A revolution in thought

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

It is fitting that it should leave you with a sense of wonder, as it contradicts all the other ideas you espouse. Awe I am not so sure of.

You even say "Who or what created these laws" ... nothing natural could have done so, that is for sure.

I have said nothing to suggest anything supernatural is occurring, yet the fact that these laws will bring about our deliverance from evil takes away any vestige of doubt (for me) that this world is here by chance. I'm going to leave it at that.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Spacemonkey

That is still a literal rather than a metaphorical use of the term 'God'. If the above is what you believe, then you have been lying to us every time you say you are using the word 'God' only as a metaphor for the impersonal laws of nature.

Then I'm lying. Are you satisfied now?

[Vivisectus]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I have said nothing to suggest anything supernatural is occurring, yet the fact that these laws will bring about our deliverance from evil takes away any vestige of doubt (for me) that this world is here by chance. I'm going to leave it at that.

Well, yes, of course you can always go with option b: sticking your fingers in your ears and going "LALALALALA!" at the top of your voice until the other person stops speaking.

[Stephen Maturin]

MadTv-Vancome Lady: La La La~ - YouTube

[koan]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

If you understood the first thing about what you read, you would know that this is a serious work. I have been given knowledge that can change the world for the better, and all you can say is that I am no different than a psychpath who is on a personal heroic quest whose secondary goal is to gain heroic glory? The only thing I can think of that would prompt you to say this is jealousy.

You're mistaking pity for jealousy.


I'm prompted to tell you to stop because there is another author of a book about evil (called Escape From Evil) who actually did make a discovery that could bring more peace to the human world and his work is falsifiable, and his work is being discovered to be Truth more and more every year, and he has a following (called the Ernest Becker Foundation) and when you hold his book up to your father's, Lessans book looks something like

Everything you say will happen with your father's book is happening with Becker's. Your father failed where Becker succeeded and the difference is that Becker actually studied his topic before he wrote about it.

You won't give up because it's your immortality project. Find a new one.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

MadTv-Vancome Lady: La La La~ - YouTube

Too funny!!

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

If you understood the first thing about what you read, you would know that this is a serious work. I have been given knowledge that can change the world for the better, and all you can say is that I am no different than a psychpath who is on a personal heroic quest whose secondary goal is to gain heroic glory? The only thing I can think of that would prompt you to say this is jealousy.

Originally Posted by koan

You're mistaking pity for jealousy.

Nope, I got the word right and it's perfectly fitting.

Originally Posted by koan

I'm prompted to tell you to stop because there is another author of a book about evil (called Escape From Evil) who actually did make a discovery that could bring more peace to the human world and his work is falsifiable, and his work is being discovered to be Truth more and more every year, and he has a following (called the Ernest Becker Foundation) and when you hold his book up to your father's, Lessans book looks something like

That's because you don't understand the first thing about it. Ignorance begets ignorance, ya know?

Originally Posted by koan

Everything you say will happen with your father's book is happening with Becker's. Your father failed where Becker succeeded and the difference is that Becker actually studied his topic before he wrote about it.

The extent of your ignorant remarks comes as no surprise since everything you have said up until this point is ignorant. It's okay, I have to consider the source.

Originally Posted by koan

You won't give up because it's your immortality project. Find a new one.

You only wish you had one; that's why you're jealous of mine. I listened to this youtube video and got a basic understanding of some of Becker's ideas regarding terror reduction, along with the different perspectives people have toward the environment depending on their thoughts about death. These ideas don't really conflict with anything Lessans is saying. I know that what I'm doing is not about preserving my personal immortality, nor was it my father's. Not everyone who writes an article or makes an important finding has a self-centered motivation to carry on his legacy as a way of being immortal. Of course we all want to make contributions to our world whether we are remembered for it or not. The reason I'm here is because this book actually contains a genuine discovery (much to your chagrin), and that is the only reason.

"Linking Ernest Becker's Synthesis to...

&list=UUco5vrw5qaSiOP1gCGVMUGw&index=1

[peacegirl]

This book, Against Moral Responsibility, is definitely supporting a no blame environment. Bruce Waller just didn't extend the relations as far as my father did. There are people who understand these misunderstood concepts and the major implications for our society.

By Thomas W. Clark

This review is from: Against Moral Responsibility (Hardcover)
Note: This is an excerpt from a review called "Singling out the agent" posted at a website on worldview naturalism. Anyone interested in the current debate on moral responsibility and free will, and why it matters, should buy Waller's book.

In Against Moral Responsibility, Bruce Waller claims that although people generally meet standard requirements adduced for being morally responsible, we nevertheless *aren't* morally responsible; no one ever deserves praise or punishment. This of course is a shocking claim, contrary to commonsense, and to defend it Waller must take on the philosophical establishment, both the dominant compatibilists, who claim that being morally responsible is compatible with determinism, and the far fewer libertarians, who hold out hope for a human causal exceptionalism. Waller sets out to destroy, "root and branch," what he calls the moral responsibility system, which he sees as being fundamentally incompatible with science-based naturalism, morally indefensible, and deeply destructive by leading us to ignore or discount the causes of human behavior and the often harmful outcomes of holding people morally responsible.

Waller's case against the libertarians is straightforward and takes up relatively little space in his book: there's no good naturalistic account of how human agents could be first causes, or self-caused, in the way libertarian philosophers (and perhaps many ordinary folk) think is necessary for being morally responsible. There's no evidence for or logical coherence to contra-causal freedom; on a naturalistic view of ourselves, human agents can't be the ultimate originators of their character and actions in the miraculous, god-like way that, Waller suggests, originally justified the idea of moral responsibility and just deserts.

Working within a science-based naturalism that accepts that human agents are likely fully caused phenomena with genetic and environmental antecedents, Waller concentrates his fire on the compatibilist apologists for moral responsibility, that is, the majority of philosophers concerned with human action. This makes his book very useful for those interested in the current debates about free will and moral responsibility; it addresses the central arguments of many of the major players, including Harry Frankfurt, Daniel Dennett, Al Mele, George Sher, and John Martin Fischer. None of their arguments, Waller believes, can justify the claim that wrongdoers should be punished for deontological reasons having nothing to do with the consequences of such punishment, the central demand of moral responsibility. And careful considerations of consequences will often suggest that punishment isn't the best course of action in response to failure or wrongdoing.

Waller argues that to justify the notion of moral responsibility, compatibilists have to provide reasons that outweigh what he sees as the basic unfairness of (non-consequentially, deontologically, retributively) punishing agents who haven't ultimately chosen their character and motives: "When we reflect deeply and carefully, we recognize that the behavior and characters of those we want to blame and punish were shaped by forces beyond their control, and it seems fundamentally unfair to punish people for their bad luck in being misshapen" (p. 94). The naturalistic causal story shows that none of us is self-made in the way that would make such punishment morally fair, and no other naturalistic considerations, Waller says, can make it fair. Moral responsibility is thus morally indefensible within a naturalistic framework. But of course many philosophers think otherwise. They adduce reasons that, they think, make agents deserving of punishment, that is, make it fair and just to punish someone simply because he has behaved badly. Waller points out that, paradoxically, the very breadth and diversity of these reasons suggest that the case for moral responsibility is weak.

What drives the compatibilist quest to justify moral responsibility, Waller suggests, is our strong, biologically-endowed retaliatory disposition to harm those who have harmed us or those we love, what he calls the strikeback response. As Waller puts it, "we feel those desires [to strike back] so deeply that we are certain that they must be justified" (p. 13). The strikeback response obviously had, and still has, naturally evolved functions, for instance to deter aggressors and maintain social cohesion (p. 135), but equally obviously it can be counterproductive when retributive emotions lead us to inflict suffering and death unnecessary for producing any social good. We can overreach in our zeal for punishment. By laying bare the psychological drivers of moral responsibility, Waller suggests that its justifications are simply rationalizations for acting on our retaliatory instincts. Seeing this, we'll be less likely to act on them when they are counterproductive (which they often are, he argues), and be open to more enlightened and effective responses to wrongdoing.

The way Waller sees it, compatibilists are basically begging the question against moral responsibility; they take for granted the longstanding, culturally embedded presumption that of course agents are morally responsible and deserving of punishment. Their justifications therefore operate within the moral responsibility system, picking out characteristics of agents that supposedly make them morally responsible in contrast to agents that aren't. As a result, skepticism about the system itself is in short supply.[3] But if the presumption of moral responsibility is not taken for granted, Waller argues that it's difficult to justify on any deeper grounds.

Despite the diversity of compatibilist arguments for moral responsibility, there is nevertheless a basic theme or strategy uniting them that Waller tellingly exposes: they seek to highlight the agent as the primary causal player when explaining wrongdoing, while diverting attention from the agent's antecedents and situation. This strategy involves focusing on particular characteristics of the agent (e.g., being rational, reasons-responsive, sane, and uncoerced), while downplaying her causal history and the influence of the situation and systems of which she is inevitably a part. This selective emphasis - singling out the agent - works to replicate, as far as naturalistically possible, the libertarian picture of persons as causally independent of their circumstances. Highlighting the agent, while obscuring (intentionally or not) her antecedents and situation, creates fertile psychological ground for generating attributions of agent-focused blame and the desire for punishment....

Can our innate predilection to reward and punish independently of considerations of consequences be justified on deeper, non-psychological, ethical grounds? To succeed in this would be to elevate the predilection into a moral principle, the normative good of moral responsibility. But Waller shows that by highlighting the agent's rational, control and self-forming capacities, while obscuring their origins outside the agent, compatibilists merely incite the very propensity to blame which those capacities supposedly justify. They haven't yet revealed, at least to my satisfaction, or Waller's, a deeper moral principle that the propensity expresses.

The intuition of moral responsibility is given comfort by singling out agents, but threatened when we put them in context. If you think it's fair and indeed obligatory to blame, punish, marginalize or otherwise make individuals suffer for their misconduct or shortcomings, it could be because you've not given due consideration to luck, to causation, to the history, situation and systems that fully explain (but not eliminate) the agent. What is it that makes it fair to punish the unlucky for their bad luck, whether or not it produces good outcomes? What is it that makes punishment obligatory? Answer that question convincingly and you'll have won the day for retributivists, forcing naturalist progressives to concede that desert-entailing moral responsibility has a legitimate place in worldview naturalism. But as it stands, the question is very much open. In his thorough and persuasive critique of compatibilism, Waller shows why.

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Against Moral Responsibility

[But]

Hmm, that makes a lot of sense. If you can explain now how any of that corresponds to Lessans' confused scribblings, I'm all ears.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by But

Hmm, that makes a lot of sense. If you can explain now how any of that corresponds to Lessans' confused scribblings, I'm all ears.

But, that's what happens when people get together in a forum venue. There's no objectivity here whatsoever. This thread has taken on a life of its own. This work very much corresponds with what Lessans wrote. The only difference is that Lessans was able to extend this knowledge of no free will which is the gateway to his discovery. This author is on the right track though, and even though he is a minority there are more and more people adopting this naturalistic position. Anyway, the fact that you called Lessans' work confused scribblings makes me shudder inside, and I don't want to continually put myself in the line of fire, so I'm not going to go any further.

[Spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Then I'm lying. Are you satisfied now?

No. I am not satisfied with your lying, and I am not satisfied with your insincere and dishonest admission of dishonesty.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

After all, no one wants to be a public embarrassment.

Yet somehow being a public embarassement represents a movement in the direction of greater satisfaction for you. If you didn't want to be a public embarassment no one could make you be one. Over this you have mathematical control.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I was referring to the fact that when this new world becomes a reality (which it will because it's beyond our control to stop) we will no longer need to have faith that God will deliver us from evil because he will have already delivered us. Only when something has not yet occurred do you need faith that it will one day occur.

You mean like your faith that Lessans' Brave New World will become a reality, even though that has not yet happened?

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Sure you did lie, every time you insisted you meant God metaphorically when you knew that wasn't true.

I am really not sure that this constitutes lying on peacegirl's part. I don't think she actually understands what a metaphor is, or how it works. If that is the case then she doesn't really know that it is not true when she claims to be using the term 'God' metaphorically. If she doesn't know that her claim is not true then mere fact that it is not true does not make it a lie.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Ignorance begets ignorance, ya know?

Or, in other words, Lessans begets peacegirl, ya know?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

After all, no one wants to be a public embarrassment.

Originally Posted by Angakuk

Yet somehow being a public embarassement represents a movement in the direction of greater satisfaction for you. If you didn't want to be a public embarassment no one could make you be one. Over this you have mathematical control.

Yes, I have control over not being a public embarrassment if I never say a word and don't fight the good fight. Being a public embarrassment (which I'm not) would just be a fall-out of claiming big claims. The people resent it and therefore look at me as such. Unfortunately, being seen this way is just a strategy to get me to back down. I guess it comes along with the territory.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I was referring to the fact that when this new world becomes a reality (which it will because it's beyond our control to stop) we will no longer need to have faith that God will deliver us from evil because he will have already delivered us. Only when something has not yet occurred do you need faith that it will one day occur.

Originally Posted by Angagkuk

You mean like your faith that Lessans' Brave New World will become a reality, even though that has not yet happened?

As I have always maintained, if Lessans' observations are spot on, then we can accurately make predictions based on these observations, just like we can make accurate predictions (when applying precise mathematics) that a bridge will hold up when cars of a certain weight cross over.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Sure you did lie, every time you insisted you meant God metaphorically when you knew that wasn't true.

Originally Posted by Angakuk

I am really not sure that this constitutes lying on peacegirl's part. I don't think she actually understands what a metaphor is, or how it works. If that is the case then she doesn't really know that it is not true when she claims to be using the term 'God' metaphorically. If she doesn't know that her claim is not true then mere fact that it is not true does not make it a lie.

I can use the term "God" as a natural law, as long as I qualify it. I do not have to identify God as being a supernatural entity that transcends the laws of nature.

met·a·phor/ˈmetəˌfôr/

Noun

1.A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Bruce Waller just didn't extend the relations as far as my father did.

Oh? Did you read the whole book, rather than just the review at Amazon, to reach that conclusion?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Oh? Did you read the whole book, rather than just the review at Amazon, to reach that conclusion?

I got a general understanding of what his book is about. He did not make this discovery, but he is on the right path. The conundrum is still a factor in most debates over free will and determinism, that is, the problem of moral reponsibility. The question remains: If will is not free, we cannot blame, but everyone who goes down this path turn back because they cannot get beyond the implications.

p. 37 Because Spinoza was dissatisfied with theology’s
explanation of good and evil, he opened the door of determinism
and looked around quite a bit but did not know how to slay the
fiery dragon (the great impasse of blame), so he pretended it wasn’t
even there. He stated, “We are men, not God. Evil is really not
evil when seen in total perspective,” and he rejected the principle
of an eye for an eye.

Will Durant, not at all satisfied with this
aspect of Spinoza’s philosophy, although he loved him dearly,
could not understand how it was humanly possible to turn the other
cheek in this kind of world. He also went in and looked around
very thoroughly and, he too, saw the fiery dragon but unlike
Spinoza he made no pretense of its non-existence. He just didn’t
know how to overcome the beast but refused to agree with what
common sense told him to deny.

The implications really need no
further clarification as to why free will is in power. Nobody,
including Spinoza and other philosophers, ever discovered what it
meant that man’s will is not free because they never unlocked the
second door which leads to the discovery.

The belief in free will
was compelled to remain in power until the present time because
no one had conclusive proof that determinism was true, nor could
anyone slay the fiery dragon which seemed like an impossible feat.
Is it any wonder that Johnson didn’t want to get into this matter
any further? Is it any wonder Durant never went beyond the
vestibule? Are you beginning to recognize why it has been so
difficult to get this knowledge thoroughly investigated?

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I am not being willfully anything LadyShea. My coming to a chair and sitting has nothing to do with the physical laws of light, so I have no idea where this example is relevant.

They both are cases of things being in places. Physical processes are required for things coming to be located at places. If something is somewhere it came to be there through a physical mechanism. What is the mechanism by which photons come to be located on the surface of camera film or a digital sensor?

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I got a general understanding of what his book is about. He did not make this discovery, but he is on the right path. The conundrum is still a factor in most debates over free will and determinism, that is, the problem of moral reponsibility.

You got a general understanding from an Amazon review, but you would never, ever allow that someone could get a general understanding of Lessans book the same way.

Hypocrite

[Awareness]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I got a general understanding of what his book is about. He did not make this discovery, but he is on the right path. The conundrum is still a factor in most debates over free will and determinism, that is, the problem of moral reponsibility.

Man has FREE WILL, the " get up and go" is a " get up and go' , and not a thought. You may think all you want , but you WILL not stand up.

Moral responsibility sounds like a preacher without any free will at all.

If man hurts, then there WILL always be someone who cares.

Choice ALWAYS reigns!

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

They both are cases of things being in places. Physical processes are required for things coming to be located at places. If something is somewhere it came to be there through a physical mechanism. What is the mechanism by which photons come to be located on the surface of camera film or a digital sensor?

You are still missing the entire premise which has to do what the eyes are capable of, and in the efferent account the requirements that allow us to get a mirror image of exactly what is seen in real time, have been met.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

You got a general understanding from an Amazon review, but you would never, ever allow that someone could get a general understanding of Lessans book the same way.

I got the general idea of what he was saying by someone who did read the book and gave a review. It came from someone I respect: Tom Clark. I cannot read everyone's book in its entirety, but I don't think my understanding of his major points are misinterpreted, where my father's book is being misinterpeted. I wouldn't mind if people gave a review that was accurate, but no such review has been given yet.

I'm tired of being called names and being so disrespected in here. If you can't control your mouth, I will pass over all of your posts and if there's no one left that can't control how they speak to me, then I will have nothing more to answer and I will leave. So if that's what you're aiming for, keep it up.

[LadyShea]

Duplicate

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

You are still missing the entire premise which has to do what the eyes are capable of, and in the efferent account the requirements that allow us to get a mirror image of exactly what is seen in real time, have been met.

A list of requirements and stating they've been met is not a physical mechanism nor is it an explanation of any process.

Anyway your requirements being met boils down to "we must be able to see something in order to see it". It's tautological and completely devoid of explanatory power. I am not missing anything as you've not provided anything other than assertions.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I got the general idea of what he was saying by someone who did read the book and gave a review. It came from someone I respect: Tom Clark. I cannot read everyone's book in its entirety, but I don't think my understanding of his major points are misinterpreted, where my father's book is being misinterpeted. I wouldn't mind if people gave a review that was accurate, but no such review has been given yet.

I'm tired of being called names and being so disrespected in here. If you can't control your mouth, I will pass over all of your posts and if there's no one left that can't control how they speak to me, then I will have nothing more to answer and I will leave. So if that's what you're aiming for, keep it up.

This is lulz. "Control my mouth"? Are you serious with that shit?

[LadyShea]

Anyway, Weasel Queen...answer the question

If something is somewhere it came to be there through a physical mechanism. What is the mechanism by which photons come to be located on the surface of camera film or a digital sensor?