Comments | c13: What's that? Posting two days in a row?

c13

What's that? Posting two days in a row?

Jan 04, 2007 13:40

I just caught this article that Scott Adams linked to in his blog today and thought I'd toss it out there to see what you guys thought about it.

It essentially has to do with whether or not free will exists. Personally I'm on the side of it not existing. I think concept is definitely necessary for some aspects of society however, if only because ( Read more... )

free will

Comments 15

djsunkid January 5 2007, 03:53:38 UTC

Curse you, Wikipedia! I was hoping for a clear and concise description of David Deutsch's Multiverse theory of free will.

...

Instead I got basically mumbo-jumbo!

Basically you (and everybody, for that matter) should read The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch for an interesting and helpful perspective on things like free will and universal computers and virtual reality and the singularity and the omega point.

Oh and also the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is while not the most popular interpretation of QM, is far from being a "crank" phenomenon.

djsunkid January 5 2007, 04:31:49 UTC

OK, I will TRY to explain why I think free will exists ( ... )

c13 January 9 2007, 15:45:39 UTC

Unfortunately I remain unconvinced, and here's why. Most of what you described consisted of the setup of a decision experiment, and its possible results. It doesn't really directly address the way in which the decision was made, the process of which I can only see as being in three distinct categories:

Free will: it's just somehow made (ie in a black box sort of way); or the soul, which isn't governed by the physical laws of the universe, told the brain what to do.
No free will: the physiological and biochemical conditions within the brain at that moment determined the outcome of the decision.
Random: quantum mechanical effects exert a dominating random influence on the decision making process (whatever that is). Note that this randomness is not the same as free will.

In other words, the decision making process boils down to the following:

Input --> [Decision making process] --> Output
This decision making process can either be some sort of magical phenomenon outside of the scope of physical laws (free will), some sort of biophysical ( ... )

djsunkid January 5 2007, 04:32:36 UTC

(my god, i just made an html table in a LJ comment. Who DOES that???)

audrawilliams January 5 2007, 06:07:23 UTC

You are hilarious and adorable!

c13 January 7 2007, 00:05:17 UTC

I hear he sometimes cooks well, also.

c13 January 7 2007, 00:04:58 UTC

Holy crap no kidding! I haven't been ignoring the other thread btw, I initially read it first thing in the morning and was in NO mental state to be talking about stuff like that at the time. Then I got caught up in stuff and remembered about it like 5 mins ago. Now I have to leave for Angela's housewarming party that just started, so I'll have to leave the reply yet another day. :/

littlegirltoast January 5 2007, 08:14:52 UTC

Dude you go geocaching for kicks! There is no way you are fated or programmed to do that!

I don't believe in god or souls or any kind of hocus pocus, but I definitely think choices are made. If the argument is that we're just a lump of chemicals and firing neurons and everything we "choose" to do is pretedermined by an infinitesimal network of circumstance and habitat, then the argument has been reduced to a level upon which it is meaningless. You still cogitate and behave.

c13 January 7 2007, 00:02:42 UTC

I agree on one level that whether or not we have free will is meaningless, primarily for practical reasons. Stuff like personal responsibility and culpability go right out the window if we're all just preprogrammed robots who can't help the choices we "make", and those are concepts that society needs in order to not completely implode into anarchy. When I think about free will, it's totally on a philisophical level. On that level, I can think about whatever meaningless stuff I want to. ;)

honeybee17 January 9 2007, 04:06:45 UTC

*nod* we have to act as though there is. but at the same time things can only ever go how they went. and some other stuff that i don't want to get into. and then i feel like words aren't adequate and mean anything anyway.

touch, paint, dream.

and the world calls me crazy and stupid because i have no time for formality.

and i'm moving far away from what you wanted.. sorry

boomchica January 9 2007, 21:50:14 UTC

there's also the will to survive.

c13 January 9 2007, 22:05:18 UTC

That's an evolutionary consequence that's pretty much hard-wired into our brains. Anything that isn't geared towards its own survival won't last very long.

boomchica January 9 2007, 22:12:52 UTC

right, but even if you already know and still don't care, that's a different sort of free will..
there's different sorts of surviving....what about when people are sick in the head?