(May 8, 2016 at 1:05 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: You can define it however you like, it's still not going to outlive the beings that employ it as a concept.

On the contrary, if humans and other beings in the universe capable of conceptualizing the concept of "existence" became extinct, the universe and existence would still remain. I doubt you don't believe objective reality exists outside the mind so I just think you are confused about the definition of existence.

EP Wrote:

(May 8, 2016 at 12:44 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote: What do you mean by "freedom" of movement? The ball is caused to move just like we are.


Define how it even has any relative "freedom" of movement. It simply has movement.

I don't link it to "free will" because "free will" is about will as well as freedom, balls are not.

-Hammy

Don't be so rough with him, he's just naive.

I'm responding to him is all, I'm not being rough. What I say isn't just for his benefit but for whoever is reading.

-Hammy

(May 8, 2016 at 9:32 am)robvalue Wrote: Poc: I think we're talking at cross purposes

I'm talking about someone suggesting that a potential scientific discovery that we have "no genuine choices" should morally persuade us to change our protocol about who we put in prison; ie. we put no one in prison.

But the premise of the argument removes any meaningfulness from making a change of protocol, because such a change would be beyond our control anyway, should it happen, due to the correctness of the discovery which is hypothetically assumed. We wouldn't do it because this is an accurate and persuasive argument.

I don't know how else to explain it Like I said, it would be like saying "if we have no money, we should spend it on wine."

It's a problem with the logic, not with the science behind free will and such.

hehe!
I agree the logic is tricky, at best.

Best leave it as Losty says... even if we are all products of deterministic forces, we like to think as if we aren't, so just leave that feeling as it is.

(May 8, 2016 at 1:56 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote:

(May 8, 2016 at 1:05 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: You can define it however you like, it's still not going to outlive the beings that employ it as a concept.

On the contrary, if humans and other beings in the universe capable of conceptualizing the concept of "existence" became extinct, the universe and existence would still remain. I doubt you don't believe objective reality exists outside the mind so I just think you are confused about the definition of existence.

EP Wrote:Don't be so rough with him, he's just naive.

I'm responding to him is all, I'm not being rough. What I say isn't just for his benefit but for whoever is reading.

-Hammy

Nothing exists outside the mind, to argue otherwise is completely irrational. Existence is a mental concept. Without the mind, there are no mental concepts. Thus no existence.

I don't believe objective reality doesn't exist outside the mind, I know for a fact it doesn't.

Again, it's pretty simple, you're just over-complicating stuff.

(May 8, 2016 at 2:08 pm)pocarac as Wrote:

(May 8, 2016 at 9:32 am)robvalue Wrote: Poc: I think we're talking at cross purposes

I'm talking about someone suggesting that a potential scientific discovery that we have "no genuine choices" should morally persuade us to change our protocol about who we put in prison; ie. we put no one in prison.

But the premise of the argument removes any meaningfulness from making a change of protocol, because such a change would be beyond our control anyway, should it happen, due to the correctness of the discovery which is hypothetically assumed. We wouldn't do it because this is an accurate and persuasive argument.

I don't know how else to explain it Like I said, it would be like saying "if we have no money, we should spend it on wine."

It's a problem with the logic, not with the science behind free will and such.

hehe!
I agree the logic is tricky, at best.

Best leave it as Losty says... even if we are all products of deterministic forces, we like to think as if we aren't, so just leave that feeling as it is.

Watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCofmZlC72g

(May 8, 2016 at 2:08 pm)pocaracas Wrote:

(May 8, 2016 at 9:32 am)robvalue Wrote: Poc: I think we're talking at cross purposes

I'm talking about someone suggesting that a potential scientific discovery that we have "no genuine choices" should morally persuade us to change our protocol about who we put in prison; ie. we put no one in prison.

But the premise of the argument removes any meaningfulness from making a change of protocol, because such a change would be beyond our control anyway, should it happen, due to the correctness of the discovery which is hypothetically assumed. We wouldn't do it because this is an accurate and persuasive argument.

I don't know how else to explain it Like I said, it would be like saying "if we have no money, we should spend it on wine."

It's a problem with the logic, not with the science behind free will and such.

hehe!
I agree the logic is tricky, at best.

Best leave it as Losty says... even if we are all products of deterministic forces, we like to think as if we aren't, so just leave that feeling as it is.

But why?  People feel like there is a God, and we don't just accept that, we investigate the truth of it.  
Why should we just let this particular illusion (if that is what it is) be?

I should probably clarify something. Reality doesn't exist without the mind, not outside of it. Whether it exists outside of it is an irrelevant, unanswerable and meaningless question.


Um, actually that's the same thing, I just thought I'd put it differently in case you had trouble understanding me the first time.

(May 8, 2016 at 2:42 pm)Aroura Wrote:

(May 8, 2016 at 2:08 pm)pocaracas Wrote: hehe!
I agree the logic is tricky, at best.

Best leave it as Losty says... even if we are all products of deterministic forces, we like to think as if we aren't, so just leave that feeling as it is.

But why?  People feel like there is a God, and we don't just accept that, we investigate the truth of it.  
Why should we just let this particular illusion (if that is what it is) be?

Why?
Because I'm tired.
Tired of saying the same things in thread after thread on free will...
Biology is deterministic.
Quantum random effects are too tiny to play any role on biology. Hence, our brains operate as deterministic biological machines.
So, too, our thoughts are deterministic.

There's no escaping this.
But it feels like our minds are independent from our biology.
Somewhere along the way, there's a sort of abstraction layer between our brains and our minds... How it works is anyone's guess...
I'm not sure we'll ever get to the bottom of that. The best bet is to replicate a mind by using A.I.... But, even if we accomplish that, it will not be proof that that's how our brains work.

(May 8, 2016 at 1:05 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote:

(May 8, 2016 at 12:40 pm)IATIA Wrote: Of course I did.  The half-life of uranium-238 is 4.468 billion years.  Which half? Indeterminate.

No, you didn't.

Yes I did. You are just being obtuse,

(May 8, 2016 at 2:15 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: Watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCofmZlC72g

I said the same thing Sam did, albeit more technical and much less eloquent.

(May 8, 2016 at 3:55 pm)IATIA Wrote:

(May 8, 2016 at 1:05 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: No, you didn't.

Yes I did.  You are just being obtuse,

(May 8, 2016 at 2:15 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: Watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCofmZlC72g

I said the same thing Sam did, albeit more technical and much less eloquent.

You never even approached the subject.

No, I don't believe we have free will. I'm a hard determinist.

My view is that consciousness is about differentiating different states of the underlying system, so that everything that is experienced in consciousness represents the state of some - for want of a better word - variable. And that includes the feeling of will... it can be absent or present, suggesting a state change, and like any other aspect of consciousness, brain damage etc can remove it (eg Tourettes). So my view is that every feeling we take for granted as being somehow outside of observation - i.e. everything we attribute to the observer 'I' rather than the observed - is just as much as state as whatever is observed... so for instance the sense of 'understanding' something is in my view a measurement of the stability of a neural context... in neural network terms I'd guess it was the measurement of how 'settled' the network is. The way I see it is that consciousness is essentially layered with all these different 'channels' that co-exist but do not interfere with each other (such as sight and sound, and less obviously will). As I've said in another thread, like transparencies piled up on top of each other with a much richer picture emerging from the sum of them but where any of these layers (ie channels) can be removed by brain damage. So although it feels like free will, like I'm making choices - and that indeed there is an 'I' to make those choices - that's just part of the 'design' of the system/simulation/illusion whatever you want to call it... in the end, in my view everything that is experienced comes from the activities of the underlying neural networks of the brain and therefore can only be deterministic.

I think the problem with compatablist free will is that it's a definition of free will so undeniably true that it doesn't even address the question. No one even doubts that kind of free will anyway, it's undeniable we all make decisions and have choices and they're not always coerced. That's basically redefining the will everyone believes in from "will" to "free will". Compatabilist free will is like saying "people open doors with their hands" when a bunch of other people are asking if doors can be opened with telekinesis and some people are trying to tell them that it's not possible.

-Hammy