Steve said to Mark:
What he [James] is describing as determinism is what I think people today would
call fatalism. He endorses indeterminism over determinism in that essay which
equates with chance. Post quantum mechanics, people's idea of determinism
includes chance and fits what James is saying about indeterminism (that if you
could somehow rewind history and play it again it would come out differently.)
dmb says:
People's idea of determinism fits what James is saying about indeterminism?
Dude, that is pure nonsense, a blatant contradiction. Do you ever listen to
yourself?
And if that's not enough, James explains that he is only making a case for
"chance" and indeterminism rather than "freedom" precisely because his
determinist opponents have warped and distorted the meaning of ""freedom" in
what had become a "quagmire of evasion". They were calling themselves
"free-will determinists" and saying that freedom is "necessity understood" and
"true freedom" is bondage. Do James talks about chance rather than freedom
simply to avoid all this contradictory drivel. And what is your response? You
use it as a basis for asserting more of that same contradictory drivel. It's
hard to see how someone could misread James so badly. It's like you're actually
trying to get it wrong, as if your aim is to make it into the opposite of what
it is.
Steve said:
I don't accept it as an axiom that determinism is incomptible with ethics.
dmb says:
In that case, there are several possibilities. You don't know what
"determinism" is. You don't know what 'incompatible" means. You don't
understand what the study of "ethics" is about. Your position is really quite
implausible and even worthy of ridicule and yet you have no apparent reason for
taking it. It's just a naked, unexplained, unjustified refusal of the obvious.
It defies logic and the english language. It's worse than worthless.
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