When a young male (let's say 14 to 19) is a danger to himself and others, society gives the supporting family two options:1. Watch people die.2. Kill your own son.Those are your only options. I chose #1 and watched my stepson die. I was relieved he took no one else with him.— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) July 6, 2022
Check out his own self-selected Twitter avatar. :galaxy-brain: :farquaad-point: :centrist: :soypoint-2:
I wasn't even really making a case against determinism in this thread as much as expressing frustration with the overall presentation of the opinion leaders that get air time for it, and what they want to do with their beliefs.
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. We as living beings experience subjective consciousness, "illusion" or whatever any specific determinist wants to call it, and at present there isn't even really a way to exceed or transcend that as it is, to have "true" free will as it may be defined by whatever theoretical parameters don't actually exist yet.
At worst, a lot of the assholes I mention want more of a surveillance state with power fantasies of supercomputers to predict every last possible thought and action of the deterministically driven populace. It sounds like a lot of effort to go through to make people more miserable via the Panopticon Effect, which in their case might even be the point.
Also last I checked Dennet isn’t a really determinist, he’s a compatibilist
You sure about that? He was pretty big on consciousness itself being "an illusion."
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.
I feel the same way about pretty much every variant of "simulation theory" too. If we're in some simulation, well, that's what we got. That's all we know. What can be done about it apart from billionaires attempting to destroy such a "simulation" and everyone in it to prove they're too big to play nice?
Similarly, when some :reddit-logo: is smug enough to quote le based Rick Sanchez and say "love is just chemicals," those love chemicals are quite nice and that's the only subjective experience of love that we know of.
I wasn't even really making a case against determinism in this thread as much as expressing frustration with the overall presentation of the opinion leaders that get air time for it, and what they want to do with their beliefs.
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. We as living beings experience subjective consciousness, "illusion" or whatever any specific determinist wants to call it, and at present there isn't even really a way to exceed or transcend that as it is, to have "true" free will as it may be defined by whatever theoretical parameters don't actually exist yet.
At worst, a lot of the assholes I mention want more of a surveillance state with power fantasies of supercomputers to predict every last possible thought and action of the deterministically driven populace. It sounds like a lot of effort to go through to make people more miserable via the Panopticon Effect, which in their case might even be the point.
You sure about that? He was pretty big on consciousness itself being "an illusion."
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.
I feel the same way about pretty much every variant of "simulation theory" too. If we're in some simulation, well, that's what we got. That's all we know. What can be done about it apart from billionaires attempting to destroy such a "simulation" and everyone in it to prove they're too big to play nice?
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.
Similarly, when some :reddit-logo: is smug enough to quote le based Rick Sanchez and say "love is just chemicals," those love chemicals are quite nice and that's the only subjective experience of love that we know of.