Man exposes penis at feminist rally

If you think that, you don't understand what the debate about free will means. A 'conscious choice' implies that you think you have a choice, which again is an assertion of free will.

You didn't ask what I meant. You said that I reached a 'ridiculous' conclusion. I'm not sure what conclusion you were thinking I meant, but you didn't ask me to clarify. If that's what you wanted to do, why didn't you just ask?

And I've explained why it's entirely relevant to discuss the idea of free will on this thread, given the nature of the feminist project, and what you were discussing. The point is, if women are made to feel that they are in danger of rape, they will act to reduce the danger of this, by not going out late at night/not drinking too much and so and so on. In general, women feel less able to defend themselves than men, and they feel that they are more at threat (on the whole). This shapes behaviour, but I'm not sure it shapes conscious behaviour, because I'm not sure I accept that 'conscious behaviour' is a meaningful concept.

To keep it simple to avoid confusion: you made a statement which I think is flat out wrong, and is at least highly debatable. I pointed it out. I stand by that observation. Since you've asked me about it, I've explained why that error is relevant to the thread in question and directly to what you were saying. It's not irrelevant, but the original statement was opaque, largely because I wanted it to be. Your reaction to it was quite amusing though, so I'm glad I went with it in the end. :P

What are you on about really? You didn't understand a throw away remark I made in relation to one of your posts. No harm there, it was relatively opaque, and not really much of a criticism. Instead of asking what it meant you you decided to go on about how I was reaching a 'ridiculous conclusion'. Maybe just ask for clarification next time? It's not difficult, not every post needs to be a grandstanding masterpiece filled with hyperbole.

That's puzzling, obviously no one, however stupid, could think your posts were saying that because you didn't mention free will once, or anything to do with it. Again, if you don't understand a throwaway, one line comment, just ask what it's about (or ignore it, no one's going to think less of you as a person), rather than claiming to have understood and rejected its 'conclusion' when you clearly haven't at all.

I do understand what the debate about free will is. The argument as to whether we are exercising free will or not is the difference in whether or not an action is a deliberate action or an unconsious action that you have no control over.

Your theory is that we don't have free will when it comes to risk assessing our activities?

I am not going to get into a debate with you over whether or not free will exists, and whether or not in a particular situation we exercise 'free will'.

Whether or not it applies in this situation is a feminist theory, as you have said. You can believe it applies how you like, I don't subscribe to these same theories you do.

This was a load of waffle. I enjoy the bolding of the word theory though, as if I was claiming to be stating some sort of fact, or something being a theory makes it less legitimate. Evolution's a theory remember...

Free will is incredibly important to this debate, and your assertion of 'conscious choices', in my view, was wrong. Which is why I pointed out in the first place. My 'theory' is we don't have free will at all, or that if we do it's not anything like the concept you were baldly asserting when you said that you make conscious choices every day. I think to just assert that is a bit silly given the nature of the debate surrounding free will (i.e. basically no one of any philosophical import believes that we have free will in the way you were talking about it, and its existence at all is highly debatable).

You're desperately trying to make it look like you understood what was going on, when you didn't. I'm not really sure why you care that much, I don't think anyone thinks less of you for not getting a small throwaway remark. I didn't think you were saying anything about 'free will', which is what this bit in quotation marks is saying: 'it's almost as though someone was trying to argue I were somehow saying...' I did not think you were saying anything about the nature of free will. You didn't mention the term until I brought it up. It was obvious that you weren't talking about it.

I was saying you're asserting your ability to make conscious choices, I don't think you have that ability, and it's important for this debate. That's not a ridiculous conclusion, which is what you originally stated. I see you haven't bothered to respond to my simple question: why not ask what someone means if you don't get it, rather than assume that you disagree with a conclusion that you clearly don't know they're making.

Yeah, that's what I was disagreeing with. Again, you're just going on as if you established all of these assertions, which you haven't.

I aimed my remark at you, mainly because I thought if I got a response it would be more ridiculously, stupendously more amusing than anyone else's. Turns out I was right. Again, it was just a throwaway remark, it's not necessary to pick up everyone on everything they say and make remarks about each of them. There's lots of things I've said in the thread which you could have responded to. You didn't. Doesn't mean I'm going to complain about it.

Nope, nope, nope. Not the conclusion I reached at all. Stop trying to say it was. It's obvious that you weren't saying that, even if I had very, very poor comprehension skills (I don't) I couldn't have interpreted anything you said in any such way.

An argument can't 'try to argue' anything. I'm pointing out that the fear of rape will inevitably shape behaviour because fears shape human behaviour all the time. The reason for this is that at the very least they represent a significant internal barrier to acting freely. So, turning to the discussion in hand, women might choose to wear certain kinds of clothes, drink less than they would like, avoid going out late at night and so and so on. In that respect, the fear would be an internally barrier to acting freely.

At the most, we don't have the ability to act freely at all, and hence any attempt to be rational when 'planning our daily activities' is illusionary: in which case, fear would again represent one of the ways in which our environment shapes our actions, a long with a myriad of other factors. The fact that women have this fear will shape their behaviour, and there's nothing that 'they' (because agency is a fallacy) can do about it. Now, that's how the free will debate shapes this debate, and it's why it's important to the discussion. My original comment was a remark pointing out that it isn't necessarily so that we make conscious decisions, which is what you asserted.

I think my assertion didn't need backing up, because it was obvious, given that you said that you thought you make 'conscious choices' all the time, that you thought you had free will.

I'm loving your use of the word theory in this post, but unfortunately I can't keep responding to this. I've made my point clear I think. You were asserting you were able to make conscious decisions, I disagreed. That assertion, without it being backed up at all, is a bald assertion, and you'd need to back it up with an argument to make it rigorous. I'm not just being awkward with this point, this is very much relevant to this thread and the discussion you were having. Your 'theory' (see, I can throw that word around and use it inappropriately to imply you're talking nonsense) is that you go about making conscious decisions every day, and so do these women. I'm asking, can you show that you do make truly 'conscious choices' at all? I doubt you can.


At any rate, as you have said you don't want to consider that you might be wrong on your 'theories' about free will, as philosophically discredited as they are. So be it, I've not got time to talk to someone who's response to someone disagreeing with them is to say 'I'm not going to debate your 'theories' because I don't subscribe to them(!)' So I'm going to leave it there. I look forward to your enormously, ridiculously, grandiosely long post explaining how you really did get my one line remark, probably bringing up the bit in quotation marks that populated the last post as evidence of this fact. Have fun.

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All I will say in response to your post is that you need to look at the debate about free will, and why no respected philosophers make the kind of claims about free will you're making. It's not my job to educate you about the debate, and as you say, I'm not going to convince you anyway. If you're interested, I'd start with some stuff by Galen Strawson. The point is, whether free will exists or not, it looks nothing like the kind of thing you're talking about, where people make wholly free and conscious choices about their lives. As you say, you cannot see why it's not true that we just don't have free will. That's because you've not looked into the debate surrounding it. I'm not going to bother to establish the result, mainly because you're not interested in hearing about it, as you just said.

I'm not comparing my 'theory' (it's not "my" theory by the way, its a well established result in philosophy) to evolution. I'm just pointing out that to sling the word about as if it indicates that my argument is less legitimate is stupid, as if you don't know what the word means.

My highlight here is you putting in bold bits of what I've written just to say 'look how ridiculous you're being'. I know what my posts say. I write them, all of them in fact. So unless you've got an argument as to why I'm wrong (you don't), then putting these bits in bold does absolutely nothing. It was amusing though.

Legendary stuff. Gotta love anyone who trolls these whining bitches.

If you're a survivor of rape, I'm sure a man flashing himself can be pretty threatening, even if that wasn't his intention.

For those of you still doubting whether what he did was wrong

Society does not "blame" women for getting raped any more than the police "blame" home-owners for forgetting to lock their doors when there are robbers about. Everyone with a modicum of common sense knows the enemy is the criminal. There is no need for a "Slut Walk"

Yes, it would be theoretically possible to predict any future action under determinism (though in actuality no one would be able to do it), if a person who had that ability could do it, he would know that you were going to not hold up two fingers, for whatever reason. Your action set is totally predetermined, the fact that you do or do not stick two fingers up is going to be determined by your genes, temperament etc.

Irrelevant. I've explained why it's important for the thread, and indeed what you were talking about. You haven't disputed what I've said about how the fear of rape will shape women's lives in a very negative way.

I don't really have the time or the inclination to bother to discuss it in depth with someone who won't change their mind by their own admission...

Nevertheless, determinism says that all actions are predictable. Whatever they predicted, it would be possible to frustrate it after the event. If he says "I'm going to do X" I can simply do Y.

Oh God you're not getting the point at all. The point is that your action to do Y is predetermined. You will do Y, even if you thought you were going to do X at some other point. For example, you might think you were going to raise your hand, but then I say 'determinism is false if you don't raise your hand'. So you don't. You might think you've got a choice here, but you don't. The final decision to not raise your hand was predetermined.

No, you're not getting it.

As I've said, the action that you will do X is predetermined. This must be possible, since you have said that it is predetermined. It cannot in any way be changed that you will ultimately do X.

It is not merely a case that you believe you will do X and instead do Y. It is a case that it has already been predetermined that you will do X.

Your theory even says that the fact that we will do X is predetermined and there is nothing we can do to change it. Therefore it must be possible in theory to analyse our specific pysche and determine without a shadow of a doubt that we will do X, a determination that incorporates our reaction to knowing that we will do X, our reaction to knowing that it incorporates our reaction that we will do X, and so on indefinitely.

But if you determine before an event that you will do X, you can certainly falsify any prediction about X, and if the prediction is derived perfectly from a comprehensive knowledge of your body’s constituent micro-particles, then your mind must be free. In a crucial sense, then, the denial of free will is predicated on our ignorance of the very causal laws that supposedly show that free will is impossible.

As I've already said, this is one post too many on the subject, so if you want to take my lack of willingness to go off on a tangent and engage you in debating abstruse philosophical theories as conceding the point, rather than debating the original topic, which was feminists protesting - then so be it.

You can look at many pyschologists and sociologists takes on the theory and none of them are all going to agree entirely with each other on the theory, so as far as I'm concerned, we'll just have to agree to disagree and any further discussion is a waste of bandwidth.

I notice how the question I asked you in regards to the feminists who you think say that rape is the only fear that shapes behaviour was ignored, but you took the time to spout nonsense on a theory you've clearly read none of the literature on. I find that interesting I must say, given that you've said several times that you want to get back to point.

When I said that the fear of any crime will shape anyone's life in a very negative way, you interjected.

You are limiting it to rape with your words. "...the fear of rape will shape women's lives in a very negative way." as though it were somehow differentiated.