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RE: Free will?
February 10, 2014 at 9:36 am
(February 10, 2014 at 12:43 am)JuliaL Wrote: We think we have free will and that's all that counts. This. In the end, does it matter? Some day we may unravel the human brain sufficiently to know just how "free" we are to act and how much of what we do is selected by our subconscious. At that point I suppose we'll worry about just how free our will really is.
Ironically, the free will argument seems to be used as a way to place us in an even more restrictive cage than the one our mind builds around us.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: Free will?
February 10, 2014 at 10:05 am
(February 10, 2014 at 9:36 am)Tonus Wrote: Some day we may unravel the human brain sufficiently to know just how "free" we are to act and how much of what we do is selected by our subconscious.
You can't get scientifically get any freewill from deterministic physical natural processes as you would be everything your brain is and does and we can explain it all. Though the idea is that science can't account for everything therefore you can have freewill just fine. Therefore atheism must be mistaken, or you must at any rate believe to be mistaken in order to believe that you have freewill and a rational mind.
Come all ye faithful joyful and triumphant.
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RE: Free will?
February 10, 2014 at 10:15 am
(February 10, 2014 at 10:05 am)Sword of Christ Wrote: (February 10, 2014 at 9:36 am)Tonus Wrote: Some day we may unravel the human brain sufficiently to know just how "free" we are to act and how much of what we do is selected by our subconscious.
You can't get scientifically get any freewill from deterministic physical natural processes as you would be everything your brain is and does and we can explain it all. Though the idea is that science can't account for everything therefore you can have freewill just fine. Therefore atheism must be mistaken, or you must at any rate believe to be mistaken in order to believe that you have freewill and a rational mind.
And here you go again. You clearly don't know a think about compatibilism, so I can safely add another topic to the list of things you know shit about (cosmology, physics, philosophy) and yet moronically make pronouncements in regards to. Read up on free will, lest you say more stupid things...
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RE: Free will?
February 10, 2014 at 11:44 am
(February 10, 2014 at 10:05 am)Sword of Christ Wrote: Therefore atheism must be mistaken, or you must at any rate believe to be mistaken in order to believe that you have freewill and a rational mind. "Atheism" can only be "mistaken" about one thing, and no one seems to be able to demonstrate that it is mistaken.
And as theists prove, having a belief does not a reality make. Which is why I don't worry about whether or not I have "free will." I enjoy life quite a lot, and if it's the product of my own free decisions or the programming in my brain, either one is fine. That's one of the nice things about not believing in god; I don't have to worry that I'm not feeling miserable enough to satisfy him.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: Free will?
February 10, 2014 at 6:42 pm
(This post was last modified: February 10, 2014 at 6:42 pm by Whateverist.)
(February 10, 2014 at 10:05 am)Sword of Christ Wrote: You can't get scientifically get any freewill from deterministic physical natural processes as you would be everything your brain is and does and we can explain it all. Though the idea is that science can't account for everything therefore you can have freewill just fine. Therefore atheism must be mistaken, or you must at any rate believe to be mistaken in order to believe that you have freewill and a rational mind.
Let me see if I have this right.
You can't get freewill from natural process..
.. more words
.. you = brain +
.. can't explain it.
Can't explain everything so no free will for you.
You must choose between determinism and accepting that atheistic assumptions are mistaken.
You're funny in a mushy, Jackson Pollack sort of way. You just throw those words out there the way that guy tossed paint.
Seriously your problem goes far beyond an inability to express yourself verbally. Your ideas themselves are incoherent. I'd recommend putting god down for a while and just go out and try to understand a few simple things. Save the big stuff until you get the hang for making a valid inference.
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RE: Free will?
February 10, 2014 at 7:38 pm
(February 10, 2014 at 11:44 am)Tonus Wrote: "Atheism" can only be "mistaken" about one thing, and no one seems to be able to demonstrate that it is mistaken.
Slight OT, but:
I'd actually say that weak Atheism wouldn't be a mistake even if a God were later discovered, in the same way that the default belief in the null hypothesis is not a mistake even if a scientific experiment goes on to find evidence for the alternative hypothesis.
As far as free will goes, the question I would ask is this: How can we test whether we have free will or not?
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RE: Free will?
February 10, 2014 at 9:11 pm
(February 10, 2014 at 7:38 pm)FreeTony Wrote: As far as free will goes, the question I would ask is this: How can we test whether we have free will or not?
Easy. Repeat the situation and choose an alternate course of action.
Unfortunately this requires that you revisit the exact same spacetime coordinates to reset the universe for the second trial. So until Doc Brown lends you his Delorean I think you're out of luck.
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat? 
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RE: Free will?
February 11, 2014 at 8:05 am
(February 10, 2014 at 9:11 pm)JuliaL Wrote: Easy. Repeat the situation and choose an alternate course of action.
Unfortunately this requires that you revisit the exact same spacetime coordinates to reset the universe for the second trial. So until Doc Brown lends you his Delorean I think you're out of luck.
Ah, but does it?
Let's take a computer, programmed to generate a random number between 0 and 1. If it is 0-0.5 it gives output A, and 0.5-1 output B.
I run the test and it outputs A. I re-run the test and it gives output B.
Does the computer have free will?
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RE: Free will?
February 11, 2014 at 8:42 am
(February 11, 2014 at 8:05 am)FreeTony Wrote: Does the computer have free will? If it cheats on its wife, she will tell it it does. Or if it kills someone, or gets to work late because it was finishing a giant cinnamon bun for breakfast.
But then when it is debating on an internet forum, it will be told that all that free will for which it's constantly being punished is just an illusion. 
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RE: Free will?
February 11, 2014 at 9:39 am
(February 11, 2014 at 8:05 am)FreeTony Wrote: (February 10, 2014 at 9:11 pm)JuliaL Wrote: Easy. Repeat the situation and choose an alternate course of action.
Unfortunately this requires that you revisit the exact same spacetime coordinates to reset the universe for the second trial. So until Doc Brown lends you his Delorean I think you're out of luck.
Ah, but does it?
Let's take a computer, programmed to generate a random number between 0 and 1. If it is 0-0.5 it gives output A, and 0.5-1 output B.
I run the test and it outputs A. I re-run the test and it gives output B.
Does the computer have free will?
Firstly, no computer can give actual random numbers. All random number generators that I'm aware of are pseudo-random. And you're equating randomness with at least the folk notion of free will. That makes it more like random will.
But more importantly, you missed Julia's point. Rerunning a function is not the same as how she suggested to see if we have free will in the libertarian sense, i.e the ability to have done otherwise than you in fact did. What she said to do is to actually go back so that EVERYTHING was the exact same and see if the agent can actually change what they had done.
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