Guys, please correct me, but wouldn’t it be possible to substitute some area x of rational inquiry for the ‚free-will debate‘ and some belief y about x for the minimal free will thesis, work through the argument and obtain conclusion 7: if determinism is true, then y is true?

Because up to step 7, I think at no point does the argument rely specifically on the fact that we‘re talking about the free-will debate and MFT-belief, so we could substitute anything we like as long as it’s compatible with premises 1-3. Maybe I misunderstood something, but if that‘s true this argument is really weird because you could derive any statement of the form ‚determinism implies y‘ where y is some belief about an area of rational inquiry.

I’m sure you would have a view on how your life should interact with other lives. I think that’s the crux of the issue here. In a world with an array of interacting life, some kind of hierarchy is inevitably created. It’s perfectly fine to say your own value of your own life is all that matters to you, but there is more going on and it’s just whether you choose to make an attempt to define some standards in that space or whether you just leave it to the individual in every case. The result could be a pedophiles life is worth living because it means something to them, which is a legitimate outcome but might have some objections!

To your first question though, it’s definitely the interpretation of the reader. As with anything, a lot of translation and interpretation has to happen. Even if you asked the men themselves, they may give you a different response at a different stage in life. It’s rare we settle on something forever!

No, old societies were largely male dominated tribal groups, whether those groups were feudal, religious/theocratic, or any other hierarchical form. That model has been fairly consistent from human as ape down to modern times.

Direct democracies and representative democracies, are largely recent inventions from within a few individual societies over the last 2000 years.

My point is, consider the following argument:

1. If the argument above is correct, then if determinism is true, all of our beliefs are true
2. But clearly, determinism can be true without all of our beliefs being true
3. Therefore, the argument above is not correct

1 is uncontroversial, 2 is obvious. Hence, there's something wrong with the original argument. Which is probably why it was rejected several times.

Is the strictest manner of speaking no one can have certainty of the thoughts of others without reading their minds.

Socrates through Plato is as close as one can get, given his own lack of writing. That too suffers language and other barriers.

I don't personally see history of philosophy as primarily deriving value through perfectly accurate accounts of beliefs, but rather though exposing the range of rationals and justifications previously explored, for the benefit of ones own philosophical evaluations (or amusement).

Consider for example how early members of the academy had little consideration of the possibility of the lack of a free will, because the topics has little exposure and exploration at the time. Their writing might therefore sound less compelling to you than later philosophers.

Of course the stoics were determinists, but also compatibilists who emphasize the importance of choice.

"Democracy" and "political equality" are far removed from modern liberalism or whatever status quo we have in current times. I don't recall exactly at which point people started using "democracy" as a substitute for "representative government elected through limited suffrage" but there is more than a few written evidence about how the word was repudiated by non others than the "founding fathers".

Yes, old societies were (proto) democracies. No, ours aren't, aren't close to be, and could never be in the current system.

This is bullshit. We know how humans lived, because some barely contacted tribes still live that way to this day. We also have all the records of contact with aboriginal peoples.

The human 'natural' way is a tribal group with a central leader figure. Basically a warlord. Do what the chief says, or his lieutenants will beat or kill you. Just like apes. Because humans are apes. They live in a dictatorial hierarchy, just like the apes they are.

Equality and democracy had to be invented just like agriculture and any other technology. The rise of humanity is fighting to do something different than the ape genes demand. The only hope for humanity is being as 'unnatural' as possible.

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I am just shocked they left out the most famous ancient philosopher's views on what is good in life, "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women"

> I don't think a definition of "following the scientific method" for "science" is an arbitrary threshold.

> It is a "hard" line, but not all things are spectrums. Not all things that aren't spectrums are "arbitrary". Sometimes (admittedly somewhat rarely), there are just hard binaries.

Well that's something that we can actually explore. What scientific method are we using though? Gathering data and testing hypotheses is very broad. Calculating statistical significance and running double blind experiments is much narrower. Does it need to be written down? Published in a journal? Does science done before the invention of statistics count as science?

If there is a hard line, then where is it?

>I actually differentiated science vs knowledge.

I didn't say you didn't. I said "You're still basically just re-defining "science" into "good way of gaining knowledge" ". In other words, you are essentially re-defining "science" to refer to all methods of gaining knowledge that work.

> am claiming that science includes all the component steps of the process. You can't do science without deductive reasoning, so either we claim deductive reasoning is scientific, or we claim it is necessary but insufficient.

Just because deductive reasoning is part of science doesn't mean that all deductive reasoning is scientific. To make a crude analogy - that's like saying that wheels are fundamentally vehicular because they are a part of vehicles.

I don't think it fits with how the term is used to describe every person's normal experiences, deductions, and intuitions as "scientific" simply because there are elements of overlap.

>So why would I go with a more permissive definition? Because the alternative requires some arbitrary threshold, a point at which logic and observation and pattern recognition switches from "not science" to "science".

I don't think a definition of "following the scientific method" for "science" is an arbitrary threshold.

It is a "hard" line, but not all things are spectrums. Not all things that aren't spectrums are "arbitrary". Sometimes (admittedly somewhat rarely), there are just hard binaries.

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The point of life is to try to enjoy it as much as you can before you die.

What argument ?

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Abstract

How did humans live before the origin of the state? Such questions about the “state of nature” are used in social contract theories as a backdrop to political philosophy.

While some philosophers, like David Hume, regard this such questions about the “state of nature” as mere thought experiments, most of the original theorists on the state of nature - such as Rousseau and Locke - showed significant interest in information about indigenous people. Therefore, many philosophers have taken interest in the question of what modern archaeology and anthropology suggest about life before organised states.

Anthropologist Vivek V Venkataraman argues that we have a pretty good idea about the political organisation in this “state of nature”: humans were largely living as political equals, with proto-democratic practices. This suggests that democracy is older than the state: communal decision-making precedes organised statehood.

In this episode, Venkataraman explains the relevant research and responds to critics of the relevant methodology.

>If you actually read what he says

Nevermind. I don't care what you think.

Let's assume that we have freedom of choice, the freedom to act according to our will. If that is the case, if our conscious decisions are based on our will - what's determining that will? One thing is for sure: It cannot be ourselves. If decisions are based on will, then deciding what your will is, would be a decision based on your will - a circular argument.

If you actually read what he says, Huemer is offering a refutation of hard determinism, by which he means the view that no one could act otherwise. He evenly explicitly says he is not objecting to compatibilism (since compatibilists don’t deny the ability to do otherwise, but simply analyze it in a way consistent with determinism).

So, read the argument with that conclusion in mind.

What exactly do you mean by preservation? In a biological sense, I would disagree with you. Animals (including humans) have the urge to self-preserve because it's evolutionary beneficial. Animals who want to survive are more likely to survive, cells and RNA reproduce for that same reason. Not because there is a god or because it's the meaning of the universe but simply because of natural selection.
"The universe preserves itself just by being itself"
How is that the case? Just because something exists, it doesn't mean it preserves.

DNA is not conciouss, first molecule that replicated itself was not DNA, we know it couldnt be DNA but we still dont know which one was. that molecule was formed by chance in a situation where millions of millions of ramdom chemical reactions where happening, then the replication continued and evolved by a blindly, its loo long to explain here mate, read about evolution and you will undersand why it happens blindly

Seems like they weren't inherently focused on life's functionality, as the author said they were moderates. What they were trying to convey sounds like they despised complacency, as all it does it post pone the inevitable, so one ought to accept the moment, either embrace it as a challenge or succumb to helplessness. There's no right/wrong path as long as one is active in the process of creating their belief, meaning with purpose.

It's not so much how long one lives, but how one uses their life to the fullest.

I always took ”free will” as this: We’re in a deterministic trajectory (because our existence was put in motion when Time/Space was created, we left a state of singularity) in which we have a spectrum of free will. Within this ”greater” determinism we have limited amounts which we can ”react” to things occuring within that trajectory, the things we can do as reactions are limited to certain (human) axioms/values. It follows the physicist uncertaincy principle we we can’t measure both the particle and the position at the same time, neither (limited) can we measure our own actions and their effects at the same time at a greater scale, yet we still do effect the bigger whole (butterfly effect).

The article is an okay survey of three ancient contemplations:

• Whether life is unconditionally worthwhile, duty-bound or otherwise
• Whether life is conditionally worthwhile
• Whether life is an unworthy pursuit/is (per some read-in nihilism) "ultimately" meaningless

In that way it's a totally sufficient pop-philospphy article. These articles are easy reading for those cursorily interested in the classical problems. I would have preferred reading the more ambitious divergence you suggested, for sure.

Seconded. If all of us are missing the point, perhaps you can rephrase it the way you understand it.