“The Rigor of Angels” ended up disappointing me

Another essay based on the false premise that the world’s physicists and philosophers agree with hard determinism. There is no “massive evidence for determinism.” If there were, then physicists and philosophers would in the majority say so. But they do not.
That’s partly because, at this point in our knowledge, it’s literally impossible to have evidence for or against determinism, since determinism is a metaphysical belief.
it’s nothing less than ludicrous to complain that the world’s leading scientists are dim or prejudiced because they don’t accept your metaphysical beliefs as facts. Time to consider that perhaps it’s you who is the one clinging to an unfounded and unproven belief.

Sant64, your comment is so obviously wrong I thought about just laughing at it and moving on to something real in life. But since I enjoy demolishing absurdity on this blog, hey, it’s a pleasure to demolish your comment after laughing at it.
Every science is based on determinism. No determinism, no science. Physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, psychology — every science, and every reputable scientist in these fields, accepts that there are laws of nature, regularities between causes and effects, you know, DETERMINISM.
An elementary school student knows this. Sadly, you don’t. So it’s my duty to educate you. No charge. Bringing truth to religious believers is my joy and my calling. Determinism has made me feel this way, so all praise to determinism.
Even in the quantum realm, the Schrödinger equation that governs wave functions evolves deterministically, I’m quite sure. That equation results in probabilities for quantum particles, but probabilities aren’t a free for all, they’re statistical entities. As in 70% chance of a radioactive substance emitting a particle under these conditions, a 30% chance that it doesn’t.
So I await your revelation that most physicists don’t accept determinism. I know you can’t come up with this, so with much more confidence I await your admission that you are wrong. Oh, except religious believers like you rarely admit that you’re wrong, so my waiting probably will be lengthy.

Hi Brian:
You quoted from Eggington points I have been making for some time, so it is no surprise you disagree with them.
He wrote:
“The trouble comes when we take our common and perfectly acceptable image of reality as an independent space-time in which things are happening in blissful disregard of our knowledge and start applying it where it doesn’t belong: below the limits of what science today can observe, or beyond the very borders of existence itself; between the links of the mechanistic causal chain enabling a human action; or to the very sense of self underlying that action.
“When we do so, we sacrifice the core of what has made the scientific method so extraordinarily successful: its profound humility; its awareness that our knowledge is always subject to revision; to improvement.
“Moreover, when we do this, we err profoundly about human agency and freedom, either erasing it along with all responsibility in a vain attempt to understand humans “scientifically” or projecting at the core of all decisions a purely rational agent, utterly transparent to itself as it navigates life’s choices.
“As we steer a course through the river of our lives, we are affected by innumerable forces, the vast majority unknown to us. By some accounts this makes of our freedom an illusion, for how can we purport to freely choose when we can’t even see a fraction of the legion of influences acting on us, limiting our movements, sparking our appetites?
“The threat this picture poses to traditional notions of agency suggests a counternarrative. There must be some part of us that floats above the river, untouched by its waters and therefore utterly free and totally responsible for our every turn. But both these pictures are misleading, and for the same reason.
“Our freedom, and hence our responsibility for the choices we make, is neither a thing to look for in our material existence nor some ghostlike essence unmoored from that existence. Rather, it is a necessary postulate for a being who can imagine having chosen differently, the condition of the possibility of conceiving of that life as one possible path among many.”
Egginton’s writing here is eloquent and valid, if you consider it point by point, Brian. I fear you have missed his points, and broadbrushed his arguments by continuing to claim our current body of scientific knowledge is complete and closed, such that you can generalize its findings to all of the unknown.
But that is actually unscientific.
Your argument is that all the science there is reinforces the argument for absolute determinism.
But key spokespeople for science, such as Neil DeGrasse Tyson and others, point out, in all humility, that science has only studied in depth about 5% of the reality we are aware of.
You discount the unknown as nonexistent or inconsequential, and proceed to make statements about it.
You may continue to double down on it if you like, but no practicing scientist would agree.
Reality is not a closed system. Every hundred years or so deeper scientific investigation has unveiled facts that alter our understanding substantially. Gravity and time are not absolute. They are relative. And we still don’t know exactly what gravity is, only its effect. What connects huge bodies in space millions of miles apart? We know how it works to a scientific degree, but not the mechanisms. No actual particle or form of energy has ever been revealed as “gravity”. So, while it appears that gravity is the mechanism that turns potential energy into force and movement, it operates entirely invisibly with no connectivity at all.
We know how mass and the movement of time are related. We can calculate their relationship mathematically to any decimal places of accuracy you like. But we still don’t know how exactly, and through what other forces, one static moment becomes the next. We only know that we can only experience in short term memory a combination of those recent moments, and in measurement something close to, but not precisely, a single identifiable moment.
Newton famously claimed, when asked about these things, “I frame no hypothesis.”
And while we understand much more today than he did, in part because scientific investigation has provided a broader and deeper view of information, there are still many, many fundamental things science has not discovered.
The argument for determinism is just common sense, right? That one event is always caused by precedent events. Scientific investigation works on that basis. But that is only one of the foundational premises of science. Clearly the one you like.
You see determinism as a rational and universal fact so far as we stick to the reality where time proceeds in a regular, absolute pace (relative to the mass we happen to be living on).
But unfortunately, science has another premesis you don’t like. Investigation is always going to lead to new knowledge, and historically that turns out to be entirely different and new: things no one could have presupposed. Scientists do theorize and then they test, and sometimes those theories prove to be true. But deeper investigation reveals other mechanisms at work, many that confound the ones we thought were universal.
Here is one such potential. Determinism works insofar as we know. But perhaps it relies upon a substructure that is very subtle and functions entirely outside of our local pace of time, maybe outside of the pace of time of this universe. And, like Chaos theory attempts to prove, the forces there don’t work in a linear fashion, and because they aren’t known, they can affect things in ways that are not only unpredictable, but even unknowable within what can ever be measured as physical reality.
Subatomic research, and some astrophysical research, demonstrates that using that information to make linear projections has proven woefully in error. And that is because other factors are also involved, but even more, that at some levels of reality cause and effect don’t work that way. They can work in reverse, to the extent, retrospectively, we can investigate them.
Yes, we are all products of reality, but that reality can be very subtle. Perhaps what is free will, as Egginton suggests, is really an awareness of options, and some ability to make a different choice than we had.
Catastrophe theory, as you and I both have reviewed in some detail here, points out that because other factors exist we don’t know yet, events can happen that cannot be predicted, even IF (note the emphasis on IF) those other factors are also directly causal. That is because of the interaction of complex systems. An extension of the three body problem.
But what you have failed to understand from Catastrophe theory is that it is only a theory in explaining in general terms what we don’t actually know yet. It’s like God, Soul and Life After Death…labels for the unknown we don’t actually know anything about. They are real insofar as they help explain real experiences with some verity. But of themselves they are without any scientific evidence. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist. It just means we can’t understand them well at all. What we think the cause is may be something entirely different. But that understanding also extends to how we understand science. It was never meant to be used to draw conclusive statements about all space, time and physical reality. This is the error you have made your home in.
The statement that cause and effect are working in areas we don’t yet understand is not scientifically founded. It may well be that they do function as cause and effect, just in ways we can’t know. But to claim it must be so is really circular. Who knows? It is the very fact that some things can’t be predicted, that they are not amenable to testing. To draw conclusions about what you cannot test is dogma, not science.
And this returns to my earlier point, that Absolute determinism is just a circular argument that you can use to explain anything, without actually proving anything.
So Egginton’s conclusion that there might be something else there is really just a statement that we can’t assume a closed system. All science proves over and over again that fact.
You and I view this fact differently.
You view it materialistically: ‘When science proves something new, then I’ll believe it.’
I view it scientifically: “Stuff is out there that is already fact, we just don’t know it yet, and those forces may be underpinning what we do know. Cause and Effect could just turn out to be a very local phenomenon based on a completely different scale of time and space, and possibly outside of both.”
Your argument might be “That’s conjecture”.
But my response is that ANY presumptions about the unknown, are conjecture.
And your functional definition of the unknown as “nonexistent” has already been proven wrong time and again by science.
So, you can’t prove there is free will. But you cannot conclusively prove it doesn’t exist.
Egginton acknowledges this sad state called “the unknown” that prevents us from concluding we live in a closed system.
But it isn’t stopping you and other materialists, rationalists from making that conclusion.
However, that conclusion is a luxury no practicing scientist can afford. Reality, for those who are professionals at studying it, humbles us all the time.
Does free will exist? It may. We don’t know enough, scientifically, to draw a conclusion.’s
You might be “Free” of the influences around you, of the conditioning of your past. People gain that freedom all the time, through great personal effort. You may claim that is just new conditioning, but that argument, again, is circular.
Brian, once you have an argument you feel can be applied universally and cannot actually be disproven, it’s circular. There is no basis for independent verification. Free will can only exist then, as simply will controlled by different forces we don’t know anything about yet. Relatively speaking it’s “free”…and we see that all the time.
What we do know is that statements about the unknown typically turn out to be terribly wrong, either by labeling it Free Will, Soul and God, or labeling it “Nothing”.
Why label it? Let’s just enjoy studying it, learning at our granular pace.

Here Brian, let me demonstrate how time can actually work in apparent reverse, while adhering to absolute determinism…But a determinism that functions at different paces depending upon where it operates, and yet, can affect all places.
We have two people on one world. One gets into a rocketship and travels near the speed of light then returns. This is an old story but one which should be thoughtfully reviewed. The friend on earth starts a foundation and the rocketship traveler becomes famous. In time, over centuries, people on the planet develop the ability to translate items into energy and reconstruct it at distance anywhere in the galaxy.
The one on the rocketship starts seeing tech appearing on their spaceship just moments after they have left, apparently, from the future of their own civilization. One day they find a note that says “use this to help you out”.
They claim “What mysterious forces created all this new technology? Nothing in my past supports it! I’ve only been gone for a few weeks! This must have come from the future!…This must all be some strange magic…Or I am hallucinating?”
Relative to the rocket traveler, all this could not have happened, even by cause and effect. When they return to their planet they realize that all this tech was created, relative to the planet, centuries ago. These outcomes happened long ago, centuries ago. But for the traveler those events what would have been a far distant future that created their recent past and present.
But it was all cause and effect, just in a different timeframe. It’s the same universe, same physical reality, but the traveler is moving in their own time/space bubble at a different pace.
Trying to conclude that absolute linear cause and effect must explain all events from within their tiny time bubble makes no sense at all. Relative to their bubble cause and effect have been broken and don’t work that way. They appear to be working backwards.
They would be right to conclude “I can’t assume cause and effect did this, at least within my timeline. It must be from a different timeline that now I have returned to.”
They were handed new options that nothing in their own past conditioning and technology would have predicted. Something entirely outside their current reality intervened. So absolute determinism, within their reality, is untrue.
You can say absolutely that determinism functions in both ways. But from a scientific perspective, events happened that could not be explained within the time pace and measurable physical space of the rocketship or its immediate surroundings. For our traveler, absolute determinism, applied locally, isn’t actually true and doesn’t function absolutely….and that would be correct. From a local perspective, the far distant future (from another timeframe) reached back into the past (traveler’s timeframe) and changed it.
What does this make of no free will? It’s relative. We operate in a bubble, but things outside that bubble can intervene, and in fact, things outside the bubble are the actual foundation of reality.
What does this do to common, materialist views of determinism?
Renders them false and irrelevant locally when used to project all events.
What does this do to free will? It exists within our tiny bubble. But that is because it is determined outside the bubble we happen to be aware of. Outside that bubble, yes, you can say we are all direct products of reality. Within our tiny bubble we have free will to make any choices we become aware of. When you see a 3d printer from the future appear on your desk, a machine that can create what you imagine in physical reality, use it. Exercise your free will to do something new entirely outside your past.

Spence, if your best argument against determinism is that Einstein’s theory of relativity shows that the experience of time is different for people who are traveling at near light speed or stationary on Earth is very weak. What’s you’ve said has been well known for over a hundred years.
Relativity theory is deterministic. It is based on causes and effects. It is expressed through precise equations. It’s been shown to be true through many experiments. So this proves my point that determinism holds sway in the universe. Once again. But I’m sure you’ll keep trying to validate your religious views through misleading comments. That’s just what circumstances have determined that you do.

Brian, every theory is deterministic.
That’s why your argument for it is at best circular, and at worst, of zero utility.
It explains nothing because it is used to explain everything.
Free will might just be the product of a very deterministic environment that has engineered free will into us, to some degree.
To say that is logically impossible is actually to create a circular case that has zero weight.
Your effort to connect free will and determinism is a very old and long-disproven argument.
The two are, actually, unrelated.
When you have a testable hypothesis, you have something.
Otherwise, you just have another dogma, attempting to coopt science for its own agenda.

Here is another proof for you Brian:
If the definition of free will is:
the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one’s own discretion.
Oxford Dictionary
Free will is the notional capacity or ability to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Wikipedia
What is necessary to act unimpeded?
Any forces that counter each other leave the object of those forces in relative freedom.
All that is necessary for determinism to create free will is to cancel out all other forces.
Then you have free will.
Just exactly what happens in the process of meditation. All the forces impinging on your thinking are cancelled out, little by little.
You may choose to do nothing but enjoy it. You may choose to do something…but when those forces are zero, whether from the past, present or relative future, a state that can be created as the result of deterministic forces, you are left to do as you like with zero force upon you. You are left with nothing but free will.
This is why determinism and free will are entirely unrelated concepts. One doesn’t negate the other at all.

More money, more free will!

…and then what happens? You spend it all on bling and blang and wind up broker than you started. Every damn time!
Am I right? Determinism.

That’s actually an interesting question, and a squarely a matter fisvprobablybqs science: Does the randomness in QM refer merely to indeterminacy; or does it refer to true randomness?
Part of it is indeterminacy, sure. But it was my understanding that true randomness also is part of QM.
Now if true randomness obtains, then obviously determinism per se is impossible. (True randomness would imply an actual fracture in causality per se, albeit in a …well, haphazard random manner.). Which is why, while in general I agree with determinism, but whenever I remember to, when speaking of determinism, I tend to tag a short qualification (“bar quantum randomness”) along with it.
But I’m no physicist! And just now, while thinking over this, on reading Brian’s main blog post and peoples comments, I realized I don’t actually know this: Does “quantum randomness” refer merely to indeterminacy, or to true randomness?
That’s a pretty fundamental question, and the answer to it pretty much essential to agreeing or disagreeing with strict determinism. Brian, are you by any chance aware of this, have you come across a clear answer to this in the course of your reading? If you have, it would be great if you could talk about it.

Whooff, weird typos, sorry! Traveling, and fat-fingering away on my phone, is why.

AR,
Noodle this!
“A quantum Universe might, in fact, be more deterministic than a classical one”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-04024-z

Appreciative Reader, there’s seemingly no doubt that the Schrödinger wave function that governs quantum mechanics is deterministic. How to interpret the probabilities that arise from that function is a different question. Here’s some links on that subject.
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/400162/what-exactly-is-deterministic-in-schrödingers-equation#:~:text=The%20evolution%20of%20the%20wave,%7CΨ(t)⟩.
https://sufficientlywise.org/2018/03/15/determinism-and-quantum-mechanics/
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Schrödinger-equation-deterministic

Hi Appreciative:
You asked
“Does the randomness in QM refer merely to indeterminacy; or does it refer to true randomness?”
Nothing measurable is random. The indeterminism is a non-linear factor that arises in the distance between measurement and function.
Whatever you can discuss and identify and measure is not in perfect isolation. Other forces that cannot be measured yet are acting also. Therefore while you shoot your gun in a straight line, the projectile never hits the target perfectly due to things you can’t account for…the exact wind, the exact weight of the bullet, the exact amount of powder, and other forces you may not be aware of.
So, you get a probability. If x then Y 100% of the time, but in the natural world, where other variables are functioning, if you get 95% or 99% you can say your gun caused the bullet to land where it did.
The entire experiment presumes your gun fire comes first, and the measurement of the impact second, and if those two things are recorded, the assumption is that the gunfire is the cause. And that can be replicated many times, even within the same experiment. The “n” or number of independently measured instances of the test can be increased thus reducing the relative average variance (or standard deviation) from the target (because you will never hit it exactly due to the other variables that were outside of your measurement).
In each experiment the presumption of cause and effect in time is a critical factor to determining “cause”…Everything has its cause. And in every experiment, a threshold of indeterminate variation is a necessity to prove you have “statistically significant results” .
The assumption of causality over time, and variation that cannot be explained is part and parcel of every scientific experiment and scientific measurement.
Both.
So you can say that all things are the result of whatever came before (assuming a linear time line, which isn’t actually universal), and you can try to explain that there is no free will, but the two concepts are not actually, related.
And that is because, from the same scientific perspective, fields of force, such as fields of magnetism for example, can cancel each other out. Two opposing forces can lock an object in place, or cancel each other out with net zero effect on the object.
In a 100% deterministic reality, people can be entirely free to act, free of other influences, whether from past, present or relative future. It depends upon whether those forces have effect, or are cancelled out by other forces.
This is part of the issue with Catastrophe theory. Complex interactions between forces can net a result that is not the linear result of its parts.
And the brain is most certainly a complex system. That means it is impossible to predict with certainty what strange notions or alternate behavior pathways a person may take based on what we can measure of their environment. They may indeed be acting free of influence, and that is free will.
Even this concept of “responsibility” has altered behavior substantially. In experiments with authority, individuals who felt they had no control (external locus of control) were willing, though upset, to follow the orders of the lead scientist and apply electroshock to innocent people.
But those who felt that they made their own decisions (internal locus of control) told the lead scientist to pack sand and refused to go along.
And here’s the kicker…in follow up experiments where people were educated about these results, then placed in a different situation where they were asked to do something that was wrong, a higher percentage refused who had received the education about the other experiments.
Education can free us of influence, and our development can free us of the influences of the past, to some degree greater or lesser. And so we can have relative free will, even in a largely deterministic reality.
When forces outside those we know can intervene, the notions of determinism and free will become disconnected entirely.

Oops… more specifically re QM, the position of an electron or smaller particle can be established retrospectively. But predictavely, prospectively only a region of space can be isolated for its activity. And again, this has to do with what we can measure, not only the particle itself, but even smaller ones, or other subtle forces we can’t measure yet.

One more tiny point about time. Schroedinger’s equation had to do with the variance of predicted vs observed points in time. He assumed a continuous measurement would be exactly predictable. But we can’t predict finer than the instrument of time we are using to measure. In subatomic research, the variance between what you think is 8 AM and actual 8 AM is enough to throw any prediction off. So, you can make a probabalistic statement with a margin of error established by the limited accuracy of your instruments…not just about what you are measuring but how it is timestamped. We are predicting position using laws of force and matter. But time is a crucial part of that.
And because time is so sensitive to mass, it is currently not possible to predict position, even to predict it accurately with a perfect mechanism to record, because of our own limited capacity to account for the mass of the particles present and their locations at the time…another extension of the three-body problem.
So, like all the sciences, you get a range of prediction that, if your result falls within that statistical range, you can say your formula of prediction is correct.

Thanks for the links, Brian.
I read them, but I’m afraid they left me none the wiser, as far as what I’d asked. Without a doubt that owes to my own lack of focus, and that in turn is due to complete lack of bandwidth in terms of lack of time and preoccupation with more urgent, RL stuff.
If you’re sure about this, that it’s a question of indeterminacy not randomness, and that the indeterminacy refers to the observation per se, the measurement, and not reality: if you’re sure of this, then I’m happy to simply take your word for it, absolutely.

Appreciative Reader, here’s how I see quantum mechanics and determinism. Quantum mechanics is the foundation of our modern technological society. Computers, cell phones, all that stuff. If goings-on at the atomic and subatomic level were truly random, none of that would be possible. So the regularities point toward a core determinism, causes and effects.
Yes, probabilities arise in quantum mechanics. But probabilities aren’t random, not really. They give the chance of finding a particle here rather than there, for example. When a measurement or observation occurs, the various probabilities “collapse” into a single certainty. Quantum computers rely on the ability of quantum phenomena to be in several states at once, in a state of indeterminacy.
Yet quantum computers are theoretically capable of computations that far exceed what normal computers can do. The big challenge is keeping the quantum particles in an entangled state, since that goes away if the outside world is present. Which shows that consciousness isn’t needed for quantum collapse, by the way.
Here again, the weirdness of quantum mechanics is capable of being harnessed for powerful actions. Randomness can’t do this, for sure. Anyway, just wanted to share this perspective, not that it resolves the debate over determinacy in the quantum realm.

Agreed, that isn’t a solid “debate point”. But also, and again I agree, the remarkable part of QM is, apparently, the precision of its predictions, or so I’ve heard said, and also, and as you say, the awesome tech that it enables: and all of that does point to the opposite of randomness. (But the exact same thing can be said of indeterminacy as well; so that, as you say, that’s not a satisfactory debate point.)
But debate points aside, and links aside (that I find myself unable to do justice to, at this point in time), I see that you’re sure of what you’ve read and digested. And that’s enough for me, I trust your understanding. Always subject to updation, given other inputs in future; but for now I’ll take it that my impression, that QM makes for true randomness, was mistaken; and it’s fundamentally a matter of indeterminacy instead.
Thanks for clearing that up!

umami, and Spence, thanks for your inputs as well!
Enjoyed reading your linked article, umami. See my two comments to Brian above, though: I’d meant what I’d asked in a more straightforward sense, a simpler sense. You — which is to say, your linked article — introduces a different, and more sophisticated instance of the same thing, that I hadn’t even thought of, and that, frankly, while I understand what it’s about, I’m not sure I fully completely understand and appreciate! But very interesting reading, nonetheless.
Also interesting was the observation, that I’d known about, but somehow hadn’t thought out, that classical physics also does have breaks in causality, which would be the singularities. …But, AIUI, while black holes do represent causes that have no effect, in the sense that information simply disappears within the maw of black holes; but the opposite doesn’t hold, because, basis my understanding, the Hawking Radiation thing is simply, at this point, conjecture not actual theory, not consensual understanding of what happens.
But in any case, the above is me gabbing away about things way above my paygrade, and that I only very sketchily understand, if that. …Made for interesting reading, that article you linked.

…I’m maybe belaboring the obvious here, but, in context of my comments yesterday, just to clarify:
In saying that QM makes for “indeterminacy”, what I meant is that it’s not random. There’s no randomness in the underlying reality. So that determinism is fact, now in a post-QM world as well. And no need for me to add ” bar quantum randomness” every time I speak of determinism.
(I thought to clarify, on re-reading, given that term “indeterminacy”. Indeterminacy, in this context, in the sense I meant it, and as opposed to true randomness, actually makes for determinism. No need to go hunting for a new snappy word, like I’d suggested in another thread!)

Hi Appreciative:
You wrote:
“In saying that QM makes for “indeterminacy”, what I meant is that it’s not random. There’s no randomness in the underlying reality”
What you can measure is deterministic. What you cannot measure is beyond making claims, except as a hypothesis.
This distinction is the very basis of science, and an error non-scientists make all the time. The tendency to over-generalize to areas we have zero knowledge of is traditional for human beings.
Science doesn’t make claims about things unless there is evidence for them. And it doesn’t over-generalize to things that we have no knowledge of.
Where science generalizes one concept to others, with good utility, is where those other forces are similar in nature to the ones we have tested.
And that is becuase in matters we have zero knowledge of, once we do get a glimpse, inevitably, it’s a lot different than we thought.
So, to a scientist, what is indeterminant is indeterminant. As for “Random” one can explore that concept and come up with several different versions of how something might appear random…even though that may indeed be the product of determinism. Just not one that works the way we think. So even Determinism must be examined.
Might be “random” relative to what we know and can measure…indeed it is. But once it’s measured, all science historically shows that what is learned falls into two categories: What is known and determined. What is unknown that cannot be described at all with any scientific verity.
The discipline to understand and apply this principle is part and parcel of making any claims of science as the foundation for an argument.
When you make universal claims about all places and times, that generally tends to be a circular argument that explains everything but proves nothing.
Only an argument that can be disproven has any validity. But the argument for absolute determinism can’t be disproven. It is an explanation one can apply to everything.
In this sense even free will can be the product of determinism (where forces cancel each other out…happens all the time). Even God and Angels can all be the products of determinism. You see…it’s meaningless and circular.
You can make a materialst argument, a rationalist argument for determinism, because that is a philosophical argument.
But you can’t make a scientific argument. Efforts to use science to make hard claims about the unknown actually violates the foundation of science.

“These correlations seriously mess with our intuitions about time and space. Not only can two events be correlated, linking the earlier one to the later one, but two events can become correlated such that it becomes impossible to say which is earlier and which is later. Each of these events is the cause of the other, as if each were the first to occur. (Even a single observer can encounter this causal ambiguity, so it’s distinct from the temporal reversals that can happen when two observers move at different velocities, as described in Einstein’s special theory of relativity.)”
https://www.quantamagazine.org/time-entanglement-raises-quantum-mysteries-20160119/
Cause and Effect? That’s so yesterday…or is it now? Or tomorrow?
Or was it ever?

I’m perfectly comfortable with the idea that my every perception and thought is a hypothesis.

“What you can measure is deterministic.”
Haha, no, Spence, that’s a transparent load of bull. That isn’t what determinism means. It might mean that in some specific, niche contexts; but in general, and certainly in context of this discussion, that most assuredly isn’t what determinism means.
Compatibilism consists of weirdly redefining free will in order to force-fit it within determinism. You do that, yourself, all the time. And you go one step further, now trying to re-define determinism!
Look, I don’t mind this redefining game. But if you must do it, then why go all half-assed about it? Me, if I were to redefine free will, or determinism, then I’d redefine them to mean hot young willing chicks. That way I could do really fun things with them, free will, and determinism, both of them, all at once! Now that would be something worth doing, wouldn’t it. …Or else, if I were going steady, which I am, then I’d redefine the one to mean sizzling brownies with two big sinful scoops of ice cream, and the other to mean beer, or what the hell, it’s Christmas week, so let’s just go with brandy, and that combo too would be well worth the trouble of redefining. …But this half-assed redefining of free will and determinism you keep attempting all the time? It’s just lame, sorry.

I’m sorry Appreciative, but you have misunderstood.
When I wrote: “What you can measure is deterministic.” I was not defining Determinism.
I was indicating that whatever is measurable inevitably has the quality of being deterministic…It has a cause, and because the effect can be measured, wherever science has been able to continue its investigation, that effect was linked to a cause. What we can measure, we can, in time, also determine its cause. That is a nearly universal observation.
What can’t be measured is indeterminent. You cannot make any scientific claims for things that are unknown. That is not to say they are random. “Random”: is a mathematical expression to explain forces we can’t measure yet and their net effects on what we can measure. “Random” is not actually a quality of reality that has ever been established.
You wrote:
“Compatibilism consists of weirdly redefining free will in order to force-fit it within determinism. ”
Not at all..
Here are two definitions of free will.
“The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one’s own discretion.”
Oxford Dictionary
“Free will is the notional capacity or ability to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.”
Wikipedia
In a 100% deterministic reality, forces can cancel each other out. Happens all the time. Forces attenuate each other. So then, that leaves the object in their midst entirely free of their influence.
In an entirely deterministic reality, free will can happen when imposing psychological forces that are degaussed, so to speak, so that their influence is removed, engineered out entirely, by other deterministic, engineered means.
Just like meditation.
In a 100% deterministic reality, free will is also a reality, and as a result of forces so arranged that they cancel out their influence.
Happens all the time in Chemistry, too, with Catalysis…One chemical can change the way others interact, and other chemicals can impinge upon that chemical without itself being altered in any way. That element, exposed as it is to others, and having a great effect upon them, is nevertheless, not effected by them in the least. So, the individual, from a psychological perspective, can be free to act, and entirely free of any psychological consequence of their actions.
Free will can and does exist, even in an entirely deterministic reality. Because forces can cancel each other out.
We can rise above their influence, we can cleanse ourselves of their influence, use whatever terminology you like. We are not bound by the past if we so choose.
The notion of determinism from a scientific perspective is entirely disconnected and unrelated to the notion of the psychological state of free will, which, in fact, can be created by determinism.
They are relatively free of the very forces that may move other things…
I have worked to some effort to make these explanations clear to you, and I can only say I hope to learn from you to get better at it in the future.
Happy Holidays!

“I’m sorry Appreciative, but you have misunderstood.
When I wrote: “What you can measure is deterministic.” I was not defining Determinism.
I was indicating that whatever is measurable inevitably has the quality of being deterministic…It has a cause, and because the effect can be measured, wherever science has been able to continue its investigation, that effect was linked to a cause. What we can measure, we can, in time, also determine its cause. That is a nearly universal observation.
What can’t be measured is indeterminent.”
……….I understand you perfectly, Spence. Re-defining determinism is exactly what you’re doing, when you say, in so many words, “What can’t be measured is indeterminent.” The rest of it was your trademark padding.
To spell it out, not that it needs spelling out: That “indeterminent” there? Like I said in my comment, while “It might mean that in some specific, niche contexts; but in general, and certainly in context of this discussion, that most assuredly isn’t what (‘indeterminant’) means” — not in the context of determinism, which is what we’re talking about here.
Happy now, now that I’ve stripped away your padding and laid bare what you were trying slip through surreptitiously?
———-
“In an entirely deterministic reality, free will can happen when imposing psychological forces that are degaussed, so to speak, so that their influence is removed, engineered out entirely, by other deterministic, engineered means.
Just like meditation.
In a 100% deterministic reality, free will is also a reality, and as a result of forces so arranged that they cancel out their influence.”
……….And there it is, the core of what you’re *really* trying to smuggle in, packed in inside all that padding of non sequiturs and verbiage, that little three-word sentence tucked snugly in the midst of that portion I’ve quoted there!
In the context of which we speak here, which is to say causality, as it applies to determinism, in the sense that we’re discussing this here: No, precedent causes cannot be “degaussed” at all, not in the context of this whole discussion here. Yes, a great many things can be changed, behaviorally speaking, absolutely, and not just psychological things; but their having been “changed” is itself the effect of precedent causes. That is what is the point of “an entirely deterministic reality”, that is what is the freaking *definition* of “an entirely deterministic reality”.
———-
As for meditation: I know that is the whole point of this whole padding of bull, that is you entire shtick here. To try to maintain, probably to yourself as much as to anyone else, that your meditation is something utterly special and unique, as opposed to merely you fiddling with yourself; and that it gives us an ‘out’ from the otherwise relentless drag of causality of existence.
You know what, Spence? I sympathize. Believe you me, I do sympathize, and empathize as well. As you know, I meditate myself. I too am beset by the vagaries of this world. It would be completely wonderful to find in my mediation a magic pill that delivers us from the ultimate meaninglessness of life, meaningless objectively speaking and as opposed to whatever meaning we ourselves inject into it. But unlike you, I’m not prepared to pretend. For better or for worse, I find myself so constituted that I’m not *able* to pretend!
In this, as in everything else, I’m prepared, completely prepared, to change my mind if the evidence so warrants. And I’ll be delighted if I find in my mediation — which I do persist with, at least so far — some wondrous deliverance from the relentlessness of the world around.
And I say all of this, this part of my comment, to assure you that I’m completely sincere when I say to you, Spence, that despite having pointed out clearly the “bull” and the “shtick” and the “fiddling”, I’m not unsympathetic, at all, and that do I sympathize, and in fact empathize very closely, with your wanting to find in your mediation some refuge from the inevitability of determinism. Except, and like I said, I am *unable* to pretend to myself, and refuse to play along with your pretense out of sympathy for you. That is, I suppose I could have done that by simply keeping quiet, I suppose I could do that much; after all I do keep silent about many of the inequities I see around me, and I often do that from motivations far baser than “sympathy”, so why not. But I did not, this time around, as it happens, for better or for worse. …Just, I do sympathize, Spence, with what I think drives you to do this thing. I’d like to reach out with that sympathy to you, one suffering human being to another: but you must excuse me, I cannot play along with your transparent make-believe.

Hi Appreciative!
Ad hominems aside, you wote
“No, precedent causes cannot be “degaussed” at all, not in the context of this whole discussion here. Yes, a great many things can be changed, behaviorally speaking, absolutely, and not just psychological things; but their having been “changed” is itself the effect of precedent causes.”
Can you see the circularity of your argument?
Free will is freedom from influence and has nothing to do with casuality. You can be freed of the influence of your past through the effect of other forces. That would be degaussing their effect upon you.
I’ve provided the Oxford dictionary definition of free will. You may have invented your own to support your argument, but it only serves a circular argument that has zero utility in relation to free will. You can see here that using casuality and determinism to define everything includes free will. At least the Oxford dictionary and Wikipedia definitions of free well, and not the circular and useless invention you return to.
It’s an old debate that, somehow determinism and free will are in opposition. But, actually, science debunked this long ago, through nothing more than observing how forces can cancel each other out.

Sigh.
That wasn’t a circular argument, Spence. That wasn’t an argument at all. That was me showing you how, under a barrage of irrelevancies and non sequiturs and padding, you were simply redefining the term ‘determinism’, much as you’d long persisted in trying to redefine free will. …Do you SEE that? We were not, at that time, discussing whether determinism is valid, or if free will obtains. We were only discussing the definition of free will and determinism, that you were trying to quietly mutilate to suit your own agenda. Therefore, that was not a circular argument, in as much it wasn’t even an argument per se!
How on earth do you mean, “Free will is freedom from influence and has nothing to do with casuality”?! Free will has EVERYTHING to do with causality! You refer to the Oxford definition of free will, and this is what it says, right there: “The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate.” So what do you think that means, constraint of necessity…

To recount: I’d started asking a simple question of factuality. I’d expressly requested that this kind of bull not be laid on. Of course, there’s no reason why you should necessarily acquiesce with my request, I get that, but that’s exactly what you chose to do, and kept shifting goalposts and resorting to …sigh. No point, really, talking any more, all it’ll generate now is hot air, not meaning, not understanding, neither in me nor in you either.
Very unsatisfactory, ending this like this. But I simply haven’t the energy to play bull with you at this time.
Peace, Spence. Forget it, let’s just do the agree to disagree thing. By all means believe what you want to believe about your meditation, and about free will, and about determinism, and about the fat unshaven man that twerks for you when you cross your eyes.

Spence Tepper, I used to respect your intelligence and knowledge about certain subjects, but you’re making that once-positive assessment harder to hold onto. Over and over, you twist reality and science into contortions in vain attempts to preserve your worldview. That’s both dishonest and destructive of productive interactions with other people in comment conversations.
I urge you to take a look within yourself and consider whether you should try harder to be less defensive and more open to views that are different from your own. As I’ve noted before, and others have too, you have a really annoying habit of changing the subject whenever you’re pinned down about some absurdity in your belief structure.
This reminds me of when my daughter was a young girl. If we were playing Monopoly and she was about to go bankrupt, sometimes she’d tip the board over, sending everything scattering, and say, “It’s a tie! Nobody wins!” That was childish of her, but I excused it because she was a child. Can’t do that with you.

Hi Appreciative:
More Ad Hominem, personal remarks aside, you asked:
“”How on earth do you mean, “Free will is freedom from influence and has nothing to do with casuality”?! Free will has EVERYTHING to do with causality! You refer to the Oxford definition of free will, and this is what it says, right there: “The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate.” So what do you think that means, constraint of necessity…”
Let me try again to explain using simple physical science, in particular magnetism.
The force of a magnet upon a steel object, say a small nut placed an inch away, is evident. The nut is drawn without any ability to do otherwise, directly to the magnet. The nut is within the field of influence of the magnet. This is what you might call cause and effect, and determinism. The nut has no capacity to do anything but be drawn by the magnetic field it finds itself in.
But place a second magnet upon the first with poles reversed, and there is no longer a force at all upon the nut. The nut, one inch away from the magnet, is no longer within the field of the magnet and no longer under its influence. It is free of that influence.
The entire field has been removed by the force of the second magnetic field upon the first.
To be free of influences, causes of any kind, happens all the time, both in physical worlds and in the worlds of psychology.
The entire theory of dark matter is based on the observation that not all bodies in space appear to act under the influence of gravity.
Does gravity cease to exist?
No. It is the counteracting influence of dark matter.
All of this is within the sphere of causality. But whether an object is under the influence of a specific object in space depends upon the other forces it is exposed to. Those forces may cancel out the influence of the larger object in space.
The circular paths of the great bodies in space attest to the fact that all bodies move in balance. Curving paths, eliptical orbits, all speak to the fact that influencing forces are in constant opposition to one degree or another.
Place an additional force in the field and you can change the direction of any object, be it a gravitational field or a magnetic one, or a social one.
So, whatever came from your past doesn’t exist anymore. Only the recurring influence that the past has upon you, through memory, through conditioning, through your present physiology, and so your present thinking.
But exposed to other forces, meditation, education, etc., those other influences can be abated, even eliminated altogether. You can’t change their existence. You can entirely change their effect upon you by exposure to other levels of consciousness that are not influenced by those forces, just as wood is not influenced by magnetism.
In an entirely deterministic world (if you choose to believe that) anyone and anything can be free of influence simply by exposure to forces that counteract the influence of others.
So now, that object or person is free to act without the constraint of those influences.
The flaw in your argument, and the classically and outdated blinkered argument of determinism vs free will, is the false premise that causal factors de facto have effects that cannot be abated, eliminated, or in some cases magnified, by other environmental forces. That’s just so untrue, and I hope you can take a step back and see how ridiculous, unscientific and irrational that presumption is.
Everyone wants to be free, once they see what has been influencing them. And they can be, through some work and exposure to benign forces. People want to make different choices, new choices, all the time. They just need some help.
Religion offers those choices. But there is no reason why an enlightened Atheism should not.
It is too bad that hard Atheists spend so much time arguing against religion they don’t see the unscientific falsehoods they promote in the name of “science”…all while bastardizing science along the way.
Physiologically, you can look at how the brain responds to Fight, Flight Feeding and Reproduction drivers, biochemical drivers established to greater or lesser degree by our individual genetics, triggered by environmental stimulus we have been conditioned to attend to, and which drives behavior.
These are built into every brain. But the brain is quite flexible and adaptable.
But there are other influences in the brain, other chemical drivers that attenuate the effect of these things.
You could call them lower brain vs higher executive, cerebral cortex parts of the brain.
We know today that it isn’t that clear cut. All the systems of the brain are highly interlinked. And in addition to fight / flight / Feeding and Reproduction (the four F’s of life) there is the Relaxation Response, and other biochemistry triggered, even just by thinking about different things.
You have more choice than you know, and education and practice can give you those choices, freeing you of much of the conditioning of the past. When you are free of a causal factor that was part of making you, it no longer has influence and you are as free of it as if it never existed.
So, in a 100% deterministic reality, you can elminate past influences, even biochemically, thus opening up new choices…and you become, thus, relatively free of past causal influences.
That’s why I say “Degaussing”…In degaussing, a metal object that once took on the charge of the field it has been exposed to is now freed of that field. Through Degaussing, that charge is eliminated.

Brian:
I fear you are guilty of your claim. If you look closely at my arguments in this recent conversation about determinism and free you will see they have not changed at all. But in place of dealing with them directly, there is a lot of ad hominem attack going on. Typical.
That is because to truly argue honestly, we each of us are forced to acknowledge the legitimacy of our opponent’s view. And to try to understand deeply that view, and then try to clarify how our own fits into the same world.
So when anyone in an argument fails to acknowledge, to appreciate, the value of the opposing view, that is red flag that they are not thinking logically or holistically.
We are discussing free will, and you have defended the case that in an entirely deterministic reality, free will cannot exist.
This is flawed on several levels. Free will can be and often is the product of deterministic forces.
I’ve just been pointing out a few of the flaws in the arguments you and AR have presented.
First, the presumption of determinism as a universal fact is false. You cannot make any scientific statements about the parts of reality that have not been explored scientifically.
All the history of science teaches us that when we do learn more about what was unknown, it turns out to be very, very different than we presumed. So, to make presumptions about the unknown, is unscientific.
You continue to make claims based on a flawed premise, that if science hasn’t proven it, it doesn’t exist. That is false. Science teaches us that we know about 5% of all there is working in this physical reality, as far as scientists can estimate.
That doesn’t mean that what I believe about the unknown is true. It may be God, it may be an odd interaction of forces we don’t know about yet. It may be nothing. But each of those three possibilities are hypotheses at best, and without formal science, unscientific as statements.
Your constant claim that what is unknown doesn’t exist in reality is false, Brian. I’ve yet to see you own that.
I used to think you were pretty smart too, but I see you have some blind spots. You are still very smart, actually. But too much opinion can limit that. You can’t listen when you are speaking. We can’t see when blinded by our own thinking. Hence, meditation is a very nice way to put all that thinking aside. Thinking, especially conjecture about reality, is not so great. Not yours, certainly. And of course, definitely not mine either!
That’s ok.
Let me explain why. Because this problematic condition, thinking, is universal. It has a much smaller role than we usually give it. It’s like a dog we let run wild without any training. The dog doesn’t read the room well, and chews up Grandmas’ beautiful comforter she knitted just for us. We love the dog, but it needs a leash.
I see people confronted with uncomfortable truths all the time, and they generally go through a lengthy process. It’s actually how adults learn.
Adults rarely respond well, BTW to unsolicited feedback. It is often a form of punishment, which is why, although universally praised as good practice, it is rarely followed for long.
People, confronted with unpleasant information, respond by rejecting it.
A Truth, even factually proven, but outside convention, outside our personal convention, is generally responded to with rejection, as false, and often with a lot of angry finger pointing.
Then, once that truth becomes a basic standard accepted by the public, people accept it without realizing they are changing their views. Happens naturally.
When confronted with that change, they handle the cognitive dissonance in a very simple way. They deny ever having thought any other way.
It was always this way, they tell themselves.
If you look back at your own writings over the years you will see the drift.
Two things are evident. 1. Your thinking about some things hasn’t changed despite being confronted with other factual information. And so it is very likely you have held these views your entire life. You didn’t adopt them leaving Sant Mat. You carried them in one way or another from even before you were exposed to Sant Mat. And they persist.
2. Your thinking about the unknown has changed slightly. You don’t presume that what you know is all there is know. It’s no longer just a nice tool you use to then proceed once again with your own dogma. You really are beginning to understand that there are things beyond your knowledge and understanding. That’s very good.
Back to adult learning, all this happens very gradually.
It’s how we all learn.
So when you accuse me of changing definitions, moving my argument by changing terms, all this is actually me explaining the same exact thing in as many different ways as I can think of to help you understand.
What is changing, is your comprehension, little by little.
Again, it’s nice to see, even if you don’t. And I only say this because this is also my own life, to see how I learn as well. It is often being confronted by others such as yourself, that I must then take another look.
So, yes, I would say my arguments have changed a bit. I understand now what is noble about Atheism and how it, like so many philosophies, in the hands of ignorance, become dogma.
But how it can also be, when it is part of apprehending and appreciating the awesome and unimaginable reality we live, very healthy. We need no stories when the one within us is so immense and rewarding.

*AR looks on, aghast*
*steps back very, very slowly*

@ AR
These days more and more people buy themselves a second home in the country side to escape the noisy cities … but there they are confronted with a noisy rural environment so that leads up and again to arguments between the new comers and the local residents.
Some years ago one of these arguments did end before court. where the newcomers wanted a rooster national symbol of france] to be stopped crowing in early morning. It became a national scandal.
The case was won by the local owners of MAURICE en yesterday I heard from one of the members of our family that happens to live in the countryside somewhere in France, that with great majority a law is passed by the government, that all that go to the country side have to accept the environment as it is and further access to the courts is no longer possible for these matters.
In the video clip it says: If I [ one from and silent rural environment have to go to the city, I have to accept the noises of the city etc]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeuUE5y9RSo
One can like or dislike the sound produced by a crow, but it is foolish to try to change the crow and make him “sing” like the Nightingale. One can even paint his beek yellow but as soon as the animal opens its beek the truth will come out … hAhAhahahaha
He is always in for “change” but he is not able to change him selve for the better … better meaning the pleasures and satisfactions of others
Let “Maurice” crowing his song.

Hey, um.
Haha, hilarious video, that! Yep, I guess I take your point.
Not that I have the slightest wish to transmogrify crows into swans, generally speaking. It’s quite enough for me to simply understand, as best I can, what seems important to me to understand.
But Maurice, well, it’s a fascinating case study, really. …I suppose it is the cognitive dissonance thing, basically a holding on, somehow, anyhow, to the fiction that those weird claims about inner visions etc are real, and what’s more, even if real, that they amount to something significant. That basic cognitive dissonance, to which is added a certain complexity and subtlety that woo-types generally lack, which would be a function of his otherwise intelligent, lucid, well-informed mind. Yep, that seems about right, I guess.
In fact, you know what. I think I’ll attempt one last, brief comment. No no, not an attempt to transmogrify! Just one last reaching-out to an old comrade, is all.

Hey, Spence.
One last time, briefly, in hopes this might get through:
You’ve devoted a great many words explaining to Brian just how and why he’s wrong about claiming that “if science hasn’t proven it, it doesn’t exist”. Do you realize that he hasn’t once made that claim, and you’re going to great lengths to basically argue with voices in your head? And you’ve also devoted a great many words explaining to me just how and why “in a 100% deterministic reality, you can elminate past influences, even biochemically, thus opening up new choices…and you become, thus, relatively free of past causal influences”. (Allow me to emphasize that word, “relatively”.) Do you realize that I haven’t once said otherwise, and that, here as well, you’re going to all that trouble to argue against more voices in your head?
If you’ll read through our interactions on this thread, you’ll find that, per usual, you’ve ignored the meat of my response, the portions that refute your own arguments; and kept on moving goalposts and latching on to incidental bits where you believed you might stand a chance of somehow being ‘right’, despite these bits being irrelevant to what was actually being said; and finally now, you’re reduced to responding to arguments you’ve yourself invented, rather than anything Brian or I have said.

@ AR
I just deleted another long answer
Imagine he is no longer posting here … with whom could you and Brian share some coffee?

@ AR
>> Let it go, Spence. Your inner visions are probably non-existent. Even if true, they’re probably no more than psychosis. Even if it is the case that they’re completely harmless and/or benign, even then they’re most likely completely without any larger significance at all. Make your peace with this.<< Ar, these days they are experimenting here with psychedelic plants for people suffering form severe PTSD, like Conversion syndrome. Native Indians In your country, use since long "sensory deprivation" on a a so called answer quest, to come into contact with animal and other spirits Etc etc .. all things of great SIGNIFICANCE to those involved and also to those with whom they live. Delving in the NDE world you will soon find that most of them are not interested at all in HOW these experiences come to be had, they are just gratefull having had these life changing experiences. For a while I did some listening to people in the non-duality world and adjacent fielkds and found that without exception those that have something to say had an life changing inner experience.. I also have come to the conclusion that I do understand their motivation to speak up but that it is useless, a waste of time for everybody. For me it is simple .. there have always been, are and will be people with these spontaneous inner experiences, they have been the founders of whatever is inspiring for human beings, be it art, science and spirituality ... the rest ...are consumers, scribes, commentators, talkers, believers in hearsay .. EMPTY HANDED PEOPLE... and .. unfortunately not all have to accept this fact gracefully that they are just talking nobodies. .. I happen to be one of them and i find solace in drinking coffee.... but .. blessed are those that have these experiences ...AND ... have the mental capacity to digest it properluy .. they are rare human gems.

Well, um, I did say keep investigating, right? I agree they might be significant, certainly in the psychological sense, and who knows in the larger sense as well. But that is strictly a “might”, not an “is” — subject of investigation, not already a conclusion. …Absolutely, I’d encourage such investigation. Indeed, in a subjective sense, and in a humble capacity, I’m part of that process, that movement, that investigation.
But I don’t think we’re where we can directly pronounce on their significance already. They could simply be lies. Where not lies, they could be hallucinations, whether spontaneous or induced. Where not psychosis, they might still be no more than nerves firing atypically. That they might be anything more, psychologically speaking, is a matter for investigation. That they might be even more than just that, that too is legitimate subject for investigation.
No, I don’t think it makes sense to directly assume, as you do, that they do indeed represent something “higher”. Only that they might, just perhaps — that’s about as far as it is reasonable to go with this, is how it seems to me.
(And given that their very existence is strictly a “might”, then there doesn’t seem to be any question of further finetuning that into categories of people so endowed, and those not so endowed. That’s like dividing dragons in two categories, dragons that can communicate with humans, and dragons that are mute brutes! The question of looking into such detail will arise only after their very existence has first been studied and settled. ……….Heh, I remember, back that time, trying to get Spence and you to talk about this very subject! That was such a train wreck, that effort, wasn’t it. But of course, I didn’t then know him quite as well as I do now; and nor did you, I guess.)

@ Ar
The significance of what for whom?
The composer that writes an synonym?
Those that go to the theater?
Those that study music?
Some of these composers relate that they HEAR the music and their “composing” is nothing more than, “writing it down”
Nicola Tesla, “saw” inwardly exactly what he is known for to have “invented”
What or who did make Tesla “see” or the composer “hear”
What difference would it make for us, the consumers of their IN-SPIRATION, if they would attribute it to god or their brain or the brand of coffee they happened to drink?

I did spell it out, um. Significance in terms of psychology, in terms of a purely psychological effect that nevertheless has a very large impact on mind and/or body. And maybe also significance in terms of being being evidence of a larger reality. Both in a strictly “might” sense, hypotheses to be investigated, in the sense that anything at all that can be hypothesized and investigated, given people interested in doing this. But never to be treated as true, or in this case even as likely, pending investigation.
(Note that the opposite also holds. You and I and Spence may be interested in researching the larger significance of meditation in general, and spiritual experience in general, or maybe some particular specific meditation. But someone else — say Kranvir, maybe, or Trez — may hypothesize, and investigate, their deeply malignant psychological significance, and maybe in addition also their deeply evil and malignant outer reality, as something not higher but something very very low. It is as silly of you to already, pending full investigation, start thinking and speaking of them as something ‘high’ and ‘beautiful’ and ‘good’ and desirable, as it is for Messrs Trez & Kranvir to start thinking and speaking of them as low and ugly and bad and evil and something completely undesirable.)
Sorry, that was a tad long-winded. But it is important to clearly think this through. I’m afraid you’re being very gullible in directly assuming that these things are good, had they been possible to attain. Not to forget the added gullibility of blindly believing someone just because they make these tall claims. I could claim tomorrow that I have attained to a reality higher than any so far known, mystical experiences so far unheard of. Doesn’t make it true, simply my tomtomming about it. Even assuming it’s true, doesn’t make it good and nice, as opposed to bad and evil and completely hideous.

@ AR
If you use so much doubt in your daily life, you would not even move or breath.
It was explained to me in an parable beautifully the late MCS:
A man was fallen in an dry water well somewhere in an deserted land. He screamed and screamed in vain as there was nobody around. Luck was at his side as there passed a caravan of camels with their owners that heard his voice.
They said to him to calm down as they would get him out. They let some rope down and told him to get firmly hold of it so that they could pull him up and out.
But … instead of doing as asked and advised he started questioning them .. their capacity, their good will and much more.
Questions like:
How do I know that you are not going to steal all my money if I am out?
How do I know that you and the rope you use is strong enough to pull me out
And many more of these questions all related to the survival of himself and what was dear to him.
The story ends with the remark of the people that offered him to help that they would not spend their time any longer as they had all ready lost a lot of time and had to move on..
If I remember vaguely that the story goes on with the man, once pulled out of the well, asking a question about his fate and what to do.
AR you are right in all the questions you wrote down.
What ever you suggested as possible, could be possible
There was nothing wrong with the man in the well to look after his safety and have doubts about the things he was not able to controll things at the same time could be detrimental to his well being and welfare.
You are totally right in suggesting and stating that whatever shows up as good can be bad or can turn in a bad and the other way around
It is the curse of humanity that they have to make choices as good as they can and accept willingly the consequences of their choices as they have no controll over the powers that are operating in his reality, both at work inside himself as outside. He does not know them all, nor is he able to properly understand their joint cohesion
So ….the wise concluded.
MEMENTO MORI
That said you are RIGHT and it is your RIGHT to doubt and it is your RIGHT to question anybody and anything and look upon others as gullible et etc.
It is your life …

@ AR
However … what remains an open question is:
Why do you and others use that right so selective.
That too is your right and the question therefor needs not to be answered.

@ AR
Your words about Kranvir a.o. has hit me as a heavy brick in my mental pond.
it opens the possibility that Trump will turn out to be the Savior of the world and those that think otherwise are agents of the devil…. not to mension that the others in history that are seen as the embodiment of evil in right consideration are gods angels.
Even coffee has not been able to stop the rimpling of my mind by the impact of your words.
Anyway it has been an ..eye opener … and i wil see what comes out to be seen from it in the coming days.

Hey, um.
Yep, that’s a neat story, the well thing. It’s from the Dhammapada, actually, from the Buddha’s original teachings.
But I’m afraid I find that story a bit off. Here’s why:
You’re sitting in the well, despairing. And along drop not one but 500 different ropes. Each one claiming that it is the only one that will pull you out, and the rest just won’t do. So which one are you to choose? …Add to that the fact that it isn’t even clear, most times, that you are indeed in a well. Or if you are, then it isn’t clear that deliverance is even possible, other than by passing beyond it all by dying.
Let’s look at real-world examples:
The Christian tells you you’re in the well, and unless you accept Jesus as your savior you’ll die. The Muslims tells you the same thing, excpet re. Allah. And what’s more they tell you that if you dare look at any rope other than theirs, then you’ll be in for such a horrible time that you’ll start wishing you were back in that well! …Und so weiter, scores more such, hundreds even, if you count denominations.
Then there are the negatives as well. Some mullahs will tell you that the “rope” consists of dying, and killing, for Allah. Likewise Jesus, in times past.
Sorry, um. I’m afraid there’s no way out other than by thinking this through!
Actually you DO think this through, always. In selecting one religion over another. In rejecting some kinds of “teachings”, for instance of the kind Trez and Kranvir dole out. It’s not a choice between thinking and not thinking: instead, the choice is between thinking unawares and haphazardly, and likely incorrectly, and thinking deliberately and as clearly as you are able to.
(Sorry, I don’t mean to pontificate! But this is rather an important point, I thought. Think over what I said a bit, over a coffee maybe [I’m sipping on one myself as I type this], I’m guessing it will make sense to you if you do.)

@ AR
>> You’re sitting in the well, despairing. And along drop not one but 500 different ropes. Each one claiming that it is the only one that will pull you out, and the rest just won’t do. So which one are you to choose? …Add to that the fact that it isn’t even clear, most times, that you are indeed in a well. Or if you are, then it isn’t clear that deliverance is even possible, other than by passing beyond it all by dying.<< I was addressing YOU about YOU. The above is just another variation of questions asked by the man in the well. The parable is about asking questions and nothing else. The solution has nothing to do with those outside the well as they do not need to make a choice. But that is not the main problem even .. but what you wrote about Kranvir and co. It was and is very shocking for me... You threw the brick and I am just the pond and the pond is making ripples .. these are not caused by you and I will digest it in my own way. It puts before me the question as to stop writing and reading here. as I am personal responsible for what to consume and what not. Let me give you a hint .. in order to totally let go of meaning and value the one that does has to have an inner solid place to stand otherwise he will end up in an asylum or worst and Iet is for me to find out if that place is there, if it is strong and large enough and the right moment to step upon it.

“I was addressing YOU about YOU.”
Not sure what you mean, um!
If I’m looking for transportation, then I’ll need to think, in order to decide whether to buy a car or use public transport. If I decide to buy a car, then I’ll need to carefully evaluate my choices.
LIkewise if I’m looking for a place to stay in, I’ll need to think carefully to decide if I’ll rent or buy. If I’m buying, I’ll need to very carefully sift the options available, to decide which to settle with, or maybe none of them. Only after careful thought I’ll select a car to buy, and/or a house to buy.
Now if the car salesman were to tell me, or the realtor: “Hey, AR, you’re sitting in that well, thinking away, just grab the rope! Just buy my car! Just buy this house I’m selling you!”
…Isn’t that exactly the same thing? If you’re going to think ten times before buying a car, and think a hundred times before buying a house: how much more would you need to think to decide on what course of action to follow — or maybe none — about such an important thing as an afterlife (or its absence).
……….I’m not sure what alternative you have to “thinking”. Just randomly buying the first car that catches your fancy? Just buying the first house that you seem to like, without worrying about the details of that decision, as well as other houses available, as well as other rental options available? …Likewise, just at random following the words of some “master”, without thinking about it? And then one day, again entirely at random, and without thinking about it, walking away from that particular path?
Sorry, um, I completely don’t understand your reservations with “thinking”, and what alternative to thinking you yourself use.
(Also: Do you see that complete fallacy of that story from the Dhammapada, that Charan Singh related to you? When the house is on fire, why would you not run to the televangelist that is telling you you’ll be safe from the fire if only you send money to him? Why would you go to Charan? Why that particular salesman, why not some other?)

@ AR
>> …Isn’t that exactly the same thing?<< No and you do it again. I have no reservations with thinking. Thinking like anything else can be use in different ways. and with different results. AR it is all about the choice you have to make and being responsible for it. Nobody and nothing outside yourself is of help there. You have no control over the world in which you have to make your choices. Whether money or mental possessions, they are all yours to spend .. it is your risk You do it daily, 24/7 every action you take has an element of risk. As with Kranvir ... there is no guarantee that the next action will NOT cause your death Think about it when you participate in traffic.

@ AR
If not in the well … one can also go into the world and talk to any by passer and start questioning if he or she is sure about what he is doing .
Good afternoon
I see you are taking this plain.
Have you checked of the pilot is a drunk
etc etc
Vertical and horizontal
There is no end to questions that can be asked.
Asking questions can surve many different options.
Some of these options have noting to do with the topic at hand.

Ok, not to beat this to death, but I actually don’t understand where you’re coming from, um, sorry!
You’d said two things: first, that if one thinks this much, then it will be difficult to do anything at all; and two, the Buddha’s man-in-the-well parable, as recounted by Charan Singh. Which is why I thought to spell out why this thinking is unavoidable, it is merely a choice between not thinking clearly and thinking clearly. And why I thought I’d point out the flaw in the well parable.
Sure, I’m responsible for all my choices. Not suggesting otherwise. If I decide to buy this house from this realtor, then if the house turns out unsatisfactory, then I’ll need to own responsibility for it, sure. (But of course, if the realtor has misrepresented to me, lied to me, been dishonest or misleading, then part of the blame lies with the realtor, and I may choose to sue him for damages.)
Nevertheless, the overall responsibility, for everything I do, vests with me at the end of the day, sure, agreed.
Just, I don’t see what that has to do with either thinking in detail about something, or to do with that well parable.
——-
(But not to beat this to death! You do see where I’m coming from, don’t you, um? Basis that if you’d like to discuss your meaning further, then I’m happy to listen, absolutely. But otherwise, if you’d rather not, then I won’t insist on prolonging this. I’m cool either way.)

“Some of these options have noting to do with the topic at hand.”
But some do!
Sure, sometimes one can ask questions for the sake of asking questions, and to no good purpose. Sure, such pointless questions should be avoided.
But sometimes one asks questions that are important and relevant to the subject at hand. And those questions should indeed be asked, and resolved, in the fullest detail.
…………..Sorry, um, I still have no idea where you’re going with this!
(When you’re in the well, and someone throws you a rope: then, to ask about the strength of the rope, and the motives of the person throwing you the rope, etc, are perfectly legitimate questions! If you’re drowning, and have no time, then you might directly grab one rope at random, sure —- but then, if you do that, then if you’re lucky you’ll be saved; and if your luck doesn’t hold, and your lack of thought results in your having chosen an unreliable rope from an unreliable man, then the rope will snap and you’ll fall back in the well and drown. ….So I guess, if the situation is very dire, then you might sometimes be pushed to emergency decisions that are not carefully thought out, I can see that. Is that what you mean? But even that does not seem to make sense, in context of what we’d been discussing.)
———-
…..But like I said, not to flog this overly much. Surely you see whence my confusion, why I say I don’t understand you? Basis that if you’d like to explain in more detail, then I’m all ears. Else no issues, letting this go for now is fine. Whichever you like, I’m cool either way.

@ AR
There is nothing to discuss here.
There is no end to question that can be asked, but there is certainly an end to the answers that can be given..
To know when the moment has come that further asking is no longer conductive is a great assett
Language can easily become a trap and if that trap is auto-constructed it is not so easy to find ones way out.
The mind, has to be pierced with the mind, he said. in order to bypass the mind.
There are matters in life AR where the mind is of help and there are others where they can become an obstacle..

“To know when the moment has come that further asking is no longer conductive is a great assett”
Agreed.
But it is equally important to not stop asking until that point has been reached.
———-
I mean, that’s true, but that’s kind of a platitude, isn’t it?
And again, I simply don’t see what that has to do with what we’d been talking about.
….Can you start from the beginning, and try to spell out your thoughts afresh from the start? The part where you’d said that only some people can attain to mystical heights, not everybody; and I’d disagreed, at two different levels, with that idea. Or maybe the part where I’d discussed how it is being gullible, at many different levels, if when a random man walked down a hill telling us God spoke to him and told him stuff, and we therefore believed that he did indeed speak with God.
That was the point when you spoke of the futility of thoughts, and the well thing. Can you join the dots for me?
I agree that overthinking can be deleterious, sure. On the other hand, think less than necessary can be fatal. That’s …kind of a platitude, and, again, I don’t see where you’re going with this.
———-
(Sorry, like I said, I simply don’t understand what you’re trying to convey, and in what context. Again, if you’d like to simply drop it, that’s cool.)

@ AR
>> I simply don’t understand what you’re trying to convey, and in what context.<< So be it Ar.

Hi AR:
Happy New Year! To you and all my Church of the Churchless colleagues!
You wrote:
“If you’ll read through our interactions on this thread, you’ll find that, per usual, you’ve ignored the meat of my response, the portions that refute your own arguments; ”
It is possible, AR, that what you consider meat I look upon as fat.
And what I consider meat, you may think superfluous.
To try to center back to the original topics of discussion: Free Will and Determinism.
This is all I wanted to comment on, actually. Nothing more. And please forgive any slippage into other areas…those would be non-essential.
My argument is two-fold. I believe:
1. Free will does exist, and can be created or enhanced in a fully deterministic reality. Forces of influence, however old or powerful, can be countered and thusly erased from our experience, leaving us relatively free.
1.b. But I temper this with the understanding that free will is always relative to other constraining forces. We are always going to be the product of this reality. Not just the past, but the present moment, and even what the future will bring. We are very subject to our environment and it’s interaction with the past, though all those forces can be abated, negated out, subtracted away, burned away by various other interventions both externally and within, as well as rising to places in our own thinking where other much more powerful foces are now able to be experienced and have their influence….Leaving what is left relatively free to make freer choices. Determinism can actually author free will. These are not opposed at all.
2. Determinism is not absolute. Determinism can only apply to the sphere we can measure. Principles cannot be accurately conjectured for the parts of reality we have no knowledge of. This isn’t just a gap. Unless that gap represents about 20x the visible stuff we do understand. The Gap is by far the majority of reality, as scientists like Niel DeGasse Tyson propose.
2.b. It doesn’t mean your idea of imagination or psychosis or my idea of God and Spirit have any accuracy at all. We cannot make such statements with any basis in science about those things science has not adequately explored.
2.c. We can say what we believe, but that is also unscientific. It is just a matter of projecting our own experience and beliefs…When I write about Spirit, that is my experience and how I’ve interpreted it. When you write about imagination and psychosis, that can only be your experience and your interpretation of it. Neither of us can state with any objectivity conclusions useful to the other with zero actual scientific evidence.
I’m sure you agree with some of this but not all. That’s fine. I’m interested to hear what you have to say about these things, so long as personal remarks about you or I don’t enter in, as they are extraneous.

Hi AR:
You wrote:
“You’ve also devoted a great many words explaining to me just how and why “in a 100% deterministic reality, you can elminate past influences, even biochemically, thus opening up new choices…and you become, thus, relatively free of past causal influences”. (Allow me to emphasize that word, “relatively”.) Do you realize that I haven’t once said otherwise, and that, here as well, you’re going to all that trouble to argue against more voices in your head?”
I wrote:
“1. Free will does exist, and can be created or enhanced in a fully deterministic reality. Forces of influence, however old or powerful, can be countered and thusly erased from our experience, leaving us relatively free.”
If you agree, that is progress.
If you or Brian never wrote that free will doesn’t exist, than yes I must be dreaming.
If you or Brian never tried to bolster your case by arguing for absolute determinism, then you may have a point, and I’ve moved the goalpost.
But if you and/or Brian have indeed argued against free will, and tried to bolster your case with an argument for determinism, then let me suggest it is you who have moved the goal post.
And I think it’s a good thing. Because now you would not be so bold as to claim determinism means free will cannot exist. Or free will cannot exist, or determinism is a universal fact that applies to all things known and unknown, just as God is a universal fact to zealots.
I’m happy if you have moved the goal post!
And if I’ve somehow moved to goalpost closer to your position, that is not a cause for blame, but celebration!
🙂

“A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.”
~Robert Frost

Fair, umami. And humorously incisive, as ever.
Which is why I think critical thinking is first and foremost an introspective thing, that is to say turned inwards, and aimed towards primarily one’s own understanding. It is possible to point out others’ flaws and fallacies, certainly; but after a point that’s an exercise in futility, or at any rate an exercise in foolishness.
But here’s the thing: When all parties are fully sincere and honest in their intentions, and on that basis explore a subject, then without a doubt 12 people looking on a subject usually end up with vastly superior clarity than just the one person, or indeed even 12 people looking on separately and in isolation. The whole can certainly be (much) greater than the parts, in such a scenario.
If only there were such a place. Or at least, there is such a place; but if only there were such people to populate such a place.

AR,
Satya (truthfulness) is one of the Yamas in Yoga philosophy. As I understand, if you master one Yama, the rest fall into place, but I might be mistaken.
5 Yamas? 10 Yamas? Niyamas too, which in portrayal so many spiritual types deserve Academy Awards! #beentheredonethat #methodacting #whyisthistakingsolong #nightyoga #meism #catsdowhattheywant #freewillfelines #satyasatyasatya

The philosophical issue of free will or determinism is a false dilemma.
As Robert Sapolsky readily admits (to his great credit), he lives most of his life as if free will is operative and true.
So, in that light, it doesn’t matter what ontology we give or not give such freedom, the fact remains (enter William James) we act as if free will is our operating system.
Thus, philosophical masturbation aside, our practical lives are run by a user interface that convinces us that we have some choice.
Even if my writing this was pre-determined.

I’d met up with a cousin who’s a lawyer, of fairly recent vintage. All excited to have finally been let loose to argue his own brief. We spent a while discussing the ethics of lawyering, and that reminded me of this quote you’d posted here, umami, that Robert Frost thing.
It’s a fact, lawyers are by definition dishonest. Or at any rate, even if not necessarily dishonest per se, but disingenuous, always, of necessity. You cannot have an honest lawyer, not one that is successful, not in a mainstream court environment. Even if they eschew the usual sharp practices, but their brief, their job, is to present their client’s side as best they can. Their job isn’t the discovery of truth, their job is advocacy for their client’s position. As such, they cannot abide by intellectual integrity, they cannot, ever, be fully honest and sincere, not if they want to get work again.
And that is because of the adversarial legal system we have. Not that that is a bad thing — or at least, like democracy, it’s terrible, but it’s better than any other system we’ve thought up so far. Human nature being what it is, you need a twisted system to deliver something fairly close to justice on a sustained basis: ergo, this adversarial system we’ve got. So, not complaining about that. But merely observing that intellectual integrity cannot, should not, be expected from lawyers — not without redefining that term beyond recognition.
Hence why your Robert Frost quote hits home so completely.

AR,
It’s the zeitgeist, I’d say. Winning is everything.