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 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 It's not like everyone rescinded all of their initial beliefs and became rationalists.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.
No, it collapsed because some of its most central tenets were exposed to be untenable. Logical positivism in itself is as dead as something ever could be. Its various descendants, although they carry on the same kind of spirit, are always mindful of the mistakes that logical positivism has made, and this is all the more so apparent in American philosophy of science. Lets not even touch upon the fact that there has been a sort of revival in metaphysics within Anglo-philosophy in recent years.
In this thread, people who really, really want to believe that humans have some sort of mystical undefined "choice" and really want to be able to judge people for their behavior go through psychological jumping jacks and philosophical loop-de-loops to try and find some fault with logic itself in order to justify believing in something that has zero evidence and defies common sense.
It's the classic "god of the gaps" syndrome. Any area where there is even a shred of doubt, suddenly becomes the justification for embracing the most illogical and unjustified notions. This type of reasoning goes hand in hand with the "you can't prove X DOESN'T exist" type of arguments. The possibility of something being true is all they need to fully embrace it. If you can't prove there isn't a typewriter on mars, then we can choose to believe there is one, without any psychological qualms.
Which is why discussions even remotely related to religion always break down; you cannot reason with people who are intent on being unreasonable. You either seek truths based upon reason, evidence, and plausibility, or you seek ideas which make you feel comfortable with the world around you. Obviously no individual is a bastion of objectivity, but clearly some people are closer than others, and such people should recognize when they are fighting an unwinnable battle.
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.
No, it collapsed because some of its most central tenets were exposed to be untenable. Logical positivism in itself is as dead as something ever could be. Its various descendants, although they carry on the same kind of spirit, are always mindful of the mistakes that logical positivism has made, and this is all the more so apparent in American philosophy of science. Lets not even touch upon the fact that there has been a sort of revival in metaphysics within Anglo-philosophy in recent years.
A distinction should be made between the strong positivism of someone like Carnap and the weak positivism of Ayers. Ayer's is still productive reading. Did you actually read any of the principle texts? They also didn't have access to tools such as modern probability theory, information theory and kolmogorov complexity, tools which their empiricist descendents have at their disposal. Logical positivism may be dead but their spirit lives on and much more successfully might I add.
On March 06 2012 04:13 SadSatyr wrote: 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.
I have to disagree with you here. There are many implications to the idea that people don't have free will. For example, many people favor a notion of retributive justice. They want to cause harm to someone, because they feel the person CHOSE to commit an evil act. If it can be proven that there was no choice involved, then the proper response would be to rehabilitate the individual in the best way possible instead of heaping our judgement and anger upon them.
In fact, the notion of "judging" a person's behavior becomes irrational completely.
i don't believe that free will doesn't exist. that is either a product of my free will (choosing to not believe), which means the theory that free will doesn't exist is incorrect, or it is a product of the physical interactions of neurons, etc., which have come to the logical conclusion that the theory that free will doesn't exist is incorrect. =D
On March 06 2012 04:13 SadSatyr wrote: 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.
I have to disagree with you here. There are many implications to the idea that people don't have free will. For example, many people favor a notion of retributive justice. They want to cause harm to someone, because they feel the person CHOSE to commit an evil act. If it can be proven that there was no choice involved, then the proper response would be to rehabilitate the individual in the best way possible instead of heaping our judgement and anger upon them.
In fact, the notion of "judging" a person's behavior becomes irrational completely.
Agree completely. If you haven't seen it yet, check out
As some of the TL-physicists already pointed out before me: the laws of physics are not deterministic (at the atomic level). Which means you cannot predict the future, even if you had the complete information on the universe (as in the position, composition and speeds of all particles and their interactions).
This means that if you would repeat an experiment twice, with the exact same initial conditions, you could very well have two different results. Therefore if a person were to be presented with a choice twice, with the exact same initial conditions, he could very well choose differently. There is no 'law of physics' that can determine your choices, so that rules out all forms of determinism. If that makes it 'free will' or not I can not discuss, since the concept of 'will' is not a scientific one.
On March 06 2012 06:11 Ender985 wrote: As some of the TL-physicists already pointed out before me: the laws of physics are not deterministic (at the atomic level). Which means you cannot predict the future, even if you had the complete information on the universe (as in the position, composition and speeds of all particles and their interactions).
This means that if you would repeat an experiment twice, with the exact same initial conditions, you could very well have two different results. Therefore if a person were to be presented with a choice twice, with the exact same initial conditions, he could very well choose differently. There is no 'law of physics' that can determine your choices, so that rules out all forms of determinism. If that makes it 'free will' or not I can not discuss, since the concept of 'will' is not a scientific one.
The laws of physics are deterministic on a fundamental level, but stochastic on the observer level. (Under MWI, such as Everett's decoherence)
On March 06 2012 06:11 Ender985 wrote: As some of the TL-physicists already pointed out before me: the laws of physics are not deterministic (at the atomic level). Which means you cannot predict the future, even if you had the complete information on the universe (as in the position, composition and speeds of all particles and their interactions).
This means that if you would repeat an experiment twice, with the exact same initial conditions, you could very well have two different results. Therefore if a person were to be presented with a choice twice, with the exact same initial conditions, he could very well choose differently. There is no 'law of physics' that can determine your choices, so that rules out all forms of determinism. If that makes it 'free will' or not I can not discuss, since the concept of 'will' is not a scientific one.
wouldnt that mean all "choices" are random. so, why do i eat pastrami sandwiches every monday, and chicken nachos every friday?
On March 06 2012 06:11 Ender985 wrote: As some of the TL-physicists already pointed out before me: the laws of physics are not deterministic (at the atomic level). Which means you cannot predict the future, even if you had the complete information on the universe (as in the position, composition and speeds of all particles and their interactions).
This means that if you would repeat an experiment twice, with the exact same initial conditions, you could very well have two different results. Therefore if a person were to be presented with a choice twice, with the exact same initial conditions, he could very well choose differently. There is no 'law of physics' that can determine your choices, so that rules out all forms of determinism. If that makes it 'free will' or not I can not discuss, since the concept of 'will' is not a scientific one.
The laws of physics are deterministic on a fundamental level, but stochastic on the observer level. (Under MWI, such as Everett's decoherence)
Well that's assuming MWI (Many worlds interpretation of quantum physics) the most accepted interpretation right now is I believe still the Copenhagen interpretation which requires that most subatomic particles actually function non-deterministically. But I am very far from an expert so if you have some higher level knowledge on this I would defer to that.
Sure, as long as you're fine with changing the meaning of free will to something almost, but not completely opposite.
Not really... it's most definitely still free will.
More relative to the point though, free will vs determinism might have a slight correlation to atheism vs theism but they're completely separate issues. There are plenty of atheists who believe in free will and there's plenty of philosophers who propose a deterministic notion of the existence of God.
To me, this seems pretty cut and dried from an atheistic point of view. We are simply reacting to stimuli.
The reason why we do everything can simply be linked back to the way we developed. It's the same reason that atheism cannot support a reference point for morality. Not that atheists can't have morals, just that those morals aren't linked to the belief in the absence of a god.
On the other hand, theism seems pigeon-holed into proclaiming there is such a thing as free will.
If (like in most religions as far as I know) god punishes people for doing evil things and he was the one who created us, we must have a choice. If god knowingly created us to do evil things, then god is the one who is evil. It doesn't matter what we do, we are just puppets on a string.
I read most of the thread, but not too hard. Just mostly skimmed it. Nothing I've seen has really changed my perspective yet. I don't see where quantum physics belongs in the discussion; if there had been a different "roll of the dice" we would be living in an alternate reality, but we get the hand we were dealt. We are still reacting to stimuli in that situation I would think.
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.
But as far as I can tell in the multiple universe interpretation the universe diverges when quantum events occur, not when people make choices. Since our choices are macroscopic in nature and thus well "shielded" from quantum events, the universes do not actually diverge on our choices. So this line of thinking also does not seem to lead where you want it to lead.
Edit: I changed the wording of the last paragraph a bit to get rid of a redundancy.
I'd just like to share my beliefs on the matter. I've put a lot of thought into the relationship between Christianity and free will. Hopefully my perspective is helpful. (I refer specifically to Christianity because I recognize that non-religious people frequently make statements about religion in general, while actually referring to distinctively Christian beliefs / cultural norms. But I digress...)
I believe that when God created the universe, he built it on a series of physical laws and constants. I believe that God is a rational being, and therefore we should not be surprised to find that his creation operates according to rational rules. (I'm not a philosopher, so please don't debate the nature of rationality. I'm using the word rational to recognize that an irrational creator could easily create a universe with no universal or constant physical laws, and such a universe would be extremely unusual.)
I also believe that God had some goals in mind when he created the universe. One of these goals is that a being exist who has the capacity for free will. I could explain why God might want such creatures, but it's not entirely relavent to my argument here. If you're interested feel free to ask me.
These two ideas serve to set up a few statements that I believe explain the presence of four seemingly conflicting elements in our world: free will, suffering, a God who deplores suffering, and a God capable of ending suffering
1) God desires people to have free will. 2) The existence of free will opens the possibility that people can cause one another to suffer. 3) Any measure that would serve to ensure that people cannot cause suffering would invalidate free will. 4) In a rational universe, you cannot both have something possible and impossible. 4a) In other words, not even an omnipotent god could both restrain human action and allow for free will, because they are mutually exclusive. An irrational universe could allow for this, but we don't live in an irrational universe.
Therefore, suffering exists as an unfortunate consequence of an otherwise intentional aspect of human nature - free will. That is not to say that God approves of suffering, nor that he is incapable of ending suffering. Rather, I believe that God allows human beings to cause each other to suffer because he places greater value on the existence of free will than on having a universe free of the possibility of evil.
On March 05 2012 23:13 Felnarion wrote: I'm not going to descend with you guys into the depths of physics to explain this.
To bring back something I read earlier in the thread...If we are destined to behave in pre-determined ways..What governs them?
Imagine a scenario where someone has a gun to my head and the evildoer demands I move my leg. What if I refuse? This is a possibility. Why would I refuse? If my actions are predetermined, how would I refuse? Surely evolution would show us that I should behave in my best interest, correct? I mean, if evolution is true, then things must, by and large, operate in such a way as to preserve themselves?
So, why can I refuse to move my leg and thus die? Unless we are governed on something else? Maybe we all simply live out of spite. All the things we do are to spite death, except in my scenario, where my "willingness" to spite death is lower than how much I want to spite the evildoer?
I've read the research that actions begin before the conscious brain realizes it. I understand that, but why is it, that once I do realize I am moving, I can stop it? Without free will, how is this possible? Is the argument that evolution and the universe has given us two, completely uncontrollable, competing, "wills" that we are prisoners inside?
For one, I don't believe it. I do recognize that instinct kicks in before the brain realizes it, as an evolutionary response, but the brain has veto power, it's obvious. My consciousness creates justifications for the reasons to not do something. I can operate against, or within, my own interests, on a whim, for any justification.
What purpose would that serve, in evolution? It makes far more sense for there to be an uncontrolled or less-controlled component (instincts, and auto responses) that protect us when we don't have time to consider, and then another, more evolved portion, that allows us to consider. Are you posturing that considering can't exist because of our current flimsy knowledge of physics? I don't accept that, when it goes against everything we all feel.
And even so, even if you are correct, it benefits us not at all to know it. To know that we in fact have no control would unravel our entire existence, and probably be the death of humanity.
To finish it up? I can definitely say, from all the things I have witnessed and all the things in the world that are known to us..If we don't have true free-will, we have the most free-will of any object, thing, or being. We're as close as one can get. We should leave it at that.
I have to say this is probably the most well thought out and neutral post in this thread. We need more of these.
On March 06 2012 06:55 titanicnewbie wrote: I'd just like to share my beliefs on the matter. I've put a lot of thought into the relationship between Christianity and free will. Hopefully my perspective is helpful. (I refer specifically to Christianity because I recognize that non-religious people frequently make statements about religion in general, while actually referring to distinctively Christian beliefs / cultural norms. But I digress...)
I believe that when God created the universe, he built it on a series of physical laws and constants. I believe that God is a rational being, and therefore we should not be surprised to find that his creation operates according to rational rules. (I'm not a philosopher, so please don't debate the nature of rationality. I'm using the word rational to recognize that an irrational creator could easily create a universe with no universal or constant physical laws, and such a universe would be extremely unusual.)
I also believe that God had some goals in mind when he created the universe. One of these goals is that a being exist who has the capacity for free will. I could explain why God might want such creatures, but it's not entirely relavent to my argument here. If you're interested feel free to ask me.
These two ideas serve to set up a few statements that I believe explain the presence of four seemingly conflicting elements in our world: free will, suffering, a God who deplores suffering, and a God capable of ending suffering
1) God desires people to have free will. 2) The existence of free will opens the possibility that people can cause one another to suffer. 3) Any measure that would serve to ensure that people cannot cause suffering would invalidate free will. 4) In a rational universe, you cannot both have something possible and impossible. 4a) In other words, not even an omnipotent god could both restrain human action and allow for free will, because they are mutually exclusive. An irrational universe could allow for this, but we don't live in an irrational universe.
Therefore, suffering exists as an unfortunate consequence of an otherwise beneficial aspect of human nature - free will. That is not to say that God approves of suffering, nor that he is incapable of ending suffering. Rather, I believe that God allows human beings to cause each other to suffer because he places greater value on the existence of free will than on having a universe free of the possibility of evil.
I know it's cliche, but why do you believe god allows things like tsunamis, earthquakes etc.?
Also, why doesn't Jesus return if more people are being born into a cursed world? Wouldn't it be better to just end it now?
Not trying to be critical, just curious what you think. It seems like some things I've thought about could relate and you've probably thought about it more than me.
At this point in time, there is no way to scientifically quantify "free will." It strikes me as slightly bizarre that the neurology has hardly been discussed here. Given that the brain is the root of our action (freely chosen or not), if you want to objectify anything you are arguing it needs to been done on a neurological level. That said, humanity's understanding of brain function and cognitive action is severely limited. In order to even scientifically evaluate free will we need something more than philosophy. The huge problem many people have with religions is that they simply aren't falsifiable. There is no way to ever prove them wrong (consequently, proving them correct is also impossible due to the lack of empirical data). That is not to say, however, that something is correct or incorrect simply because there is no way to prove it. In the case of free will, we might have the ability to operationally define it as a whole in the future. Maybe the brain will be understood sufficiently in 50 years time but until then free will is as unfalsifiable as anything beyond the realm of our universe. There is no answer and no way to obtain it.
I personally believe that we have free will. I feel that it's the same argument of presumed intelligence and consciousness. Can consciousness be proven? Absolutely not. It also cannot be disproven...not until psycho-physiology and neurocognition are significantly more progressed can this claim be tested. Intellectual dialog is pointless at this stage because it devolves into philosophy. The real heart of the issue lies amongst the natural sciences and they do not have the answer readily available at this time.
Saying that free will is an artifact of religion is the first mistake you bring up in the OP. It is incredibly common to see arguments which make assumptions that are easy to overlooked and is a personal pet peeve of mine. This is a narrow argument which allows for very little critical analysis without breaking the assumed statement's validity. Once you break it's presupposed basis, the logical fallacies inevitably must find their way into the argument.
Descartes' presents a similar idea with his famous philosophical statement: Cogito ergo sum; I think, therefore I am.
You can't prove it and you can't disprove it. The paradoxical nature of such ideas increases the inability to answer the question correctly. The chicken or the egg? I made the choice to do something but my brain instinctively began the action before I thought it. There must be causality for that initiation of action in the first place which means my brain processed and decided to do it. If we are not our own minds, what are we? That is all the philosophy I dare to entertain. It's a slippery slope to argue fervently for one or the other.
EPT
