Aaron, this is not very persuasive. You probably don't intend it to be when you just baldly paint my considered reflections as "a lot of gibberish." I will once again counter your claims that my philosophizing and reasoning are pointless and forced and beyond my control by saying that it does not matter so much if I experience them otherwise, which I do, and if I can't access the levels of reality at which I might sense myself (or lose my self) unfolding deterministically.

I have met this objection before in the thread, and will repeat my reply. Daily human experience and our intuitive sense of the world are not in themselves a philosophical or scientific counter-argument. They might be incorporated into an actual argument, and you're welcome to do so in opposition to or as a point-by-point critique of the determinist and/or no-freedom pessimistic positions. Simply saying: "I don't feel determinism in my daily life" and nothing more is about as weak as saying: "I don't feel in my daily life the more esoteric pictures and models of reality entailed by quantum mechanics or atomic theory or electrostatic repulsion."

I'm not sure what you think your argument is.

Try restarting. State the argument to which you're responding. Then, offer your response.

I think that you may not understand that to which you're responding. I read and re-read your post and it makes no sense wrt the dialectic ITT.

How can I persuade you of anything? You've asserted a particular hypothesis: "Determinism is true." Then you go on to essentially deny that hypothesis by trying to make some affirmative claims about your ability to make "decisions" as if that has a meaningful interpretation UNDER YOUR HYPOTHESIS.

The ability to string a lot of words together does not mean you've actually made an argument for anything.

I think it's actually a very powerful philosophical argument. What would philosophy be without daily human experience? If we had no "daily human experience" what would we "philosophize" about?

Your call to the "scientific" is a red herring.

Over the course of this thread, between madnak, myself, smrk, and others, a philosophical argument that compellingly lays out a determinist (modulo QM) understanding of the universe has been put forth, with attendant challenges to the traditional and/or libertarian conception of free will. A complimentary challenge to free will has also come from Strawson's account (linked by smrk) of the no-freedom pessimistic argument.

Having processed, thought through, and evaluated the robustness and soundness of these positions, I (and others) then began to wonder about what happens to traditional, freedom-oriented concepts like responsibility, punishment, human effectuality, and so on.

My own direction at that point has been to suggest that we evidently experience what I'm stipulating (in light of determinism) is a powerful illusion of willfulness, agency, relative freedom, and effectiveness in everyday life.

The details of all of the above, including the latter-most part, are laid out in prior posts, obviously. What your grand objection to all of this is, I cannot tell, because you continue to speak in blunt and blanket dismissals, rather than point-by-point.

Can you really not imagine yourself on the other side of a comment like this when deciding to make it? It's essentially a terse and total rejection of the meaningfulness of anything I've said. Here I am in previous posts citing or paraphrasing specific statements you've made and thereby trying to engage with your remarks directly, and in return I find you summarily disqualifying entire posts of mine as mere strings of words that amount to nothing.

Do you not see you error here? Please attend carefully. You say you think that daily experience is a "very powerful argument." Then you ask what philosophy would be without it, and what we would philosophize about without it. In your very own account, you are equivocating about daily experience. You begin by calling it "an argument." Then you shift to saying that it is what we "philosophize about." Which is precisely my point. Daily experience by itself is not an argument; it can be the matter or subject of an argument; as you say, what we philosophize about.

See the first part of my reply to Aaron in the post above.

Suppose this 'meaninglessness' is granted. Why do we care? What are the implications of this 'meaninglessness'?

Seriously...you're putting WAY too much weight into Strawson...that was like 50yrs ago and no one buys his argument(s).

The idea being that there's a persistent intuition that there IS meaning...hence, a sort of reductio. But, of course, this is entirely consistent w/ determinism being true hence the charge of underdetermination.

I don't see what you're disagreeing about. Aaron, IIRC, isn't making the argument to which you're ascribing him. This strikes me as a straw man.

The concepts of responsibility, choice, etc. are gone...all that would be left is a persistent illusion.

... right. I (think I) see. Don't see why it matters, but whatever.

My conversation with Aaron began over this claim he made:

My replies have been about re-characterizing the status of scriptedness and the meaningfulness and viability of certain concepts in a manner distinct from his take on the issue, establishing my sense of the clash between philosophical determinism and daily experience, which leads me to speak of a powerful illusion, and him to incline towards dismissing determinism because it does not comport with his daily experience, and some other stuff in there that you gentlemen have exhausted me too much to spell out right now.

Appeal to popularity?

You could point him the direction of critiques... Oh wait, that was the point, right? Dude, google "criticism of strawson" is what Durka meant to say.

I wouldn't say that it's "compelling" in any way. I don't know where the force of that argument comes from unless it's by pure volume of text.

I don't deny that you can have your powerful illusion. What I'm saying is merely that you must accept that it's an illusion if you accept determinism, and that in this illusion you don't actually have the control that you illusorily believe that you do.

I don't go point by point because it's not relevant. That you want to chase a bunch of tangential arguments is not going to distract me.

That's how I would interpret it. And that's precisely what it is.

That's because the points you are making don't have anything to do with the position I'm taking. I'm repeatedly trying to tell you that determinism as a position has specific consequences. And no matter how much you are drawn into the illusion... it's still an illusion. It's not real "decision-making." It's not a real "punishment." It's just going through the motions that are being dictated to you. No volume of words about your illusion, no matter how robust of an illusion you manage to create, can change this. Indeed, the sense of the illusion itself was already prescribed.

Daily experience is both the argument and the thing we discuss. It is the argument in that it is the thing that compels people to believe certain things about the basic nature of the universe. It is also the act of living out the experiences.

If I did not have daily experiences of making decisions, I wouldn't have any reason to believe I had free will. And if I did not have daily experiences of making decisions, we would not be able to talk about the daily experiences of making decisions.

If the issue is underdetermined and a priori considerations don't seem sufficient to settle the matter then who cares why he rejects determinism (if he does)? I reject it too but don't pretend that there are reasons.

I actually still think that you're arguing against a straw man. I don't think that he's dismissing determinism. He's working with what I've been saying that IFFFFFFF determinism is true, then x is a meaningless question. That's not him rejecting determinism.

lag...I think that you're missing a lot of the 'if' statements in Aaron's posts...that IF you accept determinism, then x follows...you seem to be mistaking him for saying that 'x is meaningless' without noticing the 'if determinism is true' part.

Durka, I've definitely been aware that Aaron and I are delineating our distinct positions on various matters if we grant determinism, and not otherwise.

Also, not that it matters particularly, but you said in your previous post that you don't think he's dismissing determinism. But I have noted a few moments in his replies where he has said things like 'your toy model of the universe [i.e. determinism] has no value for me' and 'it does not reflect the universe.'

In any case, that's not really central to the conversation as far as I can see, which is about what accepting determinism entails.

I do reject determinism, and I reject it on the basis of experience. It's not going to win any debates with anyone other than myself, but this doesn't matter to me. In the same way, I don't think I can argue a determinist out of believing determinism is true. I just can't conceive of how such an argument can even be constructed (in either direction).

It's just something that's fundamental to how I understand what I'm doing in this crazy universe that I somehow find myself in. So I'm going with it.

I see. But can we be careful about our language and concepts here? I mean, it seems that you're granting that my views are in some sense tenable. You're just wanting to point out their unreality and non-actuality. And in turn, I want to point out that your concerns about the illusion kind of melt away. It almost becomes a semantical quibble for you to mention that I don't actually have the control I illusorily believe I do. For I cannot help experiencing feelings of control, no matter what philosophy reasons is the ultimate, material state of things.

I get what you're saying, but feel you've completely misplaced the emphasis. If the illusion is deep enough, to what extent should it still be considered an illusion? Well, philosophical determinism classes it as such. Fine. But as I've tried to suggest in earlier replies, if the illusion is powerful enough, it does not have to matter hugely, outside of discussions about determinism, that it is forced upon us and our lives are dictated below it. If the illusion is robust enough, then is it not a kind of secondary or simulated reality in which we can enjoy (or are forced to experience, to speak philosophically) sensations of relative freedom, human effectuality, and so on?

Anyway, I'm beginning to suspect that our back-and-forth, after communicative difficulties have been eroded, will turn out to revolve around a difference in how we respectively characterize and think about the nature and status of the powerful illusion I've stipulated exists under determinism. If so, I'm not sure how much further value there is down that avenue.

Not really. I don't know whether you've made a sufficiently robust illusion for yourself in which illusory you can experience illusory decisions and have illusory will to do these illusory things. And I don't know whether this makes illusory sense or is illusory consistent. It's not clear to me that such a thing is illusorily possible. My main point has always been...

...

I don't know why you think that this "melts away" the concerns.

The fact that you have to acknowledge that it is an illusion is pretty good reason that it should be considered an illusion.

This is the sort of thing I have been labeling as gibberish. You have no power over your illusion. No "secondary" or "simulated reality" is something that you have any ability to influence because it's all determined.

The gap between our positions is much greater than you seem to believe, but it may also be true that there's nothing more to discuss between us.

You think it's "gibberish" to conceive of a universe in which causally determined and complex structures (call them human beings) are made to have an experience of reality in which they experience themselves as self-directed, effectual, and relatively free -- even while ultimately, in a manner they cannot sense, their progression is scripted and they're simply along for the ride? Where is the incoherence in such a scheme, from a logical and semantic point of view, leaving aside its truthfulness?

The incoherence is that you keep wanting to claim that your illusion should be viewed as not an illusion. It's a logical incoherence based on the supposition (determinism is true) and the conclusion (it makes sense if I don't call it an illusion).

If determinism is true, then all of your experiences of things that suggest determinism is false is an illusion. Even if you pretend it's not an illusion, it's an illusion. Even if you construct a robust illusion of freedom, it's still an illusion. No matter how many words you throw at it, it's still going to be an illusion. You cannot escape that it's an illusion.

I don't know why you can't get past this point. It's an all illusion if determinism is true. Anything you have to say about your illusion is determined. Anything you experience within your illusion is determined. There is no illusory freedom because that experience of illusory freedom was determined.

Grunching from this post but you are equating determinism with fatalism, no? I don't think they are the same thing.

Dennett sure doesn't but I think he's wrong. Determinism = fatalism imo.

Yeah, and what I'm trying to get at is that within the determinist system there are still "corrections" to undesirable outcomes. So this and that undesirable outcome causes society or individuals to do something else. They don't choose it in any libertarian sense, however. Like evolution.

Tell me what you think fatalism is and show me how it does not follow from the definition of determinism ITT.

Edit: Or the other way around... tell me what you think fatalism is and show me how determinism as defined ITT does not follow from fatalism.