Determinism

[The_Winner]

Well yeah, I wouldn't be choosing and it wouldn't be free-will, but it would also not be determined. But that's just an extreme example that shows there are instances in which no prior causes are sufficient to fully explain the outcome. Some things are just random.

As Yerg already told, it's impossible to program something truly random to this day, so your example is invalid.

It would be 'determined' even if you used such a program.

 

[Raw Evil]

Actually I don't even go into the bookstore at all. I program a computer code to randomly download an e-book from any website on the internet, whether or not they are password protected.

The outcome cannot be predicted.

Even if there was no blindfolds or randomized robots I could still exercise free-will if I put sufficient thought into it and not just go based on first impressions or gut instincts, but I'm trying to show you at least one instance where the outcome really is random.

The more thought you put into your supposedly-random choice, the more variables you are introducing into the determination of the final outcome, making it more difficult -- but never impossible -- to predict.

And as others have stated, computers are by their nature deterministic machines, incapable of generating a truly random number. You can srand((unsigned)time(null)) until the cows come home, but the number generated can't ever be truly random. </geek>

 

[TheAppleCore]

^ Hardware random number generators that base results on quantum mechanical phenomena are said to be "truly random". Apparently modern theory supports an indeterministic universe. But I've always wondered what gives anybody the authority to describe something as truly random -- what rules out the possibility that the deterministic rules for the phenomenon exist but haven't been discovered?

 

[Vader]

what rules out the possibility that the deterministic rules for the phenomenon exist but haven't been discovered?

This is what I have always thought. It seems deeply unsatisfactory that people are willing, after millennia of scientific enquiry, to conclude that everything is down to inexplicable random chance after all.

 

[Mr Wobble]

It's been a puzzle to me too - if true random behaviour can not be arrived at by some process of computation, then how does it occur at all? What is the cause of uncaused events? I know that that question in itself is an oxymoron, but I kind of suspect that that's the problem with the concept of random behaviour, it's inherently paradoxical.

 

[deez_nuggs]

I was also under the impression that we do have the technology to produce a random number, i mean if you consider how many numbers of pi we know..and as far as the determinism debate goes, i believe in a form of perspectivism. That is to say, what we know of this world and our actions are all predetermined, yet the illusion of choice is very prevalent. if you think you have free will, your behavior will be different than someone who's a devout christian or maybe a drug user, even. I feel like the subjective realities that we've constructed are stable, and our consciousness cycles between perceptions and choice which, in the end have already been decided as far as set and setting go..i could explain further,

 

[CoffeeDrinker]

The more we learn about the quantum world the more we see it's a probabilistic, and not a deterministic universe, that we live in. It's not so much a matter of everything being truly random, as it is the fact that some true randomness is possible.
Whatever the case may be, no definite "nature" of the universe has been proven, and all sides rely on some superfluous metaphysical underpinnings for back-up. What gives anyone the authority to say that my free will is an illusion? That smacks of predestination to me. A residual zeitgeist in Western philosophy.

In the end it doesn't really matter that much because, even if free will is an illusion, I know that I am still capable of responding to any stimulus based on my logical thinking, imagination, priorities, and conscience. I am capable of reviewing all my options mentally and then making a response. If it's the case that I was somehow "destined" to pick whichever response that I picked it's because I picked whichever made the most sense at the time. I can choose to not respond to any stimulus out of sheer emotion because I know I am self-aware and not a slave to the impulses of the moment.
Saying that free-will is an illusion, then, is no longer a scientific hypothesis because it can't be proven wrong. That eliminates one method of inquiry for the subject.

The cause of uncaused behavior you ask? The desire to practice uncaused behavior. Just for shits and giggles basically.

 

[Taryth]

How does it not offer any insight?
Sure when this study came out, people where rocked, and came to attack it, claiming there were methodological limitations.
Nevertheless, the empirical evidence shows that the brains SMC does anticipate what we would call, an intended conscious action.

This shows that our decisions are not a result of free will, but part of a causal chain which we have no say in.

If free will is the is the ability to make a choice not influenced by any temporal event, then our brains do not posses it.
Our thoughts and actions are part of an unbroken chain of actions and thoughts, that our consciousness oversees. It doesn't really make free willed choices.

If it's still your brain making the decision, why is that not free will, just based on that factor alone? The decisions being made are based on YOUR personality, YOUR mood, etc . . .not some outside entity that isn't a literal part of your brain.

The subconscious is still you. I believe that short gap of time is your brain thinking. Just like a computer, it has to process things. When it's done computing, it sends the result to whatever controls the conscious part of your mind, or enacts the appropriate physical response. Your subconscious IS you. It's been making the decisions your whole life, you just weren't aware that you were doing it.

It would probably be problematic if only one cohesive mind existed within the human psyche, as there is so much information coming in through the senses, we need a filter (or perhaps there are multiple filters) to take in only what that filter (your subconscious) judges as relevant. Otherwise, life would probably be much like a never-ending shroom trip- all your own thoughts exposed to you in an uncontrollable and unadulterated torrent; unable to process the vast amount of sensory input coming in.

 

[the wheat's gotta]

The Winner and yerg have pretty much summed up my beliefs in this thread and I thank them for it. I've thought about stuff like this a lot over the past couple years and eventually wrote a semi-comedic post about it to let it all out. I don't think everyone can "get" determinism, it just all has to click together and I think it comes down to personality, just like an atheist will see unguided events where a christian will see purpose.

But I'm also in love with physics and new discoveries in science so I have to reconcile science with my thoughts. I think the universe (meaning all of existence, all that is, so that would include everything outside our observable distance) is probabilistic when you break it down microscopically, but I think this process gave birth to a deterministic line of dominoes that is our current universe. Yeah at the small scale (assuming current theory is exact, which it probably isn't but it's the best we have for now) particles pop in and out of existence in a dual creation-destruction process that seems completely random. And supposedly big bang's are supposed to happen once in every google or so years!

So if a quantum fluctuation started all of this, then that was for sure probabilistic, but I think from observing our current universe one can make the conclusion that within the boundaries that separate us from everything else, existence is deterministic. Determinism is the logical conclusion when you introduce time, and time is a logical conclusion when you begin with matter (I know the time statement conflicts with my other statement about time, if you believe that time started at the big bang ).

Then again we also don't know if there actually IS cause and effect in a vacuum, there could just be extremely extremely complicated dominoes.

The other day I realized (according to theory) we are not an addition to the universe, we are the universe. This goes farther than the fact that all of our atoms were created in the furnaces of stars. If there was 0 at the beginning, we are not +1 or +5, we are -1 + 1 = 0. We are a transformation of nothing. The particles (which I hope everyone already knows, matter is energy.) that make us up are the positive 1, and the gravity and electromagnetism that attract all of our particles together are the -1. Attraction is the debt that matter must pay for existing in this form. Both entities are opposite types of energy, transformed. So far we've calculated that the energy contained in all matter is damn near equal to all the energy that is being acted on all matter by gravity and electromagnetism.

Anyway here is more of my thoughts on this. Sorry for taking so much space


"Technically, there is no justification to hate an individual."

DISCLAIMER: As much as I wish I were, I am no expert in evolutionary psychology. Or anything else.

With that said, I hate egotistical douchebags. But what am I really hating? As we all should know, personality is formed by both genetics and experience; nurture and nature. More specifically (but still in extremely simple terms) we start with genetics as our mental block of ice and the experiences we endure through life shape that block of ice into the sculpture that is our personality. And its not just a two-step process, it continues throughout our lives in an endless feedback loop, both affecting eachother over and over again.

How much control do we really have over who we really are? We’re predisposed to so many traits through genes, and our childhood experiences, most of which we have no control over, affect which of those traits are brought out and which are turned off. Its like our genetics deal us a hand in poker, and our experiences force us to play the hand a certain way.

Yes, we have choices once in a while. As we grow, we must decide how hard to work in school, what kinds of people to hang around with, what kind of future we want etc. But I think given our genetic makeup and what we learned (consciously and subconsciously) from past experiences, each of us are predisposed to be more likely to choose one choice over another. Every decision I make is based on predispositions.

So what am I hating when I hate the douchebag? I’m hating his family, friends, his parents’ families, his parents’ families’ families, etc. for all passing on certain genes and experiences in such a specific way to result in an egotistical personality in the fuckwad. But it goes way beyond that, I mean I know if my great great grandfather didn’t influence his son in the specific ways as to make a destructive alcoholic out of him, I would never have been born, my mom probably wouldn’t have been either, and my grandfather would have had a much better childhood. This is chaos theory; all the tiny “choices” I make today have unimaginably different impacts on my descendents, and the farther it goes the more chaotic it gets. The douchebag’s ancestors are just a twig of the tree. Trillions of events had to take place just for the specific genes and experiences that make the recipe for douchebag to combine into the people we know today; from the primitive apes that would go on to become his human ancestors, to the four legged mammals before them, and even to the single-celled prokaryotes that sparked life for us all. Did these douchebags choose for all of that to happen?

With homo sapiens, it was always inevitable that douchebags would arise from the mix; as our species diversified our traits diversified; nice people were made and thus douchebags had to have been made. If you look back enough, sentient life is simply a product of the universe (not the end-product of course!). In a way, me hating douchebags is just me hating a necessary expression of the universe. Not that the universe gives a shit, but for me it’s as pointless as hating my garbage can when it inevitably fills up.

Unfortunately its very hard for us humans to think on a universal scale, and somehow we get to thinking that every person is exactly his/her own individual with no baggage. This makes us hate individual people for the collective actions of every creature that’s ever lived. Atleast that’s how I feel.

 

[The_Winner]

Unfortunately its very hard for us humans to think on a universal scale, and somehow we get to thinking that every person is exactly his/her own individual with no baggage. This makes us hate individual people for the collective actions of every creature that’s ever lived. Atleast that’s how I feel.

I think I have found the tool to fix this. A way to become understanding of the reality as it is. Without our minds delusional descriptions of it: practicing mindfulness (meditation, Buddhism) and no, Buddhism is not the only way, but just the most perfect way I have discovered so far.

 

[ebola?]

Merge with thread on free will?

 

[Vader]

^Was just thinking that as I saw both threads side by side in my new subscribed threads list.