5 ms·

I think it's fair to say that's a reasonable coping mechanism for staying sane. QM notoriously has no everyday analog, whereas determinism holds up reasonably w

I think it's fair to say that's a reasonable coping mechanism for staying sane. QM notoriously has no everyday analog, whereas determinism holds up reasonably well in daily life!

cortesoft 13y ago
I feel the opposite... determinism does NOT fit with my day to day observance, because my perception is that I have free will. If I accept determinism, I also have to accept that I actually don't have free will, and that seems contrary to my perception of myself.
- beloch 13y ago
  So, what if some omnipotent trickster/adversary/god designed a deterministic universe specifically to fool you into thinking you have free will? I tend to believe in free will myself and I hate the above argument because I don't know of any way to refute it. As far as I know, the question of free-will vs determinism is unanswered. Even tests of randomness using Bell inequalities requires an assumption of free choice. It's... disquieting.
  - mamcx 13y ago
    Following that line, a deterministic universe is a better vehicle for free will that a truly random one. Why? Because a truly random one could self-kill, become one where will not exist anymore (of any kind), self-nullify itself, randomly chaos to laws and everything else. Have a stable "layer" for the universe is not (IMHO) a problem from a designed universe + free will, because the laws that make "free will" need to be stable to make sense and work!
    - cortesoft 13y ago
      I don't follow your logic... if the universe is deterministic, then I can't have free will; my behavior is 'determined' by the current state of the universe. I can't change that through any act of will, therefore I do not have free will. If I have free will, then the universe is necessarily not deterministic, since I could choose between (at least) 2 actions that would lead to different future states of the universe.
      - mamcx 13y ago
        Why you link your thinking with the sub-atoms? Why do you think that if the sub-atoms are deterministic your thinking can't decide?
        cortesoft 13y ago
        Because all of my thoughts are represented someway in the physical world. My thoughts are just neurons interacting. Now, if you are suggesting that my thoughts are somehow outside of the physical world... well, it still wouldn't work with a deterministic world. If the universe is 'deterministic', that means that given the current state of the universe, there is only a single path the universe can progress down. Every future state of the world is 'determined' by the current state. For example, the location of the water bottle on my desk could be 'determined' if we had perfect knowledge of the state of the universe. However, if I had free will, I could choose to move that water bottle to somewhere else. The universe is no longer deterministic.
        mamcx 13y ago
        I still don't see why hard link both. In a truly random universe, the location of the bottle is a nonsense answer (or more exactly: is random). You can ask that. The bootle could, suddenly, not be there, so you can't decide where move the bootle. The freedom of move the bottle is DEPENDENT of have a location for it, and have a certainty that a)Move exist, and the laws of it can be trusted b) Will move to the location you want to. So I think that a chaotic universe is more problematic for this problem that a ordered one. Also, I think is possible to have "static" laws but "dynamic" actions, specially because a each step, could exist a limited set of possible outcomes (ie: You can't move to anywhere in the universe the bootle) but the summation of each step provide a path where you are not totally tied, ie, each step is bounded, but the final outcome is random (or random enough) to still make free will the reality.
      - Houshalter 13y ago
        If the universe is deterministic than you can change the future obviously, since the future state of the universe depends on the actions you take in the present. If the universe is random then the future state doesn't depend on the current state. Existence is meaningless chaos and you have no control over anything, even your own actions. Your thoughts would be nothing more than meaningless dice rolls that have no correlation with reality, or anything.
  - cortesoft 13y ago
    My point wasn't that the world COULDN'T be deterministic BECAUSE I have free will... I was saying that the world NOT being deterministic fits better into my own perception of how the world works, since it appears to me that I have free will. As far as I know you are correct; there is no way to distinguish if I actually have free will or not.
    - PavlovsCat 13y ago
      Not trying to tell you what you should think about your own free will, but here's what I think about mine: What I consider as me, my consciousness, is getting fooled in so many ways to think it made decisions it pretty much just observered... that particles making up my grey matter can go this way or that way, randomly, without "me" actually taking any conscious influence on them, doesn't really make a difference to me. It's like the difference between a truly random random number generator, and one that just spits out a pre-determined list; "I" don't get to pick the numbers either way. When I was younger, I tried to "see where my thoughts come from", and it always seems like they come around some corner, out of some blind spot. I never meditated but I, but I always liked the phrase "watching thoughts arise", because that's how it seems, they come into view of my inner eye so to speak, but the inner eye does not make them, not originally. I can add 2+2, but I can't make me get the idea to add 2+2. Well, actually, I can make myself get the idea to add 2+2, but I can't make myself get the idea to make myself get the idea to add 2+2... and so on. Is it possible to talk about these things without it sounding like esoteric gibberish? Anyway, I kinda don't think we have free will, not to the degree we like to believe, anyway - but I can't help treating myself and others as if we did. I think life would seem kind of pointless otherwise, certainly anything beyond bacteria and plants, so it might be a necessary illusion for us "higher" life forms.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    Why does it matter? Your actions are either determined by random dice rolls or cause and effect.
- thibauts 13y ago
  Is the problem "free will", or "I" ?
  - cortesoft 13y ago
    I am not sure what you mean by 'problem'.

I think it's fair to say that's a reasonable coping mechanism for staying sane. QM notoriously has no everyday analog, whereas determinism holds up reasonably well in daily life!

cortesoft 13y ago

I feel the opposite... determinism does NOT fit with my day to day observance, because my perception is that I have free will. If I accept determinism, I also have to accept that I actually don't have free will, and that seems contrary to my perception of myself.

beloch 13y ago
So, what if some omnipotent trickster/adversary/god designed a deterministic universe specifically to fool you into thinking you have free will? I tend to believe in free will myself and I hate the above argument because I don't know of any way to refute it. As far as I know, the question of free-will vs determinism is unanswered. Even tests of randomness using Bell inequalities requires an assumption of free choice. It's... disquieting.
- mamcx 13y ago
  Following that line, a deterministic universe is a better vehicle for free will that a truly random one. Why? Because a truly random one could self-kill, become one where will not exist anymore (of any kind), self-nullify itself, randomly chaos to laws and everything else. Have a stable "layer" for the universe is not (IMHO) a problem from a designed universe + free will, because the laws that make "free will" need to be stable to make sense and work!
  - cortesoft 13y ago
    I don't follow your logic... if the universe is deterministic, then I can't have free will; my behavior is 'determined' by the current state of the universe. I can't change that through any act of will, therefore I do not have free will. If I have free will, then the universe is necessarily not deterministic, since I could choose between (at least) 2 actions that would lead to different future states of the universe.
    - mamcx 13y ago
      Why you link your thinking with the sub-atoms? Why do you think that if the sub-atoms are deterministic your thinking can't decide?
      - cortesoft 13y ago
        Because all of my thoughts are represented someway in the physical world. My thoughts are just neurons interacting. Now, if you are suggesting that my thoughts are somehow outside of the physical world... well, it still wouldn't work with a deterministic world. If the universe is 'deterministic', that means that given the current state of the universe, there is only a single path the universe can progress down. Every future state of the world is 'determined' by the current state. For example, the location of the water bottle on my desk could be 'determined' if we had perfect knowledge of the state of the universe. However, if I had free will, I could choose to move that water bottle to somewhere else. The universe is no longer deterministic.
        mamcx 13y ago
        I still don't see why hard link both. In a truly random universe, the location of the bottle is a nonsense answer (or more exactly: is random). You can ask that. The bootle could, suddenly, not be there, so you can't decide where move the bootle. The freedom of move the bottle is DEPENDENT of have a location for it, and have a certainty that a)Move exist, and the laws of it can be trusted b) Will move to the location you want to. So I think that a chaotic universe is more problematic for this problem that a ordered one. Also, I think is possible to have "static" laws but "dynamic" actions, specially because a each step, could exist a limited set of possible outcomes (ie: You can't move to anywhere in the universe the bootle) but the summation of each step provide a path where you are not totally tied, ie, each step is bounded, but the final outcome is random (or random enough) to still make free will the reality.
    - Houshalter 13y ago
      If the universe is deterministic than you can change the future obviously, since the future state of the universe depends on the actions you take in the present. If the universe is random then the future state doesn't depend on the current state. Existence is meaningless chaos and you have no control over anything, even your own actions. Your thoughts would be nothing more than meaningless dice rolls that have no correlation with reality, or anything.
- cortesoft 13y ago
  My point wasn't that the world COULDN'T be deterministic BECAUSE I have free will... I was saying that the world NOT being deterministic fits better into my own perception of how the world works, since it appears to me that I have free will. As far as I know you are correct; there is no way to distinguish if I actually have free will or not.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    Not trying to tell you what you should think about your own free will, but here's what I think about mine: What I consider as me, my consciousness, is getting fooled in so many ways to think it made decisions it pretty much just observered... that particles making up my grey matter can go this way or that way, randomly, without "me" actually taking any conscious influence on them, doesn't really make a difference to me. It's like the difference between a truly random random number generator, and one that just spits out a pre-determined list; "I" don't get to pick the numbers either way. When I was younger, I tried to "see where my thoughts come from", and it always seems like they come around some corner, out of some blind spot. I never meditated but I, but I always liked the phrase "watching thoughts arise", because that's how it seems, they come into view of my inner eye so to speak, but the inner eye does not make them, not originally. I can add 2+2, but I can't make me get the idea to add 2+2. Well, actually, I can make myself get the idea to add 2+2, but I can't make myself get the idea to make myself get the idea to add 2+2... and so on. Is it possible to talk about these things without it sounding like esoteric gibberish? Anyway, I kinda don't think we have free will, not to the degree we like to believe, anyway - but I can't help treating myself and others as if we did. I think life would seem kind of pointless otherwise, certainly anything beyond bacteria and plants, so it might be a necessary illusion for us "higher" life forms.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  Why does it matter? Your actions are either determined by random dice rolls or cause and effect.
thibauts 13y ago
Is the problem "free will", or "I" ?
- cortesoft 13y ago
  I am not sure what you mean by 'problem'.