Determinists Piss Me Off.

Bradylama

Bradylama

So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Who the fuck cares?

Blaming all of the world's events on moving particles is no way to think or live. And what if Determinists are right? So what?

Determinism amounts to an excuse to alleviate responsibilty by blaming physics. I don't blame particles or extraneous circumstances for being late to class, I blame me, because I lacked the willpower to wake my fatass up.

Determinism sucks, and anybody that tries to apply it to philosophical or ethical thought deserves a swift kick to the nuts for being so Goddamn stupid.
 
Bradylama said:
Determinism sucks, and anybody that tries to apply it to philosophical or ethical thought deserves a swift kick to the nuts for being so Goddamn stupid.
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There's no need for that. The floating particles of the universe have their way of punishing those with redicilous beliefs.
 
Its not that Determinism is wrong, or particularly rediculous. Its just that calling oneself a Determinist is stupid. What good does it do you?

Until we (if we ever) have the ability to predict the movement of particles and their affects on other particles Determinism is purely depressing. The only way you can apply it to the real world is by blaming all your shortcomings on extraneous circumstances.

Determinism is interesting stuff, but for now that's all it is. Interesting stuff.
 
Bradylama said:
Determinism amounts to an excuse to alleviate responsibilty by blaming physics.
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I think you're confusing physics with morals. I for instance believe that there is no free will as people usually think of it, but I wouldn't dream of concluding that there is no subjective responsibility or need for social structures.
 
I wasn't making the assumption, Per, that you did do such a thing. But there are plenty of people that are attempting to apply Determinism to philosophy.
 
You mean like, "It was determined I was going to slap you with a fish so there's no use complaining about it?" That is indeed stupid. Though I doubt a significant number of people really believe in that. If they've thought it through. On second thought, a startling number of people are philosophically ignorant, so you may be right.

I assume we're not talking about the "old" determinism but the one updated to include quantum mechanics, but which is not all that different since you can lump absolute chance and strict causality together under the heading "causes beyond our ability to influence".
 
Heh. Actually Determinism is (as usual in philosophy) not an answer but another question.

Those who conclude that we can't fight our "fates" are plain stupid. Even if we can't influence our future decisions we still have an illusion of free will and that's pretty much the only sane way to deal with everyday life.

I'm a determinist, but that doesn't mean I have to convince people they should believe in determinism too, probably I'm not "determined" to do so and probably they are not "determined" to believe me anyway.
If we were able of making everyone believe in determinism by heart and forget the illusion of free will, we'd all probably go insane and drop all moral and ethical restrictions we have and that would not be very desirable.

I doubt anyone will ever be able to convince himself of determinism and drop the idea of free will and LIVE because it's simply too depressing.

Determinism shouldn't be used to justify our actions and events, it can only be used as a semi-scientific explanation for chains of events.
Crimes can't be justified with determinism, because sentences aren't there to punish criminals but affect them in a way that they will not do the same thing again (even if in extreme cases the only way to prevent further deviations is lifetime imprisonment or death).

It's not very human-like to explain things with determinism tho, but we have the habit of believing in irrational things and if that's how it has to be in order to prevent mankind from going kaboom, then so be it.

Determinism isn't a theory we will be able to prove or disprove within the next couple of decades and other, higher-level sciences tend to work better in most cases.

Trying to explain human behavior via physics would be like explaining a natural language script with electronics. It may be useful for debugging, but it's hardly reasonable for everyday use.

Einstein's words "Everything is relative" could easily be seen as a claim about determinism, yet Einstein became more religious the older he got. Rational? Maybe not, but sometimes the lowest level explanations can get too frustrating and high level approaches become more rewarding.

What freak would look at the polarisation of a harddrive in order to understand the workings of an OS anyway?
 
You mean the determinism that goes 'It was meant to be, I can't change it. So don't blame me, blame the system.'

My response tends to be 'Okay, but the system is forcing me to blame you. See, I can't help it, and in fact all your words can't help it either because it's the system.'

*shrugs* Whether or not they're right is completely irrelevant because their actions still have the exact same consequences whether or not they were predetermined or not.
 
Oh, yeah. I forgot about the whiny goths who "learn" about Determinism and begin to use it as justification for everything.

Boo-hoo-fucking-hoo. Determinism will kill you anyway.
 
Then again, what pisses me off slightly is people who go 'That's not desirable because then we'd lose our ethics.'
Yeah? So? Your point being...what? Ethics are supposed to have some kind of basis somewhere that makes them true, otherwise they are largely useless, because then why would 'eye-for-an-eye' be any worse than punishment to reform?
 
Especially when ethics are also relative to the individual or group of individuals, which happens to be the case in the Real World (tm).

Part of the reason brute-forcing a country into a different culture results in violent resistance.
 
Well, determinism itself doesn't bother me - determinism frightens me, because it is concievably correct. What bothers me are people who don't really understand the physical concept of determinism and its implications, yet constantly blabber about it because they think it makes them sound incredibly smart and hip.
 
Determinism is hip? I thought Skepticism was hip.

Fuck. I've become mainstream.
 
Sander said:
Then again, what pisses me off slightly is people who go 'That's not desirable because then we'd lose our ethics.'
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Exactly. Or as a dead writer put it: "If God is dead, everything is permissible." The implied premise being that only Christians can have morals.

Ratty said:
Well, determinism itself doesn't bother me - determinism frightens me, because it is concievably correct.
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Whyever should it? It is metaphysically impossible to find out whether you have "free will" or not, so why should it bother/frighten you either way?

This actually reminds me of a philosophical discussion I had in another forum. I said I don't believe in souls (in the traditional sense). A Christian said that if we don't have souls, life is meaningless. So I asked her: "If you were to die and come before God, and he said: 'Sorry, you don't have a soul, never had', would you then think that your life retroactively had become empty and worthless?"

She said, "Yes."

I don't know if that technically counts as winning a debate, but I felt there was little more I could do after that.
 
"If God is dead, everything is permissible."
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Actually, Dostoevsky may not have even said that, according to this.
This actually reminds me of a philosophical discussion I had in another forum. I said I don't believe in souls (in the traditional sense). A Christian said that if we don't have souls, life is meaningless. So I asked her: "If you were to die and come before God, and he said: 'Sorry, you don't have a soul, never had', would you then think that your life retroactively had become empty and worthless?"

She said, "Yes."
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*blinks*
Whoa. That's completely weird.
Meh, belief is odd, but it's the only way to actually found your ethics and life on, well, anything. Ah well.
 
Per said:
Whyever should it? It is metaphysically impossible to find out whether you have "free will" or not, so why should it bother/frighten you either way?
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There's something disturbing about the idea of living in a timeless universe where every action you decide to perform has already happened. But unless I'm stoned or depressed for some reason, I just don't think about the universe that way, because it's foolish and useless.
 
Heh. I'd say you're teh win.

I don't think souls in the traditional Christian sense make much sense because if you apply it to evolution either every single cell and thus every atom (and everything below that) has a soul (I think some Asian theories go like that -- the word "Gaia" pops up in my mind, but that might be from crappy anime) or we suddenly "evolved" souls at some point, but then the important question is "when" because we can't prove much of a difference between us and most mammals (or most animals, in general) that could be explained with the existence of a soul.

I think limited speciecism is the only way to deal with the problem, but that's another story.
 
If i understand the idea of determinism right, it is all about the decisions we make are all made by the body long before the "I" makes them, which would mean that the "I" is an illusion.
However I know i exist, I know I make decisions.
Or do I?
Maybe I am just a republic of small slimy lifeforms.
I get headache from this,
I will have to think about this.

sincerely
the cumulative of Turnip
 
Determinism means that there is no decision, there's only reactions.

I don't know what the official answer to the "I" problem is and I have not yet found a solution to that on my own.
That it's just an observer makes sense, but it still doesn't explain how it can exist and what it is because it's apparently just a high-level entity that somehow exists.

Thinking about that gives me headaches and I already have enough diseases right now and don't need another one, so I'll stop here.
 
However I know i exist, I know I make decisions.
Or do I?
Maybe I am just a republic of small slimy lifeforms.
I get headache from this,
I will have to think about this.
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Then think about this: you only think you know you exist, because you deduced that with your logic. But how do you know your logic is correct at all? You can't ever deduce that, you need to start somewhere.
Basically it's impossible to ever know anything, and this goes especially for philosophical matters, basically rendering everything completely useless.
 
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