Hi dmb, A more honest response would have been that you have indeed been insisting that determinism is married to SOM in spite of your protestations and name-calling over the past weeks. You think "free will" can be shed of its metaphysical baggage and understood pragmatically, but you insist that "determinism" can only be understood in the traditional metaphysical terms. At least now we understand what you mean by determinism. But let's not have any more of your nonsense about ME being the one who who thinks these terms can only be taken in their metaphysical (internal/external ultimate cause) form.
And make no mistake about it, if you insist that free will is the denial of determinism, and you see determinism as the metaphysical position you described, then you are asserting free will as a metaphysical position. To accept the underlying premises of an SOM position long enough to deny it and assert its opposite is to be taking an SOM position (in contrast to the MOQ's "mu" to the traditional version of the dilemma). I have suspected that you were attempting to sneak the SOM version of free will in the back door, and now I am convinced that that is exactly what you are doing. Now that we seem to understand one another, I will only recommend to you at this point that the solution to your existential discomfort in this case is to recognize that you need not accept the underlying SOM premise upon which your anxiety rests. You are afraid of ghosts, and the first step in getting rid of that fear is to acknowledge that you believe in ghosts. (This is important because you thought you didn't believe in them.) At that point you will surely appreciate the simple elegance with which Dewey dealt with the problem of free will and determinism and recognize James's anxiety over the issue as a holdover of that Cartesian sort of anxiety to which we pragmatists who have left SOM behind are immune. (As a bonus, once you rid yourself of SOM you won't have to worry about relativism, whether we can really know anything, and whether or not you are a brain in a vat, either!) Good luck, Steve On Sat, Oct 1, 2011 at 12:03 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: > > Steve said: > what is it about determinism that has "devastating consequences" and will > "render your actions inert and your life meaningless"? ... Determinism > (pragmatically understood as the hope of explaining events in terms of causes > and effects) is a belief held to fulfill our desires to predict and control > things. .. How does that hope make you or James or anyone else suicidal? > > > dmb replied: > > Oh, I see. Your question is predicated on the assumption that determinism is > just pragmatically useful when we're doing physics. Now that I understand > your point, I see how ridiculous it is. Physics isn't one bit depressing but > determinism is, you unbelievable hack. I'm just not going to talk to you > anymore until get a dictionary. > > > Steve said: > Implicit in this claim is that you didn't understand what I was saying > before, so why are you so certain that you have finally grasped it now? No, I > am not limiting determinism to the study of physics. But the good news is > that you are getting closer. You've made some progress! > > > dmb says: > You really don't see why I'm calling you a ridiculous hack? Look, I'm saying > that determinism is a philosophical doctrine that says human beings are > determined. Causal determinism is a particular version of determinism that > extends the laws of cause and effect from physics to the sphere of human > action. Your question is based on the ridiculous idea that determinism isn't > a philosophical position about human beings. Your question is based on a > rather hair-brained conflation of physics and philosophy. It makes no sense. > > What's worse, you are doing this after I already pointed out the difference > several times. The idea that there are causal laws is a fine idea when you're > talking about billiard balls or rockets, I said, but not when we are talking > about human actions. The latter is causal determinism and the former is just > physics. In effect, you are asking me why I find physics so depressing, why > the regularity of the physical world would make life meaningless? And > apparently you are still quite oblivious and cannot see how profoundly > confused you are. > > "In the past the logic has been that if chemistry professor are composed > exclusively of atoms and if atoms follow only the law of cause and effect, > then chemistry professors must follow the laws of cause and effect too. But > this logic can be applied in a reverse direction. ..If chemistry professors > exercise choice, and chemistry professors are composed exclusively of atoms, > then it follows that atoms must exercise choice too. The difference between > these two points of view is philosophic, not scientific. The question of > whether and electron does a certain thing because it has to or because it > wants to is completely irrelevant to the data of what the electron does." > > You also confuse "causes" with "causality", which is like confusing reasons > and motives and agency with the laws of physics. If you believe in human > freedom, for example, then your own human agency is the cause of your > actions, as opposed to your actions being just one more link in the chain of > causality. The most basic operative terms seem to be way more than you can > handle. As a result, you are still waiting at the starting line and have not > even begun to discuss the issue. You are completely lost, so much so that > your questions are ridiculous nonsense. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
