/sci/ - Science & Math

>>3287031
If this is true, then my life is meaningless.

>>3287031
it depends on how you define free will.
"free will is the ability to make choices" -- free will exists, but your choices are deterministic.
"free will is the ability to random things as i want." -- nope.

>>3287039

Nietzche to the rescue!

CREATE YOUR OWN VASLUES AND PURPOSES FAGGOT DOUBLE NIGGER!

Sure wish I didn't have to copy and paste this 20 million times for every faggot 12 year old...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6S9OidmNZM


http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2004_09_27_newsweek.html

>>3287126
but my values are not matched by societies and as such remain unfulfilled

>>3287137
>secretly enjoys being superior to every faggot 12 year old

>>3287049
>"free will is the ability to random things as i want." -- nope.
This is the definition that I was referring to.

>"free will is the ability to make choices" -- free will exists, but your choices are deterministic.
This definition seems kindof silly to me, it's like false hope or something. It says that you can choose, but whatever you choose is predestined/deterministic. It sounds paradoxical in nature.

>>3287171

I think it could be agreed that superiority is a good quality. So why then should I not feel good about having it?

>>3287031
Yea, this is pretty much how I think of my brain and others around me. Just a set of complex algorithms.
And free will only exist in the ability to perceive our thoughts and ponder them.

Free will is the extent to which we cannot predict our own actions.

>>3287216
>doesn't realize the inherent discrepency between enjoyment and whining

>>3287256

I'm sorry your argument is internally inconsistent...

The brain is a bunch of ultra simple mechanisms
Also, I miss you Jennie :3

>>3287260
So ...obviously...you often whine about things you enjoy?

>>3287272

So ...obviously...you often make random strawmans?

The brain is just NAND and NOR gates.

>>3287280
No I take peoples words, and logically deduce their rationality.

>>3287137
>>3287171
>>3287216
>>3287256

Or were you not paying attention?

>references, how do they work?

>>3287311

You proposed that I must secretly feel superior in a manner that was overtly derisive. I suggested that the statement was nonsensical at its core. Yet you've still not offered a cogent rebuttal. Instead you continually chase strawmen.

>logically cohesive arguments, how do they work?

>>3287137
Good video, hadn't seen that before.

So... neuroscience shows that we don't control our own thoughts. Which means we do not really author our own actions because thoughts have an unconscious source we can't control.

It's just fascinating... A person could go mad thinking too much about this sort of thing... but it's not like they had much of a choice anyways... some people are just destined to wear a straight jacket. ;)

>>3287039
>If this is true, then my life is meaningless.

Your life is meaningless regardless. My life, on the other hand, has great meaning.

>>3287401
So you're delusional?

>>3287174

I don't understand people who think everything being random is somehow better than everything being "predetermined." At least in the latter your choices are actually based on something and come from who you are.

>>3287364
>control our own thoughts

I don't know what this phrase even means.

>>3287407
>So you're delusional?

Not about that.

>>3287426

It implicitly implies the existence of a soul.

>>3287364
>It's just fascinating... A person could go mad thinking too much about this sort of thing

Read a study saying that a belief in free will contributes to both motivation and happiness.

I wish I could believe something that I don't believe is true.

>>3287463

And another study that shows depressed people have a more accurate view of reality.

>>3287438
>It implicitly implies the existence of a soul.

The existence of a soul wouldn't make that phrase make sense.

>>3287481

It basically does. People who believe in the soul would follow this line of logic.

1. I am my soul. My soul is me.
2. My soul controls my body.
3. My brain is part of my body.
4. My brain controls my thoughts.
5. My soul controls my brain.
6. I control my thoughts. QED.

I feel the absence of free will to be very liberating. It is pretty much impossible to have any feelings of regret. Everything that has happened in a person's life was supposed to happen. It couldn't have happened any other way. When a person is born someone should just tell them to "sit back and enjoy the ride".

>>3287493

No, because that means the soul does not itself think. So in what sense is it "controlling" anything? It's no more "controlling your own thoughts" than in materialistic determinism.

>>3287529
Why should they be told that? In a world without counter-factual definiteness, "should" is not meaningful.

>>3287529
>I feel the absence of free will to be very liberating. It is pretty much impossible to have any feelings of regret. Everything that has happened in a person's life was supposed to happen. It couldn't have happened any other way. When a person is born someone should just tell them to "sit back and enjoy the ride".

Absence of regret: sure.
Passivity: dumb.

>>3287539

I didn't say it was coherent with empiricism, I just stated it was internally consistent.

I'm not sure if you noticed, but I don't believe in the soul.

>>3287493
>my soul

A. It is the property of God, not you, and at the end of everything it gets recycled.

B. You don't belong here. Why do you willingly support and obey criminals?

>>3287550

It's not internally consistent, though. It's not even a coherent proposition.

An immaterial soul would have no bearing on free will whatsoever.

>>3287562

>>3287562
>An immaterial soul would have no bearing on free will whatsoever.

>>3287137
How does this eliminate free will?

>>3287564
>>3287585

Problem?

>>3287597
how does one eliminate something that doesn't exist?

>>3287604
Because it can be easily proven thant brain is 100% deterministic and will always act the same in the same situation.

>>3287540
>>3287547
You are both right. That last sentence was meant to be sarcastic.

If free will doesn't exist then humans are nothing but machines, so slavery is acceptable.

>>3287632
>If free will doesn't exist then humans are nothing but machines, so slavery is acceptable.

What is "acceptable" is a value judgment. It is not a statement on objective reality. Nobody can argue with you unless you explain why you think slavery is or is not acceptable in the first place. Only then does it make sense to consider whether it applies to "machines" such as human persons.

You clearly haven't thought it through at all.

even if the notion of free will existed, what would it be? there can be no physical representation of free will. it would have to be something unmeasurable by any means.

ex...
the atom "decides" to decay. there is no cause. only the will of the atom? nothing is measurable here, and if some similar manifestation of free will exists, then everything we know about science is wrong.

>>3287699
Interestingly, Conway and Kochen proved that if humans have free will so do the particles that compose them.

http://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200226p.pdf

>>3287664
Slavery is clearly not acceptable in hypothetical creatures capable of making conscious decisions that can be described by outside observer as probabilistic. These creatures are capable of deciding right or wrong in their given value system. They can even decide to embrance various systems of values. Because in such creature their consciousness is the place where the decissions are made their suffering isn't just function of their brain that directly affects them as persons. Therefore forcing them to suffer is wrong.

However since human desission making proces isn't ties to consciousness and is clearly deterministic, humans are incapable of choosing right from wromng or even picking value system as these are determinet by informations put int their brains previously. Therefore humans aren't persons. As percieved pain in humans affect some decissions but these decissions are uncounsciously made in purely deterministic system and illusioonary "consciousness" cannot affect this process in any way all humans suffering is just illusion. Therefore it is acceptable to force human to work.

>>3287707

"
The Free Will Theorem thus shows that any
such theory, even if it involves a stochastic element, must walk the fine line of predicting that for
certain interactions the wave function collapses to
some eigenfunction of the Hamiltonian, without
being able to specify which eigenfunction this is.
If such a theory exists, the authors have no idea
what form it might take"

>>3287708

>>3287708
>>3287744
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism

Also you're a retard if you can't understand that.

Bec is Libertarian and Jade is Neo-Conservative. They argue a lot. Canon.

Hey guys... how do you pick an equation out of an infinite possibly. You dont. Because free will exist