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Shop: Myyco.com Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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A Question For Proponents Of Determinism
    #7919259 -

Where do you suppose the sensation of free will comes from?

In other words, if the universe is a giant billiard table and the particles billiard balls bouncing around deterministically, why would those billiard balls (or more specifically, the atoms I'm composed of) become self-aware?

Billiard tables aren't self-aware as far as I can tell. Ramping up the system's complexity to trillions of billiard balls (as in the trillions of atoms I'm composed of) doesn't seem like it would make it self-aware either.

What do you think?


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: Diploid]
    #7919286 -

I would like to (selfishly) believe it was a purposeful event our becoming self conscious. But it just as well could have been an unimportant (to the Universe) mutation in our brain that can be used for survival purposes.

In other words your question is not answerable but only guessable.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: Icelander]
    #7919345 -

Well, thanks to the insoluble problem of skepticism, not a single philosophical problem on the face of the planet is answerable, merely guessable. :shrug: Should that stop us from engaging in wildly interesting speculation? For elaborating reasons for belief in a particular direction? No. Inductive reasoning, my friend, is making arguments for non-deductive, inconclusive problems. Most problems require inductive reasoning as they cannot be deductively solved.

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: Diploid]
    #7919349 -

Easy. Self-awareness is either an evolutionary adaptation or exaptation.

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #7919480 -

Self-awareness is either an evolutionary adaptation or exaptation.

The deterministic viewpoint posits that I'm essentially a billiard table where the subatomic particles that make up my brain take the place of the balls.

Do you think a large table with sufficiently many balls can become self-aware?


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: Diploid]
    #7919534 -

Thus I posit an unknown force of the universe that drives towards complexity!


--------------------
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That the dear She might take some pleasure of my pain: Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain.

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: Diploid]
    #7919594 -

Diploid said:
Self-awareness is either an evolutionary adaptation or exaptation.

The deterministic viewpoint posits that I'm essentially a billiard table where the subatomic particles that make up my brain take the place of the balls.

Do you think a large table with sufficiently many balls can become self-aware?


Yes.

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #7919730 -

Alright. Two more questions:

Would you say that a sufficiently-complex computer simulation of this self-aware table would also become self aware?

If yes, would it continue to be self-aware if the machine is paused or would it temporarily stop existing as a self-aware entity while it's paused?


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: Diploid]
    #7919769 -

As I see it, self-awareness does not imply nondeterminism. Self-awareness is simply determined in and of itself by those same governing laws that dictate all else.

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: Diploid]
    #7920543 -

Diploid said:
Where do you suppose the sensation of free will comes from?

In other words, if the universe is a giant billiard table and the particles billiard balls bouncing around deterministically, why would those billiard balls (or more specifically, the atoms I'm composed of) become self-aware?

Billiard tables aren't self-aware as far as I can tell. Ramping up the system's complexity to trillions of billiard balls (as in the trillions of atoms I'm composed of) doesn't seem like it would make it self-aware either.

What do you think?


I think that you should read this book that I'm in the middle of, and shift your perspective from Einsteinian "material realism" to quantum mechanical "monistic idealism" in which simultaneity and synchronicity can illustrate that consciousness underlies matter and energy. This book may well answer your posted question.



--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7920740 -

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&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="
&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed>&lt;/object>


--------------------
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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7920832 -

I think that you should read this book

Alright Markos, Amazon is sending me a copy. Thanks for the suggestion! :thumbup:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: Diploid]
    #7921047 -

Self-awareness is a strictly subjective (as in 1st person, not as in opinion) experience. "Cutting-edge" physical laws are formulated in a 3rd person perspective where there's an observer and a world exterior to her/him which do not influences causally his/her actions. The implication of self-awareness and consciousness is thus de facto completely expelled from all physical models of nature we know of by considering said observer as a free agent. This is a paraphrasing of the measurement problem in quantum mechanics; how can one reconcile the perceived unity of measurement, of the exterior world with a complete description of the total system experiment & observer. And no, the many-world interpretation is not the answer, it only push back the question in a better formalism but its interpretation is just as non-compelling as all other proponents.

We do not have the tools to answer this question. The hard problem of consciousness, which I think is deeply linked with the sensation of free will and the measurement problem, will need to be answered before we can say anything meaningful about all this.

As MarkostheGnostic said, the tentacles of determinism are not anymore as deep reaching as they were though to be in the beginning of the 20th century; the undoubtedly quantum behavior of nature, as shown and measured in Aspect-type experiments, dramatically changed the face of natural sciences, although I'm very skeptical of the analysis done in most of these popular books with catchy titles.

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: deimya]
    #7921259 -

It seems to me that we have free will and it's an illusion.

You can make any choice you want but whatever choice you make is the only choice you were ever going to make. Your choices are determined but nobody knows them so it's like free will.

It's like having your cake and eating it too! :lol:

Thanks God!


--------------------
Ishmael
http://www.ishmael.org

Ron Paul 2008!
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: Diploid]
    #7921329 -

Where do you suppose the sensation of free will comes from?

I don't know for certain...but I think it is in some way an evolutionary advantage to "feel" like one has freedom of will. This was probably something that existed in other animals, mammals certainly, for quite some time before we got on the scene.

In other words, if the universe is a giant billiard table and the particles billiard balls bouncing around deterministically, why would those billiard balls (or more specifically, the atoms I'm composed of) become self-aware?

Why not? :smirk:

Billiard tables aren't self-aware as far as I can tell.

No they definitely aren't.

Ramping up the system's complexity to trillions of billiard balls (as in the trillions of atoms I'm composed of) doesn't seem like it would make it self-aware either.

Why not? Aren't you aware of the properties of emergence our universe seems to have? All things behave differently when you have a large number together, as opposed to having one. How different they behave seems to be more or less related to how many you have.


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: NiamhNyx]
    #7921714 -

Should that stop us from engaging in wildly interesting speculation? For elaborating reasons for belief in a particular direction?

Yes!:mad:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: Diploid]
    #7921722 -

Diploid said:
I think that you should read this book

Alright Markos, Amazon is sending me a copy. Thanks for the suggestion! :thumbup:


We all will expect a book report.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: Icelander]
    #7921759 -

Icelander said:
Yes!:mad:


Well, in that case you're welcome to enjoy living in an utterly debilitating stasis of doubt. Since nothing is conclusively provable I suppose we ought to give up any notion about even entertaining interesting theories and simply exist in a state of utter empty-headedness, unaffected by the falseness that motivates all others. :birthday::thumbup:

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: Diploid]
    #7924679 -

Quote:
Alright. Two more questions:

Would you say that a sufficiently-complex computer simulation of this self-aware table would also become self aware?

If yes, would it continue to be self-aware if the machine is paused or would it temporarily stop existing as a self-aware entity while it's paused?


That depends on how this strange thing we label consciousness comes about. The way I see it, there are currently three options. Consciousness is either the product of currently unknown physics, currently unknown biology, or it is supernatural. Once we find out what produces consciousness, then we could probably reverse-engineer it and design computers (or biocomputers) to replicate it.

Unless, of course, it is truly supernatural. In that case, I think we're fucked as far as figuring it out or reproducing it goes.

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Re: A Question For Proponents Of Determinism [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #7924786 -

I beg to differ, consciousness is utterly natural; it's the only thing through which you ever become aware of everything else. It is the first thing through which nature expresses itself. Heck, I would even go as far as saying it is nature itself. Everything which come after it is induction or language or both.

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Shop: Myyco.com Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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