Issue that is itching my brain...

[LMNO]

You mind going over how a butterfly's wing flap will affect my choice in the here and now?

[P3nT4gR4m]

I don't believe it either,but it's a thought.

You seem to have adopted my mantra 

[P3nT4gR4m]

You mind going over how a butterfly's wing flap will affect my choice in the here and now?

Easy - BIG fkin butterfly with razor sharp wings and an agenda

[hunter s.durden]

Sort of.

I walk out my door and see a butterfly flap its wings. I decide to stop and look. This makes me get in my car and begin to drive 30 seconds later than I would have, had said butterfly not been there. Now I drive and while merging I cut you off in traffic. You miss your exit and have to circle half the city to get back on your way to work. You get there 20 minutes late, and you hate being late. You decide you are too upset to eat breakfast.
You "chose" not to eat.
It's possible.

[Cain]

You didn't have to choose to look at the butterfly.

[hunter s.durden]

Some previous action could have made me compulsivly look at butterfly.

And on back to the big bang.

Particle A bounced weird at .0000001 miliseconds, and it makes me coose a Hot Pocket.

[LHX]

forget it yall


its also possible that the wing-flap changed everything except your decision



the repercussions of me posting this

the possibility you might read it


what if you had decided against joining this forum?

would it have developed the way it did?

what if you worded the sentence different? would the point still come across? would it have come across later?



and perhaps it isnt the overall decisions that have any significance anyway - maybe the real issue of importance is the overall tendencies


(you can take a person out the machine, but the machine keeps steam-rolling)

[Cain]

Some previous action could have made me compulsivly look at butterfly.

And on back to the big bang.

Particle A bounced weird at .0000001 miliseconds, and it makes me coose a Hot Pocket.

Evidence?

[hunter s.durden]

I used the qualifier "could have."

These are not my beliefs. I am not a scientist. I do not like math. I do not own a neutron microscope.

I was just saying it's possible, as far as I know.

Evidence against?(I'm sure you have it.)

[Bo]

You seem to be conflating the two.

yes, and I guess that you must if you want that your free will tells you something about the real world. The link is inevitable.

The point is how to make this link. In my argument I did this extremely naively. (and therefore probably wrong).

[LMNO]

Hunter, you seem to be saying that the butterfly wing set up circumstances for choice, which, while presenting any number of possible (and mutable) options, still doesn't relate to the act of choosing.

[Cramulus]

I wanna cite Wilson's idea here of quantum causality. In Shrodinger's Cat he talks about how we confuse ourselves if we try to make statements like X caused Y. 'cause it's not like I was late to work today for specifically one reason. It's a million reasons. It was last night's drinking, it was my cell phone running out of batteries (thus no alarm), it was the guy who called me to talk for 40 minutes the day prior, and he did that 'cause he was in a traffic jam and that was because some dude spilled coffee on his crotch and hit the guard rail, etc etc etc

Douglas Hofstadter had a good essay about this too. Human reasoning tells us where to stop connecting the dots. In our litigious society we wonder how far we can displace blame. When designing a robot to reason, one needs to teach it how far to measure causality - Otherwise it starts drawing conclusions like I Like Childpr0n Because There Is Peanut Butter Somewhere In The World.


so in short, what Wilson is saying is that instead of thinking A caused B, think A B C D and E are all have a complex somewhat causal relationship.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

bad attempt at interpreting the Dutchman:

he isn't saying that actions are determined but that freewill relies on the general assumption of determined outcomes.  we make our decisions based on what we think the outcome of our actions will be (usually).  in order to calculate what those outcomes will be, we largely rely on predicting the future based on what how we expect objects and other people to react.  in practice, this tends to be reliable enough not to bother figuring out some other method of choosing our actions.

so what Bo is saying is that while each of us possesses the ability to act according to free will, eventually (and especially in groups) we behave according to a predetermined, predictable pattern.  often, that's because we choose our actions based on assumptions that that pattern will, as a general rule, be adhered to.

or something.

[Cain]

Bell's Theorem.

Also, there is evidence of the brain being able to veto body responses, stopping certain actions.  They did an experiment where they used neurosimulation to move someones hands.  They found that while the tendency to move the hand will build for the set amount of time, the actual decision is only made a split second before the action, suggesting the brain can stop physical influences from affecting actions.  They did note some mental prepardness was needed, but since when have we ever denied that on this board?

[LMNO]

You seem to be conflating the two.

yes, and I guess that you must if you want that your free will tells you something about the real world. The link is inevitable.

The point is how to make this link. In my argument I did this extremely naively. (and therefore probably wrong).

While the two should obviously relate, so that you choices have some meaningful effect in the experiential universe, they should not be mistaken as the same thing (to conflate).