Please rationally support this decision

[Darrell Hougen]

I would not advise someone to be a coal miner.

Darrell,

I come from coal miners (a little town called Coeburn, Va., in Wise County). My grandfather on back, and God know who else among my antecedent family, were coal miners. Back when it was dangerous for real.

There is nothing shameful about that profession. Honest work. Good people. Good product.

There was nothing wrong with the profession back then, either. It sure beat the dickens out of starving in the backwoods. That was a real reality at the time.

If Howard Roark could work in a rock quarry, what's so anti-Objectivist about working in a coal mine?

Michael

Michael,

Being a coal miner is indeed an honorable profession. I just wouldn't advise my sons to go into it because I know the risks --- cave ins, poison gas, black lung disease.

There is nothing "anti-Objectivist" about coal mining. Sorry, if I gave the impression that that is what I meant. But, when it comes to giving advice to a person about the career he should pursue, his expected payoff, both in monetary and health terms is important.

Living a principled existence is also important, but I would argue that it is important because of how it bears on other considerations, like ones probability of staying alive. In my opinion, people feel a great deal of angst or anguish when they stray from the straight and narrow because they know, deep down, that lying, cheating, and stealing are likely to come back to bite them later. They also know that in abandoning a principled existence, they are likely to become lost --- to not know which way to turn or why.

Life without principles becomes a frenetic and bewildering series of calculations about when to lie, cheat, steal, or even kill, that almost invariably leads downhill to destruction. That is what people fear more than anything --- being morally lost.

Of course, one wrong turn doesn't mean the end is nigh. The solution is to claw ones way back to a principled life, but that isn't always easy or possible.

Darrell

[Darrell Hougen]

To this point, I have only examined the possible consequences for the kapos after the war, but I realized that that approach isn't really complete. We should be looking at what happened before the war as well.

The German guards tended to choose criminals to be kapos because they knew that criminals were more likely to be unprincipled brutes. But, as a person living before the war, what were the odds that living as an unprincipled brute would get a person a job as a kapo during the war? Well, you said that there were several thousand kapos, so let's use the figure 10,000. I'm not sure what the population was in 1940, but it was more than 2 billion, so let's use that figure. Let's also assume that 10% of the population were criminals. Then, the probability of any criminal ending up as a kapo during the war would have been 0.005%.

If we postulate, for a moment, that kapos came out ahead during the war by an amount X, then the expected payoff before the war would have been 0.00005 * X. However, that would have to be offset by the loss that one would expect to suffer both before and after the war by living one's entire life as an unprincipled brute.

Not all of the kapos were criminals before the war. I do not know that even a majority were. Furthermore, given the economic collapse and widespread street violence that characterized German life after World War I, it is hardly a certainty that joining a criminal gang would not have been in one's self-interest, particularly for one of the millions of unemployed workers.

You say, being a kapo would be "offset by the loss that one would expect to suffer both before and after the war by living one's entire life as an unprincipled brute." If by loss you mean regret or guilt, there is no reason to suppose that the men and women who served as prison functionaries instead of fodder for the crematoria suffered from any self-doubts. For a significant part of the population, empathy is an unfamiliar, even unknown emotion.

I'm guessing that most of the kapos were criminals before the war given their predilection for violence. If the kapos had been nice guys, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Post war Germany had a lot of crime and unemployment, but a person wouldn't have known before the war which countries would go to war and who would win, so one has to weigh the cost of being an unprincipled person anywhere in the world with the benefit, if any, of being a criminal during or after the war in Germany.

When I talk about the offsetting cost, I'm talking about the cost of being an unprincipled person. How well do criminals typically fare in a peaceful society? What is their average income?

Setting aside for a moment whether drugs should be legalized or not, I've heard that the average person involved in the illegal drug trade in the U.S. makes about $20/day. Sure, there a few drug lords that make big bucks, but most of their stooges and secondary dealers make peanuts.

It is also instructive to look at the odds that any given person will rise to the top of the heap and become a drug lord, because that is the calculation that one has to make going in. A person might be certain he will rise to the top, but wishful thinking doesn't get a person very far. For every tyrant, their are scores of want-to-be's that got cut off at the knees, somewhere along the line.

People without principles typically don't do very well.

Let's assume that one's probability of being caught were 1%. I don't know what the average jewelry heist nets, but the typical bank robbery nets less than $1,000, so let's use that figure. Now, if a person earns the median income of $50,000, a $1,000 heist won't make much difference to one's life. In order for a thief to generate an income comparable to the typical worker, he would have to commit 50 thefts per year. In two years, that would add up 100 robberies. But, if he correctly calculated that the probability of being caught was only 1% each time, then his probability of getting away with 100 robberies would only be 36.6%. Or, his probability of being caught would be 63.4% in two years. Moreover, during those two years he would live no better than the average person and would have to live in constant fear of being caught in his web of lies and deceit.

You can probably put together an excellent statistical case against jewel thieves. No doubt the insurance industry has daunting figures on the percentage of thieves that go to prison.

None of that is relevant to the case I described. Even supposing that statistically 99% of jewel thieves are caught, if caregiver A finds herself in a situation where there are no witnesses and the victim is incapable of distinguishing illusion from reality and there is no family member to regularly take inventory of valuables, caregiver A may correctly conclude that her chances are not 100 to 1 against, but 100 to 1 for success. And that tiny risk could be well justified by the possession of a necklace worth several times her annual income.

Ah, but you're ignoring the cost of looking for such an opportunity. A person could wait 20 years --- she could wait for a lifetime --- for the perfect opportunity to come along, and all that time the person would have to keep looking for opportunities, wasting time and effort.

A principled person wouldn't waste her time looking for opportunities to steal something and probably wouldn't even notice when the big opportunity came along because her eyes and her mind would be fixed on other things. In fact, she might have moved from caregiver for the elderly, to a position on the hospital oversight board while her small minded cousin was busy trying to find an opportunity to steal a necklace.

We could go around and around on this, but I hope that it is becoming clear that a principled, moral existence really is in everyone's self interest.

Darrell

[Darrell Hougen]

Heh. Randomness. There was a "classic cult" novel around in the early 70's, The Diceman, by Luke Rhinehart (pen name). It sold millions and still gets rave attention now. About a bored psychologist who hits on the idea of throwing a die to decide everything he does, like for instance, a *one* means he must (for real) rape his neighbor. It really is the most nihilistic garbage, and not even good writing as i recall. Readers bragged of emulating him and carried around dice.

A motto of his: "This truth above all: fake it". Taleb almost sounds like a disciple

'Randomness', another small-minded, sad attempt by the disillusioned to find omniscient knowledge, I think.

I wonder how he decided that a 'one' meant that he should rape his neighbor. That sounds pretty random in and of itself. Actually, it sounds pretty nihilistic and/or just plain evil. Why couldn't a 'one' mean that he should bake cookies for his neighbor? Anyway, some people's minds are filled with garbage.

Darrell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Darrell,

Heh.

I guess I was a little too harsh.

I fully agree about the importance of moral principles.

Michael

[Francisco Ferrer]

Determinism is self-refuting, for to state "I am a determinist" also states "I have a conviction". To own convictions is to say, "I have come to believe in this, not that". So: a being of volitional consciousness.

If the definition of "conviction" is "any belief that results from the exercise of free will or volitional consciousness," then an admission of a conviction by a determinist would betray him as a follower of the free will argument.

Fortunately for the determinist, dictionaries don't define "conviction" in this way and thus, in the words of Merriam-Webster, his "a strong persuasion or belief " could be the product of forces that have nothing to do with the mythical faculty of free will.

I doubt that I would have read Das Kapital at the age of 11 when I read the other two books. I also doubt that I would have been persuaded by Marx. But who knows? Better intellects than mine, Nobel laureates even, have taken a shine to him.

Even if we establish that one may have an early predilection towards individual liberty, despite environmental influences, it would hardly prove the existence of free will. Certain personality traits may be inherent.

Yes, there are determinists who believe the stars shape human destiny. They are called "astrologers," and I'm not one of them.

Your question about being happy without a belief in free will is the same approach theists have taken with me. How can you be happy, Francisco, without being able to look forward to heaven?

My answer? My happiness depends on having an unblinking recognition of reality, regardless of how cold or grim it may be.

It is a narrow view of reality and a rigid view of man's mind. Could you leave aside your dictionary for a second, and entertain the philosophical concept of 'conviction', one which very definitely "results from the exercise of free will". You have heard the explanation "A being of volitional consciousness" at least fifty times. 'Volitionally' apply your mind to this statement, and isolate it (despite whatever you believe you know of 'free will'). I think it was most precisely and concisely worded by Rand, it states her case and no more.

One could also argue that refusing to believe in man's alleged powers of precognition and levitation is narrow. The goal should be to arrive at an understanding of the mind that is accurate, regardless of how limited it may "sound" to some.

Otherwise, as you might accuse me on determinism, you simply are attacking some strawman idea of volition to avoid the real issue.

"Determinism is the thesis that there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future". {P. van Inwagen]

If that's your position, it negates the causal agency of man.

Generally, you think before you act, yes? But can you initiate thoughts and can you change them and begin new ones? if so, you will agree that your actions can differ widely. However, if by you every thought is 'determined'... not much left to say.

Every thought is the product of biological and/or environmental factors. The fact that I suddenly decide to drive down to the corner and get a raspberry ice cream cone does not happen independently of the state of my stomach or my existing knowledge of things such things as sugar cones, frozen dairy desserts, and tart little red berries.

Initiate new thoughts? One could suddenly come up with the idea of an escalator. But such an innovation depends on already existing creations such as stairs, pulleys, chains, and motors.

So, the bridge you mention, is out. One can drive another route, go by ferry, or hire a plane, or go to a bar, just return home, etc. etc.. Each choice (volitional thought) from this array will lead to another array of possibilities -- and another. Ultimately, the range of possible outcomes is huge. In retrospect, one sees that a single or a few outcomes eventually transpired. The one common element is: one's being and consciousness, is always present.

By example.

After choosing the ferry, you could observe an attractive woman on board; you 'might' choose to strike up conversation (or you might not); you might assess her as a fine person (according to your volitional values); she might seem to like you; you might ask her phone number; and after the continuous interaction of her free will and yours, six months later you might both choose to be married.

Stop at any point and tell me that it was all pre-ordained, um, sorry - determined, with "exactly one physically possible future"!!

(Is this a little discomfiting to a nicely ordered, deterministic world view, FF?)

"Ordered" means "carefully organized or controlled." Apparently your view of determinism is that it supposes all events in nature are planned by some divine intelligence. In fact, realistic determinists understand that a divine being is just as mythical as free will. Why did the man take the ferry instead of staying in his own car? Perhaps because he is a doctor and needs to get across the river immediately to deliver medicine to a sick child. If the man speaks to a strange new woman on the ferry it is perhaps because he needs a nurse to assist him when examining female patients. The fact that people make choices, sometimes odd ones, does not prove the independence of those choices from prior causes.

Writing "personality traits may be inherent" is revealing. You never speak of "character" I notice. Why, I believe, because personality is mostly not of one's making, while character is. To admit to character, integrity, etc., is to admit to a volitional consciousness, one which has to identify and judge what is 'good' for one (against the standard of what is good for man in reality) - and further, one's free will has to consciously and consistently stick by that resolve into his future.

In your world, I think, there is not much to separate the jewel thief from a man of integrity, a person who has no need of the law to curtail his actions.

Men are 'influenced' in some large or miniscule way by everything that is and that was.

Men are 'determined' by possessing physical bodies, (for instance) which are capable of certain actions and incapable of others.

Determinists don't distinguish between the two, I notice.

We were discussing why I reacted positively novels by Huxley and Orwell. I suggested that certain inherent personality traits may be at play. Naturally, I did not say "character" because that quality is a combination of particular beliefs and actions--and is unlikely to be caused entirely by one's genes.

"Influenced" or "determined"?

• I was influenced to choose raspberry because I had just seen a delightful photo of them in a magazine.
• I was determined to choose raspberries because they are very high in anti-oxidants.

In both cases the person makes a decision in response to prior conditions. The second is simply more emphatic.

[Darrell Hougen]

Darrell,

Heh.

I guess I was a little too harsh.

I fully agree about the importance of moral principles.

Michael

No problem. I realized that what I said the first time wasn't entirely clear.

Darrell

[Darrell Hougen]

Every thought is the product of biological and/or environmental factors.

FF,

I've argued in other threads on OL that the world is not deterministic. It is tempting to think it is because it is only possible to predict the deterministic elements of some process. However, the notion that it is deterministic just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

I'd rather not repeat all of the arguments I've made before about the physics of deterministic systems, so let me just engage you in the following way: Would you not agree that the human world is more varied, richer, more complex than it was 100 years ago? What about 1000 years ago? What about 10,000? What about 4,000,000,000, years ago before the dawn of life?

If the world were deterministic, where did all of this additional complexity come from? Was the existence of the amoeba implicit in the rocks that existed before there was life? Was the existence of the TV somehow implicit in the existence of single celled organisms that populated the earth for at least a billion years before multi-celled organisms came into existence?

To me, it seems clear that there must be some source of variability outside of that which can be predicted. Without random permutations, there is simply no way to explain the continuous increase in variety and complexity that exist.

BTW, if biological or environmental factors control human choices, what controls biological or environmental factors?

Darrell

[Francisco Ferrer]

To this point, I have only examined the possible consequences for the kapos after the war, but I realized that that approach isn't really complete. We should be looking at what happened before the war as well.

The German guards tended to choose criminals to be kapos because they knew that criminals were more likely to be unprincipled brutes. But, as a person living before the war, what were the odds that living as an unprincipled brute would get a person a job as a kapo during the war? Well, you said that there were several thousand kapos, so let's use the figure 10,000. I'm not sure what the population was in 1940, but it was more than 2 billion, so let's use that figure. Let's also assume that 10% of the population were criminals. Then, the probability of any criminal ending up as a kapo during the war would have been 0.005%.

If we postulate, for a moment, that kapos came out ahead during the war by an amount X, then the expected payoff before the war would have been 0.00005 * X. However, that would have to be offset by the loss that one would expect to suffer both before and after the war by living one's entire life as an unprincipled brute.

Not all of the kapos were criminals before the war. I do not know that even a majority were. Furthermore, given the economic collapse and widespread street violence that characterized German life after World War I, it is hardly a certainty that joining a criminal gang would not have been in one's self-interest, particularly for one of the millions of unemployed workers.

You say, being a kapo would be "offset by the loss that one would expect to suffer both before and after the war by living one's entire life as an unprincipled brute." If by loss you mean regret or guilt, there is no reason to suppose that the men and women who served as prison functionaries instead of fodder for the crematoria suffered from any self-doubts. For a significant part of the population, empathy is an unfamiliar, even unknown emotion.

I'm guessing that most of the kapos were criminals before the war given their predilection for violence. If the kapos had been nice guys, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Post war Germany had a lot of crime and unemployment, but a person wouldn't have known before the war which countries would go to war and who would win, so one has to weigh the cost of being an unprincipled person anywhere in the world with the benefit, if any, of being a criminal during or after the war in Germany.

When I talk about the offsetting cost, I'm talking about the cost of being an unprincipled person. How well do criminals typically fare in a peaceful society? What is their average income?

Setting aside for a moment whether drugs should be legalized or not, I've heard that the average person involved in the illegal drug trade in the U.S. makes about $20/day. Sure, there a few drug lords that make big bucks, but most of their stooges and secondary dealers make peanuts.

It is also instructive to look at the odds that any given person will rise to the top of the heap and become a drug lord, because that is the calculation that one has to make going in. A person might be certain he will rise to the top, but wishful thinking doesn't get a person very far. For every tyrant, their are scores of want-to-be's that got cut off at the knees, somewhere along the line.

People without principles typically don't do very well.

Let's assume that one's probability of being caught were 1%. I don't know what the average jewelry heist nets, but the typical bank robbery nets less than $1,000, so let's use that figure. Now, if a person earns the median income of $50,000, a $1,000 heist won't make much difference to one's life. In order for a thief to generate an income comparable to the typical worker, he would have to commit 50 thefts per year. In two years, that would add up 100 robberies. But, if he correctly calculated that the probability of being caught was only 1% each time, then his probability of getting away with 100 robberies would only be 36.6%. Or, his probability of being caught would be 63.4% in two years. Moreover, during those two years he would live no better than the average person and would have to live in constant fear of being caught in his web of lies and deceit.

Let's examine the logic. The Kapos spent the war beating up helpless Jews. Therefore before the war they must have been criminals. The 20 million members of the Wehrmacht spent the war trying to kill American, British, French and Russian soldiers. By the same logic we would have to say that before the war they must have worked as murderers for hire.

As for costs and benefits, yes, one has to weigh the costs of being a rights violator with the benefits. Similarly, one has to weigh the costs of starving to death in the streets versus the benefits of smashing the window of a bakery.

Let's return to the original point you raised: "I will simply assert, without proof at this point, that cheating, lying, stealing, murdering, etc., are never in a person's self interest."

I have given you the example of the kapos, who managed to avoid the gas chamber by serving as violent enforcers of SS discipline.

To suggest that all the kapos had to do to ensure the downfall of Nazism was to persuade every Jew to rebel is ludicrous. To bring up the poor cost/benefit ratio for the average criminal in society is beside the point. The kapos were locked in the camps and had the choice to be victimizers or victims. They chose the former. And they survived at a dramatically higher ratio than the rest of the inmates.

Your crime never pays assertion has been busted. Unlike Disney, real life doesn't always offer happy endings.

You can probably put together an excellent statistical case against jewel thieves. No doubt the insurance industry has daunting figures on the percentage of thieves that go to prison.

None of that is relevant to the case I described. Even supposing that statistically 99% of jewel thieves are caught, if caregiver A finds herself in a situation where there are no witnesses and the victim is incapable of distinguishing illusion from reality and there is no family member to regularly take inventory of valuables, caregiver A may correctly conclude that her chances are not 100 to 1 against, but 100 to 1 for success. And that tiny risk could be well justified by the possession of a necklace worth several times her annual income.

Ah, but you're ignoring the cost of looking for such an opportunity. A person could wait 20 years --- she could wait for a lifetime --- for the perfect opportunity to come along, and all that time the person would have to keep looking for opportunities, wasting time and effort.

A principled person wouldn't waste her time looking for opportunities to steal something and probably wouldn't even notice when the big opportunity came along because her eyes and her mind would be fixed on other things. In fact, she might have moved from caregiver for the elderly, to a position on the hospital oversight board while her small minded cousin was busy trying to find an opportunity to steal a necklace.

We could go around and around on this, but I hope that it is becoming clear that a principled, moral existence really is in everyone's self interest.

Darrell

Again you are evading the example (which, by the way, is drawn from real life). Caregiver A was not spending her best years sitting and waiting to rip someone off. She was sitting and waiting but only because that was part of her job description. She was a low wage caregiver. Couldn't she have obtained better employment? Maybe, maybe not. That's irrelevant. By accident she happened to find herself in the midst of a perfect opportunity to get rich quick with no muss, no fuss, and no comebacks. The opportunity fell in her lap and she grabbed it. The cost/benefit was extremely low/extremely high.

This happened to a relative of mine. Since there were several caregivers over the course of months, no one could pinpoint a suspect. The family couldn't even collect insurance money. No one could prove a damn thing.

[Dglgmut]

I think the rational selfishness involved in passing up on an opportunity that would violate another person's rights and benefit oneself in some material or otherwise desireable way has to do with ones own relationships. If you become the type of person you don't like, how do you then form/maintain meaningful connections with the type of people you do like?

Sure, you have a relationship with yourself, but that relationship becomes more important in a social context.

[anthony]

My answer? My happiness depends on having an unblinking recognition of reality, regardless of how cold or grim it may be.

It is a narrow view of reality and a rigid view of man's mind. Could you leave aside your dictionary for a second, and entertain the philosophical concept of 'conviction', one which very definitely "results from the exercise of free will". You have heard the explanation "A being of volitional consciousness" at least fifty times. 'Volitionally' apply your mind to this statement, and isolate it (despite whatever you believe you know of 'free will'). I think it was most precisely and concisely worded by Rand, it states her case and no more.

One could also argue that refusing to believe in man's alleged powers of precognition and levitation is narrow. The goal should be to arrive at an understanding of the mind that is accurate, regardless of how limited it may "sound" to some.

Otherwise, as you might accuse me on determinism, you simply are attacking some strawman idea of volition to avoid the real issue.

"Determinism is the thesis that there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future". {P. van Inwagen]

If that's your position, it negates the causal agency of man.

Generally, you think before you act, yes? But can you initiate thoughts and can you change them and begin new ones? if so, you will agree that your actions can differ widely. However, if by you every thought is 'determined'... not much left to say.

Every thought is the product of biological and/or environmental factors. The fact that I suddenly decide to drive down to the corner and get a raspberry ice cream cone does not happen independently of the state of my stomach or my existing knowledge of things such things as sugar cones, frozen dairy desserts, and tart little red berries.

Initiate new thoughts? One could suddenly come up with the idea of an escalator. But such an innovation depends on already existing creations such as stairs, pulleys, chains, and motors.

So, the bridge you mention, is out. One can drive another route, go by ferry, or hire a plane, or go to a bar, just return home, etc. etc.. Each choice (volitional thought) from this array will lead to another array of possibilities -- and another. Ultimately, the range of possible outcomes is huge. In retrospect, one sees that a single or a few outcomes eventually transpired. The one common element is: one's being and consciousness, is always present.

By example.

After choosing the ferry, you could observe an attractive woman on board; you 'might' choose to strike up conversation (or you might not); you might assess her as a fine person (according to your volitional values); she might seem to like you; you might ask her phone number; and after the continuous interaction of her free will and yours, six months later you might both choose to be married.

Stop at any point and tell me that it was all pre-ordained, um, sorry - determined, with "exactly one physically possible future"!!

(Is this a little discomfiting to a nicely ordered, deterministic world view, FF?)

"Ordered" means "carefully organized or controlled." Apparently your view of determinism is that it supposes all events in nature are planned by some divine intelligence. In fact, realistic determinists understand that a divine being is just as mythical as free will. Why did the man take the ferry instead of staying in his own car? Perhaps because he is a doctor and needs to get across the river immediately to deliver medicine to a sick child. If the man speaks to a strange new woman on the ferry it is perhaps because he needs a nurse to assist him when examining female patients. The fact that people make choices, sometimes odd ones, does not prove the independence of those choices from prior causes.

Writing "personality traits may be inherent" is revealing. You never speak of "character" I notice. Why, I believe, because personality is mostly not of one's making, while character is. To admit to character, integrity, etc., is to admit to a volitional consciousness, one which has to identify and judge what is 'good' for one (against the standard of what is good for man in reality) - and further, one's free will has to consciously and consistently stick by that resolve into his future.

In your world, I think, there is not much to separate the jewel thief from a man of integrity, a person who has no need of the law to curtail his actions.

Men are 'influenced' in some large or miniscule way by everything that is and that was.

Men are 'determined' by possessing physical bodies, (for instance) which are capable of certain actions and incapable of others.

Determinists don't distinguish between the two, I notice.

We were discussing why I reacted positively novels by Huxley and Orwell. I suggested that certain inherent personality traits may be at play. Naturally, I did not say "character" because that quality is a combination of particular beliefs and actions--and is unlikely to be caused entirely by one's genes.

"Influenced" or "determined"?

• I was influenced to choose raspberry because I had just seen a delightful photo of them in a magazine.
• I was determined to choose raspberries because they are very high in anti-oxidants.

In both cases the person makes a decision in response to prior conditions. The second is simply more emphatic.

The determinist argument always raises single instances and choices (ice cream) only considering a linear sequence of events.

I see you didn't reply to my argument of 'arrays upon arrays' giving exponential possibilities of outcome.

Men take their knowledge directly from observation and induction. Without this - and self-awareness and memory - an individual can't possibly build up an experiential picture of : What did happen? - What could easily have happened otherwise? - What 'should' have happened? - What did I want to happen?

Instead, everything plays out deterministically to the determinist

Not coincidentally FF, I doubt you heed or give much value to induction.

I take "...that there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future" -- as a fair explanation of determinism.

Is it agreeable to you?

The 'bridge down' saga seemed to confuse you. The final outcome in my story ( the two people marrying) *could* be traced back to this bridge being impassable on a particular day. (A tale to tell their children).

But it did not 'have to be' that way - hell, my 'story' did not have to be that way. I had other options.

You're a good writer FF, but I doubt fiction is a determinist's forte!

Think of free will as a tree. Begin with one single tiny twig in a big tree. Follow it from there to a larger twig then to a small branch. Follow the branch to a larger, and that, to a larger one. Eventually, you arrive at the tree trunk. That is retrospection. But if you start this imaginary journey from the tree trunk, as it occurs in real space and time, the permutations of routes to every twig are enormous. A rough metaphor of free will at work.

Every volitional thought leads to varying acts, which lead to more volitional thought, (and so on).

One's principles of morality stand as the guide and motivator throughout.

Which returns us to the purpose of this thread.

It IS order and predictability that determinists desire, I think. Even though determinism defies facts of reality and extensive experiences with one's own mind. It shares very similar psychological roots and motives as mystical determinism, aka fatalism, albeit under the guise of scientific theory.

I too, prize "an unblinking recognition of reality", FF.

[Francisco Ferrer]

If there are "arrays and arrays" of possible outcomes, why is there in fact only one outcome? It is because some factors outweigh others. The bridge washed away Monday at 4:55 pm primarily because the force of the river current was greater than the strength of the pilings.

If there were more than "one physically possible future" then we would have to engage in a contradiction: to say that at 4:54 the force of the current was greater than the strength of the pilings and that the force of the current was weaker than the strength of the pilings.

[anthony]

"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed".

It points to the distinction between the metaphysically given, and the man made.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

If there are "arrays and arrays" of possible outcomes, why is there in fact only one outcome?

Maybe because there is a fundamental difference between "possible outcome" and "outcome"?

The first is in the future and the second is in the past.

This is the determinism time travel fallacy I see all the time. Determinists imagine the characteristics of the future must be identical to those of the the past. Why? Just because. Do they observe this? No. Nobody can observe the future in the present. They make it up because they think it must be like that. They project the fixed conditions of the past onto all possible future outcomes, then claim there is no such thing as possible future outcomes. Only one fixed one.

But the future is not the past. The nature of the future is not that of the past. Just because the future morphs into the past, that does not mean all possible events are predetermined. (Notice that "pre" means in the past, and the verb tense of "determined" is the past tense. So the very language determinsts use to talk about the future is anchored in the past.)

This is a rationalization pretzel. Not anything confirmed by experience.

The reality is once the future becomes experienced, it's no longer the future, it's the past. There is no such thing as a pre-experienced future. While the future still is the future, some things can be known in the present about it with certainty while others cannot ever be known. Why? Because some things are unchanging, but randomness actually does exist.

Forms are unchanging. Treeness in the past is treeness today and treeness tomorrow. That's a form. A life form, but still a form. But the things flowing within the forms get to bounce around--both in a determined manner and at random--within the confines of the forms. That's how the law of identity works. (btw - That's not Rand and I can't vouch for if she would have agreed with this. It can be inferred from her ideas, though, and I suspect she would have agreed with it if explained clearly.)

For instance, a seed will become a tree as it grows, but how many branches, leaves, etc., it will develop will depend on many things, including a component of randomness that comes from the very life force of the tree and the life force of each cell, hell, even the nature of the molecules and subparticles. Call it a primitive form of volition inherent in all things along with their predetermined form.

Time is how randomness interacts with the determined part of existence.

I once heard a good metaphor for this. Imagine water flowing downhill. At least one groove will form. Most of the water must stay within the groove (the form) and flow according to gravity, so you can predict that part with certainty. But the different molecules get to bounce around all over the place within that groove. You will never be able to predict the exact placement of each molecule with certainty because some randomness is present.

I am a man with two legs, two arms, etc. I can predict the future for that part. Even if I lose a member, as a man I'm supposed to have it by the law of identity, so in the future, being a man means having all members as my normal state. Thus if I reproduce while missing a member, barring a defective birth, I will produce an offspring with two arms and two legs. I will never have a two-headed giraffe with 7 legs as an offspring.

What I do with those members, where I will go by using them, will depend on the nature of those members, the environment, and my own volition. I cannot flap my arms and fly, so that part is determined, but I can grab something, pick things up, drop things, etc., at will. That part is random, meaning I can control it, but it can happen one way or another or another and so one until it happens. I get to decide, not some metaphysical puppetmaster, and my will can change however I want until the event happens. That is, until the future becomes the past. Then the randomness goes away and I can no longer choose anything about it.

But just because the randomness went away, that does not mean it never existed in the first place. Living things die, but that does not mean they never lived.

For people who time travel, who want the future to be the past before it is experienced, it's an impossible conundrum for them to imagine that restricted randomness can be one of the reasons for a future outcome. But that's the way reality works.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I guess determinists are determined to argue. Must be hell to know it's not really them running off at the mouth, but all those antecedent causes.

--Brant

in a world of 6-7 billion people no one is likely to make a world of difference, to say the least, which does not mean make no difference, and if one could then there's the "problem" of making a galaxy of difference and then in turn a universe of difference all of which makes determinism a euphemism for epistemological megalomania and personal impotence so one goes about dishing out nonsense in an attempt to cut off the balls of the previously unaffected--or: spread axiomatic poison by looking at reality in the rear view mirror (see post previous to this one)

[Darrell Hougen]

Let's examine the logic. The Kapos spent the war beating up helpless Jews. Therefore before the war they must have been criminals. The 20 million members of the Wehrmacht spent the war trying to kill American, British, French and Russian soldiers. By the same logic we would have to say that before the war they must have worked as murderers for hire.

As for costs and benefits, yes, one has to weigh the costs of being a rights violator with the benefits. Similarly, one has to weigh the costs of starving to death in the streets versus the benefits of smashing the window of a bakery.

Let's return to the original point you raised: "I will simply assert, without proof at this point, that cheating, lying, stealing, murdering, etc., are never in a person's self interest."

I have given you the example of the kapos, who managed to avoid the gas chamber by serving as violent enforcers of SS discipline.

To suggest that all the kapos had to do to ensure the downfall of Nazism was to persuade every Jew to rebel is ludicrous. To bring up the poor cost/benefit ratio for the average criminal in society is beside the point. The kapos were locked in the camps and had the choice to be victimizers or victims. They chose the former. And they survived at a dramatically higher ratio than the rest of the inmates.

Your crime never pays assertion has been busted. Unlike Disney, real life doesn't always offer happy endings.

Perhaps, I misstated my position initially, so allow me to be more clear.

It is never in a person's self interest to live an unprincipled life.

To the extent that your example works, it works only by severely limiting the time and place where there is a supposed benefit to being bad.

Your argument is basically that a person can live an unprincipled life, being a liar, cheater, thief or brute whenever it is convenient, and being an upstanding citizen at other times. However, my argument is that it is impossible to simply turn the dark side on and off like a light switch, whenever it is convenient.

Once a person has justified evil acts to himself, it becomes easier to do it the next time. And, each time he does it, it becomes easier still until the person has completely abandoned moral principles such as honesty, fairness, respect for property rights, and respect for the lives of others. Having abandoned such principles, a person is very likely to screw up at some point, get caught, and suffer the consequences.

Back to the Germans: part of the reason for the death camps was that German soldiers didn't like and complained about having to shoot down scores of innocent people. The death camps were set up to relieve the typical soldier from the burden of having to murder people. So, it is not at all clear that members of the Wehrmacht were all amoral brutes. Most of them fought on the front lines in a war that they thought was just, having been convinced of as much by Hitler.

Again you are evading the example (which, by the way, is drawn from real life). Caregiver A was not spending her best years sitting and waiting to rip someone off. She was sitting and waiting but only because that was part of her job description. She was a low wage caregiver. Couldn't she have obtained better employment? Maybe, maybe not. That's irrelevant. By accident she happened to find herself in the midst of a perfect opportunity to get rich quick with no muss, no fuss, and no comebacks. The opportunity fell in her lap and she grabbed it. The cost/benefit was extremely low/extremely high.

This happened to a relative of mine. Since there were several caregivers over the course of months, no one could pinpoint a suspect. The family couldn't even collect insurance money. No one could prove a damn thing.

I'm not evading the issue. You're just not understanding my point. My point is that it is difficult to live well without principles and a principled person wouldn't commit the crime.

An isolated example of a person getting away with something doesn't prove anything. How do you know the thief didn't do it before and wouldn't do it again?

Let's say the woman really did get away with $100,000 when her annual salary was only $20,000. That means the necklace was worth five years of her salary. If she worked for 40 years, from the time she was 20 till the time she was 60, the value of the necklace would be 12.5% of her lifetime earnings. Looked at in that light, it's not really that much.

By the way, it is usually hard to sell or pawn stolen jewelry for anything close to its original value, so a million dollar necklace might only fetch the aforementioned $100,000. If the original value was only $100,000, its street value might only be $10,000 to $20,000, not several times the thief's annual income and probably something like 1-2% of her lifetime income.

Now, this same woman, thinking that she had gotten ahead of the game by stealing the necklace, is likely to try to steal something again in the future. She managed to justify it to herself once, so what is to prevent her from doing it again? And, what are the odds that she will get away from it again?

She got lucky (and your family was unlucky) in the case you cited because there were several caregivers over the course of several months. But, she had no way of knowing that would happen and no control over how many care givers there would be, so her odds of getting away with the crime were probably not that great.

Actually, if you don't know who stole the necklace and haven't recovered it, how do you even know it was stolen? Perhaps, it was just lost.

Also, how do you know she wasn't looking for opportunities to steal things? She might not have been at your relative's place very long, but it seems likely to me that she was a thief before she was hired and is probably still a thief. So, in all likelihood, she will trip up at some point and get caught. And, whether that particular woman is ever caught doesn't really matter because one has to look at the average across all women that engage in that kind of behavior to see what the cost/benefit equation tells you a priori.

At any rate, I simply don't find your examples convincing.

Darrell

[Francisco Ferrer]

If there are "arrays and arrays" of possible outcomes, why is there in fact only one outcome?

Maybe because there is a fundamental difference between "possible outcome" and "outcome"?

The first is in the future and the second is in the past.

This is the determinism time travel fallacy I see all the time. Determinists imagine the characteristics of the future must be identical to those of the the past. Why? Just because.

Simply untrue. I challenge you to cite one determinist who says "the characteristics of the future must be identical to those of the the past." To take such a position one would have to suppose that the world is is perfect stasis: that milk in the jug never reaches the glass, that trains never leave the station, that the moon is never less that full.

Your straw men are invariably original, whimsical and entertaining.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I challenge you to cite one determinist who says "the characteristics of the future must be identical to those of the the past."

FF,

Why you just did.

It's right there in front of you. All you have to do is read what you yourself wrote.

You asked: "If there are 'arrays and arrays' of possible outcomes, why is there in fact only one outcome?"

Are you in the future to observe there is "in fact" only one outcome?

Hell no. You are in the present.

There is only one outcome in the past for every set of possibilities that led up to it, that is true. But that's not the future.

Let me try to simplify it and see if I can squeak past your inner reality denier: Outcome is a word denoting the past. There are no outcomes in the future.

Let me repeat that. There are no outcomes in the future. At least, nobody outside of science fiction I have ever heard about can go to the future to observe this.

And there are no conditions for a single outcome in the future. You know why? Because the very conditions would be a single outcome by definition. Thus there would be a single past outcome in the un-happened future.

Your use of the verb "to be" ("why is there") is in the present tense. And you emphasized this with "in fact."

You just asked why--in the present--is there a past fact in the future. You time-traveled, dude.

Thus you are presuming the future is identical to the present and past as regards possibilities.

So you don't need to challenge anyone to see what you yourself write. If you do it and can't see it, how on earth are you going to get someone else to show it to you?

This is a hell of a blank-out. And this is not a strawman.

It is kind of "duh" level obvious.

I realize it's a bitch to be so wrong about something so obvious all this time, but there it is.

You've only got two choices. You can either correct it and swallow the bad feelings until they go away, or devote the rest of the precious unrepeatable moments of your life to stubbornly living a delusion and lying to yourself just so you don't have to face it.

Do you wish to make an assumption about what the future is based on a pattern you see when it morphs into the past? OK. But that's an assumption.

Do you wish to tell me the future "in fact" works like the past and has outcomes in it?

That's bullshit.

Michael

[Francisco Ferrer]

Let's examine the logic. The Kapos spent the war beating up helpless Jews. Therefore before the war they must have been criminals. The 20 million members of the Wehrmacht spent the war trying to kill American, British, French and Russian soldiers. By the same logic we would have to say that before the war they must have worked as murderers for hire.

As for costs and benefits, yes, one has to weigh the costs of being a rights violator with the benefits. Similarly, one has to weigh the costs of starving to death in the streets versus the benefits of smashing the window of a bakery.

Let's return to the original point you raised: "I will simply assert, without proof at this point, that cheating, lying, stealing, murdering, etc., are never in a person's self interest."

I have given you the example of the kapos, who managed to avoid the gas chamber by serving as violent enforcers of SS discipline.

To suggest that all the kapos had to do to ensure the downfall of Nazism was to persuade every Jew to rebel is ludicrous. To bring up the poor cost/benefit ratio for the average criminal in society is beside the point. The kapos were locked in the camps and had the choice to be victimizers or victims. They chose the former. And they survived at a dramatically higher ratio than the rest of the inmates.

Your crime never pays assertion has been busted. Unlike Disney, real life doesn't always offer happy endings.

Perhaps, I misstated my position initially, so allow me to be more clear.

It is never in a person's self interest to live an unprincipled life.

Not true. Mao Tse-tung killed millions and lived comfortably into his eighties.

However, my argument is that it is impossible to simply turn the dark side on and off like a light switch, whenever it is convenient.

Politicians do it all the time, and there is no evidence that they live abbreviated lives or suffer mental anguish.

So, it is not at all clear that members of the Wehrmacht were all amoral brutes. Most of them fought on the front lines in a war that they thought was just, having been convinced of as much by Hitler.

Nor is it clear that kapos betrayed the moral principle that an organism's own life is the standard of its value.

My point is that it is difficult to live well without principles and a principled person wouldn't commit the crime.

If the principle is that one self-interest must be subordinated to another's property rights, then stealing is unprincipled. If the principle is that one's self-interest is always primary, then there is nothing necessarily unprincipled about stealing a necklace.

Let's say the woman really did get away with $100,000 when her annual salary was only $20,000. That means the necklace was worth five years of her salary. If she worked for 40 years, from the time she was 20 till the time she was 60, the value of the necklace would be 12.5% of her lifetime earnings. Looked at in that light, it's not really that much.

By the way, it is usually hard to sell or pawn stolen jewelry for anything close to its original value, so a million dollar necklace might only fetch the aforementioned $100,000. If the original value was only $100,000, its street value might only be $10,000 to $20,000, not several times the thief's annual income and probably something like 1-2% of her lifetime income.

This is twaddle. If she were handed the necklace as a gift, would it make any sense for her to refuse it on the grounds that, "Sorry, this bangle is only worth 12.5% of my lifetime earnings"? Of course not. Thus, there is no good reason from the standpoint of pure self-interest for her not to steal it given the near 0% likelihood of the crime being traced to her.

$100,000 or $10,000, the effort needed to take the item was no greater than to bend down and pick up a quarter from the sidewalk. Should we advise one not to pick up coins because they represent only a fraction of one's lifetime income?

Actually, if you don't know who stole the necklace and haven't recovered it, how do you even know it was stolen? Perhaps, it was just lost.

My 1986 Mustang was stolen from an airport parking lot and never recovered by the police. Perhaps it was just "lost." Or perhaps by stealing the car the thief gave up the opportunity to make millions more by becoming a securities and commodities agent. Or perhaps he had to spend many times the value of the car on rational psycho-therapists to treat long-term guilt. Or perhaps the God of Justice intervened to strike him with the Lightning Bolt of Karma. Or perhaps the Mustang was only a small fraction of his lifetime earnings.

If you find it helpful in maintaining your faith that crime never pays, then feel free to reject any and all cases of thefts with no repercussions.

[Brant Gaede]

Strictly speaking there is no past, present and future. There is only movement and movement doesn't stop for any category. These categories are only ways to clear thinking that can ironically have the opposite effect if misused. What "is" is an ongoing dynamic with all the different entities moving at their respective speeds within time, the only defined constant or referent. Consider two grossly different variants: geologic time and human time. All times match up whenever what is in time is sliced and examined. That is why I can look in the mirror and see myself in present-day time and see the mountains outside my home also in this present and we seemingly, but not quite, perfectly match up every time. What doesn't match up are the respective dynamics. Of course, when we look at the stars we are looking at light from the stars, not the stars, for the stars are in the "past" and the light is in the "present." That is the why of the "but not quite"--the unobservable speed of light. I can watch a basketball game on two different channels. One regular and one HD. No brainer--right? I should watch HD. Well, I discovered that HD comes in, for whatever reason, at least 2-3 seconds behind the regular broadcast so I watch the regular for I don't want to see the past, I want to see the present, making me the victim of the past, present and future delusion. My primitive brain won't let go.

I am aware that this esoteric dog leg adds little to this thread, but I must insist on my fun.

--Brant (who sticks out his tongue)

[Brant Gaede]

There are good principles and bad ones. If you live by both by throwing the switch one way then the other then the principle is living by both as is convenient. That may be good for survival value but it is not good if it is not necessary for it violates the luxury of just being good and the greater payoffs possible for that. So we spend our time championing the good and trying to correct and forgive the bad. Sometimes the bad is so bad it is unforgiven as unforgivable. Yes, the utilitarian is one standard for good but not the primary. The primary is what is right from inside ourselves to the outside. (Mao was shit inside out. He can have that; I don't want it. Do you? Who wants shit's self interest?) Now, it was wrong for one member of a concentration camp to abuse another to save his own life, but to condemn him is only our luxury and he had no luxury. To condemn the Nazi guards of the guard, however, is our luxury against their luxury even to the point of killing them. After we kill them and break into the concentration camp all we see are primary victims and those deserving of any disapprobation do not deserve it from the luxury category. The inmates, however, have the right to do certain things to each other for their own good reasons from verbal to corporeal we do not. There will be the dynamic of the forgiven to the unforgivable. When American soldiers liberated Paris and the Parisians shaved the heads of women Nazi collaborators, that was their business, not ours.

--Brant

[moralist]

This is the determinism time travel fallacy I see all the time. Determinists imagine the characteristics of the future must be identical to those of the past. Why? Just because.

Reminds me of Taleb's turkey which for one thousand days believes it won't get slaughtered for Thanksgiving on the one thousand and one day just because it didn't on all of the others!

Greg

[Francisco Ferrer]

Francisco Ferrer, on 07 Mar 2015 - 09:18 AM, said:

I challenge you to cite one determinist who says "the characteristics of the future must be identical to those of the the past."

Why you just did.

It's right there in front of you. All you have to do is read what you yourself wrote.

You asked: "If there are 'arrays and arrays' of possible outcomes, why is there in fact only one outcome?"

Are you in the future to observe there is "in fact" only one outcome?

No, I am in the present observing what happened to a bridge after a heavy rainfall. Let's put my words in context:

If there are "arrays and arrays" of possible outcomes, why is there in fact only one outcome? It is because some factors outweigh others. The bridge washed away Monday at 4:55 pm primarily because the force of the river current was greater than the strength of the pilings.

I said nothing about what is going to happen tomorrow or thereafter from the perspective of my present. However, regarding the nearest bridge to me, it is reasonable to state that tomorrow morning it will not both wash out and not wash out.

Let me try to simplify it and see if I can squeak past your inner reality denier: Outcome is a word denoting the past. There are no outcomes in the future.

Oxford defines "outcome" as "the way a thing turns out; a consequence." If I set the alarm clock for 7 am tomorrow morning, the clock will ring or it will not ring. If it rings it will be a consequence of my setting the clock and the clock's functioning properly. If it does not ring, it will be the consequence of my failing to set it properly or the clock's malfunction or some other event that might intervene to prevent it from functioning.

Ringing or not ringing will be outcomes of events that happen between now and 7 am tomorrow. If you wish to limit "outcome" to the past only, then I will say that what happens to the clock at 7 will be a "consequence" of what transpires between now and then.

If your words mean that future outcomes are non-existent, you are correct. Nothing in the future is yet a reality.

[Brant Gaede]

The results of a chemistry experiment done many times before is preordained or, if you will, determined. Not that the experiment in any case is done. Now, if I approach a chemistry professor with a gun and force him to do it then we are talking about my free will or the free will of the guy behind me with a gun on me even to the point of infinite hypothetical regress of infinite gunmen. It's free will all the way down, even if you have to go all the way down to find it. You'll know it's there even when, in exhaustion, you give up finding the impossible end of this infinite regress.

--Brant

use your brains and not the quest; free will is not any search for the Holy Grail (you already got it)

[moralist]

Greg,

I know you have been reading The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I finished it.

I'm still reading it. I'm a very slow reader.

At first I shared your enthusiasm and Taleb provides some great insights. But the more I went through it, the more uneasy I got. Finally, he revealed himself to be a determinist of the Popper sort. He even put Popper on center stage.

I pick and choose what to take and what to leave. Just because he has tremendously enlightening insights doesn't mean I necessarily agree with his emotional response to them.

Oh... these folks say they are not determinists and call themselves "indeterminists" or whatever, but they are determinists at root. They blame the human mind for not being able to know the future as well as it can know the past. They are sure the future is 100% knowable, it's just that to them humans can't know it because humans are miserable failures at knowing anything with certainty.

This normally leads them to be awfully pessimistic about life. I believe this is because reality always provides them with scenarios they can't control as well as they do their memories--it frustrates their inner control freak, so to speak, and that discourages them and/or pisses them off.

That's where I'm the opposite of Taleb, and revel in situations over which I have absolutely no control. I laughed during the big LA earthquake in 1994 because of how I live I wasn't in any danger. Earthquakes aren't dangerous. Only buildings are dangerous. Right after the quake and before the police could clamp down on everything, we rode our bicycles on the Santa Monica Freeway. That day was no end of fun!

They say they are not determinists because they talk about luck, randomness, etc., but they are not talking about true chaos, especially not something like free will as a causal agent. Notice they always try to "prove" free will doesn't exist, is a flawed idea, and so on.

Have you ever noticed that the people with the most wrong ideas are the ones who try the hardest to convince you that their ideas are right? This is because wrong ideas depend upon collective popular consensus for their survival, whereas a right idea lives on by benefitting each individual, even if they are the only one who lives by it and no one else.

This leads to a view of life that is horrible. For example, Taleb's stated purpose in life, The One Big Thing he is devoted to that trumps all others, is to not be a sucker. Does that sound petty or does that sound petty? But that's his main reason for living. He says so over and over in The Black Swan. He even titled Chapter 4: "One Thousand and One Days, or How Not to be a Sucker."

Not that being a sucker is desirable. It's just that avoiding it is not on the same life purpose level as worship, trying to become one with the universe, the glory of exalted productive heroism and so on. (Agree or disagree with any of these, but they all shoot for the stars. Avoiding being a sucker stays down in the mud.)

I like the down to earth practicality of not being a sucker. Since an honest man can't be cheated, I aspire to the ideal of becoming that man, because then my financial progress doesn't suffer any backtracking to repair damage. The debt bubble collapse of 2008 and its aftermath was just entertainment because I had no exposure to it and so took no damage.

Taleb said:

Is the world that unfair? I have spent my entire life studying randomness, practicing randomness, hating randomness. The more that times passes, the worse things seem to me, the more scared I get, the more disgusted I am with Mother Nature. The more I think about my subject, the more I see evidence that the world we have in our minds is different from the one playing outside. Every morning the world appears to me more random than it did the day before, and humans seem to be even more fooled by it than they were the previous day. It is becoming unbearable. I find writing these lines painful; I find the world revolting.

I also find the world to be revolting... but there are TWO worlds. So I choose to live in the one where the decent people are and simply let the other one alone to feed on itself.

I get the same vibes from FF when he talks about How Bad Things Really Are (i.e., being a "realist"), when he snarks about Rand's "wish-fulfillment" and so on.

Yeah, Frank creeps me out, too!

Greg

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

If your words mean that future outcomes are non-existent, you are correct. Nothing in the future is yet a reality.

FF,

That's a start.

Now all you have to do is realize that an element of randomness exists in all things along with their determined natures.

The question is not either random or determined. As a metaphysical condition, that's a false dichotomy. There is no evidence I know of that proves the universe is one way to the exclusion of the other. Your position that all things are the consequences of pre-determined things is merely an assumption. (A poor one, at that, in my view.)

If we observe both form and content, both randomness and determination, both autonomy and belonging, why can't there be both? Just because someone says so?

That's not good enough for me. Add to that my eyes tell me differently and, sorry, just saying so is an even weaker grounding for such an all-encompassing alleged "fact."

I'll go with my own conclusions and my own observations over the opinion of anyone any day.

Here, if you want to rationalize this, let's call this element of randomness a "pre-determined capacity for randomness."

That's a fudge, but coming from your premises, I can see how it might be palatable.

However "existence exists" is not a consequence. It merely is. The existence of a subparticle is not a consequence. It just is. The existence of energy, mass, etc., including free will is not a consequence. It is, was, and, presumably, always will be.

Just because SOME things exist as a consequence, that does not mean ALL things exist as a consequence. (Once again, to claim that they are is an assumption, not a fact.)

The word "primary" is used for causal agents the existence of which are not causal results.

Michael