Yes cultures and religions are a product of the associated group surviving and passing on the culture or religion. This is similar to the process of biological evolution, where the characteristics of a species that is present at reproduction, is passed on.
But not everything that is passed on, is necessarily a positive aspect. Consider Type II diabetes for example. It generally manifests after the human has had lots of opportunities for reproduction, so it is difficult to say that Type II diabetes is contributing to the survival of the species. It is just a problematic artifact that hitched a ride on the evolution train.
Similarly, religions and cultures can have some messed up artifacts that may not be a part of their group survival. Also, religions and cultures can have aspects that DO INDEED contribute to the group survival, but which are destructive to the survival of other groups.
Yet you advocate mercy and justice at the absolute exclusion of killing ANY criminal, in any circumstance, for any reason? You are only advocating a certain stance (by your own admission) that you are determined to. You are a puppet of the summation of factors impending on you.
So are you, so are we all, you are determined not to accept it.
granted that, this conversation seems rather superfluous
In a sense it is because nothing anyone says will change anything. But we must be determined to have the conversation anyway. It doesn’t have to make sense to our conscious minds. It just IS.
Accepting determinism is something like consciously accepting that the earth revolves around the sun. However we still say and imagine that the sun rises and sets, knowing full well it doesn’t move relative to the earth. Whether people realize the sun does not move or not has no bearing on the fact that it does not. For millennia, most people didn’t know or refused to believe the sun did not revolve around the earth. (There are still some people today who don’t know or won’t accept it.) That lack of belief or knowledge has no effect on the fact that the sun doesn’t revolve around the earth, does it? We can know the truth about something and think, act and speak as if we did not. That, in my opinion, is how determinism works. We can know we have no free will, but think, act and speak as if we do. But that conscious thinking has no effect on the fact that our thoughts and actions are determined and we have no free will.
I think of the earth as moving toward the east while the sun stays relatively stationary. When I was a young child, I saw the face of the man-in-the-moon. But after '68, I only saw craters.
Lois said "…We can know we have no free will, but think, act and speak as if we do. But that conscious thinking has no effect on the fact that our thoughts and actions are determined and we have no free will. "
Just to be precise, our knowledge, thoughts, actions, and spoken words are a part of the hodgepodge of determining factors relative to our actions.
I just thought of a better analogy to describe my discomfort with the way Lois describes the Free Will question.
Many of us have had the wonderful experience of seeing or walking past someone and something passes between you two.
Suddenly, the blood is pumping, the nerves are tingling, and things are never quite the same. Whether the encounter ends in deep love at first sight, deep physical passion at first scent, whether feelings fade or remained alive in one form, or another, for the rest of your days. It actually does happen. If it’s never happened to you it may be difficult to believe - but take people’s word for it, it happens.
Now sure a neurologist can deconstruct that into various pheromones and other stimuli - inputs and various receptors being triggered, which released cascades of hormones and other molecular goodies that process this and that, then kicked off other cascades that continued down their molecularly driven pathways, and so on and so forth and be done with it. First comes love then comes marriage then comes baby in the baby carriage.
And sure, guess there’s no arguing with that, or the science behind it - but jez,
if that’s the best you can do with that moment when another human grabbed you by your innards from across the street or room and upended everything you knew before. Well hell, it just seems that life (or is it our mindscapes I’m meaning to say?) is wasted if that sort of deconstruction is the best we can do with this human, yeah okay, biological dance.
TimB said: Just to be precise, our knowledge, thoughts, actions, and spoken words are a part of the hodgepodge of determining factors relative to our actions.
CC said: Now that I can relate to. ;- )
TimB: We may be “actors on a stage” but to some extent we are also the audience. (Tho, in my understanding, we are not the directors or producers.)
Lois, In terms of determination, it doesn’t matter if what our “conscious mind” (as the audience) perceives and processes is “reality”. What we do, say, think, etc. by virtue of that, are also potentially salient factors that can contribute to what we do subsequently.
CC: Why is it that every time you describe it, it sounds (to me) more like being trapped in a padded cell, than living one’s life.
Lois: I don’t. I think it’s liberating. I think it helps me understand why humans act the way they do and it makes me more compassionate.
When you put it that way, in terms of coming to grips with why the masses behave as they do, okay. I’ll buy in.
But, when it comes down to the nitty gritty of an active life dancing on the sword’s edge of existence, there it gets way less clear cut for me. It’s like being able to recognize how much is deterministic, swimming in an ocean of determinism might open slivers in the universe, where perhaps . . .
Difference between the perspective of an engineer v. a poet, or something like that, I guess
How many folks here see their body as a semi independent force.
The conscious mind speaks to itself non-stop, trying to get the body to conform with what it wants. Although, just as likely, your body will force its will onto your conscious mine’s reality.
I think here’s another place where the concept of the two fundamentals of our reality -
There is objective evidence that the universe is deterministic. If the universe is deterministic, there is no reason to think that human thoughts, decisions and actions are not also determined. There is no evidence at all that humans can override determinism by force of their “will”. If you think there is, please cite it. Believing humans have free will is not evidence, no matter how many people are absolutely convinced they have it.
I just had a thought. (that’s two since Saturday) . Based on the contents of this thread, it seems I may be technically incorrect about fortune telling.
If we live a determined life, it should be technically possible to map out a person’s life with some accuracy. I don’t mean by visiting an astrologer, who claims to be able to do just that. I’m thinking of a computer programme. I know nothing about computer algorithms. I suspect that far too much accurate data would be needed for a useful programme. Perhaps with a lot less data, a broad outline of some useful life aspects could be determined (?) . Kind of like a far more sophisticated psych test than used currently.
I agree with ur basic premise PD. The only complicating factor in predicting the future, besides the sheer, astounding, breathtaking, extraordinarily awesome, almost unimaginable complexity and amount of data involved, is that some events, I believe, can only be predicted within certain probability parameters. And each time there is an intersection of prediction with a probability parameter, the more complex the subsequent prediction becomes, and with increasing possibility of error.
Weather prediction is a good example of this. The forecasts that we get these days are remarkably better than we used to get. But forecasting weather may be very simple compared to anything involving the behavior of groups of humans. (As social creatures even the prediction of the behavior of 1 human, would typically also involve the behavior of other humans.)
Also, some of the necessary data would probably not be accessible. e.g., People’s thoughts are generally not very accessible. And as I have said, one’s thoughts can also be salient factors in the determination of one’s behavior.
Weather forecasts are a good example. It is my understanding that daily forecasts have a maximum accuracy level of 80%, with each day, reliability reduces.
An interesting aside about predictive tests: In WW2 the US had some practitioners of the then new-ish discipline of Psychology, do a psych assessment of Adolf Hitler. The results are very interesting, including some accurate predictions about his behaviour.BUT, I am also aware of whats now called ‘conformation bias’. Those early psychologists could not have avoided having some pre exiting ideas/beliefs about Hitler.
Interesting, just the same:
"The report is notable for making several correct predictions about Hitler’s future:
As the war turns against him, his emotions will intensify and will have outbursts more frequently. His public appearances will become much rarer, because he’s unable to face a critical audience.[2]
There might be an assassination attempt on him by the German aristocracy, the Wehrmacht officers or Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, because of his superhuman self-confidence in his military judgment.[2]
There will be no surrender, capitulation, or peace negotiations. The course he will follow will almost certainly be the road to ideological immortality, resulting in the greatest vengeance on a world he despises.[2]
From what we know of his psychology, the most likely possibility is that he will commit suicide in the event of defeat. It’s probably true he has an inordinate fear of death, but possibly being a psychopath he would undoubtedly weigh his options and perform the deed.[2]"
PS please forgive my reductio ad Hitlerum (Godwin’s law)
I do have a good sense of right and wrong and am in reality against the death penalty for reasons I have already stated. But I also enjoy the idea of child molesters being killed.
——
Then maybe you should take it upon your self to kill them. The state will not.
I understand how you feel, and I have similar feelings, but we have laws for a reason and child molestation, as heinous as it is is nkt a capital crime in the US, nor in any other Western democracy that I know about.
“Although most nations have abolished capital punishment, over 60% of the world’s population live in countries where the death penalty is retained, such as China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, among all mostly Islamic countries, as is maintained in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Sri Lanka. China is believed to execute more people than all other countries combined.”
There has been no surge in murder in the states that have ended Capital punishment, including our closest neighbors, Canada and Mexico.
