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Where you do think your values and behaviours came from in the first place? Your values/behaviours are given to you via both your genes and your environment -
by confluence 14y ago
Where you do think your values and behaviours came from in the first place?
Your values/behaviours are given to you via both your genes and your environment - which are effectively random. If your parents were prone to addictive behaviour in an environment that provides addictive substances - you will probably do the same.
This reminds me of thing I've always found highly curious about how the religious think.
They can't seem to understand that their choice in religion is relatively arbitrary and geographically dependent. Born in America you're Christian. Born in Pakistan now you're Muslim. Born in India now you're Hindu. Born in Israel now you're Jewish.
The fact that people can't seem to understand that the reason they believe in X god instead of Y is merely a question of a few hundred miles.
Life is particularly arbitrary. For example: I'm an atheist because of my environment (middle-class male, western country, studies science and technology, with access to freedom of speech). This is irrelevant as to whether atheism is actually the right option (which I believe it is - but then of course I would :) - the key fact to understand here is how the environment determined it.
Finally, physics eliminates the case for free will. So yes - you do what you do because you were set up to do it.
We're all just biological machines.
- Jayschwa 14y ago> We're all just biological machines. Okay, let me rephrase the question. Do you believe that a biological machine's algorithm (i.e. values and behavior) has any bearing on outcome?
- confluence 14y agoYes. But you should notice how we don't blame machine no. X for not doing it's job correctly (aka having buggy programs run on it) - it does exactly what it was supposed to do. No - we blame the programmer/hardware manufacturer for screwing things up - which in the case of humans is the environment and genes.
- Jayschwa 14y agoYour reductionist mindset seems to be on a path of destruction, leaving many useful abstractions in its wake. Is a car actually a car, or is it just a collection of atoms? It's both. Does the car actually drive, or is it just physics? It's both - "driving" is a subset of physics that acts on a collection of atoms known as a "car". When people say "luck", they are usually referring to external circumstances not under the influence of the biological machine's algorithm. To say that luck is the only factor, or never a factor, is wrong. Given similar inputs, some algorithms will excel and some will fail. You certainly can "blame" an algorithm for certain outcomes. How the algorithm formed is a red-herring.
- confluence 14y ago> When people say "luck", they are usually referring to external circumstances not under the influence of the biological machine's algorithm Your DNA, aka the algorithm that is who you are, is given to you by the external environment - you have no control over it, and neither do you have any control over your upbringing - rich/poor/race/sex. Your argument is, well, void.
- jessedhillon 14y agoI don't understand the reasoning behind your comment here. First, how does physics eliminate the possibility of free will? Second, why are you even bothering to tell us this? How do you personally justify taking any action in life, as the pointlessness of it all clearly hasn't escaped you. Yet, from my naive perspective, I see someone determined to have their self-perceived intellectual superiority and ability to transcend it all recognized. I don't understand why, though.
- confluence 14y ago> physics eliminate the possibility of free will Go do some physics - then come back to me. > why are you even bothering to tell us this? I don't know. There really isn't any point to it. I'm not here to convince you. > taking any action in life I'm programmed to take actions - 4 billion years of evolution tends to do that. > self-perceived intellectual superiority and ability to transcend it all recognized. Never said I was smarter than anyone. Just said that people were wrong. There is a difference.
- aptwebapps 14y agoMy problem with this kind of absolute determinism is that it reduces everything to pointlessness. So much so that you can't really stick with the idea for any length of time. For example, from your top post: "You know what I always find so hilarious. How people always seem to qualify luck - even when they show us how lucky they have actually been. ..." What's so funny about it? Their fallacies are predetermined anyway. (Tangent: how can you call it luck, coming from this perspective?) So it seems to me a particularly useless line of thought. I'm not saying you can't indulge in it for kicks, but doesn't provide any useful input to behavior.
- confluence 14y ago> reduces everything to pointlessness Well then - I guess you'd really hate physics then, a field that reduces everything you see around you to a series of equations with a tad of randomness thrown in for good measure. Now then - if you don't believe humans obey the law of physics - well then - that's your problem.
- dror 14y agophysics <> determinsm
- confluence 14y agophysics = probabilistic determinism
- goldfeld 14y agoI'm constantly intrigued by how people can keep such dual world views. Like Christians who also believe in natural selection. It seems like they don't really want to think it through, so whatever they just accept both conflicting notions. If you come to understand and appreciate high-school level physics, chemistry and the workings of the brain, which most high-schoolers don't, it really strikes me as conflicting how you could not become a determinist. We're just machines fueled by chemistry.
- moultano 14y ago>Your values/behaviours are given to you via both your genes and your environment - which are effectively random. This is an information free sentence. Everything that makes me _me_ comes from my genes and my environment. If it were much different, I wouldn't be me. If you are attributing everything I do to an external force even though it goes through the intermediate step of my identity and skills in the process, then you just have a tautological statement. Sure, things happen because things happen. Bravo, but I'm also one of those things.
- confluence 14y agoThe point of that sentence was to indicate two things. Firstly your existence is random. Secondly - you are wholly the product of your arbitrary environment. That is all.
- r00fus 14y agoPoint being, a whole lot of what makes you "you" is completely not in your hands. Not free will. I didn't choose to get born. To dictate policies that advocate punishing and killing people for what they had no control over (like being born in a muslim-majority country) is folly, or worse - a justification for bad behavior.
- orangethirty 14y agoFinally, physics eliminates the case for free will. Ever realized that physics (as a science) is incomplete?
- jamesrcole 14y agoThat sounds like a "free will of the gaps" argument (cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps )