#informationwar

a steel-man argument is the practice of presenting the strongest possible version of an opponent's argument

even stronger than they may have presented it themselves, to engage in a more robust and fair debate

present your best arguments

and i will build you a fully customized steel-man

ask yourself three questions

(1) where does your food come from ?

(2) where do the cops get their guns ?

(3) where does your fuel and power come from ?

i almost didn't watch this because i thought it would just be repeating things i already knew

boy was i wrong

link skips to second half -

before the debate, the audience polled at 59% against the resolution

after the debate, the audience polled at 76% against the resolution

I take it the main question here is whether the PSR is true. Or, we can put this ontologically: what is it that would make the PSR true? Or epistemically: what it is that would warrant our knowledge that the PSR is true?

It is Kant, in The Critique of Pure Reason, who famously both makes these sorts of questions explicit and defends some influential reasons to doubt the PSR, or at least doubt the PSR in some relevant contexts.

In answering what I have just called the ontological and epistemic questions, Kant argues that what makes the PSR true/what warrants our knowledge of the PSR is its transcendental ideality. That is, on Kant's view, the PSR is a principle which necessarily governs any rational act of conceptualizing what one experiences, so that it serves as a norm of reasoning or as a basis for producing concepts about nature from our experiences. The positive result of this position is that we have a reason to think that the PSR holds in principle whenever any rational agent is cognizing their experiences, and so holds in principle as a norm or basis of scientific reasoning. The negative result of this position is that, because the PSR is grounded in the necessary conditions of reasoning about experience, it is being misapplied if it is taken as a basis or norm for things beyond our experience. This is to say that, while we can know that the PSR is a principle governing our cognition, we cannot know that it is a principle governing things-in-themselves, or nature as it is independent of our cognition of it. This prohibits its use in metaphysical arguments like the cosmological argument for God, where it is taken as the norm governing a causal series extending beyond our experience to a first cause which lies outside it.

So this sort of position is probably the most famous case of a mitigated skepticism regarding the PSR. But there are of course people who defend the PSR against this kind of criticism, as well as those who defend a broader skepticism regarding it. [[]]

㊙️ 道可道 非常道

when you go head first and speak confidently of your movement, it is like the opposing wings of a bird, working in concert with, yet balancing the established durable standard description of proper movement

in other words

your description of your motive is not the same as the commonly accepted standard motive

in other words

in other words

Do you ever feel like you're making meaningful choices in your life? Do you feel like you have the power to shape your own destiny? If so, you're not alone. Most people believe in the idea of free will, the notion that we are capable of making choices that are not predetermined by external factors.

However, upon closer inspection, the concept of free will is an obvious contradiction in terms. After all, if an event is truly "free" and not caused by any prior factors, then it is essentially a random event - and not a product of our own choices or agency. In other words, to be truly free, an event must be uncaused by anything else - and that is simply impossible.

This is where compatibilism comes in. Compatibilists argue that free will and determinism can coexist, and that our choices can still be meaningful even if they are ultimately determined by prior causes. However, this perspective is a bit of a smoke screen - it's essentially redefining free will in a way that almost nobody thinks of it.

For example, when most people talk about free will, they mean something like "the power to act untethered to fate." They're not thinking about internal mental processes or the influence of their environment on their decisions. By redefining free will in this way, compatibilists are essentially dodging the issue of determinism and the idea that events are pre-determined by prior causes.

To make matters worse, even magic and supernatural powers cannot solve this simple logic problem. The idea of causing an uncaused cause is inherently flawed and runs counter to the basic principles of logic itself.

So what's the takeaway from all this? At the end of the day, the concept of free will is an impossible and incoherent one. While it's certainly true that we feel like we're making decisions and acting on them, this feeling is a product of our internal mental processes and the influence of external factors - not a supernatural power to break causality.

In short, if you want to feel like you have free will, go ahead and do so. But just know that this feeling is not based on any coherent or logical perspective.
I hope you find this post entertaining and thought-provoking!