“Revolution in Thought: A new look at determinism and free will"

[peacegirl]

Pg
Why am I here? WOW! When you really think about it why is anyone anywhere? That's a doozy of question. I am flummoxed.

It's not a hard question. Why are you flummoxed?

You post a claim of a revolutionary discovery that will end war and crime and bring world peace. I disagree and think the arguments are nonsense.

If you think that, then go somewhere else. Who stays at a place where there is nothing to gain? Look at how many threads there are. You have your pick.

Watch the 1937 movie Lost Horizons. I think it may depict what you are trying to describe. Everyone is cooperating without conflict all the time.

People will disagree, but how conflict is resolved will not need war. Crime will also be wiped out.

When I thought about it I think you and Lessans are aptly called utopians. A utopian viiosn of the future.

He never used the word utopia in any of his writings. That sounds like a Christian theology. He only claimed that we can create a world where serious conflicts that would lead to war and crime can be eliminated.

Isaiah 11:6 and Revelation 5:5-6

The concept of a utopia where lions and lambs coexist peacefully is rooted in biblical prophecy and Christian theology. Isaiah 11:6 and Revelation 5:5 6 describe a future where predators and their prey will dwell in harmony, symbolizing the restoration of the natural order. This vision is often interpreted as a prophetic picture of a tranquil world where traditional predators and their prey coexist peacefully, indicating the transformative power of Christ and the coming age of peace and restoration.
Bible Hub+5

Yes, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s, Russian communism was viewed by a notable segment of the American left-leaning intelligentsia, intellectuals, and reformers as a promising, "utopian" alternative to industrial capitalism
. This perception was driven by a desire to overcome the inequality and economic crises associated with the West, rather than a detailed understanding of the realities in the Soviet Union.

You refuse to take off your blinders and look at a greater context of your claims insisting Lessans is competently original.

He was original. He never insisted that he was the only one who tried to bring peace. It's just that his discovery holds more long-term promise.

Maybe you inherited that from Lessans.

You claim in the new worldth ere will be no government as we know it. I simply ask what happens in the new world when somebody dries not want to go along with the new order.

When you call it a new order, it sounds communist. It is the opposite because there is no force whatsoever. People will want to become citizens of their own free will. Remember, the way I just used the term "free will" is a colloquial expression. It does not mean anyone actually has freedom of will. It just means doing something "of our own desire" (without persuasion or force), not that we actually have the free will to do otherwise, which is the thing under discussion in the free will/determinism debate. Do you see the difference?

Same question I ask anarchists and I never get an answer. American anarchists go back to the 19th cenetury.

Anarchist voluntary cooperation is the foundational principle that society can function through horizontal, self-organized relationships rather than state coercion. It relies on mutual aid, voluntary association, and shared responsibility to manage social needs, aiming for equitable, non-hierarchical community organization often termed "social freedom"

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Anarchism in the United States - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Anarchism in the United States began in the mid-19th century and started to grow in influence as it entered the American labor movements, growing an anarcho-communist current as well as gaining notoriety for violent propaganda of the deed and campaigning for diverse social reforms in the early 20th century. By around the start of the 20th century, the heyday of individualist anarchism had passed[1] and anarcho-communism and other social anarchist currents emerged as the dominant anarchist tendency.[2]

A I said the idea of a syst5em without government and people just getting along without hierarchical structures is not new.

As I said before you have a lot of competition from well established organized philosophies.

There is today a well sheathed communist faction in the USA. One had been on our city council tor for years. She advocated getting rid of police and having communities police themselves.

This is not anarchy. It is the very opposite.

anarchy (noun)

1. a state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems:
   "the country has been plunged into a state of anarchy"

Of course we need governmental control and authority as it now stands. Who is saying otherwise? You are trying to compare apples to apples when they are not at all alike. You have to give this man half a chance, which you seem reluctant to do.

 

[peacegirl]

Here in Seattle pigeons and sea gulls are everywhere. No natural predators. Pigeons eat and crap all over. Sea gulls are nasty flying rats.

Seagulls, really just gulls, are not nasty flying rats. They are beautiful creatures. I believe it was Dawkins who stated that they are so well designed for flight that it could almost make him believe in a designer.

Gulls, who eat worms, are so smart that they have figured out how do a collective dance on sunny days that sounds like the patter of rain. This makes the worms come out, whom they then eat.

Pigeons are beautiful. They have five cones so they see tens of millions of colors that humans don’t. They are very intelligent, and recognize individual humans. Several years ago, I had a pigeon friend, Brownie, with whom I shared roast chicken on a park bench. He let me pet him and so have other pigeons.

Pigeons and gulls in cities absolutely do have predators: falcons, hawks, owls, racoons, cats, among others. I have seen a falcon in a park grab a pigeon and fly away with it.

Gills are flying rats. They steal from each other. Crap all over.

In Washington state, it is illegal to feed seagulls in all state park areas and in various cities where local ordinances prohibit the practice. While there is no universal statewide ban specifically for seagulls, new 2025 regulations from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
(WDFW) make it illegal to feed any wildlife if doing so causes deer, elk, or moose to congregate.

Enforcement: Penalties for seagull-feeding offenses can range from small fines to civil penalties of up to $750 depending on the severity and local code.

Environmental and Health Impact

Disease Spread: Feeding encourages gulls to crowd together, which promotes the spread of diseases among birds and potentially to humans.
Public Nuisance: Large congregations of fed gulls can cause defacement and deterioration of public and private property through droppings and litter.

Seagulls are highly opportunistic, omnivorous feeders that eat a wide range of foods, including fish, marine invertebrates (crabs, mussels), insects, eggs, rodents, and refuse. Their diets vary by location, shifting from natural marine prey to scavenging human trash, fast food, and agricultural waste.\

I watched them drop shellfish on rocks to crack the shell. When one gets food in the beak others chase it to take it away.

I watched gulls line up with diving birds and try to go underwater with them.

Observational Learning: Studies show that seagulls watch what people are eating and target those specific items. They are more likely to approach food if they see a human interacting with it first.
Recognizing People: Gulls can remember faces, particularly those of people who have fed them or, conversely, those who have acted aggressively towards them.

Sorry pood, you are just a meal ticket.

Crows can remember faces. I watched a University Washington study on it out on the open. If you piss off crows they will remember you. A guy wore a mask and harassed crows. When he waked past without it no reaction, reacted to the mask. It appeared it could be communicated to other crows.

Pigeons were once trained to spot international orange for open water aircraft search. They would peck on a device to indicate direction.

Pigeons were indeed used in aerial water searches, most notably in a U.S. Coast Guard program called
Project Sea Hunt during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In this program, trained pigeons were used as "pigeon-powered sensors" to spot survivors, life rafts, and debris in the open ocean.

These birds definitely have amazing skills, but they cannot recognize faces in a lineup (as far as I can tell) without other cues to help them. They may associate a mask with aggression if they were hurt by someone wearing one (that's no surprise), but this does not prove that the eyes are a sense organ.An

For heavens sake, animals need to recognize objects in their environment in order to interact with it, find food, shelter, avoid danger. That is what sight enables. The eyes detect light and the brain generates sight.

Light is involved, but to say these creatures recognize faces from sight alone is way off base, and there is no proof of this.

 

[pood]

Light is involved, but to say these creatures recognize faces from sight alone is way off base, and there is no proof of this.

There is a mountain of evidence that animals recognize faces from sight alone, and any number of animals have vision superior to that of humans, including birds. As usual, you haven’t a clue what you are talking about. Have you ever read a book other than your father’s? Did you ever actually read that book? The fact that you can’t explain the book suggests either that you did not read it, or did not understand it if you did.

 

[peacegirl]

Light is involved, but to say these creatures recognize faces from sight alone is way off base, and there is no proof of this.

There is a mountain of evidence that animals recognize faces from sight alone, and any number of animals have vision superior to that of humans, including birds. As usual, you haven’t a clue what you are talking about. Did you read it, or did not understand it if you did.

Listen, Pood. I did not say that animals don't have superior vision in different ways, but they don't have the ability to recognize faces in a lineup. I know you can't deal with this fact, but you can't show me otherwise unless you use a bad design, like levers!

 

[peacegirl]

it is absolutely amazing what happens when everyone knows IN ADVANCE that if they should hurt someone with a first blow (not a retaliatory blow), they will not be blamed or punished, because everyone knows that they couldn't help themselves since their will is not free. The world knows they could not have acted otherwise. But they haven't hurt anyone yet; this is still under consideration, and when it dawns on them that the whole world must excuse them for doing what cannot be justified, they are compelled to relinquish this desire to strike because it can give them no satisfaction to do so under the changed conditions.

See, that's bollocks, too. The premise that this depends upon entirely, is that people act only after consideration of the consequences of their actions.

That this is laughably false should be obvious to anybody.

Of course they do, and many are willing to take the risk for the possibility of a reward that outweighs the risk. But when this becomes the worst possible choice, a person cannot go in this direction.
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From a superficial standpoint, it might still appear that man would take advantage of not being blamed and punished and risk hurting others as a solution to his problems, but this is a mathematical impossibility when he knows that blame and punishment are required for advance justification. In other words, the challenge of the law absolves his conscience with threats of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ which is payment in full for the risks he takes. He may risk going to prison or be willing to pay the ultimate price with his life for the satisfaction of certain desires. An individual would not mind taking all kinds of chances involving others because he could always come up with a reasonable excuse to get off the hook, or he could pay a price if caught. If he borrowed a thousand dollars and was unable to pay all of it back, he could easily say, “Sue me for the rest.” If he tries to hold up a bank, however, and fails, the legal system does not allow him to excuse himself, and he is sent to prison. Without the knowledge that he would be blamed and punished should he fail, without this advance justification that allowed him to risk hurting others, the price of this hurt is beyond his purchasing power. How could someone plan a crime knowing that no one — not even the ones to be hurt — would ever blame him or retaliate in any way, even if they knew what he was about to do?

Has it been forgotten already that we are compelled, by our very nature, to choose the alternative that gives us greater satisfaction, which is the reason our will is not free? Consequently, to solve this problem, it is only necessary to demonstrate that when all blame and punishment are removed from the environment — and when the conditions are also removed that make it necessary for a person to hurt others as the lesser of two evils — the desire to hurt another with a first blow will be the worst possible choice. In the world of free will, man blamed man and excused himself. In the new world, man will be excused by man for everything he does and, consequently, will be compelled, of his own free will, to hold himself responsible without justification. In other words, once man knows that he is truly responsible for what others will be compelled to excuse and he would be unable to justify, he is given no choice but to forgo the contemplation of what he foresees can give him no satisfaction. It becomes an impenetrable deterrent because, under these conditions, no person alive could move in this direction for satisfaction, even if he wanted to. This natural law raises man’s conscience to such a high degree because there is no price he can pay when all humanity, including the one to be hurt, must excuse him.”

 

[peacegirl]

Here in Seattle pigeons and sea gulls are everywhere. No natural predators. Pigeons eat and crap all over. Sea gulls are nasty flying rats.

Seagulls, really just gulls, are not nasty flying rats. They are beautiful creatures. I believe it was Dawkins who stated that they are so well designed for flight that it could almost make him believe in a designer.

Gulls, who eat worms, are so smart that they have figured out how do a collective dance on sunny days that sounds like the patter of rain. This makes the worms come out, whom they then eat.

Pigeons are beautiful. They have five cones so they see tens of millions of colors that humans don’t. They are very intelligent, and recognize individual humans. Several years ago, I had a pigeon friend, Brownie, with whom I shared roast chicken on a park bench. He let me pet him and so have other pigeons.

Pigeons and gulls in cities absolutely do have predators: falcons, hawks, owls, racoons, cats, among others. I have seen a falcon in a park grab a pigeon and fly away with it.

Gills are flying rats. They steal from each other. Crap all over.

In Washington state, it is illegal to feed seagulls in all state park areas and in various cities where local ordinances prohibit the practice. While there is no universal statewide ban specifically for seagulls, new 2025 regulations from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
(WDFW) make it illegal to feed any wildlife if doing so causes deer, elk, or moose to congregate.

Enforcement: Penalties for seagull-feeding offenses can range from small fines to civil penalties of up to $750 depending on the severity and local code.

Environmental and Health Impact

Disease Spread: Feeding encourages gulls to crowd together, which promotes the spread of diseases among birds and potentially to humans.
Public Nuisance: Large congregations of fed gulls can cause defacement and deterioration of public and private property through droppings and litter.

Seagulls are highly opportunistic, omnivorous feeders that eat a wide range of foods, including fish, marine invertebrates (crabs, mussels), insects, eggs, rodents, and refuse. Their diets vary by location, shifting from natural marine prey to scavenging human trash, fast food, and agricultural waste.\

I watched them drop shellfish on rocks to crack the shell. When one gets food in the beak others chase it to take it away.

I watched gulls line up with diving birds and try to go underwater with them.

Observational Learning: Studies show that seagulls watch what people are eating and target those specific items. They are more likely to approach food if they see a human interacting with it first.
Recognizing People: Gulls can remember faces, particularly those of people who have fed them or, conversely, those who have acted aggressively towards them.

Sorry pood, you are just a meal ticket.

Crows can remember faces. I watched a University Washington study on it out on the open. If you piss off crows they will remember you. A guy wore a mask and harassed crows. When he waked past without it no reaction, reacted to the mask. It appeared it could be communicated to other crows.

Pigeons were once trained to spot international orange for open water aircraft search. They would peck on a device to indicate direction.

Pigeons were indeed used in aerial water searches, most notably in a U.S. Coast Guard program called
Project Sea Hunt during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In this program, trained pigeons were used as "pigeon-powered sensors" to spot survivors, life rafts, and debris in the open ocean.

These birds definitely have amazing skills, but they cannot recognize faces in a lineup (as far as I can tell) without other cues to help them. They may associate a mask with aggression if they were hurt by someone wearing one (that's no surprise), but this does not prove that the eyes are a sense organ.

For heavens sake, animals need to recognize objects in their environment in order to interact with it, find food, shelter, avoid danger. That is what sight enables. The eyes detect light and the brain generates sight.

I am not talking about light. I am talking about recognition. Where have you been whole this time?

I was talking about recognition. Read the first sentence. First the eyes detect light, convey information via the optic nerve, then the brain processes that information and generated conscious experience, including recognition.

Detecting light is necessary but this does not nullify the direction we see. You're way off track. You are just repeating what is believed. It's a theory, not fact.

Animals are able to recognize objects because they have eyes to detect light and brains that use that information to form mental imagery of the external world, they see and they recognize their surroundings.

Again, the detection of light is necessary for anything that requires light for information. Even small creatures need to detect light to move about and find ways to avoid predators. You say we see by forming mental imagery of the external world. Can you prove that this is the case? Without proof you have nothing.

 

[pood]

Light is involved, but to say these creatures recognize faces from sight alone is way off base, and there is no proof of this.

There is a mountain of evidence that animals recognize faces from sight alone, and any number of animals have vision superior to that of humans, including birds. As usual, you haven’t a clue what you are talking about. Did you read it, or did not understand it if you did.

Listen, Pood. I did not say that animals don't have superior vision in different ways, but they don't have the ability to recognize faces in a lineup. I know you can't deal with this fact, but you can't show me otherwise unless you use a bad design, like levers!

Listen, peacegirl, they do have the ability to recognize faces in a lineup, as well as in photos and videos with no other sensory cues. I know you can’t deal with this fact because it makes you very angry and challenges your precious world view.

And no, none of this has anything to do with “levers.” We have scanned the brains of dogs and other animals and have seen the visual parts of their brains activated upon recognizing individual humans. Bees can recognize individual humans.

Sorry if that makes you angry and overturns your precious world view.

 

[pood]

I continue to marvel at how utterly stupid it is to declare that eyes are not a sense organ.

 

[peacegirl]

I continue to marvel at how utterly stupid it is to declare that eyes are not a sense organ.

And I continue to marvel at how utterly stupid it is to declare that bees can recognize their beekeepers from sight alone.

 

[pood]

Again, the detection of light is necessary for anything that requires light for information. Even small creatures need to detect light to move about and find ways to avoid predators.

The “detection of light” means SENSING light, which means that the eye is a SENSE ORGAN by definition.

You say we see by forming mental imagery of the external world. Can you prove that this is the case? Without proof you have nothing.

The Lone Ranger wrote you a paper demonstrating these facts, a paper that by your own admission you refused to read. Stop insulting people’s intelligence.

 

[pood]

I continue to marvel at how utterly stupid it is to declare that eyes are not a sense organ.

And I continue to marvel at how utterly stupid it is to declare that bees can recognize their beekeepers from sight alone.

I’m glad you marvel at that. But science says I am right and you are wrong.

But of course you know nothing about science, or anything else for that matter.

Again, have you ever read a book besides the book your father wrote? Did you even read that?

 

[peacegirl]

I continue to marvel at how utterly stupid it is to declare that eyes are not a sense organ.

And I continue to marvel at how utterly stupid it is to declare that bees can recognize their beekeepers from sight alone.

I’m glad you marvel at that. But science says I am right and you are wrong.

Where is the proof that bees in a different location can distinguish their beekeeper from others? Are you that desperate?

But of course you know nothing about science, or anything else for that matter.

Again, have you ever read a book besides the book your father wrote? Did you even read that?

My stomach is hurting from laughter! Please stop!

 

[pood]

I have shown you scientific studies demonstrating that pigeons, crows, bees, dogs and other animals recognize individual humans faces. You have ignored them because they make you very angry for challenging your precious world view.

 

[pood]

Where is the proof that bees in a different location can distinguish their beekeeper from others? Are you that desperate?

The only one who is desperate is you.

Deep down you know daddy’s book is trash. You just can’t bear to admit it. You are a victim of the sunk cost fallacy.

 

[pood]

Right now my friends’ cat, One Eyed Jack, is recognizing me quite fine, even though he has only one eye. I tried to do a drawing of him lying on the bed but he would not pose. Instead he got up and rubbed against me and trampled over my drawing paper and played with my pencils. I Jack!

 

[peacegirl]

I have shown you scientific studies demonstrating that pigeons, crows, bees, dogs and other animals recognize individual humans faces. You have ignored them because they make you very angry for challenging your precious world view.

You have not shown anything of the sort. Animals have instincts and can show affection (see below), but that is not the same as facial recognition, AND YOU KNOW IT. Why keep up the charade, Pood?!

1M views · 56K reactions | I thought this would be a one-time thing but I was wrong. Now this little moment feels like trust. | Crow Addict

I thought this would be a one-time thing but I was wrong. Now this little moment feels like trust.

www.facebook.com

 

[pood]

One Eyed Jack staring with his one remaining eye (it is clouding over and he is scheduled to go blind) at the Yellow Smilie Ball that moves of its own accord (I have seen this happen!)

Yeah, right, the eyes aren’t a sense organ. Has anything stupider ever been said, apart from the claim that we see instantly even though it takes light time to get to the eyes?

 

[peacegirl]

Right now my friends’ cat, One Eyed Jack, is recognizing me quite fine, even though he has only one eye. I tried to do a drawing of him lying on the bed but he would not pose. Instead he got up and rubbed against me and trampled over my drawing paper and played with my pencils. I Jack!

That's not proof. I had a friend who had 3 cats, Gamma, Beta, and George. You could be across the house and pretend to be crying and Gamma (the female of the three) would run to the person crying, jump on their stomach, and start kneading to try to bring comfort. She was responding to a distress call. This was proof of a cat's empathy, but it has nothing to do with eyes being a sense organ.

 

[steve_bank]

Pg

I see your new world as a utopian vision. Nothing to do with the bible.

In your utopian vision of no crime, war, or hurt it is not lions laying with lambs, it is Arabs and Persians and Jews in the Mid East getting along. The real world.

A grandmother of mine who was a lifelong Catholic once told me 'people want heaven onEartho and they are not going to get it'.

You have a warm fuzzy soothing vision of a painless future but no idea of the scope and practicalities involved. Like extreme progressives.

You believe in Lessans like Christians believe in Jesus and the gospels. An unshakable belief in the resurrection and an eternal glorious existence in a heaven.

In our chaotic and uncertain worked I don't begrudge anyone their beliefs.

That being said you came here to convince people on the forum of your beliefs

You get what you get, and you are unable to make your case.

Your arguments are on the level of arguing that Earth goes around the Sun is a theory not fact.

You say inconvenient science is a theory not a fact, yet claim Lessans is absolutely true without any excremental proof. Oh the irony ......

 

[pood]

I have shown you scientific studies demonstrating that pigeons, crows, bees, dogs and other animals recognize individual humans faces. You have ignored them because they make you very angry for challenging your precious world view.

You have not shown anything of the sort. Animals have instincts and can show affection (see below), but that is not the same as facial recognition, AND YOU KNOW IT. Why keep up the charade, Pood?!

1M views · 56K reactions | I thought this would be a one-time thing but I was wrong. Now this little moment feels like trust. | Crow Addict

I thought this would be a one-time thing but I was wrong. Now this little moment feels like trust.

www.facebook.com

Numerous scientific studies have shown that all sorts of animals recognize individual humans by sight, including in photos and videos. I am sorry that you are getting so angry at having your precious world view overturned.

Apart from peacegirl’s obvious anger and desperation, it is an interesting topic to consider how intelligent non-human animals really are. When I was in high school, there was an actual course on philosophy. My impression is that such courses are not standard in high school, at least not in the nation of idiots that I live in. Anyway, the teacher, a nerdish guy in thick glasses, was telling us that animals are mindless automatons that act by instinct alone, with no internal life. Even then I knew that was bullshit, because I had pets at home.

Today we know much more about the intelligence and internal lives of non-human animals, including that some of them, like whales and elephants, show evidence of having complex languages. One scientist who studied prairie dogs for some 40 years holds that they verbally talk to each other and that much of their conversation revolves around humans, even describing by sight alone their faces and their clothes. There is some doubt about this study among other scientists, but that is science. Good for science! Prairie dogs will be studied more and we shall see.