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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
    #2029405 -

When you look at a rendering of a fractal (a picture of which, you can see on some sheets of LSD), you see an ordered and intricate pattern. While it may seem random and chaotic, it also follows strict rules, and can be perfectly caluclated. Much like life on earth, while evolution occurred through natural selection, it is also following a natural, fractal like pattern.

"They are based upon the smooth unbroken flow of life, which is undefinable, or perhaps definable as "pure energy in constant motion". "

Okay, is the smooth "unbroken flow of life" random, or is it perfectly ordered?


--------------------
"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
    #2029454 -

i don't believe in randomness. every condition is caused by the conditions before it. the way by which condition A becomes condition B follows certain rules.

condition A will result in condition B. one present condition, one future condition. there is no way that condition A can result in either condition B, or in C, or in D. this would be true randomness.

a specific preceding condition will always result in only one specific resulting condition.

you will not get different output from the same input.

this is what order means.

even if this were not true... and there was some sort of magical way in which randomness were injected into the equation, that still would not score any points for free will.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
    #2029462 -

Phluck said:
No it is not, imagination is the combination of chemicals and energy in a way that hadn't existed before. Nothing new has really been created.


This is opinion, and science is the exact opposite of opinion. There's no way in hell science will ever be able to reduce every one of our thoughts to an interaction of chemicals. There is also no obvious reason why reflecting on your day at work would be caused by a chain of chemical reactions.


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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
    #2029484 -

"This is opinion, and science is the exact opposite of opinion."

It's a theory, which is right in the spirit of science.

"There's no way in hell science will ever be able to reduce every one of our thoughts to an interaction of chemicals."

Well, not unless we had some kind of super-computer.

"There is also no obvious reason why reflecting on your day at work would be caused by a chain of chemical reactions."

Got a better idea? Magic?


--------------------
"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
    #2029495 -

"even if this were not true... and there was some sort of magical way in which randomness were injected into the equation, that still would not score any points for free will. "

:thumbup: :thumbup:

The only possibilities that have been brought up at all are total order, or randomness. Neither of these is free will.

When someone has disagreed with either of those, they say that the third possibility is "free will". When asked to define it, they mention things like "god", or "nature's flow of energy", but they fail to explain what they mean by these things.


--------------------
"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
    #2029546 -

Quote:
Phluck said:
It's a theory, which is right in the spirit of science.




True, but accepting it as the truth and saying another person is wrong because of the unproven speculation you choose to believe, is far from scientific.

Quote:
Phluck said:
"There is also no obvious reason why reflecting on your day at work would be caused by a chain of chemical reactions."
Got a better idea? Magic?



So simple it hurts me to say this: the acceptance of the mind as a separate entity. The only thing that matters here is THAT we think, and WHAT we think, not WHY we think. When it comes down to WHY we think, every stance is theory that can never be proven.

(Edited for elaboration)


--------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
    #2029594 -

There's no way in hell science will ever be able to reduce every one of our thoughts to an interaction of chemicals. There is also no obvious reason why reflecting on your day at work would be caused by a chain of chemical reactions.

what do you think consciousness is caused by?

i believe it to be the result of chemical and electrical events inside of my skull.

this is an notion quite consistant with empirical observation.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
    #2029596 -

"The only thing that matters here is THAT we think, and WHAT we think, not WHY we think."

Actually, I'm pretty sure this whole debate is about HOW we think.

"When it comes down to WHY we think, every stance is theory that can never be proven."

How do you know it can never be proven? That is without a doubt, an opinion that is being stated as fact.


--------------------
"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
    #2029597 -

maybe there exists the polar extremes. Perfect in order and chaos, and disorder in order and chaos. So you have like a mirror image of each opposite.... You are in the middle path, the path of acceptance, the path that is neither a path of free will, or a path of dis order, but a path of harmony. The universe and all things as they are, i guess this is in my opinion, seem to flow with relative ease.. as in it is not up to us to control them. We do have control over some things... and others we do not. Sometimes we have a choice on some matters... sometimes we do not. Is perfection an illusion or is it in the eye of the beholder? What is truely perfect... what is truely chaotic... it seems that we cant find the answer to that... we just assume that those are opposites which we cant grasp. So could you say that if you mix the two together you get a little bit of an idea of where we are at? How would you know if you didnt have free will or not... if you didnt have the choice to understand... but then again we still think that we can... but it seems that our options are very limited to what we know. This may be a question we will never know, only because of the innumerable ammount of possibilities. Maybe then your answer comes to having faith in what you believe. I dont know :rolleyes: .  :laugh:


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What?

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
    #2029602 -

what it really boils down to is that if consciousness is borne of the material events inside your head, there can be no such thing as free will.

if free will exists, than consciousness must arise from something supernatural, unbound by the laws that govern the material universe.

personally, i am not impressed by superstition and mythology...

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
    #2029605 -

"So simple it hurts me to say this: the acceptance of the mind as a separate entity. "

Okay, let's assume the mind is a separate entity.

Is that entity random, or does it follow an intricate system? If neither of these, what then?


--------------------
"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
    #2029623 -

Phluck said:
"When it comes down to WHY we think, every stance is theory that can never be proven."

How do you know it can never be proven? That is without a doubt, an opinion that is being stated as fact.


Because pulling the 'why' card implies a purpose in the subject. Any question related to purpose can only be answered subjectively. Science doesn't ask the 'why' question, it asks the 'how' question. It describes the trajectory of the disc, not why people throw discs anyway. It's a tool for conquering the natural world and bending it to what we want to do, not a tool for determining the goal in the viewed.


--------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
    #2029631 -

you are missing the point.

the fact is that the material world is ordered, its future conditions and events pre-determined by existing ones.

you cannot get a different output from the same input.

if consciousness arises solely from events taking place in the material world, then your thoughts and actions, however random they may seem, are as pre-determined as the movement of the stars.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
    #2029632 -

mushmaster said:
There's no way in hell science will ever be able to reduce every one of our thoughts to an interaction of chemicals. There is also no obvious reason why reflecting on your day at work would be caused by a chain of chemical reactions.

(snip)

this is an notion quite consistant with empirical observation.


In case you haven't noticed, Descartes never solved the bridge problem. The bridge between 'you' and 'the world' never got defined, the trustworthiness of the senses just became an axioma.


--------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
    #2029635 -

where do you think consciousness comes from?

is it the result of events in the physical world? is it the result of the chemical and electrical signals in your brain?

or does it come... from elsewhere?

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
    #2029645 -

maybe this is reducing the situation to low. How do we know that only our brain opposed to the soul are the soul contributions to conciousness. For instance some think that there is mind body and spirit. Here we seem to put the mind with our body, and the spirit being on the opposing side. What if our brain develops as a sort of reciever of the information between our soul which is trasmitter. SO therefore there is a nexus which is the mind, or conciousness. The culmination between what a part of us takes in, and a part which we give out. Which thus gives a solid thought. Between the body and spirit, which we call the mind, or conciousness.



Its hard to see the whole thing only looking at two angles... we are indeed a three dimensional universe... not a two dimensional polarized one.

Just because science cant prove it, doesnt mean that its not there. I think science shares a bond in understanding. But i do not think of it as the soul source for knowledge. There are too many things to ignore, and to label and put them in binary categories. If you take a look in front of you, life is not so. Hold a rock in your hand, and feel it.

"the holy trinity"


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What?

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
    #2029649 -

i believe that consciouness arises entirely from the chemical and electrical events in our brains.

from this, i must conclude that free will is only as illusion.

...unless i've missed some critical aspect about consciouness, which is a possibilty i won't yet eliminate... free will certainly does feel quite real.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
    #2029661 -

I think that's just it. Free will is a feeling, not something that actually occurs.


--------------------
"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
    #2029672 -

mushmaster said:
you are missing the point.

the fact is that the material world is ordered, its future conditions and events pre-determined by existing ones.

you cannot get a different output from the same input.


You bar the mind itself as a form of input. One processes everything before one makes a decision. This is an extra factor in the equation. Choices don't come directly from impulses, impulses are processed first, and then the choice follows.
This is a change that occured in behaviorism since its birth, whereas it used to be reaction as a direct consequence to the stimulus, it is now Stimulus - Subject - Reaction.
Different output can come from the same input, as the input consists of different factors, which are weighed seperately by the individual.


--------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
    #2029673 -

"Science doesn't ask the 'why' question, it asks the 'how' question. It describes the trajectory of the disc, not why people throw discs anyway. It's a tool for conquering the natural world and bending it to what we want to do, not a tool for determining the goal in the viewed."

Science is not limited to asking certain questions. Science most certainly asks why we would choose to throw the disk, just because it doesn't have a solid answer, doesn't mean there isn't one.


--------------------
"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
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