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On July 07 2013 07:26 EatThePath wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 04:23 Snusmumriken wrote:On July 07 2013 03:15 EatThePath wrote:On July 06 2013 22:34 Snusmumriken wrote:On July 06 2013 17:55 DertoQq wrote:On July 06 2013 17:18 LuckyFool wrote:On July 06 2013 16:26 SnipedSoul wrote:On July 06 2013 07:56 LuckyFool wrote:
Human minds on the other hand aren't being built by humans. We try to mimic them, we create robots with human like minds, capable of reasoning "like" a human, but there's a complexity in the human mind that we haven't even come close to being able to understand, replicate or understand to date. Saying we can be certain it's all just chemical and electricity without fully understanding it, just seems incredibly ignorant to me. I can make the same argument about the weather. The weather is obscenely complex and cannot be predicted with any sort of accuracy outside of a window of a few days. Hell, we still can't tell with much certainty whether or not it will rain unless there's a ton of dark storm clouds coming. We know all the basic laws that govern the weather such as chemical composition of the local atmosphere, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, pressure changes, etc. The only thing we cannot figure out about the weather is how all these things interact because it's simply too complex for us to make a proper model. Is it ignorant to assume that the weather is nothing more than chemicals and thermal energy just because we don't have a complete understanding of it? I see your point but I don't really like the weather analogy. We suck at predicting the weather before it happens, but it's nothing as complicated as the human brain. We can very easily go back and see what happened to cause a weather event to occur. We can't however go back and figure out what prompted a human decision in any way. (Purely from a physical/matter standpoint) A seemingly random shift in the jet stream happens that a forecast didn't account for which changes the weather, we see this and say "well that's why it ended up sunny today!" If only understanding brain activity were as simple as shifts in a jet stream. The Weather / brain analogy is a good one. You're saying that it is not because one is more complicated than the other, how do you know that ? Complexity is something very tricky. Maybe we will be able to create perfect human AI and read mind with 100% accuracy before we can predict the weather. Complexity is not a good argument. We know how a game of starcraft work, but we will probably never (ok maybe someday, never is a long time) be able to predict the perfect way to play (like we can do with games like checkers or tic tac toe), the complexity is simply way too high. Does this mean we don't understand how the game is done ? Or that there is something mystical about starcraft ? We just know for a fact that we don't have the technology to do that. Also, don't underestimate what we know about the brain, unlike everything you might hear (scientists are modest people !), the field of neurology is extremely advanced. The problem of consciousness is not about complexity. You're completely missing the mark. There are many things about what we ordinarily call consciousness or consider part of it that aren't subject to controversy. Aspects of memory for example are likely explainable with physical language alone. The real problem is why im actually experiencing something when I think of a particularly good moment in my life. There is currently no one who can explain or even give something close to a coherent explanaition of how the qualitative aspects of consciousness (qualia) can exist in a purely physical world. In the end we either end up with a physical world we no longer can make sense of, or we pretend there's no ghost in the machine when there clearly is (eliminativists do this). The problem is there is a ghost, that we cannot doubt, but for all we know there really shouldn't be. David Chalmers on Consciousness The appeal to qualia is so misguided; I don't get why this is still a thing. Why can't there be unique states of a system based upon unique inputs? The universe will never be in the same state twice, nor will you or I, first of all because we're different and second for the same reason the universe won't. You make a philosophical hypothetical proposition that qualia could be identified because they could be in principle, and then go on to say that physicalism doesn't handle this. You're right! Why would an impossible hypothetical be manifest in reality? This is no kind of argument against physicalism. 1. How does that have any bearing on the issue at hand? 2. I dont have to make any hypothetical proposition regarding subjective experience, its quite evident to all of us I'd say. To quote Sam Harris, "it's the one thing that cannot be an illusion". There are various reasons for why non-physical explanations of consciousness fail to deliver, but physicalism is just slightly less nonsensical. To refer to qualia is to inject subjectivity into your ontology, and I don't see any grounds for doing this, but more importantly it's just a claim, not an argument. With regard to 2, I agree consciousness doesn't make obvious sense. It need not be intuitive, though?
Subjectivity is the one thing any ontology of the world can't do without. To try and circumvent the one truly obvious thing to each and every self-conscious being is just bad science and bad metaphysics. It reminds me of how Moore responds to the skeptic: "This is a hand". Well here the skeptics position is being held by the eliminativist who claims that somehow the very thing that cant be an illusion actually is! I may be mistaken about the unicorn I saw in the forest, I may be mistaken about there being a forest, but its impossible for me to be mistaken about there being the experience of seeing a forest. Indeed few neuroscientists and philosophers of mind hold the elminativist position, among the few are the Churchlands and in some sense Dan Dennett (though it is somewhat unclear to me if he truly is a hardcore elminativist or more of a soft one, I lean towards the latter). More often we find reductionists, but I have yet to see an example of anyone actually making sense of the idea that the actual taste of ice-cream, while not an illusion in the eliminativist sense, is simply neurological activity. That is not to say that epiphenomenalists or property-dualists are in a better place, in my opinion its an even bigger mess in a lot of ways.
ps. Some types of epiphenomenalism may be in a similar spot as reductive physicalism with "only" one big issue. Jaegwon Kim holds the position that only intrinsic properties of qualia are epiphenomenal for example, and that qualia as relational properties are reducible. I don't think that position makes any sense whatsoever though.
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On July 07 2013 19:40 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 19:28 Tobberoth wrote:On July 07 2013 19:22 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:17 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:13 xM(Z wrote:why would determinism allow a determined view of its anti-self to exist?  (and no, you don't just call it stupidity and move on!  ) Determinism has no goals or opinions. It "allows" any effect that has a cause. but then it's like having 2 different effects from the same cause. for your statement to be true you'd need to have two causes one for each efect: determinism and free will. What same cause? The belief in free will and the belief in determinism come from tons of causes, most of them not shared. but all those tons of causes are determined. my question still stands.
It's already been explained to you that determinism and free will are not mutually exclusive.
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On July 07 2013 20:02 Snusmumriken wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 07:26 EatThePath wrote:On July 07 2013 04:23 Snusmumriken wrote:On July 07 2013 03:15 EatThePath wrote:On July 06 2013 22:34 Snusmumriken wrote:On July 06 2013 17:55 DertoQq wrote:On July 06 2013 17:18 LuckyFool wrote:On July 06 2013 16:26 SnipedSoul wrote:On July 06 2013 07:56 LuckyFool wrote:
Human minds on the other hand aren't being built by humans. We try to mimic them, we create robots with human like minds, capable of reasoning "like" a human, but there's a complexity in the human mind that we haven't even come close to being able to understand, replicate or understand to date. Saying we can be certain it's all just chemical and electricity without fully understanding it, just seems incredibly ignorant to me. I can make the same argument about the weather. The weather is obscenely complex and cannot be predicted with any sort of accuracy outside of a window of a few days. Hell, we still can't tell with much certainty whether or not it will rain unless there's a ton of dark storm clouds coming. We know all the basic laws that govern the weather such as chemical composition of the local atmosphere, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, pressure changes, etc. The only thing we cannot figure out about the weather is how all these things interact because it's simply too complex for us to make a proper model. Is it ignorant to assume that the weather is nothing more than chemicals and thermal energy just because we don't have a complete understanding of it? I see your point but I don't really like the weather analogy. We suck at predicting the weather before it happens, but it's nothing as complicated as the human brain. We can very easily go back and see what happened to cause a weather event to occur. We can't however go back and figure out what prompted a human decision in any way. (Purely from a physical/matter standpoint) A seemingly random shift in the jet stream happens that a forecast didn't account for which changes the weather, we see this and say "well that's why it ended up sunny today!" If only understanding brain activity were as simple as shifts in a jet stream. The Weather / brain analogy is a good one. You're saying that it is not because one is more complicated than the other, how do you know that ? Complexity is something very tricky. Maybe we will be able to create perfect human AI and read mind with 100% accuracy before we can predict the weather. Complexity is not a good argument. We know how a game of starcraft work, but we will probably never (ok maybe someday, never is a long time) be able to predict the perfect way to play (like we can do with games like checkers or tic tac toe), the complexity is simply way too high. Does this mean we don't understand how the game is done ? Or that there is something mystical about starcraft ? We just know for a fact that we don't have the technology to do that. Also, don't underestimate what we know about the brain, unlike everything you might hear (scientists are modest people !), the field of neurology is extremely advanced. The problem of consciousness is not about complexity. You're completely missing the mark. There are many things about what we ordinarily call consciousness or consider part of it that aren't subject to controversy. Aspects of memory for example are likely explainable with physical language alone. The real problem is why im actually experiencing something when I think of a particularly good moment in my life. There is currently no one who can explain or even give something close to a coherent explanaition of how the qualitative aspects of consciousness (qualia) can exist in a purely physical world. In the end we either end up with a physical world we no longer can make sense of, or we pretend there's no ghost in the machine when there clearly is (eliminativists do this). The problem is there is a ghost, that we cannot doubt, but for all we know there really shouldn't be. David Chalmers on Consciousness The appeal to qualia is so misguided; I don't get why this is still a thing. Why can't there be unique states of a system based upon unique inputs? The universe will never be in the same state twice, nor will you or I, first of all because we're different and second for the same reason the universe won't. You make a philosophical hypothetical proposition that qualia could be identified because they could be in principle, and then go on to say that physicalism doesn't handle this. You're right! Why would an impossible hypothetical be manifest in reality? This is no kind of argument against physicalism. 1. How does that have any bearing on the issue at hand? 2. I dont have to make any hypothetical proposition regarding subjective experience, its quite evident to all of us I'd say. To quote Sam Harris, "it's the one thing that cannot be an illusion". There are various reasons for why non-physical explanations of consciousness fail to deliver, but physicalism is just slightly less nonsensical. To refer to qualia is to inject subjectivity into your ontology, and I don't see any grounds for doing this, but more importantly it's just a claim, not an argument. With regard to 2, I agree consciousness doesn't make obvious sense. It need not be intuitive, though? Subjectivity is the one thing any ontology of the world can't do without. To try and circumvent the one truly obvious thing to each and every self-conscious being is just bad science and bad metaphysics. It reminds me of how Moore responds to the skeptic: "This is a hand". Well here the skeptics position is being held by the eliminativist who claims that somehow the very thing that cant be an illusion actually is! I may be mistaken about the unicorn I saw in the forest, I may be mistaken about there being a forest, but its impossible for me to be mistaken about there being the experience of seeing a forest. Indeed few neuroscientists and philosophers of mind hold the elminativist position, among the few are the Churchlands and in some sense Dan Dennett (though it is somewhat unclear to me if he truly is a hardcore elminativist or more of a soft one, I lean towards the latter). More often we find reductionists, but I have yet to see an example of anyone actually making sense of the idea that actual taste of ice-cream, while not an illusion, is simply neurological activity. That is not to say that epiphenomenalists or property-dualists are in a better place, in my opinion its an even bigger mess in a lot of ways. But most seem to settle for what Nagel did. ps. Some types of epiphenomenalism may be in a similar spot as reductive physicalism with "only" one big issue. Jaegwon Kim holds the position that only intrinsic properties of qualia are epiphenomenal for example, and that qualia as relational properties are reducible. I don't think that position makes any sense whatsoever though.
Can you explain why the notion that the taste of ice cream being simple neurological activity is something anyone needs to make sense of?
Seems perfectly reasonable to me and I don't have a problem with this concept at all.
I've watched a fair amount of stuff about conciousness and I have to say I'm not familiar with this whole "it's completely inexplicable" in a physical world.... can you explain/discuss this a bit more and maybe give some material on the subject for us lay people?
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On July 07 2013 19:40 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 19:28 Tobberoth wrote:On July 07 2013 19:22 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:17 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:13 xM(Z wrote:why would determinism allow a determined view of its anti-self to exist? (and no, you don't just call it stupidity and move on! ) Determinism has no goals or opinions. It "allows" any effect that has a cause. but then it's like having 2 different effects from the same cause. for your statement to be true you'd need to have two causes one for each efect: determinism and free will. What same cause? The belief in free will and the belief in determinism come from tons of causes, most of them not shared. but all those tons of causes are determined. my question still stands.
The question was answered before. Determinism allows the idea of free will to exist because there's no reason it wouldn't.
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On July 07 2013 19:40 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 19:28 Tobberoth wrote:On July 07 2013 19:22 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:17 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:13 xM(Z wrote:why would determinism allow a determined view of its anti-self to exist? (and no, you don't just call it stupidity and move on! ) Determinism has no goals or opinions. It "allows" any effect that has a cause. but then it's like having 2 different effects from the same cause. for your statement to be true you'd need to have two causes one for each efect: determinism and free will. What same cause? The belief in free will and the belief in determinism come from tons of causes, most of them not shared. but all those tons of causes are determined. my question still stands.
Your question has been answered. Maybe you didn't understand the answer, but it is not very complicated. I'll help you out further.
Assume the universe is deterministic.
If person A believes in determinism, it is because his brain is shaped in such a way that, together with the sum of all the external stimuli it has received, it has come to the conclusion that the universe is deterministic. He happens to be right.
If person B does not believe in determinism, it is because his brain is not a complete copy of person A's brain, and because they have not had the exact same experiences in their lives. His opinion happens to be wrong.
Different causes lead to different effects.
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On July 07 2013 20:50 gedatsu wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 19:40 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:28 Tobberoth wrote:On July 07 2013 19:22 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:17 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:13 xM(Z wrote:why would determinism allow a determined view of its anti-self to exist? (and no, you don't just call it stupidity and move on! ) Determinism has no goals or opinions. It "allows" any effect that has a cause. but then it's like having 2 different effects from the same cause. for your statement to be true you'd need to have two causes one for each efect: determinism and free will. What same cause? The belief in free will and the belief in determinism come from tons of causes, most of them not shared. but all those tons of causes are determined. my question still stands. Your question has been answered. Maybe you didn't understand the answer, but it is not very complicated. I'll help you out further. Assume the universe is deterministic. If person A believes in determinism, it is because his brain is shaped in such a way that, together with the sum of all the external stimuli it has received, it has come to the conclusion that the universe is deterministic. He happens to be right. If person B does not believe in determinism, it is because his brain is not a complete copy of person A's brain, and because they have not had the exact same experiences in their lives. His opinion happens to be wrong. Different causes lead to different effects.
that doesn't explain anything. you just bounce determinism off environment and call it explanation. why would the environment, the one giving you those different experiences, be outside (universal) determinism?. your explanation implies that a brain influenced by outside non-determined forces, is wrong?.
at best for you, it's a mixup of concepts, semantics, but is no way near an explanation for me.
when you start from the same premise (everything is determined) then, with the same everything is determined logic, come to two different but equally true conclusions (believe in free will exists, believe in determinism exists) something went terribly wrong.
how can the phrase: "i was determined to believe in free will" be wrong? when it follows the deterministic logic. i didn't chose to believe in free will, the determinism made me do it.
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On July 07 2013 20:44 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 19:40 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:28 Tobberoth wrote:On July 07 2013 19:22 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:17 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:13 xM(Z wrote:why would determinism allow a determined view of its anti-self to exist? (and no, you don't just call it stupidity and move on! ) Determinism has no goals or opinions. It "allows" any effect that has a cause. but then it's like having 2 different effects from the same cause. for your statement to be true you'd need to have two causes one for each efect: determinism and free will. What same cause? The belief in free will and the belief in determinism come from tons of causes, most of them not shared. but all those tons of causes are determined. my question still stands. The question was answered before. Determinism allows the idea of free will to exist because there's no reason it wouldn't.
free will allows the idea of determinism to exist because there's no reason it wouldn't.
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On July 07 2013 21:31 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 20:50 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:40 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:28 Tobberoth wrote:On July 07 2013 19:22 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:17 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:13 xM(Z wrote:why would determinism allow a determined view of its anti-self to exist? (and no, you don't just call it stupidity and move on! ) Determinism has no goals or opinions. It "allows" any effect that has a cause. but then it's like having 2 different effects from the same cause. for your statement to be true you'd need to have two causes one for each efect: determinism and free will. What same cause? The belief in free will and the belief in determinism come from tons of causes, most of them not shared. but all those tons of causes are determined. my question still stands. Your question has been answered. Maybe you didn't understand the answer, but it is not very complicated. I'll help you out further. Assume the universe is deterministic. If person A believes in determinism, it is because his brain is shaped in such a way that, together with the sum of all the external stimuli it has received, it has come to the conclusion that the universe is deterministic. He happens to be right. If person B does not believe in determinism, it is because his brain is not a complete copy of person A's brain, and because they have not had the exact same experiences in their lives. His opinion happens to be wrong. Different causes lead to different effects. that doesn't explain anything. you just bounce determinism off environment and call it explanation. why would the environment, the one giving you those different experiences, be outside (universal) determinism?. your explanation implies a brain influenced by outside non-determined forces is wrong?. at best for you, it's a mixup of concepts, semantics, but is no way near an explanation for me. when you start from the same premise (everything is determined) then, with the same everything is determined logic, come to two different but equally true conclusions (believe in free will exists, believe in determinism exists) something went terribly wrong. how can the phrase: "i was determined to believe in free will" be wrong? when it follows the deterministic logic. i didn't chose to believe in free will, the determinism made me do it.
A kid can be pre-determined to believe that 3*3=6, the fact that he was pre-determined to believe that doesn't made him right.
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On July 07 2013 21:31 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 20:50 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:40 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:28 Tobberoth wrote:On July 07 2013 19:22 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:17 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:13 xM(Z wrote:why would determinism allow a determined view of its anti-self to exist? (and no, you don't just call it stupidity and move on! ) Determinism has no goals or opinions. It "allows" any effect that has a cause. but then it's like having 2 different effects from the same cause. for your statement to be true you'd need to have two causes one for each efect: determinism and free will. What same cause? The belief in free will and the belief in determinism come from tons of causes, most of them not shared. but all those tons of causes are determined. my question still stands. Your question has been answered. Maybe you didn't understand the answer, but it is not very complicated. I'll help you out further. Assume the universe is deterministic. If person A believes in determinism, it is because his brain is shaped in such a way that, together with the sum of all the external stimuli it has received, it has come to the conclusion that the universe is deterministic. He happens to be right. If person B does not believe in determinism, it is because his brain is not a complete copy of person A's brain, and because they have not had the exact same experiences in their lives. His opinion happens to be wrong. Different causes lead to different effects. that doesn't explain anything. you just bounce determinism off environment and call it explanation. why would the environment, the one giving you those different experiences, be outside (universal) determinism?. your explanation implies that a brain influenced by outside non-determined forces, is wrong?. at best for you, it's a mixup of concepts, semantics, but is no way near an explanation for me. when you start from the same premise (everything is determined) then, with the same everything is determined logic, come to two different but equally true conclusions (believe in free will exists, believe in determinism exists) something went terribly wrong. how can the phrase: "i was determined to believe in free will" be wrong? when it follows the deterministic logic. i didn't chose to believe in free will, the determinism made me do it.
Determinism doesn't make you do anything.
Determinism just means if you take a 10 second snapshot of the universe and run it infinite times the same things happen every time.
Everything is cause and effect already, determinism just means it's cause and effect with zero random element.
Removing this random element does not make your (now predictable thanks to determinism) free will choices any less free willy than they would be if determinism wasn't true.
If anything, determinism makes free will more powerful because if the random element can actually change what your decision would be then that undermines the concept of free will entirely.
It seems to me that if free will exists then the universe has to be deterministic?
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On July 07 2013 21:36 DertoQq wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 21:31 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 20:50 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:40 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:28 Tobberoth wrote:On July 07 2013 19:22 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:17 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:13 xM(Z wrote:why would determinism allow a determined view of its anti-self to exist? (and no, you don't just call it stupidity and move on! ) Determinism has no goals or opinions. It "allows" any effect that has a cause. but then it's like having 2 different effects from the same cause. for your statement to be true you'd need to have two causes one for each efect: determinism and free will. What same cause? The belief in free will and the belief in determinism come from tons of causes, most of them not shared. but all those tons of causes are determined. my question still stands. Your question has been answered. Maybe you didn't understand the answer, but it is not very complicated. I'll help you out further. Assume the universe is deterministic. If person A believes in determinism, it is because his brain is shaped in such a way that, together with the sum of all the external stimuli it has received, it has come to the conclusion that the universe is deterministic. He happens to be right. If person B does not believe in determinism, it is because his brain is not a complete copy of person A's brain, and because they have not had the exact same experiences in their lives. His opinion happens to be wrong. Different causes lead to different effects. that doesn't explain anything. you just bounce determinism off environment and call it explanation. why would the environment, the one giving you those different experiences, be outside (universal) determinism?. your explanation implies a brain influenced by outside non-determined forces is wrong?. at best for you, it's a mixup of concepts, semantics, but is no way near an explanation for me. when you start from the same premise (everything is determined) then, with the same everything is determined logic, come to two different but equally true conclusions (believe in free will exists, believe in determinism exists) something went terribly wrong. how can the phrase: "i was determined to believe in free will" be wrong? when it follows the deterministic logic. i didn't chose to believe in free will, the determinism made me do it. A kid can be pre-determined to believe that 3*3=6, the fact that he was pre-determined to believe that doesn't made him right.
a kid can be pre-determined to believe that free will doesn't exist, the fact that he was pre-determined to believe that doesn't make him right.
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On July 07 2013 21:42 Reason wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 21:31 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 20:50 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:40 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:28 Tobberoth wrote:On July 07 2013 19:22 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:17 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:13 xM(Z wrote:why would determinism allow a determined view of its anti-self to exist? (and no, you don't just call it stupidity and move on! ) Determinism has no goals or opinions. It "allows" any effect that has a cause. but then it's like having 2 different effects from the same cause. for your statement to be true you'd need to have two causes one for each efect: determinism and free will. What same cause? The belief in free will and the belief in determinism come from tons of causes, most of them not shared. but all those tons of causes are determined. my question still stands. Your question has been answered. Maybe you didn't understand the answer, but it is not very complicated. I'll help you out further. Assume the universe is deterministic. If person A believes in determinism, it is because his brain is shaped in such a way that, together with the sum of all the external stimuli it has received, it has come to the conclusion that the universe is deterministic. He happens to be right. If person B does not believe in determinism, it is because his brain is not a complete copy of person A's brain, and because they have not had the exact same experiences in their lives. His opinion happens to be wrong. Different causes lead to different effects. that doesn't explain anything. you just bounce determinism off environment and call it explanation. why would the environment, the one giving you those different experiences, be outside (universal) determinism?. your explanation implies that a brain influenced by outside non-determined forces, is wrong?. at best for you, it's a mixup of concepts, semantics, but is no way near an explanation for me. when you start from the same premise (everything is determined) then, with the same everything is determined logic, come to two different but equally true conclusions (believe in free will exists, believe in determinism exists) something went terribly wrong. how can the phrase: "i was determined to believe in free will" be wrong? when it follows the deterministic logic. i didn't chose to believe in free will, the determinism made me do it. Determinism doesn't make you do anything. Determinism just means if you take a 10 second snapshot of the universe and run it infinite times the same things happen every time. Everything is cause and effect already, determinism just means it's cause and effect with zero random element. Removing this random element does not make your (now predictable thanks to determinism) free will choices any less free willy than they would be if determinism wasn't true. If anything, determinism makes free will more powerful because if the random element can actually change what your decision would be then that undermines the concept of free will entirely. It seems to me that if free will exists then the universe has to be deterministic?
i was only going as far as showing that the believe in free will is not wrong, it can't be wrong (as other people pointed out).
the rest is in definitions, if one cancels the other out then they can't both coexist. if they don't, then they both exist, are true/valid and there is no a priori between them.
free will = the inputs allowed by determinism while it runs things
determinism = self generated outcome of said inputs
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On July 07 2013 21:31 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 20:50 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:40 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:28 Tobberoth wrote:On July 07 2013 19:22 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:17 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:13 xM(Z wrote:why would determinism allow a determined view of its anti-self to exist? (and no, you don't just call it stupidity and move on! ) Determinism has no goals or opinions. It "allows" any effect that has a cause. but then it's like having 2 different effects from the same cause. for your statement to be true you'd need to have two causes one for each efect: determinism and free will. What same cause? The belief in free will and the belief in determinism come from tons of causes, most of them not shared. but all those tons of causes are determined. my question still stands. Your question has been answered. Maybe you didn't understand the answer, but it is not very complicated. I'll help you out further. Assume the universe is deterministic. If person A believes in determinism, it is because his brain is shaped in such a way that, together with the sum of all the external stimuli it has received, it has come to the conclusion that the universe is deterministic. He happens to be right. If person B does not believe in determinism, it is because his brain is not a complete copy of person A's brain, and because they have not had the exact same experiences in their lives. His opinion happens to be wrong. Different causes lead to different effects. that doesn't explain anything. you just bounce determinism off environment and call it explanation. why would the environment, the one giving you those different experiences, be outside (universal) determinism?. your explanation implies that a brain influenced by outside non-determined forces, is wrong?. at best for you, it's a mixup of concepts, semantics, but is no way near an explanation for me.
Nobody has said that the environment is "outside determinism". You continue to misunderstand the concept. Determinism is another word for "cause and effect with zero randomness". The environment, and indeed everything else in the universe, follows this simple rule. If you're asking why two people, in a deterministic system, can have different opinions, then the causes for those two effects are different: that they have not lived the exact same lives and thus not been subject to the exact same causes.
It does explain your question. But at this point, I have to conclude that you are simply unable to understand it.
when you start from the same premise (everything is determined) then, with the same everything is determined logic, come to two different but equally true conclusions (believe in free will exists, believe in determinism exists) something went terribly wrong.
how can the phrase: "i was determined to believe in free will" be wrong? when it follows the deterministic logic. i didn't chose to believe in free will, the determinism made me do it.
I said they were not equally true. Person A was right and person B was wrong.
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On July 07 2013 22:08 gedatsu wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 21:31 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 20:50 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:40 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:28 Tobberoth wrote:On July 07 2013 19:22 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:17 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:13 xM(Z wrote:why would determinism allow a determined view of its anti-self to exist? (and no, you don't just call it stupidity and move on! ) Determinism has no goals or opinions. It "allows" any effect that has a cause. but then it's like having 2 different effects from the same cause. for your statement to be true you'd need to have two causes one for each efect: determinism and free will. What same cause? The belief in free will and the belief in determinism come from tons of causes, most of them not shared. but all those tons of causes are determined. my question still stands. Your question has been answered. Maybe you didn't understand the answer, but it is not very complicated. I'll help you out further. Assume the universe is deterministic. If person A believes in determinism, it is because his brain is shaped in such a way that, together with the sum of all the external stimuli it has received, it has come to the conclusion that the universe is deterministic. He happens to be right. If person B does not believe in determinism, it is because his brain is not a complete copy of person A's brain, and because they have not had the exact same experiences in their lives. His opinion happens to be wrong. Different causes lead to different effects. that doesn't explain anything. you just bounce determinism off environment and call it explanation. why would the environment, the one giving you those different experiences, be outside (universal) determinism?. your explanation implies that a brain influenced by outside non-determined forces, is wrong?. at best for you, it's a mixup of concepts, semantics, but is no way near an explanation for me. Nobody has said that the environment is "outside determinism". You continue to misunderstand the concept. Determinism is another word for "cause and effect with zero randomness". The environment, and indeed everything else in the universe, follows this simple rule. If you're asking why two people, in a deterministic system, can have different opinions, then the causes for those two effects are different: that they have not lived the exact same lives and thus not been subject to the exact same causes. It does explain your question. But at this point, I have to conclude that you are simply unable to understand it. Show nested quote +when you start from the same premise (everything is determined) then, with the same everything is determined logic, come to two different but equally true conclusions (believe in free will exists, believe in determinism exists) something went terribly wrong.
how can the phrase: "i was determined to believe in free will" be wrong? when it follows the deterministic logic. i didn't chose to believe in free will, the determinism made me do it. I said they were not equally true. Person A was right and person B was wrong.
the problem is not mine.
"the causes for those two effects" are determinism and determinism. so either both believes are true or both are wrong.
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Determinism is not a cause. Determinism is a word describing that there is a cause.
Even if determinism were a cause, that doesn't mean your conclusion is right. Your conclusion is wrong and, quite frankly, stupid.
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On July 07 2013 20:10 Reason wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 20:02 Snusmumriken wrote:On July 07 2013 07:26 EatThePath wrote:On July 07 2013 04:23 Snusmumriken wrote:On July 07 2013 03:15 EatThePath wrote:On July 06 2013 22:34 Snusmumriken wrote:On July 06 2013 17:55 DertoQq wrote:On July 06 2013 17:18 LuckyFool wrote:On July 06 2013 16:26 SnipedSoul wrote:On July 06 2013 07:56 LuckyFool wrote:
Human minds on the other hand aren't being built by humans. We try to mimic them, we create robots with human like minds, capable of reasoning "like" a human, but there's a complexity in the human mind that we haven't even come close to being able to understand, replicate or understand to date. Saying we can be certain it's all just chemical and electricity without fully understanding it, just seems incredibly ignorant to me. I can make the same argument about the weather. The weather is obscenely complex and cannot be predicted with any sort of accuracy outside of a window of a few days. Hell, we still can't tell with much certainty whether or not it will rain unless there's a ton of dark storm clouds coming. We know all the basic laws that govern the weather such as chemical composition of the local atmosphere, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, pressure changes, etc. The only thing we cannot figure out about the weather is how all these things interact because it's simply too complex for us to make a proper model. Is it ignorant to assume that the weather is nothing more than chemicals and thermal energy just because we don't have a complete understanding of it? I see your point but I don't really like the weather analogy. We suck at predicting the weather before it happens, but it's nothing as complicated as the human brain. We can very easily go back and see what happened to cause a weather event to occur. We can't however go back and figure out what prompted a human decision in any way. (Purely from a physical/matter standpoint) A seemingly random shift in the jet stream happens that a forecast didn't account for which changes the weather, we see this and say "well that's why it ended up sunny today!" If only understanding brain activity were as simple as shifts in a jet stream. The Weather / brain analogy is a good one. You're saying that it is not because one is more complicated than the other, how do you know that ? Complexity is something very tricky. Maybe we will be able to create perfect human AI and read mind with 100% accuracy before we can predict the weather. Complexity is not a good argument. We know how a game of starcraft work, but we will probably never (ok maybe someday, never is a long time) be able to predict the perfect way to play (like we can do with games like checkers or tic tac toe), the complexity is simply way too high. Does this mean we don't understand how the game is done ? Or that there is something mystical about starcraft ? We just know for a fact that we don't have the technology to do that. Also, don't underestimate what we know about the brain, unlike everything you might hear (scientists are modest people !), the field of neurology is extremely advanced. The problem of consciousness is not about complexity. You're completely missing the mark. There are many things about what we ordinarily call consciousness or consider part of it that aren't subject to controversy. Aspects of memory for example are likely explainable with physical language alone. The real problem is why im actually experiencing something when I think of a particularly good moment in my life. There is currently no one who can explain or even give something close to a coherent explanaition of how the qualitative aspects of consciousness (qualia) can exist in a purely physical world. In the end we either end up with a physical world we no longer can make sense of, or we pretend there's no ghost in the machine when there clearly is (eliminativists do this). The problem is there is a ghost, that we cannot doubt, but for all we know there really shouldn't be. David Chalmers on Consciousness The appeal to qualia is so misguided; I don't get why this is still a thing. Why can't there be unique states of a system based upon unique inputs? The universe will never be in the same state twice, nor will you or I, first of all because we're different and second for the same reason the universe won't. You make a philosophical hypothetical proposition that qualia could be identified because they could be in principle, and then go on to say that physicalism doesn't handle this. You're right! Why would an impossible hypothetical be manifest in reality? This is no kind of argument against physicalism. 1. How does that have any bearing on the issue at hand? 2. I dont have to make any hypothetical proposition regarding subjective experience, its quite evident to all of us I'd say. To quote Sam Harris, "it's the one thing that cannot be an illusion". There are various reasons for why non-physical explanations of consciousness fail to deliver, but physicalism is just slightly less nonsensical. To refer to qualia is to inject subjectivity into your ontology, and I don't see any grounds for doing this, but more importantly it's just a claim, not an argument. With regard to 2, I agree consciousness doesn't make obvious sense. It need not be intuitive, though? Subjectivity is the one thing any ontology of the world can't do without. To try and circumvent the one truly obvious thing to each and every self-conscious being is just bad science and bad metaphysics. It reminds me of how Moore responds to the skeptic: "This is a hand". Well here the skeptics position is being held by the eliminativist who claims that somehow the very thing that cant be an illusion actually is! I may be mistaken about the unicorn I saw in the forest, I may be mistaken about there being a forest, but its impossible for me to be mistaken about there being the experience of seeing a forest. Indeed few neuroscientists and philosophers of mind hold the elminativist position, among the few are the Churchlands and in some sense Dan Dennett (though it is somewhat unclear to me if he truly is a hardcore elminativist or more of a soft one, I lean towards the latter). More often we find reductionists, but I have yet to see an example of anyone actually making sense of the idea that actual taste of ice-cream, while not an illusion, is simply neurological activity. That is not to say that epiphenomenalists or property-dualists are in a better place, in my opinion its an even bigger mess in a lot of ways. But most seem to settle for what Nagel did. ps. Some types of epiphenomenalism may be in a similar spot as reductive physicalism with "only" one big issue. Jaegwon Kim holds the position that only intrinsic properties of qualia are epiphenomenal for example, and that qualia as relational properties are reducible. I don't think that position makes any sense whatsoever though. Can you explain why the notion that the taste of ice cream being simple neurological activity is something anyone needs to make sense of? Seems perfectly reasonable to me and I don't have a problem with this concept at all. I've watched a fair amount of stuff about conciousness and I have to say I'm not familiar with this whole "it's completely inexplicable" in a physical world.... can you explain/discuss this a bit more and maybe give some material on the subject for us lay people?
Materialistic reductionism is neither impossible nor inconceivable, and its internal reasonability is not what is at question. What is impossible is an argument where such a system could be verified by the intelligence. Our awareness of the physical universe is basically deductive and inferential. Our awareness of the mind is that Ding an sich.
It's akin to a person looking into a smoky mirror, and concluding that he has no eyes, because he sees none in the reflection.
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On July 07 2013 22:06 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 21:36 DertoQq wrote:On July 07 2013 21:31 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 20:50 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:40 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:28 Tobberoth wrote:On July 07 2013 19:22 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:17 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:13 xM(Z wrote:why would determinism allow a determined view of its anti-self to exist? (and no, you don't just call it stupidity and move on! ) Determinism has no goals or opinions. It "allows" any effect that has a cause. but then it's like having 2 different effects from the same cause. for your statement to be true you'd need to have two causes one for each efect: determinism and free will. What same cause? The belief in free will and the belief in determinism come from tons of causes, most of them not shared. but all those tons of causes are determined. my question still stands. Your question has been answered. Maybe you didn't understand the answer, but it is not very complicated. I'll help you out further. Assume the universe is deterministic. If person A believes in determinism, it is because his brain is shaped in such a way that, together with the sum of all the external stimuli it has received, it has come to the conclusion that the universe is deterministic. He happens to be right. If person B does not believe in determinism, it is because his brain is not a complete copy of person A's brain, and because they have not had the exact same experiences in their lives. His opinion happens to be wrong. Different causes lead to different effects. that doesn't explain anything. you just bounce determinism off environment and call it explanation. why would the environment, the one giving you those different experiences, be outside (universal) determinism?. your explanation implies a brain influenced by outside non-determined forces is wrong?. at best for you, it's a mixup of concepts, semantics, but is no way near an explanation for me. when you start from the same premise (everything is determined) then, with the same everything is determined logic, come to two different but equally true conclusions (believe in free will exists, believe in determinism exists) something went terribly wrong. how can the phrase: "i was determined to believe in free will" be wrong? when it follows the deterministic logic. i didn't chose to believe in free will, the determinism made me do it. A kid can be pre-determined to believe that 3*3=6, the fact that he was pre-determined to believe that doesn't made him right. a kid can be pre-determined to believe that free will doesn't exist, the fact that he was pre-determined to believe that doesn't make him right.
Being pre-determined to believe something doesn't mean anything. It doesn't make it right or it doesn't make it wrong. It doesn't mean anything. So why are you even talking about it ?
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On July 07 2013 20:02 Snusmumriken wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 07:26 EatThePath wrote:On July 07 2013 04:23 Snusmumriken wrote:On July 07 2013 03:15 EatThePath wrote:On July 06 2013 22:34 Snusmumriken wrote:On July 06 2013 17:55 DertoQq wrote:On July 06 2013 17:18 LuckyFool wrote:On July 06 2013 16:26 SnipedSoul wrote:On July 06 2013 07:56 LuckyFool wrote:
Human minds on the other hand aren't being built by humans. We try to mimic them, we create robots with human like minds, capable of reasoning "like" a human, but there's a complexity in the human mind that we haven't even come close to being able to understand, replicate or understand to date. Saying we can be certain it's all just chemical and electricity without fully understanding it, just seems incredibly ignorant to me. I can make the same argument about the weather. The weather is obscenely complex and cannot be predicted with any sort of accuracy outside of a window of a few days. Hell, we still can't tell with much certainty whether or not it will rain unless there's a ton of dark storm clouds coming. We know all the basic laws that govern the weather such as chemical composition of the local atmosphere, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, pressure changes, etc. The only thing we cannot figure out about the weather is how all these things interact because it's simply too complex for us to make a proper model. Is it ignorant to assume that the weather is nothing more than chemicals and thermal energy just because we don't have a complete understanding of it? I see your point but I don't really like the weather analogy. We suck at predicting the weather before it happens, but it's nothing as complicated as the human brain. We can very easily go back and see what happened to cause a weather event to occur. We can't however go back and figure out what prompted a human decision in any way. (Purely from a physical/matter standpoint) A seemingly random shift in the jet stream happens that a forecast didn't account for which changes the weather, we see this and say "well that's why it ended up sunny today!" If only understanding brain activity were as simple as shifts in a jet stream. The Weather / brain analogy is a good one. You're saying that it is not because one is more complicated than the other, how do you know that ? Complexity is something very tricky. Maybe we will be able to create perfect human AI and read mind with 100% accuracy before we can predict the weather. Complexity is not a good argument. We know how a game of starcraft work, but we will probably never (ok maybe someday, never is a long time) be able to predict the perfect way to play (like we can do with games like checkers or tic tac toe), the complexity is simply way too high. Does this mean we don't understand how the game is done ? Or that there is something mystical about starcraft ? We just know for a fact that we don't have the technology to do that. Also, don't underestimate what we know about the brain, unlike everything you might hear (scientists are modest people !), the field of neurology is extremely advanced. The problem of consciousness is not about complexity. You're completely missing the mark. There are many things about what we ordinarily call consciousness or consider part of it that aren't subject to controversy. Aspects of memory for example are likely explainable with physical language alone. The real problem is why im actually experiencing something when I think of a particularly good moment in my life. There is currently no one who can explain or even give something close to a coherent explanaition of how the qualitative aspects of consciousness (qualia) can exist in a purely physical world. In the end we either end up with a physical world we no longer can make sense of, or we pretend there's no ghost in the machine when there clearly is (eliminativists do this). The problem is there is a ghost, that we cannot doubt, but for all we know there really shouldn't be. David Chalmers on Consciousness The appeal to qualia is so misguided; I don't get why this is still a thing. Why can't there be unique states of a system based upon unique inputs? The universe will never be in the same state twice, nor will you or I, first of all because we're different and second for the same reason the universe won't. You make a philosophical hypothetical proposition that qualia could be identified because they could be in principle, and then go on to say that physicalism doesn't handle this. You're right! Why would an impossible hypothetical be manifest in reality? This is no kind of argument against physicalism. 1. How does that have any bearing on the issue at hand? 2. I dont have to make any hypothetical proposition regarding subjective experience, its quite evident to all of us I'd say. To quote Sam Harris, "it's the one thing that cannot be an illusion". There are various reasons for why non-physical explanations of consciousness fail to deliver, but physicalism is just slightly less nonsensical. To refer to qualia is to inject subjectivity into your ontology, and I don't see any grounds for doing this, but more importantly it's just a claim, not an argument. With regard to 2, I agree consciousness doesn't make obvious sense. It need not be intuitive, though? Subjectivity is the one thing any ontology of the world can't do without. To try and circumvent the one truly obvious thing to each and every self-conscious being is just bad science and bad metaphysics. It reminds me of how Moore responds to the skeptic: "This is a hand". Well here the skeptics position is being held by the eliminativist who claims that somehow the very thing that cant be an illusion actually is! I may be mistaken about the unicorn I saw in the forest, I may be mistaken about there being a forest, but its impossible for me to be mistaken about there being the experience of seeing a forest. Indeed few neuroscientists and philosophers of mind hold the elminativist position, among the few are the Churchlands and in some sense Dan Dennett (though it is somewhat unclear to me if he truly is a hardcore elminativist or more of a soft one, I lean towards the latter). More often we find reductionists, but I have yet to see an example of anyone actually making sense of the idea that the actual taste of ice-cream, while not an illusion in the eliminativist sense, is simply neurological activity. That is not to say that epiphenomenalists or property-dualists are in a better place, in my opinion its an even bigger mess in a lot of ways. ps. Some types of epiphenomenalism may be in a similar spot as reductive physicalism with "only" one big issue. Jaegwon Kim holds the position that only intrinsic properties of qualia are epiphenomenal for example, and that qualia as relational properties are reducible. I don't think that position makes any sense whatsoever though.
It's not impossible for you to be mistaken about there being experiences, it's impossible for you to NOT be mistaken. Consider that a p zombie (brain without consciousness) would have no way of realizing it wasn't conscious. Assuming that our brains are somehow impervious to the same physical phenomenon that cause beliefs to arise within a theoretical metaphysically 'conscious' person, is to assume to existence of metaphysics from the start.
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On July 07 2013 22:38 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 20:10 Reason wrote:On July 07 2013 20:02 Snusmumriken wrote:On July 07 2013 07:26 EatThePath wrote:On July 07 2013 04:23 Snusmumriken wrote:On July 07 2013 03:15 EatThePath wrote:On July 06 2013 22:34 Snusmumriken wrote:On July 06 2013 17:55 DertoQq wrote:On July 06 2013 17:18 LuckyFool wrote:On July 06 2013 16:26 SnipedSoul wrote:
[quote]
I can make the same argument about the weather. The weather is obscenely complex and cannot be predicted with any sort of accuracy outside of a window of a few days. Hell, we still can't tell with much certainty whether or not it will rain unless there's a ton of dark storm clouds coming.
We know all the basic laws that govern the weather such as chemical composition of the local atmosphere, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, pressure changes, etc. The only thing we cannot figure out about the weather is how all these things interact because it's simply too complex for us to make a proper model.
Is it ignorant to assume that the weather is nothing more than chemicals and thermal energy just because we don't have a complete understanding of it? I see your point but I don't really like the weather analogy. We suck at predicting the weather before it happens, but it's nothing as complicated as the human brain. We can very easily go back and see what happened to cause a weather event to occur. We can't however go back and figure out what prompted a human decision in any way. (Purely from a physical/matter standpoint) A seemingly random shift in the jet stream happens that a forecast didn't account for which changes the weather, we see this and say "well that's why it ended up sunny today!" If only understanding brain activity were as simple as shifts in a jet stream. The Weather / brain analogy is a good one. You're saying that it is not because one is more complicated than the other, how do you know that ? Complexity is something very tricky. Maybe we will be able to create perfect human AI and read mind with 100% accuracy before we can predict the weather. Complexity is not a good argument. We know how a game of starcraft work, but we will probably never (ok maybe someday, never is a long time) be able to predict the perfect way to play (like we can do with games like checkers or tic tac toe), the complexity is simply way too high. Does this mean we don't understand how the game is done ? Or that there is something mystical about starcraft ? We just know for a fact that we don't have the technology to do that. Also, don't underestimate what we know about the brain, unlike everything you might hear (scientists are modest people !), the field of neurology is extremely advanced. The problem of consciousness is not about complexity. You're completely missing the mark. There are many things about what we ordinarily call consciousness or consider part of it that aren't subject to controversy. Aspects of memory for example are likely explainable with physical language alone. The real problem is why im actually experiencing something when I think of a particularly good moment in my life. There is currently no one who can explain or even give something close to a coherent explanaition of how the qualitative aspects of consciousness (qualia) can exist in a purely physical world. In the end we either end up with a physical world we no longer can make sense of, or we pretend there's no ghost in the machine when there clearly is (eliminativists do this). The problem is there is a ghost, that we cannot doubt, but for all we know there really shouldn't be. David Chalmers on Consciousness The appeal to qualia is so misguided; I don't get why this is still a thing. Why can't there be unique states of a system based upon unique inputs? The universe will never be in the same state twice, nor will you or I, first of all because we're different and second for the same reason the universe won't. You make a philosophical hypothetical proposition that qualia could be identified because they could be in principle, and then go on to say that physicalism doesn't handle this. You're right! Why would an impossible hypothetical be manifest in reality? This is no kind of argument against physicalism. 1. How does that have any bearing on the issue at hand? 2. I dont have to make any hypothetical proposition regarding subjective experience, its quite evident to all of us I'd say. To quote Sam Harris, "it's the one thing that cannot be an illusion". There are various reasons for why non-physical explanations of consciousness fail to deliver, but physicalism is just slightly less nonsensical. To refer to qualia is to inject subjectivity into your ontology, and I don't see any grounds for doing this, but more importantly it's just a claim, not an argument. With regard to 2, I agree consciousness doesn't make obvious sense. It need not be intuitive, though? Subjectivity is the one thing any ontology of the world can't do without. To try and circumvent the one truly obvious thing to each and every self-conscious being is just bad science and bad metaphysics. It reminds me of how Moore responds to the skeptic: "This is a hand". Well here the skeptics position is being held by the eliminativist who claims that somehow the very thing that cant be an illusion actually is! I may be mistaken about the unicorn I saw in the forest, I may be mistaken about there being a forest, but its impossible for me to be mistaken about there being the experience of seeing a forest. Indeed few neuroscientists and philosophers of mind hold the elminativist position, among the few are the Churchlands and in some sense Dan Dennett (though it is somewhat unclear to me if he truly is a hardcore elminativist or more of a soft one, I lean towards the latter). More often we find reductionists, but I have yet to see an example of anyone actually making sense of the idea that actual taste of ice-cream, while not an illusion, is simply neurological activity. That is not to say that epiphenomenalists or property-dualists are in a better place, in my opinion its an even bigger mess in a lot of ways. But most seem to settle for what Nagel did. ps. Some types of epiphenomenalism may be in a similar spot as reductive physicalism with "only" one big issue. Jaegwon Kim holds the position that only intrinsic properties of qualia are epiphenomenal for example, and that qualia as relational properties are reducible. I don't think that position makes any sense whatsoever though. Can you explain why the notion that the taste of ice cream being simple neurological activity is something anyone needs to make sense of? Seems perfectly reasonable to me and I don't have a problem with this concept at all. I've watched a fair amount of stuff about conciousness and I have to say I'm not familiar with this whole "it's completely inexplicable" in a physical world.... can you explain/discuss this a bit more and maybe give some material on the subject for us lay people? Materialistic reductionism is neither impossible nor inconceivable, and its internal reasonability is not what is at question. What is impossible is an argument where such a system could be verified by the intelligence. Our awareness of the physical universe is basically deductive and inferential. Our awareness of the mind is that Ding an sich. It's akin to a person looking into a smoky mirror, and concluding that he has no eyes, because he sees none in the reflection.
Okay, but I still don't see why this justifies believing in fairies.
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On July 07 2013 22:38 DertoQq wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 22:06 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 21:36 DertoQq wrote:On July 07 2013 21:31 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 20:50 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:40 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:28 Tobberoth wrote:On July 07 2013 19:22 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:17 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:13 xM(Z wrote:why would determinism allow a determined view of its anti-self to exist? (and no, you don't just call it stupidity and move on! ) Determinism has no goals or opinions. It "allows" any effect that has a cause. but then it's like having 2 different effects from the same cause. for your statement to be true you'd need to have two causes one for each efect: determinism and free will. What same cause? The belief in free will and the belief in determinism come from tons of causes, most of them not shared. but all those tons of causes are determined. my question still stands. Your question has been answered. Maybe you didn't understand the answer, but it is not very complicated. I'll help you out further. Assume the universe is deterministic. If person A believes in determinism, it is because his brain is shaped in such a way that, together with the sum of all the external stimuli it has received, it has come to the conclusion that the universe is deterministic. He happens to be right. If person B does not believe in determinism, it is because his brain is not a complete copy of person A's brain, and because they have not had the exact same experiences in their lives. His opinion happens to be wrong. Different causes lead to different effects. that doesn't explain anything. you just bounce determinism off environment and call it explanation. why would the environment, the one giving you those different experiences, be outside (universal) determinism?. your explanation implies a brain influenced by outside non-determined forces is wrong?. at best for you, it's a mixup of concepts, semantics, but is no way near an explanation for me. when you start from the same premise (everything is determined) then, with the same everything is determined logic, come to two different but equally true conclusions (believe in free will exists, believe in determinism exists) something went terribly wrong. how can the phrase: "i was determined to believe in free will" be wrong? when it follows the deterministic logic. i didn't chose to believe in free will, the determinism made me do it. A kid can be pre-determined to believe that 3*3=6, the fact that he was pre-determined to believe that doesn't made him right. a kid can be pre-determined to believe that free will doesn't exist, the fact that he was pre-determined to believe that doesn't make him right. Being pre-determined to believe something doesn't mean anything. It doesn't make it right or it doesn't make it wrong. It doesn't mean anything. So why are you even talking about it ?
you started it . "It doesn't make it right or it doesn't make it wrong" is a fair assessment.
but you'd get a problem if determinism and free will (definitions wise) would be opposite/incompatible.
in that case there would be no more determinism. (edit: or that free will would have to come from someplace else)
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On July 07 2013 22:45 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 22:38 DertoQq wrote:On July 07 2013 22:06 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 21:36 DertoQq wrote:On July 07 2013 21:31 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 20:50 gedatsu wrote:On July 07 2013 19:40 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:28 Tobberoth wrote:On July 07 2013 19:22 xM(Z wrote:On July 07 2013 19:17 gedatsu wrote:
[quote]
Determinism has no goals or opinions. It "allows" any effect that has a cause. but then it's like having 2 different effects from the same cause. for your statement to be true you'd need to have two causes one for each efect: determinism and free will. What same cause? The belief in free will and the belief in determinism come from tons of causes, most of them not shared. but all those tons of causes are determined. my question still stands. Your question has been answered. Maybe you didn't understand the answer, but it is not very complicated. I'll help you out further. Assume the universe is deterministic. If person A believes in determinism, it is because his brain is shaped in such a way that, together with the sum of all the external stimuli it has received, it has come to the conclusion that the universe is deterministic. He happens to be right. If person B does not believe in determinism, it is because his brain is not a complete copy of person A's brain, and because they have not had the exact same experiences in their lives. His opinion happens to be wrong. Different causes lead to different effects. that doesn't explain anything. you just bounce determinism off environment and call it explanation. why would the environment, the one giving you those different experiences, be outside (universal) determinism?. your explanation implies a brain influenced by outside non-determined forces is wrong?. at best for you, it's a mixup of concepts, semantics, but is no way near an explanation for me. when you start from the same premise (everything is determined) then, with the same everything is determined logic, come to two different but equally true conclusions (believe in free will exists, believe in determinism exists) something went terribly wrong. how can the phrase: "i was determined to believe in free will" be wrong? when it follows the deterministic logic. i didn't chose to believe in free will, the determinism made me do it. A kid can be pre-determined to believe that 3*3=6, the fact that he was pre-determined to believe that doesn't made him right. a kid can be pre-determined to believe that free will doesn't exist, the fact that he was pre-determined to believe that doesn't make him right. Being pre-determined to believe something doesn't mean anything. It doesn't make it right or it doesn't make it wrong. It doesn't mean anything. So why are you even talking about it ? you started it . "It doesn't make it right or it doesn't make it wrong" is a fair assessment. but you'd get a problem if determinism and free will (definitions wise) would be opposite/incompatible. in that case there would be no more determinism.
you said :
"how can the phrase: "i was determined to believe in free will" be wrong? when it follows the deterministic logic. i didn't chose to believe in free will, the determinism made me do it. "
Of course it can be wrong, if you believe in something that is wrong, it doesn't matter if you were pre-determined to believe it, you are still wrong. pre-determination doesn't impact the wrong/right in any way.
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EPT
