RE: Implications of not having free will
January 26, 2015 at 6:41 pm
(This post was last modified: January 26, 2015 at 6:54 pm by Spacedog.)
Very late reply sorry!
I certainly see no reason to logically conclude that there is some grand design, but I wouldn't be brash enough to discount the possibility. Still somehow it does not sit with me well. It's applying human traits to something I've always thought obvious to be amoral and unthinking.
Understanding evolution is important. A whole load of stuff happens for no good reason. Bad mutations are a hell of a lot more common than good ones. Entire lineages 100's of 1000's of years in the making get wiped out in the blink of an eye. Humans do not sit at the top of the evolutionary tree, it does not have a goal or purpose. If the universe is predetermined then I think evolution still shows that it doesn't have a plan. I'd be far more inclined to believe things are happening out of blind necessity.
I've posted a link to a lecture by Dan Dennett, where he uses a computer program which simulated evolution from a set of very simple laws. A very interesting way of looking at reality, but none the less I fail to understand how he concludes increased complexity can lead to true ability to choose. I'd be interested in getting a second opinion on his conclusions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrCZYDm5D8M
We're stepping on very subjective ground here, but I would like to mention my preferred alternative to a grand design.
The alternative to a grand design I would give is infinity. Infinity would explain determinism in the sense that time and any finality are an illusion we experience in our goldfish bowl. The strange thing about infinity is that we can measure a part of it, say 5 hours, 5 meters, 5kg, but overall that measurement has no real meaning. In this way we could exist between infinities. This could be seen as reflected by entropy.
The law of entropy states that, locally, complexity can increase while overall it is decreasing; I think this says a lot about the universe as a whole. My physics knowledge is amateur at best, but I can't help but notice the recurring theme of balance. I'm pretty sure I've heard it said in documentaries that the universe is believed overall to equal nothing.
Hopefully my thoughts make some sense to other people! My point is that an alternative to a design is an endless flowering of eventualities. The world I see fits much better with this interpretation, but again this is hugely speculative.
That something can only play out one way would not necessarily imply a design, I'd sooner believe it was a symptom of it's being.
Oh and as Ricky Gervais said; "If God made the world then he gave HIV to babies"!
I think the emergence of purposes and intelligentsia from evolution is as much a part of predetermined events as the emergence of molecules from atoms, but yes, to assume this means they existed prior to humans (or other thinking life) makes no real sense. In the same way as molecules from atoms are, they are born of a steady increase in local complexity.
(January 9, 2015 at 5:35 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: given the idea that the future of the Universe was predetermined, in the sense that the results of the world we experience were implicit in nature's laws, from the very beginning, could it ever be logical to infer, given "mind" and it's associative concepts such as "intelligence," "truth," "good," "evil," teleology, such that human beings are parts in a whole that was initiated to achieve some ends?
I certainly see no reason to logically conclude that there is some grand design, but I wouldn't be brash enough to discount the possibility. Still somehow it does not sit with me well. It's applying human traits to something I've always thought obvious to be amoral and unthinking.
Understanding evolution is important. A whole load of stuff happens for no good reason. Bad mutations are a hell of a lot more common than good ones. Entire lineages 100's of 1000's of years in the making get wiped out in the blink of an eye. Humans do not sit at the top of the evolutionary tree, it does not have a goal or purpose. If the universe is predetermined then I think evolution still shows that it doesn't have a plan. I'd be far more inclined to believe things are happening out of blind necessity.
I've posted a link to a lecture by Dan Dennett, where he uses a computer program which simulated evolution from a set of very simple laws. A very interesting way of looking at reality, but none the less I fail to understand how he concludes increased complexity can lead to true ability to choose. I'd be interested in getting a second opinion on his conclusions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrCZYDm5D8M
We're stepping on very subjective ground here, but I would like to mention my preferred alternative to a grand design.
The alternative to a grand design I would give is infinity. Infinity would explain determinism in the sense that time and any finality are an illusion we experience in our goldfish bowl. The strange thing about infinity is that we can measure a part of it, say 5 hours, 5 meters, 5kg, but overall that measurement has no real meaning. In this way we could exist between infinities. This could be seen as reflected by entropy.
The law of entropy states that, locally, complexity can increase while overall it is decreasing; I think this says a lot about the universe as a whole. My physics knowledge is amateur at best, but I can't help but notice the recurring theme of balance. I'm pretty sure I've heard it said in documentaries that the universe is believed overall to equal nothing.
Hopefully my thoughts make some sense to other people! My point is that an alternative to a design is an endless flowering of eventualities. The world I see fits much better with this interpretation, but again this is hugely speculative.
That something can only play out one way would not necessarily imply a design, I'd sooner believe it was a symptom of it's being.
Oh and as Ricky Gervais said; "If God made the world then he gave HIV to babies"!
(January 9, 2015 at 5:35 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: I tend to think it vacuous to confuse the whole of predetermined events with purposes and intelligentsia borne out of them (such as us) and then to conclude that purpose and intelligence must have been present, even virtually, in the fundamental constituents of existence
I think the emergence of purposes and intelligentsia from evolution is as much a part of predetermined events as the emergence of molecules from atoms, but yes, to assume this means they existed prior to humans (or other thinking life) makes no real sense. In the same way as molecules from atoms are, they are born of a steady increase in local complexity.
