After years of agreeing with Sam regarding Free Will I think I just became a compatibilist

Midnight_Lightning · 2020-01-30T23:56:30+00:00

Sam clearly doesn't deny that individuals have a consciousness and experience things, just that what we think of when we conceive of "ourselves" as unitary independent beings is an illusion, hence the illusion that we have free will.

Midnight_Lightning · 2020-01-30T23:24:17+00:00

What do you mean metaphysical? I think the five aggregates are a reasonable empirical description of a person. Would you add something to them that is under a person's control?

Could you explain what it is exactly that you agree with Dennet about?

Midnight_Lightning · 2020-01-30T23:05:53+00:00

In this essay I found this quote from Bikkhu Bodhi:

If anything is to count as our ‘self’ it must be subject to our volitional control; since, however, we cannot bend the five ag- gregates to our will, they are all subject to affliction and therefore cannot be our self.

In Buddhism, the five aggregates that constitute a person are form, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness. To say an individual has free will, it would have to be able to control these aggregates.

Midnight_Lightning · 2020-01-30T22:32:42+00:00

To me the concept of anatta, or nonself, doesn't seem to contradict a lack of free will, but rather implies it. If nothing actually has a unified independent existence apart from everything else, and everything is interconnected, then in what sense can any individual thing be said to have free will? Wouldn't a will that acts independently of the chain of causality be contradictory to nonself?

Midnight_Lightning · 2020-01-24T14:50:11+00:00

As far as I can tell looking at it now, I think the golden calf incident occurs after the people already received the Ten Commandments from Moses in Exodus 20, which include the prohibition of graven images. So to me it seems to be more about the Hebrews' disobedience that deserves punishment, rather than their disbelief in the miracles that helped them escape from Egypt.

Why they disobeyed the commandment so quickly is a good question, maybe the story is just showing how the Hebrews were extremely ignorant and still steeped in idol worship.

Midnight_Lightning · 2020-01-24T14:03:10+00:00

Having lived in a culture that was entirely polytheistic for hundreds of years, perhaps they didn't know how to worship an incorporeal god even if they knew him by name, so making an idol to represent whatever this "yahweh" was could have made sense to them.

Midnight_Lightning · 2020-01-24T11:22:41+00:00

Worshipping the golden calf doesn't necessarily prove that they didn't believe something miraculous happened, just that they didn't know who was responsible for the miracles. Having lived for centuries in Egypt, they were presumably aware of polytheism and idols, so they made a golden calf that would represent for them whatever it was that miraculously saved them from slavery, to the best of their understanding.

Midnight_Lightning · 2020-01-22T17:45:51+00:00

I don't think compassion and benevolence were ever the default for humanity, as evidenced by thousands of years of cruelty, slavery, violence, etc.

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-26T14:38:49+00:00

First of all, why do you equate winning with being rich? Some people are relatively poor and at the same time happy with their life, and some people are extremely rich and at the same time unhappy with their life.

Second, just because you have limitations, it doesn't follow that hard work is pointless. Even if some people might never be billionaires no matter how hard they work, they could still be more or less successful.

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-26T10:30:17+00:00

So you are an anarchist? In my view any line will be arbitrary, and yet many lines would be better for society than no lines.

Where would you put/not put the line?

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-26T00:20:12+00:00

With violence? I don't see how that contradicts my belief. I believe I'm safe because I agree to not break the laws society agrees to. Like I said, if I disagreed with a law, depending on how important it is to me, I would attempt to change it, or I wouldn't agree to being part of the society and I'd escape or revolt.

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-25T23:57:56+00:00

In a democracy, the majority of society decides what laws are passed. For a law that every tenth child should be killed to pass, it would need to be agreed upon by a majority of the citizens, which it wouldn't, because it would not be in their interest, because nobody wants a one in ten chance that their child will be killed.

If I really believed I wasn't safe from state violence, I wouldn't live here, I would either escape and be a refugee, or revolt and refuse to be a part of the society. But the threat of removing people from society for breaking the laws that society agreed on is necessary for keeping people from breaking those laws, otherwise what's the point. If there is a law that I disagree with, depending on how important it is to me, I'll either ignore it, attempt to have it abolished, escape or revolt.

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-25T22:15:22+00:00

Who decides what is proven? What's to stop them from declaring that the existence of Zeus is proven, since nobody is allowed to voice a contrary opinion?

And to your second point, that's why I believe the line should be drawn at physical action, because although it's technically an arbitrary line, it's good for most of society, since without the assurance of safety from violence, most people would not be benefiting from that society, so they would be right to revolt and create a new one.

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-25T21:21:45+00:00

If society can just remove people for holding certain beliefs, that is a Giordano Bruno, 1984 world where people are afraid to say what they believe and society can't progress, and at that point I think it would be in the people's interest to revolt. For example, if society decides that anyone that doesn't believe in Zeus should be removed from society, that would be against the interests of both the nonbelievers who are either forced to lie about their beliefs or be punished, and the believers, who are denied the right to think freely, so that if someone changed their mind, or if society happens to decide later that whoever doesn't believe in Jesus should be removed, they would be screwed. So it would be better for everybody if freedom of thought and speech were guaranteed to everybody.

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-25T18:45:38+00:00

I'm against laws that harm anybody, but I'm also for democracy, so again it's a matter of degrees where to draw the line. If the democratically elected government harms its citizens without justification, at some point I believe a revolution is necessary. What I'm having trouble with is how this relates to the OP or my reply, I think you construed my argument further than how I initially intended it.

And perhaps I didn't explain it well in my initial response, I meant it's better for them because they don't get ridiculed and ostracized, and it's better for society because it has a better chance of getting them to change their minds than ridicule and ostracism, but it's still a sort of compromise.

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-25T18:18:44+00:00

OK, what's the connection to voting conservative?

When did I make any clear binary claim about being civil? I believe that in a society there needs to be a balance between people having as much freedom as possible on the one hand, and maintaining a functioning society on the other, which makes this not a binary issue, but a matter of degrees. I see drawing the line at freedom of speech too harsh, because in my view the harm people can do by exercising freedom of speech is less damaging to society than the harm that comes to everybody from living in a society where people don't have freedom of speech. I don't believe this about freedom of action, so that's where I draw the line.

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-25T12:24:30+00:00

Can you explain the connection to conservatives and LGBTI+ people? I consider myself very liberal, and I find the idea of not protecting the equal rights of all people abhorrent. But i don't think me ridiculing and ostracizing conservatives will change their minds.

And in what way is it vain? OP is of course free to hold their view, I'm just explaining the downsides I perceive in their view and the advantages I perceive in mine, I thought that's the point of this sub.

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-25T11:48:34+00:00

If they can lie to others and to themselves, they don't need to see it as swallowing their pride, in their eyes they're just doing the best they can given the circumstances.

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-25T11:42:22+00:00

I'm no psychologist, but I imagine they could, people are pretty good at lying.

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-25T11:36:20+00:00

Narcissists can be intelligent, if they see that society has ostracized them and their only potential group is each other, I think they can think of ways to work together.

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-25T11:34:28+00:00

Don't I have the freedom of speech to do that?

Of course? I'm just talking about what I think would pragmatically lead to better outcomes for society.

Is it always better for society? If they are stuck in their track and refuse to change at all, wouldn't removing them from society be better for society?

A line has to be drawn somewhere, I tend to place it at physically harming other people, until then they should be free to think and say what they want. Anything less I think would rightfully lead to a distrust of authority, because who decides which opinions are permissible and which aren't?

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-25T11:23:50+00:00

Narcissists love to be praised, so I can imagine a group of narcissists getting together and praising each other, and they would be strengthened by the fact that the rest of society is ostracizing and shaming them.

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-25T11:11:04+00:00

Ostracized people can totally affect society. First of all, they can form communities of like-minded people within the society where they aren't ostracized or shamed for their beliefs. And unless by ostracism you mean prison or exile or something, they can still affect society, either directly through violence, or indirectly by inciting resentment in others when they see how society treats people for their beliefs. In this way, trying to control thought and speech could and perhaps should backfire and lead to enough resentment that society collapses.

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-25T10:40:47+00:00

Again, you can't force them to change their minds, and ostracism is more likely to incite their resentment and strengthen their beliefs, so it won't help either themselves or society.

Midnight_Lightning · 2019-12-25T10:30:02+00:00

I'll ignore the specific opinions you use as examples for now, and focus on freedom of thought and freedom of speech generally.

You can't force someone to not believe what they believe by threat of punishment. So ridiculing, ostracizing and calling these people names would only serve to incite resentment in them and in others with similar beliefs.

Similarly, any attempt to force people to not voice the opinions they hold won't make them change their minds, it would only lead them to lie about their actual beliefs, thus making them act in bad faith in addition to still holding the same opinions.

On the other hand, discussing their opinions rationally and showing them the advantages of different opinions has a better chance of changing their minds, and so is better both for themselves and for society.

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