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Posts by Obbe
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2017-06-09 at 9:23 PM UTC in Determinism
Originally posted by Captain Falcon But you are! It's just that "you" isn't some black box that exists outside of time and space. Literally novody believes that.
Some compatibilists insist that even if our thoughts and actions are the product of unconscious causes, they are still our thoughts and actions. That our unconscious neurophysiology is just as much "us" as our conscious thoughts are.
But I think these compatibilists change the subject. They trade a psychological fact - the subjective experience of being a conscious agent - for a conceptual understanding of ourselves as persons. This is a bait and switch. The psychological truth is that people feel identical to a certain channel of information in their conscious minds. This is like saying we are made of stardust - which we are. But we don't feel like stardust.
At this moment you are making countless unconscious "decisions" with organs other than your brain - but these are not events for which you feel responsible. Are "you" producing red blood cells at this moment? Your body is doing this, of course, but if it "decided" to do otherwise you would consider yourself to be the victim of these changes rather than their cause. To say that you are responsible for everything that goes on inside your skin because it is all "you" is to make a claim that bears absolutely no relationship to the feelings of agency and moral responsibility that have made the idea of freewill an enduring problem for philosophy.
There are more bacteria in your body than human cells. Many of these organisms perform necessary functions - they are "you" in some wider sense. Do you feel identical to them? If they misbehave, are you morally responsible? This is the trouble with compatibilism. It solves the problem of "freewill" by ignoring it.
How can we be "free" as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware? We can't. To say that "my brain" decided to think or act in a particular way, consciously or not, and that this is the basis for my freedom is to ignore the very source of our belief in freewill: the feeling of conscious agency. People feel that they are the authors of their thoughts and actions, and this is the only reason why there seems to be a problem of freewill worth talking about.
Post last edited by Open Your Mind at 2017-06-09T22:10:13.127849+00:00 -
2017-06-09 at 4:16 PM UTC in Determinism
Originally posted by Captain Falcon Yes, but if you say quantum indeterminism doesn't imply freedom, then you must have some definition of freedom in mind which makes it so that quantum indeterminism does not imply it.
Secondly, I absolutely disagree; the compatibilist definition stands whether or not there is quantum indeterminism. It is the only definition that I've seen so far that makes sense, and it makes plenty of sense; you, as an individual, deterministic or indeterministic entity, are an agent of free will, and can exercise your free will as long as you are not externally restricted from exercising it.
That seems pretty intuitive; "you" (whatever your theory on identity is) are that system that gives outputs to a given input. Whatever that black box is, is making its decisions freely unless it's being restricted. That works regardless of free will or compatibilism.
I don't really have a problem with how compatibilism defines freewill. It is basically how freewill is defined in a court of law. However I think it is important to distinguish that from the common sense of freewill people experience in their daily lives, the libertarian sense of freewill, that you are the absolute cause of your actions. Because obviously you are not. -
2017-06-09 at 11:46 AM UTC in Forum Entropy is a terrible topic title
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2017-06-09 at 10:47 AM UTC in Determinism
Originally posted by Dargo Wrong. Even if you put a gun to my head and say, "Choose Option A," I can override my will to live and choose Option B if I so desire.
Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. In other words, you can choose option B over option A if you so desire, but you can't choose to desire it or not. Where is the freedom in that?
Freewill is not conceptually coherent. Either our wills are determined by prior causes (desires) and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.
The popular conception of freewill rests on two assumptions: that each of us could have behaved differently than we did in the past, and that we are the conscious source of most of our thoughts and actions. Both of these assumptions are false.
There is no way I can influence my own desires - for what tools of influence would I use? Other desires? To say that I would have done otherwise had I wanted to is simply to say I would have lived in another universe had I been in a different universe. Compatibilism amounts to nothing more than an assertion of the following creed: "A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings." -
2017-06-09 at 3:38 AM UTC in Determinism
Originally posted by Sophie I am a human being, i can see the future by thinking about it and adjust my actions accordingly. Free will.
Imagine there is something you really want to do, but you know you would get in a lot of trouble for doing it. You don't do the crime. You seem to think this would demonstrate free will. In reality, the part of your brain that is influenced by the crime you want to commit just isn't as strong as the part of your brain that is influenced by the punishment you would receive. On this occasion.
On another occasion, your behavior might be driven to a different outcome. You might commit the crime one day. Either way, there is no freedom in the decison. Your mind just does what it does, just like every other physical system. There is no magical "seat of consciousness" where turn the knobs and dials. Your thoughts and behaviors are driven. You are not the author of your own thoughts any more than you are the author of the words I am typing into this post. -
2017-06-09 at 3:11 AM UTC in Determinism
Originally posted by mmQ Because I could not jump also.
Right, except you did jump. Either you did so randomly, in which case you demonstrate no freewill or control over the decision, or something drove you to jump or caused you to jump, again demonstrating no freewill. Where do you see the freewill? -
2017-06-09 at 3 AM UTC in Determinism
Free will= I can swan dive off my balcony, as stated.
Ok, why do you believe jumping off of something demonstrated free will? -
2017-06-09 at 2:58 AM UTC in Determinism
Originally posted by Sophie It doesn't matter if the Universe is deterministic. I can be happy or sad, it literally doesn't matter because everything has been determined already.
Also saying "free will is not possible" is teh same as me just saying "determinism is not possible", that's not a logical argument.
"It doesn't matter what you do you have no free will anyway"
Yes that is just defining what determinism is and again not an argument. And i know you don't like the "meme-like" nature of saying "not an argument" but it's true in this case.
Do you believe in physics? Do you believe the past is unaffected by the present? If you answered yes to these questions, it should follow that free will is impossible. You are not some magical entity that exists outside of the realm of cause and effect. -
2017-06-09 at 2:52 AM UTC in Determinism
Originally posted by Dargo I know we can predict some behavior. Don't selectively edit my posts you cunt.
Tell me, if a scientist can accurately predict the outcome of a decision you are about to make before you are consciously aware that you have actually made a choice, where is the freedom in this decision?
What degree of human behavior prediction would satisfy you? I mean, if the weatherman could only accurately predict the weather 50% of the time, would you believe the weather has freewill?Then what do you do with people who are not perpetually violent? If a man murders his wife, chances are actually rather low he will go out and murder someone else. So, for one-time crimes, what should we do? Just have a restorative chat? They couldn't help themselves in that instance after all, and won't become repeat offenders.
I don't know, I don't agree with you that anything would have to change at all. We are obviously subject to influences, detriments to crimes like murdering your wife would influence reasonable, sane people to not commit these crimes.
Regardless, freewill is impossible. You are driven by various forces beyond your control. You are not even the author of your own thoughts. I mean, you don't think about what you're going to think about it before you think it. Thoughts just arise in the mind.
If you really believe freewill exists, give me an example of freewill. -
2017-06-08 at 10:09 PM UTC in Determinism
Originally posted by Dargo If free will is not possible, we should be able to predict human behavior
We can:By looking at brain activity while making a decision, the researchers could predict what choice people would make before they themselves were even aware of having made a decision.
The work calls into question the ‘consciousness’ of our decisions and may even challenge ideas about how ‘free’ we are to make a choice at a particular point in time.
“We think our decisions are conscious, but these data show that consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg,” says John-Dylan Haynes, a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, who led the study.
“The results are quite dramatic,” says Frank Tong, a neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Ten seconds is "a lifetime” in terms of brain activity, he adds.
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.htmlAdditionally, as Sophie said, people then cannot be held accountable for anything they do. Not just crimes and dangerous things - just overall being a dick. Trip someone? Cuss out a cute waitress? So? How dare society tell you any of that was wrong and try to correct you. You couldn't help it.
As I said to Sophie, people that harm other people should be separated from the general population, not out of "punishment" but simply because it is safer for all the normal people until we can figure out how/if we can fix whatever is wrong with the criminal.
People who are dicks should be treated appropriately, so that in the future they won't be dicks anymore. -
2017-06-08 at 9:28 PM UTC in Determinism
Originally posted by infinityshock now youre just throwing unnecessarily long words onto the screen and hoping these crack-addled retards cant understand them…staring at their screens…drooling…and nodding in agreement because theyre so fucking stupid.
Originally posted by infinityshock I know nothing about anything and never have. most likely, never will. but I could be wrong because I usually am.
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2017-06-08 at 9:13 PM UTC in DeterminismHere mmQ, this should interest you:
I actually read his book a couple of weeks ago. -
2017-06-08 at 9:10 PM UTC in Determinism
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2017-06-08 at 9:08 PM UTC in Determinism
Originally posted by Sophie I am in the free will camp. Also, if everything is determined why do we even punish criminals? They can't help it, it was destined to happen so it is unfair to punish them. Also, why should we ever aspire to anything? If we fail it was determined that we would, if we succeed same story. So why not just don't do anything at all? Because you can't go wrong in a deterministic Universe.
Freewill is not possible. Doesn't matter if the world is random, determined, or probabilistic. None of those leave any room for magical free will.
People that harm other people should be separated from the general population, not out of "punishment" but simply because it is safer for all the normal people until we can figure out how/if we can fix whatever is wrong with the criminal.
Your aspirations can affect your future behaviors just as much as doubt and depression can, along with a variety of other factors.
Have you ever tried not doing anything at all? Try it tomorrow. Just don't get out of bed. It will be extremely difficult for you to do so, if not impossible. And either way, whether you succeed or fail, has nothing to do with free will whatsoever. -
2017-06-08 at 8:57 PM UTC in Hello,
Originally posted by infinityshock you can also quote whatever i say to you as im cramming my cock so far into your shit chute that your gag reflex kicks in.
Originally posted by infinityshock I know nothing about anything and never have. most likely, never will. but I could be wrong because I usually am.
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2017-06-08 at 6:09 PM UTC in Hello,
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2017-06-06 at 6:08 PM UTC in Do you meet people at Whole Foods?Genetic engineering is the future, our best shot at saving the world.
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2017-06-06 at 1:02 AM UTC in Checkmate, Atheists: The Brazilian bitch's ass is evidence of intelligent design
Originally posted by RisiR † Hahahaha… I can't even be mad at you anymore. Mr. Spritual Rainbow Soul is into bimbo sluts. This is real life.
https://www.reddit.com/r/bimbofetish
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2017-06-05 at 11:43 PM UTC in Checkmate, Atheists: The Brazilian bitch's ass is evidence of intelligent designI think her nose and eyebrows are fucked but I really do like the idea of "the bimbo", I appreciate the effort this girl has put into obtaining her ideal form. There are other models I like but I don't have many links. Here is a different girl, still suits my tastes but less extreme:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AnastasiyaKvitko -
2017-06-05 at 9:31 PM UTC in Checkmate, Atheists: The Brazilian bitch's ass is evidence of intelligent design
