Master Of Puppets

By acknowledging that there isn't any free will or freedom in the world by understanding the intricate details of cosmic determinism where everything including how we act and behave is determined what exactly is the problem with seeing us all as puppets dependent on the enviromental biology around us?

By understanding the human species as just another puppet by the manifestation of biology, nature, and the universe how does it change our existential perception?

We are after all slaves to nature and the universe around us.

We are afterall undeniably slaves to death which inevitably takes us all.

By understanding man as just another puppet unfree and without free will where exactly is the conflict?

Are you trying to influence other people? Isn't there something ironic about a puppet trying to do this?

creasy wrote:

Are you trying to influence other people? Isn't there something ironic about a puppet trying to do this?

All I'm trying to say is that all humans including myself are puppets in a pre-determined world.

I'm trying to challenge people by asking the question: What if we are puppets? So what if we are? What does it change?

creasy wrote:

Are you trying to influence other people? Isn't there something ironic about a puppet trying to do this?

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All I'm trying to say is that all humans including myself are puppets in a pre-determined world.

A puppet in a pre-determined world would have no way of knowing if others were the same as it is. Perhaps your conclusions only apply to you. How could you possibly be objective given that, if you are correct. all of your beliefs HAD TO FORM THE WAY THEY DID and you cannot influence them or know their roots?

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I'm trying to challenge people by asking the question: What if we are puppets? So what if we are? What does it change?

In a determinist universe, nothing is changed by anything. The next billion years is already 'written' including your post.

The Fool, you are right, and creasy, things are 'set in stone', but for some reason, this is very hard to understand, and what the meaning is. (Free-will is also true.)

One result of knowing one's unfreedom is just simple expressions like 'I'd better do it now, because I won't feel like doing it later.' I am predicting my future feelings and getting a jump on myself. Getting a jump on myself now, that to me is where something confusing starts to get in.

Ivan wrote:

The Fool, you are right, and creasy, things are 'set in stone', but for some reason, this is very hard to understand, and what the meaning is. (Free-will is also true.)

One result of knowing one's unfreedom is just simple expressions like 'I'd better do it now, because I won't feel like doing it later.' I am predicting my future feelings and getting a jump on myself. Getting a jump on myself now, that to me is where something confusing starts to get in.

If The Fool is correct, for all he knows he is not correct about others. He is simply a determined machine saying and thinking what he is compelled to think - according to his own beliefs - such a person would have no way of judging others. He or she would have no idea if this idea applied other others or even that their rationale made sense. A toaster pops out the toast at a certain temperature. The Fool pops out a certain idea on certain totally determined occasions. Such an entity cannot possibly know how widely its ideas apply.

There is something absurd about saying 'Everything I do or say is completely determined' AND 'I can be objective about you.' Mull those two over for a while.

I am not making the case that The Fool is wrong. It is more 1) there is no point to what he is doing 2) to assert things with certainty about others is illogical if one thinks one is completely determined 3) a completely determined person cannot evaluate his or her own arguments, motives or know very much about him or herself. 4) (I am also hinting at) the fact that a person who is pressing others to believe in determinism or conclusions drawn from it is a) engaged in a self-contradictory activity AND up to something without consciousness.

Not that he can help any other this, ha, ha. But now that it is being pointed out......the billiard ball should change course.

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Creasy says: If The Fool is correct, for all he knows he is not correct about others. He is simply a determined machine saying and thinking what he is compelled to think - according to his own beliefs - such a person would have no way of judging others. He or she would have no idea if this idea applied other others or even that their rationale made sense. A toaster pops out the toast at a certain temperature. The Fool pops out a certain idea on certain totally determined occasions. Such an entity cannot possibly know how widely its ideas apply.

The marvelous absurdity of it all is that such a position would not just be applied to me but with everybody including yourself with your opinion on my opinions. ( Entirely subjective universe amongst a endless sea of aimless relativity.)

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There is something absurd about saying 'Everything I do or say is completely determined' AND 'I can be objective about you.' Mull those two over for a while.

Aimless relativity is what the cosmos is built upon. If you swim in it as long as I have everything becomes quite absurd.

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It is more 1) there is no point to what he is doing

Perhaps but I'm doing it anyways.

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2) to assert things with certainty about others is illogical if one thinks one is completely determined

You will find that a great deal of things that happen in the universe is illogical.

The universe has never once operated on the conforming and self created logic of mankind.

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3) a completely determined person cannot evaluate his or her own arguments, motives or know very much about him or herself. 4)

Maybe.

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(I am also hinting at) the fact that a person who is pressing others to believe in determinism or conclusions drawn from it is a) engaged in a self-contradictory activity AND up to something without consciousness.

Not that he can help any other this, ha, ha. But now that it is being pointed out......the billiard ball should change course.

Change course how exactly?

Logic and Metaphysics (i.e. Ontology) can tell us that Free Will doesn't exist; you may as well say that The Fool cannot know if 3 sided squares exist for you; they do not, because the statement is incoherent within itself.

The Fool wrote:

The marvelous absurdity of it all is that such a position would not just be applied to me but with everybody including yourself with your opinion on my opinions. ( Entirely subjective universe amongst a endless sea of aimless relativity.)

No, I am not asserting determinism. To assert determinism is to assert bascially that you are a machine. From that moment forward there is not reason to take anything that follows seriously.

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There is something absurd about saying 'Everything I do or say is completely determined' AND 'I can be objective about you.' Mull those two over for a while.

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Aimless relativity is what the cosmos is built upon. If you swim in it as long as I have everything becomes quite absurd.

But you keep on making assertions as if you do not think they are absurd, as if making those assertions makes more sense than others.

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It is more 1) there is no point to what he is doing

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Perhaps but I'm doing it anyways.

I don't think people actually believe their actions are pointless, even when they assert things like this. A depressed person who can't get out of bed, maybe. But someone who logs on to a philosophy forum and makes assertions? Nah. They do not think there is no point to their actions.

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2) to assert things with certainty about others is illogical if one thinks one is completely determined

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You will find that a great deal of things that happen in the universe is illogical.

So you admit you are being illogical.

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The universe has never once operated on the conforming and self created logic of mankind.

Sounds like you think manking and the universe are separate.

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(I am also hinting at) the fact that a person who is pressing others to believe in determinism or conclusions drawn from it is a) engaged in a self-contradictory activity AND up to something without consciousness.

Not that he can help any other this, ha, ha. But now that it is being pointed out......the billiard ball should change course.

Change course how exactly?[/quote] Become more hedonistic perhaps and not spend time making statements that are pointless.

How does determinism mean there isn't a point to actions?
The 'point' is the cause for doing them, it is the motivation generated by our brains, i.e. it is because we DESIRE to do those things. Why do we desire to do those things? For evolution etc.

It doesn't need some ultimate objective MEANING, it just is, to question why we desire the things we do is absurd, we desire them, and so we must do them.

-Psychonaut wrote:

How does determinism mean there isn't a point to actions?

Well, given that in determinism tomorrow, in all its totality, was inevitable back in the Big Bang, to talk about 'the point' of an action is meaningless. There is simply one event following another. Or different aspects of THE EVENT. A billiard ball is not hitting another one with some purpose and neither would we be. We might experience an intention, a purpose - iow a point - but this is mere illusion.

-Psychonaut wrote:

Logic and Metaphysics (i.e. Ontology) can tell us that Free Will doesn't exist; you may as well say that The Fool cannot know if 3 sided squares exist for you; they do not, because the statement is incoherent within itself.

It is a poor analogy, but let's set that aside. The problem is psychonaut, if you are utterly compelled by the past to post what you just posted and to think it makes sense, you have no way of knowing it does. A totally determined organism cannot be objective, it cannot know its own motives for believing something, it simply finds itself uttering something and thinking things. If someone comes up to you and says 'I cannot help but say the following....' there is absolutely no reason to take seriously what next comes out of their mouths. Which is what any determinist is asserting.

As far as Logic and Metaphysics can tell us that free will does not exist, this is like saying that Logic and Politics can tell us that abortion is wrong.

You are speaking of material reductionism; not determinism.

Motivations, desires, thoughts etc. are all causal operators and are not illusions; there is no reason why such illusions would be created; they are realities, a part of reality, and a part of how A gets to B.

Almost every critic of determinism I have seen resorts first and foremost to talking about material reductionism, why is this?