virginia tech and determinism

Originally posted by knightmeister
I'm not interested in the ability to "do otherwise" (in fact, as I've explained I think if it is possible for you to act differently at T4, then that signals a lack of personal autonomy). LEMON


---Right now I'm not bothered about this , what I want to know is how you feel about living in a world where only one turn of the cosmic dice prevented you ...[text shortened]... you can't then I'm afraid I don't think an awful lot of your idea of personal autonomy.

Your confusion is you still act like the cosmos generally is thrusting a path of life on Cho. When you say things like character, beliefs, motivations, etc. are being thrust on Cho, you make a notional mistake. These are not things being thrust on Cho; these are things that collectively go together to constitute Cho. Again, I know full well that Cho did not ultimately decide who he was -- nobody does that. That's beside the point. I don't care how the collection of psychological entities that comprises you came into being. The point is that if your actions derive proximately from these entities absent external threat or coercion, then you are a genuine source of these actions. Cho's actions (e.g., in my hypothetical) were as free as free can be.

All you're good for is distorting my view, for one, and begging the question over and over, for two. When you yell and kick and scream that my conception of freedom is wrong because it is compatible with determinism, you are just begging the question.

There are, to be sure, ways that compatibilists have tried to construct "doing otherwise" on compatibilist terms. I find such accounts fundamentally unnecessary (and I doubt they would be convincing to any libertarian anyway).

Originally posted by LemonJello
Your confusion is you still act like the cosmos generally is thrusting a path of life on Cho. When you say things like character, beliefs, motivations, etc. are being thrust on Cho, you make a notional mistake. These are not things being thrust on Cho; these are things that collectively go together to constitute Cho. Again, I know full well that Cho di ...[text shortened]... undamentally unnecessary (and I doubt they would be convincing to any libertarian anyway).

The point is that if your actions derive proximately from these entities absent external threat or coercion, then you are a genuine source of these actions. Cho's actions (e.g., in my hypothetical) were as free as free can be. LEMON

RESPONSE--

I beg to differ sir. If he did not have the slightest chance of avoiding these actions then he was indeed an extremely unlucky fellow trapped by a pre-determined destiny that was not of his choice. Infact it's very very sad if thought about this way and deeply depressing. What a miserable human condition to be stuck with mass murder and suicide as his lot in life. You must be sooooo relieved it wasn't you that was born Cho. !! I doubt whether you would have enjoyed being that "free". Oh boy , what a life! Just think , any one of your family might go on the rampage themselves and if it's destined that way you or they will not be free to prevent it. Your freedom sucks!

Originally posted by dottewell
The cosmos is not an agent, making choices which cut against our own. So claiming it "forced" anyone to do anything is a simple category mistake. It is in no way comparable to someone holding a gun to your head.

Yes, he was always going to make the choices he did; but they were still free choices (in the sense that he went through a reasoning process and selected a way to act), and they were morally wrong choices.

The cosmos is not an agent, making choices which cut against our own. So claiming it "forced" anyone to do anything is a simple category mistake. It is in no way comparable to someone holding a gun to your head. DOTTY

...It is comparable in one real sense. The sense that it restricts the available options available to someone. The subjective experience is different but the outcome is the same , a man holds a gun to our head - we have to do as he says - nature programmes us in a certain way - we have to follow that program. In both cases the "have to" clause applies - so they are comparable.
The fact that nature is more indirect and subtle than a man with a gun doesn't mean it is not dictating our actions with just as much inevitability. The process may be different but the outcome is the same. If Cho had done what he had done because he had a gun to his head his actions would have been no more inevitable than if he had just been acting out of the nature he had been given. In both scenarios it's the same determined outcome - nature doesn't need a gun it has other equally effective methods.

Originally posted by dottewell
I think you are confusing me with someone else.

I am simply assuming that whatever his mental health, and whatever his upbringing, he still (a) knew that what he was about to do was a terrible moral crime, and (b) chose to do so despite.

It is in the sense I want to put questions of his upbringing and mental health aside - i.e. to sharpen the debate.

I am simply assuming that whatever his mental health, and whatever his upbringing, he still (a) knew that what he was about to do was a terrible moral crime, and (b) chose to do so despite. LEMONJ

...He may or amy not have known that it was a terrible moral crime , I think it's quite likely that in his mind he reduced those people to objects and somehow convinced himself what he was doing was right in a twisted way. If you look at the mentality of psychopaths/sociopaths that's often what happens.

In the end we can say that he chose to do the act whatever the rationale behind it but logically we cannot say that we would have done any different given the cards he was dealt in life. Thus the point of saying "he chose to do so despite" seems a bit silly because it implies that the knowledge of the terribleness of the crime should have prevented him from doing it. But nothiong was able to prevent the act - it was determined. Infact , I would ask what does it really mean to say he "chose" to do this if there was no option but to "choose" that action. It would be far more meaningful to say this if he actually had some chance at least of avoiding the action , which in your view he did not. In order to have meaningful choice one must not just have knowledge or awareness but also the means and the ability to avoid a course of action and chose another one in it's place.

Do you think that if you were in his shoes you would have done differently? How could that be ?

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]It depends what you mean by responsible really.

Well, feel free here to take 'responsible' to mean precisely what you take it to mean when you go around from thread to thread shouting that one cannot be responsible for his actions if his actions could not be otherwise. Obviously, I'm trying to offer a counterexample to the principle of alternat ...[text shortened]... xpect me to think you understand compatibilism, given your recent posts in the other thread?[/b]

Do you honestly expect me to think you understand compatibilism, given your recent posts in the other thread?



.....yes , I do. I expect you to realise that I understand it in the same way I understand David Ickes views. I understand what he is saying I just think it's bunk.

Originally posted by dottewell
It's not mere semantics. To claim the universe "forces" us to make choices - in the same way as someone pointing a gun at our head - is simply wrong.

Moreover, if we phrase things that way it makes it impossible to hold a meaningful debate.

"Destiny" is in inverted commas simply because I don't want to allow the impression that we are being controll ...[text shortened]... e said to have made (free, morally consequential) choices. You STILL haven't done so.

It's not mere semantics. To claim the universe "forces" us to make choices - in the same way as someone pointing a gun at our head - is simply wrong. DOTTY

...I didn't say that the universe forces our choices in the same way because they don't. i'm making the point that there are all sorts of ways that a man's actions might be forced . Indirectly , subtly , unconsciously , or explicitly. It seems to me to be a false catagory to say that one kind of forcing is actually "forcing" and another kind of forcing is not forcing because it is less explicit or violent.

Surely the only critieria we need to apply to decide if something is forcing something else to do something is if it applies an influence to it in some way that affords the agent only one choice but to follow that action. The gun and nature both do that.

Originally posted by dottewell
I'm not talking about "quantum entanglement". This is a red herring. I'm accepting, for the sake of argument, that the world is perfectly determined in an orderly fashion.

Ok , well in that contextual way of looking at the world then libertarian free will is indeed incoherent. When you want to rejoin the actual world let me know.

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]It depends what you mean by responsible really.

Well, feel free here to take 'responsible' to mean precisely what you take it to mean when you go around from thread to thread shouting that one cannot be responsible for his actions if his actions could not be otherwise. Obviously, I'm trying to offer a counterexample to the principle of alternat ...[text shortened]... xpect me to think you understand compatibilism, given your recent posts in the other thread?[/b]

To me to be responsible for my actions means that I am at least able in some way to influence my actions and I must believe this to be so. This means that (say in Cho's situation) I might think to myself that this is not the way my life has to go , there has to be some other option than mass murder and suicide. I might decide to go and seek some help or vent my anger in a more constructive way. I would need to believe that my life was not predetermined to do this. Fatalism would be very unuseful for me in Cho's situation. To be truely responsible is to be in a situation where one has to act to make something happen but also know that it would be very easy and possible not to act (as Cho didn't). To be responsible one must stand at a real fork in the road and decide for ourselves.

Determinism implies fatalism , and we don't and can't live by it.

Originally posted by knightmeister
The ability to do otherwise is not necessary. It's not sufficient either. In the above example, of course Cho is blameworthy. Why? Certainly not because he could have done otherwise, but rather because he determined his own actions and they were indicative of his own evaluative commitments in the absence of coercion.LEMON

RESPONSE---

You miss the ...[text shortened]... es beyond any meaningful control. There was only one Cho he could ever have been (in your view)

People have the up bringings that are close to his, worse than his,
better than his and they do not run off and kill. He made a choice
it was not one he had to make, therefore he is to blame, if he was
forced to act, show by what means. If another would have pushed
his buttons to get him to do the same thing, I reject that too, since
like I said, others have the same buttons, they do not run off and
kill just because. There are rich people who steal, and honest poor
people, what we choose to do, we choose to do, what is around us
may give us an excuse, but we don't need one to do what we want,
we just do it and maybe later justify it if we feel the need.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
People have the up bringings that are close to his, worse than his,
better than his and they do not run off and kill. He made a choice
it was not one he had to make, therefore he is to blame, if he was
forced to act, show by what means. If another would have pushed
his buttons to get him to do the same thing, I reject that too, since
like I said, other ...[text shortened]... d one to do what we want,
we just do it and maybe later justify it if we feel the need.
Kelly

You are preaching to the converted Kelly . I agree with you. What I am doing is playing devil's advocate to these compatabilist/determinist folk so they can get a grasp of the logical implications of determinism. I feel like I understand better what this means for someone like Cho than they do. (personally I don't think Cho 's actions were inevitable , I think God would have given him some way out at some point )

Originally posted by knightmeister
You are preaching to the converted Kelly . I agree with you. What I am doing is playing devil's advocate to these compatabilist/determinist folk so they can get a grasp of the logical implications of determinism. I feel like I understand better what this means for someone like Cho than they do. (personally I don't think Cho 's actions were inevitable , I think God would have given him some way out at some point )

I think we can predict some actions, but even with that, it isn't because
they must happen, but because with this type of heart or that kind
these things will occur, such as stealing or returning money found when
identification is there to show who really owns the money. The fact that
our hearts can be 'fixed' by God as we will says we have a say, without
which it is all very much a done deal.
Kelly

Originally posted by scottishinnz
My point is that omniscience and free will are incompatible.

So how exactly did God's omniscience effect Cho's freedom to choose? Don't bother going into the whole "If God knew beforehand what he would choose, then Cho could not have chosen otherwise" explanation; I've heard that one before and it's a giant load.* If God knew, he knew, but how did his knowing actually effect Cho's freedom to choose one way or the other?

Decisions are made immanently, within the only moment we can act, which is the present. How can God's awareness of what we will ultimately choose possibly effect what is immanent to us, e.g. the choice to pull the trigger or not? Omniscience does not imply a forcing of the hand, and therefore is entirely compatible with the freedom to choose.

(*The argument, "since God knew Cho would kill, then Cho could not have chosen otherwise" neglects the immanence of free will; the marriage of free will to action, within the moment. The mental construct of such an argument seems to allude to a reality, but it really only denies the present one.)

Originally posted by epiphinehas
So how exactly did God's omniscience effect Cho's freedom to choose? Don't bother going into the whole "If God knew beforehand what he would choose, then Cho could not have chosen otherwise" explanation; I've heard that one before and it's a giant load.* If God knew, he knew, but how did his knowing actually effect Cho's freedom to choose o ...[text shortened]... an argument seems to allude to a reality, but it really only denies the present one.)

Good point.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
So how exactly did God's omniscience effect Cho's freedom to choose? Don't bother going into the whole "If God knew beforehand what he would choose, then Cho could not have chosen otherwise" explanation; I've heard that one before and it's a giant load.* If God knew, he knew, but how did his knowing actually effect Cho's freedom to choose one way or the other?

Gods knowledge does not effect Cho's freedom to choose. However:
1. Gods knowledge is proof that the universe is deterministic and predestined.
2. In a predestined universe containing a omniscient God, God is just as responsible as Cho when it comes to Cho's actions.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Gods knowledge does not effect Cho's freedom to choose. However:
1. Gods knowledge is proof that the universe is deterministic and predestined.
2. In a predestined universe containing a omniscient God, God is just as responsible as Cho when it comes to Cho's actions.

Gods knowledge does not effect Cho's freedom to choose. However:
1. Gods knowledge is proof that the universe is deterministic and predestined.
2. In a predestined universe containing a omniscient God, God is just as responsible as Cho when it comes to Cho's actions. WHITEY


Oh dear , in order for 1. to be the proof you want it to you would have to consider how God comes by his knowledge and also accept that God does in fact exist. Does it occur to you that God's omniscience and his eternal nature are linked. ? How do you think God knows what has already happened in the future? HMM let's think....it's because he's eternal! BUT...if he's eternal then he doen't need petty things like predestination to be able to know everything. Only entities trapped on timelines need the universe to be deterministic to be able to know everything...why? ....because they need to be able to predict the future because they can't be present in it (omnipresent) ...like an eternal entity can!

In short you have accepted God's omniscience but not all his other qualities along with it ...which is shall we say...selective at the very least.