These are not mutually exclusive. There is freedom, which is non-mechanical causality also known as intelligence, and there is fate, which is mechanical causality also known as physics.

Fairbanks:
What is change and how would you know it happened?

Change is the state of affairs such that the sensations I have are not always the same.

Does the world unfold itself?

Pending proof that some entity/thing unfolds it, yes. Of course, there could not be such proof; by definition there is nothing outside 'the world' which could be directing it.

Progress could be cyclic.

I agree.

Is this supposed to be sensible?

Are 'you' really a room full of typing monkeys?


These are not mutually exclusive. There is freedom, which is non-mechanical causality also known as intelligence, and there is fate, which is mechanical causality also known as physics.

...and there is faith, such as that upon which you found that duality.

Quite right...the most necessary kind of faith a man can hold. Under a conception of individual free will as the highest value in the system, losing one's belief in such might lead to staring off silently into space for a decade and then death.* At any rate, the ultimate bulwark against this, the lifeline of the man who dances at the edge of fate...is faith.

If you are categorically incapable of holding faith of any kind, nihilism isn't for you, except in the most beautiful and tragic sense. Rich joke that a nihilist needs faith as much as (or moreso than) a priest?



*that or syphillus

I think Fairbanks was right about this. Fate exists for all and freedom is how we change fate, though of course, the inevitability of death, the ultimate of fate is made easier for some with faith and made worse for others. I see moral perfection, though I hate to use my jinx word here, as how we face life rather than simply facing death. We miss the point when we die, and when we spend our lives preparing for death we waste our lives. When we give any time to death we lose time properly given to making all life eternal, as humanity is: a never dying organism, we hope; for as long as humanity lives we will live and when humanity dies our deaths become final.

That duality is historic. If something else, possibly temporal like these or non-temporal, is possible, go ahead and add it.

Quite right...the most necessary kind of faith a man can hold. Under a conception of individual free will as the highest value in the system, losing one's belief in such might lead to staring off silently into space for a decade and then death.* At any rate, the ultimate bulwark against this, the lifeline of the man who dances at the edge of fate...is faith.

Well, I simply disagree. I don't see the neccessity to believe in cartesian duality. I find that abandoning it is liberating. I laugh...

note: If you are speaking pragmatically, then of course i agree that it is neccessary (and impossible not) to use that duality, but the utility of some doctrine is not evidence of is truth and I'm able to use it, totally unable not to, without believing its true.

If you are categorically incapable of holding faith of any kind, nihilism isn't for you, except in the most beautiful and tragic sense.

Well, thank you, I take that as a compliment, but I'm not a nihilist. I spend surprisingly little time staring into corners...:bigsmile:. I'll give you taste of my current position, which I call nihilistic aestheticism.

Bob: What is the meaning of life?
Mary: There is no meaning, all is vain.
Me: So what?

It seems to me that the end of reason, its conclusion (nihilism), is not the beginning of pessimism, but the liberation from all that impedes actually living: i.e., reason.

We are talking past each other, it seems. I was making what I thought was a rather obvious and perhaps cheap reference that doesn't seem to have stuck. I probably shouldn't have entertained your use of the word "dualism". At any rate, I was not talking about a simpleminded Cartesian division of the world into matter and spirit; I was talking about the concept of free will within a unified whole, which is the pillar of a certain kind of faith.

The comments about nihilism were not about you. Given that you evidently didn't catch my references, I'm not at all sure our definitions of that word closely match. In fact, I might be tempted to call your "nihilism" a form of Epicureanism, though given what E wrote on the last day of his life, he may have eventually gotten what I am only referring to.

I would suggest that the schism between free will and determinism is no schism at all. Most people equate free will with indeterminism, and this creates a conflict that really is needless. I think that once we re-define this word and it's usage, my argument will become a bit clearer. Lets start with the word "determined." This implies that all happenings must have a cause. My view is that free will simply has a certain kind of cause. In other words, an action can be both free and determined. They can co-exist with one another. Something that caused me to do a certain act can either be internal or external to my person. Some of you may recognize this as compatibilism.

Not a problem, merely a temporal concept. If there is another kind of cause than mechanical or intelligent, this might be a good time to mention it.

The only thought that comes to mind is the realm of chance...and I'm not sure thats a good fit.

I think that what you may be getting at is that causation need not be compulsion, so that my actions and choices can be caused without being compelled, and if they are not compelled then they are free (of compulsion). For instance, if the cause of my going to a particular restaurant is that I have read that it serves good food, then if I visit it, I did it of my own free will, since nothing compelled me to do so. So, I was caused to visit the restaurant, but not compelled to do it. On the other hand, if I was (say) hypnotized into going to the restaurant, then the cause of my going was also a compulsion to go. So, in that case, I did not go to the restaurant of my own free will.
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Chance, fate, randomness, stochasticness is probably worth another look. Fate and stochastics have an element of telos, fate being ordained by the gods or nature and stochastics in an old sense of being an archery target, which might represent total random chance to some but not to Robin Hood who never missed.

Chance itself would be a very weak cause since it has no force whatsoever. Random could be taken to mean perfectly uniform and balanced, so would also not be forceful.

Fate I am not disposed to put any credence in since it would go against the concept of free will which is all we have if we have anything at all. That leaves stochasticism, which needs development. Stochastics has potential if we consider whatever drives organisms and evolution of organisms.

Is it not obvious, to all you quibbling over which demi-god to assign as the mystical cause, that these are just names, meaningless? Of course, all words are so. But, in this case, there is actually a purpose to saying so; if what you have been experiencing is not 'free will', what is that and who needs it? You feel free, do you not; what matters the name?

I feel that the world is deterministic, though not causal. My argument is simple and seems indisputable; the world was, is and will be one way and not another; the world unfolds as it does and not otherwise.

Words stand for ideas, either simple or complex or hybrid. This was arguably the most interesting thing John Locke ever said or wrote. If the ideas are simple they cannot be defined. Cause is not a simple idea and refers to the flow of time. If time flows one direction cause is mechanical and if the other it is intelligent. These define the two kinds of cause. They are both temporal and therefore of the same nature and ultimately are each other. The possible third kind of cause, stochastic, would not be referred to the direction of flow of time and might be a feature of Derrida's general text.

Cause is not a simple idea and refers to the flow of time. If time flows one direction cause is mechanical and if the other it is intelligent. These define the two kinds of cause. They are both temporal and therefore of the same nature and ultimately are each other. The possible third kind of cause, stochastic, would not be referred to the direction of flow of time and might be a feature of Derrida's general text. -Fairbanks

First, I would say that cause has no meaning, exept as it refers to the passage of time. In that sense, I can't see any more simple idea, as time/change stands alone and cannot be defined any further, nor is there anything whih does not presupose this idea. My objetion to causality is not founded on an attempt to refute that time passes; that would be absurd. I object to the notion that a subsequent phenomenon is the product of the preceeding phenomenon; the relation between the former and the latter phenomena in any series of phenomena is imaginary; i.e., there could be a relation, but there is no reason to beleive so. That A is followed by B is indeed a fact; that A causes B is an assumption; what even is a cause? There is no reason to assume that A has motive power. The critic of this view of mine would say that the force of A effects B, whcih process is called causation. I would say to that critic that force is imaginary, albeit very useful for describing the funtioning of some phenomena; no one has ever sensed a force, a force cannot be described except by its results; i.e., by the actual phenomena A and B. Therefore, I use sequentiality instead of causality (in philosophial coversations only of course, I have no desire to change the language); the result is the same, but there is no unfounded assumption of motive force or positing of homoniculi within phenomena. This problem of inserting motive fore in nature is related to the arbitrary division of the world into subject and object; the world is not allowed to stand on its own; it is divided into that which observes and that which is observed, or that which acts and that which is acted upon.

As I said in the first sentence above, causality (or sequentiality) has no meaning except as a symbol for the passage of time. Speaking of intelligence as another kind of causality, non-mechanical causality, has the same problem; there is no reason to assume that one thought causes another thought, only that one follows another. The notion that our ideas, our intentions and other mental activities are immune from the law of causality that we assume for the external world is nothing but a vain attempt to maintain our erroneous assumption that there is such a thing as free will, and that we posses it.

However, we do have a feeling of free will, which is simply a lak of understanding, a lack of ability to foresee a future which will be one way and will not be any other. Fortunately, for those who do not want to know the future, myself included, that lack of understanding is necessarily insurmountable, because our understanding itself is a part of the world, whih affects the world. Therefore, if we were to somehow make the infinite calculations neccessary to determine the course of the future, it would immiedtly be altered by that very knowledge. Of course, such calculations are not only pratically, enormously unlikely, but actually impossible, because of the infinity of organization of the world from both ends of the spectrum of complexity, macro and microscopic.

I am just beginning to read Henri Bergson who deals with free will extensively I am told. I already disagree with his assumption of duality in the world, but his thoughts on what you call mechanical and non-mechanical causality are interesting. He holds that quantity is temporal, extistant is memory, while quality is non-temporal, existing in the present. Mechanism ivolves objets, which are generalized, quantitative; beause non-mechanical, present events are unique and cannot be quantified, they appear to have no mechanism, they are except from causality. This was already my view essentially, except that I would place the mechanistic world entirely within the conciousness of the individual. while Bergson gives it some reality of his own. Note: Henri, and any of his better versed disciples here, will have to forgive me if I have misinterpreted him; I just began Matter and Memory and my understanding is probably pretty superficial. Nonetheless, the above ideas are relevant, whether or not they contain elements of my owm that i've accidentally injected into Bergsonism.

Idea is a simple idea. Means light. Can't define it, Locke said so. Cause is not a simple idea and can be defined. Time is not a simple idea and can be defined. I suppose we should read Bergson if we are on the trail of the nature of the Self; he was popular in France for a while.

I agree that idea is a simple idea; there are many simple ideas. If we are defining a simple idea by our inability to define it, one cannot be 'more indefinable' than the other. Causation, which I consider synonymous with change or time, is simple and cannot be defined. Can you define time, without tautology? No. Feel free to try.

Of the eleven kinds of time which one are you most interested in?

There is but time dear friend; to speak of seven different sorts is meaningless. If you arbitrarily divide what is commonly understood as time into seven parts, then I'm sure you an define them, but only in terms of eah other. The atom, when it was thought to be the 'atomic' unit, the smallest, is analogous; it could only be defined when it was divided (defined in terms of those parts resulting from division). However, while I prefer that you attempt to define time, as commonly used, the idea from which those seven must have arisen, feel free to do that or define one of the 'seven kinds of time' in specie. Again, you will not be able to.

Common time, as taught in Kindergarten, is what the little hand and the big hand point to. This led to Einsteinian time, which is common time in tensors and is really the same time. That leaves ten times to be defined.