Sudanna

I use language very casually. Whatever sounds good enough is good enough.

Economic Left/Right: -9.88 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.41

It totes is determinism, bud. People determining things is not required.

The fantasy novel idea of "fate" is not really relevant to determinism. Determinism is just the idea that everything has a cause and an effect, and that cause and effect express themselves in at least theoretically predictable ways. Everything you think or do has a cause, and what results was the only possible effect. Intentionality is not required.

There's a difference between musing on the origins of the universe and saying that something new comes from nothing every time a human makes a decision. I would not be so amazed with consciousness, if I were you? It doesn't work very well and every day that goes by makes it look like most of our conscious experience is just the rest of our brain lying to the conscious part. Probably just a lucky evolutionary mistake. Where else can the thoughts in my head possibly come from if not from their basic biological functions and sensory input. It's not that I am forced to think a certain way - it's that the idea I ever could have thought any other way is an illusion. Light hits my eyes. Neurons fire. What space is there for anything original? Everything is the product of what has come before, be it culture or evolution. My thoughts, as physical things that exist in my brain, are no different.

Of course you're a thinking creature. Just all of your thoughts are predetermined too.

If outside forces determine what you are and what you are determines what choices you make, then outside forces determine what choices you make. It's not the influence of outside forces on decisions that are otherwise yours, because outside forces are the only influence happening at all. Outside forces are the only input into this system. You, however you want to define what "you" is, have no input, make no choices. The universe is fundamentally masturbatory. A personality and preferences exist in my brain, but these are not mine - they were chosen by things other than me. They cannot ever be mine, because for me to make any decisions, I have to already exist, and if I exist then I have to have come from something, and then that thing created every decision I might make. It made all of those decisions, not me. In a non-deterministic universe with free will and choices, I have no idea what happens because that concept makes no sense. Free will requires something to come from nothing. I don't think that happens in this universe and I don't have any conception of how it's supposed to work. But that's what any meaningful definition of free will requires. What's the difference between a universe with no free will and one where "free will only to the extent that the future is predetermined" is the case?

cool sure fine

It's a definition that is entirely divorced from the intuitive nebulous meaning and shouldn't use the same words. The intuitive nebulous meaning is all about someone being able to make choices. In a deterministic universe, there are no choices to make. They have been determined by other things already. It is an accurate conception of will, but it is not at all free will. Free will doesn't exist.

That is how it happens, but that is a worthless, neutered redefinition of what free will means. Your will is not free: it is determined by things that are not you. Will is an inseparable part of a self, and a self with different will is a different self, and what your self is is determined by things that are not you. The idea of free will is indeed based on various intuitive fictions and cognitive deceptions, but the response should not be to redefine the words to mean something else entirely. It should be to discard the broken, ill-defined idea "free will" has always been.

I don't get where you're getting the idea that human intelligence is in any way distinct from what's "natural" or "inherent" about humans, then.

[solid wall of green]

"So I had this idea here's my justification." "I think your idea is wrong." "Okay, lemme change my justification." "I think your idea is wrong." "Okay, lemme change my justification." "I think your idea is wrong." "I still have this idea, but I'm just gonna stop providing new justifications or responding to your criticism now." "I still think it's wrong, and now I'm annoyed." "Stop being so adversarial! I'm not trying to debate or anything!"

oh dear. ha. aha. next thing you'll tell us you think free will is a thing

That continually recurs on CalRef, more like. :|

That would be nice, but literally the only place I've ever heard the term asexual - actually heard in real life, and not in some of the queer-heavy places I frequent on the internet - is in biology classes, where it is indeed a technical term about reproduction. I wouldn't expect anyone to be familiar with its use in another context, or assume that the definition they've learned is wrong. That is an issue of "common sense and politeness", if anything is.

So's being snappy about reasonable misunderstandings, Diki.

I dunno if it's all that glaring. The circle of people whose personal relationships we get really into isn't all that great. It's entirely plausible it just hadn't come up.

Well, if you mean in a direct sense, it rather depends on how the wizarding world treats sexuality, which I don't think is ever addressed. To any specific reader, the sexuality of a character can mean whatever that means to them. I like Dumbledore being gay because there's a ton of implications about horrible things happening between him and Grindelwald, and it's pretty interesting to think of Dumbledore as someone who killed his dark wizard lover in his youth.

There are enough hints in the books, specifically about Dumbledore's history with Grindelwald (Which also, incidentally, provides good reasons why it simply wouldn't come up), that Rowling revealing that he's gay is convincingly not an asspull.

Oh, I like them too, Despite, you know, being there. I have a terrible memory. It's just that Lilith making so many at once is odd.

Lilith, if you were this bored, you should have told somebody. Maybe gone to a therapist. This can't be healthy.

Absolutely yes.

A cousin of mine still has to do this every time he needs to know right from left. He's in his early twenties and did a tour of duty in Afghanistan.

Yup.