_Robert_

Simon Paynton wrote:

Presumably it requires the ability to consciously deliberate between different behavioural options.

Or maybe we are merely consciously informed of the decision we believe we made, since the brain is just matter and energy, like pile of rocks tumbling down a hillside.  One rock bounced left, the other to the right. Did you see that?

Looking at the recent murder of an Insurance CEO and the attempts on Trump, it seems that anti-right wing, anti-Trump, anti-conservative young white males know how to buy a gun and pull a trigger. Christian Nationals and Corporate/MAGA officials live in a physically more dangerous world now. Perhaps the proposed “draining of the swamp” cuts to…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

@jakelafort – I’ve been asked it a few times as well. I just don’t fit the picture. My nephew is as autistic as it’s possible to be, apparently. He’s a nice young man. There was a scandal about language boards a few years ago, my nephew faced a lot of cognitive dissonance from professionals who insisted he was an imbecile.

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jakelafort wrote:

Hope it wasn’t a Zebco. Fortunes are made on comparitively small investments. I had an uncle who was brilliant but not able to function. As a child he would always go to a brokerage after school. (He dropped out of school before 10th grade) Anyways he had a stock he loved and my dad begged his to buy it. But nobody in his f…

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@Reg, that kid should buy you a whisky. I tipped a buddy about this new website called ebay.  I bought a fishing reel. He bought stock.

We may have to rename the CDC to the CDP….replacing control with propagation. Or maybe just create a RFKjr Center for Conspiracy Theories?

PopeBeanie wrote:

So I’m devil’s advocate for both sides, now. For believers in free will, I ask, do you believe you have power over determinism, or is determinism not even a thing? For those arguing against free will, is there any harm in others believing in it? I’m not on the fence. I don’t believe it exists in an absolute sense, but I’m hap…

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jakelafort wrote:

Simon, if i want a good story i’ll read Washington Irving. Ronald Reagan might have appreciated him. Tell me a story so i know what you mean. That was me channeling the dead guy. His son is an atheist so the apple defied gravity. Somebody asks you do you believe? Have the integrity to say yes or no. And if asked for an e…

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Belle Rose wrote:

@robert I wouldn’t classify JP as an atheist. I didn’t see the Sam Harris one I’ll have to watch that. I guess I view him completely differently because i watched his lectures so I understand the framework from where he’s coming and there are many things I took away from his lectures that I still use and remember to this day. I…

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JP strikes me mostly as someone mostly trying to extend his 15 minutes of fame. To me he’s the “Hawk-Tua girl” of the identity wars.

He has no real answers for young men because that would alienate them away from him and his fame. So instead, it’s babble-talk-time when someone like Sam Harris calls him out. I don’t see why he climbed out of bed,…[Read more]

JP has a problem. His fan base are mostly disillusioned young males lost in the wake of female independence. So, they revert to the good old Christian days and ways. When even the least desirable young males could attract female attention. Trouble is, JP is an atheist. So, when he talks about god and the virtues of religion, it’s just a word salad…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

_Robert_ wrote:

That decision may have been made before the critter knew it would jump. The squirrel’s conscience was informed at some point. Yeah, I’d say a squirrel has some level of self-awareness.

Well, it has to respond to real events in real time, so I’m guessing it has free will.

Doesn’t follow, overs…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

PopeBeanie wrote:

Must not the feeling of free will at least be a product of determinism? A legitimate product of evolution? And very useful, fortunately, if not more pleasurable than the feeling of having no control at all.

That’s the way I see it. Nature has endowed us with free will that we can use to navigate c…

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It sure is easy to imagine how an ape brain could believe it has agency, even if it doesn’t, especially if you lean towards soft determinism (I’d also throw in some random particles that make it through the atmosphere and smash into our neural networks.)

Moral responsibility is a sideshow, unrelated to the mechanics of this question.

There is a difference between “cause and effect” and hard determinism. A cause can have many different effects, but there has to be at least one. The idea that the position, motion and energy of every single particle through space-time is predetermined at time = 0+ of the big bang is not compatible with quantum theory.

And of course, causality is…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

_Robert_ wrote:

We can start with intelligence or hair color and work our way into musical preferences. Throw any of that data on a chart and you will have a bell curve.

What does that have to do with free choice and consciousness?

Everything. Everything about us including “free choice” is governed by a probability function.

Simon Paynton wrote:

_Robert_ wrote:

We do know that quantum mechanical systems are not deterministic but are instead probabilistic. That may give us the idea that we have free will when actually your decisions and choices have probabilities.

I don’t buy that. It’s too direct contact between different levels of reality: psychological and qua…

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We don’t know. We do know that quantum mechanical systems are not deterministic but are instead probabilistic. That may give us the idea that we have free will when actually your decisions and choices have probabilities. For example, if you are a complete dumbass, you are more likely to vote for Trump, but for some reason you managed to vote for Harris.