/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.9036466]

What was this board's consensus on free will again? I forgot.

[Anonymous No.9036474]

NEETs are responsible for their failures.

[Anonymous No.9036495]

>>9036466
ask the big bang

[Anonymous No.9036520]

>>9036474
NO
MY ATOMS WERE WIRED IN THAT DIRECTION
I HAD NO FREE WILL

[Anonymous No.9038209]

>>9036466
Ill-defined question. Sam Harris is a pseud pretending to understand philosophy. The real heavyweights here are Searle, Dennett, and Tononi. Can't understand Tononi for the life of me, so if anyone wanted to give a quick rundown I'd be eternally grateful.

[Anonymous No.9038295]

>>9038209
give me the best question

[Anonymous No.9038336]

How can free will exist in a deterministic universe?

Willfags BTFO

[Anonymous No.9038379]

>>9038209
you can't even understand him but you think he's a "heavyweight"? fucking lol

[Anonymous No.9039538]

>>9038336
Maybe the Copenhagen interpretation is right and the universe is not deterministic

[Anonymous No.9039542]

>>9038209
>The real heavyweights here are Searle, Dennett, and Tononi
>Dennett

I bet you wear a fedora....

[Anonymous No.9039682]

>>9038209
Harris interviewed Dennett about free will, and to my mind exposed him as a charlatan. I can't believe he's a professional philosopher. I think Sam is right if you assume that determinism is true and that agent-causation is false.

[Anonymous No.9039711]

free will is worth every penny

[Anonymous No.9039785]

>>9039682
It was somewhat alarming how quickly Dennett retreated into semantics and word games when Harris started pressing him on various issues. Almost wondering if Dennett-san is getting old and losing some of his wit.

[Anonymous No.9039905]

>>9036466
Free will, proposed by Christian theologians since ever, was never supposed to break a law of physics, since causation was the Christian main proof of God. Free will was simply a synonymous of human intelligence, free will is the ability to choose between different possible courses of action. A bee has less free will than a pitbull who has less free will than a irrational human, who has less free will than me. As much as you hate bees and pitbulls, you have to rationally understand that they are not equipped with much of a brain that evaluates different courses of action as you do. It is pretty damn simple, this ridiculous debate never existed over an IQ of say 120 points, supposing mine is 130. What will happen is some people will convince themselves that they have no free will and will start to use it as rhetorics for irresponsibility, and they will be assuming the other sides, probably the side of the cops and justice system, will not use the lack of free will as a justification for their actions. It's silly, hahaha.

[Anonymous No.9039917]

>>9036466
You have no free will, listen to me goyim

The problem with this is not believing this is the only way to live a proper life.

[Anonymous No.9039924]

>>9039682

If you actually think Sam Harris is the saner of the two then this board is fucking lost

-/lit/

[Anonymous No.9039936]

>>9036466
>In the early 20th century, the psychiatrist Kurt Schneider listed the forms of psychotic symptoms that he thought distinguished SCHIZOPHRENIA from other psychotic disorders. These are called first-rank symptoms or Schneider's first-rank symptoms. They include delusions of being controlled by an external force, the belief that thoughts are being inserted into or withdrawn from one's conscious mind, the belief that one's thoughts are being broadcast to other people, and hearing hallucinatory voices that comment on one's thoughts or actions or that have a conversation with other hallucinated voices

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia

Behold, the smart no free will people!

[Anonymous No.9039951]

>>9036466
define "will"

[Anonymous No.9040309]

>>9036466
Everything that happens up until your decision has already decided for you

[Anonymous No.9040327]

>>9039785

Why do you say that? I'm not a fan of Dennett but I feel he won that argument decisively. Sam being a pop-pseud only focuses on the folk notion of free will that's completely irrational. All Dennett tried to do was explain that it's dangerous to start from an idea like that in philosophy and then proclaim that there's no free will, because there's a clear difference between volition and force.

[Anonymous No.9040389]

>>9039542
Searle is just a poor man's Chopra

[Anonymous No.9040409]

From the perspective of individual, it doesn't really matter if I have free will or not. Is this not right?

[Anonymous No.9040416]

>>9040309
by "who"what"when"where"why"?
"gawd/self/mind/consciousness"? ...or "others"?

[Anonymous No.9040423]

>>9036466
its a useful assupmtion in the human sciences like economics, psychology, and sociology

[Anonymous No.9040453]

>>9040409
It's about right. If you do believe in freewill then you should realise it's like a train on tracks, the tracks being your survival instincts.

It's like a computer game, we cant cheat or break the rules, and we ourselves have objectives hardwired into us we can't deny.

From another perspective the future has already happened. Imagine living a dimension above ours, being able to freely move around time things like the big bang happened just as soon as it started, but to us it seems like it went on for a lot longer, because we experience time VERY SLOWLY.

Could be wrong because logic doesnt even exist like it does for us when you take Quantum Mech into the equation.

[Anonymous No.9040467]

>>9039924
Go back to your containment board and wank to Derrida

[Anonymous No.9040478]

>>9040453
I was thinking more on the lines like: If I do not have free will, I can't consciously react to the fact that I do not have free will. Therefore it doesn't matter from the perspective of how I conduct my own actions if I have free will or not.

[Anonymous No.9040499]

>>9039682
dennett made good points with philosophical wisdom and experience behind them
sammy was an autistic child
i analyzed their exchange for my BA

[Anonymous No.9040501]

>>9040327
>Sam being a pop-pseud only focuses on the folk notion of free will that's completely irrational
nothing wrong with "the folk notion," only sammy's crazily uncharitable reconstruction of what it supposedly is
also there's really no such thing as "the folk notion." people have many different understandings of free will, and what free will really is doesn't depend on any of them

[Anonymous No.9040510]

>>9039936
>implying the ashkenazim aren't actually hearing the real voice of God to his chosen people
Stay mad goyim

[Anonymous No.9040516]

You >>9040478 might be starting to get it.

The rest of you are very confused.

The paradox that >>9040478 just said, shows the Ouroboran nature of all stories.

Except that you all think the Ouroboros eats itself. It doesn't. It vomits itself up from nothing, then makes a head and tail to confuse you.

It is that inductively paradoxical Direcursive circularity of the conclusion that chooses the givens that then lead to the conclusions is what bootstraps the paradox into a story. You then forget the first part and just have a given leading to a conclusion.

[Anonymous No.9040528]

>>9039924
On the topic of free will, Harris is much more reasonable. Dennett, like many compatibilists, just wants to redefine free will, and say we have that. What Sam, and most of us, are interested in, are the stronger, more folksy conceptions of free will -- and on that point, it isn't enough to just say "that's not what free will means" like Dennett does, or to give some nonsensical example of a boatman at the help of a boat in a storm. Sam is right that if everything is causally determined by physical laws and a fixed past, and all we are is physical stuff, that we cannot have free will because we never have the sort of control required for free will. Dennett never admits this.
>>9040327
The folk concept is what matters to people -- the people Sam had in mind when he wrote is book, and the people who are serious about freedom, and now a watered down version of it peddled by most compatibilists like Dennett. The folk conception also isn't irrational if approached from an agent-causal viewpoint.
>>9040499
Why do you say that? Harris is right about what follows from determinist materialist premises. All Dennett wants to do is revise what we mean by free will, but that merely changes the subject -- namely, to something no one was talking about or concerned with originally.

[Anonymous No.9040588]

>>9040528
>The folk conception also isn't irrational if approached from an agent-causal viewpoint.
How would that work?

[Anonymous No.9040655]

>>9040516
What the absolute fuck are you on about!

[Anonymous No.9040681]

>>9040528
>All Dennett wants to do is revise what we mean by free will
no, this assumes that there is already an established something that "we" "mean" by free will
>Harris is right about what follows from determinist materialist premises
not really, he has a few simpleminded arguments that free will is incompatible with determinism
but his views on whether responsibility is incompatible with determinism are basically at war with themselves
and he's so far below dennett's level it's never even occurred to him to think of how to address dennett's compatibilism about determinism and the ability to do otherwise -- even though he himself accidentally accepts it towards the end of his book

[Anonymous No.9040795]

>>9040588
On a substance dualist perspective, an agent-causal view holds that the will is a power of the mind, just like the power of understanding, judging, or thinking are powers of the mind.
>>9040681
>no, this assumes that there is already an established something that "we" "mean" by free will
There is, and Harris points it out in the book. Namely, the view that individuals have control sufficient for meriting either praise or blame for their actions.

What are the simple mind views of his that you think are inadequate. Sam's whole point is that we entirely lack control, and that in virtue of this there is no sense in which we could be called "free" compatibilism not withstanding.

[Anonymous No.9041116]

>>9036466
I was going to post that there is no such thing as free will, but I changed my mind.

[Anonymous No.9041132]

>>9038209
Haven't neuroscientists determined there is no free will?

[Anonymous No.9041268]

>>9040795
>There is, and Harris points it out in the book. Namely, the view that individuals have control sufficient for meriting either praise or blame for their actions.
this is actually a much milder and more charitable reconstruction of "belief in free will" than harris makes
it's also a view that dennett would agree with and that harris is pretty unclear and inconsistent about disagreeing with
harris is explicit that there is a "popular notion" of free will and that it essentially involves metaphysically robust alternative possibilities and that this is the only relevant notion of free will -- all three points are false
>Sam's whole point is that we entirely lack control, and that in virtue of this there is no sense in which we could be called "free"
he actually countenances several senses in which we are free, including one in which we have "free will"
he's ok with freedom of action, political freedom, and daniel wegner's sense of free will (see his chapter on moral responsibility)

[Anonymous No.9041270]

>>9041132
that's a scientistic myth

[Anonymous No.9041272]

quantum physics is indeterministic but determinism is an emergent property of macro systems

[Anonymous No.9041298]

>>9041272
>i'll take a random opinion out of my ass and post it as fact
fuck off

[Anonymous No.9041384]

If simpler organisms aren't free then neither are we. Our brains are complex giving the illusion of free will, but it is an illusion and everything we do or think could be predicted with sufficient processing power.

[Anonymous No.9041409]

>>9041268
>this is actually a much milder and more charitable reconstruction of "belief in free will" than harris makes
it's also a view that dennett would agree with and that harris is pretty unclear and inconsistent about disagreeing with
harris is explicit that there is a "popular notion" of free will and that it essentially involves metaphysically robust alternative possibilities and that this is the only relevant notion of free will -- all three points are false
I suppose I should say there is a lot packed into the notion of "control", on my reading, and it would probably include alternative possibilities. Do you disagree with the idea that most folks believe they have alternative possibilities when it comes to what they will (though not necessarily what is in their power to effect)? I agree that he is inconsistent about praise and blame, but that, it seems to me, is because of his desire to hold on to ethics.
>he actually countenances several senses in which we are free, including one in which we have "free will"
he's ok with freedom of action, political freedom, and daniel wegner's sense of free will (see his chapter on moral responsibility)
It was my understanding that he is pretty explicitly against those sorts of things. That he thinks everyone is essentially like Charles Witman, and that it is "brain tumors" all the way down for all of us.

[Anonymous No.9041422]

>>9038336
the universe is self-evidently non-deterministic

your question, like ^ is just a restatement of presuppositions and not an argument

[Anonymous No.9041497]

>>9041409
>Do you disagree with the idea that most folks believe they have alternative possibilities when it comes to what they will (though not necessarily what is in their power to effect)?
no, i don't know what most people think about free will, but i'm sure belief in alternative possibilities is widespread
as dennett and others show, however, alternative possibilities have to be interpreted in a specific (metaphysically robust) way to be inconsistent with determinism
sam harris himself believes in alternative possibilities despite his determinism, he just calls them "opportunities" (he accepts these at the same time as he accepts that we have free will in wegner's sense, towards the end of his chapter on moral responsibility)
>It was my understanding that he is pretty explicitly against those sorts of things. That he thinks everyone is essentially like Charles Witman, and that it is "brain tumors" all the way down for all of us.
yeah, he says shit like that, but he also says that responsibility exists and is just when you do things that are in keeping with your character, and that praise, blame, punishment, reward, etc. can be deserved for consequentialist reasons (which is what dennett also thinks)
the kind of free will he's against is very narrow, it's the one he says involves "desert in a deep sense" and "moral responsibility in the ultimate sense", but he never defines that "deep/ultimate sense"
in my analysis, it just comes down to "the sense which would make non-consequentialist punishment justified", but his metaethics already implies that anything like that would be nonsensical anyway so his whole determinist argument is kinda puzzling

[Anonymous No.9041519]

The Bible contains a more sophisticated stance on free will than the majority of posters ITT.

[Anonymous No.9041524]

>>9041497

>his metaethics

That's a stretch.

[Anonymous No.9041551]

>>9041524
his moral semantics is utilitarian
he thinks "X should be done" basically means "X will lead to the greatest amount of well-being for conscious creatures", etc.
i have a bunch of quotes from him about this in my old notes

[Anonymous No.9041557]

>>9041519
Do you have a chapter-and-verse for where the Bible talks about free will?

[Anonymous No.9041580]

>>9041557

I'm not going to start a theology and mythology lecture, but I can give you a run down.

Essentially, God represents the nature of being and acts a creator, by using the logos to form the habitable world out of the chaotic waters of the depths.

Man also creates, as man was made in God's image.

Man may create, using the logos; however, the God/being/the universe has a nature that man is subject to and therefore, man's creative abilities are limited.

Man is both free to create and bound by the will of God.

Sometimes these two things run congruently, whereas at other times they clash; it is in man’s interest to attempt to live in harmony with and to fear God.

[Anonymous No.9041586]

>>9041551

The problem is, that he has no basis for stating that morality is all about wellbeing.

He also lacks a sound epistemology from what I can understand, in that he is a scientific realist.

[Anonymous No.9041590]

>>9041586
i agree, except i don't think the problem with his epistemology is his scientific realism (which i share), it's his scientism, naive evidentialism, and intuitionist theory of concepts

[Anonymous No.9041600]

>>9036466
Free will is bullshit but it's good people think it's real. Research has shown free will skeptics lie steal and cheat more often. They also use drugs and eat more often. Determinists are also more likely to engage in mindless conformity.

[Anonymous No.9041606]

>>9041590

Could you describe your epistemology to me?

On truth, not justification per se.

[Anonymous No.9041615]

>>9041600
but they were determined at the big bang to steal and cheat

[Anonymous No.9041628]

>>9041615
No
The universe is too random for that

[Anonymous No.9041643]

>>9041606
i think of truth as more metaphysical than epistemological
the existence of truths precedes the existence of epistemic subjects (by necessity, since before there were epistemic subjects it was true that there were no epistemic subjects)
but epistemologically, i think of truth pretty noncommittally, as "adequatio ad re", but also disquotationally, so asserting P is the same as asserting that P is true (this has the consequence that anything assertible is truth-apt, so i find moral and aesthetic truths unproblematic)

[Anonymous No.9041666]

>>9041643

I see...

Then why would you describe yourself as a scientific realist?

[Anonymous No.9041688]

>>9041666
because i think scientific assertions are truth-apt and (ideally) say what reality is really like
maybe we have different conceptions of scientific realism?

[Anonymous No.9041699]

>>9041688

Perhaps.

Let's take this simple definition:

>the view that the world described by science is the real world, as it is, independent of what we might take it to be

[Anonymous No.9041711]

>>9041688
>>9041699

I would say that the mere fact we observe something changes its form entirely, whatever it may actually be in 'reality'.

Additionally, our scientific knowledge changes over time, as we continually improve upon previous theories; therefore, I take an instrumentalist view.

That is to say, I'm a pragmatist in the broad sense of the word.

[Anonymous No.9041734]

Assuming there are parallel universes and Buddha's and God with a capital g. The Mandela effect is the framing of God's will or transcendent universal subjectivity. You will always exist regardless of parallel universes. Isaiah 41:10 fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
That's where I'm at with it.

[Anonymous No.9041803]

>>9041497
>no, i don't know what most people think about free will, but i'm sure belief in alternative possibilities is widespread; as dennett and others show, however, alternative possibilities have to be interpreted in a specific (metaphysically robust) way to be inconsistent with determinism
In what other ways can we understand alternative possibilities that are not metaphysically robust?
>yeah, he says shit like that...
I agree with most of what you say here, since his ethical views, it seems to me, puts him at odds with his views about free will. I do tend to take him at face-value with the brain-tumors all the way down talk, since it seems to me that that is the hard determinism picture he seems to wish to take, and I think Dennett is committed to it, too, since he seems to accept Harris' materialistic worldview; i.e. that we are just "clockwork".

[Anonymous No.9041830]

Wait people actually take Dennett seriously? I thought he was basically considered a memelord in the philosophy world.

[Anonymous No.9042220]

>>9041830
>I thought he was basically considered a memelord in the philosophy world.
No, not at all.

[Anonymous No.9042226]

FREEDOM isnt free

[Anonymous No.9042255]

>>9036466
Exists

[Anonymous No.9042264]

Suppose free will exists. In this supposed world free will exists, therefore free will can exist as it does in the supposed world. Now that free will can exist, I don't know what to do next as I'm determined not to know.

[Anonymous No.9042830]

Omg for the millionth time

We have the illusion of free will since we're part of the system.
However, the future isn't so much set in stone as it is predictable by an outside observer

[Geometric Unity No.9042850]

The future is mostly determined by what happened in the past but you can also influence the future a little bit by what you do in the present.

[Anonymous No.9042875]

Matter cannot act by itself, it must act in accordance with prior events.

[Anonymous No.9042877]

>>9038336
Just because the universe is non-deterministic doesn't mean you have free will.

All it means that noone can predict the future.

[Anonymous No.9042895]

Sam Harris is cool for pointing out that the lack of free will can be observed subjectively by a person:

- if you try not to think of anything some thought will emerge anyway and you have no control over what that thought will be
- thoughts are like super low lag version of humming a song - no one actually starts humming consciously, we only become aware of this after a lag
- if you are to pick an item from a repository of knowledge, you have no control over the mechanism that will obscure some of the items (ex. pick any city or pick any famous person)
- when someone/ourselves ask why we did any X thing we always construct the (often wrong/biased) reason at the moment of posing the question, not earlier

[Anonymous No.9042949]

>>9042895
But he then changes his definition of self and goes oh you're not those thoughts at all just the conscious observer who views thoughts and the world around you, which is an incredibly Buddhist outlook.

That doesn't make sense to me because he has no way to prove that the conscious observer doesn't have influence other than religious experiences he has on meditation retreats. Very ironic for an atheist to base his position around.

[Anonymous No.9042967]

>>9042949
>prove that the conscious observer doesn't have influence
Read the post again >>9042895

[Anonymous No.9043702]

>>9040416
By everything that happened leading up to it

[Anonymous No.9043730]

>>9041580

Go back to cleaning your room, Peterson.

[Anonymous No.9043751]

Why does anyone even take the concept seriously? It's self-contradictory.

[Anonymous No.9043758]

>>9043751

Because life would be miserable without it, and we all subjectively think it's true.

[Anonymous No.9043855]

>>9036466
Ah, Sam Harris, the man who solved the is-ought gap by ignoring it and pretending it doesn't exist

[Anonymous No.9043879]

>>9042877
>All it means that noone can predict the future.
No, all it means is that the entire past and future of the universe cannot be uniquely determined from complete knowledge of the present. You can certainly "predict" the future of a stochastic system to varying degrees of sophistication and accuracy. It's called "statistics."

[Anonymous No.9043888]

>>9036466
>Free will

For fucks sake. How would free will even work? I don't have any saying in how anything else that goes on in the universe works, why would my own body be some exception? How would the I, that is the thoughts of me existing, be able to control the chemicals in my brain, that are the source of the feeling I have that I exist? It would be like a car that could drive itself, or a dinner that cooks itself.

[Anonymous No.9043922]

>>9043855
The is-ought gap is easily traversed.

[Anonymous No.9043923]

>>9043888
The immaterial mind can itself serve as a cause.

[Anonymous No.9044744]

>>9043922
Nah

[Anonymous No.9044758]

I've never understood how determinism interferes with free will.

I mean, no sapient being that we're aware of has perfect knowledge of everything that it will ever do and all the results there of, or even of everything that ever was, or, to perfection, even total awareness of its own decision making process.

Thus it seems that all sapient beings are forever burdened by free will.

The only ones that would be released from free will would be hypothetical omniscient beings, trapped inside the universe they were interacting with. Laplace demons and shit... Everything else, ie. everything that could physically exist, and be conscious, would be stuck with free will as they would inevitably have limited perspective.

It seems only fictional conscious creations that, by definition, are physically impossible, would be in the clear.

[Anonymous No.9044798]

>>9036466
>this board
>consensus
that'll do, op, that'll do

[Anonymous No.9044820]

>>9041580
>he hasn't read Romans 9

[Anonymous No.9044841]

>>9044758
If the universe is determined, our will is determined. When someone's will has a destiny and can not be changed by that person, how you can you call that free will? If we are slaves to our nature, how do you call this free will? It seems as though you think we are as free as bacteria.

[Anonymous No.9044920]

>>9044758
Yeah, it's a definitional issue on "free will." If it's true that all past and future events on the human scale are predetermined, that of itself does nothing to say the predetermined events were not "freely willed" by the human actors in question, in a manner -they- have implicitly predetermined. It reduces entirely to implicit choice of definitions, which obscures fuzzy arguments about consciousness and the nature of "will."
You can define "an action is freely willed iff it is possible that the actor will take a contrary action instead," but this is an unrealistically strict one which for example breaks down when we consider, say, how the assumption that an agent is rational and utility-maximizing implies they will necessarily choose a clearly superior option and cannot do otherwise without contradicting the assumption. But then again, is the implicit "decision" to be rationally utility-maximizing (in *any* given circumstance, not necessarily overall and in everything) genuinely a -decision- which such an actor "freely wills"? Or is it a compulsion, just like belief?
We certainly don't freely choose our beliefs. Claims of what -is- true, in contrast to those about what -ought to be- true, are independent of personal preference and reflect entirely how one sees the world. We can come to see the world differently as a result of our actions, what we do, what media we consume, what arguments we entertain and how well we try/are able to understand, synthesize, and extend them, sure, but factual belief at any given moment is not itself "chosen."

>>9044841
>If we are slaves to our nature
"Human nature" is an inherently mutable thing which changes depending on the conditions of our existence and upon the actions of others and ourselves, it's not some crystallized thing separate from and above human action. We can be "slaves to our nature" even when that nature includes free will, because we are affected in a definite way by any "chosen" action.

[Anonymous No.9045009]

>>9044841
Yeah, you don't have that omniscient perspective, so you're still burdened with making a choice.

Even if you are aware of determinism, it doesn't get you out of making choices with limited data. And further, nothing conscious has unlimited data - unless there is a god, in which case only god lack free will.

Sure, you can argue it is an illusion, but one can make the same argument against consciousness itself. There is no other perspective to be had, only a hypothetical one that cannot exist and that you have no access to. Similarly, for a being to declare consciousness does not exist is self contradictory.

Saying free will doesn't exists is akin to saying Darkseid exists, and thus so does the Anti-Life Equation, thus life doesn't exists. Free will requires the existence of the physically impossible to be eliminated.

[Anonymous No.9045030]

>>9045009
There is no choice, just cause and effect

[Anonymous No.9045048]

>>9045030
That's all well and good to declare, but it doesn't get you out of having to make choices.

[Anonymous No.9045050]

>>9045048
>having to make choices
But what if the choices you experience making are pre-ordained?
You niggers need Calvinism

[Anonymous No.9045084]

>>9045048
I dont make choices. No one does. Things happen and we react to them. Our reaction is either fundamentally random or fundamentally determined, not enough evidence at this point to say which

[Anonymous No.9045111]

There is no proof so we don't know.

[Anonymous No.9045136]

>>9043923
>software is not physical
c'mon now

[Anonymous No.9045150]

>>9045136
He's talking about an immaterial idea which gives rise to the material brain, obviously.
But it's still stupid

[Anonymous No.9045155]

>>9045150
At least one blueprint/though of the idea must exist in the physical world, otherwise the "idea" does not exist.

[Anonymous No.9045167]

life is a joke , we all laugh at it when we respawn.

[Anonymous No.9045200]

>>9036466
Free as in beer?

[Anonymous No.9045334]

>>9044744
Yeah.

Here is a deductively valid argument which derives an 'ought' from an 'is'.

1. Everything John believes is true. (is)
2. John believes that no one ought to murder anyone. (is)
3. Therefore, it is true that no one ought to murder anyone. (ought)

[Anonymous No.9045335]

>>9045136
>>9045150
The mind, the thing which thinks, is what I am saying is immaterial. I suppose that you're implying that something is supposed to be the software relative to the brain which is the hardware, but I am not sure what it is. Software does the thinking, perhaps?

[Anonymous No.9045340]

>>9044920
>Yeah, it's a definitional issue on "free will." If it's true that all past and future events on the human scale are predetermined, that of itself does nothing to say the predetermined events were not "freely willed" by the human actors in question, in a manner -they- have implicitly predetermined. It reduces entirely to implicit choice of definitions, which obscures fuzzy arguments about consciousness and the nature of "will."
Don't know if this is where you were going with this, but when considering all of the happenings in the universe, assuming determinism is true, we might say that all events result from a fixed past, the laws of nature, and an initial state as the logical determinants. However, to account for free will, we might instead say that all events are determined by a fixed past, initial condition, the laws of nature, and freely willed decisions.

[Anonymous No.9045353]

>>9041132
What? No. How would they even go about that? There is no part of the brain that lights up differently depending on whether or not someone has free will.

[Anonymous No.9045358]

>>9041628
>Free will is bullshit
>But determinism is, too

Sod off.
>>9043888
>A car that could drive itself

Anon...

[Anonymous No.9045361]

>>9036466
>What was this board's consensus on free will again?
definitely represented a departure from longer, less-accessible pieces. The key was that it preserved the technical strength of the longer fare while showing an undeniable improvement in strength of composition. In doing so, it laid the groundwork for Moving Pictures and it's dual mass/fan appealing nature while keeping a thread of epic progression alive from the previous era

a proto-piece, to be sure, yet still strong enough to enjoy mainstream airplay and fan approval some 37 years later

[Anonymous No.9045388]

>>9036466
I honestly don't understand how one's decisions could be neither caused, therefore deterministic, or not caused, therefore random. I'm making the assumption that events which aren't caused by something are random, but I can't think of a realistic way to define random other than uncaused, without tacking on the addition that it must also not be chosen, which seems circular.
Someone give me your best argument for free will

[Anonymous No.9045391]

>>9045334
Why ought one act according to what is true?

[Anonymous No.9045409]

>>9045391
That's beside the point. The example I gave is a deductively valid argument in which an 'ought' is derived from an 'is', which the is-ought gap holds is impossible.

[Anonymous No.9045411]

>>9045388
Decisions aren't effects of any causes, nor are they random or probabilistic events without a cause, but rather are causes themselves.

[Anonymous No.9045453]

>>9045411
But do the causes have causes? That's my point

[Anonymous No.9045458]

>>9045453
I see your concern, but that is why I described an act of the will (or decision) as something which is not the effect of a cause. So, you might think there are two types of causes:

1. causes which are themselves the effects of other causes. (e.g. a cue ball causes a colored ball to go into a pocket, but the cue ball was caused to move by the cue stick)
2. causes which are not the effects of other causes. (you might also call these "first causes" because they begin, or contribute to, other sequences of causes and effects)

I am saying that acts of the will are the second kind, and not the first.

[Anonymous No.9045468]

>>9045458
Yeah. But then they're uncaused, which I understand doesn't necessitate randomness, but it seems to, at least to me

[Anonymous No.9045470]

>>9045468
Maybe your concern is that such things would be inexplicable, or unintelligible?

[Anonymous No.9045722]

>>9045050
>>9045084
And yet, from your perspective, you still find yourself having to choose, or are you denying that as well?

Relativity tells us that all things are predetermined - it similarly tells us that time, as we commonly experience it, is an illusion.

Knowing that, however, doesn't put an end to the experience of time for you. It doesn't make you anymore able to predict the future or travel to the past. For all intents and purposes, time remains real.

Same with free will. Logic can tell you it doesn't exist, and yet, it can't be escaped.

[Anonymous No.9046032]

>>9045335
hardware and software are basically the same thing, main difference being that the software is smaller, like a "notch" on a disk or a capacitor holding charge or not.
In our brain, the hardware being the brain itself, with its neurons and synapses, and the software being the chemicals that trigger those synapses.
Neither of those is immaterial but can be seen and measured. That's what I'm implying.

[Anonymous No.9046046]

>>9046032
Okay, I understand. I wonder, though, in such a configuration, a material brain as hardware and material trigger chemicals as software, what is it that does the thinking?

[Anonymous No.9046047]

>>9040416
You don't need to know the cause to know it happened.

[Anonymous No.9046072]

>>9046046
the whole circuit
with the enormous difference that the brain is way more complex than an electrical circuit when you account for the number of synapses, the fact that it doesn't respond to signals in binary but with dozens of hormones and different levels of them plus the ability to modify its hardware and software.

And determinism is based on this : when you give an input to a circuit the result is already predetermined by its configuration, it won't ever give a different result.
The brain, being a circuit, follows the same rules.

[Anonymous No.9046444]

>>9045167
>porkyposting on /sci/
I'm a comrade too, but come on

>>9045334
>1. Everything John believes is true. (is)
>2. John believes that no one ought to murder anyone. (is)
>3. Therefore, it is true that no one ought to murder anyone. (ought)
Nonsene. You're assuming truth (a factual claim's correspondence to reality) is a property which value systems can have, which is equivalent to directly assuming the is-ought gap doesn't exist, not to mention wrong.
You're just fiddling with language to be dishonest here

[Anonymous No.9046581]

>>9046072
The circuit, to keep it in simple terms, is made out of many, many different parts, correct? If so, are any of these individual components thinking?

[Anonymous No.9046589]

>>9046444
>You're assuming truth (a factual claim's correspondence to reality) is a property which value systems can have
No I am not. I am only saying, as one of my premises, that someone believes this.
>You're just fiddling with language to be dishonest here
How so? Is there any part of my argument that fails to be deductively valid? I am *not* claiming that the argument is *sound*, but merely that it is valid.

[Anonymous No.9046705]

>>9046581
there is no "thinking"
individual components just react to stimuli based on their configuration
just like cellular respiration, the cell doesn't chose to absorb oxygen, it just does because of diffusion or what have you, so do your neurons when they react to receptors that reacted themselves to an external stimulus
it's all very mechanical
the concept of thinking is an abstraction

[Anonymous No.9046748]

>>9046705
Okay. Then it would seem as though the materialist line on this matter is that there really is no such thing as thinking -- to put it simply, things are just matter in motion, right? Is this the right way to understand what you are saying?

[Anonymous No.9046757]

>>9046589
>everything John believes is true
>John believes blue
>therefore blue is true
Mate, "everything he believes is true" can only refer to factual claims, to things which can actually -be- true or false. "We shouldn't kill people" and other oughts necessarily lack a well-defined truth value, while an "is" necessarily has one. That's the whole idea. Conflating is and ought like you're doing is a category error

[Anonymous No.9046773]

>>9046748
yes
it's also a completely irrelevant reality to anyone but an hypothetical external observer

[Anonymous No.9046780]

>>9046757
>Mate, "everything he believes is true" can only refer to factual claims
Claims about a person's beliefs are factual claims. There is a fact of the matter when I say, "anon believes that my argument is wrongheaded." It is either true that you believe that, or false. The first two premises are about beliefs, and thereby are factual claims -- or 'is' claims.
>John believes blue
'blue' is not an assertion, but 'no one ought to murder anyone' is an assertion. Your parody of my argument is disanalogous for this reason, and is not a valid criticism.

What is hard to define about the truth valid of the assertion with which my argument concludes? It is a deductively valid argument -- deriving an ought from an is, as I clearly labeled.

[Anonymous No.9046785]

>>9046757
>Mate, "everything he believes is true" can only refer to factual claims
Claims about a person's beliefs are factual claims. There is a fact of the matter when I say, "anon believes that my argument is wrongheaded." It is either true that you believe that, or false. The first two premises are about beliefs, and thereby are factual claims -- or 'is' claims.
>John believes blue
'blue' is not an assertion, but 'no one ought to murder anyone' is an assertion. Your parody of my argument is disanalogous for this reason, and is not a valid criticism.

What is hard to define about the truth value of the assertion with which my argument concludes? It is a deductively valid argument -- deriving an ought from an is, as I clearly labeled. You haven't complained about it's validity, only its conclusion. However, if it is deductively valid, then I don't see your complaint.

[Anonymous No.9046850]

>>9046773
Okay. Help me understand this, then. When I think about my dog, I have the experience as if I am looking at a dog with black fur, brown eyes, and a pink tongue. We might say that these are the contents of the idea of my dog that I have, and that I have this idea whenever I think about my dog.

In the brain circuit, where are the contents of my idea of my dog?

[Anonymous No.9046908]

>>9040453
Why am I able to kill myself then?

[Anonymous No.9046948]

>>9036466
What would he look like if you mirrored half of his face? I bet he would look the same

[Anonymous No.9047070]

>>9046850
Object identification is contained in various places in the brain, organized mainly by the hippocampus.

But even in the simplest programs, decisions still have to be made. If you, for instance, run the pseudocode:

>let x=1
>if ( x == 1 ) goto report:
>echo "Yarblewargle!"
>end
>report:
>echo "Yup, x is 1."
>end
(Okay, that's shit pseudocode but you get the idea.)

The check and the decision to "goto end:" based on the observation that x==1 still has to be made, predetermined or not.

The system maybe predetermined, but the decision still has to be made - indeed, if it is not made, the system breaks, and you end up with "Yarblewargle!"

Now, we can look at this from the outside and realize that, as X=1, this code is indeed going to execute the same way every time, in much the same way that the brain, exposed to the same inputs with the same memories, is going to make the same decision every time.

But the interpreter, much like our consciousness, still has to handle each event, one at a time, in order to function. It still must make that decision and never sees the alternate result.

A programmer or even a compiler, might see the alternate result, but there is no conscious analog for such a thing in reality. The only creatures of perception are those of limited perception. They are limited to a temporal existence, and experience events in order, being incapable of analyzing all possible outcomes of complex events or even those of their own decision making process. Thus all physically possible beings of perception have free will from their own perspective, and, even if made aware of the fact that their decisions are ultimately unavoidable, can't help but continue to make them based on that limited perception.

[Anonymous No.9047115]

>>9040516
>>9040655
Hold on, hes right though. The knowledge is consumptive, were all trying to catch a fish. Theres little point in arguing this point, its a given really.

[Anonymous No.9047124]

>>9045361
Album-review-speak is the original cancer.

[Anonymous No.9047196]

>>9046785
>Claims about a person's beliefs are factual claims. There is a fact of the matter when I say, "anon believes that my argument is wrongheaded." It is either true that you believe that, or false. The first two premises are about beliefs, and thereby are factual claims -- or 'is' claims.
Yes, I agree. But what you actually said was "John believes that no one ought to murder anyone, and therefore it is true that no one ought to murder anyone," rather than "John believes that John believes no one ought to murder anyone, and therefore it is true that John believes no one ought to murder anyone."

>parody of my argument
I meant it as an arbitrary thing which lacks well defined notions of true and false, man. Yeah, clearly blue isn't an assertion, but that's not relevant.

>"I believe in value system A".
This statement must be either true or false
>"[value system A]" (its content itself)
This statement doesn't, and it doesn't make sense to call it true or false because it consists of wishes and preferences

[Anonymous No.9047566]

>>9046850
As >>9047070 said it was initially in the hippocampus, still that memory eventually "moves" and consolidates in other regions of the brain.
When looking at a brain in the act of recalling an event or an image we might see the prefrontal cortex lightning up, but that doesn't imply the data must be there, just that the process of recalling is.

People with serious brain damage or that had their hippocampus removed, even thou unable to form new memories, were still able to hold old ones.

Moreover it's not like individual neurons hold specific data like a folder in your computer. Hypothetically a specific neuron that activates when you think about your dog might activate when you think about something completely unrelated.

[Anonymous No.9047583]

>>9047566
Yes, but brain damage can remove memories, in addition to the ability to make new ones - sometimes specific memories. And further, you can stimulate certain memories by stimulating specific areas of the brain in a predictable fashion.

With some trial and error, you can even train a program to read neurological activity to know what specific image you're thinking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4aaXzbsuMo

One does not simply separate the physical brain from the metaphysical mind, the two are irrevocably intertwined, and one cannot exist without the other, so far as one can tell.

[Anonymous No.9047714]

>>9047070
Is the hippocampus the location of object identification, or where the thought of my dog resides?
Hmm, you seem to be saying that the illusion of free will is driven, in some sense, by our ignorance of the outcomes which will eventuate in our lives - is that right?
>>9047566
You said that, were one to observe my brain perceiving a mental representation of my dog via memory, that this does not imply the data (mental representation) is there, and that several portions of the brain may experience activity during entirely different mental representations. So, there are no mental contents, but only physical processes in my brain which correlate to my experience of thinking of my dog.
If this is a correct way to put your view, then what accounts for my experience of the idea of my dog? I ask because none of the physical processes themselves are identical with the mental representation of my dog, since they are merely small bits of matter in particular arrangements. How does this mental representation come to be experienced by me when none of the physical parts are this mental representation? Hopefully that makes sense.

[Anonymous No.9047728]

>>9047196
>Yes, I agree. But what you actually said was
If I am going to even attempt derive an ought from an is, I have to actually conclude with the assertion of an ought. So, this should be an acceptable form of derivation, no? If you object to that, then it seems to me that you're just begging the question against opponents of Hume's is-ought gap.
>I meant it as an arbitrary thing which lacks well defined notions of true and false, man. Yeah, clearly blue isn't an assertion, but that's not relevant.
I know that, but blue doesn't have well defined notions of true and false because it isn't an assertion of any claim, let alone a claim which can be true or false. At least the ought statement was an assertion which has the right form for wondering as to whether it can be true or false. It isn't as simple as evaluating 'blue', especially since the conclusion of a valid argument cannot be a non-statement/assertion/proposition.
>This statement doesn't, and it doesn't make sense to call it true or false because it consists of wishes and preferences
It makes sense to call it true or false because it is a valid deduction from factual premises. If it is not a sound argument, then the conclusion is false. If it is a sound argument, then the conclusion is true. The conclusion has the form of an assertion, and all of its terms are directly carried from the premises to the conclusion; this seems to make for a valid argument, a point which you still haven't challenged. So, it doesn't get its truth or falsity from muh feels, it gets it from the factual premises in the argument.

[Anonymous No.9047777]

>>9045409
Not him but all you've done is derived another is, from your first two is's. What someone believes is true is irrelevant to what one ought to do.

[Anonymous No.9047784]

>>9047728
I am at a profound loss for how the trivially true
>If I am going to even attempt derive an ought from an is, I have to actually conclude with the assertion of an ought.
somehow implies
>So, this should be an acceptable form of derivation, no?

One more fucking time
>1. Everything Jim believes is true
>2. Jim believes Hillary Clinton should be president
>3. Therefore Hillary Clinton should be president
One candidate being "better" than another is not only a matter of their policies, but of a person's valuation of those policies. "Hillary Clinton should be president" cannot be objectively true or false, but is understood to be a person's estimation/valuation of these policies, career records, percieved trustworthiness/likeability, and so on against one another

You're essentially exploiting the fact that, colloquially, "believe" refers both to claims of truth and to value systems at different times, and equivocating the two in order to appear as though you've resolved the gap between fundamentally different categories of things. If anything THAT'S begging the question, against Hume.

[Anonymous No.9047815]

>>9047777
Are you of the mind that ought statements are also descriptive?
>>9047784
>I am at a profound loss for how the trivially true, somehow implies
Because that is the only form a derivation from is to ought can take. I don't see where we are disagreeing on this.
>but of a person's valuation of those policies
Are you making the claim that all 'ought' statements which are in the form of a statement, are really judge veiled comments about one's own feelings, or something like that?
>You're essentially exploiting the fact that, colloquially, "believe" refers both to claims of truth and to value systems at different times
I am not equivocating between the two. Tell me if these are the two sense of the word that you think I am equivocating:

1. believe in the sense that someone assents to an assertion or proposition. (e.g. I assent to the assertion that I am debating with an anon on /sci/ right now)
2. believe in the sense that someone feels a certain way about something (e.g. I don't like murder)

If this is what you mean, then I contest it. I have only ever used belief in the first sense, which is a statement about the facts of what a person does or does not assent to.

[Anonymous No.9047816]

>>9047777
Are you of the mind that ought statements are also descriptive?
>>9047784
>I am at a profound loss for how the trivially true, somehow implies
Because that is the only form a derivation from is to ought can take. I don't see where we are disagreeing on this.
>but of a person's valuation of those policies
Are you making the claim that all 'ought' statements which are in the form of a statement, are really just veiled comments about one's own feelings, or something like that?
>You're essentially exploiting the fact that, colloquially, "believe" refers both to claims of truth and to value systems at different times
I am not equivocating between the two. Tell me if these are the two sense of the word that you think I am equivocating:

1. believe in the sense that someone assents to an assertion or proposition. (e.g. I assent to the assertion that I am debating with an anon on /sci/ right now)
2. believe in the sense that someone feels a certain way about something (e.g. I don't like murder)

If this is what you mean, then I contest it. I have only ever used belief in the first sense, which is a statement about the facts of what a person does or does not assent to.

[Anonymous No.9047879]

>>9047714
I said the data is not a complete package you find in a single neuron, it is instead found in the small circuit that gets created by synapses, neurons and hormones activating when the representation of dog is requested.

Just like pressing the letter K on your keyboard triggers a simple circuit, which sends inputs to your computer which then displays K on your monitor, the idea of K is not found in a specific part of the circuit if extrapolated from its context but in the entire process.

>but only physical processes in my brain which correlate to my experience
they don't correlate, they are your experience
If I were to remove those clusters of neurons from your brain, until new bonds were formed, you could not recall "dog" in any way. That being said if I were to do that, I'd inevitably tamper with a lot more memories made of parts of that cluster

>>9047583
I never tried to imply otherwise

[Anonymous No.9047928]

>>9047816
Ought statements seem to be purely prescriptive. How would you get a descriptive ought statement?

[Anonymous No.9047938]

>>9036466
To the determinist dumbfucks. Was it determined at the beginning of the universe that I'd write this post in this thread? To the dumbfuck determinist, simply having desires and being manipulated and so on is a compelling case against free-will. What they don't understand is that their position is total. If you believe everything is determined then the initial example holds.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftIllWczf5w

[Anonymous No.9047949]

>>9047938
>To the determinist dumbfucks. Was it determined at the beginning of the universe that I'd write this post in this thread?
Yes. What a silly question.

t Not even a determinist

[Anonymous No.9047956]

>>9047938
>Was it determined at the beginning of the universe that I'd write this post in this thread?
yes

[Anonymous No.9047965]

>>9047949
>Everything is determined from the big bang
>I'm not a determinist

I guess this is the intellectual ability of determinists, huh?

[Anonymous No.9047967]

>>9047965
I was addressing your question from a deterministic viewpoint, you brainlet

[Anonymous No.9047977]

>>9047967
>I can't clearly convey what I'm trying to do or say
>No, You're Retarded for not understanding!!
Kill yourself, retard.

[Anonymous No.9047999]

>>9047977
>ask an extraordinarily stupid question to determinists
>someone answers the question
>assume they're not answering as a determinist would
You're a dingus and you should stop posting

[Anonymous No.9048074]

>>9047999
Holy shit you're retarded

[Anonymous No.9048075]

>>9040478
>If I do not have free will, I can't consciously react to the fact that I do not have free will. Therefore it doesn't matter from the perspective of how I conduct my own actions if I have free will or not.
But if you do have free will then you can react consciously to the fact that you have free will, so it does matter. Or at least, it can.

[Anonymous No.9048102]

>>9040478
Even if you don't have free will, you can still consciously react. You just can't react in a way that differs from how you were predetermined to react

[Anonymous No.9048247]

>>9047938
>Was it determined at the beginning of the universe that I'd write this post in this thread?
Well, under classical mechanics, maybe, but this seems no longer to be the case.

Tests of relativity prove that both the past and future very much "exist" in a static state, and that time, as we commonly experience it, is largely illusory. Causality may still be a thing, but it doesn't necessarily have to happen in order, and different observers will disagree as to that order. Then you get into the very small scale where those mechanics go out the window, but you have particles being interfered with by their future selves, and the like.

But again, as perception must be limited to exist, determinism does nothing to eliminate free will. It really is the journey, and not the destination, and as a conscious being, you've no choice but to make that journey, from whatever frame of reference you are taking it.

[Anonymous No.9048769]

>>9047965
>>9047977
>>9048074
Sure is summer in here

[Anonymous No.9048937]

>>9045353
>There is no part of the brain that lights up differently depending on whether or not someone has free will

>free will fags dont see the irony in this

[Anonymous No.9049165]

>>9047928
Well, I think the idea (to show that it is possible to do so) is to have a valid argument where you have descriptive premises and a prescriptive conclusion. I gave such an argument earlier on in the thread,

>1. Everything John believes is true. (descriptive)
>2. John believes that no one ought to murder anyone. (descriptive)
>3. Therefore, it is true that no one ought to murder anyone. (prescriptive)

Another anon doesn't think this works, but we are still discussing why he thinks this. What do you think?

[Anonymous No.9049570]

why can't harris into persuasion?

https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/triggered

[Anonymous No.9049585]

>>9036466
Free will/determinism is a philosophical dilemma not a scientific one

[Anonymous No.9049839]

>>9045722
>time... illusion
Wait, what? Where does it say that and how does causality work, then? I thought GR needed causality to function and that requires time to exist.

[Anonymous No.9049862]

>>9041132
They've been able to determine that decisions are made milliseconds, sometimes even seconds before we are made aware of them, but this doesn't necessarily mean we do not have free will.

[Anonymous No.9049863]

>>9049839
It, exists, just not in the way we commonly experience or think of it, as beings of a single reference frame - it isn't a universally flowing constant, and relativity does do some potentially weird things to causality in general, particularly when it comes to causality as observed from different frames of reference (they won't always agree). Under relativity, the future and past exist in a fixed way, we simply don't experience them until our reference of perception crosses them.

The abridged PBS popsci version of this weirdness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrqmMoI0wks

[Anonymous No.9049979]

>>9049862
Makes sense. It almost always takes longer to articulate one's thoughts than it does to think them.
And sure, it doesn't mean we didn't freely make the choice, just that we don't have the level of information about our experience which we assume we rely on to make choices. Free will can still be present in a weaker sense

[Carbon No.9050064]

>>9036466
>What was this board's consensus on free will again? I forgot.
It isn't defined well enough to have an opinion
/thread

[Anonymous No.9050065]

>>9050064
>It isn't defined well enough to have an opinion
>science
>opinions

[Anonymous No.9050105]

>>9049165
As I said in
>>9047777, the only conclusion you can draw is about what John thinks in his own mind. The only conclusion you can draw is another descriptive one, the conclusion you've drawn is a non sequitur because what John thinks doesn't necessarily affect what other people ought to do

[Anonymous No.9050129]

>>9050105
This. You need a "we ought to do what John believes we ought to do" here to get that conclusion. He's just phrasing it "John believes we ought to do something, and he's right" to dress up this ought in the clothes of a factual claim. Sad!

[Anonymous No.9050188]

>>9042967
He has no way of proving those claims without relying on experiences and knowledge he was given from a religious group. I read Waking Up he didn't offer anything new just summarized a bunch of other people's work and observations that fit his beliefs.

[Anonymous No.9050217]

>>9049862
It means that you didn't arrive at the conclusion or choice by conciously deliberating on it and then making a decision on it's merits. It was made without you being aware of it, and before you even realized that it's already made.
This doesn't work with the usual notion of free will, as in concious deliberation.

[Anonymous No.9050546]

>>9036466
>taking sam harris seriously
The guy is a joke:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vc9Gsn5Ees

[Anonymous No.9050612]

We will not be able to solve the problem of free will until we are able to scientifically approach the problem of consciousness.

[Anonymous No.9051046]

>>9042895
How does the last one show no free will?

[Anonymous No.9051200]

>>9036466
Yes, but only within the laws of the universe and biology. As far as we know you can't fly if you will it. You can however choose from a small pool of other actions which you can use your body for. An example is moving your right arm. Some of it can be involuntary like when you get stabbed in the leg by a stick, you automatically pull away. There's no higher thought involved, it's just leg nerve to brain stem, then back down to leg muscle. Of course you can process the pain later, but in that moment you get a pain stimulus and the most basic part of your brain kicks in to rescue you from perceived danger. You have no real control over that. It's like people that attempt suicide and end up stopping and/or seeking help because in that moment the animal part of you takes control and you enter survival mode. So if you want to go by these built in self-preservation modes as the standard, then there is no free will, merely and input and output. If you go by our inability to fly no matter how bad we want to because physics is a bitch, there is still no free will. But if you go by our capacity for abstract thought, understanding advanced mathematical concepts, our creativity and individuality, and our ability to make choices within certain constraints, then yes we have free will. I exercised free will by making this post.

This almost reminds me of a thread on /g/ where the OP asked if humans can really generate random numbers, they all trolled it and answered with 3. While it was pretty funny, it was proof that we can generate random numbers. There may be a certain level of predictability in social behaviors, but not in the given numbers. Every upcoming post could've been a 3 or any other number depending on how each poster exercised free will.

TLDR - Free will exists but is limited by outside forces.

[Anonymous No.9051212]

>>9051200
>There may be a certain level of predictability in social behaviors, but not in the given numbers.
Why not. Please explain.

Also attempted suicide only happens when someone intervenes.

[Anonymous No.9051226]

>>9051212
>Every upcoming post could've been a 3 or any other number depending on how each poster exercised free will.
Because humans have free will, there is that possibility that the number could be something other than 3, and because that possibility exists, so does free will.

>Also attempted suicide only happens when someone intervenes.
What do you mean by this? Are you saying that the person committing suicide has to make some conscious effort to stop or that a different person has to find them?

[Anonymous No.9051249]

>>9043758
>would be

[Anonymous No.9051258]

>>9051226
So by assuming free will exists you prove free will.


A real suicidal person will not make a conscious effort to stop.
People who actually want to kill themselves and are not suffering from some major cognitive dissonance or enacting a cry for help do it 100% of the time unless someone intervenes (by stopping them or saving them after).

Your definition of attempted suicide is just self pity dissonant with self preservation. People can accidentally kill themselves this way but it's just different than the married guy who just got fired for the nth time and walks into a park and shoots himself. Or the woman who jumps off a building with her newborn. There is no other perceived recourse for these people. Real suicide is almost always premeditated. You often hear people saying how calm the person was the day before or day of.

I guess there's another case where the teen whos partner cheats on them or whatever kills himself in the midst of intense emotion, but i still wouldnt think of that as the same as most suicides.

[Anonymous No.9051290]

>>9051258
>it's just different than the married guy who just got fired for the nth time and walks into a park and shoots himself. Or the woman who jumps off a building with her newborn.
These are actions that you can't go back on once started, unlike an overdose or cutting your wrists, retard. Read between the lines instead of cherrypicking suicide methods to try to argue when that isn't even an attack on my main point.

>So by assuming free will exists you prove free will.
No, free will proves free will. It's self evident. This is why our entire world is based on the concept and it works, and stuff falls apart when retarded SJWs and commies refuse to acknowledge the individual. This sort of stuff has been proven in history, and it still applies today.

[Anonymous No.9051312]

>>9038209
>Searle
Speaks about programs without understanding how they work. That's shit tier to not know limit to your competence.

[Anonymous No.9051318]

>>9051290
>These are actions that you can't go back on once started
Which is exactly why those are a cry for help and not the same as most suicides. A person does those things knowing there is a way out. They already have the premonition of saving themselves, it's not some spontaneous survival instinct or free will, its "i wanna kill myself but not" aka i need attention badly.
I'm not minimizing those peoples feelings.

>cherry pick
see image

>No, free will proves free will.
should have just said that in your original post. i wouldnt have responded

[Anonymous No.9051330]

>>9036466
Behavior may be deterministic, but there's still question what chooses the future. Sometimes it's human.

[Anonymous No.9051342]

>>9051318
The entire suicide argument was cherrypicked. It's not the main part of my argument here>>9051200

How fucking dense are you?

>No, free will proves free will.
>should have just said that in your original post. i wouldnt have responded
Because I'm correct. There is no good reason at all to believe that free will does not exist. The fact that suicides even happen is an example of people exercising their free will within the laws of the universe and their own biological bodies.

Goddamnit you're such a fucking a retard. It's not often that I get angry over shit online but you're just so thick skulled. Please, pick a method from the chart, faggot.

[Anonymous No.9051375]

>>9050105
I think that, you are complaining that premise 1 is false here. Tell me if this is what you are thinking: it doesn't matter what John thinks, what John thinks has nothing to do with how people should behave.
I agree with you that that may be true, and probably is true, but it is not relevant to the point I am trying to make. I am only trying to provide a valid argument, and not a sound one. When you say that premise 1 is false, you are challenging its soundness, but not its validity. As far as I can tell, there is nothing illicit in the logical structure of the argument, and that is all I require in order to show a counter-example of Hume's is-ought gap. So far, no one is questioning the validity of my argument, only whether or not it is sound.
>>9050129
I don't think that you are right about this. If I had the statement "we ought to do what John believes we ought to do" in my argument, then it wouldn't have the correct logical form to bridge the is-ought gap, and wouldn't be a counter-example to Hume's argument at all. I have to show that we can deduce or derive an ought statement from descriptive statements only. Do you think my argument is invalid because of the form it takes now? If so, why? Remember, I am only interested in providing a valid, not a sound, argument.

[Anonymous No.9051530]

>>9047879
Okay, so essentially what you are saying is that the circuit in my brain is not itself a cause of the experience that I have, but rather it IS the experience that I have. So, in other words, an experience is a complex phenomenon consisting in the completion of a neural-chemical circuit. Hopefully I have that right.
Does that mean that, if you were to watch my brain, and you saw the activation of the circuit, or rather, that you saw my experience, say, if you had a very accurate and elaborate brain scan, that you too would see my dog when I imagine him?

[Anonymous No.9051587]

>>9051375
>If I had the statement "we ought to do what John believes we ought to do" in my argument, then it wouldn't have the correct logical form to bridge the is-ought gap, and wouldn't be a counter-example to Hume's argument at all.
Damn you're slow. Yes. This is my point.
See >>9050129
>You need a "we ought to do what John believes we ought to do" here -to get that conclusion-
If the argument is valid, you've included an ought in the premises. If you've not included an ought in the premises, the argument is invalid.

>When you say that premise 1 is false, you are challenging its soundness, but not its validity.
Nobody has done this you illiterate mong
>So far, no one is questioning the validity of my argument, only whether or not it is sound.
I've done nothing BUT question its validity, but you're apparently too autistic to even figure that out.

[Anonymous No.9051793]

>>9051375
Just what the hell do you think "He's just phrasing it 'John believes we ought to do something, and he's right' to dress up this ought in the clothes of a factual claim" means? That you're relying on an ought in your premises which you've poorly tried to disguise as an is with the completely unrelated and inapplicable property of truth (correspondence to reality.)

[Anonymous No.9052127]

>>9051200
Impossibility of suicides is a meme. Wolves are known to have a suicide instinct just like humans. Normally self-preservation dominates, but when one is a failure in life, that's handled by suicide in order to not become a burden for society, it's profitable for evolution.

[Anonymous No.9052230]

>>9036466
>free will again
>>>9051889
>and again
>and again
>and again

[Anonymous No.9052285]

>>9051375
No, premise 1 is true.
Yes, that's what I'm thinking. And it is relevant because for John's beliefs to be an ought for other people, they must determine what other people do. To go from what John thinks to what we should do is a non sequitur, and hence it's not a deductively valid argument. The only conclusion I can see you making is "John believes x and he's right, so John believes x". It's tautological, but it's the only conclusion you can reach which is supported by your premises

Also, if you reached a conclusion that had something like "we ought to do what John believes we ought to do" that would literally be a perfect counter example for the is ought gap, I don't know why you think it wouldn't be.

>>9051793
I disagree, I think all the premises are descriptive. It's just that the anon hasn't provided a valid argument that reaches a prescriptive conclusion.

>>9051587
By saying for deductive validity, you need an ought to get an ought (and vice versa), you presuppose the is-ought gap

[Anonymous No.9052315]

>>9052285
>It's just that the anon hasn't provided a valid argument that reaches a prescriptive conclusion.
Well, this was my original position, but I've had to explain this isn't a valid argument half a dozen times, so I moved on to figuring out where his reasoning mistake is. For instance, "To go from what John thinks to what we should do is a non sequitur" is clearly true, which makes me think he's assuming "what John believes is true" is a stand-in for "we ought to do what John believes we should."
>>9052285
>By saying for deductive validity, you need an ought to get an ought (and vice versa), you presuppose the is-ought gap
I wasn't claiming this in general, merely referring to the same point I'm discussing with you. The specific argument structure he's provided is invalid so long as "what John believes is true" doesn't mean "we ought to do what John believes we should," for reasons you yourself have articulated, and if it does, he's derived an ought from an ought.

[Anonymous No.9053288]

>>9038209
I'd say he knows less about neuroscience

[Anonymous No.9053296]

>>9036466
Complementary with determinism.

[Anonymous No.9053709]

>>9036466
Free will existed as a means to attempt to justify actions, punishments and to seperate ourselves from nature. But our actions are limited to the expressions of our genes and our prior history. If I had free will, then I could go into town, get drunk at a bar, throw chickens at homeless people and later suck cocks for five cents a john. I won't because that contradicts my previous behaviors. Punishments is society attempting to remove those wills that would cause inefficiency or harm. The people committing them cannot help themselves. If you were replaced atom for atom with a serial killer, you would be a serial killer. As for separating ourselves from nature, that's hogwash. We do not ascribe free will to beasts, why should we be any different?

[Anonymous No.9054104]

>>9053709
>We do not ascribe free will to beasts, why should we be any different?
It's confirmed, free-willers are the militant vegans of consciousness philosophy

[Geometric Unity No.9054126]

>>9036466
i remember after I posted 77 pictures I came to 4chan and like everyone thread was one of my series of pics. This guy looks like Brian Levine.

[Anonymous No.9054136]

Clearly there's no magic sauce that makes us defy the laws of physics. Invoke quantum physics all you want, but your arguments come from ignorance of the subject. Just because you don;t understand something and apply magical thinking to it doesn't make it a legitimate argument. Your neurons are made of matter, which follow the laws of physics like everything else.

[Anonymous No.9054143]

>>9054136
But the laws of physics are not yet a perfect approximation to the whole of reality

[Anonymous No.9054155]

>>9054143
Oh come on, you're reaching for a reason and even you know it. Good try but it's not really solid enough.

[Anonymous No.9054178]

>>9054155
I'm not a free-willer, just playing devil's advocate. "Good try but it's not really solid enough" is actually what I'm trying to get across here. If they don't yet perfectly approximate reality, you can't claim something is categorically impossible on the basis of their correspondence to reality. It's not valid reasoning.

[Anonymous No.9054255]

>>9054178
Sure they don't totally approximate reality among all situations and scales. But they are consistent and applicable to most situations the universe has shown to the best of our current abilities. We could claim we don't understand the mechanics of the universe down to the finest detail, but it doesn't bring about any hypotheses on consciousness based in anything other than speculation and wishful thinking. based on what we actually know the brain is made of matter and follows the same rules as any other matter. if the transistors in your CPU don't experience quantum or unknown effects that cause the entire system to behave in a coherent and unpredictable manner, then the brain should certainly not be an exception.

[Anonymous No.9054408]

>>9045334
So you bridge the is-ought gap by giving someone godlike powers.

All you need to do now is prove that God exists.

[Anonymous No.9054436]

>>9053296
How so?

[Anonymous No.9054452]

>>9036466
The true patrician position is realizing that we live in a deterministic universe, but have to live as if we have free will.

[Anonymous No.9054489]

>>9054408
The argument isn't even valid, nevermind the choice of premises.
>tfw not even god can bridge the is-ought gap, and therefore god doesn't real

[Anonymous No.9054500]

>>9054452
but it's not because as far as we know, we don't live in a deterministic universe. newtonian physics is a good model at best, but uncertainty is the case right now

uncertainty doesn't prove the universe isn't deterministic, rather, as the name suggests, it gives uncertainty to a deterministic universe. there's no way to "know".

also that might be the most retarded thing i've ever heard

>we live in a deterministc universe
>live as if we have free will
>i have no choice to say this
>you have no choice to live as if anything
>but you should live as if you have free will

[Anonymous No.9054502]

>>9054136
the uncertainty principle isn't magical thinking, it's literally how the universe works. it's an inherent problem with our instrumentation. it makes it inherently impossible to know if we live in a deterministic universe

[Anonymous No.9054644]

the universe is non determistic in a deterministic kinda a way,

t.
god

[Anonymous No.9054657]

>>9054644
Is it a Markov process?
Y-you can tell me, Lord, I'm of the elect

[Anonymous No.9054877]

>>9054644
How did you determine this?

[Anonymous No.9054895]

>>9036466
Doesnt exist, just remove your frontal lobe to see how your a puppet to your DNA.

[Anonymous No.9055210]

Technically no, but we can not comprehend the level of detail needed to not be surprised at what our choices bring us. So we experience free will, and for the machine that is our consciousness it is real, both our own free will and that of others. In the real world there is no non-deterministic system. There is a point to where we can not simply zoom any further down so to speak, so the data needed to make the predictions is not available in the higher abstraction levels.

[Anonymous No.9055214]

>>9046908
Because the biological objective is the betterment and propagation of life, not of yourself. This includes preying upon organisms that are unable to defend themselves to eliminate weaknesses, reproduction of genes from organisms that are successful in their environment, and in some cases, self-elimination.

[Anonymous No.9055219]

>>9036466
OFF TOPIC
Ben Stiller is not /sci/
>>>/tv/

[Anonymous No.9055245]

>>9036495
Underrated...

[Anonymous No.9055249]

>>9041422
>the universe is self-evidently non-deterministic
[Citation needed]

[Anonymous No.9055362]

>>9055214
There's no such thing as a biological objective.

[Anonymous No.9055518]

I'm not even sure if there's a difference between compatibilism and simply denying free will, but I prefer to be called a compatibilist desu.

[Anonymous No.9055544]

Define free will.
Based on your definition, people's answers will change

[Anonymous No.9055554]

if quints free will isn't real and you're all fucking idiots

[Anonymous No.9055630]

>>9055554
Shamefur dispray

[Anonymous No.9055638]

>>9055554

[Anonymous No.9055942]

>>9039538
>maybe a dice rolling mechanism can give me free will

[Anonymous No.9055994]

>>9054500
We HAVE to live as if we have free will, it's not a choice.

If you're hungry, and not sure what to cook for dinner, saying "THE UNIVERSE IS DETERMINISTIC!" isn't going to help you settle what's for dinner.

This is what I mean when I say we have to live as if we have free will, regardless of whether or not the universe is deterministic. Because knowing that doesn't change anything about how we have to live.

[Anonymous No.9056116]

>>9055994
>saying "THE UNIVERSE IS DETERMINISTIC!" isn't going to help you settle what's for dinner.
It might. Everything you do affects subsequent possibilities.

[Geometric Unity No.9056132]

>>9036466
The future is mostly determined by the past but you can still influence it a little with your actions in the present

[Anonymous No.9056460]

>>9051587
>If the argument is valid, you've included an ought in the premises. If you've not included an ought in the premises, the argument is invalid.
All this does is beg the question against anyone who would oppose the is-ought gap, as >>9052285 pointed out.
And, I have repeatedly asked you which inferential step in my argument is illicit. You can't seem to point out the formal problems with the argument. The closest you have come is saying things like:
>he only conclusion you can draw is about what John thinks in his own mind
>You're essentially exploiting the fact that, colloquially, "believe" refers both to claims of truth and to value systems at different times
These sorts of complaints aren't complaints about the logical validity of the argument, they are complaints about what I seem to be doing, or what conclusions I should draw (even though what you suggest is not explicitly in any premise, which hampers the validity of the argument!).
>>9052285
Maybe you can help me out understanding where the argument is invalid, since the other anon thinks me obtuse. The conclusion draws explicitly on the contents of each premise, and each premise is properly descriptive. Where is the formal, logical problem in the structure of the argument?
>>9051793
There is no "dressed up" or "disguised" ought claim. It is a clear statement about what a person believes, also sometimes called a propositional attitude. It is a statement that someone assents to a specific proposition. What on earth is illicit about this? I have also not taken truth to be a property.
>>9054408
I haven't given anyone any powers. I am just giving a logically valid argument as a counterexample to the is-ought gap.
>>9054489
No one has pointed out the formal mistake in the syllogism. As far as I can tell, it meets all formal criteria for a valid argument.

[Anonymous No.9056513]

>>9056460
>You can't seem to point out the formal problems with the argument.
>These sorts of complaints aren't complaints about the logical validity of the argument, they are complaints about what I seem to be doing, or what conclusions I should draw
>Where is the formal, logical problem in the structure of the argument?
>I am just giving a logically valid argument as a counterexample to the is-ought gap.
>No one has pointed out the formal mistake in the syllogism.
Jesus h christ
>Maybe you can help me out understanding where the argument is invalid, since the other anon thinks me obtuse.
This is putting it very lightly. After a certain point, you just need a functional brain.

[Anonymous No.9056720]

>>9056513
All you've done is beg the question and give some vague reasons as to why the argument is problematic. I've been trying to figure out your problem with the argument is, and you just won't come out and be specific about it.
Now you are posting memes because
>lol bro ur dum
At some point, you just need to come out and say what the problem with the argument is.

[Anonymous No.9056723]

>>9055518
they can't help looking duh

[Anonymous No.9056776]

>>9056720
>All you've done is beg the question
a misunderstanding of >>9051587 which I cleared up in >>9052315
>and give some vague reasons as to why the argument is problematic.
So you're doubly illiterate. Read the fucking thread, it's right here.
>Now you are posting memes because
Stirnerposting has nothing whatsoever to do with this topic or your handling of it, which you would probably understand, if you weren't illiterate.

>you just won't come out and be specific about it
>At some point, you just need to come out and say what the problem with the argument is.
I've done that several times over you autismal mongoloid. John's value system CANNOT be -true- or -false- and so 3 is not well-defined. As such 1 and 2 do not imply 3, UNLESS by 1 you actually mean "we ought to..." rather than "it is true that...," which means the argument while valid would no longer be a counterexample to the is-ought gap. Fuck's sake.

But fuck me, making the slightest effort to explain WHY really just means I "haven't pointed out the formal problems with the argument" again, I'm sure. Say the line again.

[Anonymous No.9056780]

>>9056720
Let's look at >>9052315
>>By saying for deductive validity, you need an ought to get an ought (and vice versa), you presuppose the is-ought gap
>I wasn't claiming this in general, merely referring to the same point I'm discussing with you. The specific argument structure he's provided is invalid so long as "what John believes is true" doesn't mean "we ought to do what John believes we should," for reasons you yourself have articulated, and if it does, he's derived an ought from an ought.
Hmm, gee, what are those reasons the guy I'm replying to, and who you -also- quoted to "prove" I'm begging the question, articulated? >>9052285
>To go from what John thinks to what we should do is a non sequitur, and hence it's not a deductively valid argument. The only conclusion I can see you making is "John believes x and he's right, so John believes x". It's tautological, but it's the only conclusion you can reach which is supported by your premises
Then, bafflingly, in response to that critique, you wrote: >>9056460
>Maybe you can help me out understanding where the argument is invalid, since the other anon thinks me obtuse. The conclusion draws explicitly on the contents of each premise, and each premise is properly descriptive. Where is the formal, logical problem in the structure of the argument?
Do you understand what a non sequitur is? Do you understand it's a "formal, logical problem in the structure of the argument?" Do you understand the words I'm writing to you right now?
You just keep yammering, ignoring all refutations of your nonsense, insisting ad nauseum there have been none, and claiming victory. It's mind-boggling.

[Anonymous No.9056802]

>>9056776
>The specific argument structure he's provided is invalid so long as "what John believes is true" doesn't mean "we ought to do what John believes we should," for reasons you yourself have articulated, and if it does, he's derived an ought from an ought.
So, the argument is invalid if "what John believes is true" =/= "we ought to do what John believes we should". In other words, you are saying that, unless I already have an ought in my second premise (the premise you are referring to (#2)), the argument is invalid. This would mean that, either my argument is invalid, or I am merely getting an ought from and ought, which does not bridge the is-ought gap, according to you.
Well, I am not using "what John believes is true" as a stand in for "we ought to do what John believes we should". So, according to you, my argument is invalid because, presumably, I have nowhere to get my ought from. But this is not the reason you give for the invalidity of the argument.

[Anonymous No.9056811]

>>9056780
The reason you cite now is:
>John's value system CANNOT be -true- or -false- and so 3 is not well-defined.
So, I am not sure which it is that you think makes my argument invalid. Perhaps you think it is both. You used 'blue' to try and make this point, since 'blue' can be neither true or false. Yet, I pointed out that my conclusion is not just a word or term, but a proposition, and one which is not formed particularly differently than any other. Why it doesn't have a truth value requires an argument (which you haven't given). Furthermore, I already attempted to explain that its truth value derives from the premises from which it is derived; i.e. if the premises are true, and I have correctly used the rules of inference, then the truth of the conclusion follows by logical necessity.
But then there is this choice bit:
>Do you understand what a non sequitur is? Do you understand it's a "formal, logical problem in the structure of the argument?" Do you understand the words I'm writing to you right now? You just keep yammering, ignoring all refutations of your nonsense, insisting ad nauseum there have been none, and claiming victory. It's mind-boggling.
My problem is that you continually cry "non-sequitur" without bothering to point out what the non-sequitur is. Challenging the notion that value statements are truth evaluable is not you accusing me of a non-sequitur, so *that* can't be what you're referring to. It's got to then be the idea that there is no ought in the premises from which I can get the ought in my conclusion. However, again, this presupposes the is-ought gap, and thereby begs the question.

So, one of your objections is not an objection to the logical structure of my argument, it is an objection to the idea that value statements are truth apt. The other objection is a question begging objection, since it presupposes the truth of the is-ought gap, which is currently in question. So *that* can't be a real non-sequitur.

[Anonymous No.9056840]

>>9048247
>Causality may still be a thing, but it doesn't necessarily have to happen in order
But it does, the 4D cone of causality in special relativity states that a point in the present has the possibility of being affected by all the points within a distance ct from the given point where c is the speed of light, and t how far back in time one looks. Also, I believe the point can also be affected by all the points farther than ct when t is how far forward in time one looks. The latter statement assumes the existence of Tachyons, particles that move faster than light, despite the dogma that nothing can move faster than light. My interpretation is that the postulates of special relativity do not rule out FTL, but rather that non-Tachyons cannot exceed the speed of light, and that Tachyons can not recede below the speed of light. However, I have not looked into the implication of Tachyons reacting with non-Tachyons for any contradictions in my interpretation of causality. Anyways, we see that the order does matter, but it is possible that time is bidirectional with different physical properties for each direction.

[Anonymous No.9056865]

>>9056460
Here's a tip, autismo. Don't reply to more than two posts at at a time.

[Anonymous No.9056882]

>>9039542
>fedora
quality post, esp on sci. grats m8

[Anonymous No.9056902]

>>9036466
it's gay

[Anonymous No.9057017]

>>9056840
None of that matters when one takes into consideration that two observers moving in different directions relative to one another can witness events happening in opposite orders in a third frame.

Time, taken from the grand scale of multiple references, eventually ceases to be a straight line, and instead becomes a pretzel. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, and all.

That's all before you even get into this crap:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.0167v1.pdf

[Anonymous No.9057252]

>>9053288
>>9053296
>>9053709
>>9054104
>>9054126
>>9054136
>>9054143
>>9054155
>>9054178
>>9054255
>>9054436
>>9054452
>>9054500
>>9054644
>>9055219
>>9055518
>>9055554
>>9056865

[Anonymous No.9057262]

No universal free will. "Free will" is just a description for a person who has a strong frontal lobe and who identifies himself with the going ons of his brain, who sees it and feels himself as the unquestioned commander or conductor. Free will is something that belongs to few people.

[Anonymous No.9058243]

>>9057252
>falling for the reverse meta troll

[Anonymous No.9058822]

>>9057252
>links a bunch of posts with no apparent method or pattern
>says nothing
Wdhmbt?

[Anonymous No.9058823]

>>9049862

>They've been able to determine that decisions are made milliseconds, sometimes even seconds before we are made aware of them

But we already knew that, at least for split second decisions.

[Anonymous No.9058835]

>>9058822

[Anonymous No.9059223]

>>9036466
He believes the renewable energy meme and that automation will destroy all jobs.

[Anonymous No.9059865]

>>9040499
>>9040327

what interview are you guys talking about?
I see one with harris dennet and dawkins

and harris + dennet "revisited" is there a first one?

I'd like to see this debate can someone link me

[Anonymous No.9060278]

ignore and lock those people in a box non standard educational questions are removed from the timeline and quarantined by fundamental Moreman alien overlords !

[Anonymous No.9060286]

ignore and lock those people in a box ! non standard educational questions are removed from the timeline; and quarantined by fundamental Moreman alien overlords !

[Anonymous No.9061669]

>>9042877
>>9043879
He obviously used "predict" in the layman sense (i.e. determine the future with 100% accuracy) and not "approximately predict". And his point still stands, that a non-deterministic universe does not imply free will can exist in it.

[Anonymous No.9061673]

>>9055518
Literally says nothing about whether we have free will or not