Philosophers? Here for debate or discussion

[Type Username Here]

I dont have a choice in advocating their punishment, this path was chosen for me.

In all seriousness though, I don't see the contradiction really, though I concede that it is not an ideal situation. A punishment is the equal and opposite reaction towards the crime committed. Vigilante justice is fine with me. Rehabilitation programs are fine. There are many different and creative options for dealing with this dilemma...the main problem is that our society isn't currently suited to implement them effectively.

The contradiction arises in the way our society is built and in applying determinism practically, to explain every day occurrences and in doing so without the use of causality. Everything else equal, there is no contradiction in determinism.

Thank you for the back and forth btw

No problem brother.

By the way, like you, I also lean towards a Deterministic view, but there are some key flaws in that line of thinking. The best counterargument I have heard towards the punishment point is a hybrid-soft determinism position where it's a matter of scale and subjectivity, i.e., choice can exist in abstract creations such as society, idealogies, laws, but is ruled by deterministic forces outside of these concepts.

 

[Cute Fattie]

I am taking an intro to phil class. I have a few questions...

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

No problem brother.

By the way, like you, I also lean towards a Deterministic view, but there are some key flaws in that line of thinking. The best counterargument I have heard towards the punishment point is a hybrid-soft determinism position where it's a matter of scale and subjectivity, i.e., choice can exist in abstract creations such as society, idealogies, laws, but is ruled by deterministic forces outside of these concepts.

Makes sense. That's kinda what I was hinting at with the "everything else equal" statement towards determinism. It just gets tricky trying to argue determinism without bringing God into the equation, and that is something I often try to avoid because it pervades logic.

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

I am taking an intro to phil class. I have a few questions...

Feel free to ask them..I was a philosophy minor and stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night

 

[Hulk Hogan]

the mind is not in the body.

WELL LET ME TELL YA SUMTHIN BROTHER! THAT ARGUMENT MIGHT HAVE BEEN WORTHY OF CONSIDERATION HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO DUUUDE! BUT NOT AFTER THE ADVENT OF MODERN NEUROSCIENCE, BROTHER! THE MIND IS A FUNCTION OF THE BRAIN UNLESS YOU'VE GOT HULKAMANIA, BROTHER!

 

[Grano-Grano]

I believe free will is an illusion. It is my belief that we do not posses the mental capacity to truly understand the relation between Cause and Effect down to the smallest unit of measurement. Everything we perceive and every action we take is merely the effect of a previous action so complex that we determine it it simply free will. This being said I do believe in an impersonal god.... *lights up another bowl*

#Salute this nikka

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

WELL LET ME TELL YA SUMTHIN BROTHER! THAT ARGUMENT MIGHT HAVE BEEN WORTHY OF CONSIDERATION HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO DUUUDE! BUT NOT AFTER THE ADVENT OF MODERN NEUROSCIENCE, BROTHER! THE MIND IS A FUNCTION OF THE BRAIN UNLESS YOU'VE GOT HULKAMANIA, BROTHER!

i got that macho madness...sorry breh breh...

seriously though, i see it like this. the universe is a collective consciousness, a god body type thing. anything with a brain (and perhaps stuff that doesnt, who knows) has the ability to access the collective consciousness and that is where information is gathered from. there is an input/output that each "thinking thing" adds to the collective consciousness via the senses...all the brain is is a network of electricity and we may all just be mere robots,,brother.

If everything we perceive from outside our body is only a representation of a reality “out there”, then our perceptions of our own body are also still only representations. If we feel pain, itchiness, a nervous stomach, or a sense of joy, we are not perceiving our body as it is, but rather through a representation our mind has created of our body based on the electrical signals generated within the body and interpreted in the brain. We are so attached to perceiving our body and its sensations as being who we are, that we assume they are real, indeed more real than what is outside us. After all, what could be more me than my own heartbeat; yet even this is just a representation. That also means that our physical brain, as we are able to perceive, it is only a representation of itself.

 

[Hulk Hogan]

the universe is a collective consciousness

YOUR VERY FIRST PREMISE IS AN UNFOUNDED ASSERTION, BROTHER! THAT'S NO WAY TO BEGIN THE FORMATION OF AN ARGUMENT, DUUUDE! SAY YOUR PRAYERS, TAKE YOUR VITAMINS, AND HAVE EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT WHAT YOU'RE PROPOSING BEFORE YOU GO OFF ON A TANGENT ABOUT WHAT YOU WISH WERE TRUE SIMPLY BECAUSE IT INTRIGUES YOU, MAN!

LEMME TELL YOU SUMTHIN, BROTHER! YOU EVER SEE A MOVIE CALLED DARK STAR, MEAN GENE? IT WAS A COLLEGE PROJECT BY THE GUYS WHO WENT ON TO MAKE ALIEN, BROTHER! IT'S GOT A GREAT SCENE ABOUT PHENOMENOLOGY, BROTHER! CHECK IT OUT, ALL MY HULKAMANIACS!

 

[Vagina Thief]

well said sir...id pos rep but i gave out too much already today...instead i will e-cheers you on the bowl and spark up my gravity

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

YOUR VERY FIRST PREMISE IS AN UNFOUNDED ASSERTION, BROTHER! THAT'S NO WAY TO BEGIN THE FORMATION OF AN ARGUMENT, DUUUDE! SAY YOUR PRAYERS, TAKE YOUR VITAMINS, AND HAVE EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT WHAT YOU'RE PROPOSING BEFORE YOU GO OFF ON A TANGENT ABOUT WHAT YOU WISH WERE TRUE SIMPLY BECAUSE IT INTRIGUES YOU, MAN!

LEMME TELL YOU SUMTHIN, BROTHER! YOU EVER SEE A MOVIE CALLED DARK STAR, MEAN GENE? IT WAS A COLLEGE PROJECT BY THE GUYS WHO WENT ON TO MAKE ALIEN, BROTHER! IT'S GOT A GREAT SCENE ABOUT PHENOMENOLOGY, BROTHER! CHECK IT OUT, ALL MY HULKAMANIACS!

@ me going on a tangent about what i wish were true. I dont want there to be a universal consciousness at all, i think the idea is invasive and kinda creepy to be honest, and id prefer it not to be true. but when you start to examine the ultimate beginning of the universe, you start to realize that the big bang was merely an explosion of logic due to the fact that "nothing" cannot be. at one point there was "nothing"-->nothing can't exist--->"something" began to exist. infinite regress is a fallacy...but anyway if the universe began as an explosion of logic, then the universe itself must be conscious and was "born", or is basically a program that is fully artificial (logic boards for a CPU, etc). i understand these theories do not have all that much scientific evidence at the moment, but maybe in a few years more studies will be done

 

[Cute Fattie]

Feel free to ask them..I was a philosophy minor and stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night

My Phil. instructor is a weedhead so 90% of the time I don't understand half the things he is teaching.

He was focusing on logic 4 weeks ago and I flunked the quiz. 4 questions from the quiz will be on the final for next week and I still don't understand the logic part.

Have you ever heard of deductive arguments, inductive arguments, categorical syllogism, hypothetical syllogism, disjuntive syllogism and modus tollens?

 

[Mountain]

Any scholars on here that read philosophy?

Or write their own?

I personally do a little of both, and though the pursuit seems futile, I still keep on the grind. My favorite stances to take against people is to argue for Destiny instead of Free Will and that the mind is not in the body. Taking challengers or co-signers.

My favorite works are the Tao Te Ching and Baruch Spinoza's theories..but I love tearing apart Descartes as well.

For those who are unfamiliar with Spinoza:

Excellent thread.

WELL LET ME TELL YA SUMTHIN BROTHER! THAT ARGUMENT MIGHT HAVE BEEN WORTHY OF CONSIDERATION HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO DUUUDE! BUT NOT AFTER THE ADVENT OF MODERN NEUROSCIENCE, BROTHER! THE MIND IS A FUNCTION OF THE BRAIN UNLESS YOU'VE GOT HULKAMANIA, BROTHER!

This forum is so much better than sohh

Friend, what you are advocating, determinism, has been debated and counterargued for hundreds of years. How can you believe someone truly has no free will, i.e., lacks the ability to choose his own actions,

How can you not brother?

The decisions we make are partially influenced by an almost infinite number of external stimuli that we have no control over. For that reason alone our will cannot possibly be under our direction.

and then advocate punishing them?

If we associate negative stimuli (.e.g. punishment) with bad decision making, we increase the chances of deterring bad decision making in the future, so even though the person making the decision does so "involuntarily", by punishing them we reduce the chance of a greater number of people making similar bad decisions, which in turn works well for the greater good of society.

In short; the latter is akin to taking a negative step for the sake of a larger positive one, which is entirely justifiable, no?

 

[Hulk Hogan]

@ me going on a tangent about what i wish were true. I dont want there to be a universal consciousness at all, i think the idea is invasive and kinda creepy to be honest, and id prefer it not to be true. but when you start to examine the ultimate beginning of the universe, you start to realize that the big bang was merely an explosion of logic due to the fact that "nothing" cannot be. at one point there was "nothing"-->nothing can't exist--->"something" began to exist. infinite regress is a fallacy...but anyway if the universe began as an explosion of logic, then the universe itself must be conscious and was "born", or is basically a program that is fully artificial (logic boards for a CPU, etc). i understand these theories do not have all that much scientific evidence at the moment, but maybe in a few years more studies will be done

YOU'RE MERELY PLAYING WORD GAMES HERE, DUUUDE! AND YOU'RE STILL HINGING EVERYTHING ON UNFOUNDED ASSERTIONS, BROTHER! SO YOUR CONCLUSION CAN'T FOLLOW FROM YOUR PREMISES, MEAN GENE! YOU'RE ON SOME HIPPY BULLshyt, NOT REAL ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY, BROTHER! NO OFFENSE TO A HULKAMANIAC!

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

YOU'RE MERELY PLAYING WORD GAMES HERE, DUUUDE! AND YOU'RE STILL HINGING EVERYTHING ON UNFOUNDED ASSERTIONS, BROTHER! SO YOUR CONCLUSION CAN'T FOLLOW FROM YOUR PREMISES, MEAN GENE! YOU'RE ON SOME HIPPY BULLshyt, NOT REAL ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY, BROTHER! NO OFFENSE TO A HULKAMANIAC!

fair enough hulkster, ill wait for a theory of your own rather than mere complaints of mine...

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

My Phil. instructor is a weedhead so 90% of the time I don't understand half the things he is teaching.

He was focusing on logic 4 weeks ago and I flunked the quiz. 4 questions from the quiz will be on the final for next week and I still don't understand the logic part.

Have you ever heard of deductive arguments, inductive arguments, categorical syllogism, hypothetical syllogism, disjuntive syllogism and modus tollens?

deductive-

A deductive argument is an argument in which it is thought that the premises provide a guarantee of the truth of the conclusion. In a deductive argument, the premises are intended to provide support for the conclusion that is so strong that, if the premises are true, it would be impossible for the conclusion to be false.

inductive-

An inductive argument is an argument in which it is thought that the premises provide reasons supporting the probable truth of the conclusion. In an inductive argument, the premises are intended only to be so strong that, if they are true, then it is unlikely that the conclusion is false.

i think syllogism is when you have two inferences that lead to a conclusion but im not sure about the differences between the two.

modus tollens is denying thru denying. where as if p implies q but q is false then p is false.