batou

[/font]Then perhaps go read the posts again. I have also already seen all the videos you have linked and found them unconvincing. What implications does determinism have on psychology? I would say none at all, while the implications of free will on psychology are clear. For example, belief in free will would give the believer a sense of agency and something to use to manipulate the behaviour of others (by using guilt and punishment). Would you consider, that perhaps you hold the belief in free will, because of psychological reasons? Also, there are several existing interpretations of quantum mechanics and some of them are deterministic. http://board.freedomainradio.com/forums/p/37334/289321.aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics

I say them as I am determined to. You say them out of your free will, so I guess you are responsible .

1. I can write a function on a deterministic machine, that seeks to know weather something is true or false. 2. If a human creates a deterministic machine and write a program on it, does it stop being deterministic? 3. He can't be talking about universal experiences, since my experience is that the world is deterministic. I never said to bow down to me, I was simply saying that the onus of proving something is on both sides, for determinism and for free will. Free will isn't obvious, as Rothbard says, he simply shifts the burden on proof on determinists and takes free will as a given. 4. Yes, to cause and effect and determinism. No to religion. I don't see a cognitive disconnect, where is it? 5. I don't have all the data, so I could make such predictions. Also making predictions doesn't prove or disprove determinism.

A mind doesn't need to have free will to make conclusions about reality, as it can be determined to seek seek truth from the start. A computer program also chooses (conditional if statements), does it have free will? My primary impressions are that determinism is true. I am a man, so he is not speaking for all of us. It is as much the onus on determinists to prove determinism, as it is for free willers to prove free will. But the more we know about causes to events, the more it all seems deterministic to me. The extent of my knowledge may be determined, but I don't know to what extent it was determined. Perhaps I was determined to know everything, but probably not. For the second part, no, we can't freely revise knowledge, whatever that means. But we can deterministically revise knowledge based on new data. Determinism simply says, that the state state at time t=t+1 is determined by the state at previous time t=0. We have two worlds, they are absolutely the same up to a point in time. In universe 1, there is a person, that beats his children. He continues to do so up to time X and continues to do so, until he dies. In universe 2 the same person does the same. He beats his children, but just before time X, he comes into contact with freedomainradio and he stops beating his children. A free willer would say, that the person in universe 2 stopped beating his children out of free will. A determinist would say that both outcomes were equally determined, but the circumstances in universe 2 were not the same (in universe 1, the person never knew about freedomainradio), so the outcome was also different.

To think that someone can be right or wrong doesn't invalidate determinism. I will try to demonstrate this with a hypothetical scenario (similar to what I think has been going on with humans). Imagine that we create millions of little robots that we know are deterministic, we program them to want to live, we write their code so they will seek and do stuff, that will prolong their activity. This already provides them with a preferred state, life over death. We also add another feature to them, we want them to be able to mutate, so we make their code sensitive to pseudo-random data from the environment. Now millions of these little deterministic robots are going around the world and mutating. Some of them don't mutate, most stop working because of mutations, but in some the code improves. They can now make models of the world. They start to understand how to avoid death better. They get the capacity to create models of how the world works and can now judge what to do: If I do this, that will happen. Another mutation occurs and some develop the ability of language. With the acquisition of language, they can now compare their models of the world, between each other. And each of these can now judge whose model (they think) is correct, and which one is wrong. Some of them can't reach a conclusion and they agree to disagree. I hope this demonstrates how the concepts of right and wrong could exist between deterministic robots.

bbeljefe, perhaps I should have been more clear. I agree with you, that the conflict can be resolved without violence, but the point of Girard is exposing the whole mechanism, from mimetic rivarly to scapegoating. When a crisis occurs (this might be a plague, an economic downturn...), the mimetic rivarly may get more and more intense (it might still be non violent at this point, like the current economic crisis, or Germany around 1930). Stress and/or violence builds up and the community eventually finds someone to kill. This fixes the crisis and reunifies the community, but only temporarily. I never said they weren't, but you seem to be pretty quick about the idea, that "mimicry" can have such an effect. Also mimetic desire (which is all desire) was acquired at some point in time, either present or past, so of course, the past is important.

I also need to correct myself, I said that Girard shows that we are inherently violent, this is a misrepresentation of Girard by my part. What Girard would say is probably closer, that we are inherently mimetic and that mimesis leads to rivarly, which leads to violence. This is not to say that every mimesis leads to violence, but there is a potential to lead to violence, especially when the desire is "internally mediated," as Girard calls it, that is when subject and model are close by (by proxinity and social hierarchical position).

Girard traces back the creation of states and political power to the scapegoat mechanism: From Rene Girard's Mimetic Theory (Studies in Violence, Mimesis, & Culture) by Wolfgang Palaver http://www.amazon.com/Girards-Mimetic-Studies-Violence-ebook/dp/B00AYTH57I/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1366992455&sr=8-6

Quoting Girard Perhaps I should have said differently, we are not inherently violent, that violence somehow occurs from a vacuum, but that violence is the inevitable outcome of mimetic conflict. Not that it arises from every mimetic conflict, but that it does from some and that this is inevitable (or has been so far, perhaps we can find better ways to identify and stop it). I have concluded (my conclusion, not Girard's) that we are inherently violent from that (by Girard), we have been going through this conflict (mimetic conflict spiraling into a mimetic crisis) throughout most of our evolution and then something happened, we figured out a way to resolve this conflict and unite people, create societies - the scapegoat mechanism. Children are not exempt from mimetic desire: http://www.jeramyt.org/papers/girard.html I agree though, that in a world of abundance and empathy, there would be less mimetic conflict such as this above, but it would still exist, this type of mimetic conflict is inevitable: Girard and the Oedipus complex http://www.iep.utm.edu/girard/#SH2d I have found an interview/documentary on Girard, it's the best, most conprehensive, that I have found yet. Though it's quite long.

And the implications of his theory on libertarian ideas. From a philosopher that I think will become very prominent with time. He shows that we are inherently violent and that our desires have a mimetic nature, that is, that we copy our desires from observing other people (triangular nature of desire - subject, model and object, the subject gets it's desire for the object from the model) and that this inevitably leads to conflict. Quoting Girard, from Violence and the Sacred: For example Stefan is being a model for people's desires on FDR. He models a way of life, he shows himself as having "being," the right way. If all desire is sourced externally, this invalidates the idea, that our deires could be generated by a true self. Desiring the same object as other individuals, when the object is scarce, leads to conflict. Which leads to a mimetic crisis: Girard says that all cultures are based on murder. Perhaps more to come. I will provide a few links for those interested (couldn't be more recommended): Lecture, not so much about Rene Girard.. Some about the scapegoating mechanism and scapegoating jews in WW2 and how states kill the stateless in a crisis. Very exciting lecture Interview: http://www.iep.utm.edu/girard/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/René_Girard essay on Christianity and Nietzsche http://www.jesslayton.com/jessweb/Essays/Girard.VS.Nietzche%20-%201999.pdf

Yes, but as said before, only if they subscribe to the principle. If they believe that coercion is wrong in every instance and are still statists (state uses coercion), then they are hypocrites. But if they don't hold this principle, but hold for example another one: that coercion wrong in some instances, but right in other, then you can't call them hypocrites.

This is what I was arguing.

That's true, but I don't think feminists subscribe to this principle.

Which I bet are similar to something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem At some point you are going to have to defend murder.

In that case why bring out rape in the first place? If you define coercion (lack of consent) as immoral, then anarchists might be the most consistent (not hypocritical) I might agree, but there is no reason to showcase rape. From my point of you bringing out rape is problematic, because blaming people for approving rape is used as shaming language. An example of this would be saying to a statist, that because he approves of coercion in some cases, that he automatically approves of rape.

No, your logic is faulty. It goes something like this rape is "power-over relationship", therefore every "power-over relationship" is rape. It's like saying: A door opens, therefore everything that opens is a door. But a window also opens. You can be a statist and be against rape, simply because not every act of coercion is rape.

I'm not saying that we should, at least not from a rational argument, I don't think the is/ought problem is solvable. It is just my preference, I'd rather live than die, I'd rather enjoy life and see others enjoy life than suffer. If only I enjoy life, while others suffer, it makes me feel guilt and my enjoyment of life is lessened. Perhaps what I'm arguing for is just a system that would give me more power, being a man is being quite disposable. Also: So far it seems that the best utilitarianists are those, that go against utilitarianism and argue for individual freedom, rights, etc... it's quite paradoxical, but it's just a calculation problem (which might be unsolvable).

Well, I am a moral relativist/subjectivist, because that is what I think most accurately describes the world around me - morality is just something that came about with evolution and is different in different individuals. I think there are, however, very good (utilitarian) reasons for proposing objective morality.

I found the first book to be much comprehensive about how manipulation works and recognizing how you can be manipulated. How is this related to nihilism? I also don't pursue things for moral reasons, but I do refrain from doing harm, because I feel guilt after. You may have evolved to pursue certain things, but those things are still values (subjective ones). Nihilism devalues everything, a nihilistic life form would just stand still, not knowing if it were to live or to die. I may be straw manning nihilism here, what I was trying to say is that if everything is valueless, it doesn't follow that we should pursue power, or the will to power. This is what I understood nihilism to be saying. Also I think it's dangerous to be a subjectivist, either for values or morality. I think some kind of objective values always emerge from forming a civilization, kind of an utilitarian necessity.

I think nihilism is logically inconsistent. If all values are meaningless then why pursue power, if it's equally meaningless? Or is pursing power less meaningless, coming to a contraditcion. If something is less meaningless than something else, all values cannot be meaningless. By pursuing power you are making a value judgement, that pursuing power is more valuable than doing something else. I would say that we all seek power, just in different ways. Some pursue it with creative work, others with force and exploitation. Who is better, a producer or a politician? I would recommend reading these two books, especially the first one on manipulation and manipulative people, they have helped me recognize a manipulative and explotative relationship and end it. http://www.amazon.com/Whos-Pulling-Your-Strings-ebook/dp/B000OVLIVK/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1363646851&sr=8-2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005CN6PJ0/ref=oh_d__o03_details_o03__i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Repeating the same things again won't make them any more true. Once you use gut feelings as your arguement, then what you are saying stops being philosophy. Could you explain how are your choices different from what a computer program does? Why not? Care to explain more?

A computer makes choices based on data (data, variable states), just as we do. If something then something else something else The difference is that our choices (the if then) and the data (the something) that we gather are of a much higher complexity than what a computer usually has to work with. But we could, if we were smart enough, write a program that would be just as self aware as we are and just as smart. [/font]We could already maybe say, that there are programs that are "self aware," these are programs that recursively modify their own code. Everything that they do happens deterministically. [/font]I'm sorry, but this does not follow, unless you can prove that free will comes from self awareness (or whatever you are trying to say by I think, therefore I am)

A computer program also makes choices (for example an if then, else statement). By your logic it has free will.