Does Ray Peat Believe In Free Will?

[Peatogenic]

The "interconnectedness" of what he and colleagues reveal seems that it would strengthen the argument against free will, and yet the stance against a mechanized view of the body seems like it would argue for the belief in free will. It seems like he could go either direction.

 

[TeaRex14]

Hard to say, but probably. I don't put a lot of stock in what Ray Peat says outside of the physiological and nutritional realms. He's a Marxist apologists, watch this Danny Roddy interview to get a better understanding of his egalitarian views. He's not really an anomaly though, most scientific oriented people tend to be egalitarian. They're unable to step outside of a scientific view and approach society from a economical view. Guys like Henry George and Ludwig von Mises are much better for understanding society. The only "anti-capitalist" I have to give credit to was Jacque Fresco, but he also hated Karl Marx.

 

[theLaw]

I'm going to assume that Peat views "free will" as a spectrum the same way he does "health".

 

[tankasnowgod]

Hard to say, but probably. I don't put a lot of stock in what Ray Peat says outside of the physiological and nutritional realms. He's a Marxist apologists, watch this Danny Roddy interview to get a better understanding of his egalitarian views. He's not really an anomaly though, most scientific oriented people tend to be egalitarian. They're unable to step outside of a scientific view and approach society from a economical view. Guys like Henry George and Ludwig von Mises are much better for understanding society. The only "anti-capitalist" I have to give credit to was Jacque Fresco, but he also hated Karl Marx.

Where in that interview is he apologizing for Karl Marx? I hear Peat criticizing a lot of the structure of the American political system, but that is not a criticism in any way of Capitalism, as the US has been under Socialism or Fascism since at least 1913. You can't have a capitalist society when you have a central bank. I think the best description of the current situation in the US is "Light Fascism," though a lot of people use the term Crony Capitalism. The system is setup to favor huge Multi-National Corporations, and put small and mid-size businesses out of business.

 

[Peatogenic]

I thought he was an Anarchist

 

[TeaRex14]

Where in that interview is he apologizing for Karl Marx? I hear Peat criticizing a lot of the structure of the American political system, but that is not a criticism in any way of Capitalism, as the US has been under Socialism or Fascism since at least 1913. You can't have a capitalist society when you have a central bank. I think the best description of the current situation in the US is "Light Fascism," though a lot of people use the term Crony Capitalism. The system is setup to favor huge Multi-National Corporations, and put small and mid-size businesses out of business.

I think it's about the half way mark, somewhere in that area they begin to discuss Marx. Haven't watched it in awhile, and Roddy didn't segment this interview for some reason, so you'd just have to skim through it until you find the discussion. The rest of what you said I agree with, very Ron Paulian, but I don't picture that being something Peat would be on board with. Not after hearing his views on egalitarianism and his outspoken anti-libertarian redirect. I would have to find it again, but he's said in other interviews that most libertarians are bought out by the Koch brothers, and secretly want mass genocide, lol. Honestly they're some really wacky beliefs he has.

I thought he was an Anarchist

Define Anarchy? Most forms of Anarchy, especially the Peter Kropotkin anarchism, is really just glorified libertarian-socialism. Electing local councils to govern the means of production doesn't sound like anarchy at all, to me anyways. True anarchism would be the spontaneous order of the free market, unburdened by governmental regulations and taxes, acting purely to the supply and demand of the consumers.

 

[Peatogenic]

I think it's about the half way mark, somewhere in that area they begin to discuss Marx. Haven't watched it in awhile, and Roddy didn't segment this interview for some reason, so you'd just have to skim through it until you find the discussion. The rest of what you said I agree with, very Ron Paulian, but I don't picture that being something Peat would be on board with. Not after hearing his views on egalitarianism and his outspoken anti-libertarian redirect. I would have to find it again, but he's said in other interviews that most libertarians are bought out by the Koch brothers, and secretly want mass genocide, lol. Honestly they're some really wacky beliefs he has.

Define Anarchy? Most forms of Anarchy, especially the Peter Kropotkin anarchism, is really just glorified libertarian-socialism. Electing local councils to govern the means of production doesn't like anarchy at all, to me anyways. True anarchism would be the spontaneous order of the free market, unburdened by governmental regulations and taxes, acting purely to the supply and demand of the consumers.

The true kind.

 

[TeaRex14]

The true kind.

The true kind would be spontaneous order, anything less then that would have archetype principles to it. Most modern "anarchists" are supporting the idea that, through direct democracy, you could elect localized councils to control the means of production. This is simply not anarchy, because there can be no hierarchy in true anarchism. What most anarchists are purposing would be more like minarchism.

 

[ecstatichamster]

Hard to say, but probably. I don't put a lot of stock in what Ray Peat says outside of the physiological and nutritional realms. He's a Marxist apologists, watch this Danny Roddy interview to get a better understanding of his egalitarian views. He's not really an anomaly though, most scientific oriented people tend to be egalitarian. They're unable to step outside of a scientific view and approach society from a economical view. Guys like Henry George and Ludwig von Mises are much better for understanding society. The only "anti-capitalist" I have to give credit to was Jacque Fresco, but he also hated Karl Marx.

Yes indeed. I think he grew up in a Communist sympathizer household and never questioned those views. They are very anti-freedom.

Von Mises of course is amazing. So his Hoppe (who gets trashed in the Danny Roddy interview) and of course, the great scholar and writer Murray Rothbard.

Peat sees the fascist system we have where, as always, government is set up to favor the powers that be, in this case the giant pharma and Big Medicine complex. And he sees profit as evil. But profit-seeking isn't the problem, it's the powers that be seizing the government machinery and using it against the public. This is always the case with government and just gets worse as people are "educated" by government employees in government-run schools.

When I have these discussions with people, I point out how much cheaper veterinary care is for essentially equivalent treatment, and how medicine used to be fee-for-service and cheap. When a third party pays, the consumer and the provider have no incentive to keep fees down.

In our system, Big Medicine controls everything. We can still get supplements in the US, thanks to an act of congress, and we have comparatively more freedom if you just know where to look and how to work outside the system.

Back to free will...I would assume he does. But free will is probably an illusion although we have to assume we have free will in order to hold each other accountable.

 

[TeaRex14]

Yes indeed. I think he grew up in a Communist sympathizer household and never questioned those views. They are very anti-freedom.

Von Mises of course is amazing. So his Hoppe (who gets trashed in the Danny Roddy interview) and of course, the great scholar and writer Murray Rothbard.

Peat sees the fascist system we have where, as always, government is set up to favor the powers that be, in this case the giant pharma and Big Medicine complex. And he sees profit as evil. But profit-seeking isn't the problem, it's the powers that be seizing the government machinery and using it against the public. This is always the case with government and just gets worse as people are "educated" by government employees in government-run schools.

When I have these discussions with people, I point out how much cheaper veterinary care is for essentially equivalent treatment, and how medicine used to be fee-for-service and cheap. When a third party pays, the consumer and the provider have no incentive to keep fees down.

Yeah I tend to agree with all three of those men, Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe. I think Hoppe is particularly important, because I've seen A LOT of people throw Mises and Rothbard under the bus due to their Jewish backgrounds. Hoppe is German. I do have to give Henry George some credit though, I'm not fully on board with the idea of privatizing natural resources like oceans, rivers, etc. But in the grand scheme of things, this is a minor disagreement. The Austro-Liberal approach tends to be the most "pro-freedom" ideology I've seen. Yeah Peat, in my opinion, is trying to offer a band-aid fix to a much bigger problem. And blaming profits and the private sector is driving the train in the wrong direction. Applying no sympathy for corporatism of course, which again, is primarily the fought of the state.

In our system, Big Medicine controls everything. We can still get supplements in the US, thanks to an act of congress, and we have comparatively more freedom if you just know where to look and how to work outside the system.

Back to free will...I would assume he does. But free will is probably an illusion although we have to assume we have free will in order to hold each other accountable.

Exactly, free will is based off the idea of what society permits, nothing else. Ask the small business owner if they have free will, lol. They can freely run their business, they get regulated out of existence. Right now we can get supplements, but for how long? For instance, places like Britain you can only get things like CoQ10 through prescription. Rest assure it's coming here too, eventually.

 

[ecstatichamster]

I believe in privatizing everything.

I was watching a show called Tales By Light, which is really excellent centered ostensibly around photography. But the subject was shark fin harvesting which is very cruel and terrible. The solution was around these Indonesian islands to essentially privatize the water around the islands, and patrol by people who are local and have an interest in the long term wellbeing of the ocean there.

And the sharks have come back.

I don't like the government aspect of it, but this is a version of privatization. The tragedy of the commons is behind over fishing.

In the USA we had an act of congress DSHEA and although it has been eroded around the edges, it is still strong and there is a large political will here to maintain not just availability of supplements, but importing cheaper drugs without giving people a hassle.

 

[ecstatichamster]

And Dr. Peat really dislikes supplement vendors, which is sad.

I understand that many of them are shysters. But there are some really good ones.

 

[ilikecats]

Ray believes in free will I asked him specifically about this and sam harris' dumb ideas regarding it. He sent me a very long response but I'm not gonna share it because I'm selfish and greedy. The whole idea of talking about free will is a weird mental trap that's hard to get out of. What would be true free will? Making choices that are not based at all on past experiences or physiological needs? i.e. just randomly? Ray thinks of different situations opening up possibilities instead of causality. He particularly has a problem with the Descartes mechanistic view of casuality. He says that organismic causality involves a desired future condition... refrenced Aristotle's "final cause"

 

[theLaw]

Just a friendly reminder that this forum has an excellent ignore feature.

Simply click on the member name and then click "ignore" in the upper fight hand corner.

Cheers!

 

[Peatogenic]

Just as an aside, Sam Harris is not the only proponent of the illusion of free will, there are others with other perceptions and arguments.

 

[ilikecats]

@Peatogenic of course, its very mainstream now.

 

[Peatogenic]

@Peatogenic of course its very mainstream now.

I mean before Sam Harris came on the scene

 

[ilikecats]

@Peatogenic sure obviously.... The question I asked him had multiple parts and was specifically related to Sam Harris but the question of free will was a part of it. But yeah if you wanna know rays thoughts on it you can ask him yourself, he'll probably respond within a day.

 

[Peatogenic]

@Peatogenic sure obviously.... The question I asked him had multiple parts and was specifically related to Sam Harris but the question of free will was a part of it.

Ok, I believe that Sam Harris' argument against free will is very mechanistic. There are other arguments. I'm specifically interested how Peat approaches it, because as I mentioned from one angle it seems he wouldn't believe in it, and from another angle I could see that he would.

 

[ilikecats]

@Peatogenic do you have his email? Ill pm you it if you want. I was atleast partially joking about being selfish and greedy, id just prefer not to share it because it's slightly personal in nature and I never asked him if he was okay with me sharing it. And obviously I probably didn't word the question the way you or any one else would so it might not be the answer you're looking for anyways.