A revolution in thought

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I have given my refutation along with Slattery's but you will not agree because you WANT to hold onto your position even though it's nonsense. Man does not have free will, and there is no definition that you can give that legitimately gives credence to free will.

Could you tell us which post # you gave your refutation so that we can read it, rather than just taking your word that you gave it.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Free will in the libertarian sense means that you could choose both options equally whether you find greater satisfaction or not. This is false. I've stated this over and over again. If you are compelled to choose B (saving your child from drowning) you are not free to choose A (leaving your child to drown). Sometimes we choose an option that gives us no satisfaction, but this option is still the better choice than any other option that is available to us. This just shows me you understand nothing, just like the rest of them.

You have stated several times that Lessans thought the standard definitions for free will and determinism were wrong and needed to be corrected, that is Bull Shit. If you and your father cant fit your ideas into the definition, you need to find the correct term to fit your ideas. Here are the standard definitions that will be used here.

Free will - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Determinism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Libertarianism (metaphysics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Compatibilism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

These are the accepted definitions, if you cant fit your ideas into one of these definitions, find the term that fits, or STFU and quite whining that the standard definitions are incorrect. It really gets annoying and sad, that you keep whining about the standard definitions, and arguing against them, when all you need to do is to find the correct term and use it. The main article on free will has many links that will teach you what you are trying to talk about.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by thedoc

You have stated several times that Lessans thought the standard definitions for free will and determinism were wrong and needed to be corrected, that is Bull Shit. If you and your father cant fit your ideas into the definition, you need to find the correct term to fit your ideas. Here are the standard definitions that will be used here.

Free will - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Determinism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Libertarianism (metaphysics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Compatibilism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

These are the accepted definitions, if you cant fit your ideas into one of these definitions, find the term that fits, or STFU and quite whining that the standard definitions are incorrect. It really gets annoying and sad, that you keep whining about the standard definitions, and arguing against them, when all you need to do is to find the correct term and use it. The main article on free will has many links that will teach you what you are trying to talk about.

He clarified certain points which are important to this discussion. I don't need your links thedoc. I am sharing a NEW discovery that is not in any search engine. You have the emptiest head I know. There's nothing inside!

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

He clarified certain points which are important to this discussion. I don't need your links thedoc. I am sharing a NEW discovery that is not in any search engine. You have the emptiest head I know. There's nothing inside!

What your father provided was Bull Shit, the terms didn't need clarified, and you don't need my links because you are not here to learn, just to teach Bull Shit to the unsuspecting know-nothings that might be reading this thread. That and you are too stupid to understand the articles in the links, you've got your head so full of your fathers Bull Shit that real information will not fit in.

[davidm]

This is not directed at peacegirl, who is unable to hold a rational conversation (anyone who thinks light impinges on the eye even though it has not arrived at the eye is clearly irrational and beyond the reach of reason), but it might be helpful in summarizing the issues for those interested. I’ve raised these before but they’re worth reviewing.

Logical determinism is the thesis that propositional statements about the world are timelessly true (they do not become true *at* a time). If I say today, “tomorrow it will rain,” then I have uttered a statement that already is either true or false. It cannot be both true and false, and it must be one or the other rather than neither.

Some people (as did Aristotle) worry that such statements imply fatalism: If it is true today that tomorrow it will rain, then rain is unavoidable. The future is pre-determined and no one can do anything about it (the ancient Greeks called this the “idle” argument, as in it is idle to suppose we can change or avoid a pre-determined future.)

But this worry is without foundation. If it rains tomorrow, then the statement “tomorrow it will rain” is indeed true today. But it does not logically follow from this that tomorrow it must rain, only that it will rain. What if it does not rain?

If it does not rain than a different antecedent statement would be (timelessly) true today: “Tomorrow it will NOT rain.”

This shows that truth-valued propositions take their truth values from what actually happens in the world; they do not force or compel the world to be a certain way. To suggest otherwise would be to think, for example, that a statement like “the sun is coming up” is what makes the sun come up! Rather the sun comes up, and the statement takes its truth from that fact.

Therefore, statements about the future (and present and past) are descriptive and not prescriptive.

In the same way and for the same reason, no one should claim that an omnipotent God’s unerring foreknowledge of what we will do in the future precludes our free will, and thus obviates our moral agency. (This claim of epistemic determinism is often made by those who think there is an incompatibility between God’s omniscience and our free will, thus making it absurd for God to judge us since we cannot do other than what we do.)

If God knows that tomorrow it will rain and I will use an umbrella, it does not follow from this that it must rain, and that I must use an umbrella. It is possible that it will not rain and I will (freely) decline to use an umbrella, or even that it will rain and I still won’t use an umbrella (maybe I like to get wet). The point is simply that if I use an umbrella, God will foreknow that fact, and if I don’t use an umbrella, he will foreknow that fact instead. But I am free to use an umbrella or not as I see fit. God’s unerring knowledge takes its truth from the way the world is and unfolds; it does not force or compel the world to be a certain way. Thus God’s foreknowledge of our free acts is descriptive and not prescriptive.

And the same thing is true for causal determinism. If antecedent factors are such that today it is true that tomorrow I will use an umbrella, it does not follow that I must use an umbrella, only that I will use one. If I do not use an umbrella, then different antecedent factors would have been in play today, such that tomorrow I will not use an umbrella. Thus free will is compatible with logical, epistemic, and causal determinism.

Broadly speaking, all the deterministic objections to (compatibilist) free will seem to commit the identical modal fallacy: confusing necessity with contingency.

The incompatiblist or libertarian might wish to argue, in the case of causal determinism, that true freedom consists only in this: That I use an umbrella if antecedent conditions are such that I don’t use an umbrella; or that I decline to use an umbrella if antecedent conditions are such that I do use an umbrella. But this is as hopeless as demanding that if it’s true today that tomorrow it will rain, it should not rain tomorrow; and as hopeless as supposing that if God knows today that tomorrow I will use an umbrella, I decline to use an umbrella when tomorrow comes. These are logical impossibilities. (As, parenthetically, it is logically impossible that light should impinge upon the eyes eight and a half minutes before arriving at the eyes. People who hold to such absurdities are beyond the reach of reason, as I noted earlier.)

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by thedoc

What your father provided was Bull Shit, the terms didn't need clarified, and you don't need my links because you are not here to learn, just to teach Bull Shit to the unsuspecting know-nothings that might be reading this thread. That and you are too stupid to understand the articles in the links, you've got your head so full of your fathers Bull Shit that real information will not fit in.

You have empty head syndrome!!! Unfortunately, there's no treatment for that.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

Why do you persist in describing the science incorrectly?

Every time you incorrectly describe the scientific understanding of vision, you undermine your own argument. You are telling us that you don't understand the science well enough to critique it. It's not that hard to get the basics, and you've had literally decades to understand it.

Yet, you always revert to Lessans' explanation, even thought it's an incorrect understanding of the science.

If his reasoning is correct then there is a problem with the science that says we see in delayed time. It's very easy to disregard someone's reasoning in favor of established science, but human beings are always searching for the truth so instead of condemning him, try to see if his findings have actual merit.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

wtf is wrong with you? Why do you persist in this nonsense babble?

You just got through fucking saying:

NOW you say the light is impinging on the retina instantly when we see the sun turned on, but the light hasn't arrived at the eyes!

Earlier it was, "the light is at the eyes instantly even though it takes eight and a half minutes to get there," and now it's "the light both is, and is not, at the eyes."

I mean, srsly, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Nothing is the fuck wrong with me. You're just failing to understand why light [in this account of vision] puts us within the field of view of the object the instant the object is seen because we are within the actual physical range of said object (the object is present, it's large enough, and there's enough light in which to see it) regardless of how far away it is, and without light having to get to earth because this account has nothing to do with travel time. This does not violate the laws of physics in any way.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

If his reasoning is correct then there is a problem with the science that says we see in delayed time. It's very easy to disregard someone's reasoning in favor of established science, but human beings are always searching for the truth so instead of condemning him, try to see if his findings have actual merit.

Lessans and Peacegirl are as Stupid as Shit, but they will be vindicated when everyone else is as Stupid as Shit as well.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by thedoc

This is one of your standard responses, when someone disagrees with you or says the ideas in the book are wrong, you simply claim that they don't understand, sometimes you accuse them of not reading the book. Don't you think it's time to find some other song to sing at people who don't agree and think the book is wrong?

One of You're other standard responses is to demand that people stop calling you and your father names, but you keep replying anyway.

That's not true. If David keeps calling my father names, I will not speak to him, nor will I speak to anyone else who does the same thing. The same goes for calling me names, although the offense is much more egregious when a person isn't even here to defend himself.

[But]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Nothing is the fuck wrong with me. You're just failing to understand why light [in this account of vision] puts us within the field of view of the object the instant the object is seen because we are within the actual physical range of said object (the object is present, it's large enough, and there's enough light in which to see it) regardless of how far away it is, and without light having to get to earth because this account has nothing to do with travel time. This does not violate the laws of physics in any way.

It doesn't matter what incoherent nonsense you make up, the fact that spacecraft navigation works alone proves that it's completely wrong. That's a fact. It's also a fact that you're delusional and in denial about this.

And it has been explained to you a million times that when you say that the non-absorbed photons or whatever are instantly at the retina, you're changing the laws of physics.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by thedoc

Lessans and Peacegirl are as Stupid as Shit, but they will be vindicated when everyone else is as Stupid as Shit as well.

Your responses are flat as a pancake!

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Nothing is the fuck wrong with me. You're just failing to understand why light [in this account of vision] puts us within the field of view of the object the instant the object is seen because we are within the actual physical range of said object (the object is present, it's large enough, and there's enough light in which to see it) regardless of how far away it is, and without light having to get to earth because this account has nothing to do with travel time. This does not violate the laws of physics in any way.

This is totally outside the known and verified (via empirical evidence) laws of physics.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by But

It doesn't matter what incoherent nonsense you make up, the fact that spacecraft navigation works alone proves that it's completely wrong. That's a fact. It's also a fact that you're delusional and in denial about this.

And it has been explained to you a million times that when you say that the non-absorbed photons or whatever are instantly at the retina, you're changing the laws of physics.

Sorry, but it doesn't prove him wrong. We would not send a spacecraft to the position we see now. We would have to make adjustments according to where the planet will be when the spacecraft arrives. You don't understand the efferent account AT ALL, which is why you don't see how real time vision does not change the laws of physics.

The speed of the planets

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

You have empty head syndrome!!! Nothing will help you.

I noticed that you did not try to refute any thing I posted, you just resorted to name calling because the truth hurts.

In Lessans Brave New World Order Golden Age will everyone have to lie, so as to not hurt other people's feelings. How will you reconcile the hurt of lying, with the hurt of telling the truth about another person? How could anyone be so stupid, so as to believe that Lessans had more than two active brain cells to rub together.

I didn't mean to insult you when I called you stupid, I thought you knew.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Sorry, but it doesn't prove him completely wrong. We would not send a spacecraft to the position we see now. We would have to make adjustments according to where the planet will be when the spacecraft arrives. You don't understand the efferent account AT ALL, which is why you don't see how real time vision does not change the laws of physics.
[/I]

And all the adjustments are made according to the knowledge that we are seeing to object as it was in the past, not as it is now, that is why spacecraft hit the mark every time.

[But]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Sorry, but it doesn't prove him completely wrong. We would not send a spacecraft to the position we see now. We would have to make adjustments according to where the planet will be when the spacecraft arrives. You don't understand the efferent account AT ALL, which is why you don't see how real time vision does not change the laws of physics.

http://www.grandpapencil.net/projects/plansped.htm

You still don't get it. We can track the position of the space probe to within a few meters. This is done using radio waves, which travel at the speed of light. The result matches the position of the planet as seen from Earth. The position we see the planet in is delayed exactly in the same way as the radio waves are. If we saw in real time those two things would be off by tens of thousands of kilometers.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

If his reasoning is correct then there is a problem with the science that says we see in delayed time. It's very easy to disregard someone's reasoning in favor of established science, but human beings are always searching for the truth so instead of condemning him, try to see if his findings have actual merit.

You missed the point. Your failure to understand the science limits your ability to sell Lessans' ideas to people who do. You have chosen *not* to learn how to correctly describe the science, so you sound nonsensical and frankly, stupid. This is a recipe for failure which you keep cooking, even though no one takes a bite.

But basically, all this is moot, because Lessans' findings have no merit, which has been proved to my satisfaction again and again. His reasoning is not correct, and science is very likely not wrong.

I just continually wonder at your inability to change or improve.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I vowed never to discuss this book with anyone here again. <snip> That thread is now closed.

Well, we all knew that peacegirl was lying when she made this claim. It was only a question of "How long 'til she's back at it?".

At least she's consistent.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

This is not directed at peacegirl, who is unable to hold a rational conversation (anyone who thinks light impinges on the eye even though it has not arrived at the eye is clearly irrational and beyond the reach of reason), but it might be helpful in summarizing the issues for those interested. I’ve raised these before but they’re worth reviewing.

Logical determinism is the thesis that propositional statements about the world are timelessly true (they do not become true *at* a time). If I say today, “tomorrow it will rain,” then I have uttered a statement that already is either true or false. It cannot be both true and false, and it must be one or the other rather than neither.

Some people (as did Aristotle) worry that such statements imply fatalism: If it is true today that tomorrow it will rain, then rain is unavoidable. The future is pre-determined and no one can do anything about it (the ancient Greeks called this the “idle” argument, as in it is idle to suppose we can change or avoid a pre-determined future.)

But this worry is without foundation. If it rains tomorrow, then the statement “tomorrow it will rain” is indeed true today. But it does not logically follow from this that tomorrow it must rain, only that it will rain. What if it does not rain?

If it does not rain than a different antecedent statement would be (timelessly) true today: “Tomorrow it will NOT rain.”

This shows that truth-valued propositions take their truth values from what actually happens in the world; they do not force or compel the world to be a certain way. To suggest otherwise would be to think, for example, that a statement like “the sun is coming up” is what makes the sun come up! Rather the sun comes up, and the statement takes its truth from that fact.

Therefore, statements about the future (and present and past) are descriptive and not prescriptive.

No one in the hard determinism camp declares that something must be a certain way tomorrow from today's perspective when we don't have access to all of the determinants that would produce a particular outcome.

Originally Posted by davidm

In the same way and for the same reason, no one should claim that an omnipotent God’s unerring foreknowledge of what we will do in the future precludes our free will, and thus obviates our moral agency. (This claim of epistemic determinism is often made by those who think there is an incompatibility between God’s omniscience and our free will, thus making it absurd for God to judge us since we cannot do other than what we do.)

Why would a God who created us with no free will judge us when he has the foreknowledge of what we're going to do? Having no free will does not obviate our moral agency although you believe it does because you've said it more than once. You start out with a flawed proposition and you'll end up with a flawed conclusion.

Originally Posted by davidm

If God knows that tomorrow it will rain and I will use an umbrella, it does not follow from this that it must rain, and that I must use an umbrella.

Who is saying that you must use an umbrella? That's where your argument is flawed. No one knows, other than God, what you will do from moment to moment. It is contingent on many factors and how they interact with each other that determines what your choice will be at the moment you make it. There is no prediction that can say "necessarily" that your choice must be a certain way in advance of your making that choice.

Originally Posted by davidm

It is possible that it will not rain and I will (freely) decline to use an umbrella, or even that it will rain and I still won’t use an umbrella (maybe I like to get wet).

You are right. There is no foreknowledge that we humans possess that can predict what we will do in advance of our doing it, even though God may have this foreknowledge.

Originally Posted by davidm

The point is simply that if I use an umbrella, God will foreknow that fact, and if I don’t use an umbrella, he will foreknow that fact instead. But I am free to use an umbrella or not as I see fit. God’s unerring knowledge takes its truth from the way the world is and unfolds; it does not force or compel the world to be a certain way. Thus God’s foreknowledge of our free acts is descriptive and not prescriptive.

You are mistaken. No incompatibilist or a hard determinist believes that a person is forced to choose something other than what he himself chooses. There is no forcing the world to be a certain way. We are given choices and we make them as our life unfolds one moment at a time. If we had God's omniscience we would be able to predict what those choices would be, but we don't have that ability. Making a decision to choose A over B is not the same thing as being forced by some prescription from nature that says you must choose A over B. No one is saying that David, but this also doesn't mean that because you are not being forced by some peremptorily command, that your will is free.

Originally Posted by davidm

And the same thing is true for causal determinism. If antecedent factors are such that today it is true that tomorrow I will use an umbrella, it does not follow that I must use an umbrella, only that I will use one. If I do not use an umbrella, then different antecedent factors would have been in play today, such that tomorrow I will not use an umbrella. Thus free will is compatible with logical, epistemic, and causal determinism.

There is no free will in your example whatsoever. There only different antecedent factors that compel you to make a different choice than the one predicted. You are still just as much compelled to change your mind and not use an umbrella as you would be if you decided to use an umbrella.

Originally Posted by davidm

Broadly speaking, all the deterministic objections to (compatibilist) free will seem to commit the identical modal fallacy: confusing necessity with contingency.

No determinist is saying in advance what you must do. How can anyone predict what will be necessarily true tomorrow when the contingency of that choice hasn't even been made known? Therefore, the falseness of the original premise needs to be scrapped.

Originally Posted by davidm

The incompatiblist or libertarian might wish to argue, in the case of causal determinism, that true freedom consists only in this: That I use an umbrella if antecedent conditions are such that I don’t use an umbrella; or that I decline to use an umbrella if antecedent conditions are such that I do use an umbrella. But this is as hopeless as demanding that if it’s true today that tomorrow it will rain, it should not rain tomorrow; and as hopeless as supposing that if God knows today that tomorrow I will use an umbrella, I decline to use an umbrella when tomorrow comes. These are logical impossibilities. (As, parenthetically, it is logically impossible that light should impinge upon the eyes eight and a half minutes before arriving at the eyes. People who hold to such absurdities are beyond the reach of reason, as I noted earlier.)

This does sound pretty hopeless, but this is not what determinism leads to in the way most determinists think. These are propositions that don't even apply because there are no prescriptions that demand the world to be a certain way. It unfolds the way it unfolds in a naturalistic way without any prescriptions or demands. And, btw, it is not logically impossible for us to see in real time IF Lessans is right about efferent vision.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

You missed the point. Your failure to understand the science limits your ability to sell Lessans' ideas to people who do. You have chosen *not* to learn how to correctly describe the science, so you sound nonsensical and frankly, stupid. This is a recipe for failure which you keep cooking, even though no one takes a bite.

But basically, all this is moot, because Lessans' findings have no merit, which has been proved to my satisfaction again and again. His reasoning is not correct, and science is very likely not wrong.

I just continually wonder at your inability to change or improve.

I have improved just by talking to people in here. I have changed parts of the book because of my presence here, as much as I hate to admit it. But it's true, and I deal in truth.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Well, we all knew that peacegirl was lying when she made this claim. It was only a question of "How long 'til she's back at it?".

At least she's consistent.

I wasn't lying as if my comment was premeditated. It's not a crime to change one's mind, although I do believe that I will leave for good as soon as I figure out how to get involved with social media in an affordable way.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I deal in truth.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I wasn't lying as if my comment was premeditated. It's not a crime to change one's mind, although I do believe that I will leave for good as soon as I figure out how to get involved with social media in an affordable way.

I'm simply pointing out the irony that everyone here (except, possibly, you) knew that statement was false when you made it. If, in fact, you believed it to be true when you made it, the irony is that you were the only person fooled by the obviously-false claim.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

I'm simply pointing out the irony that everyone here (except, possibly, you) knew that statement was false when you made it. If, in fact, you believed it to be true when you made it, the irony is that you were the only person fooled by the obviously-false claim.

I knew when I said it that it probably wouldn't stick because I end up feeling the need to discuss the book, and unfortunately this is the only avenue open to me at this time. Not that it will always be this way, but right now this is the way it is. If it does get to the point where the ridicule is so extreme, and the viciousness is so out of hand, that I can't have a decent conversation, that will be the time that I will leave. Right now I'm talking to GdB, and it's related to the topic that is the most important of all Lessans' discoveries because this issue has philosophical, ethical, political, economic, social, and personal importance. I'm also talking to David, and so far his responses to me have been pretty tame. As long as he keeps on course, the conversation could be productive, but I'm making no predictions.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I knew when I said it that it probably wouldn't stick because I end up feeling the need to discuss the book, and unfortunately this is the only avenue open to me at this time.

So you knew at the time the claim was probably false, but you made it anyway. For shame.

I'm making no predictions.

I'll make a prediction: there will be no productive conversation with you. It is not possible to have a productive conversation with you -- not where Lessans' claims (yes, claims, not discoveries) are concerned, anyway.