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Myst
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 Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 2:44 am Post subject: |
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| Duck wrote: | | No, I don't believe that. I may believe that our entire experience and thought is based on the complex interaction of an amazingly complicated series of physical phenomena, but that doesn't mean that it is any less 'real' than if we had a "soul" or whatever. Coincidence has conspired to give us consciousness, therefore we can make decisions. |
How can you say that we make our own decisions when you've just said that everything is based on a combination of physical phenomena?
We base our knowledge of physics on the existance of the Fundamental Unifying Theorem (I think that's what it's called) in which everything can be explained. Say we strip it down to just gravity. We're talking about forces, the EXACT magnitudes of which can be defined.
We take this a step further to all forces, etc in the universe, of which the electrical impulses in our brains are subject to, and therefore all the electrical impulses, and therefore all thoughts, depend completely on surroundings (which, according to you, that's all there is), and hence it can all be predicted with 100% accuracy.
By that logic, you CANNOT make your own decisions, and I'm not sure how you can argue it's wrong. |
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Duck
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| Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 2:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Myst wrote: | | We base our knowledge of physics on the existance of the Fundamental Unifying Theorem (I think that's what it's called) in which everything can be explained. Say we strip it down to just gravity. We're talking about forces, the EXACT magnitudes of which can be defined. |
Well, first of all, that's not true, because we don't have a Unified Field Theory (which is what I assume you are referring to). I'm not an expert in physics, but my understanding is that right now, the closest thing we have to a "basis" for physics are Newton's laws. Large amounts of physics are unexplained - gravity, for instance; we know it exists, but we don't know how it functions, or where it comes from, or why we're able to resist and even escape it by exerting an opposing force (jumping, blasting off in a space shuttle, etc). Physicists generally agree that somewhere, there is a model that will function as a "theory of everything" - a single model that will be able to represent all of physics. This is the sort of thing Einstein was working on before he died, and the sort of thing people like Steven Hawking are still working on.
But you are right, in a way. Everything that occurs in our brains, our bodies, our chemistry and our biology can be measured, and everything psychological is simultaneously physical.
| Quote: | | We take this a step further to all forces, etc in the universe, of which the electrical impulses in our brains are subject to, and therefore all the electrical impulses, and therefore all thoughts, depend completely on surroundings (which, according to you, that's all there is), and hence it can all be predicted with 100% accuracy. |
No. The impulses and chemicals in our brains are not solely dependent on their surroundings - they are so complicated that they have the capacity to affect themselves.
I'm not saying that we have complete control over ourselves, or that we have perfect "free will." That would be stupid. We are the product of our genes and our environment, and are predisposed to particular actions and thoughts and whatnot. We are subject to our biology to a large extent. However, when we face decisions, we are often able to make a genuine choice. Think about when you've struggled with a decision - if your biology was suitably predisposed, you wouldn't have to struggle. You can also change your mind later on without the situation changing. One part of your brain or biology can alter another, and that's why we're not simply robots.
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Myst
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| Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 3:13 am Post subject: |
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| Duck wrote: | Well, first of all, that's not true, because we don't have a Unified Field Theory (which is what I assume you are referring to). I'm not an expert in physics, but my understanding is that right now, the closest thing we have to a "basis" for physics are Newton's laws. Large amounts of physics are unexplained - gravity, for instance; we know it exists, but we don't know how it functions, or where it comes from, or why we're able to resist and even escape it by exerting an opposing force (jumping, blasting off in a space shuttle, etc). Physicists generally agree that somewhere, there is a model that will function as a "theory of everything" - a single model that will be able to represent all of physics. This is the sort of thing Einstein was working on before he died, and the sort of thing people like Steven Hawking are still working on.
But you are right, in a way. Everything that occurs in our brains, our bodies, our chemistry and our biology can be measured, and everything psychological is simultaneously physical. |
I was refering to the Theory of Everything, but that's also slightly irrelevant. We have numerous theories in physics. Newton's laws are the ones taught in High School and the like because they are simple and easy to understand.
We don't have the Theory of Everything, but most physicists believe that it exists, and, of course, it is very complex. I argue, however, that because of this, everything, even the apparently random events we see in quantum physics, are predicatible. Even if the random events were not predictable, then I don't believe that there's anything, including humans (according to your own definition of being nothing more than a bunch of atoms interacting with each other), can do to change when this random event occurs.
As such, we are unable to choose anything, because the atoms themselves are not able to choose to do anything - they do because it happens.
| Duck wrote: | No. The impulses and chemicals in our brains are not solely dependent on their surroundings - they are so complicated that they have the capacity to affect themselves.
I'm not saying that we have complete control over ourselves, or that we have perfect "free will." That would be stupid. We are the product of our genes and our environment, and are predisposed to particular actions and thoughts and whatnot. We are subject to our biology to a large extent. However, when we face decisions, we are often able to make a genuine choice. Think about when you've struggled with a decision - if your biology was suitably predisposed, you wouldn't have to struggle. You can also change your mind later on without the situation changing. One part of your brain or biology can alter another, and that's why we're not simply robots. |
A chemical reaction can be described using physics also. The reason we talk about it in terms of chemistry, is that because there are rules on a larger scale than are described with physics, and thus are easier to manage.
Complicated enough to affect themselves, yes, but still dependent on rules. The chemicals, etc, that are in our brains must be in a certain state in order to affect themselves, and in order to get into this state, it must be in a state before, etc, etc.
One part of your brain can alter another, but this act of altering the other depends on things also. Half the brain cannot simply say "I want to affect the other half" without reason to.
Another way of looking at it is to not argue that we can't make decisions. I'm arguing that any decision that we make, according to your view, is based on everything else. The situation changes because not every particle of matter in the universe is in the same position and has the same amount of energy, as it did in the last case. Thus the situation has changed, and thus the reactions in your brain occur differently, thus a different conclusion is made.
However, this doesn't change the fact that the chemical reactions themselves are controlled by the forces exerted on the system, whether the molecule rotates in exactly the right way, etc. Thus, I argue, you never make a 'real' choice, but are simply acting out the reactions that are happening in your brain. |
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Duck
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| Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 4:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Myst wrote: | | As such, we are unable to choose anything, because the atoms themselves are not able to choose to do anything - they do because it happens. |
What I'm saying is that the organization of these atoms is so indescribably complex that the system as a whole is able to affect itself, and that's where free will comes from. If you still say that these atoms, rather than affecting each other, are responding to chance, I guess I'm not going to convince you, which is okay, because this thread is about telling other people what you believe, not about proving or disproving.
| Quote: | | One part of your brain can alter another, but this act of altering the other depends on things also. Half the brain cannot simply say "I want to affect the other half" without reason to. |
What
It has a reason, it's called "living."
| Quote: | Another way of looking at it is to not argue that we can't make decisions. I'm arguing that any decision that we make, according to your view, is based on everything else. The situation changes because not every particle of matter in the universe is in the same position and has the same amount of energy, as it did in the last case. Thus the situation has changed, and thus the reactions in your brain occur differently, thus a different conclusion is made.
However, this doesn't change the fact that the chemical reactions themselves are controlled by the forces exerted on the system, whether the molecule rotates in exactly the right way, etc. Thus, I argue, you never make a 'real' choice, but are simply acting out the reactions that are happening in your brain. |
And what I'm saying is that these reactions are not controlled solely by outside sources, but also by each other, thusly resulting in a system that is at least partly independent of context.
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Xtreme
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Joined: 14 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 6:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | What I'm saying is that the organization of these atoms is so indescribably complex that the system as a whole is able to affect itself, and that's where free will comes from. If you still say that these atoms, rather than affecting each other, are responding to chance, I guess I'm not going to convince you, which is okay, because this thread is about telling other people what you believe, not about proving or disproving.
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Even if stabbing at an explanation by purely unscientific guesswork happens to lead you to believe that physical complexity can create the ability of a system to affect itself, you have still not even begun to venture into the realm of free will. Free will presupposes "personhood" - the concept of a being that is not merely a sum of its component atoms and subatomic particles. If you deny the personhood of human beings, then you must either deny free will or do some mental acrobatics and claim that the atoms (or subatomic particles of choice) themselves are driving free choices.
The alternative is to accept that human beings are more than a physical compilation of atoms. It's either that or random clumps of matter with no free will and a staggering number of astronomically improbable coincidences. Simple.
| Quote: | And what I'm saying is that these reactions are not controlled solely by outside sources, but also by each other, thusly resulting in a system that is at least partly independent of context.
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Even the most elementary physics tells us that an object cannot exert force upon itself. A ball cannot start itself rolling down a hill any more than a subatomic particle can do something of its own accord, physically speaking.
Physics cannot explain free will, nor can it describe or account for it.
You are left to decide whether or not you will live your life in a universe with human beings with personhood or arbitrary "organized" matter subjected to mind-bogglingly strange circumstances. These two possibilities are distinct - there is no logical possibility of a universe that can have truly free will in which only physical reactions exist.
So I suppose really it is more correct to say you are left to decide whether or not you CAN decide.  |
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Duck
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| Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 12:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Xtreme wrote: | | Even if stabbing at an explanation by purely unscientific guesswork happens to lead you to believe that physical complexity can create the ability of a system to affect itself, you have still not even begun to venture into the realm of free will. Free will presupposes "personhood" - the concept of a being that is not merely a sum of its component atoms and subatomic particles. If you deny the personhood of human beings, then you must either deny free will or do some mental acrobatics and claim that the atoms (or subatomic particles of choice) themselves are driving free choices. |
What? Personhood is an abstract idea, and even if it did have anything to do with free will (which seems like a pretty big mental leap to me, how the hell did you come up with that?), it doesn't factor into what I'm saying. Additionally, personhood has nothing to do with an individual being more than the sum of their parts; it's an abstract concept that has to do with independence and whether or not an individual has rights, neither of which have anything to do with what I'm saying here.
I get that what you mean here is that some sort of 'soul' or whatever you want to call it which is separate from the body is a prerequisite for free will, but I've been rejecting that assumption since my first post in this thread, and frankly I think there's another big gap in logic there.
| Quote: | | Even the most elementary physics tells us that an object cannot exert force upon itself. A ball cannot start itself rolling down a hill any more than a subatomic particle can do something of its own accord, physically speaking. |
That is not what I'm saying. I am saying that groups of these atoms, arranged in a system, are at times able to affect other parts of the same system in more than one mutually-exclusive way. I am not saying that one region or force is able to do this. I am saying the system as a whole is partially independent of the outside universe.
| Quote: | | Physics cannot explain free will, nor can it describe or account for it. |
I didn't start trying to explain this with physics; I started with neurobiology and cognitive science, which hold that everything mental is simultaneously physical. Physics can't explain or describe free will, but it can't rule it out, either; neurobiology and cognitive science can describe it. Nothing can explain it because that's an abstract concept that humans are projecting onto it.
| Quote: | | You are left to decide whether or not you will live your life in a universe with human beings with personhood or arbitrary "organized" matter subjected to mind-bogglingly strange circumstances. These two possibilities are distinct - there is no logical possibility of a universe that can have truly free will in which only physical reactions exist. |
You're basically just repeating yourself here, as am I. The only thing that I can really elaborate on here is that I'm not claiming that humans have truly free will - we can't choose to do anything, because it's not in our biology, whereas the same actions might be allowed by somebody else's construction. The thing is, we do have the ability to make some decisions, because the way we're organized is so complex that the system can alter its own function (say, through hormones), and because randomness does factor in.
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voltare
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| Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:14 pm Post subject: |
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I have a passing belief in reincarnation. I don't believe at all in the concept of hell.
I don't think God would create our souls, only to have them destroyed, or sent to some firey pit for eternity, because we were spoiled brats for a wink of our existences.
Stephan
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kenoodo
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| Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007 9:56 am Post subject: |
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It is easier to be awake from sleep than relive after death.
Because we are afraid of death, so we create afterlife. To get fresh again just like you get up and a new day begins.
Is it like so easy?
If there is afterlife, there must be souls and spirits floating all round us. Since there are so many people died in the past and the souls left their bodies and have no place to go before getting new bodies to start new lives.
Or, you would like to say that the souls are not with us at all. Heave or hell is the very place for them. And the afterlife is something happens there. |
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