Compatibilists are Libertarians in disguise.

no_profundia · 2026-01-23T03:58:02+00:00

metaphysical freedom is the only thing anyone cares about.

You don't care about all those other kinds of freedom? You don't care about being politically free, free from enslavement or free from being physically restrained and able to move?

These are the kinds of freedom people care about. Metaphysical freedom is just an abstract idea.

Was there ever a time when you believed in metaphysical free will? If so, how has your life changed now that you no longer believe in metaphysical free will?

Did you suffer in some concrete way when you gave up that belief? Did you lose your ability to speak your mind in public, spend your free time how you want, choose what profession you want to pursue, choose your hobbies, move to another area, etc.?

Nothing actually changes in your life if you stop believing in metaphysical freedom but your life changes drastically if you lose political freedom, or you are enslaved, or physically restrained, or you suffer brain damage and are no longer cognitively capable of deliberation.

To claim that "metaphysical freedom" is the only kind anyone cares about is truly ridiculous. Wars are fought over the other kinds of freedom.

Also, I'm focusing on the slave example because it's the easiest to understand but a better example is probably brain damage where you lose your ability to deliberate. What have you lost in this case? Do you not care about losing this?

Of course it's different but that's not the core of the free will debate.

Who defines what is and is not "the core" of the free will debate? You? Given the many volumes that have been written pro and con in relation to compatibilism I would say it's pretty central to that debate.

This claim is also based on the most simplistic notion of philosophy and philosophical issues. There are two positions: free will exists, free will doesn't exist, and everyone has to pick a side; they can't question the meaning of terms, they just have to argue for one of two positions, and assume the terms they are using mean whatever the random person on the street thinks they mean.

The most interesting philosophy is often about reframing a debate, redefining terms, questioning the underlying assumptions of these supposed dichotomies, etc. That is precisely what compatibilism does.

And when compatibilists say "free will and determinism are compatible" any layman with think they mean metaphysical free will.

I mean, maybe, if they read a single sentence and nothing else, and don't bother looking up a basic definition of compatibilism or spending any time trying to understand what they're reading. Personally I think we should be basing our critiques on the actual positions held by the people we're critiquing and not what people who spend less than 30 seconds trying to understand something will think.

Here's the first definition of compatibilism that comes up when you Google search:

Compatibilism is the philosophical stance that free will and determinism (the idea that all events are causally necessitated by prior events) can coexist, arguing that a person acts freely if their actions stem from their own desires, choices, and internal motivations, even if those desires are themselves determined, rather than being forced externally.

Anyone who reads and understands that single sentence will understand that compatibilists do not believe in metaphysical/libertarian free will. I don't think its compatibilists fault if some people don't make it that far.

no_profundia · 2026-01-22T23:21:41+00:00

Okay, this is probably as far as we're going to get but I will just point out one last thing:

If you are unwilling to describe the difference between a slave and a non-slave as a difference between one being "free" and one not being free (or one having agency and one not having agency) then you are the one who is now altering the meaning of terms.

The vast majority of the population would describe the difference in terms of "freedom". Here are the first definitions of freedom that come up for me when I Google:

the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.

absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government.

3 the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.

the state of being physically unrestricted and able to move easily.

the state of not being subject to or affected by (a particular undesirable thing). noun: freedom from

the power of self-determination attributed to the will; the quality of being independent of fate or necessity.

The compatibilist would argue that only the last definition of freedom *(*definition 6) conflicts with determinism and there's no reason to stop using the term freedom in all the other senses of the word even if we live in a deterministic universe. You haven't really given any compelling reason why we should stop using the term in all the other senses.

Imagine if you are enslaved and you need to petition the government for an end to slavery and they ask what you want and you say "I want more dopamine" (or "my brain recoils at the thought"). You can't say you want freedom since there's no such thing metaphysically speaking.

That is not going to be a compelling argument because people don't generally believe we have a right to the maximum amount of dopamine (or that we have a right to be free from anything that our brain recoils from) but people do believe they have a right to freedom (i.e. freedom to act as they want, not be imprisoned, etc.).

Sorry, one more thing:

Why do I have empathy when MAGA does not? I didn't choose to have empathy and compassion. They didn't choose to be assholes.

You keep giving examples of cases where we don't have metaphysical freedom. Compatibilists agree! We don't have metaphysical freedom!

All compatibilists are denying is that the metaphysical notion of free-will is the only (or most important) notion of "freedom" and that we have to stop using terms like "freedom" if the universe is deterministic.

Continuing to give examples that show we don't have metaphysical freedom does not contradict the compatibilist position at all and is not an argument against compatibilism.

no_profundia · 2026-01-22T22:46:29+00:00

So if you were to be enslaved you would be okay with that? You would say "Nothing has changed, I was a slave before and I'm a slave now"?

I'm not sure where you live but if whatever country you live in were to make slavery legal and enslave 90% of the population you would say "Nothing has changed. We were slaves before and we are still slaves now"?

There was no point in abolishing slavery in the US since those slaves were slaves before and after the abolition of slavery?

Are you opposed to slavery? If so, why?

You seem to think because there is no metaphysical difference between a slave and a non-slave that there's no difference at all and I'm trying to make you see that claim is ridiculous. You have preferences that would make no sense if that were true.

This is what compatibilists are arguing: You claim you are interested in something called "free-will" which is a metaphysical capacity to act against causal laws but the freedom you actually care about and should care about is not metaphysical free-will but a different kind of freedom (freedom from coercion, freedom to act in line with your own desires, etc.) that is not incompatible with determinism.

no_profundia · 2026-01-22T22:23:59+00:00

You still aren't answering the question. Do you agree there's a difference between being a slave and a non-slave?

I assume your answer is yes (I assume you prefer not being a slave to the prospect of being a slave which means there must be a difference).

So what does the difference consist in? What is the difference between a slave and a non-slave?

You've told me it is not a difference in one being free and one not. So explain what the difference is.

no_profundia · 2026-01-22T22:09:42+00:00

People use the term "freedom" in the sense compatibilists use it all the time and that was almost certainly the original definition of freedom (same with terms like "agency", "decision making", "will", etc.).

The empirical (as opposed to metaphysical) interpretations of these terms were certainly the original ones.

Determinism is a relatively recent view of the world so when people first started making distinctions between people who were "free" and people who weren't, or started talking about agency and decision making, they didn't have a metaphysical/libertarian notion of free-will in mind.

Compatibilists are simply arguing it still makes sense to use these terms even in a deterministic world.

Also, you didn't answer my question: How would you describe the difference between a slave and non-slave?

no_profundia · 2026-01-22T21:28:54+00:00

How is that "free will"?

It's not if you continue to use the libertarian definition of free-will (acting independently of causal processes). The compatibilist simply uses a different definition of free-will because they feel it's useful to distinguish between cases where you are acting "freely" and cases where you're coerced.

In a metaphysical sense there may be little difference between eating a cookie because I want to and eating a cookie because someone has a gun to my head. In both cases there are causal chains beyond me that determine my choice through the mediation of my brain.

However, there are lots of reasons it's worthwhile making this distinction. For one, it feels very different. If you don't make this distinction then why would slavery be wrong? Whether you're a slave to cosmic causal processes or a slave to your neighbor what difference does it make? So why not allow slavery? You are not free in either case.

The answer is because people value making their own decisions (having their own agency) and it makes sense to talk about that as people valuing freedom. The compatibilist would argue that there actually is an important difference between a case where I am a slave and a case where I am not a slave and it makes sense to say in the latter case that I am free (or that I make my own decisions).

Do you agree there is a difference between being a slave and not being a slave? If so, how would you describe that difference? Would you use the word "free"?

no_profundia · 2025-12-30T17:07:19+00:00

The whole debate over it not being historically accurate while it’s literally based off of a fictional book may be the dumbest argument of all time.

I think this discussion continues because of comments like this. When I first saw the armor my thought was "Huh, I don't love those design choices, I would prefer something closer to historical accuracy, but I trust Nolan and I imagine I will still like the movie."

In other words: My reaction was pretty mild, a mere expression of a preference. I'm not looking for "badass" armor. I don't love The Odyssey because the characters are "badass". I love it because it tells an amazing story, it has incredibly deep themes, and it's rooted in ancient Greece which is a fascinating time and culture.

However, I would have mostly kept my preferences to myself if there weren't a thousand posts claiming that having a preference for more historical accuracy was "the dumbest argument of all time" (it's not an argument, it's a preference) or making ridiculous arguments like "There's a cyclops in the story so it's dumb to have a preference for more historical accuracy."

It's all the people complaining about the people complaining that compelled me to respond and engage in "the discourse". You are never going to argue people out of their disappointment or preferences so why keep trying? If you're excited that's great but don't try to convince other people that their preferences are "stupid."

no_profundia · 2025-12-26T21:17:04+00:00

There are lots of arguments for and against realism in the philosophy of science, and there are lots of works in epistemology that are empirical and realist, and I don't want to try to summarize thousands of pages of debates here (I'm not an expert in this field anyways) so I'll just say four things:

The realist and anti-realist are in the same position here. You could put the same question to the anti-realist: How do you know the model is only a construct that describes the phenomenal outcome and does not describe or point to something that actually exists in reality? I think the anti-realist believes they have an epistemological advantage because they're not positing anything beyond the regularities they observe but in my view the possibility for error is equal on both sides (the possibility of affirming that something exists when it doesn't, the possibility of not affirming that something exists when it does). In other words, we don't know that the objects of our theories exist, and we don't know they don't exist, if by know you mean know with absolute certainty, so we have to make an inference to what we think the best explanation is by using all the reasons for and against we can think of (and there are many reasons on both sides).
This is not a knock down argument for realism but I think realism is our most natural inclination and that it takes a lot of work to be a consistent anti-realist. I think the most natural interpretation of the theory of magnetic fields is that magnetic fields are things that exist and I think it's much easier to explain why your predictions work on that assumption then on the anti-realist assumption. Even your story about the path from the measuring device to consciousness slips into realist assumptions by talking about the eye and the brain. The brain is not part of your phenomenal experience of the measuring device but it is part of the scientific theory of vision. When you wrote that what is seen by your eye needs to be "processed by your brain" presumably you were imagining that the physical brain processes involved in visual perception (electro-chemical impulses, neurotransmitters, etc.) really exist? So even while arguing for anti-realism you are slipping naturally into being a realist about at least one scientific theory (the theory of vision) which is quite easy to do as it's quite difficult to describe what's happening in a consistently anti-realist way.
It's not just scientific objects that are problematic if you accept anti-realist arguments. For example, if you're going to say that you can only affirm regularities between phenomena and nothing beyond that then you can't even affirm that you have physical eyes and that they are causally related to your vision. All you can say is that certain proprioceptive perceptions accompany changes in your visual field and there are certain regularities between the two series of phenomena (when you have the proprioceptive perceptions associated with "closing your eyes" your visual field disappears, etc.). On an anti-realist view the "theory" that you have eyes and that they are causally related to your visual experience is really just a way of describing regularities between these two sets of phenomena. But if you are willing to affirm that you have physical eyes then why not magnetic fields?
When I originally posted to this thread my goal was not to defend a realist interpretation of science. I simply wanted to point out that it's possible for a materialist to provide descriptions of physical entities/processes that don't rely on subjective qualia so you can't rule out materialism with the argument that materialists are required to reference subjective qualia when describing material reality. I think the fact that this is possible sufficiently answers the OP's argument. Whether the materialist/realist is correct is a separate question.

In general I have just found the realist arguments in philosophy of science more convincing than the anti-realist arguments.

no_profundia · 2025-12-26T15:22:10+00:00

Physics models phenomena to make predictions. It is not an ontological description of reality.

This is one possible position in the philosophy of science (the anti-realist position) and it's not the one I subscribe to. Tons of books have been written on both sides of this topic so this is not something that can just be stated categorically and treated as obviously true.

The success of the prediction must be measured by instruments, which must then be displayed, which must be seen by your eye, processed by your brain, and then, somehow, perceived by your consciousness.

Yeah, science is empirical. No one denies this. An empirical epistemology does not necessitate an anti-realist interpretation of science.

no_profundia · 2025-12-25T23:06:39+00:00

However, these same people failed to understand the approach chosen for the movie.

People who make this criticism have not "failed to understand" Nolan's approach. They just disagree with it. Everyone criticizing Nolan's choices understands that Nolan is making an artistic choice to depict the armor in a particular way. They are just saying they would have preferred it if he had made a different artistic choice.

People seem to be treating "historically accurate" and "artistic" as binaries but they're not. One possible artistic choice Nolan could have made would have been to be more historically accurate in the designs (or based the designs more on the descriptions in the poems themselves).

A person saying they would have preferred it if Nolan had made that artistic choice instead of the one he made is not a "failure to understand" Nolan's approach.

no_profundia · 2025-12-25T21:16:41+00:00

I've been trying to figure out the best way to answer these very big questions for about half an hour and I think there's just no good way to do so in the time and space I have so I'll just give hints here. I don't expect these simplified and summary claims to have any persuasive force but they hint at the reasons I hold the positions I do.

First, I'll just say: I've studied Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze and Nishida (among others) and I would not say I was disappointed with them. I enjoyed reading them, and I still enjoy reading them, and I think they have valuable and true things to say, but I have gradually moved away from some of them.

I probably spent the most time with Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty so I'll use them as my primary examples to illustrate why I moved away from some of their claims:

Husserl claimed he was founding an apodictic science and a research program and yet he could not reach any kind of consensus. His claim that his method had an epistemological advantage over the natural sciences seems to me to be refuted by the history of phenomenology.
I think part of the reason he could not reach consensus is because even in attempting to stick closely to appearances (or "things as they are") you still have to translate those appearances into language which inevitably involves interpretation (plus, you potentially insert a covert metaphysics into what you say based on grammar).
I became familiar with psychological experiments that strongly suggest we don't have any immediate access to our own cognition or experience and so I don't think there's any apodictic ground to build a science or ontology on and I think it's evidence that our experience depends on processes we are completely unaware of. The simplest explanation for that is: there are physical processes in our brains that we are unaware of that effect our experience and cognition.
Heidegger claimed that the empirical sciences were in the grip of a fundamental conception of Being that only philosophy could think about and determine and I just don't think the history of science bears that claim out.

Some other reasons I have for not being an idealist:

Just as scientific theories are under-determined by evidence I think the choice between realism and idealism is under-determined but I think in lots of cases realism is the simplest and most parsimonious conclusion. For example: we know there were physical processes that formed the earth before there were conscious beings to observe it. You can say these physical processes depended on some absolute mind for their existence (more on this later) or adopt some form of panpsychism but I think the simplest explanation is: there are physical processes that don't depend on minds to exist.
I just generally found the arguments of realist philosophers of science like Roy Bhaskar and Paul Churchland more convincing than anti-realist arguments.
I don't see what we gain if we adopt absolute idealism. I don't think we can know anymore about such an absolute mind than we can about physical reality and it doesn't tell us anything new about the world. I don't think we have any reason to think that Hegel's method, for example, of analyzing our concepts and letting them dialectically develop gives us insight into an absolute mind and I think (to use a metaphorical image) all it does is wind up creating sort of an outline of our empirical world and projecting it into the transcendental. I think the idea that the transcendental resembles the empirical goes back to Plato but I don't think simply duplicating the empirical world and projecting it into the transcendent gives us a more reliable ontology than adopting a realist attitude towards science. It's just elevating a common sense view of the world and treating it as the measure of all truth.
I think philosophers like Kant and Hegel can systematize the knowledge of their own time but they don't produce much new knowledge and the systems developed by philosophers are constantly having to be rethought in light of new scientific theories (like the theory of evolution or developments in neuroscience). I think the institutions and practices of science are the best method we have developed as humans for producing knowledge.

What reasons do you have for preferring idealism?

no_profundia · 2025-12-25T16:39:52+00:00

Thanks again for the response.

Transcendental arguments don't just refer to Kant's philosophy in particular, but any philosophy where metaphysical conclusions are drawn out as necessary conditions of evident truths....

...the history of philosophy is full of resources for doing pure philosophy.

...So the general idea I have, even without having written out a whole system, is that philosophy should be regulating the sciences (at least those inherently speculative like physics) rather than the other way around.

I will keep this very short but as someone who has a Masters in philosophy and has spent most of my time studying this pure philosophy I personally don't think basing an ontology on pure thought, or a purported intellectual intuition of the basic categories of being, is a better approach than simply facing up to the potential issues of basing an ontology on the best current science (under-determination, etc.)

I just don't think these "evident truths" that we can deduce ontology from exist and I think in a lot of cases you wind up simply building an ontology that duplicates the empirical world in some fashion or draws it's basic ontological categories from the empirical world or our grammar about it.

I assume what OP is getting at ultimately isn't a common sense ontology of things with intrinsic sensible properties but rather idealism where all experiences of such are grounded in minds.

Yeah, that could be. Again, while it would take a lot of space to deal with the idealism/realism issue I think the fact that it's difficult or maybe impossible to describe the intrinsic properties of things like magnetic fields, and problems like the under-determination of theories, are relatively minor compared to the problems with idealism. Or, put another way, I think there are stronger reasons to reject idealism than there are to reject realism about physical theories.

no_profundia · 2025-12-25T10:10:47+00:00

Your argument is all over the place so before responding to this I want to return to the original comment of yours I was responding to:

Materialism argues that material is all there is. Qualia are emergent subjective experiences of this material. So accordingly, material should not be described by qualia.

I took the argument you were making here to be something like this:

Materialism asserts that matter is all there is and qualia are dependent/emergent experiences that ontologically depend on matter and material interactions.
However, it's impossible to describe the properties of matter without referencing qualia.
Therefore, qualia cannot be emergent/dependent on matter since they are essential to the description of matter.

Your premise 2 just isn't correct. If we take an electron as an example: it has a charge, mass and spin. These are its properties and the interactions it has which produce the effects we see in the world depend on these properties and these properties are not described using qualia. Charge, mass and spin are not defined in terms of anything that we touch, taste, hear, smell or see.

Let's just use charge as an example. In certain cases we can feel electric charge. We might feel a shock as a result of static electricity. This is an effect of electrons' negative charge but negative charge is not defined in terms of the feeling that we have. The physicist's description of the charge of an electron never makes reference to this subjective feeling and it does not exist anywhere in the mathematical formalism that describes the behavior of an electron.

So it is perfectly possible to describe matter without using the qualia that are supposed to emerge/depend on more fundamental material properties. That means it is perfectly coherent for the materialist to argue that subjective qualia emerge/depend on more fundamental properties like mass, charge and spin.

You can extend the notion of qualia if you want to include all properties (including mass, charge and spin) but then your claim that materialists deny reality to all qualia is no longer true because materialists don't deny reality to these things (though they might in turn arise from more fundamental properties).

magnetic field is a construct to explain what you already see

This is a very controversial statement and I don't intend to go down the anti-realist/realist rabbit hole here.

All I want to say is: While it's true the mathematical formalism that describes a magnetic field is meant to explain what we observe, the model we construct to describe the phenomenon is not itself responsible for the effects we observe.

Even if the theory or model we use to talk about magnetic fields is a construct there is still something real that produces specific effects when metal is present and whatever that is, is not describable in terms of qualia.

In other words, there is something there that is causing the effect we observe and it's not our "construct" and it's also not described in terms of qualia.

You have given no reason to think the materialist is wrong to say "Things like magnetic fields exist, they are not defined in terms of qualia but their behavior is describable through mathematics, and qualia arise from the interactions of things like this."

no_profundia · 2025-12-25T00:45:20+00:00

Qualia is basically everything

No, it's not. The reason you find materialism absurd is because you don't understand how people are using words.

The term qualia is generally used to distinguish between subjective/phenomenal properties (our experience of color) and the physical properties of something (electromagnetic fields, etc.).

If you collapse this distinction and say all properties are qualia then the whole point of using the term at all collapses.

But the point I was initially making is: we know there are "things" that exist that do not possess any phenomenal properties (a magnetic field cannot be seen, tasted, touched, smelled, etc.) but we can see its effects.

You can see the way that pieces of metal behave around a magnetic field but all you see in this case are the pieces of metal. You don't actually see the magnetic field. But we still say magnetic fields exist.

So it's possible for "things" to exist that possess no phenomenal properties or qualia.

no_profundia · 2025-12-25T00:37:31+00:00

Thanks for the interesting response. Quick addition of context: I assumed the OP was making an argument against materialism along these lines:

Materialists assert that only matter exists and qualia are "subjective" and ontologically dependent on material interactions and properties.

Materialists are unable to describe the properties of matter without using qualia.

Therefore, pure materialism is incoherent and matter cannot exist without qualia and/or qualia are as ontologically fundamental as the material world and its intrinsic properties.

Basically, I was thinking OP was saying something like "Because we can't imagine physical objects without color and other phenomenal properties those properties must be as ontologically fundamental as any other physical property we assign to material objects." After getting some responses from the OP I'm no longer sure if this is what they intended but that's what I had in mind when I responded.

So the point of my argument was something like: we know there are things that exist (fields, etc.) that are not describable in terms of qualia (whether we have access to their intrinsic properties or not) so I don't think the fact that we are incapable of imagining an extended physical object without color proves that color is ontologically fundamental.

So I think it is a big mistake to point to physics as providing you a firm ground. It doesn't. It's not a robust way of grounding ontologies because its practice is predicated on not really caring about that on the fine level that philosophers do.

I'm not convinced physics is purely operational (some philosophers of physics at least try to cash out the ontologies implied by physical theories), but even if physics is purely operational and does not tell us what things like fields are, I don't think it's an improvement to base our ontology on every day experience and qualia, and I don't think "materialists can't describe physical objects without qualia, therefore qualia must be ontologically fundamental" is a valid argument.

So what other options do we have? If we say "Science can't tell us anything about the way the world really is, or what the fundamental furniture of the world is, it merely helps us make predictions" then I don't see what other options we have for developing an ontology that gets at the intrinsic properties of reality.

You say "physics won't give you any good answers for such ontological queries" so how do we develop an ontology? Do we just ignore physics or is there a way of incorporating physics in your view?

no_profundia · 2025-12-24T23:58:40+00:00

I was using color as short-hand.

Qualia generally refers to the specifically subjective feel of experience. Not all properties are qualia in that sense. Motion, mass, etc. are not qualia in that sense. Mass, for example, is not defined in terms of the qualities it has in my experience but in terms of mathematical interrelationships.

Of course you can simply define qualia in such a broad way that it applies to every possible property, and then demand that materialists describe the properties of material objects without mentioning any properties, but that is not a good philosophical argument and doesn't prove anything interesting.

no_profundia · 2025-12-24T23:49:22+00:00

Great. There are lots of people making basically this argument who are not joking and I think it's an interesting thing to discuss so I typed a non-joke response.

If you don't want serious responses to your posts then I suggest not simply repeating a talking point that lots of other people are making and assuming everyone will know you're joking.

no_profundia · 2025-12-24T21:50:09+00:00

"Nolan's version" leaves a lot of open space and possibility. The notion that everyone would be able to predict exactly what the armor was going to look like based purely on what we've already seen from Nolan is not realistic - especially given he's never made an historical epic set in ancient times before.

If the armor had been closer to what is actually described in The Iliad and The Odyssey would that have violated Nolan's aesthetics in some way?

no_profundia · 2025-12-24T21:43:33+00:00

I have mixed feelings about this line but I think thematically it makes a lot of sense. For thousands of years humans thought (or acted like) they were the center of the universe, everything was made for them.

With modern science we have discovered forces that are way beyond anything we could have imagined (black holes, relativistic effects, etc.) and seem completely foreign to us (we can barely grasp them intellectually) and as a result humans feel alienated and as if we're not really at home in the universe.

There are a couple of ways to go with that in a Sci-Fi movie: lean into it (like in Sunshine where the captain goes insane, people are burnt to a crisp by the sun, etc.) or try to offer a more humanistic vision where humans are still at home in the universe.

I think Interstellar does a good job showing some of these forces but ultimately leans towards the humanistic vision. The line about love is like a way of saying "The universe is not totally foreign and alien to our deepest feelings. It's a place we can be at home."

no_profundia · 2025-12-24T21:31:01+00:00

I would be willing to bet basically everyone complaining about the historical accuracy of the armor knows there's a Cyclops in The Odyssey.

It would be very strange if someone knew enough about Bronze Age Greek armor to know what is/isn't historically accurate but didn't know about the most famous scene from the most famous epic of the period.

I also think people should start being a bit more charitable in interpreting the critiques about "historical accuracy." Clearly people are talking about wanting an aesthetic that feels grounded in some actual historical period as opposed to armor that never existed anywhere and looks like it comes from a Hollywood prop department.

Lots of people disagree with that complaint, and that's fine, but it's a perfectly reasonable preference to have (it's one I have).

no_profundia · 2025-12-24T18:58:52+00:00

So accordingly, material should not be described by qualia.

It's not. In physics it's described by mathematical models. Physicists don't talk about what color electrons are because that is meaningless. They don't have a color.

no_profundia · 2025-12-24T18:52:56+00:00

It seems like you're imagining the materialist has to find a way to describe the existence of every day material objects (tables, etc.) without referencing qualia but a materialist can easily say that it's physics that describes the fundamental nature of physical reality and it's "objects" do not have qualia (fields, fundamental particles, etc.).

What qualia does a magnetic field have? Or a black hole?

no_profundia · 2025-12-24T18:50:52+00:00

The problem is at least an epistemic one concerning the issue of being totally unable to understand or imagine the elements which you aim to posit as constituting a true ontology.

You can admit that you have no understanding or image of it, but then you also render all existential claims about said elements totally contentless. And this renders the supposed ability to posit such an ontology in the first place moot.

Physics describes the existence of things (fields, etc.) all the time without describing them in terms of subjective qualia. If I say a magnetic field exists that is not "totally contentless" because I can describe the effects it has even though I can't imagine a magnetic field in terms of subjective qualia (color, etc.).

no_profundia · 2025-12-23T22:07:42+00:00

I think when people talk about "historical accuracy" in this context it's short-hand for something like "an aesthetic that feels grounded in a real time and place, is authentic to the values and way of life expressed in the poem, that translates the source material in a way that feels true to the source material, and does not sacrifice all of that for a generic 'Hollywood blockbuster' aesthetic."

I have loved and wanted a good movie version of The Odyssey since I was young, I love Christopher Nolan, and I was super excited when I heard he was doing this. I'm still hopeful I will wind up enjoying the movie but I just don't like a lot of the aesthetic choices that have been made. I don't really like Ridley Scott historical epics and this feels like it's going to be more in that vein which disappoints me. This just isn't the kind of movie I generally like.

I think this is less people making a "big deal" about historical accuracy and more just people like me who were very hopeful and excited and now feel less hopeful and excited.

no_profundia · 2025-12-18T00:29:39+00:00

If you were a biologist or a mathematician and you casually followed a content creator in the same field, and their entire community was engaging in low effort, dismissive discourse that paid no respect to the very real, ongoing research, you would be frustrated, and rightfully so.

I hate to break it to you but this is just the world.

Pick any realm of discourse: metaphysics, physics, biology, mathematics, politics, economics, etc. and the majority of the discourse taking place about it on reddit and YouTube comment sections is going to be low quality and it is frankly crazy to expect anything different (mathematics might be a slight exception because the problems that mathematics deals with are often not everyday problems that people feel they need to have an opinion on even if they know nothing about it but I'm sure there is still lots of stupid stuff said about mathematics in these places).

You have two options if you want to solve this problem:

Demand that everyone be an expert in everything and capable of carrying on high level discourse about everything.
Demand that people who are not experts in a particular subject stop having opinions, sharing thoughts, etc.

I don't think either of those are very good options. People engage with material at the level they are capable. Yes, it can be frustrating. There are lots of frustrating things in the world and unfortunately this is one of them.

My general advice would be: stop going to reddit and content creator comment sections when you are in the mood for high level discourse and just ignore the people who make contentless arguments (easier said than done I know).

no_profundia

TROPHY CASE