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| Thread: Good and Evil Terms transfered to Physics |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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idontcare
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posted November 26, 2013 02:16 PM |
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another question, how can there be good/bad if the existance of the free will isnt even proved?
If someone does something 100% under given variables, how can, whatever he does, be good or bad?
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mvassilev
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posted November 26, 2013 06:33 PM |
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You can do whatever you choose, can't you? Then you have free will.
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JollyJoker
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posted November 26, 2013 07:01 PM |
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Not that again! Free will doesn't depend on whether you can explain behaviour 100% or not or whether you can foretell it, if you know all the determining factors.
The question is whether our doing is PREDESTINED - in SF terms this would mean there was only ONE future, the predestined one. Everyone had a destiny and no one could change it.
In this case "free will" was an illusion - people would only enact the roles "fate", "god" or whoever else had meant for them.
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mvassilev
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posted November 26, 2013 07:09 PM |
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Determinism and free will are not mutually exclusive. There can be one future but we can still have free will, because this future is determined in part through us. If you examined things on the level of physics, it's true that you wouldn't find anything like "will", free or otherwise. But free will is an emergent property of physical interactions, namely those interactions that make up human beings. To say that if there's no free will at the microscopic level, there's no free will anywhere, is like saying that because by itself a tomato or a cucumber isn't a salad, salads don't exist.
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artu
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posted November 26, 2013 08:14 PM |
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mvassilev said:
You can do whatever you choose, can't you? Then you have free will.
As I stated earlier I think free will is a matter of degree. I dont agree with orthodox determinism or Skinner's behaviorism which says all of our acts are destined by processes beyond us. I also dont agree with the concept of an exaggerated free will that is idealisticly independent of our biological (chemical) reactions, historical context and other surrounding factors.
However, when you say "you can choose can't you" you are ignoring the fact that people who say there is no free will dont claim you dont feel like making choices. They say that is an illusion and while you assume you are the one making the decisions you are actually going with the flow under heavy influance of bigger (or smaller) things.
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mvassilev
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posted November 26, 2013 10:07 PM |
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artu said:
They say that is an illusion and while you assume you are the one making the decisions you are actually going with the flow under heavy influance of bigger (or smaller) things.
There's a mistake in that thinking. It's not that you're "going with the flow" - you are the flow. To say something like "Everything is determined by physics, so choice is an illusion" is to ignore the fact that if everything is created and governed by physics, your will is not only caused by physics, it has a causal role in your action.
If this is a confusing explanation, consider an analogy to HoMM. Suppose you have a pikeman moving and attacking a peasant. Everything that happens is governed by game mechanics. The people who deny free will would be like someone who said, "No, the pikeman didn't attack the peasant, game mechanics did!" When in reality, the pikeman attacked the peasant, governed by game mechanics. So it is with free will - it's not "You don't choose anything, it's all controlled by physics", it's "You choose, in a way that is governed by physics".
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artu
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posted November 26, 2013 10:29 PM |
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Yes, but take a very ordinary situation like falling in love with a person. Now, how much of that is your will, how much of it is your gender, your age (and the way your hormones act accordingly), your social class (how many doctors have you seen falling in love with truck drivers), the way love is conceptualized in your society (unlike Westerners, most Chinese still see marriage as a family duty rather than something to do with romantic love for example.)
There's a famous example of a railroad worker from 19th century, cant recall his name. He's an ordinary law abiding citizen but after some accident and brain damage he becomes anti-social, gets in fights all the time, drinks heavily... You can say that case is an exception which would be true but the exception also shows us how things we think of our own choices (like him deciding to fight and drink) can be actually about the way our brain's wired.
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mvassilev
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posted November 26, 2013 10:48 PM |
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Will vs circumstances is an incorrect comparison, because they're in different categories. Also, it's important not confuse will and preferences - your ability to make choices is unrelated to what choices you like and dislike.
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idontcare
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posted November 26, 2013 11:02 PM |
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If someone holds ME a gun on my head, and says: "take that 1 billion dollars or i'll shoot you" i will do 100% what he wants.
A 'normal' example would be:
In a state which has no welfare-system, i'll better go working, cuz otherwise i would just starve.
True, i would have the choice to not work, but i would have to have pretty good reasons for not earning my bread.
And there are examples for people that voluntary don't eat any more, i guess you know them. But again, they had very good reasons.
So my conlusion is that free will has at least it's limits.
After the 'free-will'-definition everyone of the third reich, who worked for the NSers had the choice not to do so, which isn't true, if you factor in securing your family etc.
Sure there where rebells, but you know that their head got chopped 
(or at least every rebel lived under constant lifedanger)
And, at least what i know, no rebell was a father/mother of a family, so if you where a parent you just have an illusional choice, but in practice none.
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mvassilev
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posted November 26, 2013 11:07 PM |
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Free will is about being able to choose, not whether your choices are good.
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idontcare
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posted November 26, 2013 11:16 PM |
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I'm astmathic, and while I am able to choose to not take my meds, it's an irrational and completly dumb choice.(getting no air is not funny, i say)
If that's free will, feel free to jump off the next bridge.
How can you even belive in free will, same dumb **** like god, you just can't PROVE it, but you try to say, without evidence, that everyone one has it under every situation.
I would call that blind faith.\
Ah and btw, @mvassilev: only for clarification: do you play devil's advocate?
Pls dont take anything offensive, i just can't describe it better 
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artu
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posted November 26, 2013 11:39 PM |
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mvassilev said:
Will vs circumstances is an incorrect comparison, because they're in different categories. Also, it's important not confuse will and preferences - your ability to make choices is unrelated to what choices you like and dislike.
They are not in different categories if one has power over the other and that is the backbone of the "question" of free will. I go to the store and pick what I choose, if in reality some commercial is playing in my subconscious, is that free will? In the fifties, they produce ready-to-bake cakes yet the sales are down, a psychiatrist says that the housewives feel probably guilty buying already made food, he advises to modify the product, now the wife should break an egg into the cake to bake it properly: And voila, the sales are up. Now, is the housewife buying the cake with her free will or is she simply being manipulated by a typical psychodynamic that was presighted.
The answer to the question of free will is never one dimensional and there is no easy answer. It's a much more complicated reality than the way you make it sound.
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mvassilev
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posted November 27, 2013 12:29 AM |
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artu:
Yes, those are all free will. By the way, the "commercial playing in the subconscious" is ridiculous and not an example of anything.
idontcare:
Free will means being able to choose, not that the choices are good. You can choose to not take your meds or to jump off a bridge. Those are bad ideas, but that fact has nothing to do with free will.
You want evidence for free will? Choose to do something, then do it. Choose to lift your right hand, or your left hand. Did you lift one of them? Congratulations, you have free will.
No, I don't play Devil's Advocate.
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idontcare
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posted November 27, 2013 12:43 AM |
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First, which definition you follow mvassilev, because different approaches define that otherwise.
Now the example with the hand, if i would lift it now, then i would only do it because you have suggested it, so yes, if i follow or not your suggestion is my choice, but the fact that i have this choice is not 'just a methaphysic ungraspable' reason, its a _really_ simple example of cause and effect.
Now lets just say i do lift my hand, is it because there is some (i call it) diety in my mind that just throws a dice?
NO, at least for my understanding, i choose to do whatever i wanna do, because it is 'logically', but that logic is soo deeply hidden in my mind, that i can't say why i do what if i really just done something 'out of bordom'.
For me that's the definition of an illusion. U think you're free, while you are not.
But, please just mention which freewill-definition you mean, or what it's rooted on.
(even physicers can provide arguments FOR freewill, e.g. the unsharpness (um yeah dunno the english word))
Edit: a great quote for that:
"Suppose you had a absolutely free will. It would be a will which depended on nothing: a fully detached, free from all causal relationships will. Such intention would be a ludicrous, abstruse will. Its detachment namely would mean that it would be independent of your body, your character, your thoughts and feelings, your fantasies and memories. It would be, in other words, a will without the context of all that makes you a particular person. In a substantive sense of the word so it would not be your will. " – Peter Bieri
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artu
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posted November 27, 2013 01:09 AM |
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@ mvass
Nope, you oversimplify it. If your free will can be manipulated drastically and be led to predetermined causes that means it isnt so free after all. If there are STANDARDS for manipulation and they have accurate results on a collective subconscious, it indeed means we have LESS free will than we percieve we do. It's not totally non-existent, of course. You underestimate the fact that it is the decision making process that is being accurately manipulated. That is what determines free will, to be able to decide.
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mvassilev
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posted November 27, 2013 02:14 AM |
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idontcare:
Free will is not a "metaphysical ungraspable", it's a part of the chain of cause and effect. Doing something "out of boredom" doesn't conflict with free will - you decided to perform an action, then performed it. The only way you couldn't have free will is if you couldn't make your body do things, for example, if you were totally paralyzed. You could still think, and try to send signals to your arms to move, but they would do nothing. That's what not having free will would be like.
artu:
Predestination and free will aren't mutually exclusive. Something can be very predictable but still a result of free will. I predict that I will go to bed between midnight and 2 AM. I will probably be right. But I'm still perfectly free to do otherwise, to go to bed later or earlier.
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artu
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posted November 27, 2013 02:26 AM |
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Yes, but that's your own decision you are predicting. If I can MAKE YOU go to bed at 3 AM without you even realizing it and thinking it's your own decision, and if we're not talking about a manipulation that is not designed specifically for you but for everyone, that operates on patterns that are valid for every one, there is not much of a choice in there.
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mvassilev
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posted November 27, 2013 02:39 AM |
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I can predict other people's actions too
I predict that people will post on HC tomorrow. I predict that my neighbors will eat at least once in the next 24 hours. I predict you'll reply to this post. People are free not to do any of these things, but they will do them, most likely. Free will and predictability are not mutually exclusive.
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artu
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posted November 27, 2013 03:09 AM |
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That's obviously not what I'm talking about, dont play the fool. To accurately predict the results of my own manipulation is different than predicting you will pee tomorrow. Its controlling you.
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mvassilev
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posted November 27, 2013 03:28 AM |
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And if you give me more water to drink, I'll be more likely to go to the bathroom. So you're making me less free by giving me water?
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