Elroch: "I believe in free will as an entirely unpredictable component of human behaviour. Admittedly, pretty much everything else also has such unpredictability."
Yes.
Free will is the absolutely unpredictable component of human behaviour.
does that mean that a person and a pebble running by water over a streambed have the same control over their life?
No, it doesn't. Try to work out for yourself why that reasoning is (entirely) invalid.
You seem to be saying that since in law (and in morality) we're responsible for our actions then it's crazy to say that free will doesn't exist. If that's what you're saying, then I'm on your side.
Law and morality are about subjective quality definitions. They rate behaviour on a scale of badness and are associated with mechanisms to encourage the minimisation of badness based on assumptions about how people react to motivation. Their existence (as human constructs or expressions) is beyond dispute, and they have a major role in the functioning of society. They are mainly about restricting human behaviour by changing the set of motivations to which people are subject, compared say to a baseline of complete anarchy.
just when i was starting to have fun 
You seem to be saying that since in law (and in morality) we're responsible for our actions then it's crazy to say that free will doesn't exist. If that's what you're saying, then I'm on your side.
Bingo! Yet I want to stretch this line of thought out some. A determinist could argue that they are not morally responsible for their own actions. How dangerous is that to society by itself one might ask? Yet in today’s political climate, or the modern day if one prefers.. Might the same determinist argue in court that they are not legally responsible for their own actions? Using determinism as a defense for a lighter, or more lenient sentence? This would not be allowed in the past, but in today’s world I’m not so sure.
just a guess.. if the court system had to face determinism line of defense? they are likely to adopt some sort of compatibilism approach (determinism meet FW).
I dont really understand how they make it compatible within the realm of materialism, but my impression is that they tweak the definition of FW or even time itself, and then run with it.
theres a famous story about a sex offender that was apparently an ordinary man up until he was infected with a brain tumor that was apparently responsible to his offensive behavior. im saying this because similar to determinism, it claim that a person is not always in control of their actions, and how this relate to social and moral responsibility.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2345971.stm
Yeah, well nothing seems to far fetched anymore. Put justice in the hands of a city, county, state, nation or the world for that matter.. And someone will always find fault with whatever mechanisms are put in place.
They already have A.I. priests out there, how long before we have A.I. judges? Which would you rather have deciding your case, the A.I or the human? Both are programmable actually, so it might be a wash.
In any event, I am now more focused on determinism due to this thread. Like I said before, a determinist could lie like a Persian rug and you would have no way of knowing the truth of the matter. I need to study on this some more.
This is actually a very interesting point. It makes a lot more sense for society to wish to reduce unwelcome behaviour than to have a blame-centric approach. It happens that legal systems that use the former viewpoint appear to be far more effective than those like the US system, based on extensive, severe punishment, giving lousy results.
just a guess.. if the court system had to face determinism line of defense? they are likely to adopt some sort of compatibilism approach (determinism meet FW).
I dont really understand how they make it compatible within the realm of materialism, but my impression is that they tweak the definition of FW or even time itself, and then run with it.
theres a famous story about a sex offender that was apparently an ordinary man up until he was infected with a brain tumor that was apparently responsible to his offensive behavior. im saying this because similar to determinism, it claim that a person is not always in control of their actions, and how this relate to social and moral responsibility.
The law traditionally considers the plea for mitigation due to "the balance of the mind being disturbed". It seems pretty clear that disbelieving in free will to the extent that it can't be employed is a mental disturbance. It's probably depression bur psychotics also may believe they have no control over their actions, have to obey the voices etc.
You seem to be saying that since in law (and in morality) we're responsible for our actions then it's crazy to say that free will doesn't exist. If that's what you're saying, then I'm on your side.
Bingo! Yet I want to stretch this line of thought out some. A determinist could argue that they are not morally responsible for their own actions. How dangerous is that to society by itself one might ask? Yet in today’s political climate, or the modern day if one prefers.. Might the same determinist argue in court that they are not legally responsible for their own actions? Using determinism as a defense for a lighter, or more lenient sentence? This would not be allowed in the past, but in today’s world I’m not so sure.
Fifteen years ago, I would have said that someone who believes in determinism is at least mildly mentally disturbed and if it prevents that person from living a reasonably happy and fulfilled life then such a person is mentally ill. Nowadays, things have changed, due to the prevalence of arguments for determinism, put forward by moderately clever but deluded people who are capable of making a good case for it and presenting it to people who are less clever or wise as a theory that more qualified people than they are agreeing on. Obviously, this would be a misrepresentation, but it happens. You can be clever and yet wrong, which can boil down to being clever and yet stupid, if the means are there to improve your viewpoint and you fail to make use of them. The downside of all this is that some people genuinely start to believe that determinism is true. I think this in itself could lead to mental illness if a person is unlucky.
I haven't noticed anybody here claiming to be a determinist. How can you be a chess player and a determinist, when you make hundreds of decisions in the course of a game? Sure, you can say it's randomness versus determinism and that works out perfectly, because randomness is an unknown in which all sorts of things can be hidden.
I thought we'd have a relaxing, pastel shade for the above.
its soothing.
We had our front room redecorated in a house we just bought and painted that colour and a darker shade for the wood. It's certainly different and people find it relaxing.
Recently I haven't been reading myself up on this thread, so I will ensure I do assimilate everything from page 9 onwards
You seem to be saying that since in law (and in morality) we're responsible for our actions then it's crazy to say that free will doesn't exist. If that's what you're saying, then I'm on your side.
Bingo! Yet I want to stretch this line of thought out some. A determinist could argue that they are not morally responsible for their own actions. How dangerous is that to society by itself one might ask? Yet in today’s political climate, or the modern day if one prefers.. Might the same determinist argue in court that they are not legally responsible for their own actions? Using determinism as a defense for a lighter, or more lenient sentence? This would not be allowed in the past, but in today’s world I’m not so sure.
Fifteen years ago, I would have said that someone who believes in determinism is at least mildly mentally disturbed and if it prevents that person from living a reasonably happy and fulfilled life then such a person is mentally ill. Nowadays, things have changed, due to the prevalence of arguments for determinism, put forward by moderately clever but deluded people who are capable of making a good case for it and presenting it to people who are less clever or wise as a theory that more qualified people than they are agreeing on. Obviously, this would be a misrepresentation, but it happens. You can be clever and yet wrong, which can boil down to being clever and yet stupid, if the means are there to improve your viewpoint and you fail to make use of them. The downside of all this is that some people genuinely start to believe that determinism is true. I think this in itself could lead to mental illness if a person is unlucky.
I haven't noticed anybody here claiming to be a determinist. How -can you be a chess player and a determinist, when you make hundreds of decisions in the course of a game? Sure, you can say it's randomness versus determinism and that works out perfectly, because randomness is an unknown in which all sorts of things can be hidden.
I thought we'd have a relaxing, pastel shade for the above.
Oh no worries, I’ve got several different reasons to love the shade of green actually. Elroch’s probably wondering what the hell, after I told him I was ‘Traumatized’ by his use of the green pen. lol.. I was joking of course and deleted it. Man o man, anyway..
A lot can be said about the above conversation. It just gets overlooked, or accepted and we all have to live with it. Awareness is key of course, alert those that you can and hope that you made a difference.
I think people get hung up on the close calls. Where FW can take you up to the very last millisecond of an life altering decision. Or even one just a bit less glamorous than that. It’s in that finite moment of time where they choose ownership, or deferment. Understanding that and the goofy explanations that follow an deferment are just a waste of my time.
Well, these little fellows don't actually exist, and the (very simple) theorem relies on some criteria about the randomness of they typing. For example, for every key k there exists a non-zero value epsilon(k) such that at all times the probability of that key being pressed is greater than epsilon(k).
In one sense the most random they could be is to always have the same probability 1 / (number of keys) of pressing any key. This is the uniform probability distribution which is the maximum entropy distribution.
[I was once told with a straight face (but surely no real seriousness) by a perfectly reasonable person who was a student with me at University at the time that whenever anyone writes in green ink someone dies.
I have no idea where this myth came from. Of course it is also true that whenever no-one writes in green ink someone dies. It's a big world and people die quite often].
Any of you heard of the Infinite Monkey theorem? What those little fellows type on the typewriter may be a close representation to true randomness.
i agree with you that monkeys hitting a keyboard will generate a random text in the general use of the term "random". but in the context of this thread when you say 'true random' it has a very different meaning.
in this context, the text that is generated by the monkeys is somewhat meaningless, and the question will be why the monkeys hit a certain letter and not another. hope that im making sense.
elroch, its a shame that you cant keep it in your pants when it comes to foolish statements like your snarky criticism of the US legal system. unfortunately i cant respond to it without drifting into politics and as it made clear this is not welcome here, ill leave it at that.
opti, its interesting that you associate disbelief in FW with mental illness. to be honest when you first said it, i thought that your out of your mind. lol. but after i thought it over... i tend to agree with you. (in some context)
as for determinism? you may dismiss it with subjectivity, but its still a valid possibility from an objective pov. and if you can dismiss it objectively? I would love to wipe it out from my list of possibilities : )
congrats for your new house!
....just know that he's a lonely troll HiHo. sad.
elroch, its a shame that you cant keep it in your pants when it comes to foolish statements like your snarky criticism of the US legal system. unfortunately i cant respond to it without drifting into politics and as it made clear this is not welcome here, ill leave it at that.
opti, its interesting that you associate disbelief in FW with mental illness. to be honest when you first said it, i thought that your out of your mind. lol. but after i thought it over... i tend to agree with you. (in some context)
as for determinism? you may dismiss it with subjectivity, but its still a valid possibility from an objective pov. and if you can dismiss it objectively? I would love to wipe it out from my list of possibilities : )
congrats for your new house!
Thanks. I really don't think that determinism is a possibility. I don't think much about these things nowadays but a few years ago I was wasting my time doing that and I came to the conclusion that determinism is definitely incorrect. That means that it's incorrect that everything is determined such that the universe can only go down one route. That's even if people like Einstein and others believed in determinism. Some people do believe in it and of course they try to drum up arguments to support their beliefs. Einstein definitely thought determinism was a strong argument but that was the age of logical positivism. Logical positivism is a simplified, idealistic position where, basically, when we try to assess how the universe works in its most complicated detail, it always works in just the way that our current theories say it will. That's because "positivism" means "based on evidence" and of course, science always follows evidence but in reality it is limited by it too, because some evidence is difficult to find.
You seem to be saying that since in law (and in morality) we're responsible for our actions then it's crazy to say that free will doesn't exist. If that's what you're saying, then I'm on your side.
i think what he is saying is that many SF drivers should be using uber instead : )