/lit/ - Literature

Freedom/ Libertinety of will is esteemed comparatively an analogue across speciational typyfications;'/.

no. all is physical and drug enough information you could provide the exact actions of every person. this is all predetermined. your sense of consciousness is an illusion, as are your decisions. you are not in control because there is no you

>>17024431
What this guy says, we are pretty much no different from a tree, or any other living organism really, we only exist to make offspring.

Once we become immortal nature controlling beings though? Fuck yeah free will exists!

Imagine separating yourself from your fate and not embracing it
You're not a smelly Turk, are you?

>>17024388
One will be hard pressed to even define free will

>>17024388
Free will doesn't exist even if determinism is false.

>How can this indeterminism help with moral responsibility? Granted that the truth of determinism rules out true moral responsibility, how can the falsity of determinism help? How can the occurrence of partly random or inde- terministic events contribute in any way to one's being truly morally responsible either for one's actions or for one's character? If my efforts of will shape my character in an admirable way, and in so doing are partly indeterministic in nature, while also being shaped (as Kane grants) by my already existing character, why am I not merely lucky?

>In the end, whatever we do, we do it either as a result of random influences for which we are not responsible, or as a result of non-random influences for which we are not responsible, or as a result of influences for which we are proximally responsible but not ultimately responsible. The point seems obvious. Nothing can be ultimately causa sui in any respect at all. Even if God can be, we can't be.
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/strawsong/Impossibility.pdf

>determinism
>can't actually determine anything because the brain is too complex to predict anything but the most broad estimates.
Entirely useless.

>>17024598
determinism cannot be false, it's impossible

"What flavour of ice cream would you like?"
"It doesn't matter... It's all predetermined anyway..."

>>17024682
Go ahead, pick one besides the one you will pick. I dare you.

>>17024388
I argue about it like this. By doing what I'm doing, then stopping. LOOK NOW I MADE MY LETTERS CAPITAL.

>>17024736
Shouldn't you be on /pol/? What did you forget here

>>17024774
Wtf this isn't pol? Couldn't tell. My bad

>>17024388
Here's the thing about determinism; Determined by what...by who? The entity which determines everything, we can most certainly credot with free will.

dont know; doesn't matter
This is definitely a case of feels>reals, and we have the illusion of choice, so it doesn't matter.
desu the only people I see completely freaked out about free will are people with extremely controlling personalities who get triggered by the notion that someone else might possibly be pulling their strings.

>>17024388
I like how in the previous thread the one anon BTFO'd everyone he argued with until they just disappeared from the thread.
And no, I'm not that anon, but I do agree with his reasoning. Good job, anon.

>>17024682
Who is the one picking the icecream?
Did you choose which one or is the decision simply derived from a list of urges?

>>17024682
And thats where reaction time comes in.

>suddenly about to get punched. Gets because it just happened.

>suddenly about to get punched, but sees the enemy fucker preparing said punch. BRAIN GOES ZTTTTTTTGTG. Manages to block it.

In conclusion, you see the different flavors of ice cream, your brain unciously determines it for you.

>>17024859
Determined by the initial state of the universe post big bang

>>17024388
Free will isn't contingent upon non-determinism. Even without determinism, there's no good case for free will. There's no meta-self that decides on which thoughts will arise or what feelings you will have (and to suggest as much brings up an infinite regression problem).

>>17024553
Indeed. Or even 'freedom', as an actual state.

>>17024900
If the reasoning was that good, you should enlighten us.

>>17024941
But I am my brain, ergo I make the decision

>>17025120
Yes, but no.

If you are your brain then you should be able to manually stop your heart at any given moment.
But ya cant.

Your just the concious part of it yes?

>>17025164
No? That seems incredibly arbitrary

>>17025218
Nope, if we were truly our little computer meatloaf then we would be a higher conciousness, we can be happy anytime we want, be sad etc. We would have full control over our body. Hell, if it is possible, even cancer cells can be personally controlled. Im not a biologist though.

>>17024388
Free will exists in some people and doesn't exist in others. It's a quality of a higher person. There's not enough, and never will be, enough computing power so calculate the exact actions and thoughts of any individual.

Basically if you are an atheist you must believe in determinism and if you are not you must believe in free will
It sounds backwards but think about it if you believe in god or any other supreme being then for you he must take the place of determinism which essentially means he must be a being with free will
If you are an atheist how can you reconcile that the universe is chaotic and was basically created randomly yet somehow you have free will and can change the outcome of anything in such a universe

>>17025014
Go read the thread if you're interested, it 404d not too many hours ago, it's on the archive somewhere.
The crux of his argument is that the truth of determinism, regardless of whether it is or isn't true in fact, can't be rationally determined because of an inherent paradox in the reasoning.

>>17024388
Free will doesn't exist because everything happening ever is just a reaction to something else happening according to the laws of physics and whatnot. Your thoughts and feelings and "will" isn't outside this chain reaction that every molecule has been continually been apart of since the beginning of time. Just because it's not like anyone could actually predict anything so seemingly chaotic and complicated as the constant chain reaction that is the universe doesn't mean that it isn't a logical process which is your perceived will is a part of it. If time would be reset from a previous point everything would happen the same way and everyone would act the exact same way as last time.

>>17024969
this

This madlad conclusively proved in the Critique of Practical Reason (chapter 1) that free will exist, even in a deterministic world.

>>17024388
Free will and determinism are retarded antiquated concepts. Trying to explain away human behaviors into these two poles is like arguing by earth air fire water elements.

>>17025401
tell me about his reasoning, anon.

>>17024388
as an individual there is some wiggle room
as a collectivity no, human beings always choose the path of least resistance

>>17024388
free question, free answers.

>>17025421
To give you the gist of it, he thinks that through the CI we can determine our will in a way that is not reducible to any previous empirical stimulus. Basically, with the CI, reason can fully determine itself (it's what he would call self-determination, or autonomy), making free will possible.
Keep in mind that he argues autistically for all these claims in the chapter I've mentioned. It's quite short btw

>>17025532
Which would make reason something transcendent, rather than a tool our brains evolved.

>>17024388
>Pretty much everything can be predicted given enough factors/strong enough computing power.

This requires there to be no free will. If there was free will, and I jump right now for no reason other than that I feel like it, how would you predict the sound that is created?

>>17025540
>no reason other than that I feel like it
why did you feel like it? and what caused that? and so on

>>17025536
What do you mean exactly?

>>17025559
If reason is a tool that our brains evolved, then it's part of the deterministic flux. If it can somehow create action that is not being caused by prior physical states, as he's saying the CI achieves, then it is transcendent

btw daniel dennett knocked this one out of the park in freedom evolves

>>17024388
>Pretty much everything can be predicted given enough factors/strong enough computing power
Nope. See, Heizenburger uncertainty principle

>>17024388
Yeah it does. Unless you mean it's like seperate from the physical world. Then that would be harder to argue. Hard determinism itself is already wrong because physics tells us so. Quantum theory is non deterministic. And this isn't because we can't see its determinism because we both have measured to a painstaking detail and also use it in every day life. Couple that with chaos theory and the idea of hard determinism is hard to hold.

Some may say free will doesn't exist because you make your decision from what happened before, but the same people get ass blasted and use the strawman that quantum physics wouldn't produce free will because they are random. Like it's a binary choice between these two and not a mix. Isn't though that follow casualty but aren't deterministic what most would be comfortable calling free will?

>>17025564
Then yes, in this sense it is trascendent, insofar as it is a faculty which can determine our will through purely rational contents. Keep in mind though that Kant is still an hard determinist, so for him none of our actions can go against the laws of nature: in fact he goes as far as saying that every facet of our entire life can in principle be predicted.

>>17025401
He didn't prove any such thing, and there's some reasonable skepticism as to whether he was even making an ontological argument:

>"So freedom is only an idea of reason, whose objective reality in itself is doubtful..."
-Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals - Chapter 3

>>17025779
>With this faculty, transcendental freedom is also established; freedom, namely, in that absolute sense in which speculative reason required it in its use of the concept of causality in order to escape the antinomy into which it inevitably falls, when in the chain of cause and effect it tries to think the unconditioned. Speculative reason could only exhibit this concept (of freedom) problematically as not impossible to thought, without assuring it any objective reality, and merely lest the supposed impossibility of what it must at least allow to be thinkable should endanger its very being and plunge it into an abyss of scepticism.
>Inasmuch as the reality of the concept of freedom is proved by an apodeictic law of practical reason, it is the keystone of the whole system of pure reason, even the speculative, and all other concepts (those of God and immortality) which, as being mere ideas, remain in it unsupported, now attach themselves to this concept, and by it obtain consistence and objective reality; that is to say, their possibility is proved by the fact that freedom actually exists, for this idea is revealed by the moral law.

From the Preface of the second critique. In the passage you've quoted Kant says it is doubtful only because he has not presented his main arguments for it yet (rather, the aim of thr Groundwork is to introduce the Ci to his audience, as he points out in the same preface I've quoted).

I will never understand why people come here to ask basic questions like "is consciousness physical?" "is morality objective?" or this shit.

Like if you really can't think for yourself at least read the basic literature first Jesus Christ

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

How do I argue against determinism? I'm going to wait and see if I refute it.

>>17025572
I don't hate him like so many here do, but the compatibilist position is stupid. It's like they're really hardcore into viewing themselves a biological machines until they come to free will, and then refuse to cross that rubicon. It makes me question their sincerity on the issue.

>>17025578
Can I haz heizenburger?

>>17025919
The sophism and obfuscatory jargon some of the compatibilists come up with is just unreal.

If we define free will by this compatibilist definition of an (attempt of) activity according to one's reasons (or nature, for the traditional Christian one) within himself, I think we could perhaps prove that rationality is necessary for free will. Or free will for rationality, I am honestly unsure of which angle to argue, but you can help me anons:

angle 1: Free will is necessary for rationality

P1. Rational thinking is thinking according to correct (by the understanding of correctness in rationality) reasons within yourself that you have chosen
P2. To be able to choose according to one's own reasons, they must have a free will
C. Therefore, free will is required for rationality

I feel like this is really incomplete however, so I'll appreciate criticism. I do want to say that I think rationality is impossible without a free will however because then it is impossible to know whether you are genuinely even attempting to be. Are you believing in X because you are, for some reason, determined to or because of a real deliberation?

>>17025891
But he doesn't demonstrate that freedom exists as an actual state, he just asserts it as a required axiom for his schema of will to operate. He needs the will to be an uncaused cause, and so he makes it a special case, ham-fistedly exempting it from temporality and investing it with the axiom of 'freedom'. There is no ontological description of freedom, however.

Perhaps he really did change his mind, but without a positive ontological description/demonstration of 'freedom', his argument for free will doesn't hold up.

>>17025934
-What exactly is a 'choice' (or the process of choosing)?
-Isn't predicating your definition of 'rationality' upon the use rationality circular? Perhaps a better definition of rational thinking might be: The application of logic to experience
-What makes a reason one's own? What is the provenance of 'reasons'?
-Where is the hard boundary between the 'self' and everything else?

>>17024954
Nope! According to most physicists the universe could start in an identical state and the future state at a given time could be quite different. Every particle interaction is a dice roll. Only idiots still believe Einstein's hidden information hypothesis.

>>17026222
That means it's still determined by the initial state of the universe, dummy
Just because there are variable outcomes, doesn't negate that.
If you get hit by a car, you can either die or survive, but your state will still be determined by the car.

>>17026051
Have you read the first chapter of the second critique? He deals with these issues in the third and fourth theorem (read the corollaries and the two problems too).
Maybe you don't agree with his arguments, but it is certain that he believed to have proved (to quote the previous passage) "the actual existence of freedom", thanks to the moral law (CI).

>>17024388
>Pretty much everything can be predicted given enough factors/strong enough computing power.
Source? We don't know this, we presume this in particular physical situations.
>Everything is predetermined by biology/early childhood
This is another weird one that determinists often get away with... "It's not your will, it's your DNA and neurology doing this!" Bro, I AM my DNA , I AM my neurology. It's me doing this shit.

Determinism depends on high school grasp on physics, vague undefined usage of "you" and other fallacies. The most disheartening thing is, it hardly even matters because when 'free will' is talked about by philosophers, it's often supposed to be free of coercion, not of physical regularities.

>>17025934
>Free will is necessary for rationality
Based.
>>17026193
>The application of logic to experience
Yes, and determinism would not make you free to apply logic, but coerce you to apply whatever your pre-determined reaction would be. It's near impossible to argue that you happen to have been pre-determined to think completely rationally.

>>17026272
Physical regularities can be described as coercive towards us.

>>17026247
Yes, and no he doesn't deal with this issue (singular) in positive ontological terms. He wields the notion of freedom as an axiom which makes everything else fall into place. It is not a proof, it's an assumption.

>>17026272
Determinism is ultimately irrelevant to the question of free will. Whether deterministic or random, we don't control the processes that are 'us'. Yes you are your DNA and neurology, but you don't engineer the transcription in your cells or command your neurons to fire — it's the other way around. In other words, there is no meta-self (and if 'you' are product, then every aspect of your existence is a kind of coercion).

>>17026307
Don't you get it, applying logic is also a pre-determined reaction. You're just mysticizing logic.

We don't think completely rationally. Without feeling, there would be no impetus for us to reason about anything. Logic/reason/rationality is just a layer of cognitive abstraction underpinned by emotion (the impulse to reason about something is a feeling, a desire).

>>17026491
>Don't you get it, applying logic is also a pre-determined reaction. You're just mysticizing logic.
Not him but I understand why someone might mysticize logic, it has a certain 'impossible to define' quality it shares with consciousness because we have to make use of it itself to make sense of it.

>>17024388
There is no causal connection from moment to moment, just habitual relations of events. Modern determinism seems pre-defeated because it relies on an atomist view of events following from previous events. Thanks to Hume, this idea is already some 200 years out of date.

Another reason determinism doesn't work is that it is a conjecture about what lies beyond our experience. We don't have proof-positive that everything can be predicted, and in all likelihood you can't predict everything. The reason for this is that there is no connection between logic and mathematics other than a resemblance. In order for a machine to predict human actions, we would need a complete theory of knowledge. This theory of knowledge would allow the computer to make mathematical calculations that give logic as an answer.

Notice, that this is literally the exact opposite of how a Turing machine (like the one you're staring at) actually works. In a computer, you input mathematics, in order to get mathematical answers, and you can sequence the mathematical operations with rudimentary logic for ease of use. What computers do not do, is ingest mathematical data about people, and then determine from that data, the kinds of logic that the people will follow.

>>17026491
>He wields the notion of freedom as an axiom which makes everything else fall into place. It is not a proof, it's an assumption.
It's not an assumption at all, he provides stringent arguments for this claim. Also freedom is not an axiom either, and if you think so, I challenge you to find the passage in which he states so. Freedom is proven through a trascendental argument, which culminates in the two problems and the fourth theorem. The starting point is not freedom (as he points out in the Preface), rather, the starting point is the moral law (which is nothing more than a practical principle which can be adopted by all finite rational agents).

>>17026508
It's just consistency, anon. Logic is the abstract formalization of the consistency of relations in our experience. But yes, it's pretty cool and I can see why it's tempting to mysticize it (doesn't make doing so correct though).

>>17024388
No one mentions compatiblism in these threads because no one actually reads

>>17026589
>dude my car is more free than this rock!

>>17026589
It was mentioned three times actually. It's very stupid

>>17024388
if free will didn't exist would i be able to do *this*?


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ruelhtwb uheiughersnucghrekthrkjehgnrsekrnjhogtiunhrteuinhtvrechgnkeurhtctrueath4i375y32075897097105y438obionfhkgsj,mhgcnrhnjgnefhgnrjkthgnuhfghjesvd

>>17024388
>How do you argue against determinism?
You can't. It's a well and truly insignificant issue, in the sense that it makes no sense. Common sense is and will be the gold standard anti-meme with regard to shit like this: Who the fuck cares? That's coincidentally or not also the question you'll have to ask if you come upon somebody who's trying to meme you into thinking determinism or free will for some reason or another. Why does the person care so much about whether he's predetermined or not?

The free will v. determinism issue is at its heart a *moral* issue, and so beliefs regarding one or the other aren't held because they're true, but because you conclude one or the other based on other lower-order moral presuppositions.

>>17024598
This is a pretty stupid argument desu. With regard to what are we known as 'random' or 'lucky'? This guy implicitly presupposes a stochastic universe to nullify the first-person significance of being a free agent.

Literally who fucking cares

>>17026612
Based retard

>>17026376
If one's autistic enough, sure, but that's still not what they meant.
>>17026491
>Whether deterministic or random, we don't control the processes that are 'us'.
That's an irrelevant tautology. You don't control you. You ARE you. And you make choices based on you.
>applying logic is also a pre-determined reaction
It would be. But it's near-impossible to argue that your pre-determined reaction happens to perfectly coincide with what a rational outcome would be. I'm not mysticizing logic, logic is very clear. It's the relationship of a pre-determined thought process to logic that's borderline random.

>>17024388
>How do you argue against determinism?
By chasing it down to its roots. Although large structures' movements can be reliably predicted with sound methodology and enough information, quanta do not behave deterministically at all. Past a certain point it's impossible to predict exactly where any one quantum is based on its prior state. If this doesn't put the nail in the coffin of hard determinism, I don't know what does.

>>17026649
>if one's autistic enough, sure, but that's still not what they meant
That's very uncharitable. If all my desires and all my inclination are the direct result of physical regularities, I can regard them as coercive, for they were forced on me from an external source.

>>17026193
Sorry for the late-ish response, but thanks for replying.

>What exactly is a 'choice' (or the process of choosing)?
Someone's will being directed towards something, manifesting into a decision is choosing, a decision to do some activity (including simply abstract reasoning. G.e. I make the choice to eat food by directing my will towards satisfying some appetite. Although we typically choose based on deliberating between different possibilities, I maintain that free will can be exercised even if there was only one choice.
A choice would be some possibility that can be chosen.

>Isn't predicating your definition of 'rationality' upon the use rationality circular? Perhaps a better definition of rational thinking might be: The application of logic to experience
Good point, I was thinking of simply utilizing classical logic in one's decision making and deliberation. But I can agree with yours if we mean by experience of course, not just physical sensations but also the experience of abstract concepts.

>What makes a reason one's own? What is the provenance of 'reasons'?
It is one's own reason if he decides to act upon articulated reasons through his own will, by exercising the relevant faculty for it. The source of reason would be the mind. An animal without a free will, although possesses intellect, doesn't possess reason. For them, they just act according to their appetites, although disciplines ones imo probably are able to obey by conditioned reflexes, g.e. they don't do what the master hates for them to do because that is associated with pain, and do what the master desires them to do because it is associated with pleasure.

>Where is the hard boundary between the 'self' and everything else?
The self is that what is in fact experiencing. The self-evident fact that you are experiencing is testimony if not evidence, whether the experience be reliable or in fact you're a brain in a vat, you're experiencing *something* somehow.

>>17026670
It is uncharitable, I'm sorry, I just really feel like the free will discussion is corrupted by "let's say brain is matter, does it behave like matter?". When Christian theologian speak of free will, they do take into account freedom from desires and addictions, like you mention. That is indeed coercion. But I don't feel like that should lead us to the idea that physical laws as such coerce us, it's neither useful nor necessarily true.

>>17024431
>your sense of consciousness is an illusion
illusions cannot experience illusions. “Illusions” are things that require conscious experience and misperception

>>17024388
>Pretty much everything can be predicted given enough factors/strong enough computing power.
>Everything is predetermined by biology/early childhood, people only act the way they know how to act.
Your splicing two very different ideas here. In terms of general determinism:
>>17026669
This based on our model of physics (but I guess you might need to see the state of science 50/100/200 years down the road to get a comfortable answer from this line of reasoning)
>>17026525
This is an interesting and intuitive argument
>>17026618
>The free will v. determinism issue is at its heart a *moral* issue
This is sort of like what Nietzsche argued
>>17026612
>>17026622
the short and sweet of it. Why trick yourself into a more negative state of mind (if that is what determinism does to you) when you still have a present illusion of action?

>>17026525
Hume is only describing a technical uncertainty. Meanwhile the consistency of relations and the laws of thermodynamics haven't shown signs of wavering and are highly actionable (without them we'd have a lot of trouble doing anything, in fact). It helps to keep in mind that Hume was an empricist himself before you blow his cautious skepticism out of all proportion.

Not being able predict human actions in totality doesn't mean we couldn't come so close as to strongly support the notion of determinism, nor that determinism isn't the case. The fact that we can predict anything at all to a useful degree of accuracy bears careful consideration.

>no connection between logic and mathematics other than a resemblance
Now you're just getting wacky

This radical skeptic appeal to all-or-nothing knowledge always strikes me as a desperate last resort. A cop-out. If one actually doesn't believe in non-apodictic knowledge then it's a bit silly to engage in debate at all.

>>17026737
those look like the same idea to me, the biology/childhood is just the specific set of factors relevant to humans, but it's the same general principle.

>>17026618
>stochastic
Had the words mixed up, my bad. I meant non-stochastic. Transposing the free, indetermined agency of the subject into the realm of determinacy by calling it 'random' is objectifying what's inherently subjective. I don't see how the subject as random -- that's to say incomprehencible with regard to causal reasoning -- erodes the responsibility of the subject. This guy's reasoning appears to me like "things merely happen therefore there is no responsibility," which surreptitiously slips the subject into a garb of objectivity, which it's not. Obviously there's no responsibility in the singularity of the "objective" event -- The free will issue is an issue to *me*, the free subject, not of the universe and certainly not society at large, because I'm responsible for myself, whatever that is.

>>17026737
>This is sort of like what Nietzsche argued
I can see the similarity. Only thing that grinds my gears about Nietzsche and every post-nietzschean thinker of the left/post-whatever kind is that they deny the metaphysical unity of the subject, a sleight of hand that leads to what I'd call 'unsavory' moral conclusions.

>>17024598
>In the end, whatever we do, we do it either as a result of random influences for which we are not responsible, or as a result of non-random influences for which we are not responsible, or as a result of influences for which we are proximally responsible but not ultimately responsible.
why must this be accepted?

>>17026778
Because anon has a vague esoteric definition of 'you' which is completely unrelated to any events, deterministic or random.

>>17026778
Where else can behavior come from?

>>17026307
>Based.
Thanks anon, I got inspired to start on this because St. John Damascene makes a point in his Exact Exposition of The Orthodox Faith about it, just that he only touches it a bit a few times but doesn't articulate it completely. I mean, it's only an exposition rather than a full case after all.

>>17026528
I'm the one saying he wields freedom as an axiom, because he does. He doesn't need to admit it, because he does it. If you're certain that he's proven freedom to concretely exist, then describe the ontological state of freedom. Pretty simple.

If there's one thing I can totally rely upon /lit/ for, it's that some Kant adherent will emphatically claim Kant proved this or that and aver their understanding of his arguments, yet will only be able to refer to those arguments obliquely. You could save us both a lot of time and just post the crux of the proof that you think exists.

>>17026791
Why can't it be our own free will? The author, from a face value interpretation of what that anon posted, excludes the possibility of free will for no given reason. I mean, I have no problem with determinism that much since I am a compatibilist (I'm Christian), so I can agree that it's a bit irrelevant for whether we have moral responsibility. I just don't see the inference for the unreality of free will.

>>17026804
does free will cause itself?

>>17024388
Quantum mechanics,the observer problem and the collapse of the wave function upon measurement

>>17026806
Hm, I'd say that free will in its self is the efficient cause (or at least, one of them if we want to also include other faculties) of our actions, but free will doesnt quite have a cause in the same sense because free will imo shouldn't be called an effect. It's an activity, but it can be "explained" by something else still and therefore be contingent. Free will is contingent upon our self (that which experiences, and utilizes reason) existing and upon the state of our body (cant will if you're brain dead).

>>17026828
It's either part of the causal system that other things are part of or it's not. If it is part of it then it's not really free in any meaningful sense. If free will is not an effect then it is uncaused, and something mystical.

>>17026801
Dude, I told you EXACTLY where Kant gives those arguments, I'm not being vague at all. Here's the first problem (which comes after the third theorem):

>V. PROBLEM I
>Supposing that the mere legislative form of maxims is alone the sufficient determining principle of a will, to find the nature of the will which can be determined by it alone.
>Since the bare form of the law can only be conceived by reason, and is, therefore, not an object of the senses, and consequently does not belong to the class of phenomena, it follows that the idea of it, which determines the will, is distinct from all the principles that determine events in nature according to the law of causality, because in their case the determining principles must themselves be phenomena. Now, if no other determining principle can serve as a law for the will except that universal legislative form, such a will must be conceived as quite independent of the natural law of phenomena in their mutual relation, namely, the law of causality; such independence is called freedom in the strictest, that is, in the transcendental, sense; consequently, a will which can have its law in nothing but the mere legislative form of the maxim is a free will.

Unless you have some sketchy notion of ontology (and in that case I ask you to be clearer about what exactly you mean by ontology, so that I can give you more precise answers), this single passage should cover it all: Kant tells you what is a free will, what kind of beings possess it, and under which conditions this happens.

>>17026838
Why does being uncaused in the efficient sense means its mystical? It's not an efficient cause to have the property of the color white be "caused" by being a thing that is capable of being white. A being having the nature of dog-ness would certainly explain why it has 4 paws, barks, is a mammal, is a predator, etc but that's not an efficient cause. Conclusions in categorical syllogisms are also explained by their premises rather than efficiently caused, efficient cause would be literally nonsensical to apply to such a thing. Parts don't efficiently cause the whole they're part of, universals don't efficiently cause their instantiations. Why can't free will just be a contingent activity not relevant to efficient causes?

>>17026838
>>17026873
Although I should have asked, what does "mystical" mean?

>>17026873
If you mean the subjective experience we have of white then nobody knows because nobody knows what consciousness is. There are mundane reasons for some physical object to reflect light that our eyes interpret as white, that's all part of cause and effect.

Wrt our will, it is a feeling of intention we have that accompanies our behavior. I see no reason that the feeling and our behavior would not both have causes.

ITT
People pre-determined to hold superficially smart-sounding but, in actuality, very glib opinions.

>>17026880
Mystical as in outside space-time and its normal causal rules. Like how God can cause himself, free will would be something like that.

>>17026897
You would sound more intelligent yourself if you said something interesting rather than making vague accusations. I have learned to not expect you guys to ever say anything yourselves though.

>>17026921
I'm clearly pre-determined not to rise to your bait today, for like... reasons that are too complicated to ever fully explicate... I guess...

>>17026947
As I guessed, nothing approaching an intelligent contribution will come from you.

>>17026737
>This based on our model of physics (but I guess you might need to see the state of science 50/100/200 years down the road to get a comfortable answer from this line of reasoning)
An argument against determinism from a scientific standpoint is the strongest, in my opinion, because its strongest criticism--the likelihood for yet-undiscovered advances in science--can also be leveled against an argument FOR determinism. Every deterministic argument ultimately ends up dropping from metaphysics into regular old physics at some point. Without the existence of some kind of medium for things-to-determine to exist in and the things themselves, what is there to behave deterministically? Unless we want to go way off into metaphysical kooky land, we do have to recognize the existence (unless you are some kind of noumenal ectoplasm floating around on the internet) of a measurable, phenomenal world which we can interact with and observe. If we aren't ignorant and possess a basic education, we know that broad swathes of this phenomenal world can be accounted for mathematically and reliably predicted.

Given the above--namely the established tie between the physics and metaphysics of determinism--it would be just as fallacious to approach the issue from a purely scientific standpoint as it would be to approach it from a purely metaphysical position. It follows therefore that the only rational position to take viz. determinism is one completely devoid of any strong conviction.

>>17026894
>There are mundane reasons for some physical object to reflect light that our eyes interpret as white, that's all part of cause and effect.

Alright, but is being extended into space really the efficient cause of why I perceive the qualia the way I do? I'm basically talking about what the greeks called "aita", which is sometimes translated as "cause" such as Aristotle's 4 causes although they should be called the 4 explanations or factors. Efficient cause is some effect being changed from potentiality to actuality by something external (at least, iirc). But not everything is a physical effect, such as the examples I gave already, an easy one imo being that parts of a whole don't cause that whole. They help explain it.
When people talk about "God causing Himself" or "the Father causes the Son" they're talking about a different concept that ought to be called explanation. God never was potentially existent, He necessarily always is as the creator of time (as in, created the first change because there is no time before change/creation)

>>17026992
>why I perceive the qualia the way I do?
No, I just said that we don't know what consciousness is. The will doesn't seem mysterious to me the way consciousness does, I see no reason any instance of my will can't just have a prior cause.

>>17026649
It's not irrelevant. There's a big difference between a 'self' as a product and a 'meta-self' which can exhibit a will (a will which is itself not a product). It cuts right to the heart of the issue.
You're refusing to critically examine your conceits regarding sense of self.

>that your pre-determined reaction happens to perfectly coincide with what a rational outcome would be
Not sure what you're trying to say here, it's not really coherent. There are degrees of rationality and we are not perfectly rational beings (that's impossible).

>It's the relationship of a pre-determined thought process to logic that's borderline random.
Why would it be random? Ostensibly our capacities of awareness and abstraction allow us to better observe and anticipate our environment... We observe that there are consistent relations in this experience, which we abstract into formalized logic. This cognitive tool allows us to make useful predictions and become the dominant macro-organism on the planet. I'm not seing the randomness... Logic isn't an after-effect, it's baked in.

>>17027010
Sorry, I wasn't being clear, because the point stands whether we know what is the faculty for the experience of external or even internal things or how it comes to be. What if I put it like this, does a thing being extended into space "cause" the potentiality for light to reflect off of it in such a way that I can perceive color in it?

>>17027090
Its properties cause it to reflect light, and your eye's property cause it to be able to interpret it and send it as signals into your brain. Why you have a conscious experience of this is the mysterious part.

>>17027112
Not that anon, but I want to chime in.
The brain and the eye certainly play a part in our conscious experience, but if the latter cannot be reduced to the former through physicalist psycho-physical laws, then the claim for which conscious experience is caused by those organs is entirely speculative. You simply do not know wether the brain makes consciousness emerge, or wether consciousness just latched onto the brain. Hell, you would have as many proofs for your case as Leibniz' had for his Monadology.

>>17027167
that is what I said myself a couple times now, we don't know what consciousness is.

>>17027112
The thing is that I define efficient causality to be a change from a potential effect to an actual effect. But is the potentiality to reflect light really an effect for you that was once potential, but then got actualized? I wouldn't say so, but if you still would say that, maybe we can instead move onto a different example. I mean, the only point here is that there are different kinds of contingencies, not all are physical.

>>17026699
No problem.

>directing my will towards satisfying some appetite
Right, but that just kicks the can down to 'will'. Why does your will go one way and not another? What constitutes a 'will'? Are we conscious of its incipience?

>through his own will
There's that will again.
>The source of reason would be the mind.
The source of reasoning but not of reasons... Are the inputs of our experience not a prerequisite for our reasons and choices? If so, can we really be assured that there is some point at which they become 'ours' in an ontologically meaningful way?
>they don't do what the master hates for them to do because that is associated with pain, and do what the master desires them to do because it is associated with pleasure.
Are we so different? Would you reason about anything if not first prompted by an emotional impulse? If you carefully consider the nature of your actions, are they not all in pursuit of various kinds of satisfaction? Yes we possess a much greater capacity for abstraction (reasoning), but it seems to me that this is a tool which enables us to better accomodate our impulses — rather than take the place of them.

>The self is that what is in fact experiencing.
Certainly, but this does not demonstrate that the self is discrete/non-continuous from what is experienced. The point being that we may underestimate the extent to which self is shaped by experience, and so it isn't really clear where your favourite author's 'choices' and 'reasons' end and where yours begin.

>>17027281
cope

>>17026711
Yes, consciousness is real but the ego is all illusory. It thinks it is in control but nothing's in control. Processes execute mechanically, and the brain spins its consciousness a just-so story about why.

>>17027188
I don't really believe in potentials at all so I think this is where you and I part ways. What you're distinguishing here in terms of the potential of the object and the actual perception, if I'm understanding you correctly, I would explain in terms of consciousness.

>>17026711
He did say -sense- of consciousness. I don't think he's asking you to doubt the fact of experience (how could you), but to scrutinize it. It's not as coherent as it first appears.

>>17026618
Again it's not free will vs. determinism. Free will isn't compatible with any conception of physics.

>>17026804
It's excluded because the notion of free will isn't a hypothesis, it's a shibboleth.

>>17026852
>only be conceived by reason, and is, therefore, not an object of the senses
There's no demonstrated hard boundary there, that's pure assertion.
>universal legislative form
He never demonstrated that universals concretely exist. The problem of universals remains a hot debate.

Like I said, he waves his hands to excuse the 'will' from temporality (causality) and posits that poorly founded and desperate breach of parsimony as 'freedom'. He needed freedom as an axiom, so he worked backwards towards it via highly assumptive reasoning. He can not point to or describe freedom as an observable state, because it's nothing but a relative concept.

>>17027281
>Right, but that just kicks the can down to 'will'. Why does your will go one way and not another? What constitutes a 'will'? Are we conscious of its incipience?
Alright, lets say that there is a faculty of willing, similar to the faculty of seeing. Now, your eyes are just about always active (except when sleeping), you still see the back of your eyelids when you close your eyes for an example. The mode of seeing is always there, but you can still direct your vision towards something, you can look away and still close your eyes after all. Analogously, you are always desiring something, but you can direct that mode into desiring something else. Why does it go one way and not another? I think that's by that which is directing that mode, the self, changes it either according to some reason or perhaps devoid of reason. Are we conscious of the beginning of our desire, I think so, but are we conscious of somehow the beginning of the mode? I don't think that's possible, the mode is always there for humans. Or, at least, for humans who are able to exercise it, it's 'already there' so to speak.

>The source of reasoning but not of reasons... Are the inputs of our experience not a prerequisite for our reasons and choices? If so, can we really be assured that there is some point at which they become 'ours' in an ontologically meaningful way?
I think we can accept that not all reasons are thought up by ourselves completely, they could be implicit assumptions from an education that taught such dogmatically. I say "within" as in articulated to one's self, but admittedly, one can articulate to one's self reasons that were forcibly brainwashed into him. I'll still need to give a more precise and thorough defense for that, but that's why I'm here, helps me at least sometimes to think a bit. Reasoning is definitely inspired by sense experience, I do not believe that one who never possessed the 5 senses ever is able to articulate anything to himself, maybe 'realize' something by a very abstract, sheer intuition. But I'll say that they are ours in the sense that we, in the end, choose them even if brainwashed into thinking so.

posting now so I cont right away, next point went over the word count.

i am the only one with free will and am part of a simulation
none of you are real

>>17027396
creating and interpreting the story is the essence of free will. No one can tell you what your life means, only you know you

>>17027281
>Are we so different? Would you reason about anything if not first prompted by an emotional impulse? If you carefully consider the nature of your actions, are they not all in pursuit of various kinds of satisfaction? Yes we possess a much greater capacity for abstraction (reasoning), but it seems to me that this is a tool which enables us to better accomodate our impulses — rather than take the place of them.
I think that animals only have the bare natural desires, while we also have such desires, we also have desires that are more than that, 'spiritual' ones although I don't necessarily mean religious. I mean, satisfaction from companionship, whether platonic or romantic. Fulfillment from loyally following a group or ideology is another example, I don't think they stem from emotional impulses. Personally, I distinguish between the satisfaction of bare physical needs, spiritual ones and then
the divine one, although my religious views are a bit outside the scope of the discussion. Basically, I just want to say that while I agree that most if not all actions seek to satisfy some appetite, but I don't think all appetites correspond to ones that animals have.

>Certainly, but this does not demonstrate that the self is discrete/non-continuous from what is experienced. The point being that we may underestimate the extent to which self is shaped by experience, and so it isn't really clear where your favourite author's 'choices' and 'reasons' end and where yours begin
I do have difficulty in thinking about how do we know how much of our thinking and willing is shaped by sense experience, if that is what you mean. Perhaps my argument can serve as an impossibility of the contrary. By arguing that since the contrary is that the self is in fact not discrete can be proven to be an inadequate precondition for rationality and we assume that rationality is indeed self-evident, we can demonstrate. But that's the only idea I have, and it's being scrutinized right now.

>>17027424
why reject potentials?

>>17027427
What do you mean, do you think that free will is as incoherent/meaingless as "word word word" which, despite containing content ("word" is a word still and recognizable as such) isn't communication any info or idea?

>>17027755
Animals definitely have satisfaction from companionship, especially many mammals and birds.

>>17027775
Maybe the mental states are analogous a bit, but I really don't think that they are categorically the same due to very differing natures.

>>17027597
Literally all of your concerns are dealt in thr first 4 theorems, which takes around 15 pages, and at this point I'm 100% sure you've never read it (dunno why you're pretending to be familiar with this material -- I would have not mocked you for your ignorance of kantian philosophy). To answer quickly
>There's no demonstrated hard boundary there, that's pure assertion.
He explained earlier, in the corollary to the third theorem, how a purely rational practical principle is possible, them he enunciates it (spoiler, since you have not read it: it's the categorical imperative)
>He never demonstrated that universals concretely exist. The problem of universals remains a hot debate.
Why would he need to prove the existence of universals in order to prove the validity of a universal practical principle? He just has to found a rational practical principle which can be followed by all rational agents, regardless of their subjective tendencies: the CI fits fhe bill, in the third 3 theorems he explains exactly why this is the case, and why no other practicsl principle can take its place.
>Like I said, he waves his hands to excuse the 'will' from temporality (causality) and posits that poorly founded and desperate breach of parsimony as 'freedom'. He needed freedom as an axiom, so he worked backwards towards it via highly assumptive reasoning. He can not point to or describe freedom as an observable state, because it's nothing but a relative concept.
I think you're the one handwaving Kant's argument, given how substanceless your critique is. At no point you have refuted, or even mentioned, any of his arguments: all you've done so far was either strawmanning you, or simply calling his conclusions stupid without any reference to the actual arguments proposed by him.
Regarding the observability of freedom, Kant explicitly states that it can be known and cognized through introspection: we can be sure we are free, and unless we are skeptical about other minds, we can be sure other rational finite beings are free too.
Also, for the last time, freedom is not an axiom, since it is literally deduced from the moral law. If you really want to play this game, you would have to say that the moral law is the axiom.

>>17026992
>not everything is a physical effect
To date, we have no evidence of anything but that.
You couldn't even sensibly define what it would mean for something to be 'non-physical'.

To cut to the crux of your argument, it's certainly the case that there's a base state of reality (existence itself) which itself has no cause, but has simply always been. We are not identical with that state, however, since we have obvious limitations... We are not omnipresent, we are not omniscient, we are not eternal (at least not without interruption). We appear to be a series of localized events. It stands to reason then, that we arise from some eternal potentiality which is our cause. If we have a cause, then it doesn't seem likely that we possess a causeless faculty of control which just happens to satisfy our egos. Now if you want to argue that there is a god and it has a will, well that's another argument... But I think you're going to have a hard time demonstrating that god exists, let alone 'wills' anything.

>>17028054
what about the examples of
>A being having the nature of dog-ness would certainly explain why it has 4 paws, barks, is a mammal, is a predator, etc but that's not an efficient cause.
>Conclusions in categorical syllogisms are also explained by their premises rather than efficiently caused
>Parts don't efficiently cause the whole they're part of
>universals don't efficiently cause their instantiations.

>>17027182
We don't technically know for certain, but we have a rapidly advancing neurological model involving a specific area of the brain stem which is a nexus for all other regions of the brain and appears to coordinate their activity into our awareness (our experience). Now it's good to have healthy skepticism and questioning of our provisional knowledge, but let's not pretend that there's any other theory which is similarly predictive, specific and actionable.

>>17028172
No amount of looking at the brain can answer the fundamental problem though, you can never 'see awareness' by poking around in a brain.

>>17027188
The behaviour of a photon could be probabilistic, but it would at the very least be caused by the base state of reality, nor would probabilistic physics prohibit causal relationships on macro scales.

>not all are physical
What does this even mean... What would it mean for something to not be physical?

>>17028264
A non-physical thing is something that isn't extended into space. No dimensions at all.

>>17027680
>you can direct that mode into desiring something else.
Can you? Isn't there a desire (an impetus of feeling) that precedes such a redirection of attention? We're simply not conscious of the incipience of such impulses. We're not directing, we're being directed by processes we're not even aware of.

>But I'll say that they are ours in the sense that we, in the end, choose them even if brainwashed into thinking so.
Yeah, you can say that they're 'ours' in the sense of a localization of events that is us, but I think the critical point is that we don't author ourselves. We are products. At the very most we something like a re-mixing engine. Nowhere in that is agency a necessity.

>>17027755
It's a bit of a blurry line though, isn't it? We have more sophisticated appetites, as we are far more complex... But with just a little digging we can start to uncover the more primitive appetites which the abstract ones have evolved from.

>>17024388
No. The mind is just a chemical reaction. Under the same conditions chemical reactions will always proceed in the same way as dictated by laws of physics. Therefor free will cannot exist. Unless the mind is some kind of computer able to generate random numbers. But even computers cannot generate 'true' random numbers. Any comp sci bros that can help me out here, if this is true?

>>17024388
I've come to understand determinists and to end up agreeing with them in some capacity. I do believe that some of them fall into the trap of attributing divine qualities to free will and then getting angry when we are reveled to be just human, but those are probably not the majority.
We are certainly conditioned not only by our environment, which is a huge factor in how we develop as people, but also because of the intricacies of our own mind. I have a form of OCD that manifests itself in the form of intrusive, recurrent thoughts, small obsessions and persistent earworms. I am also an anxious person who is desperate to exert control over himself. But I can't. I was born in a way that limits the course of my thoughts because of my cerebral structure and there's very little I could do about it.
However, I do believe there is certain degree of impracticability in how we react to how others interact with us. I would have never sought therapy if my parents hand't insisted on it, and so I did. Some people might have not killed themselves if someone had told them the right words.
We are, to a certain extent, set on a course, and it is through our multiple collisions with other objects and people that we react and are capable of exerting our own will on the world. We are certainly bound to both clear and unclear limitations, but we still have a semblance of choice.

>>17028409
>Can you? Isn't there a desire (an impetus of feeling) that precedes such a redirection of attention? We're simply not conscious of the incipience of such impulses. We're not directing, we're being directed by processes we're not even aware of.
Last post from me since I have to go to bed (feel mighty tired), I assume that this will be archived tomorrow (it was getting close a few times) but hope not. Anyways, yeah that can be true, but I don't think it has to be for arbitrary or for bad reasons, nor prohibit a redirection of the faculty. The faculty doesn't have to only entertain one thing at a time.

>It's a bit of a blurry line though, isn't it? We have more sophisticated appetites, as we are far more complex... But with just a little digging we can start to uncover the more primitive appetites which the abstract ones have evolved from.
Could you demonstrate this?

>>17027771
I mean that I think that 'free will' is a very poorly defined and/or demonstrated notion which is held to a weaker standard of explanation because it's the mother of all psychological conceits.

>>17027871
>He explained earlier
He's wrong. The CI is much maligned, so don't pretend that it's some well accepted 'proof'. Values -do not precede- valuing agents, and so are not truly universalizable (as agents are not).
>can be followed by all rational agents, regardless of their subjective tendencies
Which is just another axiom, and not a foundation for an ontologically concrete 'will' or state of 'freedom'. Also understand that 'subjective tendencies' are actually objective differences between moral agents, and so rationality has specific (not universal) application for each.
>we can be sure we are free
How, exactly? I don't care what he explicitly states, I care about what he explicitly demonstrates.
>Also, for the last time, freedom is not an axiom
Fine, then it's an unproven proposition. It doesn't really matter which end you start from; it starts with an axiom and remains assumptive the whole way through.

Again, I'd appreciate it if you could just get to the demonstrative crux of his argument. Let's actually process the logic.

>>17028115
-there's no such universal quality of "dog-ness", that's simply a trope, the efficient cause of dogs is evolution
-the thinker (to keep things simple) is the efficient cause, trying to divorce the syllogistic conclusion from the context of thought process is fallacious
-'parts' and 'wholes' are ultimately relative concepts, but to skip the regression: every event has a cause so far as we can tell, save for whatever base state of existence it all bubbles out of
-concrete universals aren't proven to exist (thus no universals are truly instantiated), and abstract universals are efficiently caused by abstracting agents (us)

>>17028227
I don't just assume the problem. It seems entirely possible that between our experience of awareness and our experience reflecting upon itself to observe its own non-conscious 'nuts and bolts' we will eventually see all aspects awareness. I don't think there is a gap between physical and mental events, I think there are just physical events and that awareness/experience is a localization of said events.

>>17028285
What makes it a 'thing' then? How is it known to exist?

>>17024388
>Pretty much everything can be predicted given enough factors/strong enough computing power.
The collapse of the wavefunction (or if you wish, which branch of the multiverse you split into) is not predictable regardless of knowledge or computing power.

>>17029305
>awareness/experience is a localization of said events.
That localization is the key though, its 'apartness', its discontinuity, etc. Supposing a panpsychist world(or just one where certain systems are aware) we still have this issue of why they are divided into singular 'entities' that don't touch.

>>17028437
Randomness is not compatible with 'free will' either. To sate your curiousity though, algorithms (software) don't generate true randoms but hardware generators possibly do (and for pragmatic purposes do the job fine).

>>17027710
Look into Roger Sperry's split brain experiments. You might think storytelling and verbalization is something "you" do, but it seems to just be a function of one of the lobes in your brain.

>How do you argue against determinism?
by negating causality

>How do you argue against determinism?
by your act of free will, of course

>Physics based Determinism
Damn, it's kind of like this is was refuted by Plato over 2000 years ago.

>>17029458
>>17029516
>>17029530
try to contain all your fallacious cringe in 1 post

>>17028625
>Could you demonstrate this?
Sure. So I really like baroque classical music. When I examine that appetite critically though, it's reducible to the dopimanergic response it illicts from me. Is it really different in kind from say, a bird singing to a prospective mate? A turtle comforted by the sound of crashing waves? I don't think it is — I think the difference is a spectrum of complexity, not a new category. If one likes to read complex philosophical tomes, isn't one just expressing the same fundamental -kind- of curiousity that much simpler animals do, but of a fare more sophisticated -type-?

Goodnight anon, it's been nice chatting with you.

>>17029605
>So I really like baroque classical music. When I examine that appetite critically though, it's reducible to the dopimanergic response it illicts from me.
No it isn't. I challenge you, or any biological determinist, to actually /prove/ this rather than blanket say it must be so because of whatever nonsense the current scientific dogma asserts must be the case.

>>17029760
please, save your challenges, you couldnt even define free will if you tried

>>17029370
>'entities' that don't touch.
Well they do touch, via the continuity of our world. If you mean 'touch' in the sense of not directly sharing eachother's experience, I think physics explains it pretty well, not sure why that's a particular problem.

>>17029540
underrated

>>17029760
Radical skepticism is so boring anon. If you have more predictive, actionable explanation then let's hear it. Pro tip: There isn't one.

>>17025934
I would say Free Will is necessary for the first-person experience of rationality. You can of course call a computer 'rational' if it outputs the correct responses. But from a first person human perspective, the very idea of rational deliberation presupposes freedom of choice.

>>17029805
how does physics explain it? you point out yourself that it's continuous in physical reality, but discontinuous in our awareness

>>17029845
I'm not sure it does, it's just you applying a sort of algorithm, and then seeing what the outcome is.

the inability of anyone to defend free will is a blackpill

>>17029856
Yes, but from a first person perspective the whole point is that your decision is not preordained, but contingent on your judgment. It feels like it's up to you which algorithms to apply. It's an illusion of course. But one that is woven into the process of deliberation.

>>17029896
I'm still not sure about that, personally when I stop to reason about something I am fairly confident there is just going to be one outcome after I apply logic to the issue. It's just a matter of using the tool.

>>17029926
Not all decision making is so clear-cut, though. Deciding what movie to watch can feel like it is subject to your whim, despite ultimately being physically determined.

>>17029805
>more predictive, actionable explanation
Yeah, solved by Plato over 2000 years ago. You're a pseud substituting imaginary scientific explanations for legitimate philosophy. As proof, you avoided the challenge.

>>17030089
reminder that you have yet to even define the free will that you think is so clearly the alternative to determinism

>>17029958
that is true, im not sure that's even reason though, you just kind of present each option to yourself and one randomly 'feels' better

>>17030106
Yes there is likely a (pseudo-)random aspect, but the deliberation process is normally also subject to reasoned constraints. "I just watched a bunch of neo-noir, so nothing like that. Not a comedy because I'm not in the mood. Etc etc".

>>17030144
I might be more mindless and impulsive than most people to be fair, I barely ever have a reason for doing anything that I could articulate

>>17025233
the fact that there are physical limitations on what we can do to ourselves doesn’t have any bearing on free will

>>17030184
A lot of verbalized justification, to be fair, is really post-hoc rationalization. But most everyday deliberation processes occupy the middle ground between "100% random-seeming" and "100% the result of applying the appropriate algorithm". Internally it feels like you are engaging in an important deliberative activity (and you are, at some level), despite the reality that you are just going through the motions of a script written by the early universe.

>>17030238
Can you put me in touch with this early universe guy, I want to have a word with him about some things

>>17030089
If you want to play the radical skeptic game, you technically can't prove anything other than a few apodictic truths (and free will is not one).
So get fucked, dilettante.

Meanwhile in the world of probability established by predictive power in which we all necessarily participate (even fags who won't admit it), you don't have a more predictive or actionable theory of experience (because there isn't one).

>>17029850
The universe is continuous but the laws of physics produce localizations of matter/energy within that continuity — they're not mutually exclusive propositions. Your experience isn't physically disconnected from the universe and others, it's just 'distant', i.e. it occupies different spacetime positions (what you might call your 'subjective perspective', but what is more precisely described as objective differences between the localizations we call 'observers').

>>17030331
but why do i end at the confines of my body? why does the air around me or something I touch not merge with my awareness? for that matter why am i only aware of seemingly a small portion of my brain's activity

>>17024388
I can't believe people waste their time with this bullshit. What could you possibly gain from pidgeon-holing yourself in a thought experiment? How about patting yourself on the back for inventing a new technology or way of doing things, for being successful. How about actually making a difference in this world? You chose to make yourself weak, is all I can see.

>>17030342
why do i end at the confines of my body?
Because that localization makes the most intuitive sense for you to regard as 'me'. In truth there's no hard barrier between you and the rest of the universe. But if you didn't perceive it that way you'd probably have a hard time surviving (same for not experiencing all the minutae of your bodily processes). The things you touch do merge with your awareness in a way, and the air merges with your body if not your awareness.

If you're trying to ask why you're not an omnipresent, omniscient being, I would suggest that the laws of physics (in this universe at least) are not conducive to such a thing.

>>17030413
You're suggesting that evolution crafted our consciousness to 'cut off' at the confines of our body(or within) somehow?

>>17030360
Realizing that free will is a spook can potentially make one far more successful in manipulating both circumstances and other people.

You make a fair point though, analysis paralysis is epidemic among more cerebral people.

>>17024388
Lebniz's monad is the right answered. An absolutely self determined entity is the core of human free will. We have free will in so far as we can determine what we will do based upon our nature.

>>17026804
"Wills" are different, correct? Your will to better yourself is different than the will of a criminal to enrich themselves at whatever cost to others. How, then, do you claim responsibility for having the will that you have? At the root of it, someone with the soul of a psychopathic murderer never chose that soul any more than you chose whatever type of soul you have.

>>17030418
Not quite, more like physics sets outer limitations of possibility (it would not be possible for you to have a brain region+sensory organ that allows you to experience what is currently happening in another solar system) and evolution sets inner limitations of possibility because functionality isn't free and isn't retained unless it provides advantage (i.e. you can't see magnetic fields because you're not a migrating bird, and you don't see infrared because you're not a noctural reptile, you can't see in sonar because you're not a marine mammal... but physics does allow for all those kinds of experiences). Your awareness is necessarily tied to the localization of your body, but if you had the sense of smell of a bloodhound and the sight acuity of an eagle, then the range and intensity of your experience would be considerably greater.

>>17030665
>Your awareness is necessarily tied to the localization of your body,
but why? physically speaking, why would it work like that

>>17030709
Because your awareness is your body (as far as we know). As I've said, I don't believe there is a gap between physical events (biological processes) and mental events (awareness), I think they are one and the same. The 'hard problem' assumes a gap, but I don't see why we should (there's no evidence for such gaps).

>>17030740
biological processes are not physically different than inanimate processes though, there is no reason the consciousness should be enclosed in organisms

>>17024388
>How do you argue against determinism? Pretty much everything can be predicted given enough factors/strong enough computing power. Everything is predetermined by biology/early childhood, people only act the way they know how to act.
Free will isn't the opposite of determinism, randomness is. Randomness is real but has nothing to do with free will. Whether or not free will exists is a matter of semantics

>>17024677
>determinism cannot be false
It already is, or at least the world in which determinism is false is observationally equivalent to our world. True randomness appears to exist in subatomic scales

>>17030782
They're a subset of physical processes. So while all biological processes are physical processes, not all physical procsses are biological processes. Then we can further delineate between all biological processes and those specific biological processes which the brain+nerves are comprised of (which is the only kind of substrate that produces awareness, so far as we know).

>>17030880
We're just back at the same question though, why do nervous systems produce consciousness

>>17030890
Because that's their evolutionary purpose, from the extremely primitive sensation of an annelid to basic problem solving abilities of a rodent to us, the masters of abstract thinking. Awareness as we enjoy it just didn't pop into the universe fully formed — it's been a long road. Going back from that, the most primitive kinds of aware sensation would've evolved from more primitive non-aware stimulus response mechanisms. It's tempting to mysticize that particular transition, as we're understandbly biased towards awareness, but when you break things up into smaller steps (over the course of timescales we can't really comprehend), it doesn't seem so far-fetched. As to why biological substrate seems to be a prerequisite to awareness, the best guess is because organic chemistry supports a huge variety of relatively stable long chain molecules, allowing for a complexity of structure and interaction that other 'building blocks' can't offer.

>>17031178
>the most primitive kinds of aware sensation would've evolved from more primitive non-aware stimulus response mechanisms. It's tempting to mysticize that particular transition, as we're understandbly biased towards awareness, but when you break things up into smaller steps (over the course of timescales we can't really comprehend), it doesn't seem so far-fetched.
there is a qualitative change here though, if you are attributing consciousness only to nervous systems. It can't be reduced to small steps or types of physical system, it is a completely different category of reality.

>>17024388
>How do you argue against determinism?
>Bruh don't worry, I'm fucking your wife because of newton's law, it's just inevitable, think about it logically
You're a morooooooooon

>>17028840
>He's wrong. The CI is much maligned, so don't pretend that it's some well accepted 'proof'. Values -do not precede- valuing agents, and so are not truly universalizable (as agents are not)

Values have literally nothing to do with the proof for the CI. For it to be universalizable, it just has to not depend on empirical motives.
>Which is just another axiom, and not a foundation for an ontologically concrete 'will' or state of 'freedom'.
No, it's demomstrated in the passages I have mentioned. Read them.
>Also understand that 'subjective tendencies' are actually objective differences between moral agents, and so rationality has specific (not universal) application for each.
Read the first two theorems to know what a subjective tendency is.
>How, exactly? I don't care what he explicitly states, I care about what he explicitly demonstrates.
Reread the passage I have quoted here.
>Fine, then it's an unproven proposition. It doesn't really matter which end you start from; it starts with an axiom and remains assumptive the whole way through.
Sure, it is unproven if you literally ignore all the arguments for it, but so is every other proposition.

>Again, I'd appreciate it if you could just get to the demonstrative crux of his argument. Let's actually process the logic.
And as I have told you, it would be much easier for me to do so if you read the first 15 pages. What you're asking me to do is to summarize an extfemely dense chapter in a 4chan post, while responding at the same time to your vague, baseless objection. I'd rather have this discussionnwith someone who has at least an inkling of what he's talking about.

>>17031244
>qualitive change
You assert that, can you provide any evidence to that effect? Does the notion of 'qualitative' even really make sense upon examination (I don't think it does, with trope theory we see how things can be entirely quantitative). I don't think the notion of a "completely different category of reality" makes sense either... What does that mean?

>>17031361
You don't think your awareness is a different category of reality than something completely unfeeling? You can't provide evidence either showing that it can be reduced to physical parts

>>17024388
When a computer CAN predict everything like you say they can, then maybe determinism is true. But they can't. Not the stock market, and Google can't even give me relevant ads or interesting videos on Youtube most of the time.

>>17024431
Yet, antidepressants dont work for all people who are depressed.

>>17024598
Just because it is not determined does not make it random. The whole point of free will is that you are an agent of choice, and you are not a random being. Many things about you can be predicted, but that doesn't equate to you being 100% determined.

>>17024941
I disagree

>>17024969
Unless you believe in the soul

Yes because I could have typed anything in this thread. Also the evolutionary process constantly changes due to environmental factors its not like a straight line.

>>17025293
If you could somehow wind back the clock, go back in time, and everybody did the same thing as before, that doesn't even mean no choice was there. Everyone who made choices had the exact same choices in front of them, it's not surprising people would make the same decisions. Im not even convinced absolutely everything would be the same

>>17031308
>not depend on empirical motives.
There is no other kind. Any normative statement harbours an expectation about how a given pre/proscription will modulate empirical outcomes.
>to know what a subjective tendency is.
I know what it actually is, and I've described it in specific terms for you. I'm not automatically wrong because I don't agree with Kant. If you disagree, then illustrate why his is the correct description.
>ignore all the arguments for it
You haven't made or posted a valid argument for the ontological existence of freedom. Look:
>...when in the chain of cause and effect it tries to think the unconditioned.
This never happens. The reasoner can never think of something outside the scope of their experience and mental capacity to manipulate that experience (their conditioning). Any attempt to do so (e.g. trying to think about existence 'outside' our universe) inevitably defaults to us extrapolating from only the necessary form of our experience and the content we have experienced. The extrapolation too is limited by our measure of intelligence. We never truly surmount the conditioned. I would say Kant was either naive to the extent of what comprises our conditioning, or he just didn't like the implications of freedom not concretely existing and so assumes that unconditioned thought is possible. This is not a proof of objectively real freedom, nor is it even a -positive account- of what a state of objective 'freedom' might look like.

>>17031389
No, I think reality is the ultimate superset and that it isn't divisible into parallel categories. You're mysticizing feeling (understandable, as it is an amazing thing, but not logically sound).

To the contrary, the only explanatory & predictive evidence we have for the provenance of sensation is the biological model. I can't provide -complete- evidence and absolute certainty, but as I was trying to explain to that fool earlier, radical skepticism is a foolish position and 100% certainty an unreasonable standard. We have to deal with probable explanations, and neurobiology is the only game in town that makes actionable predictions.

>>17031465
That's the same thing as a meta-self, really. If you have a soul, then from whence does its thoughts arise? Infinite regression.

>>17031488
The problem is more fundamental than that. The issue is that whether things change or not, there is no 'meta-you' which is in control of the unconscious impulses which lead to your thoughts and choices.

>>17031908
>There is no other kind. Any normative statement harbours an expectation about how a given pre/proscription will modulate empirical outcomes. [...] I know what it actually is, and I've described it in specific terms for you. I'm not automatically wrong because I don't agree with Kant. If you disagree, then illustrate why his is the correct description
I have not said that you have to agree with Kant, I just asked you to read the material in which he discusses it, so that you can stop strawmanning him. If you want I can summarize the goddamn 3 first theorems to you, but it would be much easier for you to read those 10 pages. If you want to have a serious discussion om wether Kant was wrong or not, I don't think it is too much to ask you to be at least aware of his arguments. I'm not even trying to be pedantic here, I am just telling you that Kant did not ignore his objections, and that he deals with them directly in his text.
>The reasoner can never think of something outside the scope of their experience and mental capacity to manipulate that experience (their conditioning). Any attempt to do so (e.g. trying to think about existence 'outside' our universe) inevitably defaults to us extrapolating from only the necessary form of our experience and the content we have experienced
The reasoner can when he grounds a practical principle on its mere form, rather than its content (a desired object or state of affairs).

"THEOREM III

A rational being cannot regard his maxims as practical universal laws, unless he conceives them as principles which determine the will, not by their matter, but by their form only.

By the matter of a practical principle I mean the object of the will. This object is either the determining ground of the will or it is not. In the former case the rule of the will is subjected to an empirical condition (viz., the relation of the determining idea to the feeling of pleasure and pain), consequently it can not be a practical law. Now, when we abstract from a law all matter, i.e., every object of the will (as a determining principle), nothing is left but the mere form of a universal legislation. Therefore, either a rational being cannot conceive his subjective practical principles, that is, his maxims, as being at the same time universal laws, or he must suppose that their mere form, by which they are fitted for universal legislation, is alone what makes them practical laws."
This is to be understood in light of the two previous theorems. From this third theorem the CI is then presented as the only practical principle purely grounded on the mere form, it is then argued why this is the case, and why no other purely formal practical principle can be found.

>>17031908
>There is no other kind. Any normative statement harbours an expectation about how a given pre/proscription will modulate empirical outcomes. [...] I know what it actually is, and I've described it in specific terms for you. I'm not automatically wrong because I don't agree with Kant. If you disagree, then illustrate why his is the correct description
I have not said that you have to agree with Kant (I'm skeptical too), I just asked you to read the material in which he discusses it, so that you can stop strawmanning him. If you want I can summarize the goddamn 3 first theorems for you, but it would be much easier for you to read those 10 pages. If you want to have a serious discussion om wether Kant was wrong or not, I don't think it is too much to ask you to be at least aware of his arguments. I'm not even trying to be pedantic here, I am just telling you that Kant did not ignore these very basic objections of yours, and that he deals with them directly at the BEGINNING of his second critique.
>The reasoner can never think of something outside the scope of their experience and mental capacity to manipulate that experience (their conditioning). Any attempt to do so (e.g. trying to think about existence 'outside' our universe) inevitably defaults to us extrapolating from only the necessary form of our experience and the content we have experienced
The reasoner can when he grounds a practical principle on its mere form, rather than its content (a desired object or state of affairs).

"THEOREM III

Thesis: A rational being cannot regard his maxims as practical universal laws, unless he conceives them as principles which determine the will, not by their matter, but by their form only.

Explanation: By the matter of a practical principle I mean the object of the will. This object is either the determining ground of the will or it is not. In the former case the rule of the will is subjected to an empirical condition (viz., the relation of the determining idea to the feeling of pleasure and pain), consequently it can not be a practical law. Now, when we abstract from a law all matter, i.e., every object of the will (as a determining principle), nothing is left but the mere form of a universal legislation. Therefore, either a rational being cannot conceive his subjective practical principles, that is, his maxims, as being at the same time universal laws, or he must suppose that their mere form, by which they are fitted for universal legislation, is alone what makes them practical laws."
This is to be understood in light of the two previous theorems. From this third theorem the CI is then presented as the practical principle purely grounded on the mere form, it is then argued why this is the case, and why no other purely formal practical principle can be found.

>>17029212
>there's no such universal quality of "dog-ness", that's simply a trope, the efficient cause of dogs is evolution
Then what is the meaning of the word "dogs" in a general, universal sense then? I don't think you'd want to reject essentialism if you want a good science to work with, otherwise you'd have no explanatory power for things in general, and you wouldn't be able to predict what things do. Keeping the dog example, how could you say that the animal that is apparently called a "dog" must in fact have *this* sort of diet, has *this* sort of intelligence, generally has *this* sort of behavior etc because if they are all purely particulars, then why assume any sort of essential similarity?

>the thinker (to keep things simple) is the efficient cause, trying to divorce the syllogistic conclusion from the context of thought process is fallacious
What's the fallacy? The thinker of the syllogism's thought couldn't have caused the conclusion to be true as an effect, otherwise if no one would have thought of the conclusion then the conclusion would somehow never be true! Now, I would agree that the thinker's thoughts worked as a cause for realizing the true conclusion, but obviously facts don't care about our feelings or thoughts.

>-'parts' and 'wholes' are ultimately relative concepts, but to skip the regression: every event has a cause so far as we can tell, save for whatever base state of existence it all bubbles out of
I'm not sure how this answers the question. Sure, they are relative but it is still true independent of our minds that a whole Lego building has a great many parts to it. Sure, the builder of the building is the efficient cause, but also surely the parts don't serve as an efficient cause but merely an explanation. What's a whole without its parts?

>>17029605
Woke up, and btw Im not this anon here, just in case: >>17029760

Anyways, why do similar brain states have to apparently imply similar mental states? I for one have genuine doubt in linking mental states with brain states beyond maybe correlation, I really do think that there is a different mental state when I do something out of a choice to try to be moral compared to someone else doing the same thing but out of a choice to be evil, even if the brain states are observably identical.

>>17024388

Freedom of will, which exists, has nothing to do with freedom of action, which is irrelevant.

>>17024388
>everything can be predicted given enough factors/strong enough computing power

even the failure modes of the device itself? you'd need a system as accurate as the universe which cannot be done.

>>17026806

Yes.

>>17026236
What/who determines the initial state of the universe?

>>17031413
>disease we don't know the cause of can't be cured by pill we saw work on most rats
>therefore free will

>>17026806
>>17032998

This is the question that exposes vulgar "Christianity" and Catholicism as indistinguishable from Materialism. The former's idea of free will being limited to the content of will, here demonically inverted to will as content of Matter, i.e. that God and man are simply the cause and effect, respectively, of free will, indistinguishable from any and all Materialist motions of vacuous Matter, even proudly so, that its total surrender to Materialism is its Epistemological crown jewel. Whereas free will is only a sound idea to being with in terms of self-causing, of form.

>>17024969

What is the regression?

>>17025293

This is more esoteric than you claim free will to be.

>>17033039
Nice straw-man you got there
>you are wrong, but nice thought

>>17030554

They, we, do.

>>17028437

What makes you think so?

>>17030267
>>17030099
>If you want to play the radical skeptic game
What a fucking pseud you are. No one's playing the radical skeptic game, and you STILL haven't proved any of your imaginary reasoning about determinism and physical processes.

>>17030880
>They're a subset of physical processes
Prove it. Prove it at all.

>>17031937
>I can't provide -complete- evidence and absolute certainty
You can't, and have not, provided ANY evidence. At all. Period.

>>17031454
Ok? Pretty cool, pretty cool. I dont know what you disagree with but sure.

>>17025548
Because of free will that's the point

>>17025548

I did.

>>17033039

Missed an "is":

>respectively, of free will, IS indistinguishable

>>17031937
You can't provide any evidence at all, you simply can't show consciousness reducing to matter

>>17033279
then you're saying it causes itself

>>17033360

Yes.

>>17033333
You're assuming there's gap. Do you have any evidence for that? Neuroscience shows a particular brain stem region is responsible for awareness (if you don't accept that as any kind of evidence, you're a dishonest radical skeptic).

>>17034356
You can never find awareness in a brain, you can never point to any object within your awareness and see it as its own awareness.

>>17033119
What is your standard of evidence? I've told you about the observations neuroscience has made, they are simple enough to confirm with a search of studies or videos. I'm certain you have evidence from your own daily experience, which you refuse to acknowledge. I can only conclude then, that you are holding me to an unreasonable standard of evidence you don't expect of yourself. Can you even define what it would mean for something to be 'non-physical'? What is your alternative that better explains the relationship between awareness and our bodies?

If you're not being a selective radical skeptic, then be honest about what constitutes evidence and provide your probable alternative theory. I think the truth though, is that you're just an asshole.

>>17034462
You don't seem to get that awareness is not the same as any other question, you can't look for evidence for it in the same way, it literally encompasses everything you do, but you can't see it anywhere.

The amount of computing power you'd need to actually predict shit like that is just absolutely enormous.

Think about a decision you'll have to do in a future. Can you visualize in your head all the possible outcomes depending on the actions you take? Can you weigh the pros and cons of each path? Can you look for second opinions from more experienced people and use them as a basis to make your own informed decision? If so, even *if* it could've theoretically been predicted given godly amounts of computing power, you for all intents and purposes have free will. All that could've been predicted is in what way would you choose to exercise your free will.

>>17032707
Yeah, I figured.

I think the brain state is the mental state, no gap. The gap seems like an extra assumption that isn't logically necessary or empirically indicated. What you see as your different mental state when being moral, I would more parsimoniously explain by the physical differences between your brain and other guy's (it's impossible for you to have a truly identical brain state to someone else).

>>17034521
I suppose the impasse is that I think there is no reason to think that brain states can represent strongly or reduce mental states to themselves, and you think the gap is an assumption in its self. Are you really sure that you can make a cogent induction in favor of mental states being in fact reducible to brain states? The problem I see is that the brain is like a mysterious box, with only external, correlative descriptions. To simplify, it's just "this part is correlated with this function, and damage to it causes the impairment or loss of that function". But that seems to equally hold easily for even the antithetical (but not my own) mind-body dualism thesis. You can try an argument from parsimony, but can you actually demonstrate that your own explanation is in fact completely adequate enough? I don't think so, I don't like to take a cheap-ish shot like this, but there is a point to be made about the problem of induction. I do not believe that the mind-body problem is yet solved, and if it were to be solved it cannot be purely empirically. Tl;dr, I think there isn't enough reason to think that mental states can be reduced to brain states. You cannot find someone's actual, content-filled thought. You can find areas or processes that correlate with thought, but if someone is thinking of a triangle, you aren't going to find that triangle anywhere.

>>17032683
>Then what is the meaning of the word "dogs" in a general, universal sense
Trope theory. It's a taxonomic trope which we use to pragmatically group similar objects in our experience. Similarity does not necessitate true universality, however.
>then why assume any sort of essential similarity?
I'm not assuming it, I'm observing it. We observe similarity, but if we look really close we don't find concrete instances of universality.

>if no one would have thought of the conclusion then the conclusion would somehow never be true!
That seems like semantic trickery, since without a thinker there would be no conclusion (or premises) at all. The syllogism is an abstraction, and abstractions are products of abstracting agents. Sure, there are preceding concrete relations in the universe which we abstract from, but those relations are part of the causal matrix (as are our brains doing abstraction).

>What's a whole without its parts?
I guess I don't see where you're going with this one. A whole is its parts.

>>17032503
>The reasoner can when he grounds a practical principle on its mere form, rather than its content
I don't see how form and content are truly discrete from eachother, and Kant didn't establish that separating them is possible (or even sensible). One can't think of anything that hasn't been informed (conditioned) by the content (matter) of their experience. If you think I'm wrong, think such a thing and report it here.

>>17034735
>Are you really sure that you can make a cogent induction in favor of mental states being in fact reducible to brain states?
I think it's a) all we have evidence for and b) the most parsimonious explanation. A gap is an extra step.
>but there is a point to be made about the problem of induction
Sure, but that problem cuts you too. Ultimately empiricism is all we have — it is the only conduit to knowledge. Do I think the neuroscience explanation is even near complete? Of course not. Do I think it is "adequate enough" in light of the fact that there are no competitive theories which produce actionable knowledge? Yes, I do.
>You cannot find someone's actual, content-filled thought.
Well, scientists are working towards memory transplantation, and have achieved some measure of success:
https://www.medicaldaily.com/transplanting-memories-brain-possible-scientists-show-snails-424137
Primitive to be sure, but it's a step in the direction of finding content-filled thought.
>if someone is thinking of a triangle, you aren't going to find that triangle anywhere.
That's a semantic trick... There never was 'the triangle', only the thought/memory-approximation of one they'd previously experienced.

>>17034473
So you assert, but if awareness and the universe are continuous, I see no reason why awareness wouldn't be able to reflect upon itself. Besides that, empiricism is -the only- means we have for finding evidence, there is no other way of looking for it.

>>17035170
you don't know what is outside your awareness, you can only guess. You also don't know which of the objects in your awareness have their own, you have to take other people's word for it that they're aware, a reasonable thing to do, but not actual evidence, and tells you nothing about what other types of things might be aware.

Empiricism is massively useful for understanding the world we perceive but it cannot measure or find awareness anywhere.

>>17035170
>Besides that, empiricism is -the only- means we have for finding evidence, there is no other way of looking for it

>>17035236
this is just Kant right

>>17034921
>If you think I'm wrong, think such a thing and report it here.
Sure, here it is:
"Act only according to thatmaximwhereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."
This practical principle, since it is purely formal, excludes every concievable empirical motive (or, desire for specific objects or states of affairs) from the conditions of my actions.

>>17035236
Please don't post existential comics pleb stuff on /lit/, keep it to re d dit or wherever else you obtained E3E250A3-46EB-4D9D-A285-F(...) on your söyphone

>>17035236
There simply are no ideas/knowledge without experience. You can't simply dismiss that crucial component because it -seems- like there's a real dichotomy between form and content, you have to demonstrate such a dichotomy really (or probably) exists.


>>17035274
That is not an unconditioned thought (it is contingent up experiential priors). "Purely formal" means nothing, as it is not possible to think without reference to what has been empirically observed.

Let's always deal with the issue of what Kant takes to be 'form' as also being a kind of conditioning. If the very architecture of our experience induces us to perceive and think in certain ways, this is no less supportive of the notion of 'freedom' than being conditioned by experiential content.

>>17035427
*also deal with

>>17035427
>That is not an unconditioned thought (it is contingent up experiential priors)
Such as?
>If the very architecture of our experience induces us to perceive and think in certain ways, this is no less supportive of the notion of 'freedom' than being conditioned by experiential content.
Are you assuming that logical concepts are subject-dependant? Because if you are, you're disagreeing not only with Kant, but also with virtually the rest of the history of logic.

>>17035620
>Such as?
How would one conceive of the concept of universality without having experienced similarity (and also division) of objects in space?
>Are you assuming that logical concepts are subject-dependant?
They quite clearly are in that no concept (thought) exists until thought/recorded by a thinker. If you mean "Is the consistency of relations from which logic is abstracted subject dependant?" the answer is no, but that consistency is empirically discovered. No 'freedom' is implied by the abstraction of logic from experience.
>you're disagreeing not only with Kant, but also with virtually the rest of the history of logic
Not an argument

>>17035223
What do you consider, 'actual evidence' then? By what standard do you plan your actions in daily life?

>it cannot measure or find awareness anywhere
You don't know that. You're presupposing based on your mystical bias towards awareness.

>>17035949
Nobody has ever shown how you could even in principle measure consciousness. Apart from your own awareness, which is itself 'transparent', it may as well be aether.
>plan your actions in daily life
I have already agreed with you that empiricism is how we gain knowledge, I just said that it can't explain what consciousness is.

>>17024431
>no. all is physical
Define physical

>>17033013
Yes

>>17024388
I was predetermined to come to this thread just to call OP a faggot

>>17035964
>I have already agreed with you that empiricism is how we gain knowledge
Then stop saying there's no evidence. Consistent empirical observations are what evidence is.
>Nobody has ever shown how you could even in principle measure consciousness.
You say this because you are already presupposing that 'consciousness' is not an object(s) itself. You're assuming the gap, assuming that everything is contained within experience (as opposed to continuous with it).

>>17035741
Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but I think that you are mistakingly interpreting Kant's concept of "a posteriori". Kant does not deny that we need experience to know about logical concepts, he explicitly makes this point all over the Critique of Pure Reason: we need empirical intuitions in order to "kickstart" our experience, without them we would simply be unconscious. But this is not what is ever meant by "a posteriori".
That concept refers instead to (to use some analytic jargon) truth value of judgements. If a judgement is a posteriori, its truth value will ha e to be confirmed through empirical observation: kn simpler terms, to know wether the judgement "my dog is clean" is true, I actually have to check wether my dog is clean.
A priori judgements (like mathematical and logical ones) instead requires no such confirmation. They are instead demonstrated: once I demonstrate that 2+2=4, I won't ever have to check again if such a proposition is still true.

So, the empirical origin of a concept or a judgement is irrelevant when it comes to aprioricity (or the lack of it): a concept (like the concept of "2") can still be a priori even if I discover it thanks to my empirical experience. Maybe this might help you understand better those passages

>>17024388
determinism is just prediction.

>>17035972
Not him, but the answer is: Things which behave in a physical way (i.e. according to the laws of physics). This appears, so far, to be everything.

>>17036032
If consciousness is an object then you should be able to identify and measure it, you cannot, you can only point to physical systems that seem related to it.

I have said repeatedly there is no direct empirical evidence for consciousness, I have not once said that empiricism is not useful for gaining knowledge generally. Consciousness is a special case.

>>17035063
>I think it's a) all we have evidence for and b) the most parsimonious explanation. A gap is an extra step.
I think there are some missing steps, such as:
1) The problem of qualia, why must I perceive qualia the way I do?
2) Why must something emergent of physical components be in its self physical?
3) How do we infer that mental states are caused/reduced to brain states beyond simply correlation?

>Sure, but that problem cuts you too. Ultimately empiricism is all we have — it is the only conduit to knowledge. Do I think the neuroscience explanation is even near complete? Of course not. Do I think it is "adequate enough" in light of the fact that there are no competitive theories which produce actionable knowledge? Yes, I do.
It does, I don't claim an answer beyond my religious dogmas. Although I would still challenge the empiricism thesis, but that might be taking thing a bit out of scope.

>Well, scientists are working towards memory transplantation, and have achieved some measure of success: https://www.medicaldaily.com/transplanting-memories-brain-possible-scientists-show-snails-424137 Primitive to be sure, but it's a step in the direction of finding content-filled thought.
I read the article, desu man I don't think that's a strong enough induction, although I can see why someone would think that. I don't think that the sample size and particular example are reliable enough for such a radical conclusion.

>>17036103
Based and Chalmerspilled

>>17035063
>>17036111
>That's a semantic trick... There never was 'the triangle', only the thought/memory-approximation of one they'd previously experienced.
forgot to respond to this. Yeah, by "triangle" I was just referring to the content of one's thought. I don't think it's empirically observable at all, only phenomena that are associated or correlated somehow. You can't just get at the meaning of, say, a written proposition because destroying the physical instantiation does nothing to the meaning, the proposition can still hold true or be false independent of whether it is written or not.

>>17036053
Yes, yes, but the point is that one can't do maths until they're taught (or define themselves via abstraction from experience) the terms and functions. No -FREEDOM- is implied by instinctual intuitions nor learning from experience.

>>17036103
>you can only point to physical systems that seem related to it
Again, assuming the gap. Your shrill call for evidence (which is abundant) doesn't seem to apply to your own assumptions.
>no direct empirical evidence for consciousness
Perhaps no evidence for what -you- think consciousness is, but you remain uncritical of your own assumption here. You've arbitrarily decided that awareness is something ephemeral.
>Consciousness is a special case.
How exactly? Be specific.

>>17036182
Okay, but once they're taught said mathematical concepts, they possess concepts that do not require any empirical confirmation. Furthermore, the way we empirically learn about them is irrelevant, since they are not object-dependant. For example, if I learn about the concept "7" by looking at 7 trees, it is evident thst the concept itself does not depend on me specifically looking at 7 trees. Rather, the empirical observation is just an occasion to learn about that a priori concept. The same can be said about logicsl judgements and concepts: I can learn about the concept of identity by observing a rock, but this does not mean thst the concept of identity depends in thr slightest ln that rock.
Once we have a priori concepts, we have the tools to craft a purely rational and formal practicsl principle, and once we have thst we have a way tl determine our will independently of the natural law, since at that point our motives are not reducible anymore to a posteriori, empiricsl notions.

>>17036237
It's a special case because literally everything you are aware of in reality is contained within your conscious moments. I would have thought this was an obvious point.

Again, you can point to a brain, you never point to anything that you recognize as subjective awareness of the sort you yourself constantly experience.

>>17036111
>qualia
Trope theory requires less extra assumption than the notion of qualia (and has better predictive power as a theory).
>Why must something emergent of physical components be in its self physical?
What else would it be? What would it mean for something to be non-physical?
>mental states are caused/reduced to brain states
Assuming the gap.
>I would still challenge the empiricism thesis
As it should be. Let's just not pretend that a theory we can make predictions with and extremely vague mysticisms are equivalent in terms of probability.
>desu man I don't think that's a strong enough induction
That's a fair criticism; nonetheless this is a pathway that is being worked on and advanced. You will see more of this in the future.

>>17036016
or, maybe, and here's a wild thought here, our current medications aren't the cure to depression?

>>17036129
>because destroying the physical instantiation does nothing to the meaning
It does though. If we killed every speaker of a certain language and destroyed all dictionaries pertaining to it, there would no longer be a way to decipher the meaning of its terms (we could probably infer about the syntax, but only via comparison with our own language). A proposition doesn't even exist until made by a thinker (there is nothing to be true or false). There is no meaning without a thinker, there is no abstraction without an abstracting agent.

>>17031957
I dont think the idea of a soul must devolve into an infinite regress. Can't its thoughts and decisions simply arise from itself?

>>17033013
Just saying it hasnt been proven that all that we are is chemical reactions, etc.

>>17033240
I disagree that your brain unconsciously picks the ice cream. By what algorithm would it choose? How would you explain favorite colors or flavors? Does a kid simply, on his 3rd flavor, unconsciously choose that flavor to be his favorite? It doesn't make any sense unless a free and creative agent is choosing and deciding things.

>>17034356
Find my thought about me kicking your ass making its way through my brain right now. It can't be done. There are regions that can be distinguished from each other, but specifics can't be derived from obeserving neural activity.
>not yet
Well when it can then there'll be more to discuss

>>17036257
>I can learn about the concept of identity by observing a rock, but this does not mean thst the concept of identity depends in thr slightest ln that rock.
But it is dependent upon the experience of division of objects in space. You're playing semantic games here.

>purely rational and formal
Again, this doesn't mean anything because this never happens. The 'form' and 'matter' can't be truly divorced (see above), it is only a pragmatic distinction.

>determine our will
What is a 'will'?

Can someone give me a definition of free will?
It seems most common definition s are self-refuting.

>>17036327
>literally everything you are aware of in reality is contained within your conscious moments
You assume this to be the case, but since we aren't omniscient it seems much more "obvious" that our awareness is in fact contained within an objective reality.

>Can't its thoughts and decisions simply arise from itself?
I would ask the same question regarding the brain. If a soul wouldn't require a soul to think and be aware, why would a brain?

>>17036410
>Trope theory requires less extra assumption than the notion of qualia (and has better predictive power as a theory).
What is your trope theory?
>What else would it be? What would it mean for something to be non-physical?
Something not extended into space.
>Assuming the gap.
Isn't reducing mental states to brain states your thesis?
>>17036511
I disagree that making impossible to know the meaning of the proposition means that the proposition is its self meaningless, it only remains not expressed.

1) Propositions aren't material in themselves. The ink or pixels on the screen might instantiate or represent the proposition in a written sentence, but not the thought/proposition its self.
2) Propositions cannot be just our mental states. They cannot be our feelings or desires purely. It is obviously true that our desires, such as to eat something, only make sense in the context of us actually desiring them, there's no desire floating out there without any bearer of that desire. That desire, by the way, is also quite private. You don't know how it is like to experience my own desires, my own feelings, my own pain, my own colors etc, literally any qualia so it's meaningless to ask "can you describe green-ness for me?". So, these are held by people and are private obviously, but propositions don't quite fit this. What about the proposition of 1 + 1 = 2, even if you think it is only true within a formal system without any necessary corresponding with the world, it is still mind-independently true, no? There is no my own private experience of what "plus", "one", "equals" or "two" are, at least not on the level of qualia.

>>17036647
Sorry this was for you
>Can't its thoughts and decisions simply arise from itself?
I would ask the same question regarding the brain. If a soul wouldn't require a soul to think and be aware, why would a brain?

>>17036702
The science is advancing. What is you predictive and actionable alternative theory?
>Well when it can then there'll be more to discuss
So don't discuss.

>>17036739
>But it is dependent upon the experience of division of objects in space. You're playing semantic games here.
I don't think so. For example I can apply the concept of identity to the concept of "7". Hell, I can apply the concept of identity to itself: in all of this there is no reference to space and its divisions. Again, I think you are making thr mistake I've mentioned here >>17036053 : space and time are only an occasion to learn about these concepts, but the content of these concepts do not depend on said occasions. Once I have learnt about them, I can fully abstract from our forms of intuition (at least when it comes to logical and mathematical concepts): the concept "7" doesn't have to necessarily refer to those 7 trees.
>Again, this doesn't mean anything because this never happens. The 'form' and 'matter' can't be truly divorced (see above), it is only a pragmatic distinction.
I have given you a concrete examples, the CI. How specifically does it fail? What's the matter in the CI?
>What is a 'will'?
Here's Kant definition, from the Introduction of the second critique:
"the will [...] is a faculty either to produce objects corresponding to ideas, or to determine ourselves to the effecting of such objects (whether the physical power is sufficient or not); that is, to determine our causality."
A free will is a will capable of determining itself independently of the natural law, otherwise the will is not free.

>>17036806
>an objective reality.
which you can only ever access or conceive of via and in terms of your conscious awareness, everything you perceive is by definition contained within conscious moments. It is this all-encompassing nature of the phenomenon that makes it different than other questions, every other question is contained within the set 'things I am aware of', whereas the awareness itself constitutes the possibility of the set, it is literally the highest category you can be sure exists, and everything you see within your conscious moments, whatever objects, you can't see within those their own consciousness.

>>17036816
>What is your trope theory?
The gist of is that there are no universals, only similar quanta. In other words, your experience and my experience of 'red' aren't actually identical, and so there is no 'redness', only a similarity of quanta which we categorize for pragmatic reasons as 'redness'. It's a well established theory, you can read about it.

>Something not extended into space.
We've been over this. What is an example of such a thing? Are not all things extended into space?

>Isn't reducing mental states to brain states your thesis?
No, my thesis is that they are the same thing. You are just assuming this other thing called a 'mental state' exists without even realizing it.

>Propositions aren't material in themselves.
Yes they are. Thoughts are matter.
>Propositions cannot be just our mental states.
All abstractions are physical events in our brains.
>1 + 1 = 2
The concrete relations in the universe that make this logic possible are mind independent, yes, but that abstraction itself is not.
>There is no my own private experience of what "plus", "one", "equals" or "two" are
Yes there is.
You have to get granular with it... So for instance this '1' here isn't actually identical to this '1'. Likewise, my thought of '1' isn't perfectly identical to yours. However, they are all similar enough that we can agree to pretend they are a universal for pragmatic purposes. Just like there are no actual perfect circles; they are a pragmatic mind-dependent idealization of mind-independent concrete relations.

>>17033360
You're assuming free will doesn't exist when you say there must be an equation that can dictate the world, because if there was free will then there would be no way to predict events caused by free will

>>17035972
Definitions are arbitrary to the physical.

mans most potent mirage... You say to me "free will": I ask you: "Whos?"

Do I have the free will to turn this desert... into an ocean....

>>17036883
>For example I can apply the concept
You wouldn't have the concept without the experience. There are no occasions or knowledge or abstractions or logical manipulations without experience. The form of your experience is not evident without content. There is no hard boundary.

>is a faculty
Right, but what is its provenance (sorry I should've been more specific)? If we aren't aware of the incipience of 'will', how are we to be certain it is independent from natural law (e.g. temporality)?

>>17036886
>it is literally the highest category you can be sure exists
Wrong. The highest is existence itself, which is apodictically evident to you via awareness, but is comprised -of more than your awareness- which you know because you aren't omniscient.

>>17024859
Its all mechanics, its not determined by an entity with a personality.

>>17038645
you can't be sure of anything you are not aware of

>>17038699
You're not aware that you're not omniscient? I mean by the way you talk, possibly not.

>>17038699
Or even just the law of non-contradiction. For there to be a 'self', the stuff you experience can't be identical to it (meaning there is more extant than your awareness).

>>17024388
The will is not a prime mover but is instead determined by factors beyond its control. And yet everything people want out of free will besides the ability to choose otherwise in a weird thought experiment where we turn back time and replay things can be well encapsulated by compatibilists ideas of free will.

>>17039150
>>17039171
everything you just said falls into the category of 'concepts your consciousness creates'

>>17039269
Ok, so how does anything (including your awareness) exist if existence is just a concept?

>>17039669
however it exists, it exists for us in consciousness, that is the only access we have to anything in reality, so consciousness remains the highest category

>>17039679
>consciousness remains the highest category
No it doesn't. If I claim "consciousness exists", then existence itself must precede consciousness (existence is the higher category — the ultimate superset). If awareness was the highest order 'container', then you would be omniscient and would know all things simultaneously.

>>17039797
everything you know about existence is mediated through consciousness, your conception of existence is dependent on consciousness, consciousness is a higher category

>>17039810
You wouldn't have anything to mediate or any experience at all if not for existence itself — existence is the higher category.

>>17039851
existence, and any other category you can come up with, categories themselves, depend on awareness. it's a tautology, everything you have ever known or will know depends on your awareness.

>>17033054
not him, but if you have a meta self, what is its nature? Does it have a meta-self of its own? And what about that meta-meta-self? etc

Self and Will are an as yet unmeasured quality of sub-quarks. They respond to the laws of physics, but they also act—outside of all known and unknown physical laws—by thought and reason alone.

>>17039880
Existence isn't even a category, it is the apodictic prerequisite for categorization (and experience itself).

The are two primary apodictic truths:
1) I (self) exist
2) Existence is

Can you not see that 2 is necessary for 1 to be true, but 1 is not necessary for 2 to be true?

>>17039945
Well then, unless you have meta-control over sub-quarks you have no 'will in any meaningful sense'.

>>17040049
2 is contained within 1, the very basis of existence is just 'consciousness, what consciousness sees, and maybe other stuff that could exist'

>>17040068
The sub-quarks create a thing that is able to control them

>>17024388
Yes it does

>>17040150
>2 is contained within 1
No. 2 -precedes- 1. The premise of 1 can only be stated if 2 is already true. There can be no 'basis' for existence, because existence is the potential from which all possiblity stems. Again, if everything was contained within your consciousness, you would be omniscient — you would know the noumenal.

>>17040268
Cool, make your own head explode.

>>17040325
every single thing you are saying right now you can only understand in terms of your conscious experience of it, including your understanding of existence as such

>>17040337
Well, there are limits. The entity created by the sub-quarks acts according to the limits of its properties...we are yet to discern these laws.

>>17040499
Ok. How am I controlling this sub-quark process if I'm not aware of it? How is fMRI able to predict the outcome of simple decisions seconds before the person is aware of their selection, if they've willed it in the first place?

>>17040380
There would be no potential for understanding or experiencing anything if nothing existed. Existence is the prime necessity.

>>17024388
In the debate of free will vs destiny, either both exist, or neither exist. Refute that. My brainlet ass can't.

Is determinism worth arguing against? Does anything change by the presentation of argument for or against it? I don't think it does. Humans behave "as though" they had free will regardless of their stance on the subject.

>>17037270
>You wouldn't have the concept without the experience. There are no occasions or knowledge or abstractions or logical manipulations without experience. The form of your experience is not evident without content. There is no hard boundary.
Yes, I have conceded this multiple times. Still, once you've learn it, you know a concept a priori. The examples I've made, with trees and 7s, are clear cut examples of a priori concepts learnt through experience, which can be abstracted from it. Again, it is objectively the case that trees, or the concept of extended and divided space, have nothing to do with the actual concept of "7": once I have learnt it from experience, I know it a priori. Same for the concept of identity.
>Right, but what is its provenance (sorry I should've been more specific)? If we aren't aware of the incipience of 'will', how are we to be certain it is independent from natural law (e.g. temporality)?
Read again this passage >>17032503
If we can determine our will through purely a priori content, then our will is determined independently of a posteriori content, as in, the contents of the natural world. The goal of the critique is to show that the CI fits this bill

>>17034462
> I can only conclude then, that you are holding me to an unreasonable standard of evidence you don't expect of yourself.
Again, you haven't presented any evidence at all. Rather, you can't, so you make empty responses like this.
>If you're not being a selective radical skeptic, then be honest about what constitutes evidence and provide your probable alternative theory.
This rather demonstrates my point. You have no proofs, so you instead selectively take some publication in some journal, or maybe just some internet rag, and say "It makes it more likely to be true" (of course, you in fact have no way of knowing what the real odds are, so this is also an empty statement). Then, having supposed your (imagined) probabilities line up in your favor, you decide that is sufficient for proof.
On the contrary however, you have only stated that you know these things in a sophistical way. You have contrived half the claimed evidence, ignored a quarter, and imagined the last quarter.
There is only one standard that scientific knowledge can be held to, and you undoubtedly fail to meet it. But you can attempt to prove any of your assertions ITT meet it, I don't have a problem with you trying.
Here's the standard, see what you can do:
>We think we have knowledge of something simpliciter (and not in the sophistical way,
incidentally), when we think we know of the cause because of which the explanandum holds
that it is its cause, and also that it is not possible for it to be otherwise

>>17024388
It's my personal belief that we are in fact not in control, and this is rooted in the physical aspect as other anons such as >>17024431
mentioned. All of our actions are the result of external stimuli and and our nature, generally. In the same way there was nothing in control of rings of rocks forming the planet, we aren't necessarily in control of the chemical processes taking place in our brain.

But this doesn't have to be a bad thing, because as freaks of nature with a highly developed consciousness, we have been given something that the rings of rocks or chemicals don't have, which is agency. In my mind, I see agency as a derivative of consciousness, and in my definition would be the ability for one to observe things and thoughts using their consciousness, and act accordingly in their interest based on that.

To sum up shortly, I think we have agency, not control.

>>17040958
Oh man... I understand the a priori, a posteriorii distinction and I'm saying it's BS as far as concrete reality goes. It may be a useful -pragmatic- distinction, but ontologically as a real dichotomy it's dubious (and the distinction is still hotly debated/criticized in philosophical circles, if you only care about argument from authority — which seems to be the case).
>once I have learnt it from experience, I know it a priori
Yes, and this is -conditioning-. The concept was introduced to you via abstraction (so how can it now be considered 'pure'?). You were not 'free' to pluck it from the ether. Please actually think about the logic here.
>If we can determine our will
That is not what I asked. You say we can determine our will, but if we are not aware of how it arises as an impetus (in the most primordial sense), then we can't be assured it is independent of natural law. In other words, what determines our will to start determining our will (what is the nature of the initial impetus)?

You're very good at parroting Kant's abstraction, but you seem unwilling (or incapable) of thinking about it critically.

>>17041469
>Rather, you can't, so you make empty responses like this.
It's not empty. I aksed for you standard of evidence, because you seem to either not understand what evidence is or have an unreasonable standard of your own.
>blahblahblah a bunch of rhetorical posturing, no posited alternative or specific examples
>when we think we know of the cause because of which the explanandum holds
That is clearly not the definition of 'evidence'. But in any event, I have been concerned with establishing most likely causes via predictive power (not just assertion of probability, we use the explanations I've discussed to predict outcomes in the world).
>also that it is not possible for it to be otherwise
This kind of certainty is only established by apodictic truths, and you would know this if you weren't a dilettante. If this is your requirement to consider something 'knowledge', then there's no point in inquiry since we won't be able to expand knowledge beyond the most basic truths (e.g. I am, existence is).

However, since you (nor any other interlocutors in ITT we should note) have posited alternative detailed explanations for these phenomena, it is difficult to assess how likely it is "to be otherwise."

>>17042467
>I'm saying it's BS as far as concrete reality goes.
Well, I regard he examples I've brought as a refutation of what you're claiming here. You'ee free to show me how's the content of the concepts of identity and "7" must refer to things such as space and its division. Notice that an appeal to their origin (as in: I needed to have an experience to learn them) is not a proper answer to this question.
>Yes, and this is -conditioning-. The concept was introduced to you via abstraction (so how can it now be considered 'pure'?). You were not 'free' to pluck it from the ether. Please actually think about the logic here.
Again, examine the very concrete example of the concept of "7". Although I could not pluck it out of the ether (and this is trivial, since I need to be conscious to learn about it), once I have learnt it, it is simply the case that I possess a concept that can be fully abstracted from its empirical origin. I can talk about "7 fictional creatures", "7 concepts", "7 times 1" and so on. The application of this concept is objectively not limited to what is observable in space and time (otherwise we would have to say that the 7s in the judgements "there are 7 dogs in my yard" and "there are at least 7 concepts" are different concepts of 7s - mere omonyms). The empirical origin of this concept is 100% irrelevant when it comes to its actual content.
>That is not what I asked. You say we can determine our will, but if we are not aware of how it arises as an impetus (in the most primordial sense), then we can't be assured it is independent of natural law. In other words, what determines our will to start determining our will (what is the nature of the initial impetus)?
The moral law, as it is formulated in the CI, I've told you multiple times.

>You're very good at parroting Kant's abstraction, but you seem unwilling (or incapable) of thinking about it critically
I'm not even a Kantian, I'm just trying to get you to read his arguments before dismissing them. I mean, 2 days have passed and you still haven't read those goddamn 15 pages. Are you allergic to reading?

>>17042579
>is not a proper answer to this question
Why isn't it? Because you say so? This is just assuming that the distinction is already ontologically valid.
>Again, examine the very concrete example of the concept of "7"
'7' Isn't concrete, it's an abstraction. The relations it is abstracted from are concrete. You don't even understand the terminology.
>The empirical origin of this concept is 100% irrelevant when it comes to its actual content.
It is not, because there would be no content without that origin. The 'conditioning' is implicit in the content, it is not 'pure'. The concept of '7' would literally not exist if there were no abstracting agents in the universe to abstract it from their empirical experience.
>I've told you multiple times.
You've dodged the question multiple times. Reason cannot determine our impetus to reason. If I make a choice based upon a supposed universal principle, I still only did so because I 'felt' like it... It brought me some kind of psychological satisfaction to do so. No freedom is implied by being able to apply reason.

>before dismissing them.
I'm not just dismissing them, I'm engaging with them far more explicitly than you are (and I have read them). If you don't actually agree with Kant, what logical point are you trying to make here?

>>17042578
*have not posited

>>17042756
>Why isn't it? Because you say so? This is just assuming that the distinction is already ontologically valid.
Because it is the case, as I have shown you multiple times. I'll challenge you again to find a single necessary reference of space and its division in the concept of 7.
>'7' Isn't concrete, it's an abstraction. The relations it is abstracted from are concrete. You don't even understand the terminology.
... what? I haven't said that 7 is concrete, I have said that that was a conceete example of why you're wrong.
>It is not, because there would be no content without that origin. The 'conditioning' is implicit in the content, it is not 'pure'. The concept of '7' would literally not exist if there were no abstracting agents in the universe to abstract it from their empirical experience.
Again, I concede that (and Kant does too). But once it is learnt, you can abstract from the conditioning. If I observe 7 rocks, learning this way the concept "7" for the first time, do I have to always tie together the concept of "7" with the one of "rocks"? If I later on observe 7 trees, will I have to say that the two concepts of 7 are different? What if I think about 7 times 1? Is this concept different because I have tied it with a non-spatiotemporal concept? No, what I claim, and what every logician has claimed for the past 2500 years, is that once these concepts are learnt, their content can be fully abstracted from empirical conditions, so that, for example, the concept of 7 can also refer to non-spatiotemporal concepts (e.g. fictitious entities). Basically: yours is a basic mistake, you confound origin for content.
>You've dodged the question multiple times. Reason cannot determine our impetus to reason. If I make a choice based upon a supposed universal principle, I still only did so because I 'felt' like it... It brought me some kind of psychological satisfaction to do so. No freedom is implied by being able to apply reason.
Not that impressive, since your whole objection is based on a ludicrous notion of how concepts work. If you think that the concept of identity and the concept of 7 are a posteriori concept even in their content, then you're downright incoherent.
>I'm not just dismissing them, I'm engaging with them far more explicitly than you are (and I have read them). If you don't actually agree with Kant, what logical point are you trying to make here?
You haven't, and I know that because you have engaged directly with exactly 0 of his actual arguments. You could have easily refuted specific argumentative passages: you havent done so not even once because you have not engaged with the text not even once.

>>17040672
There’s been a revisiting of that study, and it was found to be in error because it relied on the self-report of when a decision was made.

To understand the entity created by sub-quarks without 2nd hand observation is factual and incomprehensible. It’s like a blind person trying to understand color. You can’t conceptualists it until you observe it. That’s just a feature of empirical epistemology.

>>17043152
>find a single necessary reference of space and its division in the concept of 7
'7' IS A REFERENCE to division of objects in space, that's the point! It is abstracted from empicial observation, and there is no identifiable actual boundary at which this information becomes 'pure' and nature-independent.
>I have said that that was a conceete example of why you're wrong
Alright, so you were using a turn of phrase. This isn't a good idea when we're trying to be very specific with our terms. Philosophically speaking, a 'concrete example' would be an empirical one.
>you continue to repeat yourself
I am not confounding origin for content, I am saying that there is no true ontological distinction between the two. Understand 'origin v. content' is a -pragmatic- distinction, there is no point at which information (content) 'jumps' into another realm from which it was observed. The system is continuous.
>fully abstracted
This phrase doesn't mean anything. You can't 'fully' abstract anything, because the abstraction is always linked to the empirical world. There is no hard boundary.
>more non-argument, evasion and disingenuous recrimination
I have engaged with his arguments. The CI can not be non-natural law because it is necessarily informed — in every respect — by the empirical world. Kant never demonstrated an ontological boundary between the empirical and the reasoned; the a priori (synthetic a priori actually)/a posteriorii distinction is still heavily disputed by philosophers.

As I stated at the beginning of our discussion, Kant is arguing for what must be pragmatically assumed (-practical- principle) in order to have the sense that our reasoning is consequential. In other words, we must act -as if- we have an autonomous will. He admits himself that we don't know we are ontologically 'free'.

>>17043223
>self-report
If we can't rely on self-report (assuming sincerity) regarding awareness of a decision, I'd that supports my contention rather than detracting from it. If one is not aware, one is not in control.

>To understand the entity created by sub-quarks
Sure, I'm not saying one would have to understand it, but one would have to be at least indirectly aware of it. If you are truly the author of your thoughts and feelings, you must have some sense of their incipience (and even then, infinite regression kicks in re: the 'author').

>>17043152
Not that guy, but you seem to be making 2 main points: 1 the origin of knowledge is empirical but it’s justification is not and 2 you can’t make sense of the world without the concept of the self.

As to both points I like a Hegelian response that knowledge is a psychological process, not a binary. This is aligned with Bertrand Russell’s response, that there is no knowledge, but merely "thinking occurring". So the concept of self can indeed be an innate idea (Kant doesn’t use that language specifically but he kind of does and he should) that has content which does not correspond to anything. It’s merely a necessary organizational presentation of information determined by genes, fruit of the genetic tree so to speak.

>>17043420
You’re not the author of your feelings, all thoughts and feelings emerge subcortically.

Your belief is that all thoughts emerge and subside as part of the causal chain going back to the Big Bang (and possibly the infinite bangs before that), and that any "decision" (a fictional concept to you along with "will" and "self") is merely another chink. You believe consciousness is a complex neurological process that is reducible to subatomic-electrical activity and does not have the ability to effect change. That is, you believe it was not selected for its survival advantage. You believe that evolution makes "choices" based on adaptive fitness, but that consciousness isn’t fit....

So why did evolution select consciousness if it’s unfit and redundant?

>>17043420
They were aware of the decision, but the report was slow because self-reported reaction times are less reliable when the time interval is tiny.

>how can I control something without awareness

It’s like ordering a meal at a restaurant that you don’t know how to cook. What you are aware of, is that you placed the order, then it’s up to the rest of the brain to execute.

How,is this possible? The self is capable of objective reasoning. The causal arrow is biconditional.

The entire notion of free will and self are refuted by sonambulance. Sleep walkers are capable of doing anything a waking person is capable of. One famous sleep walker drove 15 miles to kill his in laws. Everything you think is "you" can be done when "you" are asleep. There’s no response to this.

>>17043608
I believe that whether the processes that comprise us are thermodynamically causal or caused in the sense of arising from an objectively real probability (or random) distribution, we are not in control of them (we are a product of them).

Awareness is a machine — a feedback loop that allows an organism to process and respond to its environment in a more sophisticated way (and to coordinate the responses of various sub-systems to that effect). Awareness does not need to be capable of 'breaking the chain' or being otherwise 'free' from physical processes to confer an advantage.

>>17043752
>ancillary benefits

How do you explain the evo selection for the illusion of authorship?

>>17043683
>What you are aware of, is that you placed the order,
But this doesn't address the impetus to make order in the first place. 'You' are not in control of the impulse to go to a restaurant or order a meal (or the impulse to make any deliberation thereof), 'you' merely witness it.

>>17043752
To further explicate this point, it's not a matter of true 'choice' but of functionality. Certain responses to environment simply wouldn't be possible without the machine of awareness, and so an evolutionary niche would remain unfilled.

>>17043864
It's more efficient in terms of processing, and it's a good motivator.