Lay Vegan wrote: ↑Fri Apr 13, 2018 2:36 am
I’m not necessarily a hard-core determinist. I’m just rather skeptical of this kind of “libertarian” free will you seem to be pushing. It’s pleasant and perhaps reassuring to think we have complete autonomy over our desires, but more importantly, it’s unconvincing.
At which point am I pushing anything? I even stated before that having to choose between the two, I see no reasons to go full determinist. I just don't observe these actors you call desires, that force me to do things. Do you? I don't think so, because everytime you talk about them you have to make them up and put them into a narration of some sort of struggle, where the strongest desire wins and determine someone's actions.
Lay Vegan wrote: ↑Fri Apr 13, 2018 2:36 am
We have no control over them because we exist in and are a part of the physical world, and thus bound by its natural laws.
Being bounded by natural laws doesn't mean someone doesn't act freely. I cannot jump out of the window an fly on a whim, but it doesn't matter. We may as well act freely within the frame of physics, logic, and whatnot.
Lay Vegan wrote: ↑Fri Apr 13, 2018 2:36 am
The cause of the decision to select chocolate ice cream over vanilla ice cream is a result of mental states as the result of neurochemical states as the result of physical states.
That assertion is unverifiable at best, and false at worst. It was true in Newtonian mechanics though, but it doesn't matter today.
Lay Vegan wrote: ↑Fri Apr 13, 2018 2:36 am
Philosophically, I’d describe this as the presence of inadvertent “desires” that influence every decision one makes. These desires, or wants which simply exist, cannot be “unwanted.” You cannot “unwant” chocolate ice cream. A greater desire can come into fruition to select vanilla
over chocolate, or a desire to select neither, but neither desire is a product of free will. You do not have autonomy over your wants because you do not have autonomy over physical states.
You just repeat your assumption, now referring to "physical state", which according to the consensus, doesn't determine things the way you describe it. And clearly, I can "unwant" things, at least to the point to not to fall for them. I know you will say, that there just new desire pop out that forced me to do something else, and I addressed it above.
Lay Vegan wrote: ↑Fri Apr 13, 2018 2:36 am
Sure, we may not be able to point out every factor that influenced his decision to stay home or go to work, but we can theorize that his decision was driven an analgom of desires and temperments.
Sure, and I can change the narration and replace desires with cosmic rays from the fifth dimension, and it will be as useful, as it is now. And no, it's not that I don't observe desires, just desires that I observe doesn't work as described by you, so they are unobservables for me and have empty meaning right now. Just like cosmic rays from fifth dimension for that matter.
Lay Vegan wrote: ↑Fri Apr 13, 2018 2:36 am
In what way is determism unfalsifiable? In the scientific sense? Perhaps, but so if every other philosophy. I’m not convinced it’s unfalsifiable in the philosophical sense, specifically if a determinist believes in the concept of moral responsibility (how can we held responsible for actions we have no control over?)
Nope, physics, which I would still consider a part of philosophy, is falsifiable for the most part. It operates with concepts and objects that are unobservable too, but at least described actions of these objects can be verified. So if you admit that you can explain every decision as a struggle of desires, that determines actions... What gives?