dano Posted September 3, 2007 Share Posted September 3, 2007 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." A truly benevolent force, would not reward one of us, for clinging to a "blind faith" in a mythology, and punish others for having the common sense, to see the lack of logic, reality, and reasonableness, and just pure asininity of the very same thing. YOU NEED TO HAVE MORE FAITH IN THE FORCE THAT CREATED YOU! We all be goin to de same place when we die! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted September 3, 2007 Share Posted September 3, 2007 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. I've still not seen why anyone who doesn't believe in a God should think that free will is anything special... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted September 3, 2007 Share Posted September 3, 2007 I've still not seen why anyone who doesn't believe in a God should think that free will is anything special... It's only special when you have to choose icecream. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyFerris Posted September 3, 2007 Author Share Posted September 3, 2007 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" Feel free to correct my grammar. Would you like me to recommend a basic text on the subject? Buddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyFerris Posted September 4, 2007 Author Share Posted September 4, 2007 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. I've still not seen why anyone who doesn't believe in a God should think that free will is anything special... Wouldn't the 'useful fiction' arguement be on par with believing in God, from your perspective. Would you be willing to go on with a nonsense philosophy as your basis for thought, behavior, and the values you gave to your children? Free will looks like an all or nothing proposition. Either the machine makes the choices or we do. I'm not sure there's a place where "you might not have as much freedom as you think..." in the machine version. I'd expect it to be more that you have no freedom is spite of the fact you think you do. Grandpa, it doesn't matter at all. You needn't worry about your children since you can't change anything anyway. You needn't pretend to be charitable since giving just happens to your paycheck. There's no need to stress over getting things right since you will or will not without having any say in the process. Or there's choice independent of the machine. No? Buddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted September 4, 2007 Share Posted September 4, 2007 OK, I give up... Is English actually your first language? I've read the above three times. Now, I'm pretty certain I have reasonable comprehension skills, at least those of a bright 8 or 10 year old, and an IQ over 50 (certainly in double figures, again bright 8 to 10 year old level at least) I have NO idea what you mean. Not the faintest. Geen flauw idee... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyFerris Posted September 4, 2007 Author Share Posted September 4, 2007 ...I've read the above three times. Now, I'm pretty certain I have reasonable comprehension skills at least those of a bright 8 or 10 year old, and an IQ over 50 (certainly in double figures, again... bright 8 to 10 year old level at least) I have NO idea what you mean. Not the faintest. Geen flauw idee. Grandpa, Is it that I was responding to each or the three posts cited, or was it the, "It doesn't matter at all" part. If the latter, my apologies for being unclear. The point was that choice, if an illusion, renders laborous consideration unnecessary as the outcome is predetermined. Better? Buddy "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. Careful there. Ex-Navy. The Marines are our baby sister service. BF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ nivek ♦ Posted September 4, 2007 Share Posted September 4, 2007 This keg is empty. Bar's closing on sixty-three pages of bullshit. Sweeper's coming through, put your dirty dishes and glasses somewhere they won't break when I swamp out the shit off the floors.. Thanks for playing "Let's Watch Buddy Stroke", but it's time to close this mess. More a whimper than a bang... kFL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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