That’s just it though, there is no reason to assume that there is something intrinsically special about the human brain that allows it to exclusively be conscious.

I don’t believe I made a claim that there is, just that our current technology is nowhere close to having a computer actually achieve consciousness.

The brain is just a computer made of flesh, one that merely at the moment can’t be programmed directly.

Again… I don’t think you really have enough knowledge about human physiology to make that claim, and it completely ignores the mind body problem. The misconception that there is some kind of separation of the brain from the body is a product of how we first began to learn about the brain. The more we learn about cognitive science the more we learn just how inseparable the mind is from the body. You can physically alter the composition of the brain by physically changing the body and vice versa. A brain is not a computer, at most you could potentially claim that a computer is made as a simulacrum of a brain.

If we replicated it artificially and it was able to be fully programmed the obvious implications is that there also is nothing special about our own brains in terms of “will” because we’d have a replica that we’d be able to directly control and program. It’d just mean our programming came about from evolutionary forces.

If my grandma had balls she’d be my grandpa… That’s quite the big “if” to hang your argument on. Secondly, I believe you’re conflating programming with learning.

“Predeterminism” is a red herring. I don’t believe in predeterminism either. I don’t think the future is already written.

I didn’t claim you do… That argument is just what libertarian believe.

"You can decide not to read the bible and hundreds of years of theological theory, but you can’t then critique it."500 years ago, someone wrote a complicated theory that stated that everything was made of bananas and then over the course of the past 500 years people debated the specifics filling up tomes of books on the nonsense I wouldn’t be required to read it all to not be fully in the right to completely dismiss it as gibberish and to openly insist that others also not waste their mental energy on it.

First of all, there’s a big difference between philosophical theories which are put forth with rational arguments using logic and rhetoric, and a religious tome. Claiming otherwise is not academically honest.

Secondly, your analogy is lacking. Of course you wouldn’t have to research 500 years of banana ect… That’s unless your rebuttal was based on the claims already put forth by the banana theory.

The original affirmation is claiming that there is something called “free will”, they go on to describe what this encompasses. Your negation is that there is no such thing as free will. However, what your rebuttal refers to as free will is not the same idea the affirmation is actually making claims about.

So you are ignoring the actual argument, and claiming it to be ridiculous without knowing what they are talking about.

find libertarian ideas around free will to be nonsense at a fundamental level. Reading the specifics would go no where. I’d need to be convinced that the core idea had some merit to begin with.

Again, you haven’t stated your interpretation of what libertarians actually believe…other than falsely claiming that it’s inherently religious.

A self-evident principle or one that is accepted as true without proof as the basis for argument; a postulate. "

How is that rational in any way? You are making determinations and then forcing ways arguments to fit.

Empiricism itself is not a factual statement, its a system of thinking. Empiricism is indeed a core belief of mine.

This does not align with your other statements, it seems you are utilizing circular logic.

You’ll need to be more specific. What do you mean “handle”? Do you mean the issue that you can’t truly “know” anything?

I mean you don’t account for it at all in your process.

I guess? I not sure how this contradicts my usage of it? Also why arbitrarily two?

Because the theory wasn’t made to applied across a large swath of knowledge, nor is it supposed to be the only argument utilized. It’s just a rational argument claiming that if the theories are equal in all ways, the simpler is more likely to be true.

If you are discussing something where every theory has zero evidence for it then you’d be able to select the most simple out of a list of theories of any size.

Zero empirical evidence does not make the arguments equal. Occam’s razor is itself a rational argument… One of the theories may itself contain more rationality than the other. This is the problem with only relying on empiricism.

The rational abstraction is systematized. Its not so much that it’s not a potential that observation could never influence my rational thinking, but that if an observation does then that has potential impacts on all of my rational thinking systems. This is pretty unlikely, we’re talking a major and profound table flip. It would need to be demonstrated that the very way my rational system of thinking is inferior at obtaining truth compared to another new way.

How does this incorporate empiricism, where knowledge is gained through observation alone? Your “ration system of thinking” seems to be irrational in nature. Maybe we have a miscommunication but your claims about how you think seem to be incongruent with your claims about determinism.

So rationality “applies” to evidence, but like a pre-written function.

That seems to be a highly irrational process…

Oh it definitely is. It however isn’t the only influence, patriarchy is only one component of cultural conservativism. There is also religion and capitalism.

Both of those systems are patriarchal.

Plus, lets be honest here women just are less horny because of the nature of hormones. Just ask someone on any kind of HRT. We probably evolved that way to create a competitive pressure on men want every individual, men and women (and otherwise), to have fulfilling sex lives

And we’re back to blaming women for men not being able to control themselves…

I think we’re done here. We keep circling the same arguments, which makes sense considering what you’ve told me about your thought process.

If I knew you, I would be highly concerned for your well-being. At this point I just wish you the best, and hope you consider seeing someone about your mental health. Take care.