This isn't even a hard determinism argument - it's genetic determinism. A hard determinist wouldn't argue that changing an individual's environment to one that has a support network is pointless, they'd just argue that whether you do or don't wasn't really your choice
Yeah I don't think determinism is the problem. I'm a determinist, and I see it as fundamental to my leftist perspective - like it is the foundation to my conception that people deserve human compassion because they didn't choose their lives.
Also last I checked Dennet isn't a really determinist, he's a compatibilist
Dennett is definitely a compatibilist. When he says that consciousness is an illusion, he means that there's no real pattern that corresponds to our folk psychological notion of qualia (ineffable, incorrigible, private, etc.). Mentality more broadly is real for him in virtue of their being a predictive stance we can take that uses it as an assumption and generates good (in the information theoretic sense) predictions.
I could go into my opinion that determinism, if true, doesn’t necessarily have helpful or useful application when it comes to improving society somewhat.
This is where I land too. I do think the universe is deterministic but like, okay? Then what? I still have to live my life as if it isn’t.
Same goes for the “are we living in a simulation” thing. I’m pretty convinced by the math argument, I think it makes more sense that this reality is a nested one rather than the top level one. But until someone can give me cheat codes to break the simulation it impacts my life exactly not at all.
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This isn't even a hard determinism argument - it's genetic determinism. A hard determinist wouldn't argue that changing an individual's environment to one that has a support network is pointless, they'd just argue that whether you do or don't wasn't really your choice
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Yeah I don't think determinism is the problem. I'm a determinist, and I see it as fundamental to my leftist perspective - like it is the foundation to my conception that people deserve human compassion because they didn't choose their lives.
Also last I checked Dennet isn't a really determinist, he's a compatibilist
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Dennett is definitely a compatibilist. When he says that consciousness is an illusion, he means that there's no real pattern that corresponds to our folk psychological notion of qualia (ineffable, incorrigible, private, etc.). Mentality more broadly is real for him in virtue of their being a predictive stance we can take that uses it as an assumption and generates good (in the information theoretic sense) predictions.
His argument against qualia is dumb though. Hard problem remains uncracked.
I don't exactly think it's dumb, but I do think it's wrong.
This is where I land too. I do think the universe is deterministic but like, okay? Then what? I still have to live my life as if it isn’t.
Same goes for the “are we living in a simulation” thing. I’m pretty convinced by the math argument, I think it makes more sense that this reality is a nested one rather than the top level one. But until someone can give me cheat codes to break the simulation it impacts my life exactly not at all.
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There’s functionally no difference to me if my molecules are made up of atoms and quarks or 1s and 0s, I still need to eat and sleep.
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