ElJefe3
Greenlighter
thats dumb, a pool cover can stretch therefor you can get air if you just... stand.. its simple but you just don't get it..
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Let's redo a classic: Freewill vs Determinism
- Thread starter CalicoSam
- Start date
Nixiam
Bluelighter
They make pool covers you can drive a truck on. You can drown yourself. Next time, don't end your statement with 'you just don't get it'.
The point is, some things are predetermined, especially when it comes to you and I. Chemical things, and for the most part, I would agree with the whole drowning thing until you said that its impossible to drown yourself. Cuff your feet together, then your hands. Jump into the ocean. Die.
Argue either in favor of Determinism or Free Will, bud.
swilow
Bluelight Crew
I think you are missing Nixiam's point. Whilst it would be very difficult to overcome, through sheer willpower, the need to breathe, it is possible, through willpower, to create a situation whereby you cannot help but be drowned. We have reflexes simply because it is more efficent to outsource certain life-sustaining tasks. It would be impractical for a lifeform to have to concern themselves with the physical processes that keep us alive in real time.
I could be missing your point though; I'm not totally clear on what you are saying TBH...
On a more specific note, I imagine trying to stand on the bottom of a deep diving pool would efficiently achieve the same ends...
turkalurk
Bluelighter
you could drown yourself in a bathtub and people have. you simply breathe water into your lungs and choke and cough until you pass out.
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
quantum indeterminacy leads to psuedo-determinism if you make have enough replicas of that system (basically, when you go from microscopic to macroscopic systems containing many particles) as BD mentioned. On a quantum scale, probability comes into play when you measure something. What measurement is opens up a whole can of worms that has interesting philosophical ramifications. By no means is science clear on this. Before measurement, particles exist in virtual states that includes different possible outcomes coexisting in a sense. Zoom in enough on any system and it becomes fuzzy like static. But for classical systems like you and me consisting of many particles and interacting on macroscopic scales and conscious enough to ask such questions like this and to feel brain hurt because of it, I guess we have some semblance of choice. On cosmological timescales existence is predicted to return to a state of lone particles traveling through space then indeterminacy won't even be relevant. Does time, space, measurement, probability and worries of drowning make sense to a lone particle if it never interacts with another particle again?
EruditeMystic
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2016
- Messages
- 2
Like everything, both are true, as they both lead to the same end result. What will happen has happened already, time is an illusion.
This is the reason most predictions of the future are false; because predicting an event would change the outcome of said event if those involved with the event
became aware of the prediction, thus, a true future prediction would either not be known by those it would effect, or would not be accurate.
This is the reason most predictions of the future are false; because predicting an event would change the outcome of said event if those involved with the event
became aware of the prediction, thus, a true future prediction would either not be known by those it would effect, or would not be accurate.
Kittycat5
Bluelighter
I agree with most of this (I could argue that quantum fluctuatuons in a universe with basically nothing in it but photons, electrons, positrons and neutrinos could have a spontaneous decrease in entropy and a new timeline begins but I wont get into it).
But I think you missed my point, which is understandable since I didnt say much. If determinism means there exists outcomes that are the only possible ones due to pre-existing conditions leading to them, how could it be true if probability is the core of quantum events with while some events being more probable, you cannot know which will actually happen. And if this scales up to humans, then can we say that there is only one possible outcome for any of our actions?
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
^ it's a good question and I know I didn't answer it, just kinda talked around it as I tend to do. I don't know would be more honest but that's no fun. There are so many considerations that it's not even one of those things you can go very far with. I guess if we were to continue to explore this question I'd ask, so what interpretation of quantum mechanics do you believe in and only then could the idea of probability as being a fundamental property of quantum mechanics be discussed more meaningfully. Like with the motion of our planets, it seems pretty deterministic. Not the case. It's a chaotic system. Tiny perturbations can dramatically affect the long term stability of the orbits of planets. I've even heard it stated that uncertainties on the level of heisenbergs uncertainty principle in the motion and position of planets can lead to completely different outcomes of planetary motions if you wait long enough. It's really hard to say anything long term if that's the case, so determinism in the material world is a weak arguement. Perhaps we should take it to mean that of all the possible outcomes, only one outcome results. Then someone will say, but not in another multiverse it won't.
ElJefe3
Greenlighter
Ok how bout i correct myself.. I was talking about just drowning your self.. with no cuffs, no pool cover nothing I'm talking about jumping in a lake and going underwater, and drowning yourself. See its impossible your body would struggle and you would go up to surface. You basically just said "some things are predetermined, especially when it comes to you and I. Chemical things" Give an example how I am predetermined. and also I hope you know this but predetermined means "to settle or decide in advance" dude in advance means like preordering a game, or paying for something that you are getting like 7 days from now. How are we predetermined when we live in the moment we decide in the moment. Im sorry but The Conscience is connected to the body because your conscience is basically your thoughts. Unless you think your thoughts are a bunch of cells doing random shit. Conscience:the complex of ethical and moral principles that controls or inhibitsthe actions or thoughts of an individual. -Roy
Nixiam
Bluelighter
Sorry bud, you're close but no cigar. You can drown yourself, it isn't impossible. People have done it. People have succeded without help. You can overcome your body's instincts. Athletes do it all the time. Now, let's touch on conciousness. We don't know or can even pretend to know what conciousness is. What we have to define it is our own subjective idea of what role it assumes in our lives. The definition you gave of conciousness is, not what it IS in actuality, but what it DOES. Conciousness might be either entirely seperate from our body, or is only the produt of our brains construction.
Now, to brush you up on the concept of Determinism vs. Free Will.
Determinism is the idea that everything is preordained, that all of this is established beforehand and we have no free will whatsoever. That our decisions are made before we are even conciously aware of them. Speculative aspects of Quantum Mechanics can be used to support this idea. Think that you are not predetermined on our subjective level of reality, but on a quantum level. Either that or an omnipotent deity exists and in which case we wind up with determinism again.
Now with Free Will, which is the idea that nothing external of our ego exists that can infringe upon our ability to conciously make a decision, meaning what we choose is unaffected by "fate". Free Will cannot exist if an omnipotent deity exists. It simply can't. "Can god make a rock he cannot lift?" - Omnipotence Paradox. If the essence of QM was based on probability, then our Free Will could exist because the very basis of everything wouldn't be predetermined itself.
I argue more in favor of free will. But science is rapidly providing description of how we are possibly predetermined. But only in some aspects, as we are far from understanding conciousness, and if it is truly what adopted dualist philosophies suggest, science may never know unless the other side becomes more of an object of study. But if we don't play that far into reality, we damn sure can't measure it.
Keep in mind I'm a freshmen in Highschool, guys. My understanding may very well be wrong. See you monday, Roy.
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Nixiam
Bluelighter
By the way, there is a difference between conscience and conscious. Don't mean to seem arrogant here. I'm human.
ElJefe3
Greenlighter
yeah I meant conscious, sorry. So free will is basically where you control you decisions and determinism is where you don't control them and your thoughts and decisions are not pre determined? Im confused I need someone to explain it in more simple examples.
Nixiam
Bluelighter
Determinism. The idea that everyhing is predetermined, including human action.
Free Will. The idea that human will or human decision isn't determined by anything OTHER THAN THAT OF THE BEING MAKING SAID DECISION.
If free will exists, full determinism can't. If true determinism exists, free will cannot.
Just read a book or two on it.
Free Will. The idea that human will or human decision isn't determined by anything OTHER THAN THAT OF THE BEING MAKING SAID DECISION.
If free will exists, full determinism can't. If true determinism exists, free will cannot.
Just read a book or two on it.
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ElJefe3
Greenlighter
is this the true definition of free-will? free will :the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.
ElJefe3
Greenlighter
Does that mean, making a decision but not knowing your fait?
Nixiam
Bluelighter
It means fate can't exist if free will exists. Fate means you are destined, and if you're destined then you are predetermined.
swilow
Bluelight Crew
The concept of fate is deterministic. It is the idea that we are all destined to do/experience certain things with our lives, that there is a general plan and plot to unfold, and its usually thought to be inescapable. It would have to mean that our decisions are superfluous and unimportant, as our future is already set.
Free-will means that our futures are shaped by the choices and decisions we make in the present; we are the catalyst which determines our future and we are free to make that whatever we will. The future is unknown and ultiamtely unknowable.
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
swilow
Bluelight Crew
That's more reductionism than determinism. Ismism.
At its heart, yes indeed, but only a god has the ability to read the future based on present events. I am unconvinced that science/mathematics will ever be able to accurately reduce things such as human interaction/emotion and our imaginary worlds. Extreme determinism is only really relevant to a god; nothing within our universe could hope to gain such a lofty visage; and that's a whole other pointless discussion. :D
belligerent drunk
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2015
- Messages
- 3,482
It's a fair question and I think the answer is "yes and no". First of all, if you want to speak very strictly, then you have to say that the world cannot be deterministic if on micro scale it is probabilistic. Just in principle, it makes no sense. However, we haven't defined what exactly an "event" is, to decide whether it can be the only one possible or not. What I'm trying to get at is whether the probabilistic nature of QM and quantum fluctuations are relevant in the result we're talking about. For example, I think I wouldn't be wrong to say that the way Earth orbits the Sun is fairly pre-determined (and can be predicted very well), because overall the uncertainty of QM plays an insignificant role in that, as in it just cancels itself out.
Now whether the same principle can be applied to our brains is debatable. I'm not very educated in biophysics, so I don't know how much probabilities affect biological systems. We don't understand many biological systems, such as the brain, well enough to speculate, I would even say. I do organic chemistry and in that kind of chemistry QM is irrelevant, pretty much. However, biochemical systems are much more intricate than that and the number of individual molecules that play a role in the end result is much smaller. The fewer particles we have at play, the more possibility that some of them happen to behave in a peculiar way and deviate from the "normalcy", producing an event that is different from classical logic. Well, that's just how I see it. I think it is possible that QM do in the end play a role in our choices.
You're misinterpreting determinism, at least the correct formulation of it. Nowhere is it suggested that because you can predict something, that there is a plan or a plot behind it. It just means that our world (us included) behaves according to a certain set of principles, and those principles don't change in time, so knowing the initial conditions, you can predict the future. It's completely separate from the question whether our life has a meaning or a plan (it doesn't) in the general sense.
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