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Yes, this is a thread on TL that involves religion, but I hate to think that our policy should be to blindly close every such thread. Sam Harris is a writer whose books are both insightful and have sparked many good discussions in the past and as long as the thread doesn't derail I'd like to leave it open. This should be the basic premise for every such thread, no matter how high the odds of it derailing. In that light, these posts that just predict the downfall of this thread (whether it be pre-determined or not) are 1) Not contributing to the discussion 2) Backseat moderating 3) Annoying 4) Actually contributing towards derailing it. I'll keep 2 daying people for this. |
On March 06 2012 03:53 zefreak wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2012 03:34 Lixler wrote:On March 06 2012 03:28 zefreak wrote:On March 06 2012 03:02 Saaph wrote:
I think the only obstacle to total determinism in the Universe lies within Quantum Mechanics and more specifically within Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. That being said though, this principle only apply at an atomic and subatomic scale. When talking about the brain we are not talking about single atom or particles, and if you're considering a set of particles everything becomes deterministic again due to statistical effects.
That's why I like to talk about 'statistical' determinism when talking about determinism. (Not sure if the two words put together makes sense, but I hope you will get the idea behind it.) QM does not violate determinism, at least not the sensible interpretations. MWI for example is deterministic, has the same evidential basis as CI and is simpler. The Copenhagen Interpretation is quickly losing its adherents and it is a shame that its memes have infected the mainstream culture so much. edit: as to the OP, free will is an illusion and mysticism is retarded. Nothing new here. Determinism has little to do with interpretations at this point. You have a choice between no hidden variables (which would mean no determinism) or no locality. It's definitely not a matter of "the sensible interpretations choose determinism over locality" or something. A perfect inductive reasoner (IE solomonoff induction) would choose some interpretations over others, because they are strictly simpler. I'm not sure I understand your response, perhaps you could expand?
Bell's theorem ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem) shows deliberately that no account of local hidden variables can accurately match the predictions of quantum mechanics. So if you assume that quantum particles are like dice or something with hidden values like "spin 90 degrees" or "1.2 nanometers per second" you won't ever be able to create a model that says the same things as quantum mechanics. Basically, models of quantum mechanics that say "particles actually have hidden information that guides behavior" can't explain what happens in certain cases of entanglement without appeal to non-local action between two particles.
So there isn't a choice between wacky indeterministic theories and solid deterministic ones any more. The only option other than indeterminism is instantaneous action at infinite distances, which maybe you want to choose that but it's quite unprecedented and would be very surprising. I don't know how nuanced your understanding of QM is but I guess I'm being disingenuous in just saying plain "indeterminism," but you can either have locality or the ability to speak of actual properties of things before measurement has taken place. This latter isn't indeterminism properly speaking, but it does mean that, combined with the uncertainty principle, we can never come up with the information necessary to make exact predictions about the world, which is sufficient indeterminism for an incompatibilist.
On March 06 2012 04:01 Hypertension wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2012 03:52 Lixler wrote:On March 06 2012 03:49 Hypertension wrote:On March 06 2012 03:41 Fwmeh wrote:On March 05 2012 21:37 paralleluniverse wrote:
Religions abuse this nonexistent notion of free will in an attempt to explain away the gaping flaws of the God hypothesis and the existence of evil. Yeah, this was in itself totally not a bait. Today's society leans, at least in the western world, heavily towards individualism, and in outside America also towards agnostic/atheistic individualism. The idea of free will is very central in this school of thought. , But really, this discussion is really attacking the problem from the wrong end. Before we get to the idea of free will, we would have to assign an entity to which we assign this free will, a "self". And science currently have no good way of defining a "self" in a way which agrees with our general idea of it. And since we cannot seem to even find a "self", it would not make sense to think this "self" has free will, no matter how we define free will. But like I said, our individualistic society would have a hard time coping without the notion of a "self," so it will probably live on at least for my lifetime. I dislike youtube videos, but I guess I should be pre-emptive in this case: + Show Spoiler + Why can't a "self" be the same as a physical body? This is kind of insufficient for discussion about free will. If my muscle twitches or something I ate makes me vomit, it's not really something that my "self" is doing; it's not something that comes out of my free will. We don't say like for instance "I am now mitosising my cells" and attribute all our body's activities to ourselves. So the self is some kind of specific portion of the mind/brain that needs more description than just "the whole body" or "the whole brain." If I was vomiting I would have no problem saying "I am vomiting". I wouldn't say that an involuntary part of my gastroinstinal tract has decided to vomit. Why does the self need a better description than "the whole body". It seems perfectly sufficient.
Sorry, my example was a little bad. You can't hold that your whole body is the self in discussions about free will unless you make some kind of later distinction between free mindful actions (i.e. those things most people say the "self" does) and automatic things that just happen in your body, for instance digestion and becoming tired. After you make this distinction you're back at the same place, trying to find whatever exactly sets apart these mindful decisions and where the line is and so on. So you can choose the self to be the entire body (does that include material in your digestive tract? pathogens in your blood?) but you aren't miraculously out of the realm of demarcating the difference between free, mindful acts and nonfree ones.
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I've always found the discussion of free will to be incredibly boring. If we have free will things continue as they are, if we don't have free will ... things continue as they are ...
The bottom line here is that our actions won't change if we have free will or everything is predetermined (or otherwise out of our control). Because this topic will not, and in fact cannot, impact our lives I find the discussion of it be a waste of energy.
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I have 4 arguments against the free will proponents. As we all now the universe is governed by fundamental rules and these applies to humans. More specifically, cause and effect, both in terms of our daily lives and in our biology.
Another problem will free will is that when in time did we start to have free will? 10000 BC or what?
If it happened over night you might call it supernatural intervention, i doubt that. If it happened gradually i would say it's an parallel process to the human condition, namely self-consciousness. As we grew more aware of are being we thought that our inherent nature was driven by our mind but we were unaware of the fact that our ancestors nature was driven by genes and environment.
If you think that free will was developed during the ages of man you must then realize that free will could be measured. Have humans reached full free will potential, how far have dogs come and how will we determine if machines/AI have free will?
If humans had free will we would be restricted by a many factors such as emotions, bodily needs, social interaction and environment. In the past and sadly still in present times these restrictions are more centered around survival as food, shelter and water is a necessity for human life.
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United States15275 Posts
On March 06 2012 04:11 zefreak wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2012 03:59 CosmicSpiral wrote:On March 06 2012 03:57 zefreak wrote:On March 06 2012 03:51 CosmicSpiral wrote:On March 06 2012 03:48 zefreak wrote:
I recommend reading less philosophy and more science. Or if you must stick with philosophy, read the good shit and not Kant/Aristotle/whoever happened to be historically important but full of confused ideas. BTW Hume is one of the most misunderstood philosophers of his time. The Problem of Induction says nothing about determinism. It has to do with Hume's epistemology, not ontology. Hume was a determinist, but a skeptic when it comes to epistemology.
Anyone that studies philosophy but doesn't focus on contemporary work (formal epistemology, bayesian epistemology, etc) is a hack snake oil salesman who is less than worthless to our collective knowledge-base. Yes, I realize this accounts for 99% of philosophy graduates.
Only a person who thinks of philosophy as a science would say something this stupid. Excuse you, I know the difference between philosophy and science (and as someone who has studied the philosophy of science, probably know more than you about it). Oooooooo, scary. Hard to tell when you say something that foolish. "Confused ideas", wtf does that even mean?  Sorry if I wasn't clear enough. By confused ideas I am mainly referring to the heavy dose of intuition that played a role in their reasoning. Intuitions that, in later years, seem unfounded and confused. Ancient greeks had intuitions about nature and the cosmos that played a large role in their philosophy. Anyone who studies (and actually reads) Plato and thinks he is learning something profound is probably too lost to appreciate contemporary movements that are actually informed by modern neuroscience and computer science/probability theory/physics. For an example on modern epistemology, I recommend http://www.amazon.com/Mainstream-Formal-Epistemology-Vincent-Hendricks/dp/0521718988/?tag=vglnk-c319-20 .
Nice book.
I think it's an error to read any philosophical text as if it was absolute fact; self-criticism from within the community can't even establish whether one text is closer to reality than another. But saying "unfounded and confused" kinda mixes the distinctions between philosophy and science (at least the artificial ones philosophers have created) by begging the question "confused about what"? It's not like philosophers have been struggling to approach the same subject matter for thousands of years. Plato wasn't talking about the same things as Spinoza, and Spinoza wasn't tackling the same problems as Descartes.
Cultural reverence isn't a strike against Kant and Aristotle, more a denouncement of how people actually approach the texts.
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On March 06 2012 02:13 liberal wrote:
I think people are really missing the very basic argument being presented here...
Human behavior is either determined or undetermined. There is no third possibility in existence. There is no third possibility that can even be logically understood or defined. What can it possibly mean for something to be neither determined nor undetermined? Some things really are black or white...
I refuse to accept that basic argument.
I recommend to you to take a look at the laws of Dialectic. You may find that there is ALWAYS an at least temporary shade of gray in every development and the fact that the author and you cant logically figure that out is questionable and seems unlogically to me. Sure i am determined to eat and drink but if i would stand in front of you slapping your face every 10 sec while you are bound to a tree, would you accept that as an act of determination? I certainly wouldn't, whatever partly actual, partly since centuries reasnable questioned "scientific" streams want me to beleive.
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On March 06 2012 04:15 archonOOid wrote:
I have 4 arguments against the free will proponents. As we all now the universe is governed by fundamental rules and these applies to humans. More specifically, cause and effect, both in terms of our daily lives and in our biology.
Another problem will free will is that when in time did we start to have free will? 10000 BC or what?
If it happened over night you might call it supernatural intervention, i doubt that. If it happened gradually i would say it's an parallel process to the human condition, namely self-consciousness. As we grew more aware of are being we thought that our inherent nature was driven by our mind but we were unaware of the fact that our ancestors nature was driven by genes and environment.
If you think that free will was developed during the ages of man you must then realize that free will could be measured. Have humans reached full free will potential, how far have dogs come and how will we determine if machines/AI have free will?
If humans had free will we would be restricted by a many factors such as emotions, bodily needs, social interaction and environment. In the past and sadly still in present times these restrictions are more centered around survival as food, shelter and water is a necessity for human life.
What about the idea that while we are fundamentally governed by biology, there is something unique about mankind which creates free will. How does a purely determinist view of the world account for Kant or Hume or Locke or Plato? It seems to be a real stretch to think that the environment could purely determine such people. I will consider free will to exist out of skepticism until someone can show me that purely biological/environmental factors caused the creation of starcraft.
edit: What I am trying to flesh out is that a purely deterministic view of the world seems to be a logical extrema, not a necessary conclusion. It's clear to any intelligent observer that a lot of the world is determined. But that does not make it prima facie that there can not be free will.
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United States15275 Posts
On March 06 2012 04:22 viticuss wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2012 04:15 archonOOid wrote:
I have 4 arguments against the free will proponents. As we all now the universe is governed by fundamental rules and these applies to humans. More specifically, cause and effect, both in terms of our daily lives and in our biology.
Another problem will free will is that when in time did we start to have free will? 10000 BC or what?
If it happened over night you might call it supernatural intervention, i doubt that. If it happened gradually i would say it's an parallel process to the human condition, namely self-consciousness. As we grew more aware of are being we thought that our inherent nature was driven by our mind but we were unaware of the fact that our ancestors nature was driven by genes and environment.
If you think that free will was developed during the ages of man you must then realize that free will could be measured. Have humans reached full free will potential, how far have dogs come and how will we determine if machines/AI have free will?
If humans had free will we would be restricted by a many factors such as emotions, bodily needs, social interaction and environment. In the past and sadly still in present times these restrictions are more centered around survival as food, shelter and water is a necessity for human life. What about the idea that while we are fundamentally governed by biology, there is something unique about mankind which creates free will. How does a purely determinist view of the world account for Kant or Hume or Locke or Plato? It seems to be a real stretch to think that the environment could purely determine such people. I will consider free will to exist out of skepticism until someone can show me that purely biological/environmental factors caused the creation of starcraft. edit: What I am trying to flesh out is that a purely deterministic view of the world seems to be a logical extrema, not a necessary conclusion. It's clear to any intelligent observer that a lot of the world is determined. But that does not make it prima facie that there can not be free will.
What does this even mean?
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@ Skilledbob
You are right, however, you are also wrong. You do make the choice to move your leg, as far as you are concerned. Unfortunately, you are looking at a superficial level, where as the OP is looking at the level of more significance. As a person, no, as an organism, you are designed how evolution and physics has dictated (your nature). How you were raised (your nurture) influences your life and causes you to respond. How you respond exactly depends on your genetics (your nature), AND overtime your nurture begins to take shape and become intertwined with your genetics i.e. you learn and adapt. Eventually your genetics and what has been imprinted on you via your environment become one and the same. They shape you, your personality, everything about you. So essentially, physics has dictated EVERYTHING in your life up to the very point where you read the OP's post, and it dictated how you responded. You make THINK your thoughts are your own, but you'd be wrong. It's cause and effect on an infinite scale, one that you apparently had never considered before. The electrical impulses are generated because of the stimuli of whatever it was, that based on your genetics and your experience, was exactly how you had to respond. As a byproduct of the stimuli and the complicated machine that is "you", "you" have a thought to lift your leg. But in reality, you were always going to lift your leg at that moment. There was nothing you could do about it, becuase physics had already determined it. Just as physics had already determined that i would read your response, see the ridiculous of it, have the desire to educate you, and respond with this. Although since the medium is the internet, I can't say it will have much affect on you if you see this. But i have met people like you. You make good points, you just don't see far enough to the whole picture.
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God and free will does make sense, but only if you believe there is something "beyond" the physical world. Now, if such a thing were to exist, it would/does-not-have-to-be detectable through material means (science and observation for example). It must be "found" using logic, a non-physical thing that "exists" in some sense. This is why I find the example as it relates to science rather humorous. Science only applies to things in the physical world. So we accept some of these findings and say that, if free will exists, it does not exist in the physical world. This moves the debate into philosophy. Does reason say that God exists? Does reason say that free will exists? But here the debate happens, some would say God does not, some say he does; the same happens with free will.
(I cannot understand how people can use "science" to say he does not. They can use science to explain why physical actions occur, but not the logic behind them, here they must accept "laws" and constants that just so happen to work out for us. We need to be careful and not overstep our bounds.)
IMO this is why people such as Richard Dawkins need to be scrutinized a little more.
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On March 06 2012 04:21 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2012 04:11 zefreak wrote:On March 06 2012 03:59 CosmicSpiral wrote:On March 06 2012 03:57 zefreak wrote:On March 06 2012 03:51 CosmicSpiral wrote:On March 06 2012 03:48 zefreak wrote:
I recommend reading less philosophy and more science. Or if you must stick with philosophy, read the good shit and not Kant/Aristotle/whoever happened to be historically important but full of confused ideas. BTW Hume is one of the most misunderstood philosophers of his time. The Problem of Induction says nothing about determinism. It has to do with Hume's epistemology, not ontology. Hume was a determinist, but a skeptic when it comes to epistemology.
Anyone that studies philosophy but doesn't focus on contemporary work (formal epistemology, bayesian epistemology, etc) is a hack snake oil salesman who is less than worthless to our collective knowledge-base. Yes, I realize this accounts for 99% of philosophy graduates.
Only a person who thinks of philosophy as a science would say something this stupid. Excuse you, I know the difference between philosophy and science (and as someone who has studied the philosophy of science, probably know more than you about it). Oooooooo, scary. Hard to tell when you say something that foolish. "Confused ideas", wtf does that even mean? Sorry if I wasn't clear enough. By confused ideas I am mainly referring to the heavy dose of intuition that played a role in their reasoning. Intuitions that, in later years, seem unfounded and confused. Ancient greeks had intuitions about nature and the cosmos that played a large role in their philosophy. Anyone who studies (and actually reads) Plato and thinks he is learning something profound is probably too lost to appreciate contemporary movements that are actually informed by modern neuroscience and computer science/probability theory/physics. For an example on modern epistemology, I recommend http://www.amazon.com/Mainstream-Formal-Epistemology-Vincent-Hendricks/dp/0521718988/?tag=vglnk-c319-20 . Nice book. I think it's an error to read any philosophical text as if it was absolute fact; self-criticism from within the community can't even establish whether one text is closer to reality than another. But saying "unfounded and confused" kinda mixes the distinctions between philosophy and science (at least the artificial ones philosophers have created) by begging the question "confused about what"? It's not like philosophers have been struggling to approach the same subject matter for thousands of years. Plato wasn't talking about the same things as Spinoza, and Spinoza wasn't tackling the same problems as Descartes. Cultural reverence isn't a strike against Kant and Aristotle, more a denouncement of how people actually approach the texts.
To put it as simply as possible, I am a logical positivist when it comes to metaphysics and the scope of philosophy. Obviously, that movement had its own flaws (relatively minor ones, IMO), but it's critiques of metaphysics and ethics I agree with 100%. Most ancient philosophers spent an absurd amount of time with their heads up their asses regarding metaphysics. Hence my disposition towards old philosophy. Obviously, there are exceptions and they ALL had SOME valuable things to say. The signal to noise ratio is pretty poor, however.
edit: not really going to respond anymore. The TL community is awesome in a lot of ways but scientific literacy/philosophical understanding is not one of its strong suits. TL is for starcraft, sites like lesswrong and rationallyspeaking are for philosophy.
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Minor flaws like how the entire movement collapsed upon itself, right?
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On March 06 2012 03:17 hypercube wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2012 02:56 mcc wrote:On March 06 2012 02:25 hypercube wrote:On March 06 2012 02:05 mcc wrote:On March 06 2012 01:46 hypercube wrote:On March 06 2012 01:28 mcc wrote:
Did anyone here actually provide even approximate definition of free will they are using? Because if you use the "common sense" definition of free will that people use of course you can create strong argument based on the fact that no known process allows for such an concept and there is no evidence for such a thing. (And not having evidence IS ENOUGH to reject a concept for those who try to argue that we do not yet know enough.) But when you analyze the "common" idea of free will even somewhat indepth it is clear that the whole concept is flawed even in the abstract, logical sense and is just a vague mystic concept.
On the other hand if you consider free will in more a judicial sense , that you have free will when you are not forced to your decision by outside forces and can make a decision in accord with your "nature". Such a definition of free will is easily compatible with determinism. And also I never saw any other definition of free will that makes even logical sense, not even talking about empirical sense.
EDIT: reading more of the thread it seems people more disagree with each others definition of free will and not actually with the factual description of what is real and what is not. The compatibilist definition of free will is just different and frankly I would love to see the "incompatibilist" to even formulate his own definition of free will that would not depend on some mystical concepts. I mostly agree that the philosophical notion of free will is hard to define and probably can't exist, but to turn around and define free will as almost the exact opposite is a bit cynical. How is it the opposite ? It is the only reasonable formulation of free will that I can find and is what free will means in social context. What is wrong with it ? It says you have free will if you are not excessively forced by outside agents or in other words if you are free to decide according to your own nature (by internal mechanisms). What more should free will mean ? You are trying to posit a free will that would mean that an entity would possibly choose two different actions in the same situation. How is it actually free will, is it not randomness instead ? Reasonableness has nothing to do with it. People have an intuitive idea of free will. Maybe it's self-contradictory. Or it's incompatible with determinism. But defining it as something completely different is confusing as hell. edit: But certainly not wrong in the logical sense. It is not defining it as something completely different, that is stretching it, not even mentioning that you said opposite, not different in your post. That definition is consistent with the people's intuitive idea of free will, just the social one and not the mystical one. I said, almost, but not completely opposite.[1] I think most people would say the statement: "Your thoughts are predetermined, but that doesn't mean you don't have free will" is obviously false. Hard to check though so we might just have to agree to disagree. [1]Supposed to be a reference to the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy where the computer on the Heart of Gold that gave Arthur a beverage that tasted almost, but not quite entirely, unlike tea.
Well hard to check empirically without doing some survey, but note what is considered to have free will in judiciary, when entering a contract, when in general dealing with other people. It pretty well fits that definition.
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On March 06 2012 03:52 Lixler wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2012 03:49 Hypertension wrote:On March 06 2012 03:41 Fwmeh wrote:On March 05 2012 21:37 paralleluniverse wrote:
Religions abuse this nonexistent notion of free will in an attempt to explain away the gaping flaws of the God hypothesis and the existence of evil. Yeah, this was in itself totally not a bait. Today's society leans, at least in the western world, heavily towards individualism, and in outside America also towards agnostic/atheistic individualism. The idea of free will is very central in this school of thought. , But really, this discussion is really attacking the problem from the wrong end. Before we get to the idea of free will, we would have to assign an entity to which we assign this free will, a "self". And science currently have no good way of defining a "self" in a way which agrees with our general idea of it. And since we cannot seem to even find a "self", it would not make sense to think this "self" has free will, no matter how we define free will. But like I said, our individualistic society would have a hard time coping without the notion of a "self," so it will probably live on at least for my lifetime. I dislike youtube videos, but I guess I should be pre-emptive in this case: + Show Spoiler + Why can't a "self" be the same as a physical body? This is kind of insufficient for discussion about free will. If my muscle twitches or something I ate makes me vomit, it's not really something that my "self" is doing; it's not something that comes out of my free will. We don't say like for instance "I am now mitosising my cells" and attribute all our body's activities to ourselves. So the self is some kind of specific portion of the mind/brain that needs more description than just "the whole body" or "the whole brain."
That is because we created artificial divide between free and non-free acts of our selfs. It is a continuous scale.
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I take two issues with the OP's argument:
1) You're assuming that there is some combination of factors that influence our "choice" and that those factors are random but determined and that denies the existence of free will. You're taking a conclusion (that we haven't proved and likely cannot ever prove) and saying, well it's not inconsistent with our current view of the universe thus no other hypothesis can be true.
2) The shot at religion seems out of place but the societal belief of free will is somewhat of a pragmatic necessity. If I don't believe I can make decisions and that my "choices" are really choices, what motivation is there for anything? If I fail/ace a test, murder/save someone's life, and even live/die it was all determined by factors I can't influence. You're nothing more than a robot with pre-programming living out a routine. I don't think any social circle would get too many members teaching this.
It's all a matter of framing.
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On March 06 2012 04:47 koreasilver wrote:
Minor flaws like how the entire movement collapsed upon itself, right?
Not really true, more like moved on. It's not like everyone rescinded all of their initial beliefs and became rationalists. The group fell apart, the movement fell out of favor. Much of what was good in their philosophy was adopted by others who were not part of the movement. Ethical nonrealism, emotivism, the scope of philosophy, many of these positions are widely accepted and just because the group fell apart doesn't mean everything they stood for did as well.
Like most things in this world, its just not that simple.
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On March 06 2012 04:22 viticuss wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2012 04:15 archonOOid wrote:
I have 4 arguments against the free will proponents. As we all now the universe is governed by fundamental rules and these applies to humans. More specifically, cause and effect, both in terms of our daily lives and in our biology.
Another problem will free will is that when in time did we start to have free will? 10000 BC or what?
If it happened over night you might call it supernatural intervention, i doubt that. If it happened gradually i would say it's an parallel process to the human condition, namely self-consciousness. As we grew more aware of are being we thought that our inherent nature was driven by our mind but we were unaware of the fact that our ancestors nature was driven by genes and environment.
If you think that free will was developed during the ages of man you must then realize that free will could be measured. Have humans reached full free will potential, how far have dogs come and how will we determine if machines/AI have free will?
If humans had free will we would be restricted by a many factors such as emotions, bodily needs, social interaction and environment. In the past and sadly still in present times these restrictions are more centered around survival as food, shelter and water is a necessity for human life. What about the idea that while we are fundamentally governed by biology, there is something unique about mankind which creates free will. How does a purely determinist view of the world account for Kant or Hume or Locke or Plato? It seems to be a real stretch to think that the environment could purely determine such people. I will consider free will to exist out of skepticism until someone can show me that purely biological/environmental factors caused the creation of starcraft. edit: What I am trying to flesh out is that a purely deterministic view of the world seems to be a logical extrema, not a necessary conclusion. It's clear to any intelligent observer that a lot of the world is determined. But that does not make it prima facie that there can not be free will.
But rational approach is to not assume existence of things just because they may exist. Do you also assume existence of unicorns until someone disproves their existence to you ? And since there is no mechanism to be a vehicle of this free will and we do not need free will to explain anything in natural world, why would you assume that it exists ? Note that I am talking about that mystical version of free will that contradicts determinism.
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On March 06 2012 02:50 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2012 02:08 Oshuy wrote:On March 06 2012 01:57 Hypertension wrote:
Free will means that you can defy the forces and particles that make you up and "choose" to pick up the ball or not. Determinism says that based on the previous state, your "choice" can be predicted. Multiple universes doesn't save you from determinism. It just creates more possible outcomes. Nope, still doesn't add up. Both me picking up the ball and me letting it there are consistent with the universe and its laws as we know them. The fact that multiple outcomes exist is in itself the negation of determinism. You can state that the list of possibles is determined, but I only need 2 anyway. I agree multiple universes gives me a free will that doesn't match the definition you seem to give it, but your counter argument is just at fault. It does not give you any free will whatsoever necessarily. The "universe" diverges in multiple universe model when atoms split due to random quantum mechanisms and are you trying to argue that atoms have free will ?
Thank you 
I was trying to get Hypertension there, but somehow he was lost in a determinist/non determinist statement. I would agree that in such a description atomes and all particules have freedom and that freedom does not necessarily imply free will. I would then have to assert that it is our hability to interpret our choices and their consequences as part of a narrative that allows us to identify individual choices as free will.
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On March 06 2012 04:24 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2012 04:22 viticuss wrote:On March 06 2012 04:15 archonOOid wrote:
I have 4 arguments against the free will proponents. As we all now the universe is governed by fundamental rules and these applies to humans. More specifically, cause and effect, both in terms of our daily lives and in our biology.
Another problem will free will is that when in time did we start to have free will? 10000 BC or what?
If it happened over night you might call it supernatural intervention, i doubt that. If it happened gradually i would say it's an parallel process to the human condition, namely self-consciousness. As we grew more aware of are being we thought that our inherent nature was driven by our mind but we were unaware of the fact that our ancestors nature was driven by genes and environment.
If you think that free will was developed during the ages of man you must then realize that free will could be measured. Have humans reached full free will potential, how far have dogs come and how will we determine if machines/AI have free will?
If humans had free will we would be restricted by a many factors such as emotions, bodily needs, social interaction and environment. In the past and sadly still in present times these restrictions are more centered around survival as food, shelter and water is a necessity for human life. What about the idea that while we are fundamentally governed by biology, there is something unique about mankind which creates free will. How does a purely determinist view of the world account for Kant or Hume or Locke or Plato? It seems to be a real stretch to think that the environment could purely determine such people. I will consider free will to exist out of skepticism until someone can show me that purely biological/environmental factors caused the creation of starcraft. edit: What I am trying to flesh out is that a purely deterministic view of the world seems to be a logical extrema, not a necessary conclusion. It's clear to any intelligent observer that a lot of the world is determined. But that does not make it prima facie that there can not be free will. What does this even mean?
well you are observing on the world at it's current state, how far could you make those arguments back in time? From a atheist perspective could you prove like that there is free will (god). A hypothesis for free will certainly exists as for the existence of god and it creates good discussion. As time goes on and we can't conclude that free will exists a deterministic view stands firm. The idea of thinking that god or free exists doesn't make it true.
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So quick question, is this book a science book or a book similar to God Delusion which is critical of religion?
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EPT
