Words literally cause mindstates, when heard in certain contexts. — AmadeusD
And here we have it. The Big Bang begins the process of raising your arm and turning on the lights. So you’ve caused nothing, really. — NOS4A2
I'll interpret the lack of any rebuttal on your part to everything else I said regarding free speech as an agreement with what I said about free speech. — Harry Hindu
You can turn on the lights. You cannot move the components of the device, the energy within the system, or heat the filament in a bulb with your voice. — NOS4A2
I mean simply that you begin the process of your actions, that your actions find their genesis in you and nowhere else. — NOS4A2
When does physical event A begin and when does physical event B end? At what point in your temporal series does the cause occur? — NOS4A2
Humans have been hearing for the better part of their lives, even in the womb, and so the process of hearing begins as soon as the organism forms and begins to function in such a way. It doesn’t stop and then begin again in discrete temporal units and at the discretion of external sound waves. — NOS4A2
So then what object or force begins the process of lifting your arm? — NOS4A2
Causal determinism proposes that there is an unbroken chain of prior occurrences stretching back to the origin of the universe.
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Causal determinists believe that there is nothing in the universe that has no cause or is self-caused. Causal determinism has also been considered more generally as the idea that everything that happens or exists is caused by antecedent conditions.
Then what you're saying is that you and NOS4A2 have gone off-topic — Harry Hindu
Yes, you can turn on lights — NOS4A2
Uncaused cause? No. — NOS4A2
Then what besides the agent controls the agent’s arm? — NOS4A2
Not without Siri, apparently. — NOS4A2
Neither. — NOS4A2
By "ultimate source" I mean an agent's action originates within the agent, and nowhere else. Your "causal chains" begin within the agent. — NOS4A2
I’ll copy and paste the full incompatibalist source hood argument and you can let me know which premise you disagree with.
1. Any agent, x, performs an any act, a, of her own free will iff x has control over a.
x has control over a only if x is the ultimate source of a. — NOS4A2
You can move diaphragms in microphones and flick switches. As far as influence goes, that’s not much. — NOS4A2
There are multitudes of events and causes you’re leaving out — NOS4A2
A person acts of her own free will only if she is its ultimate source. — NOS4A2
Whose goals are being realized - yours or the hacker's? — Harry Hindu
Who had more control over what happens when you say, "Siri, open the blinds." You or the hacker? — Harry Hindu
You seem to be thinking that that is where the story ends. — Harry Hindu
You continue to point everywhere else (at strawmen). — Harry Hindu
So the superstitious imply a physics of magical thinking that contradicts basic reality: that symbols and symbolic sounds, arranged in certain combinations, can affect and move other phases of matter above and beyond the kinetic energy inherent in the physical manifestation of their symbols.
I'm not sure. I'm still trying to figure that out. — Harry Hindu
What if a hacker hacked your home network and now Siri unlocks your doors instead of opening the blinds? — Harry Hindu
Who would you call to fix the issue - a linguist, a political scientist, an electrician, or an information technology expert? — Harry Hindu
It is only the case that you often do cause the light to turn on by flicking the switch because the intervening technology is reliable - far more reliable than your speech's effect on other people. So how do you explain the discrepancy between the reliable outcome of your light turning on vs the unreliable outcomes of your speech? — Harry Hindu
But sometimes Siri does not open the blinds. How do you explain that — Harry Hindu
No, the kinetic energy of your voice moves a diaphragm or some other device in the microphone. That's it. That's as far as your "causal influence" goes. — NOS4A2
It's a problem I have with the weasel word "causally influence" and the limited knowledge I have of the components of the device. I've already admitted the kinetic energy in the sound waves of your voice can cause something to move in the listening-component (like any other sound wave), but weather you "causally influence" the behavior of the entire machine I cannot fathom because the machine is largely following the instructions of its programming or artificial intelligence, and not necessarily your voice. — NOS4A2
For me, the only question that needs be answered is “what object or force determines human behavior?”. If it is the agent, then he has free will. — NOS4A2
So the superstitious imply a physics of magical thinking that contradicts basic reality: that symbols and symbolic sounds, arranged in certain combinations, can affect and move other phases of matter above and beyond the kinetic energy inherent in the physical manifestation of their symbols.
They do address the issue that we’ve been discussing for pages. But you’re causing me to not understand. As far as I know eliminative materialism is the claim that some of the mental states posited thus far do not actually exist. What does quantum indeterminacy and hidden variables have to do with eliminate materialism? — NOS4A2
You’re speaking about the false analogy of non-agents designed by agents to activate upon certain sounds, mechanistically triggering a limited set of actions. Can you turn the lights on with your voice without saying “Siri”? That’s your causal power of speech in a nutshell. — NOS4A2
I’ve avoided and and am satisfied and for the reasons I’ve stated. — NOS4A2
I believe you can cause the lights to turn on, yes. — NOS4A2
So the superstitious imply a physics of magical thinking that contradicts basic reality: that symbols and symbolic sounds, arranged in certain combinations, can affect and move other phases of matter above and beyond the kinetic energy inherent in the physical manifestation of their symbols. — NOS4A2
No, humans have invented various mechanisms and lights that can do nothing else but respond to their actions, and therefore their state of on or off is determined by the human being. — NOS4A2
That’s why I’m incompatiblist. — NOS4A2
I was asking specifically in 2025 what gender stereotype do people have to conform with? — Malcolm Parry
Does the soundwave have some other causal power over-and-above that transfer? — NOS4A2
You keep repeating it, telling me I’m misguided, but i have yet seen any reason why I should believe otherwise. You won’t even mention any other forces, objects, and events “causally influencing” subsequent acts.
Rather, what you leave me to picture is a cause A that causes both B and not-B, and I can’t wrap my brain around it. The joke caused me to laugh and the other guy to not laugh, for example, without admitting the reasons for the different effects, the reasons for B and not-B. I wager that is why you wish to stick to more predictable causal relations like button pushing and explosions, so you don’t have to mention the actual causes of, and reasons for, varying responses, for example if the bomb didn’t explode or if the Venus flytrap didn’t close. — NOS4A2
To my mind there is nothing non-physical about it. — NOS4A2
His position that words cannot cause actions in others defeats his position that laws cannot limit and must protect freedom of speech. — Fire Ologist
I’ve already conceded that the environment stimulates our sense organs, simply due to the fact that they collide, and have factored it in. But that’s where their influence ends. in the case of hearing or reading, the words do not exert enough force on the body to move it in the way you say it does. It has neither the mass nor the energy to do so. All the energy and systems required to move the body comes from the body. That’s why hearing and reading are capacities of the body, and not soundwaves. That’s why I say words cannot determine, govern, or control our responses. — NOS4A2
What I believe is that each of us are the source of our own actions — NOS4A2
Accounts of libertarianism subdivide into non-physical theories and physical or naturalistic theories. Non-physical theories hold that the events in the brain that lead to the performance of actions do not have an entirely physical explanation, and consequently the world is not closed under physics. Such interactionist dualists believe that some non-physical mind, will, or soul overrides physical causality.
Explanations of libertarianism that do not involve dispensing with physicalism require physical indeterminism, such as probabilistic subatomic particle behavior.
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In non-physical theories of free will, agents are assumed to have power to intervene in the physical world, a view known as agent causation.
You have no control or will over anything. Isn’t that so? — NOS4A2
Your sense organs send electrical signals to your brain. — NOS4A2
I’ve already stated my reasoning. The effects cannot be shown to reach as far as you say they do. The objects, structures, and energies responsible for such movements, responses, and actions are not the same as the ones you claim they are. — NOS4A2
If the action potential is in the plant, then yes, the biology of the flytrap causes it to close if and when such a stimulus happens. — NOS4A2
I can and will hand wave it until you can show that something else in the universe beats the heart. Until then there is nothing else that can be shown to determine the heart beat. — NOS4A2
I do not accept it. — NOS4A2
That means they are not autonomous.
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But the fact that we have to build them, program them, etc negates their autonomy. — NOS4A2
So the superstitious imply a physics of magical thinking that contradicts basic reality: that symbols and symbolic sounds, arranged in certain combinations, can affect and move other phases of matter above and beyond the kinetic energy inherent in the physical manifestation of their symbols. — NOS4A2
Venus flytraps, yes, but machines no. — NOS4A2
Machines are designed, built, and operated by human beings. — NOS4A2
They cannot change their own batteries or plug themselves in. — NOS4A2
I never said it was an application of agency. I used “agency” to distinguish between the human being and your analogies. But the fact remains that the heart beat and digestion is caused by this same agent. So it is with the operation and maintenance with everything else occurring in the body. — NOS4A2
If not the agent, then what causes the heart beat and digestion? Is the Sinoatrial node a foreign parasite or something? Like I said, abstract nonsense. — NOS4A2
It just means autonomy: the energy and force required to move is provided by that which is moving, generated by itself, and wholly determined by the biology, not by external forces. — NOS4A2
I’m not a dualist. The behavior of the sense organs, the brain, the nervous system etc. is the behavior of the whole. I reiterate this because pretending one and then the other are discreet units outside of the scope and control of the whole is abstract nonsense. — NOS4A2
In the case of human sensing, the transduction of one form of energy to another, as in the conversion of outside stimulus to internal chemical and electrical signals, is performed by the human organism. No external system involved in the event of listening performs such an action. And when I look at what changes the force of a soundwave can possibly cause inside the human body the effects are exactly the ones I said the were and no more. Past the transduction, that force is simply no longer present and therefor neither is its “influence”. There is no soundwave or words banging around in there like billiard balls.
All subsequent movements occur due to the potential energy stored in the system itself, in this case the body, as determined by the internal process by which your body expends energy and burns calories. The energy and ability to move, or do the work involved in listening, or speaking, or any activity, is converted, stored, and used by the body and no other system. It determines any and all activity involved, and in fact is physically identical to that activity. — NOS4A2
I consider the body to be one holistic system. It is only this system in its entirety that decides, or can decide. — NOS4A2
I’m inclined towards sourcehood arguments and agent-causation of libertarian free will. — NOS4A2
Physical systems vary in properties and behavior. Why would that be irrelevant? — NOS4A2
I don’t need to believe in non-physical substances to believe objects can move on their own accord. — NOS4A2
It didn’t grow organically and learn to deal with the environment and others through years of experience and learning — NOS4A2
It cannot choose to do otherwise should it desire to do so. — NOS4A2
You can say that if you want, but that has no bearing on our conversation — Harry Hindu
You don’t mention that it is the body that does the listening. In fact, the body does all the work: produces all the components required, converts all the energy, guides the impulses to their destination, directs each and every subsequent bodily movement long after the sound wave has had any impression. Sound waves do none of that stuff. — NOS4A2
Then I have no idea what you're saying, as usual. — Harry Hindu
You not taking this understanding that there is a difference in our brains and applying it to the issue, is the issue. — Harry Hindu
Address the other points I made in the post you cherry-picked. — Harry Hindu
Our brains do not have the same information. — Harry Hindu
If that were the case, we would all be responding the same way — Harry Hindu
How is saying some words and getting no reaction the same as pressing the "A" key and getting a reaction? — Harry Hindu
Is a person that hears some inciting words and is not inciting to a riot malfunctioning? — Harry Hindu
The difference lies in the reason why we observe a difference in behaviors when multiple people hear the same speech. For determinism to be true, which I believe it is, you have to provide a theory to explain what we observe in that multiple people react differently to the same speech. What is your theory? How do you explain what we observe? — Harry Hindu
The inverted spectrum problem is still alive and well. No brain scans or neural activity measurements will ever convince me that your experience of red is the same as mine. — RogueAI