[ExI] [Extropolis] determinism

[William Flynn Wallace]

You are talking only about those cases where the determining factor is
completely powerful.

Towards the end of my teaching career I got rather average student
evaluations.  I attributed this to my not inflating grades the way the
others were doing (I checked their grades).  Suppose I did go along.  Were
the student evaluations determining my increasing the grades?  But I
didn't.  I determined to stay the same.  If the dean had threatened my
tenure I would have changed - powerful determinant.  So to a certain extent
we do choose our determinants.  Ballard, you are using the word in a
different way than I am.   bill w

On Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 10:50 AM SR Ballard <sen.otaku at gmail.com> wrote:

> You can’t control your actions IF they are determined. If actions are
> simple cause and effect (determined), then there is no choice, only the
> illusion of choice.
>
> If you don’t mean “determined” as in “actually determines”, then picking
> the word determined was a huge fuckup back in the day by whoever decided
> that was the way to talk about it.
>
> If actions are determined, then there’s no such thing as guilt — just like
> truly random actions, there was no choice, so no guilt.
>
> SR Ballard
>
> On Jul 18, 2021, at 8:25 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> 
>
>
> On Sun, 18 Jul 2021 at 23:39, SR Ballard <sen.otaku at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> So they’re determined except that they aren’t. That’s not very clear. If
>> they’re determined, like Pavlov’s dog, we only have the illusion of choice.
>>
>> If by “determined”, you mean influenced, then sure, I’d say that free
>> will and determinism are compatible. Otherwise I think it’s a bucket of
>> hogwash.
>>
>> If people really can’t ever control their actions, we need to radically
>> change society, but we can’t, because everything is inevitable. Or maybe we
>> will, because it’s inevitable.
>>
>
> You can't control your actions UNLESS they are determined. An undetermined
> action is one that is truly random, and you can't control a truly random
> event. The best you can hope for is that undetermined events occur
> infrequently or only when the outcome doesn't matter, such as choosing ice
> cream, when the worst that can happen is that you get a flavour you don't
> like.
>
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