Life, The Universe, And Everything

[BuddyFerris]

As far as I'm concerned we've got it, if that's wrong then I would either 1) try to invent it, or 2) seriously take up drinking.

Free Will can be explained with Quantum Events, but besides that how can you have it unless an external or supernatural source can influence the natural and we can forget the laws of physics. If one would backtrack the events of you making a decision, say lifting your hand, walking backwards following the nerve signals that led up to that event, and go before that, all the electrical signals to make that decision, all of it complying to the laws of physics. If one event in there is outside the laws of physics, then why isn't the whole world resonating with those same events? Can Free Will only work in a certain level of complexity of "thinking machine", or does this influence also affect regular events? Can science claim the universe to be contingent and homogenous if it isn't? Quantum Events could explain that "noise" (as Gramps say) which causes the predictable events to become less predictable. We're starting to work with decisions based on probability rather than deterministic. And in that sense I can agree Free Will exists, while I have a hard time accepting that we should throw our the laws of physics in order to explain how true free will could exist. (That's just my opinion)

HanS,

You've reached the heart of my earlier question. Your explanation of free will as noise level variation from absolute predictiability moves one step closer to the absence of choice. I wouldn't presume to suggest throwing out the laws of physics to achieve an explanation, but restraining choice within the framework of physical function seems to preclude the independent 'I' from 'I choose'. While predictability suffers, there's no place for 'me' to affect the outcome.

 

My observation, subjective as it is, finds that I can consider and decide on a course of action or thought that may or may not agree with similar past events, may or may not accept as adequate newly added conditions, etc..

 

The premise is, that we were put together over a period of five billion years or so as a result of what happened at the instant of the big bang.

 

I purpose that everything that exists in the universe today was put into motion at that time, and nothing can change it, except a miracle, and in my opinion miracles are precluded by the laws of physics that were installed at that time.

 

Premise and conclusion agree!

 

....Therefore Bible thumpers are full of shit, but they can't help it!

 

It's not their fault!

Dano's humorous/serious comment points to the reasonable outcome of an existence exclusively within the physical realm. Should he be right, we are without cause for excuse or blame; it all happens without our being able to affect the direction of the smallest element of action or thought. Tough conclusion to swallow, but the logic is consistent.

 

On a lighter note, I took a nap that was unneeded because it gave me pleasure. At Dano's age, it will be even more so.

And sunshine by the pool this afternoon; priceless.

Buddy

[dano]

OK, am I missing the joke of how that is related to my collection of Dadaist sentences in European languages?

 

It's not Dadaist, it's Arial Bold.

[Sparrow]

....... Text ......

 

Premise and conclusion agree![/b]

 

....Therefore Bible thumpers are full of shit, but they can't help it!

 

It's not their fault!

 

 

The logic is infallible. It’s appalling.

 

I love it!

 

No. It's sunday night and it's just more interesting than Tatort, or what Buddy wrote.

 

Spatz

[dano]

The premise is, that we were put together over a period of five billion years or so as a result of what happened at the instant of the big bang.

 

I purpose that everything that exists in the universe today was put into motion at that time, and nothing can change it, except a miracle, and in my opinion miracles are precluded by the laws of physics that were installed at that time.

 

Premise and conclusion agree!

 

....Therefore Bible thumpers are full of shit, but they can't help it!

 

It's not their fault!

Dano's humorous/serious comment points to the reasonable outcome of an existence exclusively within the physical realm. Should he be right, we are without cause for excuse or blame; it all happens without our being able to affect the direction of the smallest element of action or thought. Tough conclusion to swallow, but the logic is consistent.

 

On a lighter note, I took a nap that was unneeded because it gave me pleasure. At Dano's age, it will be even more so.

And sunshine by the pool this afternoon; priceless.

Buddy

 

What's so fuckin hard about accepting the fact that "I yam what I yam"?

A good looking, clear thinking, sexy, senior citizen.

 

Completely free, from needing to believe in any form of mysticism, mythology, or magic.

 

Intellectually honest, without the necessity of coloring every thing I think and do, with a desperate need to have faith in make believe.

 

I have been blessed!

 

Its a lot easier than accepting that you are a pedantical, pseudo intellectual, freeloader who has been sucking on the government tit all his life, and swimmin in the pool that I paid for.

[Grandpa Harley]

The clause is 'pedantic, pseudo-intellectual'

[Ouroboros]

HanS,

You've reached the heart of my earlier question. Your explanation of free will as noise level variation from absolute predictiability moves one step closer to the absence of choice. I wouldn't presume to suggest throwing out the laws of physics to achieve an explanation, but restraining choice within the framework of physical function seems to preclude the independent 'I' from 'I choose'. While predictability suffers, there's no place for 'me' to affect the outcome.

And how is it achieved? Does it fall within the laws of "conservation of energy" or does it contradict it?

 

My observation, subjective as it is, finds that I can consider and decide on a course of action or thought that may or may not agree with similar past events, may or may not accept as adequate newly added conditions, etc..

Which you don't know if you do or do not. It might be that there is a subconsious reason to why you suddenly agree to what you learned or thougth, or why you disagree with the same.

 

I like vanilla ice cream and chocolate. One day I pick one, the other day I pick another. Maybe it is because of how chocolate affects my mood, so subconsiously I prefer chocolate ice cream more over vanilla on the days I feel a bit sick or down? How would you know if there isn't a billion of sub-mental reasons to why your mind one day pick something over something else?

 

Maybe your "good heart" is a neural-net training over many years where you didn't actively or intentionaly really intended the training to make you to the person you are, but do you know what it was or every little piece of influence that made you build up the system of thought in your subconsious? Probably not! It could be small events that you really don't think about that made your character or destroyed it. And the same goes for what you think is the "free will". You really don't know what is beyond or under the top 1% of your aware state. And to claim that you know the answer is something else than natural only because you don't know the real answer, is not honest to anyone, and especially to yourself.

[dano]

The clause is 'pedantic, pseudo-intellectual'

 

Depends on context.

[BuddyFerris]

HanS,

You've reached the heart of my earlier question. Your explanation of free will as noise level variation from absolute predictiability moves one step closer to the absence of choice. I wouldn't presume to suggest throwing out the laws of physics to achieve an explanation, but restraining choice within the framework of physical function seems to preclude the independent 'I' from 'I choose'. While predictability suffers, there's no place for 'me' to affect the outcome.

And how is it achieved? Does it fall within the laws of "conservation of energy" or does it contradict it?

 

My observation, subjective as it is, finds that I can consider and decide on a course of action or thought that may or may not agree with similar past events, may or may not accept as adequate newly added conditions, etc..

Which you don't know if you do or do not. It might be that there is a subconsious reason to why you suddenly agree to what you learned or thougth, or why you disagree with the same.

 

I like vanilla ice cream and chocolate. One day I pick one, the other day I pick another. Maybe it is because of how chocolate affects my mood, so subconsiously I prefer chocolate ice cream more over vanilla on the days I feel a bit sick or down? How would you know if there isn't a billion of sub-mental reasons to why your mind one day pick something over something else?

 

Maybe your "good heart" is a neural-net training over many years where you didn't actively or intentionaly really intended the training to make you to the person you are, but do you know what it was or every little piece of influence that made you build up the system of thought in your subconsious? Probably not! It could be small events that you really don't think about that made your character or destroyed it. And the same goes for what you think is the "free will". You really don't know what is beyond or under the top 1% of your aware state. And to claim that you know the answer is something else than natural only because you don't know the real answer, is not honest to anyone, and especially to yourself.

HanS,

You know my answer to how it might be achieved, and I suspect it would fall outside the laws you would be willing to entertain. That leaves us with 'I don't know' for the rest. You're right in suggesting that we may not be adequately aware of the actual activity in our brains, and that we may not be alert to a flood of subconscious leanings. There may be no free will, and all is a dream. Fortunately for us all, the dream is persuasive.

Nap time. Later.

Buddy

[Grandpa Harley]

The clause is 'pedantic, pseudo-intellectual'

 

Depends on context.

 

If the context is 'bad English' then you've aced it.

[Dhampir]

Mmm, no. Turns out pedantical is actually a word. Not one that's meant to be used, mind you, but still a word.

 

I would have gotten on him as well for that, but that I suppose would make me a pedant Not that I didn't know I was.

 

However, being that it means exactly the same thing as pedantic, that context thing is either a joke, or just plain wrong. Like how a crocoduck is wrong.

[Ouroboros]

HanS,

You know my answer to how it might be achieved, and I suspect it would fall outside the laws you would be willing to entertain. That leaves us with 'I don't know' for the rest. You're right in suggesting that we may not be adequately aware of the actual activity in our brains, and that we may not be alert to a flood of subconscious leanings. There may be no free will, and all is a dream. Fortunately for us all, the dream is persuasive.

Nap time. Later.

Buddy

And that leaves us both at the point of "I don't know", but with the slight difference of that I don't assume a supernatural fantasy world to explain the things we don't understand yet.

I'm the man in the infinite castle that still doubt there is a treasure in the next room, after we've searched a thousand empty rooms. You're the person of hope that maybe, just maybe, the next room does contain the imagined chest of gold.

[Grandpa Harley]

Mmm, no. Turns out pedantical is actually a word. Not one that's meant to be used, mind you, but still a word.

 

I would have gotten on him as well for that, but that I suppose would make me a pedant Not that I didn't know I was.

 

However, being that it means exactly the same thing as pedantic, that context thing is either a joke, or just plain wrong. Like how a crocoduck is wrong.

 

Actually, if he's applying the word as an extended definition of pedantic, that is "Characterized by a narrow concern for book learning and formal rules, without knowledge or experience of practical matters" as opposed to simply "Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules" then I'd agree.

 

I still maintain pseudo-intellectual is hyphenated or just written as one word... hence bad English (I read pedantical as archaic but coming from a man who is known to suffer from a surfeit of Malmsey and complain of being liverish or having the ague that is the pot shouting 'Yo! Black boy!' to the kettle...)

[dano]

The clause is 'pedantic, pseudo-intellectual'

 

Depends on context.

 

If the context is 'bad English' then you've aced it.

 

Coming from someone like you who plays fast and loose with the English language I would have suspected, that you would have picked up on the nuance, in the writing of the complete body of work, see ("...squirms like a Texas lawyer"), and some of your own formidable masterpieces.

 

The context is good OLE boy, anti-intellectual, as opposed to pedantic elitism.

 

I would suggest Twain or Steinbeck, for remedial reading.

[Grandpa Harley]

Steinbek and Twain don't hyphenate or concatenate 'pseudo-intellectual'? ;D

 

and I was being pedantic (although pedantical could be the issue here, although I prefer practical experience over theory most times... except for incest and Morris dancing... )

 

I confess the Buddy's rustic, pot-bellied-stove-side-chattery style stuck a burr up my vent around page 2... and he squirms like an Amish at a burlesque show, too

[dano]

Look at the way Buddy slaughters the Language.

 

It hurts my eyes to read it.

 

It is so flowery and convoluted that when I've finished reading it most of the time I cant tell if he is pro or con.

 

It would be therapeutic for buddy if he had an on-line, English-Correcter.

 

We say: " Squirms like queer at a weeny roast"

[Grandpa Harley]

"It is so flowery and convoluted that when I've finished reading it most of the time I cant tell if he is pro or con."

 

Now that is the issue. To even try to translate the out put one has to parse it's meaning... and it was easier to pin down the Oracle at Delphi than get a straight answer out of a favourite Ex-Marine.

[dano]

Morris dancing?

Don't you ever sleep?

[dano]

Was he a marine or just a plain OLE sailor?

 

I was of the opinion that he threw the marine stories in, just to shore up, his tough-guy-ness.

[Grandpa Harley]

1)google it

2) erratically at best... but at the moment it's 1302 BST so, I should be shuffling about looking hollow eyed and scaring old ladies with my cadaverous appearance...

[Grandpa Harley]

Was he a marine or just a plain OLE sailor?

 

I was of the opinion that he threw the marine stories in, just to shore up, his tough-guy-ness.

 

 

I'm not fussy... I'll drink with anyone...

[BuddyFerris]

What's so fuckin hard about accepting the fact that "I yam what I yam"?

A good looking, clear thinking, sexy, senior citizen.

 

Completely free, from needing to believe in any form of mysticism, mythology, or magic.

 

Intellectually honest, without the necessity of coloring every thing I think and do, with a desperate need to have faith in make believe.

 

I have been blessed!

 

Its a lot easier than accepting that you are a pedantical, pseudo intellectual, freeloader who has been sucking on the government tit all his life, and swimmin in the pool that I paid for.

Dano,

An interesting observation about philosophers... a measure of their credibility comes from their personal life; can they live consistently within their described reality. It's worth noting that an insistence in favor of a choiceless life doesn't result in comensurate behavior.

 

The most helpless and hopeless possible place devolves from having all your supposed choices just happening to you without your participation beyond the illusion. An honestly intellectual analysis would conclude not freedom but inescapable bondage. That's your argument carried through to its' logical conclusion.

 

Thanks for the time at the pool.

Buddy

[alanh]

As far as I'm concerned we've got it, if that's wrong then I would either 1) try to invent it, or 2) seriously take up drinking.

Free Will can be explained with Quantum Events, but besides that how can you have it unless an external or supernatural source can influence the natural and we can forget the laws of physics. If one would backtrack the events of you making a decision, say lifting your hand, walking backwards following the nerve signals that led up to that event, and go before that, all the electrical signals to make that decision, all of it complying to the laws of physics. If one event in there is outside the laws of physics, then why isn't the whole world resonating with those same events? Can Free Will only work in a certain level of complexity of "thinking machine", or does this influence also affect regular events? Can science claim the universe to be contingent and homogenous if it isn't? Quantum Events could explain that "noise" (as Gramps say) which causes the predictable events to become less predictable. We're starting to work with decisions based on probability rather than deterministic. And in that sense I can agree Free Will exists, while I have a hard time accepting that we should throw our the laws of physics in order to explain how true free will could exist. (That's just my opinion)

If I'm understanding you correctly we could be looking at a situation where we know that our behavior is governed by various rules or principles that reduce to the level of quantum mechanics (free will doesn't exist,) while at the same time we don't know what those rules or principles actually are. We would assume that these principles are reflected in various (problematic) high-level concepts like morality, self-preservation, altruism and so on, but we don't know that for a fact. In that case I would raise a practical question: how does one go about living without free will, or is that even possible? Free will would still be at the very least a useful fiction, would it not?

[dano]

What's so fuckin hard about accepting the fact that "I yam what I yam"?

A good looking, clear thinking, sexy, senior citizen.

 

Completely free, from needing to believe in any form of mysticism, mythology, or magic.

 

Intellectually honest, without the necessity of coloring every thing I think and do, with a desperate need to have faith in make believe.

 

I have been blessed!

 

Its a lot easier than accepting that you are a pedantical, pseudo intellectual, freeloader who has been sucking on the government tit all his life, and swimmin in the pool that I paid for.

Dano,

An interesting observation about philosophers... a measure of their credibility comes from their personal life; can they live consistently within their described reality. It's worth noting that an insistence in favor of a choiceless life doesn't result in comensurate behavior.

 

The most helpless and hopeless possible place devolves from having all your supposed choices just happening to you without your participation beyond the illusion. An honestly intellectual analysis would conclude not freedom but inescapable bondage. That's your argument carried through to its' logical conclusion.

 

Thanks for the time at the pool.

Buddy

 

 

I'll bet that I can google up more for my argument than you can for yours.

 

Wanna put some money on it?

 

From here:

 

http://www.ovrlnd.com/Apologetics/Determinism.html

 

The Argument from sovereignty.

" If God is sovereign, than all acts must be determined by Him (see The Nature of God). For if God is in control of all, then He must ultimately be the cause of all. Otherwise, He would not in complete control."

 

The Argument from Omniscience. "Some determinists argue from God's omniscience. For if God knows everything, then everything He knows must occur according to His will. If it did not, then God would be wrong in what He knew. But an omniscient Mind cannot be wrong in what it knows."

[Ouroboros]

If I'm understanding you correctly we could be looking at a situation where we know that our behavior is governed by various rules or principles that reduce to the level of quantum mechanics (free will doesn't exist,) while at the same time we don't know what those rules or principles actually are. We would assume that these principles are reflected in various (problematic) high-level concepts like morality, self-preservation, altruism and so on, but we don't know that for a fact. In that case I would raise a practical question: how does one go about living without free will, or is that even possible? Free will would still be at the very least a useful fiction, would it not?

Yes. To me Free Will is still valid and I can live my life as if I did have one, even though I know that it's more an illusion of being totally free. (How can anything be totally free of anything anyway? Isn't that the same as chaos and total randomness?) Just because you know that ultimately you might not have as much freedom as you think, doesn't stop you from making decisions based on how you think and feel.

 

Like I said before, I like chocolate and vanilla ice cream. One day when I have the choice for one or the other, whichever I pick at that time, eventhough I think I made the choice out of complete freedom, there might be a billion small reasons to why I came to my conclusion. Maybe I picked chocolate because it is a slight antidepressant, and I did feel down that day, and my body has a "memory" off other times when I was down and ate chocolate and felt better, while vanilla never gave me that feeling. Or maybe I picked vanilla, and it was because I had been eating a lot of chocolate bars the other day and felt a bit sick of it, so vanilla was a good alternative. I don't know what lies behind my decision, but I have strong doubts that all our choices are totally random. They're always based on something that happened in the past and/or right there in that moment. If we do make a random choice on occasion, maybe it isn't so random, or maybe it is slightly random but affected by some small random quantum events deep down in our brain.

 

To change the view a little here. Let's say that we do have a soul, and it is responsible for our free will. First of all, this soul can't be physical, since the physical world is governed by the physical laws and we had to fall back on the way I argue or something similar. But lets say for the argument that a supernatural soul exists. How does it work together with the brain? Maybe the brain then is just a receiver, like an antenna, of the soul-signals. This wouldn't disturb the laws of nature too much, but it would raise another interesting question. Is our brain the only way this "soul-receiever" can be made? How can we claim that only the "design" of my brain is the only way to receive the soul signals? What about all the other 6 billion peopel with slightly different DNA and different brain mappings? Are they just as efficient in receiving their soul-signals? If so, why isn't animal brains also capable of it? Or is it possible that we one day can create a quantum computer that works just as well to receive these soul-signals and we'll have sentient machines? That's why I think no one can claim that we can't create sentient machines in the future, because regardless of which way you look at it, natural or supernatural, a machine (not now, but in the future) could possibly be made with a free will and a soul.

[dano]

What's so fuckin hard about accepting the fact that "I yam what I yam"?

A good looking, clear thinking, sexy, senior citizen.

 

Completely free, from needing to believe in any form of mysticism, mythology, or magic.

 

Intellectually honest, without the necessity of coloring every thing I think and do, with a desperate need to have faith in make believe.

 

I have been blessed!

 

Its a lot easier than accepting that you are a pedantical, pseudo intellectual, freeloader who has been sucking on the government tit all his life, and swimmin in the pool that I paid for.

Dano,

An interesting observation about philosophers... a measure of their credibility comes from their personal life; can they live consistently within their described reality. It's worth noting that an insistence in favor of a choiceless life doesn't result in comensurate behavior.

 

The most helpless and hopeless possible place devolves from having all your supposed choices just happening to you without your participation beyond the illusion. An honestly intellectual analysis would conclude not freedom but inescapable bondage. That's your argument carried through to its' logical conclusion.

 

Thanks for the time at the pool.

Buddy

 

In reality none of us can be free. It's just that I was lucky enough to not have caught an incurable Religious meme, and you weren't.

 

But if you like I will pray to my "force" that you be cured.

 

...but I suspect that you already have cured yourself, and just haven't realized it yet!

 

...or as Mankey would say: "You have flirted with realism far to long, and now your idealism is asking for a divorce."