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So what if determinism is true? Does responsibility even make sense in an ultimate sense? And any meaning you give yourself is dependent upon past environmental

So what if determinism is true? Does responsibility even make sense in an ultimate sense? And any meaning you give yourself is dependent upon past environmental history.

ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
There are layers and language is very impractical in these matters (not to say utterly useless considering the 10+ gigabytes of textual philosophical speculation from the past 2,400+ years). One way to think about it is akin to a stack trace: there is the quantum indeterminacy of the electron -> there is the deterministic CPU building on top of electrons (`mov eax, 0` achieves the same state on any x86) -> there are indeterministic effects facilitated by CPUs (the network effects of users interacting using CPUs). In a similar fashion, yes, each of us is composed from cells with proteins coded in DNA strings, however those cells are able to reach a collective intelligence which is able to run a simulation/model of the world coupled with a simulation/model of the high-level internal state and we call this coupling, in the usual parlance, a "self". This self then goes to decide, based on the past experiences, present goals, and future predictions and hopes, but a decision nonetheless, what determines it-self. As said, these words, i.e. decide, determines, are very loaded and begging the (multiple series of) questions, going through various viewpoints from Sartre and Simone Weil, to Kierkegaard, back to Plotinus [1]. In other words, from a strong Robert Sapolsky-based position: surely determinism is true, we operate on the realm of the regulation of the side-effects of bio-electro-chemical reactions, not on the realm of quarks, however, responsibility in the ultimate sense makes just as much sense as calling someone an "adult" once they are 18 years and 0.1 seconds old: it's an arbitrary determination which allows further operation (breaks the epoché [2], the withholding of assent or the phenomenological bracketing, if you will). The meanings one gives for themselves are indeed dependent upon past environmental history, yet the point is what you make from what the world makes of you: it's a tertiary and beyond type of operation, across the multiple societal-physical abstraction layers, not direct control. [1] "the One above intellect, the first principle of all", https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plotinus/#:~:text=the%20One%20above%20intellect%2C%20the%20first%20principle%20of%20all https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plotinus/#:~:text=the%20O... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoch%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoch%C3%A9

So what if determinism is true? Does responsibility even make sense in an ultimate sense? And any meaning you give yourself is dependent upon past environmental history.

ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago

There are layers and language is very impractical in these matters (not to say utterly useless considering the 10+ gigabytes of textual philosophical speculation from the past 2,400+ years). One way to think about it is akin to a stack trace: there is the quantum indeterminacy of the electron -> there is the deterministic CPU building on top of electrons (`mov eax, 0` achieves the same state on any x86) -> there are indeterministic effects facilitated by CPUs (the network effects of users interacting using CPUs). In a similar fashion, yes, each of us is composed from cells with proteins coded in DNA strings, however those cells are able to reach a collective intelligence which is able to run a simulation/model of the world coupled with a simulation/model of the high-level internal state and we call this coupling, in the usual parlance, a "self". This self then goes to decide, based on the past experiences, present goals, and future predictions and hopes, but a decision nonetheless, what determines it-self. As said, these words, i.e. decide, determines, are very loaded and begging the (multiple series of) questions, going through various viewpoints from Sartre and Simone Weil, to Kierkegaard, back to Plotinus [1]. In other words, from a strong Robert Sapolsky-based position: surely determinism is true, we operate on the realm of the regulation of the side-effects of bio-electro-chemical reactions, not on the realm of quarks, however, responsibility in the ultimate sense makes just as much sense as calling someone an "adult" once they are 18 years and 0.1 seconds old: it's an arbitrary determination which allows further operation (breaks the epoché [2], the withholding of assent or the phenomenological bracketing, if you will). The meanings one gives for themselves are indeed dependent upon past environmental history, yet the point is what you make from what the world makes of you: it's a tertiary and beyond type of operation, across the multiple societal-physical abstraction layers, not direct control. [1] "the One above intellect, the first principle of all", https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plotinus/#:~:text=the%20One%20above%20intellect%2C%20the%20first%20principle%20of%20all https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plotinus/#:~:text=the%20O... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoch%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoch%C3%A9