Kevin Beal

No, I'm sorry, yes it is insane if determinism is true because all of that is illusory. Believing delusions is insane. You don't get to believe or do anything you want if you're a determinist, do you? If yes, then we really ought to stop this discussion because it's meaningless and thus insane. If not, then it is even more crazy. Determinists are crazy in either scenario. Whether determinism is true or not. And I'm completely certain. Maybe unfairly or prematurely, but I'm absolutely 100% convinced that I have free will. And I'm not bothered in the slightest that I don't have syllogistic proof. I'm not sure why it would be necessary. We believe things all day long without syllogisms. And even more than that, I've presented plenty of arguments. I would feel pretty resentful if none of them mattered simply because they don't constitute syllogistic proof. That would only serve to prevent any progress from being made.

It is irreconcilable actually. "Determinism is true" takes free will to conclude, because if the belief that determinism is true is held, then in order to be consistent, it is just simply held independent of any truth value. Your belief just is, and is not reasoned thru to the conclusion because the act of reasoning is free will. Rocks don't reason, people thinking about things, comparing propositions against standards and causing themselves through their own volition to accept a conclusion is free will. It's like the calculator versus myself doing a math problem. The calculator doesn't hold a position that 2 + 2 = 4, it just is. But if I put two reeses pieces next to another 2 reeses pieces I count 4 reeses pieces and the meaning of the operation becomes clear to me. I understand how and why 2 + 2 = 4. But determinists can't claim this same capacity for meaning and understanding since they are just calculators. If you try to sustain determinism as a true and valid belief, then you've already contradicted yourself. Determinists have to deny everyone free will but themselves in order to debate. It's insane. "Why can't you people see that language has no meaning?!" My favorite part is how determinists claim that this is somehow the scientific position. It's funny.

What if the determinist position is psychological in origin and is used to justify self deception? Consider the following: If free will is an illusion, but it's a biological illusion to achieve some dumb blind end, then something delusional "I have causal powers over my own life" is just a lie the homunculus in our heads tells us so that we can continue to live life and keep moving. This takes the same form a nasty emotional defense does. One I have some experience with. What might the psychological consequences be of believing that there is no free will? Well, that people are not responsible. That I do not have to feel remorse and neither do I need to confront people that I don't want to confront, since I am just the way I'm programmed to be, and so are they. The emotional defense is fatalism. Things are much less painful if we think that they couldn't be any other way. In other words, it's not that my mother was bad, it's that she was programmed by the culture and her parents into being shallow and indifferent. She can't be responsible if that's just her programming. It's why people who have shitty opposite sex parents end up having a shitty outlook on the dating and the purpose of a love relationship generally. It's why people who get angry and recognize their abusers as evil are the people least likely to repeat cycles of abuse. Fatalism also provides us with a false sense of control and predictability since we have a causal account of things. "My mother is petty because X". And we resent people who endure X, but decide to do something about it instead of waste away into the fatalistic abyss of suppression and avoidance. Because the causal description is no longer determined. And they just generally resent people who show them that it's not fatalistic. How many times have you reasoned something logically and made a logical case to someone only for them to get hostile and say absurd things all the while projecting their own incapacity / unwillingness to reason logically onto you? The anti-thought masses refusing to face their own ignorance and the lies they were told, but instead take it out on you for showing them that reason is possible. It doesn't matter if it's an illusion for these people since what they call "reason" is just blind bigotry. They just keep moving. The emotional investment that I have and probably most free willers have is that the consequence of determinism is that no one is morally responsible. The emotional investment for determinists is what? If it's all determined how the debate is going to turn out or whether or not I ever end up considering myself a determinist again, then why would they possibly care? And maybe even more fundamentally, why should they ask themselves that if no one is responsible?

It seems to me the exact opposite actually: that you are a free willy just like me. Effects have causes is not the only necessary condition for determinism to be true, it must necessarily require the first person experience of the freedom of the will to be illusory for reasons I explained in my first post in this thread. If the entirety of the necessary premises to accept to consider yourself a determinist was that effects have causes, then I would be a determinist. If "a billiard ball's mass, trajectory and velocity effect on the ball that it hits" is considered the same form of the causal description that says that "if I present you an argument and you consider it and change your mind", then there is no difference between our positions. But, of course, you cannot conflate the two senses of the word "causal". You either have to say that the second example is illusory or inferior to some lower level description, or you are free willing all over the place At least, that's what I am prepared to argue.

Let's hear the determinist account of qualia. I'd love to hear it. Let's hear the determinist account of how this supposed illusion of free will works. If it's so easy as to say that the fact that effects have causes necessitates determinism, then it should be pretty easy to account for consciousness, intentionality, semantics, meaning, imposed functions, status functions, free will and the rest of it. It's just a more complicated version of physics right? So, let's hear it's mechanics. Give me a framework by which I can predict what I will do next. I don't need every single variable, just enough to make a good prediction, which shouldn't even be half of the variables. I write software for a living and know that I don't need very many variables in order to figure out what a program is designed to do. This really shouldn't be that difficult a request. Artificial intelligence really shouldn't be nearly as difficult as it is if determinism were true. It should be just a simple formula that builds on top of itself to produce more complicated results. But it isn't; it's one of the most complicated and frustrating areas of research that exists. And what that always means is some mistaken assumptions. Robots cannot be intelligent

Cray cray means crazy. It might be a regional thing. Northern californians also apparently invented "hella". You really shouldn't be doing that to your dogs. The dog has no idea what you're upset about in most cases. Proper dog training involves special training pads and positive reinforcement for outside pooping. The problem is not that someone acted in some way, it's saying that someone ought do something that's the problem. It assumes that I have the free will to ponder it and accept it's validity. Otherwise it's some kind of social programming and I've argued that this "program" analogy explains nothing already, so the determinists have to give an account by which actual programming of the brain is occurring here. Or they are saying what the free willers are saying and there is no difference: If I tell you that you ought to try the sushi at that restaurant and you end up doing that there is a causal link there since you might not have unless I said something, but that's not the same thing as determinism.

You are right, but we either will or we won't, no should That's why this debate is so cray cray.

Then you have to extend me the same right and not correct me since I'm not intentionally making the arguments and statements that I am. I would then have no choice but to speak for you and everyone else. You cannot hold me responsible for anything.

Compared to what? You?

As someone who does automation and algorithms as part of my job, it makes absolutely no sense to me that jobs as a whole can be made automated. Nor would we want to. We don't want automated service sector people to help us (for example). Not to mention that we need all the people who learn programming to help in this effort.

Of course it doesn't tell the whole story. I have no idea how consciousness and free will work. Cognitive science is still in it's infancy and I suspect I won't learn how it works in my lifetime. And yes, absolutely it does preclude determinism unless you make determinism mean anything that you want. Determinism necessarily makes our experience of ourselves being intentional causal agents illusory. I'm saying it's not illusory and we actually in fact are not crazy. There's a big difference between these two things. I feel a bit silly having to say "no, actually, I'm not insane".

You cannot logically argue for the existence of the ontologically objective, real "external" world without begging the question that the real world exists. There are things that have to be presupposed in order even have any kind of questions about what is real and true about the world in the first place. The existence of the world and the validity of our senses is one of those things. The fact that effects have causes is another. So when asking if the real world exists and if the senses are valid, what that means to ask that question is to ask "do the objects I perceive exist beyond and independently of my first person subjective experience?" How would we know? If arguing for the "external" world's existence must beg the question in order to be argued, are you willing to accept arguments at all? If you are not, then there's no point at all in debating it. But if you can accept arguments that beg the question that the world exists then what kind of approach should we take to demonstrate the objective reality of the world? In order for something to be logical it must conform to the three laws of logic: The law of identity: P is P. The law of noncontradiction: P is not non-P. The law of the excluded middle: Either P or non-P (This is even before we accept that anything is real we have to accept at least this) In order to show that our senses are valid we have to have some kind of standard. And it turns out that such a standard exists. We know this because there are pathological or illusory perceptions that we derived from the experience of our senses. We can actually reproduce the the experience of seeing a rainbow or oasis in the sand dunes. We can see that when an ear drum is punctured sound doesn't cease to exist, but rather that ear's capacity to hear it has gone away. Phantom limbs are felt and the experience of feeling that limb can be observed in particular regions of the brain. The very fact that the senses can be illusory or pathological is proof of some gradation, that a thing is more or less illusory than another. The problem you run into when you say that the senses are invalid because all perception is invalid (no world exists at all) is with the word "invalid" or "illusory". Invalid as compared to what? If everything is illusory and nothing that is not illusory, then the actual use of the word "illusory" is meaningless. You might as well be saying that the world does exist independently of my perception of it. The difference between real and unreal means nothing in that case. You either have to accept evidence of some form and thus you implicitly concede the argument, or there is nothing to talk about and you are truly a crazy person. You can some up the entire problem as "unreal as compared to what? Something real?"

I think it depends on some things. I had a mostly fatherless childhood and the result of that (I believe) was a strong aversion to dating. This is because as a child watching my parents' divorce, what I had perceived had happened was that my mom, for no reason, kicked my dad out of the house, and the quality of my dad's life became frighteningly abysmal. I had imagined that my mom had ruined my dad's life and that if I got into relationships with women, I could end up the same way: living in a trailer with my body falling apart, working for a pizza delivery company at age 60 all alone. I'm a somewhat good looking guy, I think, and nice, and I like to crack people up, and so I have ladies show an interest in dating me from time to time. I thought this was terrible though, because I was super conflicted. I want love in my life and it seems at least conceivable that I can have the kind of romantic relationship that is healthy and fun and awesome, but I also was terrified of being the kind of vulnerable that would be necessary to have that because my life could get ruined. It still scares me, but I would literally have panic attacks, get all tunnel visioned and lose my ability to speak whole sentences when I realized that an eligible female was looking at me like she might want to date me and I felt the same. It also didn't help that I had no father that I felt I could give me the insights I needed in order to better develop what to expect and what I wanted in romantic relationships. And the pain of that was too much so during my teens I suppressed the desire to have a love relationship. I did that by nihilistically concluding that all love relationships were toxic and false, and I found a lot of evidence for this where most people are still in denial. It actually wasn't until hearing Stef talk about his relationship with his wife that I found it impossible to sustain this, and had to conclude that it is possible to have something truly great. Much of my own self work and therapy has been around this issue, and a source of overwhelming grief. I don't even know if this helps at all. I just saw an opportunity to flesh out some thoughts I had and took it.

Computers and other electronics deflate consistently all the time and that doesn't stop Apple from making billions of dollars. The value of deflation is that people can actually have real savings and don't have to invest in a ton of things just to prevent the value of their savings from decreasing due to inflation. Inflation can be good if it's predictable and not outrageously high, in which case we would need competition to make sure the people inflating are held accountable. Some cryptocurrencies and the new blockchain technology Ethereum use an inflationary model and it could be really good for certain types of transactions, but as far as savings goes, my money is in the non-inflating crypto-currency bitcoin specifically because I want the deflation.

I got your invite Josh, and I'm interested. I was in the middle of another skype call when you messaged me.

But that's not the requirement for universality. It's a very understandable a misunderstanding, but "universal" in this sense does not mean every person must accept it. Rather it must apply not because I am me or you are you, but because it's a principle. It's the difference between asking me to do you a favor and asking me to act according to principles that are true regardless of who says it. By saying that I ought not accept the validity of UPB, you do that because people ought believe things that are true and regardless of what I think, UPB is not true. And this appeal to the truth over falsehood applies generally. That is, anytime that you engage in debate both parties implicitly accept UPB since they make this appeal.

Regarding UPB I may have misunderstood what you meant, but I believe you are mistaken about the problem in denying UPB. That is, by denying UPB you must affirm UPB. The reason is as follows: Universally Preferable Behavior is a meta-framework for evaluating prescriptive statements according to the two standards of logical consistency and universality. By denying UPB you have implicitly appealed to both of these standards and are arguing something prescriptive. Specifically: "you ought not believe that UPB meets the necessary conditions of satisfaction". If it's not logically consistent, then it's false the way any other proposition is false. The sense in which the statement is universal is that it suggests that it is true, not because you prefer it, but rather according to some standard the applies not because I am me or you are you, but because it's just simply true. This is what is called a "self detonating statement" in that saying it affirms it. An analogy is the statement "language has no meaning". In order for this statement to even be comprehensible in the first place, language must have meaning, and thus the opposite proposition "langue does have meaning" is proved logically. In order for the statement "UPB is invalid" to be comprehensible (as in "you ought not believe UPB is valid") then the opposite proposition "UPB is valid" is proved logically. Regarding the NAP The foundation of the NAP is like the foundation of any principle. That is the implications of universalizing it as a principle. When you try to universalize something that is the opposite of the NAP, you necessarily imply a violation of the NAP. That is, initiating force. This cannot be universalized since it necessarily grants the right of initiating to one party while denying it to another. You've immediately run into a break in universalization the second you try to universalize it. This, obviously, is in error. The NAP is valid because it can be universalized while it's opposite cannot. If I respond to force with force, I haven't violated the NAP. But if I am the initiator of force, I have both affirmed and denied something and thus no principle that has this as a basis can be valid. How we can know universals How we know universals is by logically applying them universally. That is by definition as in your example of the fish in water. There are fish who spend more time outside of water than in water, as with fish who hibernate in extreme climates where rain happens for a brief period in the year. So as where the definition is concerned, an exception is not terribly significant. The initiation of force may make sense in some super remote and trivial area, but as far as the principle is concerned and the definition of the terms, it's validly universal. We can see clearly that any universal principle that requires everyone to speak swahili is not going to be universalizable. The fact that we can contrast that with other statements / principles suggests some kind of objective standard. And that is where the definitions of the terms cause a logical contradiction. Take for example I propose that Steve is moral because he's a man, but Bill is immoral because he's a man, then obviously a logical error has occured. The way that we say this is in error is what is meant by universal. If it's a principle, it has to apply to the all people. And UPB as a meta-framework does a fucking awesome job of looking at just these kinds of logical errors and the implications for moral arguments: how they are (in)valid. I could have an interpretation that is not how Stef understands these issues, and I may even be wrong, but does that help to understand the issues?

And also, the transparency of bitcoin can be enormously valuable in a way that is basically impossible with fiat. That is, it can be as public as you want, and so if you have a contract that says that you need to always pay this amount to these people, that series of transactions is auditable to everyone. You have a built in transparency at such a low level that anyone can use to establish trust as a company / organization. I can show that I've always paid the other clients I've worked with so that you can reduce your risk and even offer your services at a lower price to compete better in the industry you are in. It can be the public wallet that DRO's use to offer the million dollar prize to anyone who can prove that you are building more weapons than you have claimed publicly, programmatically and open source through a trusted third party given to the whistleblower and tarnishing the reputation of would-be DRO states / monopolies. It can be established as the public way that funds are distributed by charities and other bureaucratic organizations to be able to rate the organization by value to the end recipients. It can be a store of value held by a third party that you can watch and trust, such as with wills or college funds and this sort of thing, so that you don't have to worry about it being laundered. The amount of risk built into the cost of so many transactions can go almost entirely away dropping the cost of doing business between people, and opening up markets that couldn't previously exist, or with consumers / businesses across the globe. Combine that with the crazy small units bitcoins can be divided into and you enable a quadrillion new transactions that could never have happened before increasing the wealth and quality of life of billions of people. Transparency can be a very very good thing.

I saw that one. It was pretty good, I thought. It seems strange to me that people can acknowledge a very different brain structure between the sexes and say with a straight face that it wouldn't affect their psychology. Brain structures that seem to me (a layman) to be very complimentary: the female brain built for speed (packed tighter together) and the male brain for specialization (more segmented). Anecdotally, that seems to be the case since I am often feeling slow compared to women, but typically the ladies seem less interested in things like math and philosophy which (in my experience) is really slow going and a huge time investment. But I've never been a woman, so I could be full of it, haha.

Haha, not MLK, but the original gangsta Martin Luther who translated the scriptures into the vernacular, the Luther of Lutheranism. And I don't know for sure it wasn't stef inspired by him or an actual quote of Luther's. Vague memories...

I thought that was Martin Luther that said that...

My point is that the body is using a lot of resources to maintain what is ostensibly meaningless, and even more than that illusory. That makes no sense biologically. There is nothing else in nature that I'm aware of that is like that, not even vestigial phenotypes, and we kinda have to accept that consciousness is not vestigial since it's the most pronounced in humans. Not that this constitutes proof, but come on!

If epiphenomenalism is true, then why have consciousness at all? Why make it illusory? It's a fantastically expensive phenotype in terms of resources that could be better spent elsewhere. If that doesn't give you pause, then I don't think you get the implication.

Yes, it makes a lot of sense. I hadn't considered that side of it. It helps to see also why my gut was telling me there was something wrong with the trailer. And thank you for the linguistics lesson too! I always thought it was like some boring grammatical study until very recently. I didn't realize it had implications for philosophy.

Also, anarchist Spain was communist and violent. Not the best example