archibald wrote:

romansh wrote:

scott1328 wrote:something doesn't exist and proclaim victory.

Oh dear ....

Indeed.

Note to self: consider nuanced use of the term 'phlogiston'.

Get your analogies correct. Phlogiston was invented to explain thermodynamics (as was caloric). That such substances do not exist does not mean that heat itself does not exist.

My analogy was with phlogiston, not heat. There is no reason it needed to be about heat.

Harris covered this neatly in his response to Dennett making a similar straw man objection about the sun, that it still exists even if it is wrong to say that it goes around the earth.

archibald wrote:

romansh wrote:

scott1328 wrote:something doesn't exist and proclaim victory.

Oh dear ....

Indeed.

Note to self: consider nuanced use of the term 'phlogiston'.

Yeah ... I think perpetual motion is a better analogy ... it can't exist therefore we need to redefine it into something that can.

Yeah right.

romansh wrote:

archibald wrote:

romansh wrote:

scott1328 wrote:something doesn't exist and proclaim victory.

Oh dear ....

Indeed.

Note to self: consider nuanced use of the term 'phlogiston'.

Yeah ... I think perpetual motion is a better analogy ... it can't exist therefore we need to redefine it into something that can.

Yeah right.

I think both are very good analogies in different circumstances.

please quote any post I have ever made that even implies that I believe perpetual motion is possible or that phlogiston exists.

Or that your references to them are anything other than a straw man analogy.

Perpetual motion worth wanting ...

Fuck your misrepresentations.

Let's agree heat exists and choices exist and that the sun exists. That's uncontroversial in the context here.

The problem is with the theory or explanation as to how they exist or operate.

That's why the phlogiston theory is a relevant analogy (because it's a duff explanation).

scott1328 wrote:please quote any post I have ever made that even implies that I believe perpetual motion is possible or that phlogiston exists.

Or that your references to them are anything other than a straw man analogy.

It's more to do with the mode of your arguments Scott.

Excellent riposte, I am chagrined

And when it became clear that the phlogiston explanation was duff, the word itself was ditched, eventually, though some tried to hold on to it or modify it, for quite some time, until they died in one case, I believe. But there are no phlogiston compatibilists left today.

romansh wrote:James please reread my interchange with you ...
I never said god was irrelevant to free will ... just Destroyer's.

I asked that Destroyer's reply would be on a relevant thread ... admittedly it was in reply to you ... but I did ask you to expound on how god can give us free will. Though I suspect you will get a lot of uphill. (quite rightly)

Erm, okay. The bottom-line is that neither God nor rational concepts associated with it are exempt from the issue of free will. As I said, the issue of free will extends from God to man. Please don't forget that, ever.

Regarding mode of thought ... for two millennia there was a school of thought asking what are the consequences of everything being a result of cause. Only since the enlightenment we [well some of us] have side stepped issue and gone for a compatibilist definition that might be worth wanting [as if that is a reasoned argument].

If this is your argument then please explain how any of your sentences can ever make sense, since [from your perspective] it seems that there should be no reason (cause) why any of your words should meaningfully proceed from another.

The evidence of cause and effect is all around us. Not just within our observations/experiences, but within how our minds assess those experiences also. Not least, in how we communicate those experiences, as here.

The notion that beings live-wired to function and think successfully/rationally within a cause-and-effect existence do not exist within a cause-and-effect reality, is amongst the most stupidest counters to theism I have ever encountered. Honestly. Our reasoning minds CAN ONLY BE EFFECTIVE as a consequence of a 'reality' honouring that notion (of cause & effect), otherwise we'd all have perished at the onset. I mean, how could such an erroneous belief have flourished in a reality which was not the case?

Think hard and deep, squire. Whatever this reality is, it conforms to reason/order as we would not be here otherwise, notwithstanding the qualitative benefits reasoning has progressively bestowed upon our lifestyles.

romansh wrote:

scott1328 wrote:please quote any post I have ever made that even implies that I believe perpetual motion is possible or that phlogiston exists.

Or that your references to them are anything other than a straw man analogy.

It's more to do with the mode of your arguments Scott.

I wouldn't really call them arguments as such. Heckles maybe. Like everyone else here disagreeing with free will skepiticism, he doesn't seem willing to actually advance and defend a detailed argument for the thing he's in favour of.

Scott ... I do not believe for one second that you believe that frictionless action occurs. (perpetual motion in this sense exists)
I do not believe you think actions without cause (free will in this sense exists)

You insist on redefining free will because it is incoherent/impossible in this sense. Fair enough.
But you are quite happy hang on to the incoherent/impossible sense of perpetual motion.

This paradox is what I don't understand.

romansh wrote:Scott ... I do not believe for one second that you believe that frictionless action occurs. (perpetual motion in this sense exists)
I do not believe you think actions without cause (free will in this sense exists)

You insist on redefining free will because it is incoherent/impossible in this sense. Fair enough.
But you are quite happy hang on to the incoherent/impossible sense of perpetual motion.

This paradox is what I don't understand.

I think I can explain, perhaps.

Because we cherish free will and are almost obliged to live in the very very convincing illusion of having it, we resist attempts to ditch the idea, so we sidestep the core issues in the way that you describe Dennett doing and agree that what we have is worth having.

As systems, we have pretty impressive and extensive 'degrees of freedom' just as any determined machine would have, if it were similarly complicated. That all such degrees are ultimately constrained is set aside in favour of what 'worth having' capacities we do have. As such, we may not have perpetual motion, but to analogise, we can spin quite well for long periods, even if the universe is spinning us.

I use the word 'we' generally, to mean most people.

romansh wrote:Scott ... I do not believe for one second that you believe that frictionless action occurs. (perpetual motion in this sense exists)
I do not believe you think actions without cause (free will in this sense exists)

You insist on redefining free will because it is incoherent/impossible in this sense. Fair enough.
But you are quite happy hang on to the incoherent/impossible sense of perpetual motion.

This paradox is what I don't understand.

Please quote anywhere I have made such a claim

jamest wrote:
If this is your argument then please explain how any of your sentences can ever make sense, since [from your perspective] it seems that there should be no reason (cause) why any of your words should meaningfully proceed from another.

Scott might argue they don't.

Basically I am skeptical of the whole caboodle. I am aware that what ever I say is a product of a probabilistic past.
Irony.
Scott and I seem like reasonable people ... yet we lie on somewhat on opposite sides of the free will spectrum. Yet we have access to pretty much the same data ... cause and effect. This is where my "programming" has led me.

Enjoy the ride ... but our responses will affect our ride and that of others. We don't have an independent of cause/choice.

scott1328 wrote:

romansh wrote:Scott ... I do not believe for one second that you believe that frictionless action occurs. (perpetual motion in this sense exists)
I do not believe you think actions without cause (free will in this sense exists)

You insist on redefining free will because it is incoherent/impossible in this sense. Fair enough.
But you are quite happy hang on to the incoherent/impossible sense of perpetual motion.

This paradox is what I don't understand.

Please quote anywhere I have made such a claim

Show me where you asked to redefine perpetual motion>

so you can't show me making any claims about perpetual motion. I shall expect retractions of your misrepresentations

Scott, you did seem to imply that you believed in perpetual motion on page 217. Post 337.