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nakt

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I'm in a position whereby I cannot point to a fact of reality to make my case, because the person I am arguing with has decided that those facts are trivial, and so how can I build up my case based on the facts and reason?

This really is the central problem I've found with so many of these kinds of discussions. How does one proceed with a reasoned discussion when the other party's goal is to undercut the validity of reason? Of course, that party will have to use reason and logic as they attempt to undercut both..... :pimp:

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But determinism clearly does not ignore the “internal” part of the equation; to say that what’s on our minds doesn’t matter is not determinism but rather behaviorism. If I’m eating icecream it would not be because my body on its own had decided to do so, but because I wanted to do so, however under determinism our wants and wills are part of what is determined. There are of course solutions to this “problem” (I don’t think it should be considered as such) like dualism, but as usual, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence…

A fallacy of composition arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole (or even of every proper part). The argument that if the brain consists only of neurons, molecules and atoms none of which have free will, then the brain as a whole cannot have free will is an instance of the fallacy of composition. It really is as simple as that, and I thank you for this discussion which has brought me to my new favorite refutation of determinism because it is so short.

I completely disagree with this. To say that ideas don’t exist physically is like to say that the pictures on my hard drive don’t exist physically. It is certainly true that they aren’t expressed the same way (there is no picture in “1” and “0”!) but to say that they don’t exist is completely missing the point.

No, you just blew past the entire point. There is no picture in "1" and "0". There is no free will in neurons, molecules and atoms.

Well the idea of determinism is considered justified by induction and it is as old as science itself.

Determinism goes back at least as far as the greek sophists, predating science by centuries. It has always been a fallacy.

Oh by the way, "justified by induction?" How long have you been keeping secret your refutation of Hume's skeptical attack on induction? Because mainstream, non-Objectivist philosophy has not yet come up with one.

if science is upheld as metaphysical fact,

LOL, this is very revealing. The process of science is not a simple fact. Science is a highly abstract endeavor which presumes an entire philosophy of science based on logic, the evidence of the senses, primacy of existence and free will (in other words, the whole of epistemology, the quintessential philosophical field). You continue to commit the stolen concept fallacy by putting the cart before the horse when using scientific ideas and perspectives to undercut the philosophy that makes science possible. This is a real head-banger :pimp: Until you come to grips with the idea that science is dependent upon and made possible by logically prior philosophical ideas which science cannot be permitted to ever contradict, there is no more to say.

You could of course always bring up emergence, but the thing is; emergent properties emerge from whatever it consists of, not from nothing.

For example, when temperature in a gas is said to emerge from the average kinetic energy of the particles it consists of, that property comes from the particles, not from magic.

While it’s perhaps a bit early to speculate about the human mind (considering the sorry state of the theories of consciousness, or rather the lack thereof) there is no reason to believe that different rules would apply to it.

You have summarized the state of the art in neuroscience (human consciousness somehow emerges from its component parts).

Your reduction to the absurd there is invalid, as you rely on a hidden premise. Even if determinism implied an infinite regress or a first cause or any other (arbitrary) oddity, it could always be solved by an (arbitrary) ad hoc hypothetic.

And when people counter an ad hoc hypothesis used to save an argument from an arbitrary claim by another ad hoc (also perfectly arbitrary) solution I think it’s best to leave such speculation aside ;) .

This was too brief for me to follow. What hidden premise? What do you mean by 'ad hoc hypothetic' and please give an example. The possibilities of infinite regress versus a first cause are together mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive, so there is no element of the arbitrary there. My argument stands.

So that means that there are multiple consequent actions? Could you perhaps show me where the same effect can indeed lead to different results (that’s what you are saying right?).

That sort of causation clearly does not apply to physical objects bouncing around, so I must say I’m at loss of where such causation happens.

Quantum mechanics and human volition are two separate examples (I do not know or need to claim that human volition is actually quantum in nature).

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