Nope, not really.

Read some Aristotle.

I am going to spend sometime digesting what you have had to say, most impressive, thanks for the thoughful response, I will get back to you on this!! Thanks Mr Fight The Power, any particular works??

The Metaphysics.

If Aristotle didn't call his metaphysics, metatphysics; what did he call it, and what was the meaning of the word. I'd say Poetics. It has that lovely line I read and about destroyed my Ethics trying to find about the line between vice and virtue being one that divides all of mankind. Which is nonsense, but it sounds good. If it were possible to really divide humanity on any line, it would not be humanity as a form. Because, forms are always unitary. Ideas, forms, concepts are all one thing. Under the classification of cats there are not two cats, but one class divided only in detail, but, all are cats. They are not divided, they are distinguished, or differentiated in some detail, none of which are the opposite of the other. Am I making this difficult. It is not. Every individual example of a certain concept is like every other example of that concept in every essential detail, though it might vary in every inessential way. For example... Humans have a 99%+ equality of genes. Our essential detail might be this shared 99% of our genetic make up. Considering that the one percent we differ in may represent many thousands of potential combination effecting everything from from feet to smiles, and beyond, it is no small thing. As a group, we must also account for our differences. Thanks; Sorray to bay so longgg winded.

If it's my idea; you can have it. I would look at a lot of history from that angle, history of philosophy in particular, but all history as well. The great individuals who can actually move human progress fore or back, all have that fact in common. They were good at formulaic behavior. Napoleon could form a conception of the battle field and even of war to such an extent that he could win wars and battles regularly. He understood it to the extent that he could teach war in the form of history, and maxims. And I add, the military is very formal in dress and behavior. And he recognised a master of war by formula when he said at the Tomb of Frederick the Great; Hats off Gentlemen; If he were alive we would not be here. Now; do you think he could have lived with himself, or played his part in all the torture and carnage if the relationship between himself and his army were not the extreme of unequal? If he were capable of caring he could not have seen his men slaughtered for any formal gain. His first battle would have been his last.
If I were building my ideal human theys would be thus: All would have enough formal education and understanding to solve formal problems, and each would have the ability to relate, informally, give and take, push and shove, and having the desire with which to hang in there, bear the seasons, and the ebb and flow of many tides undaunted. Man, I never thought I would ever get a chance to use that word. What do you know. Few of our problems are formal, and many problems in life once surmounted will never be seen again; and yet they are no less problems for being phenomenal. The necessity for resolving moral issues and solving informal problems requires a more immediate, and lithe mentality. See. What a day for unused words. Its before noon and I think I'll crack a beer.

Hitler could compare his life to a motion picture. He was distant even from himself. Does anyone believe Caesar was less distant, or Alexander the Great? Stalin was right to compare the deaths of thousands to statistics. At some point human relationships become totally minimized to those who seek the form of government power. And it is like the two poles of human existence. Those who have relationships are happy in them and need little, and those who have forms very often need the whole world. It is why ideas are so dangerous. People latch onto a form like a life vest, and to keep it will kill millions.

I wrote this a while ago and was going to put it in the creative writing section, but this seems like the perfect place.

On Free Will versus Automatism


These two, mutually exclusive ideas are those upon which we primarily rely when attempting to explain the passage of events. How can there be such confusion about the simplest and most fundamental element of our reality!
On the one hand, through empirical science, men have decided that, theoretically, they could predict the course of any natural event, because phenomena succeed one another in an invariable pattern. Also, they have decided that all real events are natural. Therefore, except for the practical limitations, length of the calculations, required fineness of measurements, etc, they could predict any and every conceivable event, including all the actions of all people. Scientific thought, if extrapolated in this way, arrives at the conclusion that man is not free, but that he, like all other arrangements of matter and energy in the universe, is irrevocably bound act in accordance to universal laws. Applied to the nervous system, as it would have to be, this idea would that all thoughts, however intricate and all actions, however personal or ephemeral, are the direct result, albeit through many confused passages, of the interactions of various physical properties.
The other view, that man is indeed free, supposes that this freedom of action is the result of the will, some vaguely defined, supernatural entity, existing in no specific place, yet within the man, which is responsible for said action. The idea Soul was the antecedent of this modern idea, Will. This poses a problem for modern man similar to that of the medieval theologian, who believed in the omniscience of God and also in man's ultimate free will.
However, I call both of these ideas superstition! They jointly rest on the mystical idea of causation. The idea will, or soul, had to be invented because cause and effect are necessarily separated in causation, or vice versa. It was assumed that the body, as effect, must be directed by some cause, the will. This idea gave birth to the scientific spirit and the scientific interpretation of life; whatever the body in question, whether human, vegetable or mineral, as long as causation is presupposed, there must be disunion of action and actor. In that material world, forces are correspondent to souls and matter to bodies. This scientific/mystical interpretation seems gloomy, as it denies human free will, because the entire concept of will, in that world-view, is separated from the action; if the action, the body, does not have its own supernatural soul-cause, then it must be influenced by various external causes, like a puppet. I understand why this view is so repellent to most.
If, on the other hand, one removes the fallacious idea of causation, uniting cause and effect in single phenomena, making the actor and the action once more inseparable, neither the idea of free will nor that of scientific automatism has any weight; they become utterly meaningless. Now, will is understood in a new way; it is not the cause of one's actions, but simply a linguistic symbol for those actions. The terms willing and acting are synonymous. Similarly, in the natural world one would unite force with matter and rename it phenomena for the sake of clarity.

Every effect has a cause; but not every cause has an effect. Or should I say, a specific effect; or a desired effect. If I were to drive bull pins as once I did, some times a hole is too far off, or the iron is too bound up to move, and then without a bigger beater you might as well hang it up for the day because wail away at it as much as you want with a two pound tack hammer and nothing will give an inch. Came after it with an eight pound maul and you're in business. But life is like that, where things will give, and even the earth and environment will give to a concerted effort, but will absorb anything short of that. It is one thing to look for will in all that people do; but if it were possible for people to consciously change anything, as a demonstration of will; a good place to start would be themselves. While we all want to change others, we find we are ourselves beyond change, and so as all other peoples in times passed, we change our forms to avoid personal change. We are biologically and socially determined, and restricted by ignorence, and while clearly, at least in my opinion, life is a force of will; still there is little we can do but to survive to show our will. Life and nature absorb much of our force, so that, if we could move mountains someone would only move them back.

And what is a cause I ask?

Anything in motion is a potential cause for an effect. It is just that nearly every bullet misses. And every straw breaks the camel's back. There is never a single cause, and no point in looking for a first cause. For humans to make a ripple they must concentrate all their energy, and in a sense it is a waste of life since the object of life is life, the living of it, the relationships, and all effort aimed at demonstrating will is taken from the living of life. Does it not strike you as strange that so many of our philosophers; those most interested in proving human freedom, and will -almost to a man, lived and died lonely? No one should give up the best part of any life to consider how to make all life better. Have your cake, eat it too, and bake another cake; but don't ever think you can hold on to anything for ever, or that a perfect form or formula for life can be developed. Better people demand and build better forms. If you want to improve the world, start with people, and begin that with self.

So, if I may back track: All will is free. All freedom is willed. If you prove, or improve one, you prove the other.

You did not answer my question. Obviously, you think that a cue ball striking another ball is an example of cause and effect. I disagree.

E.g. Let's say event X occurs, followed by event Y. Through the rigours of the scientific method, through literally millions of observations, it has been determined that when X happens, Y always happens; it has been determined that X is the cause of Y and Y the effect of X. I am in no way convinced. Firstly, statistical regularity is not truth, but that is not my point here. Much more importantly, there is no connection inherent in this interaction of X and Y which I would call a cause. What is a cause? Is a cause only another word for the preceeding phenomena? With lack of evidence that anything else (other than one phenomena, followed by another) happened, I have to say yes. If you can show me where the cause lies in this succession of events, or even define what a cause is without resorting to the that same succession of events, then I will bow to you and beleive that a cause is indeed a motive force, and not just a name for the regularity of sequential phenomena.

... does the transfer of kinetic energy from one body to another work? - that is, can one body in motion can be the cause of another body in motion through the transfer of kinetic energy? ... but at any rate, the conscious experience of cause and effect is merely as a succession of events, as you point out (we don't consciously experience the transfer of energy) - which implies that the conscious experience of cause and effect can be fooled ... which in turn implies that the conscious experience of will can be fooled (the thesis of Wegner's interpretation of a body of scientific and anthropological evidence in "The Illusion of Conscious Will") ...

does the transfer of kinetic energy from one body to another work? - that is, can one body in motion can be the cause of another body in motion through the transfer of kinetic energy?

No, that does not work. As I predicted, you cannot define a cause without using the word cause or an idea (such as kinetic energy transfer) that is already founded onj cause. Causation is no different than succession in reality. The importance of this is complicated, relates to my particular philosophy, which I don't need to go into detail about right now. But, nonetheless, do you see how I have proven my point?

but at any rate, the conscious experience of cause and effect is merely as a succession of events, as you point out (we don't consciously experience the transfer of energy) - which implies that the conscious experience of cause and effect can be fooled

With what are you comparing the conscious experience of cause and efffect in order to judge that it has been fooled? If not by our own conscious experience, how do you determine what reality is? And, do not say 'through science', or 'through empiricism' because those are ideas, which reside in our consciousness, as a reult of our experience.

In my view, there is no reality beyond perceived reality. This might include galaxies, black holes or other 'scientifically known' items, but only as those ideas, not as things real in themselves, regardless of the perception of them.

... I can't say that I see your point yet ... how can it be said that the transfer of kinetic energy is founded upon the idea of cause? ... it would seem to me to be the case that it is the other way around - that the idea of cause is founded upon naturally predictable occurrences such as the transfer of kinetic energy (which is qualitatively different than random things occurring in temporal succession).



Wegner cites a lot of scientific and anthropological evidence - way too much to regurgitate here (you can get the book on Amazon) ... as but one example, a study was done to look at range of time delays between a thought occurring and the perception of something happening for a person to experience that the something was a result of their will ... what they found was that if the delay is too long, there is no experience of conscious will - but at the same time if the delay is too short there is no experience of conscious will.

(causality)...which is qualitatively different than random things occurring in temporal succession

Now the root of our misunderstanding emerges; you beleive in chance! There is nothing at all random in the succession that I'm speaking of. Things occur in the manner in which they do, not otherwise; i.e., things occur in the only way in which they can occur. There is no room for randomness, which is just a word placed where we do not yet fully understand the succession of the phenomena.

So, if we remove your claim that the essential difference between causality and sequnetiality is the presence of chance in the latter, what remains to distinhuish the two?

The reason that I keep asking you to define causation in terms that are not tautological and without reference soley to sucession is that otherwise, how does causality have a meaning unique from sequentiality, which is a supremely simple idea to understand?

For an analogy, imagine this scenario. Someone walks around the barnyard and says "Hey, look a bunch of ducks." His companion for this stroll says "No dude, there are some ducks and also some clucks." They enter into a heated debate, during which, it becomes obvious that the companion cannot describe or define a cluck except, in fact, as a duck. What is the neccessary conclusion; that there are only ducks, not clucks. Cluck (causality) has no meaning unless that meaning is identical to duck (sequentiality).

You might now say that who is to choose which term to use if they are identical? I never said they were identical. In reality, they refer to the same thing; however, causality implies a motive force, which cannot be explained and which is, therefore, totally imaginary. I want to remove that element by using the term sequentiality, which makes no claims to motivation, only to actual occurance, action.

... unfortunately, I still don't see how a transfer of kinetic energy can be considered to be totally imaginary nor the qualitative equivalent of a sequentiality in which there is no transfer of kinetic motion ... in the former, two bodies are related via the kinetic energy that is passed from one to the other through physical contact; whereas in the latter, there is no such relationship ... there's no denying that both scenarios have an element of sequentiality to them, but I don't think that negates the qualitative difference between them.

P.S. I apologize for using the term "random" in a colloqial fashion (e.g., the random flip of a coin) ... it was in no way meant to imply that I believe randomness is anything other than a way of expressing a statistical characteristic of an occurrence that is for all practical purposes unpredictable.

... then again, it could be that I'm too accustomed to using "cause" in a colloquial fashion as well ... "random", "cause", "sequential", "free will" - what do any of these mean if you hold them to an equal level of intensely precise scrutiny?

Unfortunately, these terms also hinge on some fundamental assumptions - for example, whether or not the universe is deterministic ... for the moment, let's assume that the universe is deterministic ... what then are the meanings of "random", "cause", "sequential", "free will"?: "Random" is a useful fiction for boundedly rational agents; "Cause" is real and everywhere, the Big Bang being the ultimate cause that every causal chain can be traced back to; "Sequential" is a useful fiction for boundedly rational agents traveling at small velocities relative to one other; "Free will" is a useful fiction for boundedly rational agents.

Certainly, my characterization is debatable (and I'm sure it will be!!! ) ... anyone care to take on what these terms mean in an undeterministic universe?

Edit: Ooops! - I think I may have confused "sequentiality" with "simulteneity" here :shocked:

paul hanke:

unfortunately, I still don't see how a transfer of kinetic energy can be considered to be totally imaginary nor the qualitative equivalent of a sequentiality in which there is no transfer of kinetic motion ... in the former, two bodies are related via the kinetic energy that is passed from one to the other through physical contact; whereas in the latter, there is no such relationship

I'm not saying that when one things strikes another, there is no reaction; that is obviously false. What I mean is that, while what kinetic energy transfer refers to is real, the idea itself is not experiencable, not real. No one has every seen, felt, et.c, kinetic energy. That is a mental structure by which we can more easily describe phenomena. Any phenomena in which you say there is a kinetic energy transfer, I can just as easily describe without resorting to that idea of kinetic energy. Basically, it comes down to this; in order to describe the course of events, it is not neccessary to posit motive forces into things.

For example; does either of the statements "the red ball struck a blue ball, causing the blue ball to move foreward," or "the red ball struck a blue ball, which subsequently moved foreward," actually describe the situation any better? No, they refer to the same event. As such, I prefer the one (philosophically, not practically) which does not include an indefinable thing like causation. In the event that these are both describing, I can imagine the action of the two balls, but I cannot see where the cause fits in; hence, it is purely imaginary; it is a useful way of speaking, nothing more.

As for your second post:

I would say that, when held under rational scrutiny, there is no cause, chance or free will. Sequentiality, however, most certainly exists; to think otherwise, would be to deny that change occurs; one would have to deny life. How could you argue with a statement like "this happened and then this happened?" Obviously, the details are unimportant, because one might make a statement above which one knows is not true. That's not the point. The structure of sequentiality is entirely correspondent to reality, there is nothing superfluous, like a 'cause'.

... see my edit above ... time dilation can change the apparent intervals in a time sequence of events, but I'm not sure that necessarily implies that time dilation can change the apparent order of a time sequence of events ...

Edit: after a little poking around, it appears that time dilation can change the apparent order of a time sequence of events, but at the same time it is impossible for any one observer to experience the change in order.

What made you ask?