You flat out have no idea what you're talking about. You're just spouting gibberish. You know nothing of possible worlds semantical systems.

I'm not trying to impress you. I've already given up on you. You don't understand the meaning of the words that you're using and you're contradicting yourself left and right. If you tried to bring your arguments into a graduate class, you'd get slaughtered.

Why don't you explain what you mean? Probably be more productive.

Thanks for the feedback. That was my first ever attempt at a philosophical proof so it obviously needs some work. While I think about trying to refine it, I'd like to see your syllogistic proof that morality is possible under determinism, for some useful definition of morality.

Going what far? I find this post to be rather insulting. I haven't gone "far" at all.

The post I responded to gave the impression one were talking about observed brain reactions and the wiki article failed to mention the assumed nature of the neural nets.

Would you have responded in this way if I had been an engineer who pointed out that the "blue gassplitter" used to explain acceleration in a motorbike was hypothetical? I doubt it.

...I have.

The set of possible worlds cannot be empty and there must be an appropriate R relation between members of a non-empty set of possible worlds.

In a fully deterministic system either: the set of possible worlds is empty OR there is no appropriate R relation between any of them that allows accessibility (all possible worlds are "impossible" possible worlds inaccessible to our actual world).

That's why.

That's all lovely stuff, but it doesn't negate possible worlds as a concept in a determined universe, from an incomplete information perspective. It really doesn't matter if the coin was determined from the beginning of the universe to come up heads - we don't know that, and we can still bet on it. We can say 'If it comes up heads, I'll do X, if tails, I'll do Y.' That the outcome was determined in advance has no bearing. Which is why I say that point is at best trivial and at worst entirely irrelevant.

Any more about beauty? Make it specific to things tasting nice, if you can - I think that best illustrates the absurdity of the statement (I could well be wrong, but it does seem really ridiculous).

Actually, it DOES negate that. Geebus.

Apperently not your graduate class. You repeat the same argument over and over despite being refuted by every random person that happens to read it.

Instead of explaining yourself, you just lash out. I've never used the word agent. I've never misused the word act. I've shown possible world semantics do exist in a deterministic system. I've laid out the groundwork for the new "morality" of status crimes. Nothing you've said since then has attacked my position in any new way. Until you realize you are wrong in the ways madnak all-in and I have shown there's really nothing else we can say to you.

oh my god...you really are just thick aren't you.

We can imagine other worlds. Period. This argument is over. You are wrong. People do it. Determinism does not shut down part of the imagination.

Some of them? I'm a utilitarian, not a Stoic. I think the idea that free will determines action, rather than preferences, life events, temperament, thought processes, etc, is highly destructive in the same sense that the attribution of disease to demon possession was highly destructive.

I can see some potential ambiguity to the word 'possible' that might explain why we can't get on the same page here.

When you say "all possible worlds are 'impossible' possible worlds inaccessible to our actual world" I think that touches on it. So let's distinguish between 'possible' as in 'conceivable' and 'possible' as in 'attainable'.

In a F.D.U. there exists no attainable state of affairs alternative to the extant. We are nonetheless capable of conceiving of such states. And in situations where we have incomplete information (ie, in pretty much all non-hypothethical situations), we can posit various states of affairs.

I don't see any way you can disagree with any of that so far. Where this comes into its own is in relation to future events. Though future states are entirely determined by present states, our imperfect knowledge of present states allows (in fact, forces) us to posit conceivable future states - n.b., states plural. The coin-flip example I gave earlier illustrates this.

So there you go; in the context of incomplete information our ability to conceive of different states of affairs is unaffected.

Still waiting to hear back about beauty, too.

LOL, you yourself have already discussed the "illusion" of something and recognized the distinction between doing x and appearing as if one is doing x.

Just because you can 'say' that we imagine possible worlds doesn't show that there is meaningful content there.

edit: I have not once claimed that the loss of possible worlds semantics means that it is not possible for one to IMAGINE other possible worlds. The ability to CONCEIVE of another possible world is not sufficient for there to be semantic content to the conception. I have argued that in a deterministic system, such content is lost. Don't confuse what's going on, because you both are.

What do you mean by 'meaningful content' and 'semantic content'? What is 'meaningless content'? 'Semantic vacuum'? Seriously, please elaborate.

Not gonna stop bothering you about the beauty thing, either. I'd just really like to know what you meant by that.

Semantic = meaning.

"This is a false sentence."

That sentence has no meaning (called the 'liar's paradox'). If no possible worlds are accessible (no appropriate R relation) or the set of possible worlds is empty, then any counterfactual is meaningless even though you can make a grammatically correct (syntactically correct) utterance, it would have no meaningful content.

You don't need "attainable"...you need logically accessible with an appropriate R relation.

I don't see what you're bugging me about beauty for...I've already explained that you can't have value in a deterministic system. Beauty is 'value'.

That's all? Then I say again, at best trivial, at worst irrelevant.

I give. What is an "R relation"?

So... people will think that things taste nice... and they'll behave exactly as though things taste nice... but they won't really taste nice?

What can I say...it's extremely important but you're not getting why.

It's very far from trivial and definitely not irrelevant. A determinist 'could' swallow this bullet, but it'd be an extremely big one that no determinist I've ever come across in literature or IRL would be willing to give up.

...

Durkadurka has officially lost status as a contender, and is now moved to...I've wasted my grad school on an idea which makes no sense. Nothing he says should be taken seriously. I'm sorry the world you've observed is a poor representation at best. Gl with your future endeavors.

The whole situation becomes much more clear if we just remove agent from the scenario. "Agent" as Durkadurka has shown us, is much more convoluted a term than we need to understand the process. Let us just say that a gear in a machine is necessary for the determined outcome. It is necessary that Jack walk up the hill with Jill for both to be coming tumbling down. He is a critical part of the causal chain. His motivating factors may or may not include possible world semantics (he imagined fetching pales with and without Jill and decided to F*ck at the top of the hill was preferable and acted in such a way [as a rock acts] to bring about such a state of affairs).

Umm, okay? This isn't only my position. I think that you're just unable to engage the arguments anymore. You're not well read on the topic; you haven't come across the various ins and outs of the debate, so you're uncomfortable when confronted with a serious problem to your position. You think that it's "my" objection, but most of these are fairly standard responses. It's why hard determinism is basically as bad as logical positivism in terms of popularity: nearly everyone who believes in rejecting libertarian free will is a compatibilist (but you suggest that you're not). The problem is that you use words that compatibilists use, but hard determinists reject. You think that I'm lashing out...but it's really the other way around. I'm sorry that I can't write a book for you on the topic to bring you up to speed (because you're way behind, here). You need to do a lot of reading to help fill out your position, because you're clearly not familiar with very obvious and damaging objections to your position.

The more I read your posts the more that I'm convinced that you're not a hard determinist. You're a compatibilist. But, THIS post suggests that you're actually an agent causationist (who view themselves as a branch of libertarianism...oops?).

Your position is incoherent, sir. You're mixing in parts that don't cohere with your purported position.

So, you still think that you're not using "act" as in "act so as to bring about the outcome"??

Just sayin'.

As a rock brings about squished ground underneath it (as a part of a causal chain). You really have no point and no absolution. No choice. Tho there is intent!

I wish you were more open minded sir. And I wish your "obvious objections" were more obvious to everyone else here... or more sensible to me so that an intelligible conversation could be had. +insert canada philosophy joke here+

The reason others aren't finding the 'obvious' objections as 'obvious' is because they don't know the subject material.

But, back to the topic: what distinguishes the person from the rock such that the rock doesn't have intent, but the person does?