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This denies the effect of exogenous information on choices, and conflates objective determinism with subjective free will. What if telling someone they had fre

This denies the effect of exogenous information on choices, and conflates objective determinism with subjective free will. What if telling someone they had free will to make a choice affected the choices they deterministically made? What if saying something is out of your control changed what you did versus saying something is in your control? Even within the theory that things are "out of your control" due to some automatic mechanism, that mechanism is still triggered by exogenous information input.

spicyusername 4y ago
> This denies the effect of exogenous information on choices It doesn't though. Some parents, on reading one of these author's books on genetics, may alter the way they behave. Some parents may not. The way that either parent reacts to reading this "exogenous information" is dictated by their genes and lived experiences.
- jfk13 4y ago
  You appear to hold a strongly mechanistic view of humanity (and perhaps of the world as a whole?). Not everyone shares that view. So if you're going to argue from that as a basis, you must expect we won't all share your conclusions. (But of course this is just my genes and experiences dictating my words...)
  - spicyusername 4y ago
    > Originally proposed by Judith Rich Harris in The Nurture Assumption, and promoted by popsci big shots like Matt Ridley and Stephen Pinker, the idea got another push from Robert Plomin in his 2018 book Blueprint. The latest proponent is economist Bryan Caplan on the 80,000 Hours podcast. Their argument is backed by heavyweight research, but simple at heart. I'm just outlining the arguments related to this discussion from most of those author's works. This podcast "Final Thoughts on Free Will" by Sam Harris presents some compelling arguments, if you're interested. https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/241-final-thoughts-on-free-will https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/241...
  - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
    I think the fundamental flaw in the "we are who we are when we're born and can never change it so don't try" hypothesis, which posits this because "we can only do what our genes and lived experiences tell us to do", is that those genes and lived experiences give us the ability to change our programming, IE make a choice in changing how we behave, by adding new experiences of our choosing.

spicyusername 4y ago

> This denies the effect of exogenous information on choices It doesn't though. Some parents, on reading one of these author's books on genetics, may alter the way they behave. Some parents may not. The way that either parent reacts to reading this "exogenous information" is dictated by their genes and lived experiences.

jfk13 4y ago
You appear to hold a strongly mechanistic view of humanity (and perhaps of the world as a whole?). Not everyone shares that view. So if you're going to argue from that as a basis, you must expect we won't all share your conclusions. (But of course this is just my genes and experiences dictating my words...)
- spicyusername 4y ago
  > Originally proposed by Judith Rich Harris in The Nurture Assumption, and promoted by popsci big shots like Matt Ridley and Stephen Pinker, the idea got another push from Robert Plomin in his 2018 book Blueprint. The latest proponent is economist Bryan Caplan on the 80,000 Hours podcast. Their argument is backed by heavyweight research, but simple at heart. I'm just outlining the arguments related to this discussion from most of those author's works. This podcast "Final Thoughts on Free Will" by Sam Harris presents some compelling arguments, if you're interested. https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/241-final-thoughts-on-free-will https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/241...
- ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
  I think the fundamental flaw in the "we are who we are when we're born and can never change it so don't try" hypothesis, which posits this because "we can only do what our genes and lived experiences tell us to do", is that those genes and lived experiences give us the ability to change our programming, IE make a choice in changing how we behave, by adding new experiences of our choosing.