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Nihilism
#51
RE: Nihilism
(January 13, 2018 at 6:41 am)vulcanlogician Wrote:
(January 13, 2018 at 6:26 am)Grandizer Wrote: I must be thinking of a different kind of nihilism then. I agree that determinism does not lead to moral nihilism. I was thinking of the more existential type.

google dictionary Wrote:ni·hil·ism
ˈnīəˌlizəm,ˈnēəˌlizəm/Submit
noun
the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless.
PHILOSOPHY
extreme skepticism maintaining that nothing in the world has a real existence.

Well we have two definitions here, I was leaning toward the first with my comments. Besides, if one is generally a nihilist, he must also be a moral nihilist.

I got my own definition then (no ultimate purpose and all). Nevermind then, determinism does not lead to nihilism per definitions provided.


Quote:
Quote:Seriously, though, forget doppelgangers, and assume Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics (where things happen randomly), doesn't it mean that the future is at least partly random instead of determined fully by antecedents?

That's why contemporary metaphysics hardly considers hard determinism any longer. The replacement position is hard incompatibilism.

The incompatibilist position is: regardless of whether the universe is determined, there is no free will because all choices are caused by antecedent states and events. This allows for some indeterminism due to wave functions, but rejects the notion that randomness somehow brings free will into play. If there are non-determined events causing your actions, you are just as unfree as if determined events were.

I agree, but what I was really getting at here is doesn't this worry you even a little?
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#52
RE: Nihilism
(January 13, 2018 at 6:44 am)Grandizer Wrote: I agree, but what I was really getting at here is doesn't this worry you even a little?

Meh, I've been more worried about other things.

What are your concerns? I don't see what exactly is problematic.
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#53
RE: Nihilism
(January 13, 2018 at 6:49 am)vulcanlogician Wrote:
(January 13, 2018 at 6:44 am)Grandizer Wrote: I agree, but what I was really getting at here is doesn't this worry you even a little?

Meh, I've been more worried about other things.

What are your concerns? I don't see what exactly is problematic.

Determinism (without the mess of parallel worlds or randomness implied by quantum mechanics) => there is a determined future where who you are plays a defined role in determining the future.

Indeterminism/"parallel universism" => future can pretty much be anything, and there's nothing you can do about it. Your personality has no impact on what happens in the future. You're nothing more than an observer of what is to happen.
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#54
RE: Nihilism
(January 13, 2018 at 7:41 am)Grandizer Wrote: Determinism (without the mess of parallel worlds or randomness implied by quantum mechanics) => there is a determined future where who you are plays a defined role in determining the future.

Indeterminism/"parallel universism" => future can pretty much be anything, and there's nothing you can do about it. Your personality has no impact on what happens in the future. You're nothing more than an observer of what is to happen.






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#55
RE: Nihilism
(January 13, 2018 at 7:48 am)vulcanlogician Wrote:
(January 13, 2018 at 7:41 am)Grandizer Wrote: Determinism (without the mess of parallel worlds or randomness implied by quantum mechanics) => there is a determined future where who you are plays a defined role in determining the future.

Indeterminism/"parallel universism" => future can pretty much be anything, and there's nothing you can do about it. Your personality has no impact on what happens in the future. You're nothing more than an observer of what is to happen.







Nice song at least.
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#56
RE: Nihilism
(January 13, 2018 at 6:21 am)DLJ Wrote: Free will does exist.  It's just not what you think it is.

Have some Dennett...





Pretty much my take as well. Whatever people thought free will was before the fly got in the bottle is pretty much what it still means. The trouble is it has had a variety of meanings.

An appreciation of how brains work and what people are should lead us to recognize the ongoing need for imposing consequences to shape human behavior but also recognize that in fact the same illegal act undertaken by different people might involve more or less compulsion and so more or less capacity to avoid. Fortunately our justice system reflects this understanding to some degree. Unfortunately the political system permits the creation of laws which are blind to these understandings -such as the notorious 3 strikes law. For a chimp species we seem to be making strides even with the less clever of our kind regularly fucking up progress.
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#57
RE: Nihilism
My view on all this is that determinism is not the same thing as fatalism... that fatalism is a huge misunderstanding of determinism, confusing the notions of fate and destiny with causality. Say for instance I had won the lottery in the past... and it was thus part of the causally determined path of my life... then fatalism would be akin to me hypothetically being informed in the past that I was destined to win the lottery, and with that information concluding 'if I'm destined to win the lottery, I may as well not buy a ticket', which is just silly. The notion of destiny assumes that a person can a) know their future and b) with said 'knowledge' not be able to change it. Neither of which I believe can be true, even hypothetically; ie I believe it is impossible to know, even hypothetically as the result of some sci-fi/woo intervention, your future without then being in a position to influence or change it. So though I am a hard determinist... what was couldn't have been any other way, what is can't be any other way, and what will be can't be any other way... with allowances made for quantum randomness... that does not mean I believe in destiny in the sense described of ever being able to know my future.

Though it could be argued that there is a certain amount of 'soft' fatalism in my view... that is, the philosophical comfort I take sometimes from the notion that 'it couldn't have been any other way' about events of the past and present. And to some extent, what will be will be about the future. But where that differs from the notion of destiny is that what will be will be I can't know and it will be causally determined just as everything else is. If I was to dwell on thoughts of 'what will be will be' to the exclusion of everything else... just endlessly repeating it like a mantra and not doing anything else... then what would be would be would be me thinking what would be would be Wink In other words, my thoughts about it are part of the causal stream and could be taken to extremes... but if they were, it seems to me they would be detrimental, and somehow missing the point; thoughts about determinism are not outside it, they are part of it. And regarding the comfort of looking backwards, that too could be taken to extremes; to take comfort from the idea that it couldn't have been any other way is to essentially write off an event by blaming the universe Wink Though that does indeed provide comfort, especially if the event is/was outside your control, it does mean that if taken to extremes and relied upon to the exclusion of all else, then similar to making what will be will be a mantra, it ignores local/more immediate causality and thus opportunities for learning from the past, which is not good. But neither extreme is a problem, at least for me, because thoughts of the comforting implications of determinism are at best a dry, philosophical comfort; whether looking to the past, present, or future, they cannot compete with the emotional demands of life; even if you wanted to, it is no more feasible to drop everything going forward and think nothing but 'what will be will be' than it is to ignore the immediate causes and effects of an unpleasant past or present event in favour of dry philosophical comfort.

Quantum stuff does confuse this view a bit, but not much; it means (to me) that looking forward there is a certain amount of quantum randomness potentially or actually influencing causation going forward... such that going forward it is potentially less predictable... but looking backwards at the past, though things may have been able to have been another way if quantum randomness had gone another way, it went the way it went and therefore from the future looking back vantage point, it was what it was and couldn't have been any other way. So though I class myself as a hard determinist, I would say I am getting softer as it were, because of the unknown influence and unknown extent of that influence of quantum physics. But in all practical terms, I'm a hard determinist.
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#58
RE: Nihilism
(January 13, 2018 at 8:41 pm)emjay Wrote: My view on all this is that determinism is not the same thing as fatalism... that fatalism is a huge misunderstanding of determinism, confusing the notions of fate and destiny with causality. Say for instance I had won the lottery in the past... and it was thus part of the causally determined path of my life... then fatalism would be akin to me hypothetically being informed in the past that I was destined to win the lottery, and with that information concluding 'if I'm destined to win the lottery, I may as well not buy a ticket', which is just silly. 

Very well put. Hopefully Grandizer reads your post because he expressed some concerns about the insignificance of all actions in a deterministic universe. But, as you have shown, actions are just as significant in a determined universe as they are in a universe with free will.
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#59
RE: Nihilism
(January 13, 2018 at 1:27 am)vulcanlogician Wrote:
(January 12, 2018 at 11:49 pm)Hammy Wrote: My bold.

Regardless of metaphysics, there are times when we are confronted with two or more alternatives. When this happens, we take time to deliberate, and following this deliberation, make a selection. There is a name for this phenomenon: choosing.

Not at all regardless of metaphysics. According to the incompatabilist metaphysics the idea of actual 'alternatives' is illusory. You don't confront real alternatives, you simply don't know which future is guaranteed and which future was never going to happen.

Quote: Hard incompatibilists insist that any choice one way or the other is caused by antecedent states and events, but they acknowledge that a deliberation process still occurs--whether one is in control of it or not.

The point is that it's merely deliberating, it's thought processes, exactly like I said. It's not actually choosing anything. Actually choosing something would be freely choosing something.

When a compatabilist says to an incompatabilist "You're a compatabilist in everything but name!" it just goes to show how completely devoid of content compatabilism is. That isn't a win for compatabilism. That's a win for incompatabilism. Compatabilism is comparable to pantheism in terms of utter vapidness. Merely calling the will "free will" or unfree choices "choices" is exactly like calling the universe "God". It's an empty label, completely devoid of any actual content.

Quote:
plato.stanford Wrote:Determinism might imply that our choices and efforts have earlier sufficient causes; it does not imply that we don’t make choices or that our choices and efforts are causally impotent. Determinism is consistent with the fact that our deliberation, choices and efforts are part of the causal process whereby our bodies move and cause further effects in the world. And a cause is the kind of thing that “makes a difference” (Sartorio 2005). If I raise my hand because I chose to do so, then it’s true, ceteris paribus, that if my choice had not occurred, my hand-raising would not have occurred.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incom...llIncoDete

It does imply that we don't make choices and it does imply that our will isn't free. Unless you wanna go ahead and call a lack of choices "choices" and a lack of free will "free will" anyhow.

As I said, and you kudosed it and said "well said": The problem with fatalism is not that it suggests that we have any more or less choices than determinism. It doesn't. There are no choices in either case. The problem with fatalism is that it denies the fact that our actions are part of the causal stream. Obviously our actions are part of the causal stream... things don't happen regardless of what we do. That doesn't mean they are chosen freely/chosen (I'm still yet to see a way 'chosen unfreely' can make any sense. That's what I object to.). And the point is that ultimately our actions aren't up to us and it's not really 'us' doing it. Not ultimately. Ultimately it's impersonal causes ultimately entirely and absolutely causing our behaviors. It's not that we're not absolutely ultimately free, it's that we're ultimately not even relatively free.

(January 13, 2018 at 8:41 pm)emjay Wrote: My view on all this is that determinism is not the same thing as fatalism... that fatalism is a huge misunderstanding of determinism, confusing the notions of fate and destiny with causality. Say for instance I had won the lottery in the past... and it was thus part of the causally determined path of my life... then fatalism would be akin to me hypothetically being informed in the past that I was destined to win the lottery, and with that information concluding 'if I'm destined to win the lottery, I may as well not buy a ticket', which is just silly.

Agreed. The problem with fatalism is that it pretends like the future is determined regardless of our actions... which makes no sense because our actions are equally part of the universe. This doesn't make them any more free at all under determinism than under fatalism, that's my point. We're just as unfree as we would be if fatalism were true, it's merely that it's entirely irrational to believe that fatalism is true because if fatalism were true we'd live in a very bizarre universe where, for example hard work and effort would be absolutely pointless because all achievements would have absolutely nothing to do with our efforts.

Under determinism it's ultimately entirely not even one bit up to us whether we bother to not be lazy and start trying to work hard. We still have no choice in the matter as to whether we actually get shit done, but at least we understand that it would be irrational to believe that shit will get done regardless of if we put effort into stuff. Stuff WON'T get done regardless of if we try, but yes, we have absolutely no choice in the matter as to whether we will actually try or not. We'll try and put the effort in when we are motivated to do so/when we think it's worth it. We ultimately can't force ourselves to do anything, at all, because even whether we want to force ourselves is ultimately not down to us. Ultimately there is no self-motivation because the buck doesn't stop at the self... the buck never stops and it stretches back prior to the self.... and prior to our birth.
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#60
RE: Nihilism
(January 13, 2018 at 8:54 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:
(January 13, 2018 at 8:41 pm)emjay Wrote: My view on all this is that determinism is not the same thing as fatalism... that fatalism is a huge misunderstanding of determinism, confusing the notions of fate and destiny with causality. Say for instance I had won the lottery in the past... and it was thus part of the causally determined path of my life... then fatalism would be akin to me hypothetically being informed in the past that I was destined to win the lottery, and with that information concluding 'if I'm destined to win the lottery, I may as well not buy a ticket', which is just silly. 

Very well put. Hopefully Grandizer reads your post because he expressed some concerns about the insignificance of all actions in a deterministic universe. But, as you have shown, actions are just as significant in a determined universe as they are in a universe with free will.

No, that's not accurate regarding what I think, but I will only blame myself for the misunderstanding since I don't do words as well as people trained in academic philosophy do.

If we're talking just this one deterministic world (excluding other parallel worlds and quantum mechanics), then yes, our actions do matter. If we're talking deterministism in quantum context (parallel worlds per many worlds interpretation and assuming quantum), then no, our actions won't matter.

Indeterminism: clearly actions don't matter.

Anyhow, let me read emjay's post carefully now, and then I might get back to this after reading.
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