Fate seems to make sense...


here is a vulgar ripping from wikipedia but it was easy dammit!

Spinoza is pretty related to this...

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Spinoza was a thoroughgoing determinist who held that absolutely everything that happens occurs through the operation of necessity. For him, even human behaviour is fully determined, with freedom being our capacity to know we are determined and to understand why we act as we do. So freedom is not the possibility to say "no" to what happens to us but the possibility to say "yes" and fully understand why things should necessarily happen that way. By forming more "adequate" ideas about what we do and our emotions or affections, we become the adequate cause of our effects (internal or external), which entails an increase in activity (versus passivity). This means that we become both more free and more like God, as Spinoza argues in the Scholium to Prop. 49, Part II. However, Spinoza also held that everything must necessarily happen the way that it does. Therefore, humans have no free will. They believe, however, that their will is free. In his letter to G. H. Schaller (Letter 62), he wrote: "men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined."

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The human mind, like God, contains ideas. Some of these ideas—sensory images, qualitative “feels” (like pains and pleasures), perceptual data—are imprecise qualitative phenomena, being the expression in thought of states of the body as it is affected by the bodies surrounding it. Such ideas do not convey adequate and true knowledge of the world, but only a relative, partial and subjective picture of how things presently seem to be to the perceiver. There is no systematic order to these perceptions, nor any critical oversight by reason. “As long as the human Mind perceives things from the common order of nature, it does not have an adequate, but only a confused and mutilated knowledge of itself, of its own Body, and of external bodies” (IIp29c). Under such circumstances, we are simply determined in our ideas by our fortuitous and haphazard encounter with things in the external world. This superficial acquaintance will never provide us with knowledge of the essences of those things. In fact, it is an invariable source of falsehood and error. This “knowledge from random experience” is also the origin of great delusions, since we—thinking ourselves free—are, in our ignorance, unaware of just how we are determined by causes.

Adequate ideas, on the other hand, are formed in a rational and orderly manner, and are necessarily true and revelatory of the essences of things. “Reason”, the second kind of knowledge (after “random experience”), is the apprehension of the essence of a thing through a discursive, inferential procedure. “A true idea means nothing other than knowing a thing perfectly, or in the best way”(IIp43s). It involves grasping a thing's causal connections not just to other objects but, more importantly, to the attributes of God and the infinite modes (the laws of nature) that follow immediately from them. The adequate idea of a thing clearly and distinctly situates its object in all of its causal nexuses and shows not just that it is, but how and why it is. The person who truly knows a thing sees the reasons why the thing was determined to be and could not have been otherwise. “It is of the nature of Reason to regard things as necessary, not as contingent” (IIp44). The belief that some thing is accidental or spontaneous can be based only on an inadequate grasp of the thing's causal explanation, on a partial and “mutilated” familiarity with it. To perceive by way of adequate ideas is to perceive the necessity inherent in Nature.

Sense experience alone could never provide the information conveyed by an adequate idea. The senses present things only as they appear from a given perspective at a given moment in time. An adequate idea, on the other hand, by showing how a thing follows necessarily from one or another of God's attributes, presents it in its “eternal” aspects—sub specie aeternitatis, as Spinoza puts it—without any relation to time. “It is of the nature of Reason to regard things as necessary and not as contingent. And Reason perceives this necessity of things truly, i.e., as it is in itself. But this necessity of things is the very necessity of God's eternal nature. Therefore, it is of the nature of Reason to regard things under this species of eternity” (IIp44). The third kind of knowledge, intuition, takes what is known by Reason and grasps it in a single act of the mind.

Spinoza's conception of adequate knowledge reveals an unrivaled optimism in the cognitive powers of the human being. Not even Descartes believed that we could know all of Nature and its innermost secrets with the degree of depth and certainty that Spinoza thought possible. Most remarkably, because Spinoza thought that the adequate knowledge of any object, and of Nature as a whole, involves a thorough knowledge of God and of how things related to God and his attributes, he also had no scruples about claiming that we can, at least in principle, know God perfectly and adequately. “The knowledge of God's eternal and infinite essence that each idea involves is adequate and perfect” (IIp46). “The human Mind has an adequate knowledge of God's eternal and infinite essence” (IIp47). No other philosopher in history has been willing to make this claim. But, then again, no other philosopher identified God with Nature.

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figmentfragment said:
I think that events occur that lead to other events occurring, though there are too many variant factors and possibilities involved to claim destiny.


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There could be many variant factors and possibilities with dominos. 




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figmentfragment said:
If I attempt instead to throw the rock at the moon, but realise I am physically unable. Does this mean I have no free will or just that my free will is limited given other circumstances?


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Huh? 




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andrewss said:

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Spinoza was a thoroughgoing determinist who held that absolutely everything that happens occurs through the operation of necessity.


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What do you think is meant by "operation of necessity"?




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andrewss said:
For him, even human behaviour is fully determined, with freedom being our capacity to know we are determined and to understand why we act as we do.


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What was his reasoning for this? That absolutely everything that happens occurs through "the operation of necessity"?




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andrewss said:
So freedom is not the possibility to say "no" to what happens to us but the possibility to say "yes" and fully understand why things should necessarily happen that way.


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How can we say either 'yes' or 'no' to future events which we cannot be aware of?




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andrewss said:
By forming more "adequate" ideas about what we do and our emotions or affections, we become the adequate cause of our effects (internal or external), which entails an increase in activity (versus passivity). This means that we become both more free and more like God, as Spinoza argues in the Scholium to Prop. 49, Part II. However, Spinoza also held that everything must necessarily happen the way that it does.


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And  he held this, why? 




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andrewss said:
Therefore, humans have no free will.


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I'm not following you here. 




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andrewss said:
They believe, however, that their will is free.


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Most do, and some apparently don't. 




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andrewss said:
In his letter to G. H. Schaller (Letter 62), he wrote: "men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined."


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Is there any evidence for that premise?




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andrewss said:

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The human mind, like God, contains ideas.


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WTF is "God"? 




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andrewss said:
Some of these ideas�sensory images, qualitative �feels� (like pains and pleasures), perceptual data�are imprecise qualitative phenomena, being the expression in thought of states of the body as it is affected by the bodies surrounding it.


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What is meant by "imprecise qualitative phenomena"? 




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andrewss said:
Such ideas do not convey adequate and true knowledge of the world, but only a relative, partial and subjective picture of how things presently seem to be to the perceiver. There is no systematic order to these perceptions, nor any critical oversight by reason. �As long as the human Mind perceives things from the common order of nature, it does not have an adequate, but only a confused and mutilated knowledge of itself, of its own Body, and of external bodies� (IIp29c).


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Is this necessarily true?




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andrewss said:
Under such circumstances, we are simply determined in our ideas by our fortuitous and haphazard encounter with things in the external world. This superficial acquaintance will never provide us with knowledge of the essences of those things. In fact, it is an invariable source of falsehood and error. This �knowledge from random experience� is also the origin of great delusions, since we�thinking ourselves free�are, in our ignorance, unaware of just how we are determined by causes.


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So is this passage saying that our perceptions are merely delusions?




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andrewss said:
Adequate ideas, on the other hand, are formed in a rational and orderly manner, and are necessarily true and revelatory of the essences of things. �Reason�, the second kind of knowledge (after �random experience�), is the apprehension of the essence of a thing through a discursive, inferential procedure. �A true idea means nothing other than knowing a thing perfectly, or in the best way�(IIp43s). It involves grasping a thing's causal connections not just to other objects but, more importantly, to the attributes of God and the infinite modes (the laws of nature) that follow immediately from them.


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Again, WTF is "God"? 




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andrewss said:
The adequate idea of a thing clearly and distinctly situates its object in all of its causal nexuses and shows not just that it is, but how and why it is. The person who truly knows a thing sees the reasons why the thing was determined to be and could not have been otherwise. �It is of the nature of Reason to regard things as necessary, not as contingent� (IIp44). The belief that some thing is accidental or spontaneous can be based only on an inadequate grasp of the thing's causal explanation, on a partial and �mutilated� familiarity with it. To perceive by way of adequate ideas is to perceive the necessity inherent in Nature.


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I'm not responding to the rest of this shit because "God" is mentioned way too much.

Diaboleros said:

Interestings thoughts.. I also believe the universe works this way.. and indeed this is completely deterministic, but we have free will just because it is impossible to calculate everything.

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How does us not being able to calculate everything = us having free will?

Diaboleros said:

If our minds were not limited, we would have no free will because we would be able to see the entire chain of cause and effects.

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Diaboleros said:

but this isn't the case and the chain is so big...

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Diaboleros said:

...and theres so many of them that we end up with free will which is actually nothing but not being able to see the final results of your actions.

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So poor intuition = free will = nothing?

Ahimsa said:

That stone may have hit the water differently because of little waves due to the wind blowing...

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Ahimsa said:

there are no two situations exactly the same. So i that way the outcome of our will is a devide between our will and the changing external influences. My take on it. Nice argumentation btw.

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Poid said:

andrewss said:
Under such circumstances, we are simply determined in our ideas by our fortuitous and haphazard encounter with things in the external world. This superficial acquaintance will never provide us with knowledge of the essences of those things. In fact, it is an invariable source of falsehood and error. This �knowledge from random experience� is also the origin of great delusions, since we�thinking ourselves free�are, in our ignorance, unaware of just how we are determined by causes.

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So is this passage saying that our perceptions are merely delusions?

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Poid said:

andrewss said:
Adequate ideas, on the other hand, are formed in a rational and orderly manner, and are necessarily true and revelatory of the essences of things. �Reason�, the second kind of knowledge (after �random experience�), is the apprehension of the essence of a thing through a discursive, inferential procedure. �A true idea means nothing other than knowing a thing perfectly, or in the best way�(IIp43s). It involves grasping a thing's causal connections not just to other objects but, more importantly, to the attributes of God and the infinite modes (the laws of nature) that follow immediately from them.

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Again, WTF is "God"?

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Poid said:

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andrewss said:
The adequate idea of a thing clearly and distinctly situates its object in all of its causal nexuses and shows not just that it is, but how and why it is. The person who truly knows a thing sees the reasons why the thing was determined to be and could not have been otherwise. �It is of the nature of Reason to regard things as necessary, not as contingent� (IIp44). The belief that some thing is accidental or spontaneous can be based only on an inadequate grasp of the thing's causal explanation, on a partial and �mutilated� familiarity with it. To perceive by way of adequate ideas is to perceive the necessity inherent in Nature.

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I'm not responding to the rest of this shit because "God" is mentioned way too much.

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Dont get all butt hurt about god with Spinoza - god isnt anything like what pops in most peoples minds - for Spinoza - god is an impersonal perfection according to his line of rationality its being in an ultimate sense... the world we know is of only 2 attributes of the infinite possessed by Spinoza's god that humans come to know of: extension and thought - but they are 2 sides of the same coin in a sense. He is a materialist... he is really hard to grasp and I have read his "magnum opus" Ethics only once and need to at least 1 or 2 more times to get anywhere. He was pretty damn brilliant and influential you shouldnt disregard him for the term god unless you are just a modernist reactionary getting steamy over that word.

Granted of course much of his work is up for discussion but it seems most reactions dont embody his position correctly to begin with anyway.

Take a gander at him, he was pretty brilliant, there is a reason why his work became famous. Its worthwhile in the history of philosophy at the least!

Here is a quick run down of one of his arguments...



Proposition 1: A substance is prior in nature to its affections.

Proposition 2: Two substances having different attributes have nothing in common with one another. (In other words, if two substances differ in nature, then they have nothing in common).

Proposition 3: If things have nothing in common with one another, one of them cannot be the cause of the other.

Proposition 4: Two or more distinct things are distinguished from one another, either by a difference in the attributes [i.e., the natures or essences] of the substances or by a difference in their affections [i.e., their accidental properties].

Proposition 5: In nature, there cannot be two or more substances of the same nature or attribute.

Proposition 6: One substance cannot be produced by another substance.

Proposition 7: It pertains to the nature of a substance to exist.

Proposition 8: Every substance is necessarily infinite.

Proposition 9: The more reality or being each thing has, the more attributes belong to it.

Proposition 10: Each attribute of a substance must be conceived through itself.

Proposition 11: God, or a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence, necessarily exists. (The proof of this proposition consists simply in the classic “ontological proof for God's existence”. Spinoza writes that “if you deny this, conceive, if you can, that God does not exist. Therefore, by axiom 7 [‘If a thing can be conceived as not existing, its essence does not involve existence’], his essence does not involve existence. But this, by proposition 7, is absurd. Therefore, God necessarily exists, q.e.d.”)

Proposition 12: No attribute of a substance can be truly conceived from which it follows that the substance can be divided.

Proposition 13: A substance which is absolutely infinite is indivisible.

Proposition 14: Except God, no substance can be or be conceived.

More: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/

Poid said:

So is this passage saying that our perceptions are merely delusions?

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Poid said:

andrewss said:
Adequate ideas, on the other hand, are formed in a rational and orderly manner, and are necessarily true and revelatory of the essences of things. �Reason�, the second kind of knowledge (after �random experience�), is the apprehension of the essence of a thing through a discursive, inferential procedure. �A true idea means nothing other than knowing a thing perfectly, or in the best way�(IIp43s). It involves grasping a thing's causal connections not just to other objects but, more importantly, to the attributes of God and the infinite modes (the laws of nature) that follow immediately from them.

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Again, WTF is "God"?

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I guess you are just not going to answer my questions.

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andrewss said:
Dont get all butt hurt about god with Spinoza...

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Hey, I'm not butthurt.

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andrewss said:
- god isnt anything like what pops in most peoples minds...

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Says you.

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andrewss said:
- for Spinoza - god is an impersonal perfection...

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Can you give us (an) example(s)?

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andrewss said:
...according to his line of rationality its being in an ultimate sense...

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Being what?

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andrewss said:
...the world we know is of only 2 attributes of the infinite...

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What is the "world we know of"? Do we even know of the same worlds?

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andrewss said:
...possessed by Spinoza's god that humans come to know of...

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So "the world we know of" is "possessed" by Spinoza's "god"?

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andrewss said:
extension and thought...

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Extension and thought of what?

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andrewss said:
- but they are 2 sides of the same coin in a sense.

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In what sense?

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andrewss said:
He is a materialist...

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From Materialsm - Wikipedia:

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In philosophy the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance. As a theory, materialism is a form of physicalism and belongs to the class of monist ontology. As such, it is different from ontological theories based on dualism or pluralism. For singular explanations of the phenomenal reality, materialism would be in contrast to idealism and to spiritualism.

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Was.

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andrewss said:
He was pretty damn brilliant and influential you shouldnt disregard him for the term god unless you are just a modernist reactionary getting steamy over that word.

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I think his works are interesting.

andrewss said:

Granted of course much of his work is up for discussion but it seems most reactions dont embody his position correctly to begin with anyway.

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Most reactions by whom?

andrewss said:

I dunno man, I find it tedious to respond to ya man, especially when you ask so much so quick.

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This debate-oriented forum is for the discussion of philosophical ideas that can be backed up with some sort of thoughtful logic and reasoning...critical analysis of the ideas presented is encouraged. If you wish to express your ideas in a less critical environment, consider visiting our Mysticism & the Paranormal forum.

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andrewss said:

And frankly the questions you raised are better sorted out by reading an editors edition of Spinoza's works, like I said I read the Ethics only once and it mostly just dumbfounded me. He is on to something and I could "feel" it hahaha when I read it and scholarly reactions to his thought.

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Well, for purposes of debating in this thread, me simply just reading Spinoza's works (which, BTW, I have already done to some extent) isn't going to do shit.

andrewss said:

A Spinoza Reader is a good edition with a good editor introduction. Take a gander, his thoughts were intense...

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Thanks for the reference.

andrewss said:

I might muster up the effort to open my edition back up and get back to ya on this shit.... just give me time

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This is a yes or no question; are you going to answer it?

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…. I suggest that Spinoza identifies his one substance with those permanent and pervasive features of the world he sometimes calls fixed and eternal things, and sometimes calls the divine attributes. The claim that the world does possess these permanent and pervasive features is, in effect, the claim that there is an ontological foundation for science, that when we organize science as a deductive system in which laws of greater generality are shown to entail laws of lesser generality, then (if we have our science right) those laws are descriptive of enduring and omnipresent features of reality. And the claim that everything else in the world is a mode of the one substance is the claim that every other feature of the world can be shown to follow from the most general of these permanent features (Ip16). Some things follow from the attributes in such a way that they too are permanent and pervasive. That is to say that the most general of the permanent features are equally universal in their application. These are the infinite modes whose production Spinoza describes in PP21-23.

The most general laws of science have as consequences less general laws, which, in spite of their lesser generality, are applicable at all times and places, and require their own ontological foundation. Other things follow from the attributes in such a away that they come into being and pass away at particular times and places. These are the particular events or states of affairs which follow from the laws of nature if (and only if) the appropriate antecedent conditions are present, the finite modes of P28, which Spinoza there speaks of as if they were generated solely by the infinite series of other finite modes preceding them in time, but which he surely thinks could not have been so generated were it not for the influence exerted at all times by the permanent features of reality. The world of finite changing things stretches back into the infinite past: there was no moment of creation. But the infinite series of finite things could not have produced the world we know if it had not been determined to exist and act the way it does by a finite series of infinite causes, those permanent and pervasive features of reality described by the laws of nature. The explanation of any phenomenon in nature requires a knowledge both of its antecedent conditions and of the laws governing the operation of those conditions. The requirement that we know antecedent conditions means that no finite intellect can ever full understand any event. But the explanation of the laws them themselves is finite, and comprehensible, since lower level law’s must be explained in terms of higher level, more general laws, and there is an inherent limit to the process of going from a less general to a more general law.

Spinoza’s God is an ultimate principle of explanation. Itself the cause of all things other than itself, it is also its own cause in the sense that the permanent and pervasive features of reality described by the most general laws of nature have no explanation other than their own nature. Insofar as they are those features of reality describes by the most general laws of nature, and insofar as explanation must always be by deduction from more general principles, there is nothing else by which they could be explained. That is why they possess the independence required of substance.

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Poid said:

Do you want me to rip this Espinoza quote's asshole apart?

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I dont give a shit. You'd probably find many issues over things that would be rectified by a more thorough knowledge of his use of terms and such. Not to mention more experience with his work. But sure go for it. So just beware I guess...