So none of my neurons fired when you interacted with me, right? Consciousness is a one way street? The neurons and synapses do things and consciousness is a final cause? The consciousness that is you can have no effect on the neurons, etc. Is that right?

A cause is more like a description of the relationship between events. What caused you to make your post? I don't really understand what it means either.

This neuroscientist thinks it makes sense What is the causal chain of events? Okay so none of Kevin's neurons fire when you interact with him?

Is your consciousness exercising any control over Kevin Beal's neurons?

What is causality?

I would like to know what determinists would do if a neural basis for free-will was found or at least know what they'd guess they think they would be determined to do.

We have been wronged. We have not been born into the same world as everyone else because rulers have extra rights to use force and they have done so throughout our existence. It is wrong to use force this way. Therefore we have been wronged. Being born under a government is or can be just as bad as rape and you're exclamations of of incredulity do not refute any arguments. Just as a rapist claims the right to forcibly use a person for sex, a government ruler claims the right to use your body to extract wealth. It's not "crazy". It's a fact. Taxes are not avoidable. Even if you make every effort to avoid them the effects are inescapable. The very fact you HAVE to avoid them is part of their inescapable nature. I pretty sure the Amish don't escape them. We are rape victims in a sense because the moral violations are all part of the same continuum. They are all violations of property and a threat is also a violation of property. Government HAS the capacity to carry out it's threats or at the very least it appears to (I do not wish to test that on my own). The government has the support of most people who are mostly ignorant of any valid alternative other than force. You don't know that if large groups of people forced the government to make good on it's threats there'd be no government. You are talking out of your ass. Coward is a subjective word but your notion of someone not taking on the most powerful and brutal institution in history (one that has brain-washed most of it's citizens) as being a coward is outside the norm. You just chastised people for exaggeration (putting rape on the same level as other things) yet you are calling people cowards for not "standing up" to government. Uuuum...Fuck you?

I wouldn't think so. Any choice you make would be choosing a preferred state, at least in that instant.

No.

It's unique to the conscious mind. How could something without consciousness choose between preferred states?