Unseen

jakelafort wrote:

Thanks for that vid, Unseen. I was tempted to get his book. Not any longer. He comes across to me as a sophist. He said…free will is a biological phenomenon, not a physical one. Our parts don’t have free will. We do. Stop right there Mr. Dennet. Which aspect of biology produces this phenomenon? What is your proof? Why should we…

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Simon Paynton wrote:

“Objective morality” is a perception that does not correspond to what people who believe in it think it does. Does this have anything to do with free will?

Well, what do YOU mean by “objective morality”? Morality based on principles built into reality itself? Principles handed down by God? Principles deterministically der…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:

Unseen, gotta disagree with your take in relation to what would happen if the consensus changes with respect to free will. You said…We just go on acting as we have. To say we could do otherwise kind of implies the problem has been solved. It hasn’t. First, it seems highly improbable based on religiosity and marriage to che…

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Davis wrote:

Oh I have no doubt you believe there is no solution to a problem on an issue in which we lack even basic information on and one you refuse to inform yourself on opposing arguments. That’s why, while on most topics I totally respect your point of view (even when I may seriously disagree with it) on this one I can only shake my head a…

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jakelafort wrote:

Unseen, gotta disagree with your take in relation to what would happen if the consensus changes with respect to free will. You said…We just go on acting as we have. To say we could do otherwise kind of implies the problem has been solved. It hasn’t.

Okay, let’s see.

First, it seems highly improbable based on religiosity and mar…

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jakelafort wrote:

Free will is the foundation of western jurisprudence. If the consensus ever changes so that free will is seen as illusory and strict determinism as reality then everything is turned on its head. How does law incorporate this most fundamental change in human perspective? Strict liability for heretofore criminal acts?

We just go…[Read more]

Deleted over formatting issue. See next post instead.

Ivy wrote:

I guess I don’t understand the complexity of the argument 😂. It’s not rocket science.

I doubt if science has much to contribute to a solution to the problem of free will. Rather, it provides most of the evidence against it, like the fact that your actions (the ones you are conscious of and believe to be free) were decided anywhere fro…[Read more]

Davis wrote:

Unseen you specifically said in the past any idea should be easily summarised in a couple sentences. When challenging you to do so (say summarise relativity or evolution into a few sentences so a layperson can reasonably understand it you were conveniently silent).

a) If you want to hunt that down and you actually think that I meant…[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:

To me, it comes down to whether decisions are the result of sufficient conditions or if your choices are truly (not in some abstruse sense) free. To be free in any relevant sense, the sufficiency issue must be dealt with.

If you decide conditions are sufficient, have you made a choice? Of course your “will” is dependent on a phy…

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Davis wrote:

If you can’t explain it to ordinary folks plainly, then in their mind the problem will remain.

Unseen that is total bullshit. Please explain the theory of relativity in “two sentences”.

Where did the two-sentence requirement come from? Me? I only remember saying it has to be understandable in ordinary language. And yet, two sente…[Read more]

To me, it comes down to whether decisions are the result of sufficient conditions or if your choices are truly (not in some abstruse sense) free. To be free in any relevant sense, the sufficiency issue must be dealt with.

Unlike other issues, quantum physics, for example, where the general public is content to take the specialists’ word for it,…[Read more]

What would it be like to live in a world where one was able to ignore sufficient antecedents such that those antecedents were sufficient to cause A, and yet one nevertheless did B? And yet, wouldn’t that describe the only kind of world in which free will existed?

Our ethical and legal systems are predicated on people acting truly freely. Why?…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:

And then there are the machines that may become sentient, autonomous and Einstein to the 199th power. I am not sure once they have transformed they are still machines. But they are not going to be biological either. Whatever it is that informs their consciousness or creates their consciousness will be so far from what creates…

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Simon Paynton wrote:

What do you think it means for free will, if the entirety of spacetime is created as a single 4-D shape at the Big Bang? I.e., all of spacetime exists as a lump, and we have a path through it that we labour along during our lifetimes, that begins when we are conceived, and ends when our life ends, and our location on that…

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jakelafort wrote:

Many are worried about the genesis of super intelligence. Will it happen? Will it eliminate us? I am guessing it won’t feel things but i am fairly certain it will understand how we feel.

But don’t we “understand” based on using our own case as a model? I’m not a cat, but I feel I understand much of her behavior based on what I k…[Read more]

‘Few scholars are comfortable suggesting that people ought to believe an outright lie. Advocating the perpetuation of untruths would breach their integrity and violate a principle that philosophers have long held dear: the Platonic hope that the true and the good go hand in hand. Saul Smilansky, a philosophy professor at the University of Haifa,…[Read more]

Davis wrote:

One of the things I find utterly hilarious (ridiculously hilarious) is that here we all are, apparently cogs in a clock work who think we have freedom, though we actually don’t, and we have absolutely no choice but to type out stuff here debating whether we have a choice or not to debate whether we have a choice or not (and in fact h…

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jakelafort wrote:

I am only a dilettante in cosmology, a few books and a lot of articles. It seems that some physicists are of the opinion that laws of physics are not universal and immutable.

If they are “laws,” they must have some sort of determinism in them to even earn the name, mustn’t they? Even quantum physics depends upon mathematical…[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:

Do you suppose Newtonian physics is “different” then relativistic physics? Could be something similar at play here, an extension of the science we know. Can’t be ruled out so quickly because whenever we get ‘stuck’ for a while I expect a step change.

The last time we had to drastically modify our understanding of the laws of t…[Read more]