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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 05 2012 22:10 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 21:43 Skilledblob wrote:
is it my decision to move? yes it is, nothing could force me to lift my leg. Instead if I make the conscious decision to move my leg my brain will send out electric impulses that start the biochemic reactions that take place in my muscles so that I can move my leg.
There is no outer force or atomic movement involved here which I can not control. I move because I want to and not because an electron randomly decides to move down my spine into my leg.
so I think your point is invalid.
on the point of free will in religion. Take islam for example there is no consens in that religion if we have free will or not. Some say we do and some say we dont and based on that the texts are different. And the islam is based on the old testament, so it's not as convinient as you make it out jsut because some like to think that religion begins and ends with Christianity.
the only things that you have to do in life is eat, shit, sleep and die the rest is optional. Your decision to move is caused by electrical signals between synapses in your brain, these electrical signals are caused by biochemical reactions, these biochemical reactions are caused by the motion of particles, the motion of these particles are dictated by the laws of physics. At no point in the chain of actions is your will exerted. Every action in this chain has a prior cause, and if we trace this back, we end up at the motion of particles, of which you have no conscious control over.
To be fair (I think) we don't really *know* how the brain works, but this is probably the best hypothesis so far. I just don't agree with viewing this as a fact until we actually know the details of what the electrical/chemical equivalent of a thought is, or can demonstrate it to a satisfactory degree.
The determinism-based view of the universe, while it seems consistent with our experimental knowledge, also runs into problems if you go back far enough. For instance, if time was created during the big bang, then how exactly could there have been a cause for it if there is no before and after? If there is some sort of higher-order determinism that works beyond time, then wouldn't it necessarily have to go backwards an infinite number of steps? Where would be the beginning of this? There must be something missing in the equation. Because I know the idea of a sudden beginning is just as perplexing as an infinite series of events.
Anyways maybe there's a level of order above that which is obvious to us. I know its vague and can sound like mystical nonsense, but fundamentally we should keep our options open. But for now I think the best view of life has to be determinism.
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Here is how I see it...
HERE WE GO
Imagine a machine that can predict the future by 100% or very close to it it should be considered 100%, let us say this machine exists and figures out the outcome by "pre-determined" data. IF (<- note the big if) a such machine was possible to build and one does the opposite, that person would have acquired "free will" (if one defines free will as changing the course of the future by a choice).
If you are going to argue, "you do not have all the data, the data of the last choice was not included..."; That does not matter since everything is supposely 'predetermined', the last choice should have been predicted by the data at that point.
If it cannot be predicted by the machine 2 possible futures exist depending on the person's choice 
Well I believe humans or other animals with lessor intelligence is a crappier version of this machine. They can predict somewhat what will happen and act upon it, and has the free will to not to act upon it or act differently.
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On March 05 2012 22:12 Cirqueenflex wrote:
i have no free will, if i decide to do (or not to do) something it is a cumulation of my acquired experiences in life. That unfortunately does not relieve me of being responsible for what i do.
This does not contradict free will in the least?
You get input --> you process it --> you react.
Naturally you will pick the , to your knowledge, reaction which brings you the closest to your desired result.
This is not contradicting free will in the least? It's just not being a psychopath constantly rolling dice instead of acting accroding to his experiences or knowledge.
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@ Knatt,
no because how you sayit now, the "predictor" is not included in the prediction.
This is not a good way to predict something in general.
So in your model of the universe, the 'model' and thereby all it's effects has to be included in the same model...
This cannot be done, and thus such a model cannot be made.
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On March 05 2012 22:12 knatt wrote:
Are you telling me that I don't have control over my own actions? If what you say is true, then I would define it as "fate". I don't believe in fate, though I can't prove that it doesn't exist. But I'd rather think that the world is unpredictable because it's more fun that way.
The world is unpredictable because there are trillions of trillions of what we believe are possible outcomes, based on trillions and trillions of variables. It is likely for this reason, it feels as if free will exists.
But, for all intents and purposes of living life, the universe works "as if" free will exists.
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This topic has been discussed to death so often, with the simple result that the human mind is not capable of answering the question of free will. Why create a thread about it?
It is an interesting topic nonetheless, I'm really looking forward to my lectures and seminars about it.
On March 05 2012 22:22 knatt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 22:17 CyDe wrote:
I suppose when you look at it that way, yes everything that you do and think is just chemical reacting with each other and causing you to perceive and react to everything there is. Slightly depressing thought, knowing that really you are pretty basic. With the most complex algorithm in the universe, it would probably be possible to predict everything happening in the future and thereby destroying free will.
That being said, I think the fact that we as humans have the ability to realize this is very significant and amazing. Lets say that we predict what will happen. Like someone calculates that I will go for a vacation in Korea, but since someone told me, I chose not to go just to defy the logic. Then I broke the law of the universe?
The calculation would already be predetermined. Unless you're calculating with a quantum computer, I guess (you couldn't calculate such things with a digital computer anyways). Then you should have a real paradox.
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On March 05 2012 22:25 ooni wrote:Here is how I see it... HERE WE GO Imagine a machine that can predict the future by 100% or very close to it it should be considered 100%, let us say this machine exists and figures out the outcome by "pre-determined" data. IF (<- note the big if) a such machine was possible to build and one does the opposite, that person would have acquired "free will" (if one defines free will as changing the course of the future by a choice). If you are going to argue, "you do not have all the data, the data of the last choice was not included..."; That does not matter since everything is supposely 'predetermined', the last choice should have been predicted by the data at that point. If it cannot be predicted by the machine 2 possible futures exist depending on the person's choice Well I believe humans or other animals with lessor intelligence is a crappier version of this machine. They can predict somewhat what will happen and act upon it, and has the free will to not to act upon it or act differently.
What if that machine told the person what kind of sandwich they would have the next morning. If everything is determined, would it be fair to say that the person will always have that sandwich? If the machine told me which sandwich I was going to eat, do I believe that I would be physically incapable of choosing otherwise? I was thinking of that a while ago. Not sure if its 100% logical.
(The reaction to hearing the data should have also been factored in, right?)
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On March 05 2012 22:28 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 22:12 knatt wrote:
Are you telling me that I don't have control over my own actions? If what you say is true, then I would define it as "fate". I don't believe in fate, though I can't prove that it doesn't exist. But I'd rather think that the world is unpredictable because it's more fun that way. The world is unpredictable because there are trillions of trillions of what we believe are possible outcomes, based on trillions and trillions of variables. It is likely for this reason, it feels as if free will exists. But, for all intents and purposes of living life, the universe works "as if" free will exists.
It works a little like a computer. Computers cannot generate truly random numbers, but they can generate numbers in such a complex fashion that they become essentially random.
You could flip a coin, and if you had all the information in the universe, you could already know the outcome. But the universe is too complex.
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To be fair (I think) we don't really *know* how the brain works
It's more than fair. Consciousness is not understood at all past descriptions of behavior and physical indicators, which is why people arguing against free will have to resort to simplistic reductionist arguments about physical processes in order to skip over that particular problem. They can't explain it, so they reduce it to a process that they can explain.
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@ Ooni, you forgot to include the machine itself in the predictions.
Then you cannot predict anything at all.
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On March 05 2012 22:27 Timmsh wrote:
@ Knatt,
no because how you sayit now, the "predictor" is not included in the prediction.
This is not a good way to predict something in general.
So in your model of the universe, the 'model' and thereby all it's effects has to be included in the same model...
This cannot be done, and thus such a model cannot be made.
I know that such a model cannot be made. But since it cannot be made then the future cannot be predicted, or atleast it cannot be understood because it would cause a paradox. Therefore I would like to think that free will exists.
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On March 05 2012 22:25 radscorpion9 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 22:10 paralleluniverse wrote:On March 05 2012 21:43 Skilledblob wrote:
is it my decision to move? yes it is, nothing could force me to lift my leg. Instead if I make the conscious decision to move my leg my brain will send out electric impulses that start the biochemic reactions that take place in my muscles so that I can move my leg.
There is no outer force or atomic movement involved here which I can not control. I move because I want to and not because an electron randomly decides to move down my spine into my leg.
so I think your point is invalid.
on the point of free will in religion. Take islam for example there is no consens in that religion if we have free will or not. Some say we do and some say we dont and based on that the texts are different. And the islam is based on the old testament, so it's not as convinient as you make it out jsut because some like to think that religion begins and ends with Christianity.
the only things that you have to do in life is eat, shit, sleep and die the rest is optional. Your decision to move is caused by electrical signals between synapses in your brain, these electrical signals are caused by biochemical reactions, these biochemical reactions are caused by the motion of particles, the motion of these particles are dictated by the laws of physics. At no point in the chain of actions is your will exerted. Every action in this chain has a prior cause, and if we trace this back, we end up at the motion of particles, of which you have no conscious control over. To be fair (I think) we don't really *know* how the brain works, but this is probably the best hypothesis so far. I just don't agree with viewing this as a fact until we actually know the details of what the electrical/chemical equivalent of a thought is, or can demonstrate it to a satisfactory degree. The determinism-based view of the universe, while it seems consistent with our experimental knowledge, also runs into problems if you go back far enough. For instance, if time was created during the big bang, then how exactly could there have been a cause for it if there is no before and after? If there is some sort of higher-order determinism that works beyond time, then wouldn't it necessarily have to go backwards an infinite number of steps? Where would be the beginning of this? There must be something missing in the equation. Because I know the idea of a sudden beginning is just as perplexing as an infinite series of events. Anyways maybe there's a level of order above that which is obvious to us. I know its vague and can sound like mystical nonsense, but fundamentally we should keep our options open. But for now I think the best view of life has to be determinism.
About the brain, are you suggesting that the brain is some special region of spacetime, whereby our usual understanding that all actions and motions are the aggregate of the motion of elementary particles, falls apart? This sounds like a extraordinary claim even when compared to the claim that free will does not exist.
As for the origin of the universe. It really isn't relevant to the question here, but there are theories whereby a universe can be spontaneously created where no space existed before.
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On March 05 2012 22:22 knatt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 22:17 CyDe wrote:
I suppose when you look at it that way, yes everything that you do and think is just chemical reacting with each other and causing you to perceive and react to everything there is. Slightly depressing thought, knowing that really you are pretty basic. With the most complex algorithm in the universe, it would probably be possible to predict everything happening in the future and thereby destroying free will.
That being said, I think the fact that we as humans have the ability to realize this is very significant and amazing. Lets say that we predict what will happen. Like someone calculates that I will go for a vacation in Korea, but since someone told me, I chose not to go just to defy the logic. Then I broke the law of the universe?
Yes, that would be a problem, but this algorithm is completely theoretical and even if it did exist a human would by no means be able to understand it.
And as many other people have mentioned, the act of knowing the future changes the future; ergo, as soon as you know the future, you don't.
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Netherlands6142 Posts
Do we have free will? Of course - after all, what other choice do we have...
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Aren't religious topics banned on TL?
User was temp banned for this post.
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On March 05 2012 22:17 QuestSeekers wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 21:37 paralleluniverse wrote:
As with everything in the universe, every thought and action made by a person is not a result of free will, it's a result of the laws of physics acting on particles.
The only reason theologians and religious people latch on to the completely unscientific notion of free will is to "explain" why bad things happen. If God is good, then why did he let the genocide in Rwanda happen? Why does he not intervene in the the mass-murder being conducted by the Syrian government, as we speak? Why is there evil in the world. Because God gave us free will, allegedly. This is then neatly tied into the Original Sin myth, whereby Eve exerted free will and chose to eat from the Garden of Eden, and this frivolous reason somehow necessitated that Jesus die on the cross.
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. The above is an anachronistic understanding of religion, theology, and theodicy.
If God exists, then why is there evil in the world?
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quantum mechanics
all particles at its most elemental degree have a certain amount of randomness in it, and the collective randomness makes it impossible to accurately capture the state of a system and use classical physics to predict future actions
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On March 05 2012 22:24 Geiko wrote:
Randomness is inherent to the modern theories (quantium physics etc...). As long as we don't understand what causes this randomness, anyone is free to call it "god's will" or anything, so I don't think you have a very good point.
If your thoughts and actions are determined by a random number generator, they would still not be free.
And there is no evidence of God.
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you people think you're so smart.
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On March 05 2012 22:29 radscorpion9 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 22:25 ooni wrote:Here is how I see it... HERE WE GO Imagine a machine that can predict the future by 100% or very close to it it should be considered 100%, let us say this machine exists and figures out the outcome by "pre-determined" data. IF (<- note the big if) a such machine was possible to build and one does the opposite, that person would have acquired "free will" (if one defines free will as changing the course of the future by a choice). If you are going to argue, "you do not have all the data, the data of the last choice was not included..."; That does not matter since everything is supposely 'predetermined', the last choice should have been predicted by the data at that point. If it cannot be predicted by the machine 2 possible futures exist depending on the person's choice Well I believe humans or other animals with lessor intelligence is a crappier version of this machine. They can predict somewhat what will happen and act upon it, and has the free will to not to act upon it or act differently. What if that machine told the person what kind of sandwich they would have the next morning. If everything is determined, would it be fair to say that the person will always have that sandwich? If the machine told me which sandwich I was going to eat, do I believe that I would be physically incapable of choosing otherwise? I was thinking of that a while ago. Not sure if its 100% logical. (The reaction to hearing the data should have also been factored in, right?)
No that's the thing, the person could choose otherwise, it is a possible scenario. Thus a machine that supposely determine the future (which is possible because everything is supposely "predetermined") is only one scenario, if it wants to be 100% correct it will need to produce 2, an alternative future depending on the choice the person makes.
The reaction after hearing the data is not a data that is required, since everything is predetermined, it should be obvious for the machine to figure out what the decision will be (that decision should be predetermined).
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EPT
