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Whee! I love this stuff.| Having said all that, I still believe that having a sense of personal responsibility is a survival trait that is necessary for social mammals to thrive. In some grand sense it's really no one's fault you pulled the trigger to kill that guy but, we wouldn't survive very long if we didn't make you hang for it. |
See, I'm a believer in free will. It's quite clear who's fault it is when a trigger is squeezed. The trigger-man/woman. Why? Because they squeezed the trigger.
Now, the situation extrapolates from there, yes, as to motives, interested parties, stresses, etc., but in the end, one person made a conscious decision to draw their finger back to complete a fist and ended someone's life.
See, the funny thing is that you can't look at the situation in a "grand sense." A murder is a personal attack between two people. We make the man hang so he doesn't murder again, for if we let him go, he'd think he could do it again. That simple.
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| Free will is an illusion we had to evolve to have so that we could function as a species. But this doesn't mean the illusion is real. |
I could decide tomorrow to rob a bank. Any bank. With my hunting rifle.
I could decide to call off work for the day and go plant a tree.
I could decide to do any number of things outside my norm simply because I'm curious about the activity.
Just because you fall into a routine doesn't mean the world always falls under that same pattern. Just because you're aware of the circumstances and consequences doesn't mean you don't really have a decision.
A man could be threatening my family and ordering me to kill some stranger, but that doesn't mean I have to do it. It just means I have to decide what to do with the gun and bullets he gave me.
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| the free will position has done nothing to explain the physical agency the will to choice emerges from. |
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
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Corrected that for you.
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Originally Posted by FloatingFatMan
Translation: There is a zero probablity of predicting when a non-zero probability event will occur, making the universe non-deterministic.
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The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.
; Techbot_Alpha: Also, what Shadowe said. It seems he is still somewhat wise 
; Bull Throttle: Shadowe was unwise in this instance...; Rock_Powerfist: in this instance Shadowe is wise.; Techbot_Alpha: Shadowe is very wise *nods*; Zortel: *Quotable line about Shadowe being wise goes here.*
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... Sodding typo's.. I retyped that so many times my fingers got into a habit of typing non-zero. |
Originally Posted by Shadowe
Corrected that for you.
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I have a non-zero chance of ever getting my fingers to do what I want them to sausage.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dammit... Now I want sausage...
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
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Asking for a hypothesis for the basis of free will I think is a pretty reasonable scientific request. If we can't put forward a model by which it works, how can we test for it experimentally? If we can't define it rigorously, and propose ways to test for it experimentally, how can we claim it exists?|
Originally Posted by Shadowe
Synth, you baffle me. You state that you believe in determinism, then insist that people provide a testable hypothesis to model free will on.
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And actually, I believe in both the determinism of Newton and Einstein and well as the indeterminacy of quantum theory. It's free will I don't believe in. I believe free will is incompatible with both.
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Originally Posted by Shadowe
Sorry that this discussion got derailed, but I feel the need to point out that since the Universe has been scientifically and mathematically proven to be non-deterministic.
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I guess you are reading different books than me. What I was taught is that the universe is both deterministic and indeterministic. I was given the impression that most of twentieth century physics claimed that is was both. It one or the other depending on which scale or context we look at it. The correspondence principle states that the indeterminacy of quantum theory fades into the determinacy of classical physics once we reach the mesoscale.
But if you feel that it has been conclusively proven that the universe is only indeterministic, well--okay. I'm not going to argue the point.
But I want to point out that indeterminacy is not reconcilable with the idea of free will.
Anyway, I agree that I derailed this conversation from Ultimo's original question. I'll stop harping on about it. My apologies.
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them."
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And I agree. In the context of the murder somebody is clearly at fault and for our safety someone needs to be punished. We evolved to have a moral sense and strong feelings of personal responsibility because if we didn't we wouldn't be a social species. We'd be more like very territorial and solitary reptiles or solitary insects. |
Originally Posted by Mr_Grey
See, the funny thing is that you can't look at the situation in a "grand sense." A murder is a personal attack between two people. We make the man hang so he doesn't murder again, for if we let him go, he'd think he could do it again. That simple.
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But when we dig into what caused him or her to make that decision, we find that free will vanishes. We discover causal chains and the interplay of zillions of factors leading all the way back to the Big Bang and perhaps beyond. (And as a brief aside, it's possible that these causal chains don't have to have any beginning. They could be infinite in length.)
Or we can dig down into quantum chemistry and discover that he or she made the decision because of a single neurotransmitter molecule, in that microsecond, having the bulk of its electrons here as opposed to there. So in this case the decision one way or the other was a causal cascade from a single indeterminate system. Again, this really isn't much of a refuge for free will.
However:
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Originally Posted by Mr_Grey
Physical agency? The brain, perhaps.
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However, again, if that's where free will comes from, that means that a wide variety of similarly organized chunks of matter could also have free will. This reconciles free will with the position taking by hard AI.
But as Shadowe points out, I'm taking us very far afield. I apologize.
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them."
Interestingly enough, New Scientist had an article on the very subject of Free Will and whether it was an illusion or not which appeared yesterday or so.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...after-all.html
As you can see, it may be that you lot can argue over whether you can produce a 'scientific' argument regarding Free Will, but the neuroscientists have been running experiments about it for a while now. I must admit, I wasn't aware that some pillock had 'disproved' Free Will all those years ago, but I'm happy to see that someone else has now 'proved' Free Will does exist. Or have they? Do I care? Do they even know what they are talking about? Considering this is essentially medicine-related, my conclusion is that they don't, and no, I don't care either.
What exactly is the difference between the illusion of Free Will and the fact?
The entire, observed world is an illusion. It doesn't really 'look' like what we see. Certainly, we have no right to consider our view as more correct than (say) a cat's view. So, we view our illusion as real? Who's to say it isn't?
The reason philosophers really don't get jobs is that they not only talk a load of balderdash, but they insist on talking pointless balderdash.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
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Here here! It really is about time these people shaved their beatnik beards off, got off of their lazy rear ends, and went out and got a job. |
Originally Posted by Ravenswing
The reason philosophers really don't get jobs is that they not only talk a load of balderdash, but they insist on talking pointless balderdash.
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@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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Because what this world really needs is a few more tehcnicians and lumberjacks.
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Originally Posted by FloatingFatMan
Here here! It really is about time these people shaved their beatnik beards off, got off of their lazy rear ends, and went out and got a job.
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Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse
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Damn right! Still haven't finished chopping down all those darned rainforests! |
Originally Posted by Genia
Because what this world really needs is a few more tehcnicians and lumberjacks.
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@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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I don't believe that.| But when we dig into what caused him or her to make that decision, we find that free will vanishes. |
Four years and two months ago, I found myself in the Hilton Metropole in Brighton. Brighton Comic Expo, first and only one. NCSoft Europe was there, as were friends I met online. FloatingFatMan and Ravenswing being among two of them. At the time, I was a nervous, anxiety-filled wreck. Okay, I still can be at times, but here's the thing.
After the Saturday's events, we found ourselves in the bar just before going out to get food, the group of us. My panic attack started to kick in. I excused myself, started to return to my room and stopped halfway there.
I'd come 300 or so miles to see these people, and was about to let my disorders get the better of me and rob me of their company over dinner and the rest of the evening. And at that point, -I- decided not to give in. I made a choice to stand up to myself, turn around, and bolt back down after them, caught up to them and had a great evening.
Was that predetermined? I don't think so. I hope it wasn't. Because if there was no free will that choice, that effort meant nothing at all. And I can't stand for that. It's my will and choices, my reaction and actions that shape my life, not some higher force or universal power. My choices brought me to this point in time, and they'll take me to another point in time, for good or for ill.
I'd say if someone proved tomorrow that there was no free will, we were all just puppets on strings, going through a pre-set path in life, I'd off myself as there was no point...
But someone would say that'd have been determined for me, right? :P
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I remember it well! I was at the back of the crowd, turned around, and there you were! A quick poke to everyone and w00t! We have a Z!|
Originally Posted by Zortel
I'd come 300 or so miles to see these people, and was about to let my disorders get the better of me and rob me of their company over dinner and the rest of the evening. And at that point, -I- decided not to give in. I made a choice to stand up to myself, turn around, and bolt back down after them, caught up to them and had a great evening.
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Always remember. YOU made that decision, hun; no bugger else. It was YOUR determination and strength of will that overcame your fears, and out of that, gained a whole bunch of really nice folks as friends.
IN YOUR EYE PRE-DETERMINISTIC BULLPOOP!
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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| So perhaps we're at an impasse. If I understand you correctly, you'd say I'm jumping to a conclusion only based on lack of evidence. My theory assumes too much. I'd say in return, until the free will position can put forward some empirically testable model (I hesistate to say "mechanism" because I think free will is not a mechanistic concept.) that generates free will, science must pass it by in silence. |
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| If we can't put forward a model by which it works, how can we test for it experimentally? If we can't define it rigorously, and propose ways to test for it experimentally, how can we claim it exists? |
Some people believe the universe runs on pre-determined rails. Others say it's just random chance. Still others say it depends on free will. My point is that since there is currently no way to solidly determine which (if any) is or are true, saying one or more are clearly false due to lack of concrete evidence (when none have concrete, testable evidence that support their claims) is scientifically fallacious.
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
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Excellent! This is just the sort of thing I'm talking about--just the sort of thing I want to see! If they have some way to examine it and test for it empirically, I'm all for it. |
Originally Posted by Ravenswing
Interestingly enough, New Scientist had an article on the very subject of Free Will and whether it was an illusion or not which appeared yesterday or so.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...after-all.html |
As I said to Mr. Grey, I realize that the trouble with my position of hard incompatibility (where free will is incompatible with both determinacy and indeterminacy.) is that it may be too reductionist. Free will may be an emergent phenomena that is not derivable from the behavioral rules followed by components lower down in the hierarchy of systems that compose the largest system you're looking at. For example, mindless genes, just following biochemistry, can indirectly create machines that are conscious. You could study the interaction of all that molecular biology for decades and, while you could get a vague sense that surprising behavior could emerge from it, you won't find the mind anywhere in it. The mind is too many levels removed. You'd have to put aside reductionism and pull back to look at the systems level--to the cell level, to the tissue level, to the sub organ level and finally to the brain. Free will could be just like that. Gerald Edelman might chastise me for attempting to invoke a spook of physics for something--free will--that doesn't need that.
So okay. I chicken out. I took too dogmatic a position without sufficient support for it.
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them."
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Blaming the Big Bang for anything is simply ludicrous. May as well hang a mother for giving birth to a man who commits murder twenty-four years later. That's at least closer, but it's still ludicrous. Condemnation lies with the individual for the decisions made, not because the individual was there in the first place.| But when we dig into what caused him or her to make that decision, we find that free will vanishes. We discover causal chains and the interplay of zillions of factors leading all the way back to the Big Bang and perhaps beyond. (And as a brief aside, it's possible that these causal chains don't have to have any beginning. They could be infinite in length.) |
While many people may not have the fortitude to stand against the tide, that doesn't mean nobody will.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
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Sure, I agree and have retracted my earlier position.
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Originally Posted by Mr_Grey
Condemnation lies with the individual for the decisions made, not because the individual was there in the first place.
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"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them."
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As you say, you can't really blame anything on anything else that happens because of an obscure connection. If that were the case a load of people would be wandering around pointing fingers at each other. I mean, if that was happening the world would be seriously ****ed up, and I would probably commit suicide finally. And I'm sixteen.|
Originally Posted by Mr_Grey
Blaming the Big Bang for anything is simply ludicrous. May as well hang a mother for giving birth to a man who commits murder twenty-four years later. That's at least closer, but it's still ludicrous. Condemnation lies with the individual for the decisions made, not because the individual was there in the first place.
While many people may not have the fortitude to stand against the tide, that doesn't mean nobody will. |
Each and every person should try and take a portion of the blame, whatever it is. That way, nobody is left out and everybody is. Once that world is here, wake me up from my CoH induced dreams and nightmares.
Take a man, take away everything that makes him a man, and what are you left with?
Mankind is what it is. We don't KNOW if there is a God, or Gods, or spirits or some pre-ordaned purpose. We can't prove it, no matter what anyone might say.
Is there right? Is there wrong?
I'd say no. The universe doesn't care what we do. Right and wrong are ideals made by men, good and bad are man-made ideals. And the 'Bad' will always be the ones who are on the other side of the argument, on both sides.
Morality is man-made, possibly even sanity.
A bit of a depressing thought, maybe. But it helps to remember that, whatever else, it is what we do that defines us.
/Deep and attempted meaningful
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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The world we do live in tends to operate at two levels. One of them is the world you suggest, and that's very, very bad.|
Originally Posted by Motorheart
Each and every person should try and take a portion of the blame, whatever it is. That way, nobody is left out and everybody is. Once that world is here, wake me up from my CoH induced dreams and nightmares.
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A lot of the time we get the 'society is to blame' argument. If 'society is to blame' than no one is actually to blame, so it isn't anyone's fault. The guy that robbed you at gunpoint wasn't really bad, it was society's fault. This is a bad way to live.
On the other hand, we have the blame culture mechanism which tends to come into play when there is a systemic fault, but the organisations involved don't want to change and the grieving relatives need some specific person to blame. Here, systemic faults are hidden behind some individual who is identified as being 'to blame' for something. In this case 'coroporate' responsibility hides behind a scapegoat. This is a bad way to live.
So, if I were you, I'd wake up and realise that sometimes individuals are at fault, and sometimes it's a systemic problem, and what's actually important is that you realise when you, yourself, are at fault and deal with it appropriately.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
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Ravenswing is right, and i agree.|
Originally Posted by Ravenswing
So, if I were you, I'd wake up and realise that sometimes individuals are at fault, and sometimes it's a systemic problem, and what's actually important is that you realise when you, yourself, are at fault and deal with it appropriately.
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Blaming society is a poor way out. No matter what social situation you're in, there is always an alternative to doing the wrong thing.
Theft for example is spawned from lazyness. "need" doesn't cut it, as there are better ways to feed yourself with no money.
Another of society's problems, Homelessness, should in theory be already iradicated in the UK, as all you require for being put on a council housing waiting list is a fixed adress to which letters can be sent, which some churches and doss houses will supply (a method off the streets i've seen work twice). But this problem continues because of personal choice not to take the steps to do so. Is society to blame for these people living in this state? because society has provided them with the means to change that.
Everyone's actions are made from a choice on their own part, society doesn't force anyone's hand, else those born into bad parts of society wouldn't be striving to move away from that.
And why should everyone take a share of the blame for one person's mistakes?
What makes it right for Tim to be punished for his brother Johnny's crimes, because they grew up together so must of influenced eachother?
Or further afield, why should anyone take the blame for someone who they have never met nor been in contact with, just because we are all part of the same society?
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Originally Posted by Ultimo_
A terrible character? You're suggesting I'm immature creating a character with an interesting ability and a moral dilemma? Your tone is insulting.
Also, you're suggesting Xavier should do exactly what Facade is wondering about, playing god with someone's brain. I suspect you've missed the point. |
Relax, Ravenswing always does this. I think it's his way of feeling superior to others.
The notion of a very powerful character isn't exactly new and for that reason I think it's easy for me to fall into the trap of going: It's not cool to admit that having that kind of power and changing the World into a 'Utopia' is a viable option - therefore I am morally outraged! Free Will is more important than anything else.
Well, if I had that power and I was being totally honest with myself, I probably would try and turn the World into something that I wanted it to be.
The argument for me is how emotionally attached the character feels to the rest of the World. Why would Facade want to do this if a) it weren't for something that has already happened to him? or b) he has some kind of mental instability which alters his own perception of reality and leads him to not taking into account the actual feelings of others around him?
It's less philosophical and more psychological but those are the questions I'd ask and points I'd raise.
Thanks for that, AP. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. This community really has gone downhill faster than an elephant on a bobsled.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
From a purely observational view, Birdy, it does sometimes come across that way. Unlikely you intend it that way, and that sure as hell doesn't give AP any right to just slap that on the forums.
Seriously, this is all getting a tad deep and dark and suchnot.
Remember that RP = PFTG. It's there to tell a story, to be enjoyed, so people can have fun with it.
The sky can be red and the rabbits can be green in the blue grass, as long as its fun, playable and enjoyable. The same goes with story work, so long as its engaging and fun to read, it will be read. As soon as the fun goes, that grinds to a halt.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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So the "I figured out how to do telepathy" was even a little irking. not even given the axiom "If our brains were simple enough to understand, we wouldn't be smart enough to understand them"|
Originally Posted by Arctic_Princess
Relax, Ravenswing always does this. I think it's his way of feeling superior to others.
The notion of a very powerful character isn't exactly new and for that reason I think it's easy for me to fall into the trap of going: It's not cool to admit that having that kind of power and changing the World into a 'Utopia' is a viable option - therefore I am morally outraged! Free Will is more important than anything else. Well, if I had that power and I was being totally honest with myself, I probably would try and turn the World into something that I wanted it to be. The argument for me is how emotionally attached the character feels to the rest of the World. Why would Facade want to do this if a) it weren't for something that has already happened to him? or b) he has some kind of mental instability which alters his own perception of reality and leads him to not taking into account the actual feelings of others around him? It's less philosophical and more psychological but those are the questions I'd ask and points I'd raise. |
the only likely result of some one trying to change the machinery of their brain would be a self imposed lobotomy.
It's a ******* terrible character and a horrible cliché of a "predicament" that is wholly of the authors mary suing.
I wish people would read something other than ****** (Insert hack author that they worship) Books, it would make things like this happen less often.
OK.. I have 2 things to say on this subject.
The first is that anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of physics knows that determination is a load of rubbish. It's is an observed feature of the universe that chaos is a fact. It is not merely hard to predict with certainty. the future form of the universe based on observable data, it is impossible. Probability zero. If the probability was non-zero, then you would KNOW whether Schrödinger's cat was alive or dead before opening the box.
Some maths.
Things like Boyles Law are pretty good at predicting what gases will do, but it's not perfect. There is still a zero probability that things will not act in a statistically expected manner.
Translation: There is a zero probablity of predicting when a non-zero probability event will occur, making the universe non-deterministic.
The second is this. Listen well, young padawans, and comprehend. There is no way anyone could have predicted it.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.