I think everything in the universe is interconnected with each other in one way or another. Something happening across the world 30 year ago could have effected a decision I made in my life, even if it was small. Similar to the butterfly effect. But I don't believe we have only one path our minds can take when making decisions, even if we are just based on physics, electrical energy and cellular structures.
The fact that there are 2 names for the exact same belief (determinism), is enough to make me skeptical.
Laws are a derivative oh human logic. I do not believe logic is the only way to understand the universe. I believe it is the human way. And as a human that uses logic, I believe that there are possibly many different way to interpret the universe using different methods of thought process or understanding that we as humans, do not understand.
You could be right. I could be right. I have no idea. We could both be right at the same time.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
I'm sure the fatalist or determinist(lol there's 2 names for it! Too funny) will say that someone who committed suicide was meant to commit suicide even before they were born. Everything lead up to that persons birth. Then, the things that were already set in motion bombarded the emotional system of the human that was genetically flawed to handle the situation that was placed on his or her shoulders so the only conclusion was suicide due to the fact that other factors of the universe negatively effected the human to a point where the only chemicals being released were...(crap..whats it called...Idk. The one thats not serotonin..dopamine? Something like that...)...which lead to the person inevitably killing themselves.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Can you eat a lemon if you want to eat a lemon? Sure. Can you kill someone if you want to kill someone? Sure. Can you Google "tits" with Safesearch off? Sure. Will you go to jail if you try to grope a 12 year old? Yes you will. You have free will. You can do whatever you want, but nothing is without consequence. You can get a bit more philosophical and pedantic, arguing that we are slaves of our own genetics and upbringing, but I don't think it's reasonable to do so. I'll try and break down your original post, regardless of the fact that I think it's just scrutiny of the available facts.
"1. Physical matter of decent size is ruled by physics, and controlled by cause and effect. Things only change because something is exerting force upon them."
One can argue that the concept of entropy and enthalpy isn't necessarily rules by physics, per se. A room left on its own without the influence of outside facts will deteriorate and havoc will reign due to the concept of entropy. Nothing is exerted upon it, and no physical factor is affecting it. It's a deep concept, but I'll leave it at that.
"2. The human brain is the location of where thoughts occur, in the form of electrical signals. (and if this is not the case, that there is no outside-the-world influence on human thoughts.)"
You can't classify thoughts as "electrical signals", when the process of thought, memory, dreams...etc. is not yet properly and adequately explained and quantified by science and scientifically controlled experiments. There is no scientific model, where, a human is born without prior influence exerted by parent genetics and inherited traits, left in a vacuum where no external stimuli and conditions affect it, and is monitored by a team of scientists in order to deduce data of how morals, thoughts, actions, and general character are developed without the outside effect of anything, be it humans or otherwise. It's a deep pool, and it can't be explored properly without one stepping over moral red line and dogmas.
"This means that the electrical signals shooting through my brain can only go through a certain pattern; I cannot will them in one direction or another.
That all humans boil down to being computers (computers with terrible data loss and file corruption problems) reacting to the environment."
If they can only go through a certain pattern, then one can argue that human behavior can be predicted, quantified, and categorized. Every human thought will therefore become part of a set of human thoughts possible through the recombination of "parent thoughts", modulated by psyche/personality/...etc. If you want to continue with the "humans are computers" metaphor, I assure you that the brain is indeed a supercomputer of sorts, with unlimited storage space, and unlimited capacity for renewal and processing. There is data loss because the person himself lost the data, where said data wouldn't be lost if proper memory tactics and repetition was employed in every single thing done by the person. There is "file corruption problems" when the brain is defective, say with psychosis, which affects 1% of the population, leaving the other 99% unaffected, debunking your claim.
"It would also mean that our self awareness is a bit silly; we are aware that we are alive, but the decisions we make, every thought we think, is on autopilot.
Making us like the diver in the mousetrap game, knowing we are about to dive, even thinking we are the ones choosing to do so, when in reality we are just part of a large Rube Goldberg machine"
Did you choose the red pill, or something?
"All creativity would be akin to all randomness in the physical universe: nothing is truly random, the only reason why you think a dice roll is random is because you do not know all the physics involved, if you did, you would know why it landed on the number that it did (how Data cheats at craps on the holodeck)."
Given enough space and time, everything is possible, including that which is impossible. It's "random" because calculating the physics behind it would be near impossible, taking into account all the variables, which is why people settle with calling it random, rather than calculating everything, which I believe would take years of trial and error to correctly conclude the result of one dice roll. Good luck with that.
In conclusion, I really just think that you're overscrutinizing and overthinking that which, in itself, is excessivly simple and straightforward.
if you subscribe to multiple dimensions, then a single dice role has all possibilities. even ones where the dice is actually a bomb and it gets tractor beamed on board a death star, rolls 6, and blows it up.
i like that theory a lot.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Remember the String of Ears
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
if you subscribe to multiple dimensions, then a single dice role has all possibilities. even ones where the dice is actually a bomb and it gets tractor beamed on board a death star, rolls 6, and blows it up.
if you subscribe to multiple dimensions, then a single dice role has all possibilities. even ones where the dice is actually a bomb and it gets tractor beamed on board a death star, rolls 6, and blows it up.
i like that theory a lot.
best reaction face ever! bazinga!
life is never simple and straightforward, unless you choose to sit in the dark and wait
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Remember the String of Ears
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
if you subscribe to multiple dimensions, then a single dice role has all possibilities. even ones where the dice is actually a bomb and it gets tractor beamed on board a death star, rolls 6, and blows it up.
i like that theory a lot.
best reaction face ever! bazinga!
life is never simple and straightforward, unless you choose to sit in the dark and wait
If people are just complicated computers that make mistakes, we should limit the punishment of criminals to what would be an effective deterrent for that person and for others, and to what would rehabilitate that person; any sort of punishment meant for revenge that goes beyond deterrence and rehabilitation would be silly, because even though that person killed and molested your entire family, including your dog, it wasn't personal - their choice in the matter is only an illusion - they are trapped in the same domino effect as all of us.
So in effect, all that gooey Christian morality stuff, the slave morality, where you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, would be dead on (that other stuff about God giving man a choice would be B.S., but the God's plan stuff could still work).
Thoughts fellow computers?
How can it even mean anything if everything we do is already decided beforehand? How can we limit the punishment to criminals if we actually don't a choice in it (or in anything)? How can revenge be 'silly' if we are not the ones exacting it, physics is (are?)? The judges that decide that the murderer should die are also ruled by physics, so nothing they do has any reason or meaning. How can something be 'dead on' ? Why did you even post this if you knew it would have absolutely no effect on the course of anything? I just don't get the meaning of '"meaning" without the concept of "choice".
BTW, read some quantum mechanics. According to it, randomness has a huge impact on the universe.
The fact that there are 2 names for the exact same belief (determinism), is enough to make me skeptical.
Determinists generally agree that human actions affect the future but that human action is itself determined by a causal chain of prior events. Their view does not accentuate a "submission" to fate, whereas fatalists may stress an acceptance of future events as inevitable. Determinists believe the future is fixed specifically due to causality; fatalists and predestinarians believe that some or all aspects of the future are inescapable, but not necessarily due to causality.
so there is a difference! i knew they couldnt be totally similar because the quantum probabilities...and something...something...i cant remember or know it...something about waveforms or momentum ...yeah....once again, i wish i studied physics
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Remember the String of Ears
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
I think to prove that thoughts are electrical signals, they could instead zap our brains to make us have thoughts, or extract memories from our brains electronically; both things they are working on now.
theyve already done those types of things in electroshock and invasive brain surgeries. i dont think anyone has ever described have memories or inplanted thoughts during either procedure.
i dont know if anyones explained memory better than a rudimentary biological explanation involving NTs and firing nerves. obviously neurons have something to do with it; patients with AD or FTD all have some kind of brain pathology. studying these diseases basically support that neurons (and their entire makeup, proteins) and NTs have a large role in memory.
thats the best i can say
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Remember the String of Ears
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
1. Physical matter of decent size is ruled by physics, and controlled by cause and effect. Things only change because something is exerting force upon them.
2. The human brain is the location of where thoughts occur, in the form of electrical signals. (and if this is not the case, that there is no outside-the-world influence on human thoughts.)
These are the keys to the problem.
Point 1 assumes that physics is correct, and while it is the best model so far, the way it falls apart outside the realm of "decent size" causes one to doubt it's completeness. Also one can question what was the cause of the big bang (or whatever else started existence). Part 2 makes several assumptions, all of which are questionable. The brain and thought are both very poorly understood and there are many loopholes in our understanding of both it and physics to allow for vast deviations from this set of assumption (retrocausality of perception, quantum computation in nanotubules, EM field effects, etc.). While many of these are on the fringe of accepted science, so was Galileo in his day.
In the end though, as an idealist, I say that it is irrelevant, as reality can only be known through observation. Omniscience would be effectively required to truly understand and prove the full effects of causality within the human mind. Since the Heisenberg uncertainty principle prevents this, even if we had the computational and data storage capabilities to process it, the perception (or illusion if you prefer) of free will will always trump the theory of fatalism for me.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I ain't ashamed I cried when Mickey died in Rocky III
This seems like a good place to make mention of a theory I came up with. Lets take into account that cause and effect are a standard set in stone for how the universe works. Then I add to that the idea that there has to be a starting point for this theory to be viable. As such I submit that God is the originating cause for everything we have, do, and will know as reality and/or the universe. Ideally only God could be a great enough cause for some thing as vast and finite as the universe from it's near infinite complexity to it's grand immeasurable scale. I'll not get into things like religion but, there is no denying the existence of God by these standards as far as I'm concerned. That being said, my idea on the second part falls into the religion area and if I'm not mistaken that goes against some forum rules so I'll keep that to myself.
I'm curious as to how you'd define the diffirence between rational self-reflection and free will. Clearly the two are not one in the same, but they both pretend to offer the human condition a way to opt out of something that is obstensible predetermined. Ex: A couple living in a developed nation is likely to have only one child while their environment and physical instincts to breed should have lead to them having at least five. They, reflecting on the prospect of having that many children, choose contraception and dramatically alter their genetic impact on the population.
It is my, humanist, opinion that neurology has shown us our capacity to rationalize our past and potential actions is a significant force that works in defiance of disposition. Of course, that could and should be subject to scrutiny and likely does not apply equally on the macro and micro level of human experience. That being said, the idea we can have a substantial debate about terms like morality and psycopathy (regardless of wether we assume either of these to be objective) tend to indict those who say we have no true choices. On some level at least, it is apparent that we do make choices. To what extent those choices are pre-selected for us would be an interesting neurology paper indeed. I look forward to reading more on the subject as i'm sure there are bright minds devoted to the task.
As per the "god," word. I think that the god of the gaps has existed in philosophy and science for a long time. Arguably every deist since Spinoza has been using that definition and it's not suprising that a more atheistic term of usage has continued to this day. The concept of a god is unknowable, irrational, unrealistic, and amorphous by definition, so it's a choice nonsense word for anything we'd rather ascribe our ignorance to.
For me, free will means not that you made a decision, but that you could have made a different decision.
[...]
Suppose we are the thinking thing, the thoughts that stream through consciousness; what is our self-reflection?
[...]
I really want to find a way to use this as an excuse for compassionate coexistence.
First off, I like that definition (not that it's textbook or not, but it works for our discussion). It does stand to reason that human beings are not literally free to ALL choices. Indeed we would find it difficult to make some decisions over others, take for example choosing to take a dissident opinion in a large group which may result in punishment or on a micro-level, choosing to stop breathing for a prolonged period of time. Those kinds of choices would be something we would need a strong external motivator to make. Perhaps we felt very convicted about the dissenting opinion or perhaps we need to hold our breath to avoid drowning.
Where I depart from this determinist viewpoint is where the choices become less matter-of-fact and/or their results are not as externally profound. Supposing, using your example, you are thinking through a stream of consciousness. I would argue that part of that stream of thoughts would include potential outcomes, effects, and perhaps their compatability with your (to use dennet's language) scripts, your culture, your idea of self. While that might not stand out as a dramatic issuance of personal (a loaded word in this context) choice, I don't think we have any evidence to suggest we do not impart our own spin on the otherwise rote decision making critera and thus affect our own choices to some degree.
I don't think it takes a great deal of apologist argument to swing these inherent functionalities around the ideas of compassion, coexistence, and comarradery. It is without doubt that organisims, from the single-cell to the most complex, have benefitted from a variety of co-existence procedures. How you further illustrate this: be it as a natural tendency for groups to form to accomplish a function, or as a tendency of functionally similar units to form a whole will largely depend on bias. As I stated before, the science is surely being pursued, but our conceptual models of the brain have a ways to go before we can say either way for sure. What we cannot deny; however, is that we do have the ability to work together and we have historical evidence to suggest that working together (even under the auspice of competition) is far more beneficial for the longevity of our species (not to mention the other species upon wich our existence depends) than not.
Really interesting view on words being virtual machines (like java applets).
I also like the idea of humonculi who have their own motives when fighting within the political arena that is your mind's decision of what to do next; that some subroutine could know that the answer of 2+2=4, but will that it be 5 and push for it to be 5 (just so that it can have dominance over another subroutine). (I am not sure if he was suggesting that there could be selfish rogue agents within the brain, but even if he didn't suggest it, I think it is a cool idea.)
I imagine he places the human will on the thinking mind, and puts free will somewhere in our thinking mind's ability to tinker with how we define and think of things on a subconscious level. That through self reflection we can change how we are, and that is at least some sort of control (depending on how much of our mind is hardware or software)(but I get the feeling that you can change the hardware through software, so it gets a bit sticky).
Either way great find.
He referenced a few contemporaries and I think the concept of competitive agents and agencies is fascinating and could form the basis of much explanation. I would think that his viewpoint on free will would be our capacity to reflect on the effects of our competing agents externally. In other words, you have the hardware and software running, but through those apellete programs (communication, interal and external) you can review the software output and more readily identify the good agents from the bad (or perhaps the inefficient agents from the efficient, verbage being very loosely applied at this juncture).
I agree, it's a great talk and i'm quite interested to follow this channel of research. If I stumble upon more of it i'll be sure to pass it along.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The fact that there are 2 names for the exact same belief (determinism), is enough to make me skeptical.
Laws are a derivative oh human logic. I do not believe logic is the only way to understand the universe. I believe it is the human way. And as a human that uses logic, I believe that there are possibly many different way to interpret the universe using different methods of thought process or understanding that we as humans, do not understand.
You could be right. I could be right. I have no idea. We could both be right at the same time.
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
congrats, you dont love your husband/wife/family, you just love dopamine/serotonin/norepi.
looking at things at their basic lvl gets depressing.
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
"1. Physical matter of decent size is ruled by physics, and controlled by cause and effect. Things only change because something is exerting force upon them."
One can argue that the concept of entropy and enthalpy isn't necessarily rules by physics, per se. A room left on its own without the influence of outside facts will deteriorate and havoc will reign due to the concept of entropy. Nothing is exerted upon it, and no physical factor is affecting it. It's a deep concept, but I'll leave it at that.
"2. The human brain is the location of where thoughts occur, in the form of electrical signals. (and if this is not the case, that there is no outside-the-world influence on human thoughts.)"
You can't classify thoughts as "electrical signals", when the process of thought, memory, dreams...etc. is not yet properly and adequately explained and quantified by science and scientifically controlled experiments. There is no scientific model, where, a human is born without prior influence exerted by parent genetics and inherited traits, left in a vacuum where no external stimuli and conditions affect it, and is monitored by a team of scientists in order to deduce data of how morals, thoughts, actions, and general character are developed without the outside effect of anything, be it humans or otherwise. It's a deep pool, and it can't be explored properly without one stepping over moral red line and dogmas.
"This means that the electrical signals shooting through my brain can only go through a certain pattern; I cannot will them in one direction or another.
That all humans boil down to being computers (computers with terrible data loss and file corruption problems) reacting to the environment."
If they can only go through a certain pattern, then one can argue that human behavior can be predicted, quantified, and categorized. Every human thought will therefore become part of a set of human thoughts possible through the recombination of "parent thoughts", modulated by psyche/personality/...etc. If you want to continue with the "humans are computers" metaphor, I assure you that the brain is indeed a supercomputer of sorts, with unlimited storage space, and unlimited capacity for renewal and processing. There is data loss because the person himself lost the data, where said data wouldn't be lost if proper memory tactics and repetition was employed in every single thing done by the person. There is "file corruption problems" when the brain is defective, say with psychosis, which affects 1% of the population, leaving the other 99% unaffected, debunking your claim.
"It would also mean that our self awareness is a bit silly; we are aware that we are alive, but the decisions we make, every thought we think, is on autopilot.
Making us like the diver in the mousetrap game, knowing we are about to dive, even thinking we are the ones choosing to do so, when in reality we are just part of a large Rube Goldberg machine"
Did you choose the red pill, or something?
"All creativity would be akin to all randomness in the physical universe: nothing is truly random, the only reason why you think a dice roll is random is because you do not know all the physics involved, if you did, you would know why it landed on the number that it did (how Data cheats at craps on the holodeck)."
Given enough space and time, everything is possible, including that which is impossible. It's "random" because calculating the physics behind it would be near impossible, taking into account all the variables, which is why people settle with calling it random, rather than calculating everything, which I believe would take years of trial and error to correctly conclude the result of one dice roll. Good luck with that.
In conclusion, I really just think that you're overscrutinizing and overthinking that which, in itself, is excessivly simple and straightforward.
i like that theory a lot.
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
life is never simple and straightforward, unless you choose to sit in the dark and wait
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
I do. This is me, not a Google'd emo pic.
How can it even mean anything if everything we do is already decided beforehand? How can we limit the punishment to criminals if we actually don't a choice in it (or in anything)? How can revenge be 'silly' if we are not the ones exacting it, physics is (are?)? The judges that decide that the murderer should die are also ruled by physics, so nothing they do has any reason or meaning. How can something be 'dead on' ? Why did you even post this if you knew it would have absolutely no effect on the course of anything? I just don't get the meaning of '"meaning" without the concept of "choice".
BTW, read some quantum mechanics. According to it, randomness has a huge impact on the universe.
so there is a difference! i knew they couldnt be totally similar because the quantum probabilities...and something...something...i cant remember or know it...something about waveforms or momentum ...yeah....once again, i wish i studied physics
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
i dont know if anyones explained memory better than a rudimentary biological explanation involving NTs and firing nerves. obviously neurons have something to do with it; patients with AD or FTD all have some kind of brain pathology. studying these diseases basically support that neurons (and their entire makeup, proteins) and NTs have a large role in memory.
thats the best i can say
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
These are the keys to the problem.
Point 1 assumes that physics is correct, and while it is the best model so far, the way it falls apart outside the realm of "decent size" causes one to doubt it's completeness. Also one can question what was the cause of the big bang (or whatever else started existence). Part 2 makes several assumptions, all of which are questionable. The brain and thought are both very poorly understood and there are many loopholes in our understanding of both it and physics to allow for vast deviations from this set of assumption (retrocausality of perception, quantum computation in nanotubules, EM field effects, etc.). While many of these are on the fringe of accepted science, so was Galileo in his day.
In the end though, as an idealist, I say that it is irrelevant, as reality can only be known through observation. Omniscience would be effectively required to truly understand and prove the full effects of causality within the human mind. Since the Heisenberg uncertainty principle prevents this, even if we had the computational and data storage capabilities to process it, the perception (or illusion if you prefer) of free will will always trump the theory of fatalism for me.
But +1 for no free will!
COG IN A MACHINE!
That is all.
It is my, humanist, opinion that neurology has shown us our capacity to rationalize our past and potential actions is a significant force that works in defiance of disposition. Of course, that could and should be subject to scrutiny and likely does not apply equally on the macro and micro level of human experience. That being said, the idea we can have a substantial debate about terms like morality and psycopathy (regardless of wether we assume either of these to be objective) tend to indict those who say we have no true choices. On some level at least, it is apparent that we do make choices. To what extent those choices are pre-selected for us would be an interesting neurology paper indeed. I look forward to reading more on the subject as i'm sure there are bright minds devoted to the task.
As per the "god," word. I think that the god of the gaps has existed in philosophy and science for a long time. Arguably every deist since Spinoza has been using that definition and it's not suprising that a more atheistic term of usage has continued to this day. The concept of a god is unknowable, irrational, unrealistic, and amorphous by definition, so it's a choice nonsense word for anything we'd rather ascribe our ignorance to.
An interesting lecture on the issues of mind/body by Professor Dennett:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5GvXUPcWZo
First off, I like that definition (not that it's textbook or not, but it works for our discussion). It does stand to reason that human beings are not literally free to ALL choices. Indeed we would find it difficult to make some decisions over others, take for example choosing to take a dissident opinion in a large group which may result in punishment or on a micro-level, choosing to stop breathing for a prolonged period of time. Those kinds of choices would be something we would need a strong external motivator to make. Perhaps we felt very convicted about the dissenting opinion or perhaps we need to hold our breath to avoid drowning.
Where I depart from this determinist viewpoint is where the choices become less matter-of-fact and/or their results are not as externally profound. Supposing, using your example, you are thinking through a stream of consciousness. I would argue that part of that stream of thoughts would include potential outcomes, effects, and perhaps their compatability with your (to use dennet's language) scripts, your culture, your idea of self. While that might not stand out as a dramatic issuance of personal (a loaded word in this context) choice, I don't think we have any evidence to suggest we do not impart our own spin on the otherwise rote decision making critera and thus affect our own choices to some degree.
I don't think it takes a great deal of apologist argument to swing these inherent functionalities around the ideas of compassion, coexistence, and comarradery. It is without doubt that organisims, from the single-cell to the most complex, have benefitted from a variety of co-existence procedures. How you further illustrate this: be it as a natural tendency for groups to form to accomplish a function, or as a tendency of functionally similar units to form a whole will largely depend on bias. As I stated before, the science is surely being pursued, but our conceptual models of the brain have a ways to go before we can say either way for sure. What we cannot deny; however, is that we do have the ability to work together and we have historical evidence to suggest that working together (even under the auspice of competition) is far more beneficial for the longevity of our species (not to mention the other species upon wich our existence depends) than not.
He referenced a few contemporaries and I think the concept of competitive agents and agencies is fascinating and could form the basis of much explanation. I would think that his viewpoint on free will would be our capacity to reflect on the effects of our competing agents externally. In other words, you have the hardware and software running, but through those apellete programs (communication, interal and external) you can review the software output and more readily identify the good agents from the bad (or perhaps the inefficient agents from the efficient, verbage being very loosely applied at this juncture).
I agree, it's a great talk and i'm quite interested to follow this channel of research. If I stumble upon more of it i'll be sure to pass it along.