Two important reasons why belief in absolute free will is immoral

[Qfwfq]

Determinism and free will?

 

[paigetheoracle]

I have no illusion that I am experiencing free will.

 

You can experience something, and yet fail to comprehend what it is that you are experiencing.

 

No determinist ever meant to contradict any part of, for example, the idea that a person felt like getting a taco, and so they "chose" to go get a taco.

 

The whole point a determinist is trying to bring to light is that you don't control what you feel and these feelings are what cause your choices.

 

For most free will advocates this simple statement is enough to cause them to realize their mistake and at least move to believing in partial free will instead.

 

The ironic thing is if there is anything similar to free will it would be self awareness or the degree to which you can interact with your own causal chain, and refusal to consider any ideas that do not seem immediately intuitive to you is about as low on this scale as you can go...

 

 

 

Being driven by one deterministic motivator to overcome another deterministic motivator is not free will.

 

I work out all the time. I consider opposing ideas even when they might offend me. But I do these things for deterministic reasons.

 

 

In short, to everyone here, the creation of specious convenience arguments to justify everything good that the rationalizer does as being under their own control, and everything bad that other people did as being under those other's control is exactly what I am showing is immoral.

 

You most often see people with the biggest silver spoons stuck in their mouth rambling on about free will because of the time their daddy made them mow the lawn before getting their new sports car...

 

and the person whose high school peers all got shot, put in jail, or drugged into oblivion talking about circumstances.

 

What do the people who come from the worst circumstances and accomplish good things say? That they are grateful for all the good influences in their life...

 

So what you're saying is that free will is what you do with what you have and determinism is what you have? This is similar to what my partners old mentor, Ron Reick, talked about "You're not responsible for your feelings but you are for what you do with them".

 

The moral issue is that the deterministic world is the raw material of existence and that free will is humanity and how it handles the stuff of reality: Truth and lies or intellect versus emotion (expression or suppression).

[CraigD]

The fact that these are two mutually exclusive states with identical features makes this a non-issue, and a non-sensical question. Decide which one makes you happy, and that'll be the universe you'll live in. I'll pick the other one. My universe will look identical to yours, but I'll have better nights sleeping, not worrying over these irrelevant quasi-philosophical nonsense.

But … these go to eleven.

 

I’m impressed that most free will vs. determinism debates, including the one in this thread, resemble the communication impasse portrayed in the 1984 comedy ”This Is Spinal Tap”

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...

Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?

Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.

Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?

Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?

Marty DiBergi: I don't know.

Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?

Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.

Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.

Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?

Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.

[paigetheoracle]

But … these go to eleven.

 

I’m impressed that most free will vs. determinism debates, including the one in this thread, resemble the communication impasse portrayed in the 1984 comedy ”This Is Spinal Tap”

 

You're right - it is a communication impasse and isn't really about free will versus determinism but how you define/think of something (You don't understand what I'm saying/You're not listening - in fact that is two sided but only one believed*).

 

 

* Make sense of that if you can - at least 'I' know what I mean by it!

[Kriminal99]

You're right - it is a communication impasse and isn't really about free will versus determinism but how you define/think of something (You don't understand what I'm saying/You're not listening - in fact that is two sided but only one believed*).

 

 

* Make sense of that if you can - at least 'I' know what I mean by it!

 

When it comes to this topic there is something important to mention.

 

Whenever I debate with someone (and I do it often) for the first time I give them the benefit of the doubt. I listen carefully to what they say and respond directly to their arguments.

 

In most cases when I bring up something they did not realize about the subject, they usually get quiet after certain counterarguments that are made regarding things that they said, or when I make strong arguments. Depending on how experienced (at debate) they are, they either have immediate questions regarding my argument, or the discussion is postponed until they have more time to think about it and see how the new ideas interact with what they already know, or both.

 

When the other person brings up something I didn't realize about the subject, I do the same thing ie asking questions about how that idea would fit in with other things I know and also think about it over time in case any more ideas pop into my head.

 

In these cases understanding is increased.

 

However certain people are different, and the thing about these people is that it only takes one of them to make the debate look like a fight in which both parties might be at fault. IE if a third party comes they usually say something like "Y'all need to quit arguing neither one of you is ever going to listen to what the other person is saying."

 

The thing is, when it is the case that one person IS listening to the other person's arguments, but the other person is not listening or responding to the first person's arguments, it still looks the same!!

 

Especially if you are not paying careful attention to what is being said. There are signs you can look for that might tell you that one person is the cause.

 

In person:

 

One person is always the first to yell over their opponent. One person always uses recognizably specious arguments because they take a second to break down during which they look as though they have made a significant point. (For example, if you disagree with a group: "Everyone else is marching out of order right son?) One person always dodges the arguments that the other person makes.

 

On the internet:

 

One person constantly dodges the other person's arguments and responds with their own, but insists on having the last post anyways. This person constantly tries to escalate the discussion into a fight relying on their established rapport with moderators to gain a favorable interpretation of poorly designed rules once a fight breaks out. Or the person is a moderator who constantly makes threats in response to arguments, or attempts to antagonize the person in do doing something they feel they can come up with a convaluted way of interpreting as "breaking the rules". Some of them start out debating normally, but then start behaving in this manner when they started out thinking they had equal knowledge on the subject but end up always doing the pausing...

 

In short, THEY AVOID THE OTHER PERSON'S ARGUMENTS. It only takes one of them to bomb a discussion.

 

One person I know like this in person does not believe in objective reality and that a argument is a competition in which each side tries to "win". He believes that an argument that sounds good can be made regarding everything and none of them are superior to the others. Others are just old and just care more about not looking like there was something they didn't know than the ideal goal of "increasing overall understanding". Others feel that they are in some kind of position of authority or power and that their power means that they are right or supposed to be right or something along those lines. They rationalize refusing to consider opposing ideas from people that they do not feel are on "their level" whatever that means in their head, even if the opponents argument appears clear to them for a second. Others start to think that I must be using some kind of trick if I have so many more arguments than they do that cause my opponent to pause...

 

In short, THEY VALUE OTHER THINGS THAN DISCOVERY OF TRUTH. Which IMO defeats the purpose of ever debating anything.

 

I have a long history with Pyrotex and ugahaib regarding this. They ALWAYS do these things. Other moderators at least respond to the arguments to some degree, even if they still threaten me in response to them...

[Kriminal99]

 

"these feelings are what cause your choices" ==> Incorrect! Even though this is exactly what happens most of the time for most people. There are other ways to create choices that trump feelings. The most common one is "commitment". This is how mature, intellectually honest people overcome their feelings. They choose to act in accordance with a prior commitment rather than act out their feelings.

 

 

And what is commitment?

 

A reason?

 

Another feeling about what you should do?

 

I never said WHICH feeling you behave according to.

 

I also never said that only intense feelings are feelings. Intuition and the subtle emotions that guide us through reason and life in general (you know, the one that culminates in that "ah HA! feeling" but then you never feel it subside completely) count too, and can cause us to act in contradiction to stronger feelings.

 

All I said is that your behavior, even one choice over another choice, can always be explained with reasons. And that also, every choice is driven by a feeling of some kind. Do you know what happens when you have NO feelings whatsoever at a given moment, not even those small intuition driving ones? You go into a coma... Because nothing is motivating your actions...

 

Or perhaps you have some magical thing that commitment is, that when you understand what this thing is, you see how it justifies free will instead of determinism? Well? I am waiting?

 

I say magical, because there isn't a single darn thing in existence so far that could possibly give insight into what it might be. Why? BECAUSE IT DOESN'T EXIST.

 

I say magical because anything that is "a reason" is automatically deterministic. A justification of free will is right up there with the self explaining truth that is supposed to end the infinite regresses of "why are we here", "what caused X", or "why" anything for that matter.

 

The fact that these are two mutually exclusive states with identical features makes this a non-issue, and a non-sensical question. Decide which one makes you happy, and that'll be the universe you'll live in. I'll pick the other one. My universe will look identical to yours, but I'll have better nights sleeping, not worrying over these irrelevant quasi-philosophical nonsense.

 

I disagree, there is a big difference. Those questions deemed are nonsensical because of the non minimalist definitions of the involved terms.

 

Specifically, the tenants of minimalism they violate is that the terms are derived from putting two words together randomly and fabricating an entity, rather than being functions of things that have been perceived.

 

I can put lots of words together in such a fashion, some of which are 1) obviously nonsense, 2) some are nonsense only when you think about it for a second, and 3) some take some investigation to determine they are non sense.

 

1) Tall short person

2) A dozen donuts which only has enough donuts in it to give one to each of 5 people

3) A concept of infinity that has a greater absolute value than another infinity. (2*inf > inf)

 

Determinism is not one of these concepts. It is recognition of the 100% frequency with which there is a cause for things that happen... including the causes for other things...

 

So what you're saying is that free will is what you do with what you have and determinism is what you have? This is similar to what my partners old mentor, Ron Reick, talked about "You're not responsible for your feelings but you are for what you do with them".

 

The moral issue is that the deterministic world is the raw material of existence and that free will is humanity and how it handles the stuff of reality: Truth and lies or intellect versus emotion (expression or suppression).

 

If you use the compatibilist definition of free will, then yes. The way I see it the mind is like this.

 

There is a mechanical part which reasons purely on induction and uses emotions to communicate those results to your conscious mind.

 

Your conscious mind basically has the purpose of dealing with the limits of induction by determining which category of past experience an unexpected result best relates to...

 

Emotions are what drive this part of the mind to do so. You experience a situation that goes against your past experience, and then your subconsious appeals to to your conscious mind with a strong emotion. The emotion drives you to re-categorize the current situation such that it is now coherent with your network of understanding.

 

When you make a decision that might seem "against your emotions" like Pyrotex claims, all that is really happening is that a very strong belief is driving you to basically tell your mechanical subconsious that "No, this is exactly what I thought would happen" IE there are two different explanations for the situation, one appears to be winning the battle, but you know one of them will win the war. Your subconsious mind gives priority to what is happening right now and puts pressure on your conscious accordingly, and your conscious mind is tasked with creating a long term system of behavior.

 

And when this happens repeatedly regarding the same subject your subconsious no longer sees it as an immediate threat. Especially when your long term understanding allows you to recognize cues in the current situation that show that the long term understanding is correct even if it superficially appears to contradict it.

 

Like Socrates has a strong understanding of reason, so he debates the ideas of a well known general. When everyone gets mad at him the first time, he experiences emotions that you might typically expect to prevent someone from doing this. But on the other hand he believes strongly that he is still right, and looks for signs that he is. Eventually he no longer experiences emotions in that situation.

 

An important idea is that your subconsious mind doesn't work towards truth directly, but rather towards certain goals that are more related to other people. (Like making people smile or things like that) But truth is a means to that end, and some people end up with a subconscious goal system that holds truth above all else. Namely, the people who are most experienced in adversity and have been shown that this is necessary.

 

This is all introspection combined with logic mind you, but that is the best that can be done regarding this subject at least for the time being.

[Kriminal99]

ack

[Pyrotex]

And what is commitment? A reason?

Another feeling about what you should do?

I never said WHICH feeling you behave according to.....

Okay, let's take a different tack.

First, I wish to admit that I don't read your posts very thoroughly. Most of them, I don't even read to the end. For example, the post quoted above--that's all I read. Equating commitment with just "feelings" is so off base, so egregiously naive, that I didn't read any further.

 

Having said that, let me attempt to give an overview from a different view. Whether or not your actions and thoughts are "determined" (in any sense you want to define it) -- is itself indeterminate. You CANNOT prove it so, and neither can anyone prove you wrong.

 

As a wise man once said, "It is obvious that the Truth is "WHAT'S SO"; what is not so obvious is that the Truth is also "SO WHAT?".

 

Yes, I know it's counter-intuitive, but bear with me, just this once.

 

What we are discussing in this thread ("determinism" vs. "free will") is irrelevant in the arena of true vs. false. :) If you are looking for whether it is TRUE that you do or do not have "free will", then you are looking in the wrong place. Arguing for or against that proposition is entirely pointless, as most readers of this thread have already concluded.

 

So... is there any point to be had? :eek: Yes, there is. We can create a Distinction here, that actually gives you (or anyone) a handle on this subject -- a handle that you (or anyone) can use to grasp the subject firmly and wield it in a useful, productive manner.

 

I would like to give you the Distinction: STAND. (As in, to take a stand for something.) What you have done is to take a STAND for the proposition that you have no "free will". The question is NOT whether or not your stand is true. The question IS:

 

What possibilities does that open up for you?

 

Personally, my STAND that I have "free will" opens up a huge realm of possibilities for me that would not otherwise be available. I take stands NOT because I think they're true -- but because they open up possibilities -- they make possible a future that wasn't going to just happen.

 

So. :shrug: Does YOUR stand open up any possibilities for you? Or does it shut them down? These are the only questions (in this context) that are truly worth asking. If your stand actually shuts down the possibility of an incredible, powerful life for yourself, then what the hell does it matter if it is in some philosophical or physical way, "TRUE". The best it can offer you is a really good excuse for failure and self-pity.

 

I can guarantee you that my childhood was orders of magnitude worse than yours, and the odds against me were astronomically bigger. I took a STAND that I could change all that by living as if I had "free will" -- that the events of my past would NOT determine my future. And then, by holding myself fully responsible for the results, good or bad.

 

Your STAND may be "WHAT'S SO".

 

But it is also, "SO WHAT?".

 

If it doesn't give you any power over the buttons and dials of your life, then what the hell good is it? :shrug: :( :shrug: :( :shrug:

[CraigD]

There is no such thing as a failing of determinism. There are only lack of understandings of determinism …

If it doesn't give you any power over the buttons and dials of your life, then what the hell good is it?

I find myself agreeing both with the argument that to begin to truly rationally understand reality, one must reject the existence of free will, considering it a semantic null, as well as the argument that to maintain the necessary mental wellbeing to begin to truly rationally understand reality, one must accept that free will exists, and that one is exercising it. This is a classic “good myth” position, which means I must be a moral and epistemological pragmatist. :)

[Pyrotex]

...This is a classic “good myth” position, which means I must be a moral and epistemological pragmatist.

Great! So, how's that working for you?? :)

 

Dreamin' of tomorrow, where there'll be no sorrow... :)

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Two important reasons why belief in absolute free will is immoral -

Kriminal99

 

I've yet reason one or two!!!! wus up with dat?!?

 

Much ado about nothing really. NEARLY EVERYONE KNOWS (apparently there are a few that don't) that freewill

is real....Your arguments are further proof!

 

Freewill: the ability to make your own choices based on whaterer the #3!! you want to base them on! (life experiences, rational thought, irational thought, emotions, or nothing at all "just for the #3!! of it"< my personal favorites .) ...It's one of the very few things that science and christianity actually agree upon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!( possibly the only thing!)

 

I agree with 99.9% of average rational persons....determinism is a copout...."It's not my fault my whatever made me do it... Life has been cruel to me so I harm others"...sorry bub it's a huge steaming crock of $#!+!!!

 

Determinism implies a strict cause effect universe...unchangeable in it's path...the same cause does not always yield the same (sometimes similar but never identical) effect any where in existance...and worse this kind of bs leads to winers crying that fate is against them and much much much worse than that people that credit fate instead of their hard work and abilities for their success (which is truly immoral!!!!!!)..

 

(The following question is aimed specificaly at the originator of this thread)

Besides WTH do any of your posts have to do with the morality of believing one way or the other?!? (besides the title)

 

Example: A teenager works for a year at a low paying job to save up money for a car or something else they may want. When the teen has saved up 500 dollars the teen's parent comes in the room and takes all of the money to alleviate that month's expenses.

 

The teenager's subconsious mind reasons that putting too much effort into achieving future goals may or even probably will result in disappointment and lost effort. If the teen will probably attempt to quit the job and just live off the parents. Similar future behavior may ensue, especially if the parent makes a habit of such behavior.

And now let's analise this.

Dad rips off teen. Teen makes concious decision to be a freeloader. The teen knows that his dad is a thief and now knows that if he doesn't want to get ripped off again he must be more careful with his money....BUT chooses to be a freeloader.

Still freewill...If something is determined (< odd that word is extremely similar to determinism!) there is no choice.

[REASON]

You might think, based on my moniker, that I would fall in line with Krim and follow a Determinist philosophy. Yet I have argued in favor of a Liberalist, or "free will" exists, position on other threads. Generally speaking, I maintain that belief. But I also believe Krim has done a fairly good job of explaining the Determinist's point of view.

 

The only thing that I keep getting hung up on is this:

 

While determinism does a good job of explaining the chain of events, or "reasons" that have determined the course of events in one's life from birth until now, it cannot define, with absolute certainty, one's future course of actions. And while one's previous experience, wisdom, and knowledge, gained within their previous chain of events, is likely to be influential in their feelings and future decisions, it is impossible to define how they will be used in any given situation among varying individuals to effect future decisions.

 

With this in mind, I have gravitated more toward the Compatibilist approach, where I believe that liberalism and determinism are cohesive mental processes, and that our free will to choose a future course of action is guided by our determined past. I experienced an example of this while driving down the highway with my children. As I was crossing a bridge, I was aware that with the simple turn of the wheel, I could send all of us careening off the bridge to our deaths below.

 

No matter how nonsensical, the choice to act in that mannor existed. My knowledge, experience, and wisdom, guided me away from making such a decision. But it did not eliminate the option completely. This is evident by the fact that there are many instances where people have made such nonsensical decisions, no matter what their reasoning. This is why advocates of free will believe that people are responsible for their actions, in spite of their determined past.

 

While I understand Krim's reasoning regarding the immoral application of punishment from a Liberalist point of view, I estimate that it will be virtually impossible to eliminate feelings of vengence from the application of punishment, particularly with regard to those who choose to perpetrate heinous crimes, no matter what determined their choice to do so.

 

Is vengence immoral? Maybe. But I can promise that I will experience feelings of vengence if someone were to rape and murder my daughter. Remember, I can't control my feelings, so in this instance, I would not be able to control my immoral feelings. But I can choose not to act on them.

 

Now Krim will suggest that choosing not to act has a reason; maybe to avoid punishment; maybe because I didn't want to reduce myself to the level of the murderer. But among the various possibilities, including exacting revenge on the SOB, I have the capability of choosing my course of action, which is the "free will" element of my determined existance.

[Pyrotex]

Some good thoughts there, DD. Rat own.

You can argue for determinism as an excuse for your failure and misery, or

You can choose to be responsible for your own success and happiness.

And even if you don't "make it" all the way, at least you know you tried your best.

 

But there's another grand slam attack on Krim's "poor me" determinism that I want to make, and this goes to the core of Krim's argument. I present this NOT to persuade Krim (he's cast in his own concrete) but to address any of the other reader's who are tempted to think that there is some element of truth in Krim's thesis, which I paraphrase here:

 

There is a "cause" for everything you do, therefore, no "free will". The causes have causes and THOSE causes have causes, all the way back. We are what we are and never had a "free will" choice. Close enuf for guvmint work.

 

LISTEN UP, now. This is gonna be rocket science. It's the logic of General Semantics, created by Alfred Korzybski. Take a look at my sig--"The map is not the territory". According to General Semantics, we have NO access to the real world; everything you "see", "smell", "think", understand", all takes place in your mental model of the world--the Map.

 

We live in two worlds, a real world of energy, mass, objects and motion -- and a semantic world of symbols, meanings, names, concepts. The former is the "Territory". The latter is the "Map", our mental map, our mental MODEL of the Territory.

 

Now, where do you find "CAUSE"?? Which "world" does "cause" have its existence in?? If you dig around in atoms and molecules, will you find a "cause"?? Oh, you'll find forces and collisions and temperature and such. But "cause" is a concept. It's not an elementary "thing" like a force or an atom.

 

"Cause" is a complex semantic entity that exists only in our languaging--only in the "Map". And a damned useful concept it is. It aids our understanding. It enables us to PREDICT many aspects of our physical universe. And explain even more.

 

BUT--it has its existence ONLY in our semantic modeling of the universe. There are NO "causes" in the atoms and forces and gradients and fields of the universe. You can dig around with electron microscopes all you want and you will never find a naked, pure "cause" crawling around on a dust mote.

 

And so, the statement that everything (every action we take) has an infinite stream of "causes" behind it that forbid free will -- is patently false. That stream may exist to some extent, but it only goes back as far as the boundary between the Map and Territory. Your "causes" are literally "in your head" and you chose them.

 

Let's take a closer look at the Territory, the Real World "out there". There's a lot we know about it. We use semantic inventions like "cause" and "effect" to help us understand and explain the events and relationships in it. But discoveries in Chaos Theory and Quantum Mechanics and Probability (see the works of Prigogine http://www.amazon.com/End-Certainty-Ilya-Prigogine/dp/0684837056/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-2360539-7450237?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194727280&sr=1-1) tell us absolutely that this is NOT a clockwork universe http://www.amazon.com/Future-Given-Ilya-Prigogine/dp/9812385088/ref=sr_1_4/103-2360539-7450237?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194727492&sr=1-4. There are many aspects of our world that are INHERENTLY unpredictable, even though the "equations of motion" are apparently deterministic. In fact, most of the really interesting phenomena of our universe are of this kind http://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Making-Science-James-Gleick/dp/0140092501/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-2360539-7450237?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194727841&sr=1-1, including orbital mechanics and weather forecasting. This subject was detailed in other threads.

 

And so, Krim's thesis boils down to a common misconception, an error of semantic reification (to make or assume an abstract concept is "real"). Just because we speak of "causes" and can imagine an infinite stream of clockwork causes leading up to the present -- it is just our imaginations making plausible pictures. It ain't REAL.

 

All the "causes" in the universe, have their sum existence in the semantic realms of our mental models--the Map. And that Map is full of potent, useful, powerful symbols, such as "causes" and "effects" and "love" and "honor" that certainly help us understand and master our world.

 

But it is a grave error -- a semantic reification error -- to assume that every concept in our Map correlates to a real "thing" out there in the Territory.

 

Krim's thesis is not only useless and self-immolating -- it is also wrong.

[CraigD]

NEARLY EVERYONE KNOWS (apparently there are a few that don't) that freewill is real....

An interesting claim – but not, AFAIK, a correct one, particularly when confining “everyone” to people knowledgeable in the sciences.

 

According to this American Scientist article, 79% of 271 evolutionary scientists polled in 1998 expressed belief that human beings “have free will”, 14% that they do not, and 7% did not answer the question.

Much ado about nothing really

Given the number of books (one that strongly influenced me, and I highly recommend, is the 1981 collection of essays “The Mind’s I”) that have focused in part or whole on the subject of the definition and objective and subjective reality of free will, I don’t think “much ado about nothing” adequately describes it – though, in a certain sense, it describes it very accurately.

 

Though the history of ideas related to free will is huge, old, and intertwined with others such as God, consciousness, and self, I’ll attempt a brief summary of it here:

• In pre-scientific though, prior to a well-defined concept of causes, the concept of free will doen’t exist. Everyone, and often many inanimate objects these days not considered candidates for free will, such as rivers and winds, are assumed to have the quality, even though the quality was yet to be defined.
  
• With the appearance of a well-defined concept of causes (in classical terms, of the efficient cause), a purely mechanistic model of reality is possible. Everything, from the movement of celestial bodies to human thought, can be viewed as a mechanical process, as pre-determined, and, in principle, predictable. Under such a model, free will is a semantic null – a term describing a phenomena that cannot exist.
  
• Some rather semantic additions to classical causation - material, form, telos, etc. – complicate the mechanistic worldview sufficiently to allow for the possibility of free will, though not in a very obvious or logically compelling manner.
  
• In response to the contradiction presented by the common-sense belief that, as DD puts it, “freewill is real”, and the mechanistic worldview, the concept of dualism appears. Under dualism, the material world is purely mechanistic, but influenced by mind, which is presumed to be not so. The existence of free will is equivalent to the nature of mind, a question beyond the domain of science. Dualism is a good match with pre-scientific and religious ideas of the seen and unseen, and remains popular to this day
  
• Progress in science and math, aided by technology such as microscopes, suggest that mind can be explained in terms of matter. Through the early 20th century, it appears reasonable to assume that an orderly program of mathematical research can eventually explain all phenomena in classical mechanical terms, and all knowledge in mathematical terms (eg: Hilbert's program). The popularity of dualism among people familiar with physics and math decreases.
  
• Further progress in science, primarily physics, and math, primarily uncertainty and incompleteness, reveal apparently innate limitations to the measurement and predictive ability of math and physics. Various interpretations of quantum physics suggest a objectively, physically real role of mind – in this context better termed “observerhood” – in physical phenomena. Dualism in science makes a comeback.
  

At present, I believe serious, well-informed opinions about the objective reality (as opposed to its pragmatic “does it make your life better or worse” relevance) of free will (OFW) fall into 2 main schools:

• Hard AI – those who believe that human behavior can be arbitrarily well emulated by digital computers (von Neumann machines) of sufficient processing power and programming. This school denies OFW.
  
• Mysterian – those who believe otherwise. This school may affirm OFW.
  

I discuss these two schools (or camps) in somewhat more detail in the post “Reductionism, empiricism, strong AI and Mysterionism”.

 

For the record, I’m in the hard AI camp, so deny OFW.

This is a classic “good myth” position, which means I must be a moral and epistemological pragmatist. ;)

Great! So, how's that working for you?? :)

Well, thank you. It complements my Hard AI-ism, too. :hyper:

 

In addition to denying OFW, my position also considers consciousness a semantic null (a term appearing, AFAIK, in Minsky and Dennett, but not in any online encyclopedia. I define it briefly in this post).

 

Curiously, the effect of consciously believing I am not conscious, rather than being confusion, seems to be a sense of clarity and emotional ease. My present position – which I’ve only held since about 1998 – appears to have little or no practical impact on my morals and behavior – I still strive to be honest, honorable, kind, rational, and non-violent, and enjoy fun, games, physical pleasure, and the approval and recognition of others.

[Pyrotex]

Well said, CraigD! :) :)

I would give you rep but the system won't let me.

 

Having read what you said and what I did... this brings us to a conclusion:

 

Krim's thesis against free will is immoral, because it is useless, self-destructive and wrong.

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

AFAIK

What the heck does this mean?

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by DFINITLYDISTRUBD

NEARLY EVERYONE KNOWS (apparently there are a few that don't) that freewill is real....

 

Posted by?

An interesting claim – but not, AFAIK, a correct one, particularly when confining “everyone” to people knowledgeable in the sciences.

 

According to this American Scientist article, 79% of 271 evolutionary scientists polled in 1998 expressed belief that human beings “have free will”, 14% that they do not, and 7% did not answer the question.

 

Please note that I'm not claiming that EVERYONE

but NEARLY everyone. Nor was I confining to any specific group(s) but instead all people.

 

Krim's thesis against free will is immoral, because it is useless, self-destructive and wrong. -Pyrotex

I thoroughly agree.

 

Determinism implies a strict cause effect universe...unchangeable in it's path...the same cause does not always yield the same (sometimes similar but never identical) effect any where in existance...and worse this kind of bs leads to winers crying that fate is against them and much much much worse than that people that credit fate instead of their hard work and abilities for their success (which is truly immoral!!!!!!).. -D.D.

[InfiniteNow]

What the heck does this mean?

 

It's an acronym. Look here, find out for yourself:

 

Acronyms, Text Messaging Shorthand, IM, SMS - NetLingo The Internet Dictionary: Online Dictionary of Computer and Internet Terms, Acronyms, Text Messaging, Smileys ;-)