Smood: I'd disagree. The vast majority of actions we undertake are deterministic, infact the vast majority of all actions and interactions are deterministic. When we eat, we eat because we are hungry and it is necessary for survival, when we buy games we buy games because we are bored and we have a past history of enjoying games. When we go out with someone else it's because we have known that person for a while and we like them. People do things for reasons... or at least that is to say that there are contributing factors that lead to any given decision made. Some of the things we do we do because we are predisposed to a certain action, some we do because we are trained, and others still we do because we are seeking to oppose one of the former two.
I can probably propose scenarios that would be too complicated for BM to map out a simple state chart, but that doesn't mean that they aren't deterministic. In fact the only actions we take that are not deterministic are actions that we consider the determinism of that action as a factor before the action is taken, which is very rare because determined consideration isn't really efficient and is rarely necessary or beneficial in every day life. Can you imagine how much it would stall up your life if every time you opened up the fridge and tried to decide what to eat the most signifigant determining factor for your final decision is what some nondescript entity expects you to choose?
I guess strictly speaking even for determined actions we still technically 'decide' to take them, therefore we are choosing, but it is set choice. If I see a bunch of games I don't just mindlessly pick a game off the shelf, I consider past experiences, things I've heard, possibly articles I've read, and of course the prices, and THEN after alot of mind work I take the title I want. So while in the end you could say "you bought the game because you like RPG's and the price was good" and turn my action into a predisposed action, I'd still have made a choice because those factors were only created as factors once I put them into my mind. The choice may have been a set choice, in that it wasn't an decision I made with the intent of introduced randomness or falsifying my determined action, but it was still a choice in that it required intentional consideration.
<!--quoteo(post=1606292:date=Feb 13 2007, 09:20 PM:name=SmoodCroozn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SmoodCroozn @ Feb 13 2007, 09:20 PM) [snapback]1606292[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> I do something because I chose to do it.
Reasons do not link automatic actions, if we can choose to do it.
If you bought a game because it was an RPG, I would do the opposite. Therefore, you can't say, if a game is an RPG, then it will be bought. Well, you could say, if a game is a RPG, then people might buy it, but what would that prove.
Reasons don't get us anywhere. It's called bad faith when you believe you HAVE to do something when you have the choice to.
If you were to hold a gun to my head, I wouldn't be "FORCED" by the reason to live to do what you say. I would still have my choice of obeying you or not.
Again, it's about choice, not what arbitrary REASON that forces us to act in certain ways that we function. I suppose that links somewhere to free will. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Smood, do you read any of the counter posts? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
Your example of the RPG, is identical to the one about the car and A killing B because B killed A's wife. They are all subject to the same flaw. I'll try to state it again... Just because the same reason can be relied upon to two different results, does not mean reasons are irrelevant. The results are different because the reason is relied upon differently by the different people.
I think you subconsciously accept that reasons are behind choices, its just that you can't see it that way. I say this because in your last you explicitly state that you use reasons in your choices anyway.
<!--quoteo(post=1606356:date=Feb 14 2007, 12:12 AM:name=SmoodCroozn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SmoodCroozn @ Feb 14 2007, 12:12 AM) [snapback]1606356[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Erm, I wouldn't buy a RPG because I plain don't like what they are. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Here, you've just admitted a reason behind a choice. Your choice = not buying RPG Your reason = you don't like what they are Your reason led to your choice. They are inextricably linked.
<!--quoteo(post=1606356:date=Feb 14 2007, 12:12 AM:name=SmoodCroozn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SmoodCroozn @ Feb 14 2007, 12:12 AM) [snapback]1606356[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> The real reason is that I did not choose to. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is circular. You are saying that you chose to not buy the RPG because you chose not to buy it. It makes zero sense.
<!--quoteo(post=1606292:date=Feb 13 2007, 09:20 PM:name=SmoodCroozn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SmoodCroozn @ Feb 13 2007, 09:20 PM) [snapback]1606292[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> I do something because I chose to do it.
Reasons do not link automatic actions, if we can choose to do it.
If you bought a game because it was an RPG, I would do the opposite. Therefore, you can't say, if a game is an RPG, then it will be bought. Well, you could say, if a game is a RPG, then people might buy it, but what would that prove.
Reasons don't get us anywhere. It's called bad faith when you believe you HAVE to do something when you have the choice to.
If you were to hold a gun to my head, I wouldn't be "FORCED" by the reason to live to do what you say. I would still have my choice of obeying you or not.
Again, it's about choice, not what arbitrary REASON that forces us to act in certain ways that we function. I suppose that links somewhere to free will. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> afk killing myself
I would say free will exists by definition. We have brains; our brains allow us to make choices; therefore we have free will. The real question is, what is a choice, isn't it? Is a 'conscious choice' something made by complex equasions in a human (or animal or machine) brain, or is it something deep and spiritual that goes beyond physics and ones and zeros? and the only real 'test' of this could ever be rewinding time, and seeing if all the exact same choices are made by all the same entities, and if reality plays out exactly the same way every time. without being able to do this, it's impossible to prove whether any 'randomness' or true choice exists in the universe.
Okay, I stopped reading this thread on the last page, but my input really has little relevance with the way the thread was progressing. After reading much of this thread for some reason I thought of comparing the position of an electron to fate. From what I have been told the mere act of looking at an electron changes its position. I'm too tired at the moment to really extrapolate from this point and I feel quite sure someone with superior knowledge of that analogy will shoot it down soon, but I thought I'd add it just to see what you guys think. Could it be determined that someone would look at what was determined and change it? Is it possible that the end determination requires a previous determination? Contradicts itself, i know, but an interesting thought.
For clarification, is it possible that it is determined that someone will look at what is determined and thereby change it? Could what is determined be mutable (someone looking at it and changing it), but its mutability (change from looking) ultimately determinable is what I'm asking i guess? or could it remain that what is determined can be mutable by looking at it and its repercussions not fully realizable until they happen? I bow to anyone who understands whatever I just said. The easy argument i suppose is that they didn't look far enough into the future, but thats not what I'm trying to point at.
It could be made to apply to social and other situations on the macro scale. I think what you're trying to get at is that the more you look at something, the more you can affect the thing being looked at.
Sarisel.::' ( O ) ';:-. .-.:;' ( O ) '::.Join Date: 2003-07-30Member: 18557Members, Constellation
Unfortunately, it has already been predetermined what you will look at, regardless of whatever it is. The argument is that no matter what you do, your actions stemmed from earlier events that shaped your thoughts and actions for future events. Eventually, free will is an illusion - and if you see this as a reason to kill yourself or go into a deep depression, then that has been predetermined as well. The majority of humans and pretty much all organisms couldn't care less about whether or not free will really exists.
As for the uncertainty principle, it only applies when you have to interact with something in order to examine it. For example, with the electron, if you want to measure its position with great accuracy, you would be affecting its momentum and vice versa if you were to measure its momentum. If you consider your state of mind to be like an electron, then yes - thinking about something may change your point of view about something else. However, your thoughts have already been predetermined from events in the past.
Then again, we have the Incompleteness Theorem, telling us any system powerful enough to be self-referential must be either inconsistent or incomplete.
A human looking at his own fate because he was fated to do so is self-referential, therefore his fate must be inconsistent or incomplete. Ergo, Free Will.
Sarisel.::' ( O ) ';:-. .-.:;' ( O ) '::.Join Date: 2003-07-30Member: 18557Members, Constellation
How can you invoke free will just because a self-referential system is incomplete or inconsistent? Seems like a pretty broad application of a theorem that applies to symbolical systems.
First of all, a human "looking at his own fate", this doesn't happen. You can't look at or see your fate, the best you can do is predict what is going to happen. Then, doing so because you are fated to - the key word is fated - in that your actions were predetermined by previous events, is pretty logical. It isn't the same as, say, somebody coming up to you and saying that they're lying.
Maybe I'm not understanding your application of the theorem or maybe you didn't think it through well enough.
If Man's fate can include itself, then it can change itself. If it can change itself, then it is not set. And if it is not set, then there must be Free Will to enable the change.
Sarisel.::' ( O ) ';:-. .-.:;' ( O ) '::.Join Date: 2003-07-30Member: 18557Members, Constellation
<!--quoteo(post=1609430:date=Feb 26 2007, 10:50 AM:name=Cxwf)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Cxwf @ Feb 26 2007, 10:50 AM) [snapback]1609430[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> If Man's fate can include itself, then it can change itself. If it can change itself, then it is not set. And if it is not set, then there must be Free Will to enable the change. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Or instead of free will, previous events enable the changes necessary to determine future events. Cause and effect. "Fate" is just an item in a set of possible consequence paths. Free will does not have to exist.
extradimensional travel makes linear state tables very complicated. nonlinearized state tables look like huge, multidimensional flowcharts and are really, really hard to type out.
also, i saw the video. i want to get one of those machines and send the message "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" back to the professor.
Sarisel.::' ( O ) ';:-. .-.:;' ( O ) '::.Join Date: 2003-07-30Member: 18557Members, Constellation
To spite that one professor's claim of free will, I would argue that it was predetermined that you would try or even achieve time travel into a different universe where you would (or would not) exist at a previous time without any contradictions - hence, still no free will.
Comments
I can probably propose scenarios that would be too complicated for BM to map out a simple state chart, but that doesn't mean that they aren't deterministic. In fact the only actions we take that are not deterministic are actions that we consider the determinism of that action as a factor before the action is taken, which is very rare because determined consideration isn't really efficient and is rarely necessary or beneficial in every day life. Can you imagine how much it would stall up your life if every time you opened up the fridge and tried to decide what to eat the most signifigant determining factor for your final decision is what some nondescript entity expects you to choose?
I guess strictly speaking even for determined actions we still technically 'decide' to take them, therefore we are choosing, but it is set choice. If I see a bunch of games I don't just mindlessly pick a game off the shelf, I consider past experiences, things I've heard, possibly articles I've read, and of course the prices, and THEN after alot of mind work I take the title I want. So while in the end you could say "you bought the game because you like RPG's and the price was good" and turn my action into a predisposed action, I'd still have made a choice because those factors were only created as factors once I put them into my mind. The choice may have been a set choice, in that it wasn't an decision I made with the intent of introduced randomness or falsifying my determined action, but it was still a choice in that it required intentional consideration.
I do something because I chose to do it.
Reasons do not link automatic actions, if we can choose to do it.
If you bought a game because it was an RPG, I would do the opposite. Therefore, you can't say, if a game is an RPG, then it will be bought. Well, you could say, if a game is a RPG, then people might buy it, but what would that prove.
Reasons don't get us anywhere. It's called bad faith when you believe you HAVE to do something when you have the choice to.
If you were to hold a gun to my head, I wouldn't be "FORCED" by the reason to live to do what you say. I would still have my choice of obeying you or not.
Again, it's about choice, not what arbitrary REASON that forces us to act in certain ways that we function. I suppose that links somewhere to free will.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Smood, do you read any of the counter posts? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
Your example of the RPG, is identical to the one about the car and A killing B because B killed A's wife. They are all subject to the same flaw. I'll try to state it again... Just because the same reason can be relied upon to two different results, does not mean reasons are irrelevant. The results are different because the reason is relied upon differently by the different people.
I think you subconsciously accept that reasons are behind choices, its just that you can't see it that way. I say this because in your last you explicitly state that you use reasons in your choices anyway.
<!--quoteo(post=1606356:date=Feb 14 2007, 12:12 AM:name=SmoodCroozn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SmoodCroozn @ Feb 14 2007, 12:12 AM) [snapback]1606356[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Erm, I wouldn't buy a RPG because I plain don't like what they are.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Here, you've just admitted a reason behind a choice.
Your choice = not buying RPG
Your reason = you don't like what they are
Your reason led to your choice. They are inextricably linked.
<!--quoteo(post=1606356:date=Feb 14 2007, 12:12 AM:name=SmoodCroozn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SmoodCroozn @ Feb 14 2007, 12:12 AM) [snapback]1606356[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
The real reason is that I did not choose to.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is circular. You are saying that you chose to not buy the RPG because you chose not to buy it. It makes zero sense.
I do something because I chose to do it.
Reasons do not link automatic actions, if we can choose to do it.
If you bought a game because it was an RPG, I would do the opposite. Therefore, you can't say, if a game is an RPG, then it will be bought. Well, you could say, if a game is a RPG, then people might buy it, but what would that prove.
Reasons don't get us anywhere. It's called bad faith when you believe you HAVE to do something when you have the choice to.
If you were to hold a gun to my head, I wouldn't be "FORCED" by the reason to live to do what you say. I would still have my choice of obeying you or not.
Again, it's about choice, not what arbitrary REASON that forces us to act in certain ways that we function. I suppose that links somewhere to free will.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
afk killing myself
I would say free will exists by definition. We have brains; our brains allow us to make choices; therefore we have free will. The real question is, what is a choice, isn't it? Is a 'conscious choice' something made by complex equasions in a human (or animal or machine) brain, or is it something deep and spiritual that goes beyond physics and ones and zeros? and the only real 'test' of this could ever be rewinding time, and seeing if all the exact same choices are made by all the same entities, and if reality plays out exactly the same way every time. without being able to do this, it's impossible to prove whether any 'randomness' or true choice exists in the universe.
For clarification, is it possible that it is determined that someone will look at what is determined and thereby change it? Could what is determined be mutable (someone looking at it and changing it), but its mutability (change from looking) ultimately determinable is what I'm asking i guess? or could it remain that what is determined can be mutable by looking at it and its repercussions not fully realizable until they happen? I bow to anyone who understands whatever I just said. The easy argument i suppose is that they didn't look far enough into the future, but thats not what I'm trying to point at.
It could be made to apply to social and other situations on the macro scale. I think what you're trying to get at is that the more you look at something, the more you can affect the thing being looked at.
As for the uncertainty principle, it only applies when you have to interact with something in order to examine it. For example, with the electron, if you want to measure its position with great accuracy, you would be affecting its momentum and vice versa if you were to measure its momentum. If you consider your state of mind to be like an electron, then yes - thinking about something may change your point of view about something else. However, your thoughts have already been predetermined from events in the past.
A human looking at his own fate because he was fated to do so is self-referential, therefore his fate must be inconsistent or incomplete. Ergo, Free Will.
First of all, a human "looking at his own fate", this doesn't happen. You can't look at or see your fate, the best you can do is predict what is going to happen. Then, doing so because you are fated to - the key word is fated - in that your actions were predetermined by previous events, is pretty logical. It isn't the same as, say, somebody coming up to you and saying that they're lying.
Maybe I'm not understanding your application of the theorem or maybe you didn't think it through well enough.
If Man's fate can include itself, then it can change itself. If it can change itself, then it is not set. And if it is not set, then there must be Free Will to enable the change.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Or instead of free will, previous events enable the changes necessary to determine future events. Cause and effect. "Fate" is just an item in a set of possible consequence paths. Free will does not have to exist.
<a href="http://spikedhumor.com/articles/85748/The_World_s_First_Time_Machine.html" target="_blank">http://spikedhumor.com/articles/85748/The_...me_Machine.html</a>
It's the video of the TLC presentation on the topic of time travel. Free will comes in at about 27:00.
also, i saw the video. i want to get one of those machines and send the message "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" back to the professor.