Accusing me of throwing a temper tantrum is, in fact, an insult,

If you find the facts insulting, so be it. I quote your tantrum:

… fucktarded … chickenshit … dumbasses … shit … troll … troll …

And after all that:

in lieu of argument.

you’re still whining that I’m not giving you the validation and praise you so desperately want from me. I can’t imagine why, if you really think so little of me as you claim. Unless, of course, you’re just desperate for someone to assure you that your Sky Daddy still cares about you. Well, I talked to Him for you; He said maybe you should start seeing other people.

That sounds suspiciously like “might makes right”. It seems like an odd semantic choice: why call the morals of some nonhuman agency who will enforce them “objective”, while calling the morals of some hypothetical absolutely dominant group of humans “subjective”.

I never denied that I can’t prove my morality objectively better. But there is a such thing as “better”, just not in the absolute sense. There is both “better to somebody” and “better at something”. The first is purely preference and can’t really be argued using logic, but the second is where one can make arguments about morality. If you discover what the other person’s basic moral values are, you can argue that their methods aren’t the most effective way of fulfilling them. You can also argue against inferences they make from their moral assumptions - those inferences may be logically incorrect.

Nothing lest the same agency which arbitrates an objective morality reacts to its violation or enforcement.

So I can’t in any way prove that my morality is superior to a nazi’s (not even with might), so what? I don’t need to objectively prove that in order to oppose them, and I don’t need to objectively prove that in order to convince other people to oppose them, so what use is this objective morality and this nonhuman arbiter?

You can’t argue you’re better. You said otherwise. You can kill them. But you can’t be better. There is no better, just what you want versus what they want. That, again, was my original point. Glad you came around to accepting the conclusion of your initial position.

Thanks though. You just gave my friends a laugh. We’ve seen dumbshit on the web before, but seeing someone attempt to sound erudite by misusing the phrase ad hominem is unique. Still, right wing trolls are less pathetic. They’re simply selfish, not afraid to delve into the conclusions of their initial positions. They know they’re arguing in bad faith, for the most part, so there’s more intellect there than in your own contentions.

At any level where I can say “I’ exist, free will also exists, and matters.

My bird can say “I exist.”

Does he have free will?

Phonecian in a Time of Romans wrote:

a deterministic level in which everything can be predicted

It’s worth noting that, regardless of whether free will and predictability have anything to do with one another, determinism does not necessarily imply predictability. The results of some very simple systems of differential equations, completely determined by their math, cannot be calculated meaningfully due to high sensitivity to small variations. Results like this kicked off the field of chaos theory — but the less said about chaos theory in a philosophical context, the better.

Grammar RWA wrote:

Brain chemistry is not only a constraint, it is the entire makeup of your mind.

Without disagreeing with the underlying point, I do think there’s an interesting distinction between talking about a system and the emergent properties of that system. The material mind is at least to some degree a recursive system, and recursion can produce some deeply weird but still entirely determined effects.

You’re assuming that there is only one level on which it could be said to exist. I’m focusing on the level of ourselves as individual identities, knowing we exist and that we can make choices, At this level free will is a real concept. Such things as brain chemistry, perceptual biases or mental disorders are constraints.

Thank you, Pho. Brain chemistry is not only a constraint, it is the entire makeup of your mind. And your brain chemistry is always the product of the previous state of your brain plus whatever input you’ve received in the interim. It’s billiard ball physics. Nothing here for your “will” to act upon.

You are positing (wrongly, IMHO) a deterministic level in which everything can be predicted.

As “epistemology” said first, there’s no room for free will in an indeterminate universe either. You may insist on throwing in quantum uncertainty, but there’s no meaningful return on this investment. You get thoughts and actions that were caused by random and uncontrollable quantum events. The point is they’re still caused by events outside your control, so your will cannot alter the future by this route either. All you’ve added is a source of madness.

Free will has nothing to do with predictability, my arguments have nothing to do with predictability, and if you keep bringing up the P word I’m going to have to give up and assume that you’re beyond hope.

Free will requires that the mind can somehow reach in and alter the course of the billiard balls, and that the mind has a choice of doing this in more than one way.

You seem to be saying either:

1) even though the brain is built from components that are completely out of the mind’s control, these components somehow build emergent structures that are under the mind’s control.

2) or, even though the brain is completely out of the mind’s control, the mind is capable of performing feats that do not rely upon the brain.

Both of those sound like magic to me.

But I don’t think we’re justified in imprisoning or otherwise harming someone just to show others what we can do. Consider an extreme example. A man steals a DVD, and even though he could not have done otherwise, we cut off his hand as a deterrent to others. For whatever reason this is wrong, other punishments are also wrong if they differ only by degree and not by formula. But if deterrence is a valid goal in itself, then cutting off the hand is a great idea.

I suggest that it is wrong because people have a right to not be unwillingly utilized toward others’ ends (this is another way of phrasing the right to not be enslaved). How would we justify taking this right away so that we can unwillingly use him as an example? The alternative, protective imprisonment, is justifiable because it is necessary. But retribution is gratuitous, and so cannot be similarly justified.

No One of Consequence, keep throwing your little temper tantrum. That’ll sure demonstrate that I haven’t hurt your feelings. And you should review your copy of How to Impress People on the Internet, because you’ve made an elementary miscalculation. An ad hominem is of the specific form: “you are wrong because you are in an emotionally abusive relationship with your imaginary friend.” That crucial conjunction is missing from my game; I haven’t graced you with an ad hominem, merely a gentle ribbing.

You’re assuming that there is only one level on which it could be said to exist. I’m focusing on the level of ourselves as individual identities, knowing we exist and that we can make choices, At this level free will is a real concept. Such things as brain chemistry, perceptual biases or mental disorders are constraints.

You are positing (wrongly, IMHO) a deterministic level in which everything can be predicted. At this level our decisions might be considered mechanistic - but at this level, “we” also do not exist. “We”, our individual identities, have also been dissolved into your mechanistic sequence of cause and effect.

At any level where I can say “I’ exist, free will also exists, and matters.

I think here one has to draw a line between statements which can’t be falsified in principle, and statements which can’t be falsified in practice (perhaps due to the current limits of our technology), but could be falsified given sufficient power to perform experiments.

In the determinism (when it comes to human actions) example, it would be falsified if we had the ability to put a person in absolutely identicle positions (down to the internal state of his brain), and he performed different actions at least one of the times.

This doesn’t apply then, The brain is a neural net - experiences change it. You cannot, in the real world, “put it back” to a previous condition.

Further, you can’t even posit an identical brain. Firstly, the act of attempting to measure and map a brain would change it. Secondly, a human is not a closed system detachable from the rest of the universe. Entropy marches on, and you can’t escape the Third Law.

I’m not going to defend Roger Penrose’s ideas in “the Emperor’s New Mind”, but it may be worthwhile for you to seek it out here.

Your determinism is a theoretical exercise that cannot apply, even in theory, in the real world. You’re engaging in “what if”, and then using a fantasy built on this unsustainable premise. You cannot claim that a statement can be falsified on the basis of a situation that cannot exist even in theory.

Then tell me, in the abscence of being subjectively valued by some people, what effect could this theoretical objective morality have in the “grand scheme of things?”

Anyway, you’re main argument is that subjective morality isn’t objective and therefore can’t be objectively proven to be superior to another subjective morality - I agree. You also made a language claim that the word “value” implies something absolute and objective, I disagreed, pointing out money as a prime example of something we use the word “value” on that has only subjective, and not objective, value.

“You can’t prove moral superiority of your moral system, merely — at pathetic best — moral superiority within a shared system. Not that that is worth shit.”

Not worth shit objectively, sure, I agree, so what? I don’t give a shit about your useless nonhuman arbitrated, objective morality. So I can’t in any way prove that my morality is superior to a nazi’s (not even with might), so what? I don’t need to objectively prove that in order to oppose them, and I don’t need to objectively prove that in order to convince other people to oppose them, so what use is this objective morality and this nonhuman arbiter?