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Free Will

Started by Placid Dingo, March 19, 2010, 01:10:01 PM

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LMNO

Quote from: Ratatosk on March 24, 2010, 08:24:01 PM
Quote from: LMNO on March 24, 2010, 07:57:27 PM
The coin/dice experiment where one's actions are decided by coin flips or other random methods shows that a person can act contrary to their usual behavioral patterns.

That shows free will.  Unless you also consider the coinflip to be pre-determined, along with the arbitrary actions assigned to the flip's position.


If we did not have free will, we could not act in the contrary.



But then isn't the coin determining your action, rather than your Will?

Are you positing that a so-called "random" process isn't actually random?

What if we altered the Schrodinger experiment?  We set up a radioactive isotope in a box, and wait for a certain period of time.  The isotope either did or didn't decay, based on quantum probability, which is random.

If it did, I do action A.
If it didn't, I do action B.

My actions are now based on a completely random process, which cannot be pre-determined.  Thus, we have physical free will.


Now, you can argue as much as you want about whether we have psychological free will, but as far as physical pre-determination goes, forget it.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

#136
Quote from: LMNO on March 25, 2010, 02:03:54 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on March 24, 2010, 08:24:01 PM
Quote from: LMNO on March 24, 2010, 07:57:27 PM
The coin/dice experiment where one's actions are decided by coin flips or other random methods shows that a person can act contrary to their usual behavioral patterns.

That shows free will.  Unless you also consider the coinflip to be pre-determined, along with the arbitrary actions assigned to the flip's position.


If we did not have free will, we could not act in the contrary.



But then isn't the coin determining your action, rather than your Will?

Are you positing that a so-called "random" process isn't actually random?

What if we altered the Schrodinger experiment?  We set up a radioactive isotope in a box, and wait for a certain period of time.  The isotope either did or didn't decay, based on quantum probability, which is random.

If it did, I do action A.
If it didn't, I do action B.

My actions are now based on a completely random process, which cannot be pre-determined.  Thus, we have physical free will.


Now, you can argue as much as you want about whether we have psychological free will, but as far as physical pre-determination goes, forget it.

But are we discussing 'pre-determination'  or 'determination' versus free will?

'Pre' would indicate that someone could plug all the data in at the point of the Big Bang and tell every future action... I don't think that's a very likely scenario, personally.

However, 'determination' vs free will would debate if that choice is determined outside of your Free Will. If the choice is determined by a random process then that process is still outside of your free will, isn't it? Maybe it was Free Will that led you to decide to rely on a quantum coin toss, but maybe it was because you read Cosmic Trigger or Liber Null... where such games are promoted.

IMO, our existence is a complex system of causal feedback. We and our Environment together make the choices... our environment surely informs and shapes our worldview, but the processing, interpretation  and final outcome seem to get processed internally.


EDIT: Though it might be fun to try to defend determinism including Coin Tosses and measuring Qbits. I mean if all of our choices are 'determined' then surely the state of the qbit must be as well... and the head or tail flip. I think.
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

LMNO

The intention of the experiment is to show there is nothing physical that is preventing our actions. 

Therefore, any discussion of "free will" is one of psychology.  And psychology, as has been pointed out, is changable.

Therefore, we may act in a programmed manner, but that does not eliminate the fact that we are choosing to act out a program.

An interesting, if trivial, side discussion can be started regarding those people who are not aware that they are programmed, but that's mostly an academic exercise.

Dimocritus

Sorry to post without anything to add, but this conversation, as much as it is mental fappery, is expressing thoughts about free-will in a way that I have never looked at them, and I still find it very interesting. So, with that being said, keep fapping! I'm gonna be the creepy guy who just likes to watch...
HOUSE OF GABCab ~ "caecus plumbum caecus"

Faust

Quote from: LMNO on March 25, 2010, 03:31:34 PM

An interesting, if trivial, side discussion can be started regarding those people who are not aware that they are programmed, but that's mostly an academic exercise.
Thats what I've been pushing for, but for me it's the interesting part.
Sleepless nights at the chateau

LMNO

Serves me right for being modest.

[R-Prime]

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING HERE IS THE PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTING PROGRAMMED, BUT DON'T REALIZE IT.

THEY NEED TO WAKE THE FUCK UP.

HOW CAN WE DO THIS?

FUCKOS.

[/R-Prime]

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: LMNO on March 25, 2010, 03:31:34 PM
The intention of the experiment is to show there is nothing physical that is preventing our actions. 

But is physical capability an attribute of 'Determinism'? I had thought determinism basically just argues that decisions come from our programming/stimulus etc rather than Will. IE, nothing may be preventing our actions, but our actions are determined by X (where X is our whole BIP + current environment etc).

Quote
Therefore, any discussion of "free will" is one of psychology.  And psychology, as has been pointed out, is changable.

This is an excellent point. My psychology today seems very different than my psychology 10 years ago. Personally, I like to think that's because I exercised my Free Will, but it is hard to argue with people that claim its because I read RAW and Crowley and Thornley and etc etc and those actions (modifying my previous psychology) determined my current psychology. I'm just not sure what argument would work best against that position.

Quote
Therefore, we may act in a programmed manner, but that does not eliminate the fact that we are choosing to act out a program.

An interesting, if trivial, side discussion can be started regarding those people who are not aware that they are programmed, but that's mostly an academic exercise.

Yes, a very good point. And I think its the point that kept me from grokking the BiP metaphor for so long...
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

LMNO

Rat--

Agreement, Re:Determinism.  I was merely eliminating terms.  We appear to agree that the argument of Free Will is not a matter of Pre-Determined actions.




More later.

NotPublished

#143
Tell me if I am on track here or if I just shot and missed the point completely -

I think perhaps there is a misuse of terms, when trying to explain the reason people do things - if we are running very close to Programming Logic, I would say that it is 'pre-determined' since we are Procedually following out the hard-coded responses of the Program, but Free Will is exercised with the choices of which program is run (and possibly making adjustments to that program)

An analogy - Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Opera, Misc - they do most of the same shit, free-will part comes in from the choice out of the bunch.
In Soviet Russia, sins died for Jesus.

Rococo Modem Basilisk

Quote from: LMNO on March 25, 2010, 03:31:34 PM
an academic exercise.

You know just how to speak to a man's heart.


To be fair, I would consider myself (on a global scale) to be a determinist -- I would agree with the plug-numbers-into-big-bang-repeatably cosmology Ratatosk brought up. However, on the level of an individual, one cannot determine one's actions without determining one's actions, so the perception of one's actions as free will is all but unavoidable (and a damn good way to avoid doing cheesy things like naming a city "Providence").

Now, unless you know the whole picture (you're omniscient, and have a perfect map of the universe in your mind that goes as fast or faster than the real thing -- newton's calculator with all the things in it newton couldn't grok), you will perceive your current actions as the product of free will (unless you have an external locus of control, want a scapegoat, or don't think any of the choices are any good). This doesn't apply necessarily to past events, and a greater level of self-awareness will let you see how predictable past events have been without the excuse of circumstances beyond your control (hindsight isn't quite 20/20, but it seems that way). This brings up the question of levels of psychological free will: the more self-aware you are, the more your previous actions (at lower levels of self-awareness) seem like dumb mechanical/pavlovian/whatever responses (and the more in-control you feel), but like hindsight, perhaps the clarity is an illusion.


I am not "full of hate" as if I were some passive container. I am a generator of hate, and my rage is a renewable resource, like sunshine.

Telarus

#145
Ok, so since we have people here who are barely familiar with the argument, I'll lay out some etymology and terms.

The whole free-will/determinism language basically stems from a radical philosophy response during the 'Enlightenment' era to the prevailing dogma of the "Geocentric Crystal Spheres of the Creator God" theory/model of the Solar System/Universe refined by the church from Antiquity to the Renaissance (shades of the Egg of Mithras model).

Hold on folks.  :fnord::1fap:

------------wikipedia-----------
The celestial spheres, or celestial orbs, were the fundamental entities of the cosmological models developed by Plato, Eudoxus, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus and others. In these celestial models the stars and planets are carried around by being embedded in rotating spheres made of an aetherial transparent fifth element (quintessence), like jewels set in orbs.

In the geocentric model adopted in the Middle Ages, the planetary spheres (i.e. those that contained planets) were arranged outwards from the spherical, stationary Earth at the centre of the universe in this order: the spheres of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. In more detailed models the seven planetary spheres contained other secondary spheres within them. The planetary spheres were followed by the stellar sphere containing the fixed stars; other scholars added a ninth sphere to account for the precession of the equinoxes, a tenth to account for the supposed trepidation of the equinoxes, and even an eleventh to account for the changing obliquity of the ecliptic.

In modern science, the orbits of the planets are simply the paths of those planets through mostly empty space. For medieval scholars, on the other hand, celestial spheres were actually thick spheres of rarefied matter nested one within the other, each one in complete contact with the sphere above it and the sphere below.[5]  When scholars applied Ptolemy's epicycles, they presumed that each planetary sphere was exactly thick enough to accommodate them.[6]  Combining this information with astronomical observations allowed scholars to calculate that the distance to the far edge of Saturn (or to the inside of the stellar sphere) was 73,387,747 miles.

--------------/wikipedia----------

Ok, so here's a secret. Most Mythology is humanity projecting onto things in the universe that they can't understand. We do this because as soon as we project part of our 'self' out there we can have some degree of control more than blind non-understanding.

This theory was codified into Western culture by the Greeks (remember the 'indigestion' and "The classical Greeks did not influence the classical Greeks" quotes?). The Greeks actually calculated the circumference of the earth pretty darn accurately and got a lot right. The Greeks inherited the legacy of the Babylonians  and developed the science of astronomy. By the second century A.D., they had covered most of the main branches of astronomy: They knew what caused and could predict eclipses, they had charted planets, cataloged stars, observed novae, and discovered precession. They had discovered the Earth was spherical (though that knowledge was lost later), and that it moved around the sun (though that model grew out of favor).


Some excerpts [http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/stu/advanced/pre20th_ancients_greeks.html] :
--------------------------------------
Thales probably believed in a spherical Earth; Pythagoras and Plato did, as well. However, though Aristotle was grossly incorrect in his model of the universe, he must be given credit for the first study of scientific geography. He gave three reasons for his thinking:

  1.
     Only a sphere could result from the tendency of matter to fall together toward a common center.
  2.
     Only a sphere could through the circular shadow which we always see during a lunar eclipse.
  3.
     Only on the surface of a sphere would a traveler going from North to South see new constellations rising above the horizon on (s)he moved.

After Aristotle was dead, Eratosthenes (284-192 B.C.) , the librarian of Alexandria, was able to determine the circumference of the Earth to an accuracy of 0.1-0.5%. Around 250 B.C., Eratosthenes knew that on a particular day, the sun cast no shadow in a well in the modern-day village of Assouan. At the same time, on the same day, it cast a minor shadow in Alexandria - the distance between the two was known to high accuracy, and Alexandria and Assouan are almost at the same longitude. Thus, by dividing 360° by that shadow angle and multiplying by the distance, the polar circumference was measured. Eratosthenes measured it to be 40,000 km (24,855 miles), and the current accepted figure is 40,032 km (24,875 miles)*.

Sadly, a few centuries later, Ptolemy in his infamy messed up this calculation as well. His measurement for the circumference of the Earth was short by around 30%. A nice footnote of history is that this is another reason why Columbus thought that there was a faster route to India. If he had known that there was another 1200 km to go, he probably never would have set off on his voyage.


The Geocentric model held so much sway because of many of the philosophies of the ancient Greeks. They believed that the circle is the perfect form, and that the simplest model that made sense must be the correct one. Since they "knew" the heavens were perfect, everything must move upon a circle, and since the simplest model was that the Earth stood still and everything moved around it, then that must also be true. After all, we can't feel the Earth moving, so why should be believe that it does without any extraordinary evidence?

There's one problem with the Geocentric model and it had to do with the motion of the planets. For periods of time, the planets seem to orbit in an eastward direction across the stars. However, for brief periods of time, they switch and go in a westward direction. This is called retrograde.

So, Pythagoras has an ad hoc explanation for planetary motion, which he put forth as "left-behind-ness." The body left the farthest behind was Earth's moon, which lost a whole revolution in 29.5 days. The body that left the least behind was Saturn (Uranus through Pluto  were not discovered  yet), which lost a whole revolution in 29.5 days.

Plato taught that the movements, occultations, conjunctions, etc. of the sky were all calculable, and they only frightened those who could not "work a sum." However, he did complain that the heavenly bodies did not always use good sense. He was sure that their movements could be understood, and if they did not make sense then it was the theory that was at fault, not the heavenly bodies.

This lead him to eventually accept the theory that the Earth might not be at the center of the universe, and he wrote "the Earth, our nurse, goes to and fro on its axis, which stretches right through the universe." In Plato's school, the theory enjoyed a long life, and it was one of his followers that hit upon the heliocentric - sun-centered - model. Unfortunately, Plato's greatest pupil, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), disagreed.

Aristotle's heavy scientific words contrasted with light and eloquent phrases from Plato, and they tipped the balance in the favor of geocentrism. It would take nearly 2000 years before main-stream thought returned to heliocentric ideas.

--------------------------------------

So the whole point was that they couldn't quite figure out how to make the "wandering stars" fit into their math, and it pissed them off. These things had seemingly "free will" and thus earned god-titles and reputations. This re-occurs in most mythology about the planets, especially if it isn't known that the Morning Star and the Evening Star are the same heavenly body. Earlier Greeks did not realize what the planets were, but were quite disdainful towards them. They were referred to as "tramp stars," which is our word for "planets." Homer wrote of the morning and evening star (Venus) by two separate names, "Phospheros" and "Hesperos" -- he never knew that they were the same planet. It was Pythagoras in 550 B.C. who discovered that Phospheros and Hesperos were the same.

Early Islam shares that confusion, as noted in the wikipedia entry on Satan:

-------------wikipedia----------------
According to the Qur'an, Iblis (the Arabic name used) disobeyed an order from Allah to bow to Adam and as a result was forced out of heaven and given respite until the day of judgment from further punishment.

When Allah commanded all of the angels to bow down before Adam (the first Human), Iblis, full of hubris and jealousy, refused to obey God's command (he could do so because, as a jinn, he had free will), seeing Adam as being inferior in creation due to his being created from clay as compared to him (created of fire).[15]

   "It is We Who created you and gave you shape; then We bade the angels prostrate to Adam, and they prostrate; not so Iblis (Lucifer); He refused to be of those who prostrate."
   (Allah) said: "What prevented thee from prostrating when I commanded thee?" He said: "I am better than he: Thou didst create me from fire, and him from clay."

       Qur'an 7:11-12

-------------------/wikipedia----------

Lucifer, of course, means Morning Star. I love the identification of the stars as Jinn fire-beings with free will, and the Angels as fire-beings with free will that have surrendered it to Allah. Then along comes this punk Lucifer (the morning-star) and says "Fuck this, I do what I want. Sometimes I go backwards in the sky JUST TO FUCK WITH THE HUMANS."

Venus had a similar reputation, dig. How the hell could you describe the path of a body across the sky mathematically if you don't recognize it half the time when it shows up. Those rouge star fuckers are obviously"allows" to wander from the ineffable clockwork plan of the Divine Watchmaker.

So all of this history bubbles up into the Renaissance Catholic Church as the "Ptolemnaic Geocentrism with Crystal Spheres" model of the Solar System.


And then some wise-ass in the church asks, "A'hyuk, well then what makes those immense solid spheres go round and round-y?" and some other fount of ignorance responds, "Well, GOD's WILL mannifest as physical FORCE. At the beggining of time, he just PUSHED everything and the Holy Spirit maintains the momentum."

And then oh shit, if everything in the universe that we can approach mathematically is a manifestation of God's Will and Glory unfolding into the visible universe, then it's all PRE-DETERMINED.

But, but, but Lucifer had FREE WILL!, the Qu'ran tells me so, and Adam had FREE WILL, the Bible tells me so, and those fucking PLANETS! have free will, the astronomers tell us so [Fuck you and your heliocentrism, Copernicus. I like my model cuz' it's mine. We's gonna kills you, boy!].

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This thread is mired in Cartesean Duality.  
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
:argh!: :argh!: :argh!: :argh!:
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
Telarus, KSC,
.__.  Keeper of the Contradictory Cephalopod, Zenarchist Swordsman,
(0o)  Tender to the Edible Zen Garden, Ratcheting Metallic Sex Doll of The End Times,
/||\   Episkopos of the Amorphous Dreams Cabal

Join the Doll Underground! Experience the Phantasmagorical Safari!

Jasper


Cain

Telarus has almost saved the thread.

Dr. Paes

Quote from: Telarus on March 26, 2010, 12:01:16 AM
This thread is mired in Cartesean Duality. 
True story: I was sitting in a room full of stoned hippies discussing philosophy (because I'm a masochist, or something) and something someone said was replied to with "Your argument assumes Cartesian duality." I spoke up for the first time during the mind-numbing discussion, adding only "Your Mom is mired in dicks" and a little chuckle. They didn't understand, but they all laughed anyway. Thanks, DK. The end.

Back to thread being saved.

Brotep

Ah bleeve that would be mind/body dualism--in Descartes' case, the idea that the mind is an intangible willer of stuffs whereas the body is a mechanical doer of stuffs