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On July 21 2010 16:18 KillerPenguin wrote:There is no point to life. Animals exist because they evolved and survived by following internal programs that lead them to happiness, but that doesn't mean you should try to evolve or survive or grant yourself happiness. Many people come up with a reason for the point of their own life but that doesn't mean it actually exists or that their own meaning is the same meaning for someone else. Many things, food, family, shelter, pictures of Megan Fox. Maslow created a pyramid that explains what helps give us happiness at different levels. All someone really needs to do is believe they are happy and they will be happy but it may be very difficult to make yourself believe you are happy without having things you want. I think understanding yourself and other people will help a lot and I know many people will disagree with me on this but in reality almost all other things can be bought with money so knowledge and money should get you pretty far. This is vague, in order for something to be important you first need a goal so that you can assign weights to different values. Since life has no goal and therefore no value is more important than any other I guess I will pick the values that differentiate me from others and are positive attributes, which would be intelligence, treating others as I believe they would treat me, and being trustworthy. The normal concept of good and evil do not exist because we live in a universe where only one future can happen due to hard determinism. In the absence of free will most will agree there is no good or evil. Since I still like to engage in discussions about the topic I often use a form of utilitarianism which defines good as that which brings the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people Understanding how and why things work. I like Spinoza, Einstein, and Hawking a lot because of their understanding about hard determinism and how the world really works which I consider like a pinnacle of a TOE although most people wouldn't consider Einstein or Hawking philosophers I find almost all very intelligent people have a certain philosophy and understanding of it. I like certain thoughts of a large number of popular philosophers. Show nested quote +I`m especially interested in your own philosophical cogitation but any quotations of famous philosphers or ones you like are very welcome. I hope I don't butcher this but my favorite is from Nietchze "Now that God is dead and we have killed him there will not be a river wide enough to wash away all of the blood." I like it because Nietchze understood that people can be fragile and if they have already grown up with a social framework like do not kill because god doesn't like it and you do something to disrupt that pillar of beliefs like convincing to them god no longer exists they may fall into distress. Here's a couple more “I contend we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” - Stephen Roberts "The first dogma which I came to disbelieve was that of free will. It seemed to me that all notions of matter were determined by the laws of dynamics and could not therefore be influenced by human wills." - Bertrand Russell
Why are you so sure about hard determinism ?
To prove hard determinism you need to understand the very first cause in the chain reaction of things . What if that cause was of free will that gave birth to the chain reaction of free will choices ??? You can try to prove this idea to be wrong all you like but I would say that it can`t be proved. I am of the opinion that this universe is guided by the pricinpal of free will. Though we unnecesarily steal each other`s freedom because we live more in the world governed by dollar than in the world governed by benevolence.
You are free to the degree you are able to co-create your life. This is dependant on many factors, possibly the largest one being your personal Wisdom.
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i don't know how anyone who understands the basic mechanics of the nervous system could believe in "free will". do you believe your thoughts are uncaused, randomly, spontaneously generating out of nothing?
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On July 23 2010 22:45 catamorphist wrote:
Most of your post looks like a bit of word salad to me.
I would point out that it doesn't appear to be actually true that the physical world is deterministic at small scales.
I think you are trying very hard to rationalize a concept of "free will" that is unclear and unnecessary. Your line of reasoning is something like "since we must have free will, God must exist to give us powers outside of the physical universe." I sure don't see enough evidence for the former to justify the latter.
I am personally pretty satisfied with the anthropic principle as a reason why something exists rather than nothing, and I don't understand how postulating a God gives you a reason, since then the question just becomes why God exists instead of nothing.
I did try to address the fact that it is not necessarily purely deterministic, but is it incorrect to say (in an atheist framework) it is either deterministic or conditional on pure randomness? I still believe it's not compatible with the influence from any form of the self. It is still dependent solely on the movements of particles and chance. Reading some of the arguments, it seems to be often defined as moral responsibility that I'm looking for? The freedom to have moral responsibility?
How might one have the freedom required for moral responsibility without having an immaterial soul that is not built on a combination of determinism and statistics/probability alone?
Saying we must have free will is a problem, because thinking directly I am definitely not convinced this is true. That's one of the points I was trying to make about why we have to think more cleverly about it in my opinion.
I don't buy the anthropic principle as an answer to that question, to me it's a tautology (of the pointless variety in this context). Something exists because we exist to ask that question. That's what it seems like you are arguing. Instead of using the word why, I'll say what led to something existing? That's a more specific question that can't be answered with the anthropic principle. Asking why God exists is not the same as asking why something physical exists, because the something physical has to abide by certain rules. No one has answered "What led to something phsyical existing?" while staying in the physical laws of our universe as far as I know because the rules don't allow for anything to happen that's not due to the previous condition and the outcomes of specific chances. But since God by definition is outside the rules, there's no rule that says something existing has to lead to Him.
I've been raised as a scientist all my life. I know how dissatisfying and "cheating" using God as an explanation is to a lot of people, but when the alternatives, taken alone/individually, are equally flawed to me I feel like some outside the box thinking was sort of needed to reconcile the viewpoints. That's really my motivation with this.
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On July 23 2010 12:27 Hidden_MotiveS wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2010 12:10 Scorcher2k wrote:On July 21 2010 17:27 Telcontar wrote:
its a painful thing when you wake up one day and realise you're a nihilist and how empty everything in this universe seems. maybe im just going through a rough patch but i just cant shake off the idea that all of this is nothing. I quit thinking about things for a while when I did this lol. It did get better for me so I hope it does for you too. Nihilism is by its very nature sad, but its sort of countered by existentialism. Try reading about this.
I just went on to read Searle and then everything surrounding consciousness. Lots of links to great papers here.
http://consc.net/online/1/all#general
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On July 24 2010 00:43 ZapRoffo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2010 22:45 catamorphist wrote:
Most of your post looks like a bit of word salad to me.
I would point out that it doesn't appear to be actually true that the physical world is deterministic at small scales.
I think you are trying very hard to rationalize a concept of "free will" that is unclear and unnecessary. Your line of reasoning is something like "since we must have free will, God must exist to give us powers outside of the physical universe." I sure don't see enough evidence for the former to justify the latter.
I am personally pretty satisfied with the anthropic principle as a reason why something exists rather than nothing, and I don't understand how postulating a God gives you a reason, since then the question just becomes why God exists instead of nothing. I did try to address the fact that it is not necessarily purely deterministic, but is it incorrect to say (in an atheist framework) it is either deterministic or conditional on pure randomness? I still believe it's not compatible with the influence from any form of the self. It is still dependent solely on the movements of particles and chance. Reading some of the arguments, it seems to be often defined as moral responsibility that I'm looking for? The freedom to have moral responsibility? How might one have the freedom required for moral responsibility without having an immaterial soul that is not built on a combination of determinism and statistics/probability alone? Saying we must have free will is a problem, because thinking directly I am definitely not convinced this is true. That's one of the points I was trying to make about why we have to think more cleverly about it in my opinion. I don't buy the anthropic principle as an answer to that question, to me it's a tautology (of the pointless variety in this context). Something exists because we exist to ask that question. That's what it seems like you are arguing. Instead of using the word why, I'll say what led to something existing? That's a more specific question that can't be answered with the anthropic principle. Asking why God exists is not the same as asking why something physical exists, because the something physical has to abide by certain rules. No one has answered "What led to something phsyical existing?" while staying in the physical laws of our universe as far as I know because the rules don't allow for anything to happen that's not due to the previous condition and the outcomes of specific chances. But since God by definition is outside the rules, there's no rule that says something existing has to lead to Him. I've been raised as a scientist all my life. I know how dissatisfying and "cheating" using God as an explanation is to a lot of people, but when the alternatives, taken alone/individually, are equally flawed to me I feel like some outside the box thinking was sort of needed to reconcile the viewpoints. That's really my motivation with this.
yeah, you even touch on the point yourself: it's all too convenient to just shout "GOD! MAGIC!" when we don't know an answer. i'd rather go the honest route and admit that i don't know. maybe it's not even appropriate to ask what led to something physical existing; maybe something physical always existed.
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On July 24 2010 00:36 Win.win wrote:
i don't know how anyone who understands the basic mechanics of the nervous system could believe in "free will". do you believe your thoughts are uncaused, randomly, spontaneously generating out of nothing?
I think this is why Dualism is so popular, so that people can keep on thinking that they have free will.
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On July 24 2010 00:43 ZapRoffo wrote:
I did try to address the fact that it is not necessarily purely deterministic, but is it incorrect to say (in an atheist framework) it is either deterministic or conditional on pure randomness? I still believe it's not compatible with the influence from any form of the self. It is still dependent solely on the movements of particles and chance. Reading some of the arguments, it seems to be often defined as moral responsibility that I'm looking for? The freedom to have moral responsibility?
I don't think you need free will to justify moral responsibility. Morals, ethics, and laws all exist to help people act in a way that is mutually beneficial. If you care about the collective good, then it generally makes sense to act morally and to punish others for acting immorally. It doesn't matter whether it's "just" or not to make moral judgments; it's rational to do so.
I feel strange having conversations about free will, because I'm never quite sure what the discussion is about. I operate under the assumption that my brain works according to the usual physical laws, and I wouldn't be surprised if, in fifty years, someone could simulate me on a computer or predict what I am about to do through inspection of my brain. However, I don't see how that removes any of my volition or control; I am the process on my brain that makes those decisions. If that's a (roughly) deterministic process, then so what? No reason I shouldn't be reliable.
I'm totally ignorant about historical conceptions of free will, though, so maybe I'm missing something.
On July 24 2010 00:43 ZapRoffo wrote:
I don't buy the anthropic principle as an answer to that question, to me it's a tautology (of the pointless variety in this context). Something exists because we exist to ask that question. That's what it seems like you are arguing. Instead of using the word why, I'll say what led to something existing? That's a more specific question that can't be answered with the anthropic principle. Asking why God exists is not the same as asking why something physical exists, because the something physical has to abide by certain rules. No one has answered "What led to something phsyical existing?" while staying in the physical laws of our universe as far as I know because the rules don't allow for anything to happen that's not due to the previous condition and the outcomes of specific chances. But since God by definition is outside the rules, there's no rule that says something existing has to lead to Him.
I agree with you that the anthropic principle doesn't address the "how," just the "what." But two hundred years ago, no one had answered "Fucking magnets, how do they work?" Given a physical mystery, it seems a lot more sensible to wait and think about it scientifically some more than to assume it's impossible and that God did it.
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On July 24 2010 01:58 Robstickle wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2010 00:36 Win.win wrote:
i don't know how anyone who understands the basic mechanics of the nervous system could believe in "free will". do you believe your thoughts are uncaused, randomly, spontaneously generating out of nothing? I think this is why Dualism is so popular, so that people can keep on thinking that they have free will.
or compatibilism
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On July 24 2010 02:30 catamorphist wrote:I feel strange having conversations about free will, because I'm never quite sure what the discussion is about. I operate under the assumption that my brain works according to the usual physical laws, and I wouldn't be surprised if, in fifty years, someone could simulate me on a computer or predict what I am about to do through inspection of my brain. However, I don't see how that removes any of my volition or control; I am the process on my brain that makes those decisions. If that's a (roughly) deterministic process, then so what? No reason I shouldn't be reliable.
Well a lot of the argument about free will does seem to come down to what people think the requirements for free will are exactly.
I think that free will would have to be a decision making process which is both free of cause and affect and randomness. If your decisions are cause and affect then I feel that that means your decisions are simply being made by everything that has happened prior to the decision. If your decisions are random then someone may as well be throwing a die and having you act according to the outcome. Either way I don't think you could claim to have free will.
Of course my standards for what free will is seem pretty much impossible to meet, as a matter of fact it seems common sense to say that it is impossible to meet them so naturally I don't believe in free will.
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On July 24 2010 03:37 Robstickle wrote:
I think that free will would have to be a decision making process which is both free of cause and affect and randomness. If your decisions are cause and affect then I feel that that means your decisions are simply being made by everything that has happened prior to the decision. If your decisions are random then someone may as well be throwing a die and having you act according to the outcome. Either way I don't think you could claim to have free will.
Everything that has happened prior to the decision has influenced the decision only insofar as it has determined the current state of my brain. When I say "I make the decision", what I mean is "the result will depend on what happens in my mind." What else could it mean?
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The universe behaves in a completely deterministic sense the way I understand it. For some reason people think that the heisenberg uncertainty principle proves that it doesn't or they quote Einstein saying something like "god doesn't play dice"
If we take a really small particle like an electron, and we shoot a photon at some empty space, and that photon hits the electron, and bounces off, and goes into one of our instruments, the electron will bounce off in another direction. When our photon reaches our instrument that electron will be going on a different course, and will be at a different place than it was right before the photon hit it. That's all the heisenberg uncertainty principle says.
Despite popular belief I don't think it should be impossible to design an experiment to truly discover the location of the electron some time after the photon hits it. We just aren't there yet technologically.
What I'm saying is, if a photon hits an electron, and the electron goes to point b 1 second after getting hit.
And then we go back in time.
And the photon hits the electron again. That electron will still be at point b 1 second after getting hit. There is no random chance that can change this to make the electron go to point c. There is no uncertainty. It's just a misnomer.
And free will exists if you follow existentialism, because even in a deterministic universe, where there is only one course of action you can visualize multiple different futures. First thing's first, I will admit that if one knows the course of every subatomic particle in the universe, one can predict the future to 100% certainty from now until the fat lady sings.
However let's say that you have a test tomorrow that you need to study for today. If you don't study you will fail. According to determinism the universe has already decided whether or not you will study. However you don't know what the universe has decided for you. Therefore you can choose whether or not to study for the test and you can choose whether or not to fail.
Now I'm just going to be drowned out. I don't know why I bother.
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On July 24 2010 06:39 Hidden_MotiveS wrote:
If we take a really small particle like an electron, and we shoot a photon at some empty space, and that photon hits the electron, and bounces off, and goes into one of our instruments, the electron will bounce off in another direction. When our photon reaches our instrument that electron will be going on a different course, and will be at a different place than it was right before the photon hit it. That's all the heisenberg uncertainty principle says.
Despite popular belief I don't think it should be impossible to design an experiment to truly discover the location of the electron some time after the photon hits it. We just aren't there yet technologically.
What I'm saying is, if a photon hits an electron, and the electron goes to point b 1 second after getting hit.
And then we go back in time.
And the photon hits the electron again. That electron will still be at point b 1 second after getting hit. There is no random chance that can change this to make the electron go to point c. There is no uncertainty. It's just a misnomer.
I really don't believe you are at all correct. Photons and electrons don't "move" in the way that you're supposing they do. Their interactions modify the quantum state of the system they reside in, in a deterministic way. The way that we measure the quantum state afterward is by observing the physical results, whose statistical distribution is determined by the state. There's definitely no getting around the fact that the physical results are probabilistic, and not deterministic on the level of a single particle, unless you assume non-local hidden variables a la Bohm.
(Disclaimer: Not a physicist, but this is all pretty fundamental stuff; and my description is that of the realist interpretation.)
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On July 24 2010 08:53 catamorphist wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2010 06:39 Hidden_MotiveS wrote:
If we take a really small particle like an electron, and we shoot a photon at some empty space, and that photon hits the electron, and bounces off, and goes into one of our instruments, the electron will bounce off in another direction. When our photon reaches our instrument that electron will be going on a different course, and will be at a different place than it was right before the photon hit it. That's all the heisenberg uncertainty principle says.
Despite popular belief I don't think it should be impossible to design an experiment to truly discover the location of the electron some time after the photon hits it. We just aren't there yet technologically.
What I'm saying is, if a photon hits an electron, and the electron goes to point b 1 second after getting hit.
And then we go back in time.
And the photon hits the electron again. That electron will still be at point b 1 second after getting hit. There is no random chance that can change this to make the electron go to point c. There is no uncertainty. It's just a misnomer. I really don't believe you are at all correct. Photons and electrons don't "move" in the way that you're supposing they do. Their interactions modify the quantum state of the system they reside in, in a deterministic way. The way that we measure the quantum state afterward is by observing the physical results, whose statistical distribution is determined by the state. There's definitely no getting around the fact that the physical results are probabilistic, and not deterministic on the level of a single particle, unless you assume non-local hidden variables a la Bohm. (Disclaimer: Not a physicist, but this is all pretty fundamental stuff; and my description is that of the realist interpretation.)
I like how nice you are at destroying my argument. Must be hard.
I don't understand the physics too well, I was just trying to recall what I'd read about heisenberg's microscope from a textbook. I would ask a physicist to elucidate on the situation but according to the wikipedia page on the uncertainty principle, they're debating the issue as well.
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On July 23 2010 23:07 UFO wrote:
Why are you so sure about hard determinism ?
To prove hard determinism you need to understand the very first cause in the chain reaction of things . What if that cause was of free will that gave birth to the chain reaction of free will choices ??? You can try to prove this idea to be wrong all you like but I would say that it can`t be proved. I am of the opinion that this universe is guided by the pricinpal of free will. Though we unnecesarily steal each other`s freedom because we live more in the world governed by dollar than in the world governed by benevolence.
You are free to the degree you are able to co-create your life. This is dependant on many factors, possibly the largest one being your personal Wisdom.
I'm sure about determinism because I've given it many years of thought and I've come to understand it is actually more reasonable than the universe not being deterministic just like it's more reasonable the Christian god of the bible does not exist.
You wouldn't need to know the first cause but you would need to know every cause after that and like most things in life including god you can not prove them one way or another so we need to look at evidence to see which is more likely.
Science suggests there is no room for free will. Continually things we thought were because of will power are being described in terms of science and how their behavior is entirely determined. In order to have free will or make a choice we would have to be outside the realm of science or metaphysical like gods which can move a neuron one way instead of another with no cause behind it. It's actually pretty egotistical and radical to believe that we are so different from everything around us that behaves so deterministically that somewhere in our evolution we were given the ability to choose not to do what the complicated physics of our bodies decides.
Opponents point to quantum mechanics which suggests that on a very small scale things are random and not deterministic but that doesn't help free will at all and things always appear random when you don't know how they work. Most people believe when they click a button on their computer that it is generating a real random number but it is really just determined by something else.
On July 24 2010 06:39 Hidden_MotiveS wrote:
For some reason people think that the heisenberg uncertainty principle proves that it doesn't or they quote Einstein saying something like "god doesn't play dice"
Einstein like myself did not believe quantum mechanics was a good model and he made that comment as a defense for determinism because he didn't think at a fundamental level physics was random. If opponents of determinism are quoting that line from Einstein they are either confused or your confused in labeling them as opponents of determinism. Hopefully we'll eventual understand why quantum mechanics appears random even though no progress on that has been made for a long time. In the meantime everything larger than the quantum level behaves exactly as it's meant to and so the laws of physics almost perfectly describe our world. The imperfections in our predictions continue to get smaller as our knowledge expands.
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On July 24 2010 08:53 catamorphist wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2010 06:39 Hidden_MotiveS wrote:
If we take a really small particle like an electron, and we shoot a photon at some empty space, and that photon hits the electron, and bounces off, and goes into one of our instruments, the electron will bounce off in another direction. When our photon reaches our instrument that electron will be going on a different course, and will be at a different place than it was right before the photon hit it. That's all the heisenberg uncertainty principle says.
Despite popular belief I don't think it should be impossible to design an experiment to truly discover the location of the electron some time after the photon hits it. We just aren't there yet technologically.
What I'm saying is, if a photon hits an electron, and the electron goes to point b 1 second after getting hit.
And then we go back in time.
And the photon hits the electron again. That electron will still be at point b 1 second after getting hit. There is no random chance that can change this to make the electron go to point c. There is no uncertainty. It's just a misnomer. I really don't believe you are at all correct. Photons and electrons don't "move" in the way that you're supposing they do. Their interactions modify the quantum state of the system they reside in, in a deterministic way. The way that we measure the quantum state afterward is by observing the physical results, whose statistical distribution is determined by the state. There's definitely no getting around the fact that the physical results are probabilistic, and not deterministic on the level of a single particle, unless you assume non-local hidden variables a la Bohm. (Disclaimer: Not a physicist, but this is all pretty fundamental stuff; and my description is that of the realist interpretation.)
Hehe collision of electron with photons is indeed tied to timetravel and interdimensional travel, but remember that a electron and photon itself is also part of waves, so you could say they are themself constructs from those waves given a purpose in a system.
So heres the question to you does physics act the same in all realms of exsistance? What is the One constant that does not change and what function does such a constant play within the exsistance of matter.
But proton and electron collusions much more interesting if trying to open say a conduit between barriors  , photons travel through electron gateway past hyperdimensional threshold however you could say it works like a network to send information in form of photons 'waves - particules' between the different dimensions using hyperdimensional gateways which are subatomic particules.
Humans are yet to discover the multidimensional exsistance you are exsisting within or how everything is interlinked through such gateways I just suggested to you, windows within windows.
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Lol maji, always an interesting take on things.
I'm still having a hard time believing that a particle would behave differently if it were collided with once, then you went back in time, and it were collided with again. If this is the case then the universe is still deterministic and my explanation was merely a simplification. Everything in my argument still holds.
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Why are you so sure about hard determinism ?
To prove hard determinism you need to understand the very first cause in the chain reaction of things . What if that cause was of free will that gave birth to the chain reaction of free will choices ??? You can try to prove this idea to be wrong all you like but I would say that it can`t be proved. I am of the opinion that this universe is guided by the pricinpal of free will. Though we unnecesarily steal each other`s freedom because we live more in the world governed by dollar than in the world governed by benevolence.
You are free to the degree you are able to co-create your life. This is dependant on many factors, possibly the largest one being your personal Wisdom.
The very notion of "free will" is absurd. It literally cannot exist without a mystical or religious spiritual identity. Determinism may or may not be true as it applies to human actions, but even if it isn't the notion of "free will" is inane. Actions have precedents. That precedent is either entirely material (determinism) or partly quantum (random). In order for free will to exist, that precedent must be spawned from a separate of self that exists outside of the physical universe.
ie: A soul. Mysticism and Religion, not philosophy.
Explain to me what is free will physically. What is the physical phenomenon that describes free will. it is literally impossible. Quantum indeterminacy simply means you do things completely randomly, like the flip of a quantum coin, which imo, is even worse for humanistic principals and idealism then just determinism, which isn't that much of a stretch, considering fate and destiny, as well as religious predestination, are all relatively acceptable in our society, while our actions be entirely random is a territory we haven't even begun to rationalize.
taken alone/individually, are equally flawed to me I feel like some outside the box thinking was sort of needed to reconcile the viewpoints. That's really my motivation with this.
So in order to satisfy the lack of knowledge you invent it? Thats not very philophical of you :/
tbh I wish people would stop making threads about philosophy concerning "the big questions". The big questions are comprised of thousands of little questions, and each of them are very tangible and debatable. Debating about the big question before understanding individual components approaches the level of mysticism as the "God" thread. Or our dear old "High" thread :x.
I think a nice little thread about aestheticism or phenomenology would be far more productive and interesting tbh. Both of them could even relate to game design theory! If I were a philosopher and someone asked me "what is the purpose of life", I'd tell him to shut up, I'd have work to do.
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EPT
