Human, all too human

39
"The fable of intelligible freedom."
>No one is responsible for his deeds, no one for his nature; to judge is to be unjust. This is also true when the individual judges himself

Do you think we are not responible for our actions, Veeky Forums?

We possess the responsibility for our actions in much the same way that we possess our personal identity. It is a form of property.

the richard dawkins of his time. contributed nothing to the field, made stuff already covered by his predecessors accessible to the masses.

They are responsible for the consequences of their deeds, but they're not responsible for the deeds themselves.

Free will is a myth, lad. In the future when they understand the processes of the brain better than we do today, I'm sure they'll find that at the smallest level, we don't control shit.

You don't decide to be lazy, you don't choose, your brain chooses. The actual structure of your brain, if you could "zoom in" and see the neurons firing, etc, you aren't in control of that.
It's genetic/environmental, etc.

We should be held accountable for our actions/inactions, but we do not control them. If you're fucking ugly, then too bad! If you're mentally fucked? Well then, just the same.

Moron

>he says while cognitive objectivist stances litter his post

You are being too arsh my man.

Nietzsche was the original dumb determinist faggot. He can safely be ignored like everyone else masquerading behind scientific ideas who is not in fact a scientist.

So what is true user? How is determinism false?

not him but thinking determinism is truth-apt in the first place is the mistake.

If we can't control them then how can we be held accountable?

"Truth-apt" seems to only apply to positive statements. Determinism is so broad. So we say "Free will cannot be known to exist."

That isn't the point.
The point is: Even the very choice isn't your choosing. You can argue "Well, I "tell" my hand to move and it moves, I decide when it moves so I have free will"... yes, but you even doing that isn't your choice because that option only exists because of your specific brain, at this specific time. It's difficult to articulate, but even the choice of choosing is not your own. It makes it seem like it, but it's not really.

What is the difference between a driven man and a lazy slob? "Will power"? It's the brain, that is what is different. Neither of them choose to be how they are, they do not choose to be one particular way, or have a particular personality trait, it simply exists within them because their brain is structured in a certain way, or damaged in a certain way. And even if they appear to choose, they still did not, the brain simply tricks you into believing you are in control and can choose but the only reason the choice was even a choice at all is because of how that particular brain is structured physically.

Because it is tough luck, just like life. If not, then serial killers should be let off, etc. Obviously this isn't right and so you simply have to play the hand your dealt and reap what you sow (even if it was never entirely your choice)

"Determinism is true" or "determinism is false" are both truth-apt statements. so is "Free will cannot be known to exist."

prove it?

>What is the difference between a driven man and a lazy slob?
your opinions.

I don't think punishing serial killers is about holding them accountable, imprisonment is basically saying someone absolutely cannot be held accountable so they must be contained as a way of protecting others. The justice narrative is just debris from the enlightenment era which we still toy with as a way of eluding uncomfortable truth.

We can choose to cheat? Yes. We can't choose to be attracted to someone else, but our Responsability is a choice.

All moralism is but dust.

I don't think we can even speak of determinism without referring to the concept of free will. Determinism doesn't need to be proven, free will does.

And yet so hard to destroy

you really don't understand this subject. determinism and free will are directly related dichotomy, if one does not exist the other does. however, we are currently incapable of proving either.

>determinism doesn't need to be proven
what kind of religious crap is this even

>how can we be held accountable
Its not you "you" who is held accountable.

Just your body.

To protect other bodies.

Determinism is only the absence of free will thus if free will cannot be proven then determinism is assumed to be true. Otherwise, what would the absence of free will be?

Yes exactly. The body is more or less the subject of Power, disposable as power sees necessary.

>So what is true user? How is determinism false?
Determinism is self defeating hocus-pocus non-sense. By definition to subscribe to It has no consequences, changes nothing -- change is impossible there is only iterative progress. And on top of that is is full of absurd hubris, you're an observer who can observe themselves with certainty? I don't say it's wrong, only meaningless and not in need of refuting.

>it is meaningless
But you just said that it is "self-defeating".

>we cannot prove there isn't a god, therefore god must exist
>we cannot prove that subterranean unicorns won't take over the planet, therefore they will
same exact logic.

just wait a few years

scary

>same exact logic
Not at all. Determinism is a word only useful in describing the state of absence regarding free will. Similar logic would be
>we can't prove god exists, therefore there must be no god.

>Determinism is only the absence of free will
no its not. free will is just one aspect affected by the implications of determinism. see: compatibilism vs incompatibilism

Also if free will cannot be proven then what is the absence of free will (if not determinism)?

What is the absence of free will if not determinism??? Compatibilism, etc. only describe cases with varying degrees of free will, but in the complete absence of free will there is only determinism.

Nice of you to join the discussion

It's about rehabilitating them but we all know that is bullshit too.

Wrong! YOU don't choose to cheat. The very neuron firing in your brain that made you decide to even consider cheating wasn't your choice.

The rehabilitation idea was made up after prisons had already been used for a century. Basically it is a justification which didn't seem necessary at first.

>we can't prove god exists, therefore there must be no god
this is 100% equivalent logic as
>we cannot prove there isn't a god, therefore god must exist
google "falsifiability" and start reading. you are treating unfalsifiable statements as factual.

It's the same thing I said. I choose to don't cheat. Temptation remains though

>Do you think we are not responible for our actions, Veeky Forums?
>All moralism is but dust.
Story time.

>in class, another day of the professor asking questions and my waiting each time until the silences becomes intolerable to speak, the only times that I do
>class ends and the race to the exists begins
>notice a wallet fall from the jacket of one of my detested peers, one whom I dislike in particular for being simple and uncouth
>return the wallet to the professor with a suggestion on the owner, don't even open it to look at let alone steal its contents
>feel constantly haunted wondering why I did this
>filled with hatred at my own internalized inescapable ideas of right and wrong
untermensch life is suffering

When speaking of concepts as nebulous as free will, in such abstract ways we can't help but stray from factuality; you are basically moving the goal posts and in stead of engaging my arguments, saying that the whole thing isn't worth discussing, so why even come into this thread? And those aren't equivalent logics you christlarper. "This apple is in my hand" is falsifiable, "This apple is not in my hand" is not. You cannot disprove that something does not exist without it existing in the first place. So your second example is not falsifiable. I'm saying "we cannot know that free will exists" and inferring from that , a state of determinism can be assumed to exist.

No, you don't, what don't you understand though? If you can accept that the very idea of you cheating was never your choice, then why not this?
You don't choose anything. Your brain decides for you.

The only thing different in your brain vs. a non cheaters brain, or even your brain when you decide to cheat and when you don't, is the actual brain is different size, shape, experience, genetics, a different neuron fired, or a different process took place, etc.
Even IF you (I say you, I mean your brain) decides not to cheat, that wasn't your choice either, since it was already made, and you didn't make any choice at all, because even the choice of you "choosing" only exists in the way it does because of the aforementioned.

He was being Socratic, he even calls it a fable. He constantly contradicts himself. The conclusion you are suppose to come to is where to go after accepting that this is a question that needs to be examined. If no one is to be judged for their deeds, nor their nature, and judging is unjust, human nature is inherently unjust, even in judging ourselves, we can't even trust our own judgement but we must. Nietzsche is very much like Socrates.

and yet would you also have been haunted had you had stolen the money?

Because the idea was to cheat? If you WANT to cheat, you can also choose to don't cheat. How can desire and resisting coexist?

you seem not to be comprehending what he is saying. he is not confused about the distinction between desire and action. he is saying that both, rather than one but not the other, are equally unfree and unchosen.

>he is saying that both, rather than one but not the other, are equally unfree and unchosen

so there's no distinction from a cheater and a non-cheater? Everything is unfree and unchosen? so why we make laws, why even live

there is a distinction, in that one has cheated and one hasn't. but if what he says is true, our moral interpretations of these two different categories is affected - since we assume that one has chosen to partake in an immoral action while another hasn't. if choice is not a factor, then the categories moral weight has to be completely reevaluated.

>Everything is unfree and unchosen? so why we make laws, why even live
those are the kind of questions it stimulates, yes. but just because it stimulates those questions doesn't mean it can or should be dismissed, if you are judging it by its truth-value rather than utility.

>So why we make laws, why even live
Because we are still alive.
It's like saying "Why make mirrors if some people are born ugly?"... they don't choose it, but they live with it, they live with the consequences of it.

So we don't choose, but we still must be held responsible for what we do (even though we have no free will and didn't choose, can't help what we like, how we are, etc

>So we don't choose, but we still must be held responsible for what we do (even though we have no free will and didn't choose, can't help what we like, how we are, etc
sam harris OUT
>must
what did he mean by this? there is a difference between we probably will and we "must" (either as a moral/practical stipulation or that it is necessary and impossible for something otherwise to happen)

the true ubermensch lifestyle involves petty theft at each and every opportunity after all

Does Harris say similar? If so, give me a link if possible?

And by "must", I mean exactly that. We are and must be held responsible, we shouldn't be let off because we didn't decide and we have no free will... We shouldn't let the serial killer off, he is held responsible for his actions even if he didn't choose make them.

I haven't read Harris but he has an entire book on the subject as well as online lectures. I've only heard from others that he advocates acting as if free will exists despite claiming it doesn't.

As for your second point: why? Imprisoning a serial killer is not the same thing as holding him responsible. An easy mistake to make, given the hundred conflicting ideas on what justice is and what its role is.

Detaining someone is simply an act. You can read it either as punishing a guilty person or as isolating a dangerous individual - or both.

No, I mean they are just quite simply responsible, that is my belief. It is their brain, their actions. If they don't like it, they can just kil... well, if their brain allows them to.

Define responsible.

What's the point of such a hypothetical? It didn't happen ergo it couldn't have happened.

Then your self-hate is pointless too. Besides, a similar situation might occur in the future.

Mourning is not useful, no. But who would deny another his grief?

>identity

Identity in its entirety is a fiction that prevents you from adapting to whatever circumstance dictates to be in your best interest.

He also stated that will is not non-free either. The freedom vs. non-freedom debate does not apply to will for Nietzsche, it's an inapplicable spectrum.

As I see it, we're not responsible for the universe, and we are the universe. Yet we will behave in accordance with our past regardless, even if that means having a feeling of responsibility. Sometimes, the universe determines a feeling that there is no determinism. Sometimes the universe demands you have this feeling in order to progress even. We have to remember that all truth serves life and not the other way around.

If our actions are limited in choice to a few and we choose between them by aligning ourselves with one group whose set of rationalisations have been subjected to thousands of years of rigour study, then "we" are responsible, yes.

God and the moon condemn the ocean to either rise and fall or flood the cities.