Imagination, Dreams, Creativity, Choice: Cause & Effect.

to some extent every philosophical
discussion is shaped but your approach to the philosophy of language many meanings arise in a given language through the contrast of words and meanings that are presupposed at the start of the discussion so I'm going to draw attention to some of the presuppositions within the discourse on free will and determination in determinism pardon me with the following algorithm having choice free will making decisions for oneself is illustrated by contrasting a puppeteer and a puppet so there's a man holding a puppet with his hand or a man holding the strings that hold up a puppet and if the puppet is sophisticated enough if the performance is elaborate enough it may appear that the puppet is alive that the puppet is thinking that the puppet has emotional expressions and reactions and original thoughts and makes decisions but you maybe have to explain to a small child no no no the puppet has no free will the puppet doesn't decide anything the puppet doesn't think anything the puppets actions are merely cause and effect in relation to this puppet master the puppeteer explaining this to a child is implicitly relying on a contrast it this is not merely the abstract idea of cause and effect that there is a contrast between the type of decision the type of mentation the type of thinking that the puppeteer engages in in the type of action the type of reaction in the movements of the puppet right so I think it is very beguiling for many people that many people in my audience apparently many people watched my videos to imagine that just the abstract category of cause and effect solves this problem and no further explanation no further problems all we needs to be occasion to simply say no no both the actions of the puppet and the puppeteer both the actions of the and of the the puppet that resembles meant both of these things equally are subject to cause and effect and I think this is a signing explanatory power to one mere abstract concept cause and effect which is like gravity you say oh well of course we don't have free will there's gravity this to me is actually quite spurious to the question whereas the contrast being made between a puppeteer and a puppet is actually something meaningful so I feel like a lot of this discourse relies on of office feeding and evading very real and meaningful contrasts so muhammad' here is a skeptic I guess about both free will and determinism I don't think you easily accept either Prem well I'll find out in a second but I noticed that when I talk to people about this concept when I am assailing the assumptions of people who dogmatically believe in determinism people who really believe there is no difference between the puppet and the puppeteer neither ethically nor cognitively nor otherwise that is all just the chain of cause and effect when I asked them about dreaming they have nothing to say one of the differences between a puppet and a real person is dreaming one of the differences between a person and a computer program computer programs in many ways are like puppets if the computer program is elaborate enough if it's sophisticated enough it can resemble a real person it can seem like it's talking to us and making decisions and carrying of physical actions computers and robots one of the differences is that a computer does not have creative original ideas about the future in the way that a human being does and what I've talked to people who believe in determinism even these types of very simple illustrations that ultimately realize filtrations of an implicit difference between the puppeteer and the puppet they can't deal with thing they actually just get angry and yell at me I've talked about this with them they become frustrated and just try to insist that no no no a puppet really is the same as a person a computer program really is the same as a human mind despite very or hard criteria that established them that distinguished the sphere of people making choices that they were countable for ultimately eagle in legally and ethically and objects moving maybe mimicking wheel choices and decisions as part of this so-called chain of cause and effect hmm well I guess the reason why I'm not very satisfied with this line of reasoning is because it relies on an instinctive sense and perception of the difference between us and robots or machines or artificial intelligence and I want something like a lot more vivid and and philosophical right and then and a lot more clear isn't that like an argument that has clear like objective premise that doesn't delight just an our subjective perception okay the distinction of our mode of being and right I think that's a good objection to someone else but not to my argument so what are you say I give you two criteria already dreaming and asserting at ideas about the future right ideas created exnihilo right really scientifically it's not subjective we can prove whether or not cat's dream we can prove whether or not dogs dream we can prove whether or not sharks dream right various types of animals and mammals okay so you know scientifically it's an objective fact whether or not something engages in dreaming right now I think you would also concede the point scientifically we can determine that my computer when I put it to sleep it is not dreaming there's nothing in the computer or when it's off or a Seabright so I just say I think your objection it might be good for someone else's approach to this but I've already given you two very hard criteria so my really um what I would say with the future I would phrase in terms of the radical imagination and having access to the form of the future it's not who were saying why I'm using this kind of word it's but it's difficult to say when we're talking about imagining the future that I'm not talking about a reaction to cause and effect very often the selection of examples by determinist they'll say oh well you see a beautiful woman across the street and then you react to this beautiful woman we'll wait I'm capable of sitting in an empty room and imagining a beautiful woman I've never met and there are people who in their whole lives they never met a black person but they sit and imagine and fantasize about a romance with a black person they choose to imagine things for the future and then they buy an airplane ticket to Africa you know things happen you know they act on this dream okay so having the capacity for radical imagination the form in the form of the future producing new plans than phone of this length these are criteria we can test right and which is was a not all animals will have this I mean presumably some mammals have such limited cognitive abilities I don't know if there were any mammals that do not dream but I am I'm willing to accept that a noise er an oyster has no brain I mean some animals must be so simple that they don't dream and they don't think about the future and planning for the future I would be willing to accept that but my point is with humans and with many other ant animals whether they're monkeys or dolphins these are hard criteria that establish the capacity not just for choice but for innovation for producing new options that are not presented to us so passively yes I can okay every day I walk to the University died with us maybe you walk to the University of Ray and you never see a woman you find attractive whether that's just physically or intellectually and of their character right and yes there's a level on which human beings are just reacting by choices or a B and C so you go to university you study chemistry in your chemistry class there are only three attractive women are you gonna try to talk to this one this one of this one that's not reality for us because I'm not a puppet I don't just passively react to cause and effect I can sit there and think I maybe I've never met a black woman maybe I've lived my whole life in Guelph Ontario and I've never met a black woman and I think to myself wow you know what in my mind the fantasy is that I go to Africa and I meet this tall dark-skinned black woman and we have this romance and I go and pursue that even though I've never seen that person I've never reacted that stimulus right a puppet cannot do this a computer cannot do this and I'm not even choosing something as far-fetched as creating an original painting starting with a blank canvas right there were hard empirically testable criteria here that are not subjective that are not appealing to a spiritual or subjective sense of what it means to be alive or make choices yeah I think it's terrified well the thing is if you are an atheist or someone who's not religious who doesn't believe in a that's a transcendent reality of supernatural reality behind like beyond material reality and this is still all amounts to perceived choice and perceived creative like thinking and perceived choice but at the end of the day it's all just material it's all just matter yeah and married at the end of the day is subject to the laws of physics yeah the laws of physics chemistry and how how would you what what philosophical base would you base on the argument that this perceived choice and this perceived creative fact those Pacific creative faculties of humans are real or not just perceived right Thanks how would you how would you reconcile those both those those two things that seem to contradict each other like if you're making you say nothing in the way you've proposed it there you can already see your argument is self-contradictory so you started by establishing the criterion there's the order you happen to present it in if it is not transcendental then it cannot be a choice so that's a completely religious concept that has nothing to do with my approach this problem thank you so you started by saying only something that transcends matter can be a choice that's not my perspective my perspective is you can be dissatisfied with the women in your chemistry class and think you're going to take a vacation in Africa and try to find romance in Avenue I'm sorry no no wait there's nothing transcendental there is no reason who could possibly refute this response by saying yes but that only involves matter and not the transcendence the transcendence of the Material Plane that's not we were discussing that's not as if we're discussing the difference between a puppet and a hand that holds a puppet and a brain that controls the hand that's all matter but there's a difference there that really really matters that's really significance and that's really significant and that so-called determinists wants to explain away so you close by asking me the question basically how do you justify that the empirically obvious choice the perceived choice but it's empirically real it's perceived it's empirically real how do you justify that it is real okay this also implicitly admits the weakness of the other side the other side to determine us the onus is on you because you're did trying to disprove something that is empirically given that is a parent that is perceived you have to prove it's unreal okay so this isn't the situation that we're standing in the desert and somebody sees a mirage and they say to you oh if you see a mirage you have to prove to me there is really water that this isn't an illusion this is this Mirage in the desert right okay no this is the opposite the onus is on the other side the difference between the puppet master and the puppet is empirically real the difference between things that can generate out of their imagination original options and then make those choices that can create new options not just options are presented with not just the three women you see walking down the street or in your chemistry class but can think of can dream of a woman they've never met and then go to Africa this is all this is all in the world of the the empirically real on things we experience and things we can verify dreaming is empirically real it's verifiable right but you want to negate that so how do you explain dreaming how do you explain to me that the all of these examples I've given that they don't exist that they are a mirage and that in fact I in dream and I am coming up with original ideas of the future I am in fact a puppet being controlled by something else that's enormous burden of proof they never even tried they never even attempt to rise do they just engage in a kind of satire of religious ideas like the idea of transcendental super material agency that are completely irrelevant to the philosophical problem or a solution oh you still haven't answered my question how does it make sense everything is matter and the interactions like if everything is also matter and its interactions how can we reconcile your view with this philosophical underpinning of atheism and materialism it's still it's still like um I could concede that that yeah what is your definition of matter that something is incapable of thought that's a--that's a really stupid definition of Maverick right I've who would define matter that way the brain is made out of matter yeah that's you're dreaming involves matter yeah so why are you again you've just defined I sorry I think I did actually the beginning your that your your definition of matter is of something unthinking mine isn't but your argument implies that that at some level of complex organization matter just magically and develops develops why magic property what what that's all three toys okay wait you you characterize my position as magical with no basis what's magical about dreaming white why is it man what's magical about planning a vacation in Africa it's nothing magical there's nothing I there's no burden of proof on me to explain that this kind of thing happens these are very mundane completely non magical non transcendental circumstances on the contrary it is magical it is magical thinking if you tell me that the puppet master the man holding the puppet is himself a puppet with no evidence where are the strings who controls them what is the cause of it oh no it's invisible it's magical you have to use your imagination you have you use your imagination that there's a God controlling the strings oh no wait we're atheist it's a God with a lowercase G that we call cause and effect that there is a magical invisible supernal agency choosing for him and determining these choices even in his dreams even when he thinks about the future there's a burden of proof there you could never reach you know you could never reach it you know you can never have a material cause and effect puppetmaster explanation for human dreaming or human beings planning and coming up with original ideas and plans for things that you in the future it's it's a burden of proof you could never mean so your view do I know to some extent it's not really his view to some extent he's just engaging in debate but the view of a determinist of someone who believes in determinism is in fact religion it's monotheism - God the role of God has just been taken on by the universe and by this abstract category have caused an effect but there is no evidence that there is no evidence to support that the man holding the puppet is himself a puppet being controlled by another hand that was the role Christians and Muslims believed was God and you've just replaced it with an abstract category of material cause and effect the universe the laws of nature well no we have really serious empirically verifiable counterclaims here that cannot be accounted for in that way so so from my perspective the determinist position is magical what's magical thank you this is strange because I'm aware of a lot of schools of thought in Islamic theology for example yes and where they defend see they are likely they defend freewill based on the annulment that okay the laws in physics a lot of university material laws are deterministic but right because God created them God can also suspend him whenever he wishes right and he can like shield us from the deterministic those balls and he can always in a flavor so there's nothing deterministic but if you if you're an atheist and yes you only have those like you have matter you here's an action you have these laws of physics or chemistry it's it's right it's kind of hard to make sense of them on a theoretical basis like on a conceptual with by the cat how could even free will exist if they fight acknowledge the the Oracle reality of them what can make sense of them how so there are two two allegories you're one I have met many many people who used to believe in Christianity or Islam but one of these big mainstream religions and then when they lose faith in Christianity they also lose faith in monogamy and sobriety and they think okay now that I'm an atheist I'm going to drink a lot of alcohol and have a lot of sex or cheat on my wife have a lot of sex with random people so this is a stereotype but you know it exists and that is because their belief in those virtues was tied to their belief in this God in this religious view of the world right now for me I have always been an atheist so my reasons for living by a particular ethical code never relied on that God right so for me a theism doesn't have those those effects so I think what you're describing I can sympathize with that there are people whose belief in God was linked to a certain magical view of the universe and then they assumed that by removing the God they must don't even determinism and they don't consider the extent to which determinism is actually fallacious and is repeating and we're trenching and reinforcing a monotheistic way of thinking with us secondly if you are looking at a billiard table so in American schools a pool billiards you know there are balls on a table and they are ruled by cause-and-effect right it is very easy to look at that table and say okay everything on this table is cause-and-effect right like the connection between the balls one ball hits the other and the next one rules there's no choice there's no original thinking there's no creativity is in a planning future nothing about this resembles a human being sitting at a blank canvas and thinking what am I gonna draw a picture of what am I gonna paint a picture of painting of right and there's no dreaming the balls don't dream they don't have anxiety either and they don't have fear they don't have hunger there are a lot of differences between billiard balls and human being all of the material all of them empirically verifiable however the balls on the table can never invent the game of pool they can never invent billiards ultimately human beings sat down and thought how can we make this game fun and enjoyable there was some other game before they were inspired by and they adapted how are we gonna set up the table and still today like my daughter is only five years old when we had a billiard table for her we had to invent new games because she didn't have the patience or interest to play okay let's come up with some new rules let's come with a new what let's try to make this fun right so all of us to some extent this is the homo Luden's of approaching human beings the role of creativity in even creating a game and even setting this up then the role of human mind in planning and choosing which hire thing this is not well explained by the abstract god of cause and effect it's not you're creating absurdities and problems and what you're demanding to know is is there something magical about human beings creating this game because it connects to choice originality radical imagination by radical imagination imagination that departs from direct stimulus we are not just reacting to something you see we've thinking about the future or fantasizing about having a better life in Africa when you've never been to Africa you know nobody suggested to you just think of this yourself um whether it's fantasy and daydreaming or absolute dreaming these are empirically real verifiable aspects of life and in many ways they create the condition for the game of billiards for the very limited sphere of experience that's neatly described by cause-and-effect so your view of the world presumes that the ocean is cause and effect and then the island is so to speak the illusion of free will or choice original thinking okay and my view is the opposite my view is that the ocean is consciousness and within that we have a small island where we can observe empirical phenomena and completely explain them in terms of cause and effect which is only in like laboratory conditions and a billiard table in artificial conditions that we as human beings have created this cause and effect the idea is it's not all that useful to us in a world of hallucinations and dreams and wandering around the jungle trying to find something to eat and so on this is not nearly so much of the human experience there are people falling in love with each other and falling in love each other the kind of psychological anthropological reality of what what human life is like but sure we can sit down and look at a chessboard or a billiard table or these other very artificial things and you want to imagine that's how the whole world works but that is really a deification of the universe that's a deification of the laws of physics and saying the billiard ball table controls me as the puppeteer and I'm just the puppet in the hands of the laws of cause and effect well what why consider the subjective subjective realm of existence as the ocean you can't jump off a roof rooftop and not expect gravity to pull you down yeah and break your bones right right but well you people can people do people kill themselves all the time that way right yeah they still like it yeah yes right no no no wait wait no no no but that's your example confirms why my perspective is the way it is I could ask the question I asked the same question different wording why do some people jump off rooftops expecting that they can fly and then die and that is because the subjective experience is the ocean there's a famous example from American history I'm sure it's part legend and part real of children watching the Superman cartoon I think was actually the Superman radio show and imagining they could fly like Superman if they jumped out the window yeah yeah and then they started this propaganda campaign worth the start of every Superman cartoon and movie and radio show they'd have an announcement saying look remember kids Superman can fly but you can't they really that safety warnings about this they were I don't even know what we if it happened or how many times have but allegedly some children tried to fly and that is because for them that's subjective experience is more real and I would again say something like the experience of human beauty all these things we perceive sure the subjective experience blots out the objective experience sure so for us that's the ocean we swim it sure the key word is here for right and that's not that's we're talking about not reality currently is not necessarily so if joy but it but claims about reality this comes to my first premise claims about reality rest on contrasts in language so if you say the puppet is unreal I didn't say that I think the puppet is real say the if you say the puppet is unreal because the puppet is a fake person and the puppet master the puppeteer the man holding the puppet he is real he's a real person that's a distinction of reality now I know what you mean but in a sense I disagree with you both are real right one is a real puppet and one is a real man but from another perspective one is a fake man was Herman what is the contrast whereby you can claim let alone prove that the man his choices and his cognition and his dreams are unreal there is a puppeteer that there was another hand above it holding the puppet controlling and determining what happens here what what what evidence is there for that why would we imagine that every other entity of that is composed of dead matter behaves this way behaves deterministically dude do dogs know I mean everyday monkeys every right but that's that's a pretty clear difference isn't it why would a why should we make an exception when it comes to what what exception no no you see you're creating the exact opposite fallacy your fallacy is you are claiming how can you why how dare you not treat human beings as billiard balls but as if billiard balls are the rule as you're saying dead matter is the rule that human being should live up to and I could say to you no human beings fall into the same category as dogs empirically there's a lot of evidence for that my whole view is empirically verifiable do dogs dream they dream right do billiard balls dream no do computers dream no there are very simple material worldly non-trans transcendental criteria that separate entities making decisions entities engaging in creative imagination thought about the future creating new ideas for the future that creating options for the future that didn't exist before and then choosing those options or choosing other options making those contrasts in their minds billiard balls don't do that rocks don't do that to some extent dogs monkeys whales dolphins to some extent other animals do there is nothing mysterious about this the sense of mystery is only created by holding up completely spurious transcendental contrasts why should a human being aspire to outdo our rock in mindlessness it's a totally bizarre claim that has no again sorry you kept dodging my question what empirical evidence can there be for another puppeteer who is holding the strings what is the cause and effect if you keep saying in the abstract sense there's cause defect kid the relationship between the puppeteer and the puppet there's cause and effect there are strings where all my strings who controls my dreams who or what what is the cause and effect that determines what I see when I dream okay so okay so the laws of chemistry which give us okay so so what so you would actually have to rise the level of empirically trying to validate trying to explain my dreams explain my ideas for the future explain the notion of taking a vacation in Africa it's almost dissatisfied with the option in front of them and say no this man is a billiard ball there's some cause for this effect but you don't have them 11 within the laws of physics you have no cause for that none there is no cause for that effect there is no string so it you're setting up criteria you can't live up to yeah I I don't need to have somebody who a man who is hoping to publish like the laws of physics are impersonal forces so is God so is God right so is the Christian God so is the Muslim God this will mean I don't have to use like a court or a personal move that's where you're wrong no it's it's not sufficient to say because if we have a ball in the billiard table that just suddenly moves of itself where there's no cause then we have so where did this effect come from right you know why do you so we we are we are talking where do the dreams come from where do the ideas of the future you you can't just say over there there are causes there's an unseen a magical transcendental mover there's a cause you can't see and can't imagine just just have faith just have faith that the laws of physics and the universe the God that we say isn't God is explaining it no there's a burden of proof on you here I mean we accept we both accept billiard balls move around the table the puppet moves in the puppet master strings because of cause and effect and now you're saying you want to extend that to explain human imagination creativity and original choice making so where is the cause that if you are claiming that's a cause-and-effect relationship you the burden of proof is on you to show a cause otherwise you're engaging in magical religious you're just asking me to have faith that even though it's invisible it's not this is blip that comes back to coal poppers floss your science my mines planation passes karl popper's tests everything I'm proposing here is falsifiable everything it's all empirically real it's all perceptible it's all falsifiable and part of coke poppers test is it has to be true in some cases and not others your philosophy and all determinism thoroughgoing determinism is non falsifiable is non-empirical is non perceptible and you claim it's true in all times in all cases whether or not it can be verified or tested it sounds a lot like religion by coal paupers definition of philosophy science determinism is a religion falsifiability matters right well intuitively I can find fault with you well babe but I do find fault with yours because your your argument absolutely stands or falls on the notion that we are dead matter that human beings must be understood the same way as billiard balls or the same way as rocks or the puppet and mine is no it's very obvious and again the Sciences have proven this a dog is different from a billiard ball that's part of why we're vegan as part of the whole reason but a meal we think cows are not the same as unliving inert objects right cows have perception and fear and dreams and make choices very limited choices cows do not get the idea to take a vacation in Africa they don't I mean many animals are limited to making choice between what they see or thinking about things they have seen in the past their ability to come up with radically new and original ideas is limited I completely concede that animals are less intelligent the human the other non-human animals however you already know there are a million scientific ways to define and test it and falsify it that animals are different from rocks I mean what an ultimate unscientific point of view that your philosophy insists that there is no difference between living and unliving of course it is there's never been signed up there has never been scientific debate about whether rocks are living around living and probably from memory now III can do it what are the criteria that separate living from one living matter do you know the former ones respiration reproduction response to stimuli it's illicit of about six evoke ability so they're there thing did the the need to seek nourishment there are a few there's something like six official criteria right and we know rocks often resemble something that's alive in nature if you see certain cave formations you know stalagmites and stalactites it looks like a blob it often looks it looks like a jellyfish it looks like something might be alive you can see rock formations that look like they're alive but they're not because they don't respirate they don't breathe among other things that's right they also don't meant eight they don't of cognition there's a whole list of empirically verifiable properties matter and I I sympathize I really do think your perspective and the perspective of the people who believe in determinism in my audience because it's a belief it is a belief in things unseen I really do think you arrived at it through negging the Christian worldview or the Muslim world view and you don't realize the extent to which you're reproducing the defects of that worldview in a new atheist worldview that thankfully at least gives you an excuse to go out and get drunk and sleep around alright guys we're past the half hour mark this is Mohammed aka Muhammad SAW disease he supports me on patreon you should too link in the description hit me up