Albert Camus: Humanism and Tragedy • Hacker News Board

Re: Albert Camus: Humanism and Tragedy

#31

Post by Emma_Goldman » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 8:19 PM UTC

sysbinn wrote: post #19

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I am not. The three substantive positions that I described - emergentism, neutral monism, dualism - reject the idea that mental activity is reducible to antecedent physical processes. Agnosticism suspends belief about the mind. Existentialism recasts this as a phenomenological issue; about our subjective experience of radical freedom. In other words, every one of these positions rejects the idea that we are impri…

Those three positions are substantive? How so.., I assume if you're that loose with the word.. the most widely shared definition of free will should be substantive to you. Even one could say free will rejects the idea that we are imprisoned by a physical nexus of 'cause & effect' and typically what people follow from reading the bible. Evil fairy tales that delude a person. Anyhow I wish I knew of cause & effect very…

I am struggling to understand what you are saying. Your views are not clearly stated or elaborated, and they are not obviously related to what I said.

I called them substantive because they are worked out philosophical theories, as opposed to agnosticism, which is simply the suspension of belief.

Re: Albert Camus: Humanism and Tragedy

#32

Post by sysbin » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #31

sysbinn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those three positions are substantive? How so.., I assume if you're that loose with the word.. the most widely shared definition of free will should be substantive to you. Even one could say free will rejects the idea that we are imprisoned by a physical nexus of 'cause & effect' and typically what people follow from reading the bible. Evil fairy tales that delude a person. Anyhow I wish I knew of cause & effect very…

I am struggling to understand what you are saying. Your views are not clearly stated or elaborated, and they are not obviously related to what I said. I called them substantive because they are worked out philosophical theories, as opposed to agnosticism, which is simply the suspension of belief.

Maybe email me at alizeebellerose @ icloud .com and we can have a better discussion. I was temporarily banned from HN for conversing about this topic. In any case the discussion would be better by email or elsewhere. I'm agnostic in the sense of purpose but I enjoy neuroscience enough and with physics that I cannot see real control existing in reality. Although, I would love to have someone explain to me how they see otherwise.

Re: Albert Camus: Humanism and Tragedy

#33

Post by bigbluedots » Sun, Jul 21, 2019, 6:05 AM UTC

sysbinn wrote: post #20

bigbluedots wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it give you comfort to hold that view? i.e. if everything is completely deterministic then you cannot be responsible for the consequences of your actions.

I don't see how that would give me comfort in a society that is conditioned and even manipulated to think contrary. I see people in prison and even if they're innocent (in the traditional sense) of the crime. Your rhetoric is typically voiced from people assuming it's not good to understand reality and I typically think what nonsense. I guess similar to how some people preferred everyone assuming the world to be flat…

I'd suggest that there is no way for either of us to know whether we actually have free will or not. So you are free to go on acting as if we don't, and I'm free to go on acting as if we do.

Re: Albert Camus: Humanism and Tragedy

#34

Post by sysbin » Sun, Jul 21, 2019, 1:54 PM UTC

bigbluedots wrote: post #33

sysbinn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that would give me comfort in a society that is conditioned and even manipulated to think contrary. I see people in prison and even if they're innocent (in the traditional sense) of the crime. Your rhetoric is typically voiced from people assuming it's not good to understand reality and I typically think what nonsense. I guess similar to how some people preferred everyone assuming the world to be flat…

I'd suggest that there is no way for either of us to know whether we actually have free will or not. So you are free to go on acting as if we don't, and I'm free to go on acting as if we do.

Well there is research that shows that we don't have free will. Nothing has shown we might have free will. Neither of us are free to think anything.