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> Even if this is true, it's not exactly useful. While you speak of utility in terms of behaviour, I also question its utility in a philosophical and spiritual

by retrac 4y ago

> Even if this is true, it's not exactly useful. While you speak of utility in terms of behaviour, I also question its utility in a philosophical and spiritual sense. Strict determinism (and according lack of free will) has been around since at least the 1600s in more or less its current form. Though we tend to use computer rather than clockwork metaphors for it these days. Precursor concepts, like fates immutable and determined before birth, are truly ancient ideas. As is the notion of the lottery of birth, that any one of us could have been born as someone else. Many, maybe most people, for thousands of years, have been familiar with the idea. Many think it to be true. And yet, it doesn't feel true. I experience life under the delusion that I have free will, that I make my choices. Aside from a few Buddhist-inspired types who claim to free themself from this delusion from time to time, everyone suffers from it. (I am not very skeptical of such claims, but they only manage it as a side-effect of the even more unsettling realization that the self, with its thoughts and decisions, does not exist in the first place. That may be true too, but it sure doesn't feel true most of the time.) What can you actually do with a literally unbelievable truth?

AstralStorm 4y ago
Strict determinism is physically impossible. By physically, I mean you cannot reconcile it with quantum physics. However, the luck we're talking about is not random chance, it is comparable to a set of overlapping games with stacked odds. The result is still a chaotic system, that means it will typically tend to end up in one or more attractor states. This is how both inheritance and culture work. Going against the culture, physical or mental inheritance, or pushing to a different attractor state requires overcoming a vast amount of inertia. Within and without. And sometimes help too. Certain initial states have much more leeway in shaping the particular trajectory one would take than others. And yes, ultimate choice of free will is to roll the dice, try something new or create. Determinism is incompatible with that.
- retrac 4y ago
  I agree about strict determinism being false. It was more of a tangent off my point. There is a subjective experience of being. We think we have a mind, that acts on the world. Both dualists and monists, of all kinds, experience reality with this feeling, I think. The questions I have are: is this an illusion? Is there a mapping between the subjective being that experiences, the mind on the inside, and the apparent order of events in reality? Would our experienced slice of time and space be different, if we had chosen differently? Could we have? That's how I understand the problem of free will. It seems to be something no one has really figured out. There's all sorts of conjectures. Christians say something like that, through some divine process the soul which is related to our mind, is linked to our body and we are given the choice to act. Monadic materialists say the mind is part of reality through some physical or metaphysical process, and thus we, as in our minds, do at least effect changes on the world. About as convincing as the Christians, in my mind. We can say the mind itself is sort of an illusion, but that's even more irritating, isn't it? Because it doesn't feel like one, at least to me. Maybe I misunderstand the problem and the questions are not properly formed.
- amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  I got hung up on your first paragraph. How is strict determinism incompatible with quantum physics? I would have said the opposite, that it was required by quantum physics. Unless somehow your consciousness reaches its fingers in from outside physics to change quantum interactions.
- Rury 4y ago
  >Strict determinism is physically impossible. By physically, I mean you cannot reconcile it with quantum physics. This is complete BS, given that there are many aspects of quantum physics that still elude our comprehension. Just because we fail at determining its nature, doesn't necessarily mean its nature is indeterministic. Just like how a pseudo random number generator may generate numbers which appear to be random or indeterministic, but instead are actually the results of an entirely deterministic and predictable process.

by retrac 4y ago

AstralStorm 4y ago

Strict determinism is physically impossible. By physically, I mean you cannot reconcile it with quantum physics. However, the luck we're talking about is not random chance, it is comparable to a set of overlapping games with stacked odds. The result is still a chaotic system, that means it will typically tend to end up in one or more attractor states. This is how both inheritance and culture work. Going against the culture, physical or mental inheritance, or pushing to a different attractor state requires overcoming a vast amount of inertia. Within and without. And sometimes help too. Certain initial states have much more leeway in shaping the particular trajectory one would take than others. And yes, ultimate choice of free will is to roll the dice, try something new or create. Determinism is incompatible with that.

retrac 4y ago
I agree about strict determinism being false. It was more of a tangent off my point. There is a subjective experience of being. We think we have a mind, that acts on the world. Both dualists and monists, of all kinds, experience reality with this feeling, I think. The questions I have are: is this an illusion? Is there a mapping between the subjective being that experiences, the mind on the inside, and the apparent order of events in reality? Would our experienced slice of time and space be different, if we had chosen differently? Could we have? That's how I understand the problem of free will. It seems to be something no one has really figured out. There's all sorts of conjectures. Christians say something like that, through some divine process the soul which is related to our mind, is linked to our body and we are given the choice to act. Monadic materialists say the mind is part of reality through some physical or metaphysical process, and thus we, as in our minds, do at least effect changes on the world. About as convincing as the Christians, in my mind. We can say the mind itself is sort of an illusion, but that's even more irritating, isn't it? Because it doesn't feel like one, at least to me. Maybe I misunderstand the problem and the questions are not properly formed.
amanaplanacanal 4y ago
I got hung up on your first paragraph. How is strict determinism incompatible with quantum physics? I would have said the opposite, that it was required by quantum physics. Unless somehow your consciousness reaches its fingers in from outside physics to change quantum interactions.
Rury 4y ago
>Strict determinism is physically impossible. By physically, I mean you cannot reconcile it with quantum physics. This is complete BS, given that there are many aspects of quantum physics that still elude our comprehension. Just because we fail at determining its nature, doesn't necessarily mean its nature is indeterministic. Just like how a pseudo random number generator may generate numbers which appear to be random or indeterministic, but instead are actually the results of an entirely deterministic and predictable process.