PeterPants

You want quotes that capture you? I don't know you.. Nonetheless ill give some I like. “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” ? Isaac Asimo...

Yeah, America really over-reacted to that... imagine if it was a natural event that caused that many deaths and that much destruction.. it wouldn't ha...

Ok... but your stuck assuming the existence of an infinite number of 'not impossible' threats.. heres two. The alien before mentioned, but now he has ...

ok, so you should also always assume there is an alien under your bed, going to eat you. so never get off the bed, its the only practical conclusion. ...

You've demonstrated that the bible says x, i fully accept that. What i asked for however, was for you to demonstrate that non-believers, go to hell. T...

You have a problem with questions do you? I'd still like you to demonstrate your assertion... which you clearly have not done.

LOL, oh well, paint me convinced.

Nonsense. Please demonstrate that not believing in god = eternal torment. as far as i can tell thats just a story. The very quote f mine you gave, the...

How can you say this? The very title of the book you yourself have brought up a number of times, is 'the moral landscape'. The whole point of the anal...

I typed out long responses to both of you, then deleted it realizing how pointless it all was.. basically i feel that none of your criticisms actually...

I think your missing the point of it.. You have said just before, that Sam Harris says that we ought to act like x, because of y, this is entirely fal...

For the same reasons (and many more) that a computer opens word when you double click the word icon. because we are programed to understand out enviro...

Because its handy to understand what matters, if you want to effect it. I think most people do, positively thankfully. Basically, you cant intentional...

I still entirely think your distinction between practical and theoretical reasoning is a distinction without a difference. or at least i fail to see h...

Which could only possibly 'matter' insofar as it effected the lives of sentient beings, and thus is part of wellbeing anyway.

either way, i see Sams descriptions of freewill and morality as being entirely 'practical reasoning'...whatever that means :P I see it as the same as ...

Absolutely, wellbeing is clearly the basis of morality, a desire to see wellbeing increase is morality itself. and of course wellbeing has to have mea...

i STILL dont see the difference... obviously no one has a perfect model of another human being, we certainly dont have that capacity yet. so what? i d...

i still cant see the difference, they both seem to just be reason.. can you give an example of 'practical reasoning' as opposed to 'theoretical reason...

"t seems to me to be generally the case that Sam Harris often fails to distinguish practical from theoretical reason and thereby seeks to substitute t...

its really quite simple... on an intellectual level i dont blame them, i hold no ill will against them, my actions rarely betray this stance. But obvi...

Thats a damn good point, regardless of whether the good Samaritan ever DID anything good, the fact that when presented with that situation he would ha...

so what? hurry up and get the ideas into your computer that will stop you acting like a child. :P

so yes, i agree that bad behavior usually is and should be met with shame, i would say this is due to cultural conditioning and innate human altruism ...

I actually disagree here, to hold someone responsible is not to blame, i distinguish between the two. we can of course, ignore the words and stick to ...

i fully support Dennit's view, except that i disagree with his silly notion of holding onto the term 'free will'. he believes society would break down...

ah huh... well done. "Sorry, it is out of my hands. I have no choice." yes, sarcastically stating my argument, is not itself an argument. Its what chi...

"And you have not shown how the deterministic laws that govern physical systems (while abstracting away most of their significant functional features)...

of course they are very different sorts of influence, i dont see how that matters. what if we make a computer that changes its own program, put it in ...

nope. my arguments will either convince you or they wont, if you interact with me in a more open minded way, if you try to actually understand what im...

ok, no worries, you go ahead and live in your little fantasy world, i dont know why your on a philosophy forum if your not interesting in talking abou...

Perhaps it will help if i retern to my original point, and come from a more pragmatic angle.. so, im inventing a sadistic murderer, his name is Bob. s...

Im not saying all actions are determined, im saying all the evidence we have so far suggests they are. i dont rule out the possibility that they are n...

prove it.. i say the reason could just be complexity and chaos. your basically saying we CANT predict human actions and that its fundamentally impossi...

"Maybe "ordinary people" who are being probed into coming up with explanations regarding the source of their abilities to act responsibly in a univers...

or are you saying there is zero evidence that our actions are determined by reality?

.... there is zero logic and zero evidence for what exactly?? what on earth do you think im talking about here... im saying something does NOT exist.....

"What ability don't you see any evidence of? The ability to make justified rational decisions or enlightened moral choices?" No... straw man alert str...

want has nothing to do with it... its where my logic has led me. im open to being corrected but so far all you've offered is your own personal feeling...

OH, btw, when i said determinism is a law, i wasn't stating that its a fact of reality, i was giving its catagory.. maybe thats where we got muddled h...

all of the laws of the universe created this conversation, along with everything else.... i dont see what your talking about.. your not.. your not giv...

ok then, by that same reasoning, we have no choices, we are programmed to do what we do, by evolution. to assume there is a difference, seems to me, t...

hmm... i cant understand your criticism at all.. did the robot or did the robot not, choose to move the blue cube into the blue crate? clearly it the ...

of course, but why would you assume thats the case, i see no evidence of this ability and thus see no reason to come up with explanations for it... Yo...

Yes Rich, im saying a person makes a choice in a manner, we are back to the language issue, im saying that a persons brain makes a choice, but its a d...

and thats three sentances :P

But quantum states are quite irrelevant, and they don't allow for the free will people claim exists. to claim that something on the scale of a human b...

man, i love it when someone misrepresents me, misunderstands 90% of what i say, criticizes me for positions i dont hold, refuses to explain themselves...

you are considering a different picture to the one im talking about.. i agree entirely with what you said. what IM saying, is that if you go to any MO...

crying about it? wow. im sorry we couldn't have a more civil and grown up discussion.