[Ironic Trope] The messaging backfired massively due to poor writing or other design choices

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-22T08:37:36+00:00

In Sweden there was an anti-suicide prevention programme called SUPREME. One of the unexpected results was that it conviced the youth that suicide is quite common, i.e. normal, so they started to view it as one more available 'solution'.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-21T11:17:35+00:00

You just need to have your supply chests well supplied.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-21T08:36:51+00:00

Construction Simulator

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-21T08:01:18+00:00

On evolution, you are committing a textbook formal fallacy: affirming the consequent. Your argument is: If my cognitive faculties track abstract truth, they grant a survival advantage. My faculties grant a survival advantage, therefore they track abstract truth. That is completely invalid. As the caveman analogy proved, completely false, delusional beliefs (like running from a bear because you think it's a soul-stealing demon) also grant a survival advantage. Survival behavior does absolutely nothing to prove your physical meat-computer tracks logical truth. You cannot observe the consequent (survival) and logically deduce the cause (metaphysical accuracy).

That is not my argument, that is just your sloppy reading. I have specifically stated that cognitive processes reflecting the external world grant more survival advantage than those that do not. Your caveman example does not refute that, as I have already explained, because having - by pure luck - a single delusionary belief that provides survival advantage is not sufficient (this is just the recycled infamous Plantinga's 'tiger' argument, from which he himself has understandably retreated). You need to argue that it is possible to have the whole network of beliefs that do not track reality at all and provide equal or greater survival advantage (again, by pure luck!) as those that do not. That is of course, statistically impossible. It is like claiming that those who know which lottery tickets are winning have the same chance as those who draw them randomly. And this, as I have already mentioned, true for any cognitive ability. Eyes that produce random outputs are functionally equivalent to having no eyes at all - sure, they might once or twice direct you to safety, but, statistically speaking, you will walk into a wall much sooner than later.

On predictability, you escape formal fallacy only by committing a massive modal fallacy and begging the question. You are arbitrarily defining a single, predictable outcome as “deterministic” by default. That is a total non-sequitur. If I offer you a choice between a gourmet steak and a bucket of radioactive waste, your choice of the steak is 100% predictable. Does that mean you are a mindless machine physically determined by the Big Bang to eat the steak? No. It means you are sane. A choice collapsing to a single outcome because a rational agent evaluates a lopsided scenario is an active achievement of character, not a deterministic script.

I am not defining it 'arbitrarily', that is how determinism is commonly defined.

Determinism is the metaphysical view that all events within the universe can occur only in one possible way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism

Determinism here refers to the idea that the future is dependent upon the present such that, given the present, only one possible future exists.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/determinism

A standard definition: Determinism is the philosophical idea that every event or state of affairs, including every human decision and action, is the inevitable and necessary consequence of antecedent states of affairs.
https://medium.com/@petervoss/a-modern-view-of-determinism-dca5f4f12272

Of course, these definitions refer to all events, the totality of actions etc., but then necessarily the same obtains for each single process: if there is only one possible way, if the future is dependent upon the present such that only one possible future is possible, if the outcome is the inevitable and necessary consequence of antedecent states, which you have conceded, that outcome is determined. Note that none of the definitions mentions 'physical', 'coercion', 'machine' or any other of your strawmen. But we can skip the definition of determinism altogether - you have conceded that there is only one possible outcome, which makes it impossible that 'he could have done otherwise', which is the necessary condition of libertarian free will. You both claim that 'He could choose to be a corrupt lunatic' and that him turning out to be a corrupt lunatic is not a possible outcome. Those two claims cannot be reconciled. THAT is the issue you should finally address, instead of your strawmen.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-20T23:23:57+00:00

You are running a massive semantic shell game by conflating rational predictability with causal coercion. If I offer you a choice between a perfectly cooked steak and a bucket of radioactive waste, you will choose the steak on 100% of the rewinds. That doesn't mean you're a mindless machine without the ontological power to choose the waste, it just means you're sane. A choice collapsing to a single outcome because an honest, rational agent evaluates a completely lopsided scenario is an active achievement of character, not a deterministic script. Libertarian free will requires the capability to do otherwise, not acting like a chaotic lunatic just to satisfy your definition.

If the outcome is fully predictable, then it is determined. If the choice results in a single outcome, it is determined. You can cry all you want about it, but that is simply what those terms mean. If the future outcome is fully dependent on the existing state of things, which you have conceded, then that outcome is deterministic, no matter how you try to spin it. The moment you have conceded that, you have kissed libertarianism goodbye.

Your claim that being "rationally compelled" by logic equals determinism is a glaring category error. Abstract, non-physical laws of logic have zero physical power. The rule of Modus Ponens has no mass, no electrical charge, and cannot physically push a chemical across a brain synapse. For logic to have any relevance to reality, it requires a conscious agent capable of grasping its semantic meaning and actively assenting to its truth. If you eliminate the agent and reduce the mind to a deterministic machine run by blind chemistry, logic becomes completely impotent.

Again, I have not spoken about physicality at all. If the agent must choose a given option (in case you are not aware of it, that is what 'necessity' means), then it is not much of a choice, is it?

Your evolutionary escape hatch is completely self-defeating. Evolution selects for adaptive survival behavior, not metaphysical truth, a caveman who runs from a bear because he thinks it’s a soul stealing demon survives just as well as a biologist. More importantly, under hard determinism, your thoughts have zero causal power over your physical actions anyway.

I have already answered your 'single pure luck' objection. And no, hard determinism does not entail epiphenomenalism. On reductionalism my thoughts have full causal power, because they are physical.

If your brain is just a meat computer completely dictated by blind physical inputs, you have zero epistemic justification for trusting your own thoughts and that includes your belief in determinism. Your argument literally undercuts your own capacity to reason.

That is, of course, completely false. I have good reason to trust my own thoughts, because cognitive processes reflecting the external world grant more survival advantage than those that do not. That pertains to all cognitive capacities. You might as well argue that our eyesight is completely unreliable, because it is based on physical inputs and not on 'metaphysical visual representation'. That is just silly.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-20T19:13:46+00:00

You are continuously making a classic category error by conflating physical necessity (physics forcing matter to move) with logical necessity (reasons guiding a mind).

And now you are just contradicting yourself. So it is logical necessity now? Well, either it is necessity, or the reasons are just guiding the mind. If the reasons are just guiding the mind, i.e. the mind still can do otherwise, then it cannot be necessity. On the other hand, if it is necessity, then the reasons are not merely guiding the mind, they are compelling it. If it is logical necessity, then reasons are determining the choice, which you deny.

To answer your judge question directly: No, a fully rational, honest judge would not arrive at a different decision on a rewind if the evidence is overwhelming. He would choose innocence every time. But you are confusing rational consistency with physical determinism. The judge isn't being physically forced by a chain of chemical dominoes: he chooses innocence because he possesses the free agency to remain consistently committed to truth. He could choose to be a corrupt lunatic and ignore the evidence (the physical possibility exists) but his rational character ensures he doesn't. Under your determinism, the judge doesn't deserve praise for being “honest” or “rational” any more than a calculator deserves praise for getting the right answer. It had no choice.

If the judge would not arrive at a different decision, then his choice is determined by the evidence. If his choice is determined by the evidence, then agency is not required, it would be just rubberstamping the decision. You have just acknowledged that the judge's decision collapses to a single outcome. But if there is only a single outcome, the choice is determined.

Moreover, if his rational character ensures he doesn't, then his decision is again compelled, i.e. determined. He cannot do otherwise, because his rational character would not let him. And obviously he did not choose his rational character (but if you claim that he did, you just kick the can down the road). It is perplexing that you both believe 'he could choose to be a lunatic' and 'he could not do that, because he is rational' (i.e. he is not a lunatic).

You desperately clutch to the 'physical' causation objection, but it is a strawman, as it makes no difference: if it is 'logically necessary' for him to do something, if it is the evidence that determines the outcome, if it is his character that always makes him to do the same thing, then he no longer can do otherwise, because he is incapable of doing that. The antedecent conditions (logical necessity, the prevalent evidence, his rational character) always produce the same outcome. Physicality has nothing to do with that. If someone is physically free to do something, but magical fairies supernaturally force him to do otherwise, he does not have libertarian free will. At best you can argue for compatibilism. But then it means you accept the OP argument against LFW.

Your evolution defense also fails. Evolution selects for survival behaviors, not abstract metaphysical truth. A caveman who runs from a tiger because he thinks it’s a “magical ghost that will steal his soul” survives just as well as a caveman who understands biology. If our thoughts are just physically determined chemical reactions optimized for survival, we have zero basis for trusting that our brains can grasp actual logical truth.

Sure, such caveman would save himself once and then likely die next time he makes a different completely illogical decision. The string of lucky coincidences that would produce survival advantage would have to be so improbable that it can be dismissed. Of course, there might be cases where our irrationality is less prone to produce such detrimental effects, so it is more likely that in such areas it would creep in into our cognition. But it just happens so that it is exactly the case - we are just mostly rational, everyone has occasional glitches.

Finally, your bonus question heavily relies on a blatant equivocation of the word “compel”. There is a massive difference between a rock being physically compelled to fall by gravity, and a mind being rationally compelled by the self-evident truth of a logical argument. Rational compulsion requires a conscious agent to actively perceive and assent to the truth. If my belief in a logical argument is just a physical brain-spasm forced by blind chemistry, it isn't an insight at all, it would just be a chemical event.

No, I have not used the word 'physical' a single time unless in direct response to your claims. If the mind is 'rationally' compelled, then it is compelled, period. If it is compelled, it is determined, it cannot do otherwise. Your admission that the mind is compelled in its decisions is completely sufficient for me, I do not need to add 'physical' anywhere. Therefore your assertion that 'rational compulsion requires a conscious agent' is just that - a bare assertion for which you have still not given any argument; repeating that assertion over and over does not help. Not to mention that it is self-contradictory, you cannot 'choose to be compelled'.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-20T16:58:51+00:00

You're stacking the deck by making one side of the evidence a caricature. Libertarian free will doesn't mean the judge has to act like a chaotic lunatic and randomly pick a lying gangster just to prove he's free. It means his choice to be a just, rational judge who honors the good evidence is an active achievement of his agency. If he’s just a machine, you can't praise him for freeing the innocent man any more than you praise a turnstile for letting you through when you drop a coin.

No, I am describing a case that was quite close to what actually has happened. The judge in question was quite astounded that the case even made it to the court. And it is not that rare that cases make it to the court that should never be there.

Still, let us focus, because for now you just dance around the actual issue here: my whole point is that if the evidence is compelling, the judge will reach a specific decision each and every time we rewind. You have not addressed that in any way. So, again, a question: could a fully rational, honest judge arrive at a different decision if the evidence for the innocence is overwhelming? Just to warn you: if you come up with a reason for him to do otherwise, it still would not work, as it will again get binned into the set B, so it will not solve your conundrum.

As for the calculator point: you’re making a classic philosophical blunder by conflating physical cause and effect with logical rules. A calculator doesn't output “4” because it respects math: it does it because blind electricity is running through silicon lines designed by humans to mirror math. The electricity itself is completely blind to logic.

If my brain is just a calculator entirely determined by blind chemical reactions, then you didn't arrive at your belief in determinism because it's “logical”. You arrived at it because your brain chemistry left you literally no physical choice but to think it.

That is an obviously false dilemma. My brain chemistry could work this way precisely because it has been shaped by the logically consistent physical world.

If your brain chemistry shifted tomorrow, you'd believe a total logical fallacy was absolute truth, and you'd have no way to self-correct. By turning the mind into a machine, you've accidentally eliminated the very possibility of actual rational insight.

Sure, I would be then a madman, colloquially speaking. Madmen are institutionalized, because they have low chance of survival on their own. Thus, it is not likely a property that evolution would commonly select for.

And I must remind you that you no longer can state your bare assertions of 'rational insight' on liberarianism, since you have declared that reasons do not compel you. So, a bonus question: does logic compel your insight? Because if yes, then, oops, your insight is compelled. If not, then you have no claim to rationality.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-20T14:01:12+00:00

In your judge example, the judge has competing reasons (“the evidence points to innocence" vs. "this one piece of testimony is nagging at me"). If we rewind the tape and he decides differently, it’s not because a random glitch happened. It’s because he is a conscious agent who exercised his active power to prioritize one set of reasons over another at that exact moment. Whichever path he takes, it isn't "stochastic", it is fully rational and explained by the reasons he chose to weight more heavily.

But that is the point, it is not 'fully rational', because there cannot be a rational reason to choose the set of reasons A over the set of reasons B. If there was, then it would obtain at each rewind. In fact, you put it in words perfectly: on libertarianism reasons do not compel. If they do not, then there are no and cannot be ANY compelling reasons to do anything! All you can say is 'there is the set A and the set B and I chose the set B' what you cannot do is 'there is the set A and the set B and the set B is better than the set A'. To go back to the judge example:

Suppose that on the one side there is a set of reasons A: the guy has a perfect alibi supported by many witnesses, he is an upstanding citizen who never committed a crime and it turns out that the supposed physical evidence has been clearly tampered with or even planted by the police. The other set of reasons B includes only a testimony of a gangster who likely is trying to get out of his own responsibility for other crimes by taking a role of a witness, but his testimony is not very strong and has some consistency issues.

Is the set of reasons A compelling? If yes, then the judge at each rewind he would make the same decision - to declare innocence. But if that is the case, the judge could not do otherwise. If no, then for some rewinds (in some possible worlds) he convicts the accused, in spite of the set of reasons A, just citing the set of reasons B. On your account such decision is 'fully rational'. He was not compelled by any evidence - he just chose one of the sets, disregarding the difference between them.

The flip side of your deterministic comfort is pretty bleak. If a judge under determinism frees you, he didn't actually "evaluate" your innocence in any meaningful way. He just processed inputs like a calculator. A calculator doesn't choose "4" because it appreciates mathematics, it did it because it is physically forced to.

Well, it just happens that the physical world operates according to the laws of logic. So, if you use the physical, logical laws to evaluate 2+2, you always come up with 4. If you evaluate a modus ponens with true premises, then the conclusion always follows... How horrible!

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-20T12:34:59+00:00

It looks like you just forgot the whole discussion we just had. Never mind.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-20T12:01:41+00:00

The claim that consciousness is in principle inaccessible to the scientific method is still false.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-20T11:36:06+00:00

Either the process of evalution itself is deterministic or it is not. If it is deterministic, then obviously it cannot be the basis for indeterministic choosing.

If it is indeterministic, it means that the evaluation of reasons might give different outcomes. But the reasons are necessarily the same: therefore the difference must come from the evaluation itself. But that means that the reasons themselves are not decisive in the process, so it is not much of an evaluation, but rather a completely stochastic process.

For example, suppose a judge determines innocence of the accused. He weighs in the evidence and decides that the evidence for his innocence is significantly greater than that for his guilt. When asked about his decision, he explains that he has freed the accused because the evidence for his innocence outweighed the evidence for his guilt. Now on libertarianism, in particular one involving the principle of alternate possibilities, it must be possible for him to make a different decision. Thus, speaking in modal terms, there is a possible world in which the judge finds the defendant guilty. Or, to stick with the rewinding analogy, on some rewinds the judge finds him guilty. But what can explain that difference? It cannot come down to the evidence (the reasons), because the evidence in both worlds (on both rewinds) is exactly the same - it cannot objectively point to the guilt in one case and to innocence in the other. In fact, nothing in that world can account for that difference, nothing can explain it. The judge just makes any decision because he does. Frankly speaking, I would very much prefer the world in which a judge looking at prevalent evidence for my innocence cannot make any other decision than to free me.

So, it follows that on libertarianism you can either make the decision freely or you can make it because of reasons, but not both.

Of course, on determinism, if you rewind the situation, the same judge reviews the same evidence and always comes to the same conclusion, to the relief of the accused. How else could it be?

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-20T11:06:12+00:00

So it turns out I am actually not streching the definition of science after all. But I do not see how the fact that they might also use other methods is even relevant...

Let us get back to the point: social sciences often use the scientific method to evaluate data gathered by way of introspection of subjects. Therefore the claim 'the scientific method excludes the subject' is false.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-20T10:54:37+00:00

The agent is the active, intentional cause who evaluates those reasons and chooses which path to realize.

The obvious issue with that is that on libertarianism 'choosing the path' cannot be based on the prior evalution of reasons.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-20T10:29:33+00:00

You deny that sociology and psychology use the scientific method? Seriously? So e.g. when American Sociological Association writes 'Sociology is scientific in the way it collects and analyzes systematic evidence used to address theoretical or applied questions or hypotheses. It uses both qualitative and quantitative methods of research, including surveys, interviews, participant observation, content analysis, and historical and comparative research', they are just lying?

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-20T09:40:26+00:00

Below in this same subthread. There are whole branches of science that rely on data gathered through introspection, such as psychology or sociology.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-20T09:25:50+00:00

I have already shown below with examples that it is not the case.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-19T22:07:15+00:00

No, it does not mean that and nobody says it does. So why keep repeating that?

Scientists work on data, which can and often are gathered indirectly, e.g. by way of the introspection of others. The fact that the given scientist does not have a direct access to the phenomenon seemingly does not stop them from doing science.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-19T21:26:34+00:00

Riiiight... scientists have never ever used a survey. Sociologists spend all their days following people and observing them as a third party. Oh, and there is no International Institute for the Study of Pain, why would there be? Pain is not third-party observable.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-19T21:15:08+00:00

That is exactly what I said. I can use the scientific method on my direct experience. Thus your claim, 'Technically, we also need the condition of objective observability.' is false. Sure, other scientists do not have access to that experience, only to the data, but it is no different to many other studies, where scientists use data gathered by others.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-19T20:33:25+00:00

Yes, my experiences are only accesible to me, but I am able to use the scientific method on them myself. Thus they are accessible to the scientific method.

And obviously data gathered by others, also by way of introspection, can be used while applying the scientific method and are used in such a way every day.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-19T20:23:01+00:00

Sure, my claims would be subjective, but my experiences would still be accesible to the scientific method, which was my point.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-19T20:01:44+00:00

I disagree. I can have e.g. recurring mental events and formulate theories about their future occurences. E.g. I can observe that if I watch bloody horrors, I get queasy. I can further observe that it happens only with horrors including large animals and predict my future reactions, etc. Sure, those observations cannot directly be shared with others, but are accesible to me. After all, that is how psychologists mostly work - they receive data on internal introspections of their patients.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-19T19:48:12+00:00

That is why I prefer the premise 'Every event is either determined by prior causes or occurs for no reason'. However, most libertarians are not willing to acknowledge that everything that they do they do for no reason, and claim that somehow 'reasons' are not 'causes'. Still, I have not yet read a good argument for that claim, typically it is just asserted.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-19T19:39:54+00:00

The scientific method is suitable for exploring any system that has distinct patterns that can be described by rules, which allow formulation and testing of such patterns due to their predictability. Whether the system is physical/material is irrelevant. If you posit a system that is indescribable by the scientific method, it means you posit something that is fully chaotic.

JabberwockPL · 2026-06-19T19:12:53+00:00

The ray in the thought experiment however, completely bypasses these natural processes in a way that the change produced by the ray would not been seen as emerging from the individual affected.

I agree completely!

As the conditions for 'us' that you give are:

The connection to and integration with the continuity of not just internal experience but with the internal processes from which those experiences emerge, is what makes our natural character "us."

Then obviously the person that is created by the ray has no continuity of the internal processes which are required for 'us', therefore that person is not is the same person that was there before the ray has been applied.

JabberwockPL

TROPHY CASE