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On July 06 2013 05:32 son1dow wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2013 05:29 biology]major wrote:
If free will did exist because the mind is non-physical and has a seperate set of rules, then EVERYONE has free will, and we would limit each other through interaction. So you would have very limited choice in such a situation (virtually 0) because every situation is changed by some other person with free will. huh? How does having context from interaction make a choice not free? If you can choose freely, it's free will regardless.
In one instance, I give you apple/orange and tell you to choose. In an other instance, I remove that choice from you completely. Did I just alter your free will by removing that choice? If you say yes, than the context does matter because each time we make a choice, we will limit someone else's. If you say No, then you are correct you still have free will. This is all assuming the mind is non-physical, which could entirely be true.
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On July 06 2013 05:34 corumjhaelen wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2013 05:31 MoltkeWarding wrote:On July 06 2013 05:16 Rassy wrote:
The world is not deterministic but it is physical, at least according to most physics.
Physics allows for true random processes,for things to occur without a cause, and for causes to make unpredictable things happen.
For example the decaying of radioactive particles, there is no way to predict when a specific particle will decay.
The cause is the instability of the atom, but that instability has an unpredictable result.
Some people say that there is a cause but that we simply dont know it yet and only need more knowledge,like einstein. Some say there is a cause but we can never know it, and the most popular vision is that there simply is no direct cause at all (at least as far as i know, feel free to correct me)
I dont understand why phylosophy does not take this into account and why it wants to hold on to determinism so badly.
"anyway... i'm surprised so many people argue in favour of "no free will" while our subjective experience suggests otherwise" i think because the existance of free will would basicly imply the existence of a god, or at least allow for a god to be possible. The original hypothesis of the kind of objection you issue, that of a physical universe governed by an in-determinism of micro-deviations pre-dates modern physics by over two millennia, it was originally postulated by the Epicureans, whose debates against the Atomists can be read alongside this thread to reveal the awful truism that nobody ever has anything really original to say. Fuck yeah clinamen. Also I'd advice reading about the kantian position about determinism and liberty, pretty good stuff, Emmanuel was a smart boy.
he probably read more then you could conceive 
(just saying)
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The original hypothesis of the kind of objection you issue, that of a physical universe governed by an in-determinism of micro-deviations pre-dates modern physics by over two millennia, it was originally postulated by the Epicureans, whose debates against the Atomists can be read alongside this thread to reveal the awful truism that nobody ever has anything really original to say.
Why use such difficult sentences, it can be said also in simpler words and then i would not have to read it twice and think 5 minutes before i understand it lol, But then again its your birthday and i have to admit beeing well spoken has its charm, not to mention that it is also verry usefull to avoid miscommunications. (pls keep posting , i wont attack you on the style of your writing annymore,and am sry that i did )
I dont agree with notion that nobody ever has annything realy original to say, if that was the case then science would have made no progress at all. I do agree though that manny ideas seem to return throughout history.
Since i see no objection to my points i asume you agree with them?
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On July 06 2013 03:25 xM(Z wrote:
@ doubleupgradeobbies!
you and your computer!
your computer has a maker, who is your maker?
Hmm this is kinda interesting,at first i thought the answer was realy simple but after thinking longer about it i can only conclude that all events in the past wich are within light distance away have contributed to that computer beeing made.
Hmm am not sure it was well spend lol but at least it forced me to think, something i have nearly forgotten how to do:p
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i remember motke from years back when he posted regularly. each of his posts were doctoral thesis.
if you spent 5 min on it then it was 5 min well spent. 
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On July 06 2013 05:42 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2013 05:34 corumjhaelen wrote:On July 06 2013 05:31 MoltkeWarding wrote:On July 06 2013 05:16 Rassy wrote:
The world is not deterministic but it is physical, at least according to most physics.
Physics allows for true random processes,for things to occur without a cause, and for causes to make unpredictable things happen.
For example the decaying of radioactive particles, there is no way to predict when a specific particle will decay.
The cause is the instability of the atom, but that instability has an unpredictable result.
Some people say that there is a cause but that we simply dont know it yet and only need more knowledge,like einstein. Some say there is a cause but we can never know it, and the most popular vision is that there simply is no direct cause at all (at least as far as i know, feel free to correct me)
I dont understand why phylosophy does not take this into account and why it wants to hold on to determinism so badly.
"anyway... i'm surprised so many people argue in favour of "no free will" while our subjective experience suggests otherwise" i think because the existance of free will would basicly imply the existence of a god, or at least allow for a god to be possible. The original hypothesis of the kind of objection you issue, that of a physical universe governed by an in-determinism of micro-deviations pre-dates modern physics by over two millennia, it was originally postulated by the Epicureans, whose debates against the Atomists can be read alongside this thread to reveal the awful truism that nobody ever has anything really original to say. Fuck yeah clinamen. Also I'd advice reading about the kantian position about determinism and liberty, pretty good stuff, Emmanuel was a smart boy. he probably read more then you could conceive (just saying)
Oh that wasn't for Moltke, I know he's well read. That was for all the people who jump from determinism to no free will possible.
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On July 06 2013 05:53 Rassy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2013 03:25 xM(Z wrote:
@ doubleupgradeobbies!
you and your computer!
your computer has a maker, who is your maker? Hmm this is kinda interesting,at first i thought the answer was realy simple but after thinking longer about it i can only conclude that all events in the past wich are within light distance away have contributed to that computer beeing made. Hmm am not sure it was well spend lol but at least it forced me to think, something i have nearly forgotten how to do:p
that still doesn't exclude a template.
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"Fuck yeah clinamen.
Also I'd advice reading about the kantian position about determinism and liberty, pretty good stuff, Emmanuel was a smart boy."
I dont see how this contributes annything.
Maybe you can summarise the kantian position regarding this.
I honestly dont know what it is but i asume that he is a hard materialist/determinst since he lived in a time where physics would support that vieuw.
There are obviously manny definitions of free will and everyone here has a different one of thoose definitions so we dont realy get further. (this without blaming annyone)
For me free will means the freedom of choise, this for me implies that the world can not be deterministic.(sry if this sounds realy dumb lol but to me this is as evident as 1+1=2)
If we would run this universe 1 million times and i make the same "choise" 1 million times then to me it is not a choise, since I obviously can not take a different decission/course of action. (though we would have to run the universe an infinite amount of times to be realy sure of this)
That someone else can take a different action in the same situation is completely irrelevant for me and for me does not proove that there is a free will (free will according to my definition) i tried to explain this in my analogy of the apple and the baloon.
You can not say the apple has the choise to fall down to the earth because if it was a baloon it could go up.
I also dont see anny argument in favour of the world beeing deterministic btw,i tried to give a few counter arguments but i got no refutation as far as i can see. What exactly is the problem for phylosophers with the world beeing non-deterministic? and what arguments do they have in favor of determinism?
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On July 06 2013 05:41 biology]major wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2013 05:32 son1dow wrote:On July 06 2013 05:29 biology]major wrote:
If free will did exist because the mind is non-physical and has a seperate set of rules, then EVERYONE has free will, and we would limit each other through interaction. So you would have very limited choice in such a situation (virtually 0) because every situation is changed by some other person with free will. huh? How does having context from interaction make a choice not free? If you can choose freely, it's free will regardless. In one instance, I give you apple/orange and tell you to choose. In an other instance, I remove that choice from you completely. Did I just alter your free will by removing that choice? If you say yes, than the context does matter because each time we make a choice, we will limit someone else's. If you say No, then you are correct you still have free will. This is all assuming the mind is non-physical, which could entirely be true.
Who says you even have to choose either of those? Why not pick the unwanted fruit up and throw it at you? Or walk away, then do... Any of the hundreds of things you can do? Are we all in a white room with a single orange in it because our* interaction (somehow...) practically makes it so?
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On July 06 2013 03:50 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2013 03:37 sc2superfan101 wrote:On July 06 2013 03:29 Tobberoth wrote:On July 06 2013 03:24 sc2superfan101 wrote:On July 06 2013 03:20 Tobberoth wrote:On July 06 2013 03:16 sc2superfan101 wrote:On July 06 2013 03:14 Tobberoth wrote:On July 06 2013 03:13 sc2superfan101 wrote:On July 06 2013 03:06 Tobberoth wrote:On July 06 2013 03:04 sc2superfan101 wrote:
[quote]
And how do this support your conclusion? How doesn't it? I've already explained in a hundred posts how you make choices even if the actual choice you make is predetermined. You calling it an illusion of choice doesn't change that it fits with every single definition of the word. We're not talking about determinism... I think I've said that like... 10,000 times. Doesn't matter what you're talking about. The point is that the meaning of choice is inherently different if you believe in free will or not, without changing the definition because everything the definition depends on is already defined by your perspective on free will. If you're not interested in the subject, I don't understand why you're continuing to argue about it, and I don't understand what the point is of your posts in the topic. You haven't shown how definitions are subjective. I have shown you over and over again that you and I obviously have different opinions on what choice means, even though the definitions support both. Your apparent lack of understanding at this point is something I have little control over, unfortunately. I also find it hilarious how you keep arguing concepts concerning determinism, while vehemently claiming that's not what you're discussing. You haven't shown once how the definition given supports your interpretation of it. You've just said that it does and posted the definition. Stating an opinion is not synonymous with supporting said opinion with reasoning. The concepts of determinism and physicalism often intersect, because physicalism almost always (in my opinion always) implies determinism. But I am not discussing determinism, I am discussing physicalism. And I asked you how it doesn't. The fact that you can't show how it doesn't, proves that it fits. It's that simple. lol. Are you being serious right now? Hmm, still no attempt at showing how the definitions doesn't fit to my concept. Too bad, I expected more. Oh well, mcc understood what I meant, hopefully others did too. My attempts at explaining it to you, have failed.
Understood what, exactly? I understand the idea, I think, but I'm not sure as you never provided an argument, you just said that it was so. Then you said that if I could not provide how it doesn't, it must be presumed to be true... I don't think that's the way things usually go, however. Usually the one making the claim needs to support his position.
Safe to say, you will find no dictionary showing that my interpretation of choice is incorrect, unless you find a definition which specifically mentions free will. Good luck. The fact that no dictionary shows any indication whatsoever that your interpretation is even considered is pretty good evidence that it's not.
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On July 06 2013 05:46 Rassy wrote:
The original hypothesis of the kind of objection you issue, that of a physical universe governed by an in-determinism of micro-deviations pre-dates modern physics by over two millennia, it was originally postulated by the Epicureans, whose debates against the Atomists can be read alongside this thread to reveal the awful truism that nobody ever has anything really original to say.
Why use such difficult sentences, it can be said also in simpler words and then i would not have to read it twice and think 5 minutes before i understand it lol, But then again its your birthday and i have to admit beeing well spoken has its charm.
I dont agree with notion that nobody ever has annything realy original to say, if that was the case then science would have made no progress at all. I do agree though that manny ideas seem to return throughout history.
Since i see no objection to my points i asume you agree with them?
I think my default position is so nauseatingly Aristotelian-Thomistic, that I would cut quite a poor figure alongside all you Doctors of Metaphysical Speculation. I don't believe in physical determinism either, but I don't think that the the world at large is unnecessarily skewed in its favour. Maybe a disproportionate number of highly-visible tl.net members are disciples of scientific realism, but in my experience, the real world is quite a different thing, especially if you enjoy talking to women... 
For me free will means the freedom of choise, this for me implies that the world can not be deterministic.(sry if this sounds realy dumb lol but to me this is as evident as 1+1=2)
In Plato, the essence of Freedom is not elective capacity, but the harmony of the Will with the Rational Good. This seems counter-intuitive, almost a reversal of modern commonsensical definitions of Free Will, but if you ground the concepts down to their fundamental principles, it becomes easy to see why the inquiry had to begin with such assumptions.
Grammatically, the statement that "I chose X" implies a greater degree of freedom than the statement that "I chose X because of Y." In reality, their relative degrees of freedom are reversed. In the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition, Freedom involved a set of progressive hierarchies, arranged in order of their capacity to approach the perfect Truth. Thus a blade of grass was more free than a rock, because its actions were informed by vegetative will, whereas an animal was freer than a blade of grass, due to the capacity of their appetitive will to overrule the vegetative, whereas the human capacity for accessing rational will implies a greater degree of freedom still. In both traditions, freedom is not given the definition of possessing chaotic qualities, since such a degree of absolute freedom negates choice as much as absolute predestination. Rather, the tendency of the Will to select actions predicated by the extent and limitations of its knowledge of the Good supplies every action with a teleological purpose. In our ancient traditions, the conception of Free Will has always been that of a Directed Will.
Some stumbling blocks along the road of that tradition: whether the imperfect intelligence as incarnated in human beings produces a system of a synthetic Good, or competing Goods. In the latter argument embraced by Aristotelian ethics, the flawed nature of our knowledge produces an ethical system where the subject is driven by contingency, circumstance, or experience to select from a spectrum of competing Goods, none of which, however, once selected, can ever fully satisfy our ethical impulses. Every decision to elevate a certain Good comes at the expense or neglect of other Goods, and it's task of ethics to place these competing Goods in their proper relations.
The other question is whether the realised Good is a necessary or merely affinitive influence upon the Will. i.e. Whether characters such as Shakespeare's Iago, whose evil is not the consequence of a misallocated hierarchy of virtues, but who seems to have the capacity reject any impulse towards all things Good and True psychologically.
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In one instance, I give you apple/orange and tell you to choose. In an other instance, I remove that choice from you completely. Did I just alter your free will by removing that choice? If you say yes, than the context does matter because each time we make a choice, we will limit someone else's. If you say No, then you are correct you still have free will. This is all assuming the mind is non-physical, which could entirely be true.
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Hmm, this is tricky.
It looks kinda irrelevant. you can not remove the choise, the only thing you can do is make the choise for me. that would be the correct analogy for free will and determinism i think. and in that case you did alter my free will.
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On July 06 2013 06:38 Rassy wrote:
In one instance, I give you apple/orange and tell you to choose. In an other instance, I remove that choice from you completely. Did I just alter your free will by removing that choice? If you say yes, than the context does matter because each time we make a choice, we will limit someone else's. If you say No, then you are correct you still have free will. This is all assuming the mind is non-physical, which could entirely be true.
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Hmm, this is tricky.
It looks kinda irrelevant. you can not remove the choise, the only thing you can do is choose for me. that would be the correct analogy for free will and determinism i think. and in that case you did alter my free will.
Using your analogy to illuminate my prior statement, let us say that I like oranges but hate apples. If you asked me to choose a hundred times, I would have chosen oranges a hundred times. Do these actions imply that I lack free will, since my choice was certain and definite to begin with? The answer would be no. The reasons for which I chose the orange, either rational (I have an allergy against apples) or appetitive (apples are disagreeable to my palate) is the exercise of free will, with the former being a higher form of freedom than the latter. Removal of the choice of one of the fruits does not remove the underlying reasons for selecting it.
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On July 06 2013 05:04 beg wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2013 04:58 DertoQq wrote:On July 06 2013 04:25 beg wrote:On July 06 2013 03:03 DertoQq wrote:On July 06 2013 02:45 Xiphias wrote:
I guess the big question is this: Is it possible, by only using chemical reactions and electric signals to produce something that can create and generate feelings? Can you teach a machine to show compassion? As an example, in "I, Robot" the robot tries to save the man from drowning instead of a little girls since the chances of him surviving is greater than her's. The only way the Robot would have understood that he should have tried to save her instead was if he had had compassion. Most likely yes, funnily enough, most movies are overly romanticizing (does this word even exist in English ?) the concept of robots and the reality would be very different. You should check out on the internet, there is a lot of articles (from microbiologist or "computer scientists") about that. For your example about compassion, this is actually much more simpler than that, a robot don't need "compassion" to do that (and neither do humans). There is a reason why we would save the little girl and not the man, and this reason is not an abstract feeling, we simply value the life of the little girl higher than the life of the man. simple numbers. your argument about compassion doesnt make sense. a grown man can protect his people, reproduce, has wisdom... blablabla etc. i dont feel like expanding this. i hope you get my point. your argument just didnt make sense . you just used your personal judgement of a young girl being more valuable than a grown guy as justification. Then the movie doesn't make sense, not me. But I think overall people would prefer to save a little girl instead of a man, and the only reason is "value" (value can regroup everything, from money, to love or whatever else you can think of). I don't think i'm wrong is saying that society value the life of children higher than everything else. society values (or valued) imprisoning cannabis users over non-users too. so what? that doesnt mean anything. society might value religion over atheism. does it mean religion is right?
I was not talking about right or wrong. I was just saying it was easy for a robot to do the same choice as a human in this kind of things. He just have to evaluate the situation the same way as we do it.
I have no idea why you are arguing on that, I was just stating some banalities. (ie : "compassion" is just a concept that can easily be converted into logical reasons)
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Hmm tricky again and i find this slightly misleading,therefor i propose a different expiriment.
Let,s say that I like both apples and oranges.
I do accept that there are situations in wich people will always make the same choise, but i dont accept that that goes for every situation, wich would be the deterministic point of vieuw. Though i have to admit i am less sure of my non-deterministic vieuw then i was.
Still:my most important argument against determinism is that current physics does not support it (at least as far as i know)
These questions are verry interesting though and make one think about it on a deeper level, am not used to that so i need some time and am also still reading your previous post ^-^
Nighty^, i also go sleep btw, but will post more tomorrow. Hopefully i can think of something decent
Thx everyone btw for their responses and contributions, it is much apreciated.
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hahaha, while i was reading his post all i could think of was: poor Rassy.
goodnight all around and happyb. to motlke.
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If the mind was all chemical and electricity what's stopping us from being able to scan it and replicate it? Why haven't we found out exactly what gives a person life? Why can't science explain the differences in people, how they think and how they act?
People justify away free will by saying we're all just predestined to take an action based off prior experiences, if this is true shouldn't we be able to map out an action someone will take based on their past experiences? How to explain two kids from the same family, raised under nearly identical circumstances turn out so different? If there is no such thing as free will and we're all just predestined instinct driven creatures of nature, what makes people any different than animals? If there is no difference then why should we treat people with more value?
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On July 06 2013 07:23 LuckyFool wrote:
If the mind was all chemical and electricity what's stopping us from being able to scan it and replicate it? Why haven't we found out exactly what gives a person life? Why can't science explain the differences in people, how they think and how they act?
Because doing that is hard work.
Can you instantly figure out how a complex device works just because you have a copy of it? Neither can scientists.
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If we can't explain it's complexity, isn't it ignorant to believe it's all just chemical and electricity?
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On July 06 2013 07:34 LuckyFool wrote:
If we can't explain it's complexity, isn't it ignorant to believe it's all just chemical and electricity?
Your computer is all chemical and electricity - you know that because humans made it.
Without consulting general human knowledge, can you figure out exactly how your computer works? As in, could you figure it out by doing nothing but taking it apart? And by understand, I mean understand what all of the individual pieces do, understand the chemical composition of each and every piece, and understand the process that actually went into producing these individual pieces.
I'm guessing no.
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EPT
