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| Regarding fate/free will, I believe.... |
| Everything that happens does so for a reason that is part of a bigger, convergent plan. Somehow, all our life events are predetermined. |
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7% |
[ 2 ] |
| Everything that happens is because of some cause, but there is no plan and all causes are subject to our own free will and choice such that we can choose our path |
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62% |
[ 17 ] |
| There is some other explanation about how thing happen to us and the degree to which we can affect those things |
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29% |
[ 8 ] |
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| Total Votes : 27 |
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venus
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Location: Near Seoul
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 Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 3:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Grimalkin wrote: |
venus
You are making two very erroneous assumptions: 1.
1) You think that because a universe where every outcome is pre-determined excludes the possibility of free will then a universe where not all outcomes are pre-determined must include free will. This is wrong. In both types of universe free will might not exist.
2) You think that because choice exists there must be free will. Every time you use a search engine it 'chooses' what links from all the possible ones available which ones to bring you. This choice is based on set criteria. I believe human choices are equally determined by set criteria. We simply believe that we have freely chosen because our conscious mind, unaware of the criteria that caused our choice,supplies us for a reason for our choice the same way it supplies people operating under post-hypnotic suggestion with reasons for their actions given them the illusion that they have acted freely (same with the patients with severed corpus calloseums). |
1. No I'm not.
2. Yeah...
Put quite simply, your hypnotic examples are based upon suggestion. The subject is in a state of hypnosis, the conscious mind is shut off and the individual is being manipulated, having suggestions planted in their subconsciousness. Lets use art as an example. Explain away if you will how the novelist isn't free to decide on the names of his/her characters and the course the plot will take. Of course there are certain 'set criteria' in that th enovel has to reflect the world around us and our understanding of it, but why call a character "Billy' over 'Malcolm...' The criteria is set to a certain degree - we must use words for example and form them into snetences which impart meaning that others will understand - but their are still choices within. It' s all a matter of degree you see and all you're doing is over simplifying the matter. |
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n3ptne
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Location: Poh*A*ng City
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 7:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Lets use art as an example |
Of course. You failed miserably at using Science or Math.
Why is it so impossible for you to understand that there is a universe that exists outside of you, and that by the very definition of existing within it (a system) you cannot be free?
Why do you feel that diminishes you?
These are honest questions that I would like answer to.
Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone. - Spinoza
Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin. - von Neumann
I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return. - Russell
It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper. - Einstein |
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venus
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Location: Near Seoul
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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| n3ptne wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Lets use art as an example |
Of course. You failed miserably at using Science or Math.
Why is it so impossible for you to understand that there is a universe that exists outside of you, and that by the very definition of existing within it (a system) you cannot be free?
Why do you feel that diminishes you?
These are honest questions that I would like answer to. |
Okay. Firstly, why brush aside my question about art? Pease address it.
To answer your questions.
1. I think I'm both bound by certain constraints but free to choose between possibilities within them. This is the point you fail to understand or address and this is where we seem to miscommunicate.
Your idea of total freedom is moot as I've mentioned before as it would mean existing outside of the universe, in fact it would mean non-existence.
But we are talking about free will. Choices we have within existence, if you will.
Like I keep repeating - I am bound by the system in some ways. I can only choose out of the many countries that actually exist to fly to for vacation. But I get to choose between which one I go to. There is a decision making proccess. I have choice. That is where my freedom lies. At this point in time there is nothing forcing me to choose to go to Thailand or Bali instead of Bhutan. What you are doing is analysing from outside of the experiencer (subject.) It's an abstraction.
Isn't this simple to understand? You have choices within the system. You can't choose the system, but you can make choices within it. And I don't polarise as you do into either being a slave to the system or it's master. I am part of the universe not apart from it, I've always maintained that all along. That is what gives 'me' free will. I am not it's slave, I am part of it.
It's called Compatabilism if you want to define it I guess.
There is no such thing as complete freedom frrom the universal laws (whatever they may be.) It is a non seqetur. It would suggest that the universe decided to throw a non part of it into itself (me.) That is of course impossible! You might as well ask if the universe itself is 'free.' If you're so apart from the universe - how come you're made up of most of it? You create a false relation of self and other with the universe I guess. I don't.
I do not feel deminished in anyway. I love life, it's fun most of the time. I feel glad that this summer I have the choice of where to go for vacation for example.
The ability to choose between future possibilities. That is how I define freedom or free will. Perhaps you should state how you define it and perhaps we have different definitions. |
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n3ptne
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Location: Poh*A*ng City
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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I will read your post later, no time at the moment.
Why did I brush aside art?
Art has nothing to do with objective reality, and hence nothing to do with whether or not freewill is permitted by the laws that govern our universe.
It has nothing to do with this topic. |
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n3ptne
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Location: Poh*A*ng City
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 9:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| But we are talking about free will. Choices we have within existence, if you will. |
And this is exactly where you are wrong..
You don't have all choices within existence, in fact, you don't have any choice at all so long as you exist within the universe...
An easy comparison is a coin toss. You say there is a 50/50 chance of it either being heads or tails, I contend that there is only a 100% chance that it will be either one or the other, and that sheerly by the fact that one, or the other resulted, it never could have been another way. Despite the "probability" of such a thing.
If total freedom doesn't exist, then no freedom does.
Buffet believers are the scum of the Earth. |
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Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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n3tune
The fact that the end point of the universe is determinable does not in itself mean that the universe itself is deterministic simply because there is no possible way of determining in what order a sequence of events will take place.
If I continued to flip a coin I would on average expect to get heads fifty percent of the time and tales fifty percent of the time but there is no way to predict what sequence these those heads or tales will occur in. To prove the non existence of free will both the sequence of the events and the end result would have to be determinable.
When Youngs two slit experiment is carried out by firing a series of electrons we can predict that an interference pattern will build up on the screen, but the electrons do not strike the screen in any given order and knowing where the last electron struck do not allow us to determine where the next electron will strike.
Similarly knowing the end point of the universe does not allow you to know the outcome of the individual events that lead up to that end point. |
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venus
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Location: Near Seoul
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 10:30 pm Post subject: |
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post deleted.
Last edited by venus on Thu May 31, 2007 10:40 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 10:31 pm Post subject: |
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venus
You're missing the point I making with the example of post hypnotic suggestion. I'm not saying that it proves there is no free will. What I am saying is that it shows how we can be convinced that we acted freely in a situation in fact we didn't.
In one such experiment a subject is hypnotised and a post hypnotic suggestion is given to him that when he awakes he will take of his right shoe whenever the hypnotist snaps his fingers. He is further instructed to have no conscious memory of the post hypnotic suggestion. On awakening the hypnotist engages the subject in conversation and then at some point snaps his fingers. In response the subject removes his right shoe. The hypnotist asks him why he took off his shoe and the subject replys that his foot was itchy and wanted to scratch it. His mind has rationalised the action allowing him to believe that he freely chose to perform it.
Everytime we believe we are making free choices it could well be for the same reason. Because of that we can never know if any of our choices are freely made.
We do know that at least some of the time when we believe we have freely chosen we are in fact deceived. |
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venus
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Location: Near Seoul
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 10:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Grimalkin wrote: |
venus
You're missing the point I making with the example of post hypnotic suggestion. I'm not saying that it proves there is no free will. What I am saying is that it shows how we can be convinced that we acted freely in a situation in fact we didn't.
In one such experiment a subject is hypnotised and a post hypnotic suggestion is given to him that when he awakes he will take of his right shoe whenever the hypnotist snaps his fingers. He is further instructed to have no conscious memory of the post hypnotic suggestion. On awakening the hypnotist engages the subject in conversation and then at some point snaps his fingers. In response the subject removes his right shoe. The hypnotist asks him why he took off his shoe and the subject replys that his foot was itchy and wanted to scratch it. His mind has rationalised the action allowing him to believe that he freely chose to perform it.
Everytime we believe we are making free choices it could well be for the same reason. Because of that we can never know if any of our choices are freely made.
We do know that at least some of the time when we believe we have freely chosen we are in fact deceived. |
Granted. You will see that has been my position all along. I was never saying there was complete determinsim or free will as I believe them to be false positions, semantic non sequiters (sp.)
Last edited by venus on Thu May 31, 2007 11:19 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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venus
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Location: Near Seoul
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| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 10:41 pm Post subject: |
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| n3ptne wrote: |
| Quote: |
| But we are talking about free will. Choices we have within existence, if you will. |
And this is exactly where you are wrong..
You don't have all choices within existence, in fact, you don't have any choice at all so long as you exist within the universe...
An easy comparison is a coin toss. You say there is a 50/50 chance of it either being heads or tails, I contend that there is only a 100% chance that it will be either one or the other, and that sheerly by the fact that one, or the other resulted, it never could have been another way. Despite the "probability" of such a thing.
If total freedom doesn't exist, then no freedom does.
Buffet believers are the scum of the Earth. |
Semantic games.
The concept of total freedom is impossible as is it's antithesis. Utter free will would be non existence.
Your polarisation is where you're tripping up.
Your position still needs man to be apart from the universe for him to be unfree within it. This is your failing.
You are trying to analyse experience from outside of it (I know this is layman terminology, but I'm knackered)
Consider. For good to exist there must be evil. To have the concept of light we must have dark.
For the concept of determinism to exist there must be it' antithesis - free will.
And if you're the extreme nihilist your postion would suggest then by it's own definition your conclusion that the universe is deterministic - is utterly meaningless.
Both free will and determinism are illusions, false positions.
Grimalkin has more concisely bolstered my criticism of the time's arrow perspective of standing outside of a linear universe and viewing events form the end of time, which you say you weren't applying but actually were - as the events ultimatley happen, they could no have happened any other way. This is only possible to suggest if we were able to stand outside of the universe and view time in reverse like watching a video. Of course - in the moment before the choice (which card out of a chice of five to pick up for example) there were always several possibilities. We can thus say after the fact that it couldn't have happened any other way and it would be true (we cannot reverse events.) You cannot argue that five seconds before I picked the card I did, I had no choice and that there is only one possible future at any given moment in time, you can only argue that from outside of and after it. |
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n3ptne
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Location: Poh*A*ng City
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| Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 8:31 am Post subject: |
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I'm withdrawing from this thread.
Venus, aginst you, you have the whole of physics. Both QM, and Relativity.
In your corner you have nothing.
Continue to believe what you believe because you are not strong enough to believe reality.
I said, from the word go, that argumentation is futile, and it is. Experimental confirmation is not to be taken lightly.
| Quote: |
| Consider. For good to exist there must be evil. To have the concept of light we must have dark. |
There is no such thing as good, or evil. They are man made concepts. Not real. |
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venus
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Location: Near Seoul
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| Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 9:48 am Post subject: |
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[quote="n3ptne"]I'm withdrawing from this thread.
Venus, aginst you, you have the whole of physics. Both QM, and Relativity.
In your corner you have nothing.
Continue to believe what you believe because you are not strong enough to believe reality.
I said, from the word go, that argumentation is futile, and it is. Experimental confirmation is not to be taken lightly.
| Quote: |
| Consider. For good to exist there must be evil. To have the concept of light we must have dark. |
There is no such thing as good, or evil. They are man made concepts. Not real.[/quote] |
As far as Experimental confirmation goes -check out this link on indeterminism and read the science para - it shows how QP can actually support a non determinsitic universe! But, like I've said there is no concencus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminism
You actually have both QM and relativity against YOU!!
PS if good and evil are man made concepts so are true and false and free will and determinism.
Now back to your previous post if I may, as I only just finished editing my response after you posted the above.
| n3ptne wrote: |
| Quote: |
| But we are talking about free will. Choices we have within existence, if you will. |
And this is exactly where you are wrong..
You don't have all choices within existence, in fact, you don't have any choice at all so long as you exist within the universe...
An easy comparison is a coin toss. You say there is a 50/50 chance of it either being heads or tails, I contend that there is only a 100% chance that it will be either one or the other, and that sheerly by the fact that one, or the other resulted, it never could have been another way. Despite the "probability" of such a thing.
If total freedom doesn't exist, then no freedom does.
Buffet believers are the scum of the Earth. |
Semantic games.
The fact that there is a 100% chance of one or the other is an assertion that there are two possibilities! After the fact you can say it could not have been any other way but probability before the event occurs gives two options. Indeed current Qm theory still suggests a 1% variable on the behavior of particles.
You say that as man is governed by the laws of the universe, he cannot have free will (total freedom.) Your position calls for man to be apart from the universe for him to be unfree within it or free outside of it. This is a false proposition as man cannot be outside of the universe as the universe is defined as being everything that exists. As this CANNOT be, there cannot be an opposite to free will, if no such notion exists in actuality. If free will is merely an idea, a false notion we can say that determinism is the idea that is formed as the opposite of an idea or false notion - thus as is related to it it cannot be real as it needs the false idea to exist.
You are trying to analyse experience from outside of it (I know this is layman terminology, but I'm knackered)
If QP suggests the mind is not apart from the physical (as it does) and is curently proving that all physical laws are deterministic (debateable) than you cannot say that there is an 'I' - only an illusion of self. Then how can you sat 'I' do or do not have free will - as there can be no seprate 'I.' existing outside of the universe in order to observe it.
Also another perspective - if free will and determinsm are mutually exclusive (the position of a hard determinist) we are in a paradox.
The concept of free will would be impossible as is would its's antithesis - determinism (if we take the term to mean 'no free will.') Without free will to be the opposite of determinism the words 'no free will' become meaningless.
Consider. For good to exist there must be evil. To have the concept of light we must have dark.
For matter: anti matter.
For the concept of determinism to exist there must be it's antithesis - free will.
Either that or both assumptions are utterly meaningless.
Both free will and determinism are illusions, false positions.
Perhaps the laws of the physical universe are deterministic. I know for a fact that I cannot turn myself into a chocolate cake. But I assert that we can make choices within it. That is our human position or condition if you will. I have to eat today or die but if you put eight different colored cakes in front of me I still have the choice of which one to choose. You might say I picked one due to it being my favorite color, something that I am not able to control and is governed by the physical make up of the neurons in my brain. Fair enough. But what if all the eight cakes are the same color. What is forcing me to choose one or the other? True, if I am hungry and the only food I have available to me are those eight cakes I am being forced into a choice but I still have eight options.
So we can say that there is no such thing as free will in the sense that we cannot act outside of the universe. But the very notion of such a position is false - it cannot be - there is no 'outside of the universe.' Thus there is no free will. But we cannot say there is such a term as 'no free will' as I've mentoned. But what do we call the ability I have to choose one of those eight cakes over the other...? If we don't call it free will - what do we call it? Can that exist in a purely determinist universe? Perhaps only in a random one. That is the paradox.
I suppose, ontologically, we must define 'causality' as a collection of events leading up to the present and 'choice' as an agent acting within it. Although our actions are pre-determined; due to the way we've evloved we can make choices in the way that MATTER to us. We can make predictions based on the laws we observe and are able to make choices that help us survive...
Evolution after all creates beings increasingly more capable of mastering their environments... Are we being given the ability to unlock that ultimate control over the ultimate environment - the universe...?
Causality (if read in an evelotionary sense) has created a being with the ability to make choice. If there is only illusion of choice merely firing of neurons - then am I picking up a piece of paper or is there just a blind proccess of change taking place of neurons firng causing me to pick up arm, grasp fingers on paper etc... Thus I am not 'making a choice.' If there is no 'choice' (a) by definition there cannot be 'no choice' (not a.)
Now lets look at biological instincts as being a limitation on free will. Lets say you set five identical pieces of paper in front of me. Biological determism plays little part - I have no reason to choose one over the other, (in contrast to choosing a spicy burger over a sweet one - the state of my stomach or make up of my taste buds for example could influence the decision) only I have to make the choice and the parematers are set that I can only pick up one. How can you explain my choice to pick up the second one on the left over the others? If it is mere reaction to stimuli - what is it that sets my choice in motion - what can account for it..?
Now I am only making this decision to choose one thing or the other thing. I could decide to not pick up any of the papers. Grimalkin might say that my choices are forced - pick a choice of paper or pick up no paper at all ( a or not a). Now lets say that instead of picking up the paper my reaction is to punch myself on the nose ( c ). I could say that I chose neither the paper or not pick up paper. ( a or not a) Now Grimalkin could say - but the conditions set were binary - pick up the paper or not. Just because you chose to punch yourself on the nose, you also made the choice not to pick up a paper. Yes, correct. Now Grimalkin had options of setting the conditions for my choice experiment. And he chose only two possibilities out of a myriad of others (pick up paper or not or bite your finger or masterbate or....) Now has he operated free will by choosing those two conditions over others...? If we observe him doing so before his choice to pick the conditions 'pick paper or no paper' we can say before he made the decision several possibilities were open to him.
This is fact, we cannot deny that in the moment before he chooses that he has no choice as that would indicate no decision making process (we cannot jump into the past and say it was inveitable just yet, we can only say that once the choice is made it will be irrevocable.) You cannot argue that five seconds before he makes his choice, he had no choice and that there is only one possible future at any given moment in time. We can only assert NO if we observe outside of and after the fact. But that doesn't point to a deterministic universe. It points to a random one with myriad possibility until the action has occured. Who is to say which position is more valid - observing before or after. If we observe after the action - our previous fact that 'he has several choices' becomes false! How do we account for the paradox here...? Okay as the fact is history and has become part of the make up of the universe that is NOW, we decide it couldn't have been any other way. But then we ask Grimalking to repeat the whole shebang again - he has to decide which two options out of performing any two physical actions out of all the ones that exist - I have in an experimment to determine whether or not we can say there is free will or choice. When we say that at this point in time it is a fact that 'he has not chosen yet so he has agency over which choices to pick' - we are making a false assumption if we hold up the previous conclusion (it could not have been any other way thus there was no choice.) Yet he does have the choice laid out before him...
I don't know what to call this or how to explain it but it is a paradox. I'll call it Dave's ESL paradox. Well it is a problem of Logical determinsim.
How can we say that choices can be free, given that what one does in the future is already determined as true or false in the present or indeed how can our statement of truth based onobservation in the past be deter
As for the big bang being the prime cause of all effect, we cannot yet prove what state the universe was in prior to it or where the compressed universe came from. Qunatum atrophysicists hold different views about precisely how the universe originated. And of course there are so many schools of determinism and Quantum physics that there is of yet no concencus nor any empirical evidence to suggest what we are doing here is merely more than playing with words.... no human statement bears any relation to external reality... Even observing ourselves in relation to whether we have choice or not (the word itself may be an ontological mistake) we are using the superego - an abstract thing thus are our conclusions more than abstract assumption.... Okay, I'm overindulging with that last part...
However I would like you to address the assertions I make above (if you have time and can be bothered...)
I think you and I and everyone else are all part of the universe experiencing itself (as we cannot be apart from it - it being all that exists) and thus the 'choices' we make are made by ourselves as the universe (whatever that is and it's causes are) causes the choices to happen anyhow and we are part of it able to observe it... I guess that's pantheism.
The hard determinist position can only happen if we are seperate from the universe which is a bloody strange position seeing as we are made up from the same fabric..! It's just a false relationship, thus false ontology.
I'm surprised this thread is getting so little attention! |
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Zoobot
Joined: 25 Aug 2006
Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
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| Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 10:31 am Post subject: |
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np3tne: "I'm right because I know more about physics and mathematics than you, and furthermore, my ego is bigger and badder than yours, so shut the hell up."
venus: "OWWWWW Schroedinger's Cat scratched my arm all to hell"
Grimalkin: "Let's play semantic games with a preying mantis."
Qinella: "Spinoza is so dreadfully melancholy. He really needs to get laid and forget about this tawdry game."
"But what about ART?"
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| Art has nothing to do with objective reality |
Sigfried Krakauer: "You idiot! Objective reality is the primary concern of film."
Me: "I wish I could find that damn Godot guy. I've been flipping this damn coin for three days, and all I ever get is tail!" |
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Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
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| Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 1:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Zoobot wrote: |
np3tne: "I'm right because I know more about physics and mathematics than you, and furthermore, my ego is bigger and badder than yours, so shut the hell up."
venus: "OWWWWW Schroedinger's Cat scratched my arm all to hell"
Grimalkin: "Let's play semantic games with a preying mantis."
Qinella: "Spinoza is so dreadfully melancholy. He really needs to get laid and forget about this tawdry game."
"But what about ART?"
| Quote: |
| Art has nothing to do with objective reality |
Sigfried Krakauer: "You idiot! Objective reality is the primary concern of film."
Me: "I wish I could find that damn Godot guy. I've been flipping this damn coin for three days, and all I ever get is tail!" |
Is it because that's the only tail you're getting that's making you so bitter?  |
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n3ptne
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Location: Poh*A*ng City
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| Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 6:54 pm Post subject: |
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| At one time, it was assumed in the physical sciences that if the behavior observed in a system cannot be predicted, the problem is due to lack of fine-grained information, so that a sufficiently detailed investigation would eventually result in a deterministic theory ("If you knew exactly all the forces acting on the die, you would be able to predict which number comes up"). However, the advent of quantum mechanics removed the underpinnning from that approach, with the claim that (at least according to the Copenhagen interpretation) the most basic constituents of matter behave indeterministically, in accordance with such properties as the uncertainty principle. Quantum indeterminism was controversial on its introduction, with Einstein among the opposition, but gradually gained ground. Experiments confirmed the correctness of quantum mechanics, with a test of the Bell's theorem by Alain Aspect being particularly important because it showed that determinism and locality cannot both be true. Bohmian quantum mechanics remains the main attempt to preserve determinism (albeit at the expense of locality). |
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