Concepts and Percepts--Are They Different? Are They Certain?

I haven't mentioned axioms, but since you brought them up, noting that existence exists doesn't tell us that existents behave regularly as opposed to irradically. Noting that things have identity doesn't tell us what they will do next, only whether they'll cease to exist under various conditions (e.g., a bachelor ceases to exist the moment he gets married; a rectangle ceases to exist the moment one of its angles changes from 90 degrees). And noting that consciousness exists doesn't tell us how things will behave, only that they exist and have identity. Incidentally, axioms are most helpful when categorizing -- they help delimit categorization.

Nathan, I'm too tired to continue. ... I plan to respond when I recover.

For a teaser, I do take the hard-line on knowledge (no degrees)--afterall, what in the hell did you expect from me, Nathan??

What did you expect from the guy who wrote that "Veridicality" essay??? Sheesh!

LOL

In my experience, people who use the word 'coruscate' are coruscating.

(You had that one coming, you know.)

Well, masturbating intellectually once in a while is not a problem, but when you do it on many threads while developing nothing but your typing skills, it says a lot about you.

Anyways, I've found paradoxes to be the first point of attack for verbalists.  Verbalists have little empirical knowledge to present, so they like to tout their mastery of linguistic and philosophic esoterica and logical fallacies (as if a logical fallacy ultimately decided the truth of a claim).  Well, keep on keeping on.

P.S.  Compatibilism is an attempt to deal with a paradox that you think doesn't exist. 

I'm not debating determinism with you anymore because (a) I think that you are unfamiliar with the relevant literature

(b) and you are gaining a lot of mileage by criticizing other people's positions while claiming that you have this wonderful position that you have refused to present thus far... 

and (c) that you refuse to cite your influences for fear that others will be able to lodge the same objections to your positions that others have (understanding the paradox explains why each position to the free will problem is tenable). 

I note that even the dualist libertarians on this thread understand physicalist determinism far better than a self-proclaimed physicalist does. 

Please answer the following questions for the benefit of people who enjoy your pompous, self-gratifying writings. After all, you claim to be free to choose to respond or not to respond, but quite frankly, I think that you are mentally chained by your philosophical ineptitude and cannot respond, even if you wanted to (the limits of volition).

1) Explain your theory of volition and show how it is compatible with evolutionary theory in biology. ...

2) Explain how your theory surmounts the traditional problems with determinism and free will (especially my next point).

• Assumes antecedent causes determine everything;
• Thus, at any given moment the future is fixed;
• Thus, we make the "choices" we are compelled to make.

• Assumes that supercomputers and missions to other planets are evidence of consciousness and volition;
• Thus, if there is volition, the future cannot be fixed;
• Thus, the hard linear causality model does not actually describe the way the universe works.

3) Explain how indeterminism grants a freedom/responsibility that determinism does not, more so given that your claim that volition is a result of the organization of matter.

In what sense is the volition free of the material properties of the chemical constituents of human beings, and how does this confer human beings with a responsibility they do not have under determinism?

By the way,  if you actually understand compatibilism, its whole point is that we do have the power to choose. It's just that for a compatibilist, free will is a biological and cultural phenomenon and a proper subject of reductionist analysis. 

This is just commonsense for a physicalist view of volition -biological traits like intelligence at least determine choices in part

and explain a lot of variance in individual and group outcomes. If choice has biological determinants, and those determinants explain a significant part of the variance in individual abilities, then what frankly does indeterminism do? 

Children of average IQs develop particular intellectual abilities at particular ages. What does indeterminism add to that?

Because they believe that volition is a proper subject for reductionist analysis, compatibilists cannot start out by postulating indeterminism.  They postulate determinism and see how far the analysis gets them. The analysis has gotten scientists so far that unless strong evidence for indeterministic volition shows up, no one is going to give determinism up.  This is clearly rational.

One of the key points about compatibilism is that though they answer "yes, there is only one physically possible future", they find fatalism stupid without a knowledge of what that future will be.  You will find that compatibilists (like me) find the question of metaphysical inevitability uninteresting without epistemic insight into why an outcome might be inevitable. 

I didn't say "hey, people, I'm a man without power and without choice, so I am going to be a determinist".  I started out an indeterminist because I thought that no coherent, predictive framework for choice and creativity existed.  As I studied more psychology and philosophy, I changed my mind.  Here is one of the articles that influenced my change of mind:

http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/valencia.htm

People, watch the verbalist talk (or non-talk) his way out of it. 

Nathan is not interested in actually answering the paradox - he is just interested in claiming that we have an answer to the paradox and mocking people who for rational, personal and practical reasons, are comfortable with the answers he is unwilling to accept.

 

Laj writes to Nathan:

>Explain how indeterminism grants a freedom/responsibility that determinism does not, *more so given that your claim that volition is a result of the organization of matter*.

This seems to be the crux of the issue. In my view, you can't be a physicalist and deny the laws of physics...;-)

• Laj assumes in these laws a rigid linear causality and reasons to a fixed future and the inevitability of Boeing 757s;
• I assume that the apparent products of our consciousness and volition (such as Boeing 757s and Mars missions) are indeed sufficient evidence of consciousness and volition, and reason that the future is not fixed and thus causality cannot be as rigidly linear as determinists would have it. In my universe, the laws permit it.

Jordan:
>But this doesn't tell us anything new. It's not induction. And it doesn't overcome Hume's problem.

Yes. Yes. And yes. Clearly you have a excellent understanding of the situation. The twist I will add is that there is a *second* part to H's problem, and this is the one that is perhaps most difficult of all.

That is, if induction is irrational - that is, there is no logical way to justify reasoning from past events to future ones - and humans rely on induction for their knowledge, *therefore humans are irrational*.

• If A then B
• A
• Therefore B

• If C then probably D
• C
• Therefore probably D

This is the other logical problem that resulted from Hume's insight. That's why he and so many others came to the conclusion that reason must be the "slave of the passions" etc etc. And this is why so many advocates of reason found themselves forced to adopt irrationalist philosophies.

Popper's answer to Hume was ingenious. He agreed with the first issue - that induction is not logically justifiable to any degree. But his solution to the second issue was simply that humans do not actually use induction anyway! (it only appears that they do)

Laj assumes in these laws a rigid linear causality and reasons to a fixed future and the inevitability of Boeing 757s;

I assume that the apparent products of our consciousness and volition (such as Boeing 757s and Mars missions) are indeed sufficient evidence of consciousness and volition, and reason that the future is not fixed and thus causality cannot be as rigidly linear as determinists would have it. In my universe, the laws permit it.

To support his position, Laj points to evidence that SOME things about humans appear to be determined and generalizes from that. (I do not deny that some things are. I deny the validity of universalizing that, however).

To support my position, I point to evidence such as Boeing 757s and Mars missions as indicative of volitional consciousness and observe that the odds against such extreme order arising as an accident of the universe, built in from its inception, are incomprehensibly high.

In another thread, under one of Tibor Machan's articles, I argue that the fine-tuned constants might be an unlikely accident. I have since made a rough calculation for twenty constants and a generous deviation, and the odds for THIS universe, given certain assumptions, are about .000000000000000000000000000047%.

That's just TWENTY constants. What are the odds against a spontaneous Boeing 757, let alone it's antecedent-determined human builders?

Unimaginable.

Nathan Hawking

Laj assumes in these laws a rigid linear causality and reasons to a fixed future and the inevitability of Boeing 757s;

I do not assume this and I do not need to assume this.  What I assume is that the properties of a physical structure are determined by its components.

• Assume a fixed future;
• Claim the inevitability of Boeing 757s;
• Now you're simply trying to substitute the phrase "determined by its components" for "rigid linear causality."

The point is that any freedom conferred by such a structure would be based on environment specific responses of the structure. This is the view of human nature compatible with evolutionary biology.  Therefore, similar physical structures will "behave" similarly. One can understand the structures as being predisposed to behave in particular ways under particular circumstances.  This is the basis of their freedom.

I assume that the apparent products of our consciousness and volition (such as Boeing 757s and Mars missions) are indeed sufficient evidence of consciousness and volition, and reason that the future is not fixed and thus causality cannot be as rigidly linear as determinists would have it. In my universe, the laws permit it.

I don't know which determinists you have been reading, but at some point, you will have to please stop using these straw man arguments.  I pointed to one materialist and compatibilist determinist(Dennett) who discussed creativity - how does your straw man apply to him?  Rigid linearity is not a necessary component of deterministic causation.

To support his position, Laj points to evidence that SOME things about humans appear to be determined and generalizes from that. (I do not deny that some things are. I deny the validity of universalizing that, however).

Not just determined, but determined by *physical similarities*. The generalizations have been justified by the results.

 

To support my position, I point to evidence such as Boeing 757s and Mars missions as indicative of volitional consciousness and observe that the odds against such extreme order arising as an accident of the universe, built in from its inception, are incomprehensibly high.

More straw men.

 

• You look at Boeing 757s and see hundreds of inevitable products of the big bang.
• I look at Boeing 757s and see evidence of HUMAN intelligence and volition.

This sounds like an ID argument against evolution.

In another thread, under one of Tibor Machan's articles, I argue that the fine-tuned constants might be an unlikely accident. I have since made a rough calculation for twenty constants and a generous deviation, and the odds for THIS universe, given certain assumptions, are about .000000000000000000000000000047%.

That's just TWENTY constants. What are the odds against a spontaneous Boeing 757, let alone it's antecedent-determined human builders?

Unimaginable.

Nathan Hawking

One of the points of Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea was that evolution works with "cranes", where the evolved structures symbiotically make other processes/structures occur/develop faster. Have you ever heard this argument before making your uninformed statements about "spontaneous Boeing 757s"?   Did you read the article I posted from Dennett?

The article is not that hard to read.  If a 5600-word article turns you off, maybe philosophy is not what you should be debating. I've sent that article to many people and you are the first to complain about its length. However, read the article you must if you will ever be disabused of your straw man view of determinism. Until then, ciao. I'll assume that many of your comments are equally sourced in your ignorance.