Defense of Freewill Against Determinism

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ughaibu
 
Reply Tue 3 Aug, 2010 07:49 am
@guigus,
guigus wrote:
Zetherin wrote:
I really would like to learn your about your position.
despite causation becoming deterministic
I just dont see how you can have so little understanding, after the number of posts, covering so many angles.
 
Doubt doubt
 
Reply Tue 3 Aug, 2010 02:39 pm


i have a time machine and you are with me. we see bill and mike. bill asks mike to pick a number and mike picks five.

i know that if we went back in time and watched bill ask mike to pick a number mike would always pick five. no matter how many times we go back mike always picks five unless we change something.

for me a will could only be free if mike picked a different number sometimes. I can not see that as possible without something in mikes brain being different from one redo to the next. this leads me to believe that we have the appearance of free will but that in fact we only compute what we experience and react based on what we think and what the ability of our brain gives us.

mike thinks he is using free will when he picks five over and over but he is not. he is drawing the five from his experience in some way. he may have to work at five or his address is five but he said five for a reason. this would be easy to understand if you had a knowledge of critical thinking, economics and psychology. there are very reliable ways to phrase questions or arrange a situation to get the outcome you want.



i also do not believe that anything is random and that there is no such thing as chaos. things only appear random and chaotic when you do not understand what is occurring. If you need examples of things people used to viewed as random that are now understood and predictable you dont have to look far and there are boatloads with more and more being added all the time.
some people think rolling dice is random but i know that the results follow the laws of physics and the way you throw the dice determines how they will land. i know that if they were throws in the same exact way under the same conditions they would always land they same. there is no magic effect that makes dice random and so they are not random but only appear as random to those that do not understand whats happening.
 
guigus
 
Reply Wed 4 Aug, 2010 05:01 am
@ughaibu,
ughaibu wrote:

guigus wrote:
Zetherin wrote:
I really would like to learn your about your position.
despite causation becoming deterministic
I just dont see how you can have so little understanding, after the number of posts, covering so many angles.


And I just don't know what you are talking about (perhaps because you didn't say it).
 
guigus
 
Reply Wed 4 Aug, 2010 05:09 am
@Doubt doubt,
Doubt doubt wrote:



i have a time machine and you are with me. we see bill and mike. bill asks mike to pick a number and mike picks five.

i know that if we went back in time and watched bill ask mike to pick a number mike would always pick five. no matter how many times we go back mike always picks five unless we change something.

for me a will could only be free if mike picked a different number sometimes. I can not see that as possible without something in mikes brain being different from one redo to the next. this leads me to believe that we have the appearance of free will but that in fact we only compute what we experience and react based on what we think and what the ability of our brain gives us.

mike thinks he is using free will when he picks five over and over but he is not. he is drawing the five from his experience in some way. he may have to work at five or his address is five but he said five for a reason. this would be easy to understand if you had a knowledge of critical thinking, economics and psychology. there are very reliable ways to phrase questions or arrange a situation to get the outcome you want.



i also do not believe that anything is random and that there is no such thing as chaos. things only appear random and chaotic when you do not understand what is occurring. If you need examples of things people used to viewed as random that are now understood and predictable you dont have to look far and there are boatloads with more and more being added all the time.
some people think rolling dice is random but i know that the results follow the laws of physics and the way you throw the dice determines how they will land. i know that if they were throws in the same exact way under the same conditions they would always land they same. there is no magic effect that makes dice random and so they are not random but only appear as random to those that do not understand whats happening.


Could you then please tell me the next result of the lottery? I would greatly appreciate it, and I assure you I would give you a slice of the prize. Perhaps 50%? Isn't that a good offer? I beg you...

Hey people! I am negotiating a slice of 50% on the next lottery prize, are you interested?
 
Zetherin
 
Reply Wed 4 Aug, 2010 08:50 am
@guigus,
guigus wrote:
And I just don't know what you are talking about (perhaps because you didn't say it).

I think he was speaking to me. Or maybe to the both of us.
 
Night Ripper
 
Reply Wed 4 Aug, 2010 10:55 am
@Doubt doubt,
Doubt doubt wrote:
some people think rolling dice is random but i know that the results follow the laws of physics and the way you throw the dice determines how they will land.


That's because you have an outdated view of the laws of physics. You think that the laws are these magical rules that the universe must conform to. There's no evidence for that. All we know is that we can use law-like statements to describe how the universe behaves. They are descriptions not prescriptions. Where do you think these magical laws come from, God, or do you think the particular set of laws we have are random? Perhaps you think there are laws of the laws of the laws and so on infinitely?
 
guigus
 
Reply Wed 4 Aug, 2010 07:45 pm
@Night Ripper,
Night Ripper wrote:

Doubt doubt wrote:
some people think rolling dice is random but i know that the results follow the laws of physics and the way you throw the dice determines how they will land.


That's because you have an outdated view of the laws of physics. You think that the laws are these magical rules that the universe must conform to. There's no evidence for that. All we know is that we can use law-like statements to describe how the universe behaves. They are descriptions not prescriptions. Where do you think these magical laws come from, God, or do you think the particular set of laws we have are random? Perhaps you think there are laws of the laws of the laws and so on infinitely?


The best science has to offer us today talks about nature in terms of probabilities. In quantum physics, there is the wave function and the particle measurement. Letting Einstein, who didn't like quantum physics, explain that (he calls wave functions "Schrodinger waves"):

Quote:
On the basis of quantum theory there was obtained a surprisingly good representation of an immense variety of facts which otherwise appeared entirely incomprehensible. But on one point, curiously enough, there was failure: it proved impossible to associate with these Schrodinger waves definite motions of the mass points - and that, after all, had been the original purpose of the whole construction. The difficulty appeared insurmountable until it was overcome by Born in a way as simple as it was unexpected. The de Broglie-Schrodinger wave fields were not to be interpreted as a mathematical description of how an event actually takes place in time and space, though, of course, they have reference to such an event. Rather they are a mathematical description of what we can actually know about the system. They serve only to make statistical statements and predictions of the results of all measurements which we can carry out upon the system. (Albert Einstein, on Quantum Physics, 1940)

It seems to be clear, therefore, that Born's statistical interpretation of quantum physics is the only possible one. The wave function does not in any way describe a state which could be that of a single system; it relates rather to many systems, to an 'ensemble of systems' in the sense of statistical mechanics. (Albert Einstein, on Quantum Mechanics, 1936)


Today quantum physics has gone far beyond where it was expected to go in the first half of twentieth century, and John Stuart Bell has proved it was on Einstein's side that "there was failure": it was his assumption of locality + realism that was flawed.
 
Night Ripper
 
Reply Wed 4 Aug, 2010 08:52 pm
@guigus,
What's your point?
 
Razzleg
 
Reply Thu 5 Aug, 2010 12:38 am
@Doubt doubt,
You have copied and pasted the same post in several places, so i will not feel too ashamed about copying and pasting my original response in different places:

Doubt doubt wrote:

i have a time machine and you are with me. we see bill and mike. bill asks mike to pick a number and mike picks five.

i know that if we went back in time and watched bill ask mike to pick a number mike would always pick five. no matter how many times we go back mike always picks five unless we change something.

for me a will could only be free if mike picked a different number sometimes. I can not see that as possible without something in mikes brain being different from one redo to the next. this leads me to believe that we have the appearance of free will but that in fact we only compute what we experience and react based on what we think and what the ability of our brain gives us.

mike thinks he is using free will when he picks five over and over but he is not. he is drawing the five from his experience in some way. he may have to work at five or his address is five but he said five for a reason. this would be easy to understand if you had a knowledge of critical thinking, economics and psychology. there are very reliable ways to phrase questions or arrange a situation to get the outcome you want.


"But according to your thought experiment, Mike isn't making the same choice over and over. He only makes the choice once; you are the one traveling back and forth in time. When you watch a movie you've already seen before, do you expect it to end differently each time?"

Besides, in what way does his having a reason for the number he chooses compromise the freedom of his will?


Doubt doubt wrote:

i also do not believe that anything is random and that there is no such thing as chaos. things only appear random and chaotic when you do not understand what is occurring. If you need examples of things people used to viewed as random that are now understood and predictable you dont have to look far and there are boatloads with more and more being added all the time.
some people think rolling dice is random but i know that the results follow the laws of physics and the way you throw the dice determines how they will land. i know that if they were throws in the same exact way under the same conditions they would always land they same. there is no magic effect that makes dice random and so they are not random but only appear as random to those that do not understand whats happening.


"But for the very reason that things appear to be random only when they are not properly understood, so one cannot disprove the possibility of randomness, only specific claims of randomness. Regardless, randomness has nothing to do with free will. Randomness does not exclude causality, and an absolutely random world would be indistinguishable from a completely determined one.

The question of rolling dice and probability isn't that dice might magically produce entirely random results, so much as the results cannot be predicted given a single throw. It is only upon repeated throws that patterns emerge, and the disclosure of the relevant conditions that determine how a roll will end within a given sequence in a given set of circumstance. All things being equal, a single roll of the dice is unpredictable."
 
ughaibu
 
Reply Fri 13 Aug, 2010 10:34 am
@Razzleg,
Razzleg wrote:

You have copied and pasted the same post in several places, so i will not feel too ashamed about copying and pasting my original response in different places:

Doubt doubt wrote:

i have a time machine and you are with me. we see bill and mike. bill asks mike to pick a number and mike picks five.

i know that if we went back in time and watched bill ask mike to pick a number mike would always pick five. no matter how many times we go back mike always picks five unless we change something.

for me a will could only be free if mike picked a different number sometimes. I can not see that as possible without something in mikes brain being different from one redo to the next. this leads me to believe that we have the appearance of free will but that in fact we only compute what we experience and react based on what we think and what the ability of our brain gives us.

mike thinks he is using free will when he picks five over and over but he is not. he is drawing the five from his experience in some way. he may have to work at five or his address is five but he said five for a reason. this would be easy to understand if you had a knowledge of critical thinking, economics and psychology. there are very reliable ways to phrase questions or arrange a situation to get the outcome you want.


"But according to your thought experiment, Mike isn't making the same choice over and over. He only makes the choice once; you are the one traveling back and forth in time. When you watch a movie you've already seen before, do you expect it to end differently each time?"

Besides, in what way does his having a reason for the number he chooses compromise the freedom of his will?


Doubt doubt wrote:

i also do not believe that anything is random and that there is no such thing as chaos. things only appear random and chaotic when you do not understand what is occurring. If you need examples of things people used to viewed as random that are now understood and predictable you dont have to look far and there are boatloads with more and more being added all the time.
some people think rolling dice is random but i know that the results follow the laws of physics and the way you throw the dice determines how they will land. i know that if they were throws in the same exact way under the same conditions they would always land they same. there is no magic effect that makes dice random and so they are not random but only appear as random to those that do not understand whats happening.


"But for the very reason that things appear to be random only when they are not properly understood, so one cannot disprove the possibility of randomness, only specific claims of randomness. Regardless, randomness has nothing to do with free will. Randomness does not exclude causality, and an absolutely random world would be indistinguishable from a completely determined one.

The question of rolling dice and probability isn't that dice might magically produce entirely random results, so much as the results cannot be predicted given a single throw. It is only upon repeated throws that patterns emerge, and the disclosure of the relevant conditions that determine how a roll will end within a given sequence in a given set of circumstance. All things being equal, a single roll of the dice is unpredictable."
 
ughaibu
 
Reply Fri 13 Aug, 2010 10:34 am
Test result: pass.
 
DMerritt
 
Reply Mon 26 Nov, 2012 05:15 pm
@kennethamy,
" neither kind of sphere exists, nevertheless, it would be physically possible for the gold sphere to exist, but it would not be physically possible for the uranium sphere to exist."


As our experience to date and with the rules we have deduced from that experience it would appear to be highly unlikely that the one mile sphere of uranium could exist. (and I would surely recommend against trying to build one) That does not however "prove" that its existence is impossible.
 
 

 
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