• Shamshir
    855
    Let it go, let it go-o~
  • Wittgenstein
    442

    Oh for fucks sake!
    Haha, lmao. :lol:
    But credit goes to you for capturing the spirit of every philosophical debate. :rofl:
  • Baden
    16.3k


    Full marks for effort. I would in future assess earlier the probability that you will be met with rational responses and stay or bail accordingly.
  • NOS4A2
    9.2k
    It cannot be demonstrated that words have an effect on matter and organisms beyond the medium they’re presented on. This poses a dire difficulty for proponents of censorship because their entire justification for rests upon this one superstition.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Well then you've confused necessary and sufficient causes.Isaac

    I'm not confusing anything. I'm telling you how I'm using the word "cause."

    Nowhere did I say anything at all resembling "a cause has to be a single thing."

    But a cause has to involve force. If causes are multiple things, then it's multiple things forcing something to happen. That can happen two ways, plus a combo way: (1) as a temporal causal chain: A forces B which forces C which forces D. (2) Multiple things, A, B and C,simultaneously force D, or (3) there's a combo of a temporal chain (1) with multiple causes (2) at at least some steps of the chain.

    No matter what we're talking about, causality still involves FORCE. A necessary cause of D means that D can't happen unless some particular antecedent, B, for example happens. B is a necessary cause of D in that case. That has to involve force of course. A sufficient cause of D means that B alone, for example, can make D happen, though other causes can be involved, too--those other causes need not be necessary, but if B is necessary, D can't happen if B doesn't happen, otherwise B isn't a necessary cause. Sufficient causes can never exclude necessary causes (as otherwise the cause in question wouldn't be necessary; it would be possible for D to obtain with it).

    Sufficient causes that aren't necessary can be the case if, say, either A or B can cause D just as well. Then A or B would be sufficient, but not necessary, for D. (So that if A causes D, B wasn't necessary, and if B caused D, A wasn't necessary.)

    Regardless, all causes have to involve FORCE, or we're not talking about causes, per how I'm using the term. Also, A isn't a cause of D unless A was part of at least some chain of events that resulted in D forcibly happening, where each step of the chain with A in the antecedent grouping involved forcible occurrences.

    Sticking dogmatically to arbitrary ideologies regardless of the harm they may causeIsaac

    When A doesn't force B, where B is what we have a problem with, where B is the harm we're concerned with, then A didn't cause B. That's just the point. In that case it's ontologically incorrect to say that A caused B. So it's flawed to talk about A causing some harm, B, in that case.
  • Isaac
    10.3k


    Yes, you're probably right. Apologies for the pointlessly long-winded elenchus. Feel free to delete the lot.
  • Baden
    16.3k


    No fault on your part excepting over-optimism. And I think I'll leave it all as an instructive warning.
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    If causes are multiple things, then it's multiple things forcing something to happen.Terrapin Station

    Right. So why do you keep presenting the fact that speech does not exhaustively and consistently cause certain behaviours as if it were an argument. If we accept speech as a cause among others then we would expect the behaviour it causes to be neither exhaustive nor consistent because the actual outcome will be heavily determined by the other factors involved. None of this makes speech no longer a cause, simply because the effect requires other forces as well to become manifest.

    As to it being a physical force, everything that happens in the brain is physical. Unless we're returning to your magic woo again.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    So why do you keep presenting the fact that speech does not exhaustively and consistently cause certain behaviours as if it were an argument.Isaac

    Speech doesn't force the behavior in question. You just agreed to that. No one is arguing about whether speech alone forces the behavior in question. It's not part of any set of phenomena that FORCE the actions in question.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    As to it being a physical force, everything that happens in the brain is physicalIsaac

    When we're talking about electrons interacting, even, I don't buy that determinism is always involved in the phenomena. We can have a vacuum, with two particles, A and B, where B can be in more than one subsequent state after interacting with A. I already explained this. You must just buy classical Laplacean determinism on faith, despite the fact that it hasn't been standard in the sciences for about 150 years.

    In addition, I mentioned multiple times that I'm not a realist on physical laws. I'm a nominalist. I don't buy that there are ANY real abstracts, including physical laws per se.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    Buy the way, if you're a Laplacean determinist, why wouldn't you be claiming that the subsequent actions are physically forced?
  • Baden
    16.3k
    But you accept that but for my posts you would not have written yours?Baden

    Sure, but that's not what a cause is.Terrapin Station

    A necessary cause of D means that D can't happen unless some particular antecedent, B, for example happens.Terrapin Station

    Glad you finally got around to admitting you were wrong. (Cue more sophistry and time wasting).
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Glad you finally got around to admitting you were wrong.Baden

    I already explained that it wasn't at all ontologically necessary for you to write your posts for me to write mine. Didn't you read the explanation?

    You don't seem to realize that you'd be claiming that it's ontologically impossible for me to have written my posts the way I did without you writing yours. (Not to mention that you'd be claiming that your posts forced me to write mine as I did (at least as one part of a causal chain, which I shouldn't have to clarify).)
  • Baden
    16.3k


    Throwing the word "ontologically" in does no work in this context. Your "explanation" a) contradicts the above and b) commits you to saying that decisions based on X don't require X. Anyway, carry on as if anyone is falling for any of this.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Your "explanation" a) contradicts the aboveBaden

    What's P in this case (where I'm stating P & ~P)?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Anyway, carry on as if anyone is falling for any of this.Baden

    I'm not of any delusions that anyone is really understanding what I'm typing, unfortunately, but this is the best I can get--a bunch of really conceited people who work as computer techs, etc. and who don't really understand philosophy very well.
  • Baden
    16.3k


    Yes, you're the only one here who understands philosophy. And who isn't conceited.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Yes, you're the only one here who understands philosophy. And who isn't conceited.Baden

    Maybe try learning something for once?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    At any rate, so what's P for the supposed contradiction?
  • NOS4A2
    9.2k


    Buy the way, if you're a Laplacean determinist, why wouldn't you be claiming that the subsequent actions are physically forced?

    That’s the mindset at work here, isn’t it? Their actions are determined by prior states of the world and not self-generated.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    That’s the mindset at work here, isn’t it? Their actions are determined by prior states of the world and not self-generated.NOS4A2

    Yes, apparently Isaac is a determinist, though for some reason he doesn't seem to want to be very straightforward about that.
  • Baden
    16.3k


    Ok, Yoda, teach me about what causes decisions to be made. Lay out the process and provide empirical evidence for it.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Ok, Yoda, teach me about what causes decisions to be made.Baden

    Decisions are not forced. They wouldn't be decisions if they were.
  • Baden
    16.3k


    Lay out the process of decision making and provide empirical evidence for it.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    Okay, first, do you understand that decisions are not forced?
  • Baden
    16.3k


    I'm not going to do word play with you. If you really have something to 'teach', lay out the process of decision making and provide empirical evidence for it.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    I'm not going to do word play with you. Of you really have something to 'teach', lay out the process of decision making and provide empirical evidence for it.Baden

    If I'm teaching you, you don't get to make demands. You follow the teacher.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    So first, do you understand that decisions are not forced?
  • Baden
    16.3k


    You want to try to force me to agree with you even before the lesson begins? :confused:
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    You want to try to force me to agree with you even before the lesson begins?Baden

    Either you understand it or you do not. You just answer honestly, and then we go from there.
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