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If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
Free will is an illusion since everything you are ever going to do throughout your entire life is already mapped out. You can't make an opposing choice unless you know the future. You're always gonna choose that food, go in the elevator instead of the stairs, etc, etc.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change.
This idea that us not having free will should/would somehow free us from consequences of our actions seems pretty goosy to me.
Machines have no free will, and we still repair, guarantine, and/or destroy machines that are unsafe.
Yes, but we don't say it's the machine's fault. It's the fault of whoever made it, or random chance, etc.
We do not try and convict machines of crimes because that would be silly. The idea of guilt requires agency.
Spool, consider your use of the word "could." It's another unintentional equivocation.
When we roll a die, it "could" be one of six results. But the result is completely determined by rules of physics. When it's rolled, the result is inevitable. When we say it "could" have produced a different result, we mean that we were unable to predict the result, not precisely, not definitely. We don't mean that the die had the potential to break the rules of physics and produce a result different from what physics dictated.
This doesn't mean "could" is a fiction! It means that possibility exists for us because we do not see the future, because we do not have absolute predictive power, because we are essentially time-bounded entities.
No, in this case, “could” means we are merely sufficiently ignorant that we, personally, cannot predict the result of the die before it is cast. If we were wiser, and knew more about physics, including the physics of whatever is going on in someone’s head, we could predict every die roll, ever, including whether or not a die roll would even occur.
You said no, but you're agreeing with me!
"Could"--by which we mean possibility--is not necessarily a fundamental property of an event or entity. It is contingent on the perspective of the person describing it, and could be different
If we can trivially or quickly predict a result, we don't say "could."
But human minds are spectacularly complex, and may function on a level of emergent complexity that makes them impossible to predict. We can't even predict what an ant will do, or how a fluttering leaf will fall.
Remember: it is trivially easy to produce even a simple system that cannot be predicted except by running the system itself, where no heuristic can actually provide useful predictions.
Wow people actually want to talk about this! I half expected the forum at large to say "fuck that can of worms" and scroll past.
To go back to this comment for a moment, I'm just glad D&D has something to argue about that isn't politics. Compared to world events right now, the question of "Is everything my brain telling me about my ability to freely make choices a lie?" makes for a breezy, lighthearted topic.
I remembered really enjoying the last debate we had on the nature of morality. It started out as kind of a mess but gradually the level of miscommunication and imprecision was whittled down to the point where it became a fun and interesting discussion.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess you're right, actually, the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Wow people actually want to talk about this! I half expected the forum at large to say "fuck that can of worms" and scroll past.
To go back to this comment for a moment, I'm just glad D&D has something to argue about that isn't politics. Compared to world events right now, the question of "Is everything my brain telling me about my ability to freely make choices a lie?" makes for a breezy, lighthearted topic.
I remembered really enjoying the last debate we had on the nature of morality. It started out as kind of a mess but gradually the level of miscommunication and imprecision was whittled down to the point where it became a fun and interesting discussion.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Except those changes were always going to happen it was pre determined. The thoughts weren't a thing you actually came to through any internal will. It is simply the result of atoms moving. A total fuckin fluke of the dominoes falling. Us "thinking things" is just the result of atoms moving in a completely predetermined systemic collapse.
Essentially our thoughts don't move us down the path, our cognition of our thoughts are the result of moving down the path. I can't type the letters here until after innumerable dominoes fall that were always going to fall and any concept of self i have in the game is... humans being silly. I don't actually exist. The concept of I is just the result of the dominoes falling.
+1
SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
Complexity is just obfuscation, tho.
A flow chart doesn't make a choice when it has a decision. A state machine doesn't make a choice when it moves to the next state. Whether or not they're sufficiently complex that we don't or even can't know what the outcome will be doesn't change that.
imo, talking about choices and decisions only makes sense if we have a magical self that has something called free will.
Otherwise, they're just shorthand for complicated processes.
This idea that us not having free will should/would somehow free us from consequences of our actions seems pretty goosy to me.
Machines have no free will, and we still repair, guarantine, and/or destroy machines that are unsafe.
Yes, but we don't say it's the machine's fault. It's the fault of whoever made it, or random chance, etc.
We do not try and convict machines of crimes because that would be silly. The idea of guilt requires agency.
And?
We still jail people for unintentional consequences, we segregate those unable to control themselves from general population.
edit-
And, we actually do convict machines, we just do it through systems different than the courts.
For instance, my car was sentenced to mandatory treatment (breaks and a seatbelt needed fixing) this year.
If anything, we are lot harsher on machines because we don't value them like we do ourselves.
A flow chart doesn't make a choice when it has a decision. A state machine doesn't make a choice when it moves to the next state. Whether or not they're sufficiently complex that we don't or even can't know what the outcome will be doesn't change that.
imo, talking about choices and decisions only makes sense if we have a magical self that has something called free will.
Otherwise, they're just shorthand for complicated processes.
Wow people actually want to talk about this! I half expected the forum at large to say "fuck that can of worms" and scroll past.
To go back to this comment for a moment, I'm just glad D&D has something to argue about that isn't politics. Compared to world events right now, the question of "Is everything my brain telling me about my ability to freely make choices a lie?" makes for a breezy, lighthearted topic.
I remembered really enjoying the last debate we had on the nature of morality. It started out as kind of a mess but gradually the level of miscommunication and imprecision was whittled down to the point where it became a fun and interesting discussion.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Except those changes were always going to happen it was pre determined. The thoughts weren't a thing you actually came to through any internal will. It is simply the result of atoms moving. A total fuckin fluke of the dominoes falling. Us "thinking things" is just the result of atoms moving in a completely predetermined systemic collapse.
Essentially our thoughts don't move us down the path, our cognition of our thoughts are the result of moving down the path. I can't type the letters here until after innumerable dominoes fall that were always going to fall and any concept of self i have in the game is... humans being silly. I don't actually exist. The concept of I is just the result of the dominoes falling.
Pretty much, yeah, to the bolded.
The only meaning it's going to have is the meaning you and others create for it.
Wow people actually want to talk about this! I half expected the forum at large to say "fuck that can of worms" and scroll past.
To go back to this comment for a moment, I'm just glad D&D has something to argue about that isn't politics. Compared to world events right now, the question of "Is everything my brain telling me about my ability to freely make choices a lie?" makes for a breezy, lighthearted topic.
I remembered really enjoying the last debate we had on the nature of morality. It started out as kind of a mess but gradually the level of miscommunication and imprecision was whittled down to the point where it became a fun and interesting discussion.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Except those changes were always going to happen it was pre determined. The thoughts weren't a thing you actually came to through any internal will. It is simply the result of atoms moving. A total fuckin fluke of the dominoes falling. Us "thinking things" is just the result of atoms moving in a completely predetermined systemic collapse.
Essentially our thoughts don't move us down the path, our cognition of our thoughts are the result of moving down the path. I can't type the letters here until after innumerable dominoes fall that were always going to fall and any concept of self i have in the game is... humans being silly. I don't actually exist. The concept of I is just the result of the dominoes falling.
Pretty much, yeah, to the bolded.
The only meaning it's going to have is the meaning you and others create for it.
Except the feeling of meaning isn't a choice in it either. It too is the meaningless result of dominoes falling.
Wow people actually want to talk about this! I half expected the forum at large to say "fuck that can of worms" and scroll past.
To go back to this comment for a moment, I'm just glad D&D has something to argue about that isn't politics. Compared to world events right now, the question of "Is everything my brain telling me about my ability to freely make choices a lie?" makes for a breezy, lighthearted topic.
I remembered really enjoying the last debate we had on the nature of morality. It started out as kind of a mess but gradually the level of miscommunication and imprecision was whittled down to the point where it became a fun and interesting discussion.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Except those changes were always going to happen it was pre determined. The thoughts weren't a thing you actually came to through any internal will. It is simply the result of atoms moving. A total fuckin fluke of the dominoes falling. Us "thinking things" is just the result of atoms moving in a completely predetermined systemic collapse.
Essentially our thoughts don't move us down the path, our cognition of our thoughts are the result of moving down the path. I can't type the letters here until after innumerable dominoes fall that were always going to fall and any concept of self i have in the game is... humans being silly. I don't actually exist. The concept of I is just the result of the dominoes falling.
Pretty much, yeah, to the bolded.
The only meaning it's going to have is the meaning you and others create for it.
Except the feeling of meaning isn't a choice in it either. It too is the meaningless result of dominoes falling.
Correct.
+3
SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
A flow chart doesn't make a choice when it has a decision. A state machine doesn't make a choice when it moves to the next state. Whether or not they're sufficiently complex that we don't or even can't know what the outcome will be doesn't change that.
imo, talking about choices and decisions only makes sense if we have a magical self that has something called free will.
Otherwise, they're just shorthand for complicated processes.
Yes?
And?
I mean, that's fine. While I'm personally on the side of free will may as well exist, I'm not v invested in whether or not it actually exists.
I just want to make sure that we're all thinking of the same thing when we read a word.
Wow people actually want to talk about this! I half expected the forum at large to say "fuck that can of worms" and scroll past.
To go back to this comment for a moment, I'm just glad D&D has something to argue about that isn't politics. Compared to world events right now, the question of "Is everything my brain telling me about my ability to freely make choices a lie?" makes for a breezy, lighthearted topic.
I remembered really enjoying the last debate we had on the nature of morality. It started out as kind of a mess but gradually the level of miscommunication and imprecision was whittled down to the point where it became a fun and interesting discussion.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Except those changes were always going to happen it was pre determined. The thoughts weren't a thing you actually came to through any internal will. It is simply the result of atoms moving. A total fuckin fluke of the dominoes falling. Us "thinking things" is just the result of atoms moving in a completely predetermined systemic collapse.
Essentially our thoughts don't move us down the path, our cognition of our thoughts are the result of moving down the path. I can't type the letters here until after innumerable dominoes fall that were always going to fall and any concept of self i have in the game is... humans being silly. I don't actually exist. The concept of I is just the result of the dominoes falling.
Pretty much, yeah, to the bolded.
The only meaning it's going to have is the meaning you and others create for it.
Except the feeling of meaning isn't a choice in it either. It too is the meaningless result of dominoes falling.
What do you mean by meaning?
That the feeling of something being important or significant to me is determined does not make it feel any less important or significant to me.
Wow people actually want to talk about this! I half expected the forum at large to say "fuck that can of worms" and scroll past.
To go back to this comment for a moment, I'm just glad D&D has something to argue about that isn't politics. Compared to world events right now, the question of "Is everything my brain telling me about my ability to freely make choices a lie?" makes for a breezy, lighthearted topic.
I remembered really enjoying the last debate we had on the nature of morality. It started out as kind of a mess but gradually the level of miscommunication and imprecision was whittled down to the point where it became a fun and interesting discussion.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Except those changes were always going to happen it was pre determined. The thoughts weren't a thing you actually came to through any internal will. It is simply the result of atoms moving. A total fuckin fluke of the dominoes falling. Us "thinking things" is just the result of atoms moving in a completely predetermined systemic collapse.
Essentially our thoughts don't move us down the path, our cognition of our thoughts are the result of moving down the path. I can't type the letters here until after innumerable dominoes fall that were always going to fall and any concept of self i have in the game is... humans being silly. I don't actually exist. The concept of I is just the result of the dominoes falling.
Pretty much, yeah, to the bolded.
The only meaning it's going to have is the meaning you and others create for it.
Except the feeling of meaning isn't a choice in it either. It too is the meaningless result of dominoes falling.
Correct.
So like... why ever get angry about anything ever?
None of it actually matters, any insistence that it does matter, at any level, is just humans being silly. Why actually care about anything good or bad happening to anyone? there was no way to stop it, and them caring about it happening to them is meaningless because they don't actually really exist and are just the fluke result of dominoes falling.
Wow people actually want to talk about this! I half expected the forum at large to say "fuck that can of worms" and scroll past.
To go back to this comment for a moment, I'm just glad D&D has something to argue about that isn't politics. Compared to world events right now, the question of "Is everything my brain telling me about my ability to freely make choices a lie?" makes for a breezy, lighthearted topic.
I remembered really enjoying the last debate we had on the nature of morality. It started out as kind of a mess but gradually the level of miscommunication and imprecision was whittled down to the point where it became a fun and interesting discussion.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Except those changes were always going to happen it was pre determined. The thoughts weren't a thing you actually came to through any internal will. It is simply the result of atoms moving. A total fuckin fluke of the dominoes falling. Us "thinking things" is just the result of atoms moving in a completely predetermined systemic collapse.
Essentially our thoughts don't move us down the path, our cognition of our thoughts are the result of moving down the path. I can't type the letters here until after innumerable dominoes fall that were always going to fall and any concept of self i have in the game is... humans being silly. I don't actually exist. The concept of I is just the result of the dominoes falling.
Pretty much, yeah, to the bolded.
The only meaning it's going to have is the meaning you and others create for it.
Except the feeling of meaning isn't a choice in it either. It too is the meaningless result of dominoes falling.
Correct.
So like... why ever get angry about anything ever?
None of it actually matters, any insistence that it does matter, at any level, is just humans being silly. Why actually care about anything good or bad happening to anyone? there was no way to stop it, and them caring about it happening to them is meaningless because they don't actually really exist and are just the fluke result of dominoes falling.
Because it's what we do. And my human brain is all about its continued, subjective existence.
Wow people actually want to talk about this! I half expected the forum at large to say "fuck that can of worms" and scroll past.
To go back to this comment for a moment, I'm just glad D&D has something to argue about that isn't politics. Compared to world events right now, the question of "Is everything my brain telling me about my ability to freely make choices a lie?" makes for a breezy, lighthearted topic.
I remembered really enjoying the last debate we had on the nature of morality. It started out as kind of a mess but gradually the level of miscommunication and imprecision was whittled down to the point where it became a fun and interesting discussion.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Except those changes were always going to happen it was pre determined. The thoughts weren't a thing you actually came to through any internal will. It is simply the result of atoms moving. A total fuckin fluke of the dominoes falling. Us "thinking things" is just the result of atoms moving in a completely predetermined systemic collapse.
Essentially our thoughts don't move us down the path, our cognition of our thoughts are the result of moving down the path. I can't type the letters here until after innumerable dominoes fall that were always going to fall and any concept of self i have in the game is... humans being silly. I don't actually exist. The concept of I is just the result of the dominoes falling.
Pretty much, yeah, to the bolded.
The only meaning it's going to have is the meaning you and others create for it.
Except the feeling of meaning isn't a choice in it either. It too is the meaningless result of dominoes falling.
What do you mean by meaning?
That the feeling of something being important or significant to me is determined does not make it feel any less important or significant to me.
Yes but it being important or significant to you is unimportant because those states are merely a fluke in a totally uncaring machine we have no actual agency in.
Wow people actually want to talk about this! I half expected the forum at large to say "fuck that can of worms" and scroll past.
To go back to this comment for a moment, I'm just glad D&D has something to argue about that isn't politics. Compared to world events right now, the question of "Is everything my brain telling me about my ability to freely make choices a lie?" makes for a breezy, lighthearted topic.
I remembered really enjoying the last debate we had on the nature of morality. It started out as kind of a mess but gradually the level of miscommunication and imprecision was whittled down to the point where it became a fun and interesting discussion.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Except those changes were always going to happen it was pre determined. The thoughts weren't a thing you actually came to through any internal will. It is simply the result of atoms moving. A total fuckin fluke of the dominoes falling. Us "thinking things" is just the result of atoms moving in a completely predetermined systemic collapse.
Essentially our thoughts don't move us down the path, our cognition of our thoughts are the result of moving down the path. I can't type the letters here until after innumerable dominoes fall that were always going to fall and any concept of self i have in the game is... humans being silly. I don't actually exist. The concept of I is just the result of the dominoes falling.
Pretty much, yeah, to the bolded.
The only meaning it's going to have is the meaning you and others create for it.
Except the feeling of meaning isn't a choice in it either. It too is the meaningless result of dominoes falling.
Correct.
So like... why ever get angry about anything ever?
None of it actually matters, any insistence that it does matter, at any level, is just humans being silly. Why actually care about anything good or bad happening to anyone? there was no way to stop it, and them caring about it happening to them is meaningless because they don't actually really exist and are just the fluke result of dominoes falling.
I sorta think the discussion could benefit from taking a step back. Most of the thread seems to be about the implications of not having free will. Those are interesting questions too but I still think they're basically separate follow-ups from the question of free will's existence or lack thereof.
If there is free will, what is it that makes the decisions? Where does free will happen, and how? Do human decisions not occur in the central nervous system? The brain is undoubtedly a physical object, its neurons must follow physical laws, the thoughts generated are understandable as electro-chemical phenomena, so from where does the free will originate? Does it not imply some non-corporeal soul-like entity?
Wow people actually want to talk about this! I half expected the forum at large to say "fuck that can of worms" and scroll past.
To go back to this comment for a moment, I'm just glad D&D has something to argue about that isn't politics. Compared to world events right now, the question of "Is everything my brain telling me about my ability to freely make choices a lie?" makes for a breezy, lighthearted topic.
I remembered really enjoying the last debate we had on the nature of morality. It started out as kind of a mess but gradually the level of miscommunication and imprecision was whittled down to the point where it became a fun and interesting discussion.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Except those changes were always going to happen it was pre determined. The thoughts weren't a thing you actually came to through any internal will. It is simply the result of atoms moving. A total fuckin fluke of the dominoes falling. Us "thinking things" is just the result of atoms moving in a completely predetermined systemic collapse.
Essentially our thoughts don't move us down the path, our cognition of our thoughts are the result of moving down the path. I can't type the letters here until after innumerable dominoes fall that were always going to fall and any concept of self i have in the game is... humans being silly. I don't actually exist. The concept of I is just the result of the dominoes falling.
Pretty much, yeah, to the bolded.
The only meaning it's going to have is the meaning you and others create for it.
Except the feeling of meaning isn't a choice in it either. It too is the meaningless result of dominoes falling.
What do you mean by meaning?
That the feeling of something being important or significant to me is determined does not make it feel any less important or significant to me.
Yes but it being important or significant to you is unimportant because those states are merely a fluke in a totally uncaring machine we have no actual agency in.
Why does being a fluke in an uncaring machine make a difference?
In the end, the universe will face a heat death and it will be as if everybody I knew and loved didn't exist. It isn't like free will would change that at all.
+5
JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
Not to rain on your parade but your "free will" is not a counter to nihilism. Shit would be just as meaningless and irrelevant if I could act against causality, whatever that means. we could all be leading meaningless and irrelevant lives in a vast uncaring universe even with free will!
if I could, in a situation where all my reasons, motivations and inclinations would lead me to make a particular choice, make a different choice, then things don't become more meaningful than if I couldn't.
Wow people actually want to talk about this! I half expected the forum at large to say "fuck that can of worms" and scroll past.
To go back to this comment for a moment, I'm just glad D&D has something to argue about that isn't politics. Compared to world events right now, the question of "Is everything my brain telling me about my ability to freely make choices a lie?" makes for a breezy, lighthearted topic.
I remembered really enjoying the last debate we had on the nature of morality. It started out as kind of a mess but gradually the level of miscommunication and imprecision was whittled down to the point where it became a fun and interesting discussion.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Except those changes were always going to happen it was pre determined. The thoughts weren't a thing you actually came to through any internal will. It is simply the result of atoms moving. A total fuckin fluke of the dominoes falling. Us "thinking things" is just the result of atoms moving in a completely predetermined systemic collapse.
Essentially our thoughts don't move us down the path, our cognition of our thoughts are the result of moving down the path. I can't type the letters here until after innumerable dominoes fall that were always going to fall and any concept of self i have in the game is... humans being silly. I don't actually exist. The concept of I is just the result of the dominoes falling.
Pretty much, yeah, to the bolded.
The only meaning it's going to have is the meaning you and others create for it.
Except the feeling of meaning isn't a choice in it either. It too is the meaningless result of dominoes falling.
Correct.
So like... why ever get angry about anything ever?
None of it actually matters, any insistence that it does matter, at any level, is just humans being silly. Why actually care about anything good or bad happening to anyone? there was no way to stop it, and them caring about it happening to them is meaningless because they don't actually really exist and are just the fluke result of dominoes falling.
Because it's what we do. And my human brain is all about its continued, subjective existence.
Except it isn't you're brain can't make active decisions about anything, you're merely perceiving the wave of dominoes falling.
Wow people actually want to talk about this! I half expected the forum at large to say "fuck that can of worms" and scroll past.
To go back to this comment for a moment, I'm just glad D&D has something to argue about that isn't politics. Compared to world events right now, the question of "Is everything my brain telling me about my ability to freely make choices a lie?" makes for a breezy, lighthearted topic.
I remembered really enjoying the last debate we had on the nature of morality. It started out as kind of a mess but gradually the level of miscommunication and imprecision was whittled down to the point where it became a fun and interesting discussion.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Except those changes were always going to happen it was pre determined. The thoughts weren't a thing you actually came to through any internal will. It is simply the result of atoms moving. A total fuckin fluke of the dominoes falling. Us "thinking things" is just the result of atoms moving in a completely predetermined systemic collapse.
Essentially our thoughts don't move us down the path, our cognition of our thoughts are the result of moving down the path. I can't type the letters here until after innumerable dominoes fall that were always going to fall and any concept of self i have in the game is... humans being silly. I don't actually exist. The concept of I is just the result of the dominoes falling.
Pretty much, yeah, to the bolded.
The only meaning it's going to have is the meaning you and others create for it.
Except the feeling of meaning isn't a choice in it either. It too is the meaningless result of dominoes falling.
Correct.
So like... why ever get angry about anything ever?
None of it actually matters, any insistence that it does matter, at any level, is just humans being silly. Why actually care about anything good or bad happening to anyone? there was no way to stop it, and them caring about it happening to them is meaningless because they don't actually really exist and are just the fluke result of dominoes falling.
Because it's what we do. And my human brain is all about its continued, subjective existence.
Except it isn't you're brain can't make active decisions about anything, you're merely perceiving the wave of dominoes falling.
So it is like a rollercoaster ride that is predertermined but I still find thrilling.
+6
SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
I sorta think the discussion could benefit from taking a step back. Most of the thread seems to be about the implications of not having free will. Those are interesting questions too but I still think they're basically separate follow-ups from the question of free will's existence or lack thereof.
If there is free will, what is it that makes the decisions? Where does free will happen, and how? Do human decisions not occur in the central nervous system? The brain is undoubtedly a physical object, its neurons must follow physical laws, the thoughts generated are understandable as electro-chemical phenomena, so from where does the free will originate? Does it not imply some non-corporeal soul-like entity?
This is why I brought up consciousness at the very start.
A state machine doesn't choose its next state, but state machines aren't conscious, either.
Consciousness is v weird to me. It might just be a very complicated thing that fools me into thinking I'm making decisions, but it does a pretty good job of it.
Wow people actually want to talk about this! I half expected the forum at large to say "fuck that can of worms" and scroll past.
To go back to this comment for a moment, I'm just glad D&D has something to argue about that isn't politics. Compared to world events right now, the question of "Is everything my brain telling me about my ability to freely make choices a lie?" makes for a breezy, lighthearted topic.
I remembered really enjoying the last debate we had on the nature of morality. It started out as kind of a mess but gradually the level of miscommunication and imprecision was whittled down to the point where it became a fun and interesting discussion.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Except those changes were always going to happen it was pre determined. The thoughts weren't a thing you actually came to through any internal will. It is simply the result of atoms moving. A total fuckin fluke of the dominoes falling. Us "thinking things" is just the result of atoms moving in a completely predetermined systemic collapse.
Essentially our thoughts don't move us down the path, our cognition of our thoughts are the result of moving down the path. I can't type the letters here until after innumerable dominoes fall that were always going to fall and any concept of self i have in the game is... humans being silly. I don't actually exist. The concept of I is just the result of the dominoes falling.
Pretty much, yeah, to the bolded.
The only meaning it's going to have is the meaning you and others create for it.
Except the feeling of meaning isn't a choice in it either. It too is the meaningless result of dominoes falling.
Correct.
So like... why ever get angry about anything ever?
None of it actually matters, any insistence that it does matter, at any level, is just humans being silly. Why actually care about anything good or bad happening to anyone? there was no way to stop it, and them caring about it happening to them is meaningless because they don't actually really exist and are just the fluke result of dominoes falling.
Because it's what we do. And my human brain is all about its continued, subjective existence.
Except it isn't you're brain can't make active decisions about anything, you're merely perceiving the wave of dominoes falling.
If you've got proof of it being something else I'm all ears. You've spent most of this discussion saying it isn't true but you haven't really provided any provable alternative.
Wow people actually want to talk about this! I half expected the forum at large to say "fuck that can of worms" and scroll past.
To go back to this comment for a moment, I'm just glad D&D has something to argue about that isn't politics. Compared to world events right now, the question of "Is everything my brain telling me about my ability to freely make choices a lie?" makes for a breezy, lighthearted topic.
I remembered really enjoying the last debate we had on the nature of morality. It started out as kind of a mess but gradually the level of miscommunication and imprecision was whittled down to the point where it became a fun and interesting discussion.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
I'm not acting on them if i'm acting on them i have a choice and free will.
This seems to redefine "act" to mean something more than "do something." An AI can be said to act according to its programming, as a human can be said to act according to their desires/beliefs/habits/etc.
edit- didn't see Multifarious's response, basically the same point again
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Except those changes were always going to happen it was pre determined. The thoughts weren't a thing you actually came to through any internal will. It is simply the result of atoms moving. A total fuckin fluke of the dominoes falling. Us "thinking things" is just the result of atoms moving in a completely predetermined systemic collapse.
Essentially our thoughts don't move us down the path, our cognition of our thoughts are the result of moving down the path. I can't type the letters here until after innumerable dominoes fall that were always going to fall and any concept of self i have in the game is... humans being silly. I don't actually exist. The concept of I is just the result of the dominoes falling.
Pretty much, yeah, to the bolded.
The only meaning it's going to have is the meaning you and others create for it.
Except the feeling of meaning isn't a choice in it either. It too is the meaningless result of dominoes falling.
Correct.
So like... why ever get angry about anything ever?
None of it actually matters, any insistence that it does matter, at any level, is just humans being silly. Why actually care about anything good or bad happening to anyone? there was no way to stop it, and them caring about it happening to them is meaningless because they don't actually really exist and are just the fluke result of dominoes falling.
Because it's what we do. And my human brain is all about its continued, subjective existence.
Except it isn't you're brain can't make active decisions about anything, you're merely perceiving the wave of dominoes falling.
If you've got proof of it being something else I'm all ears. You've spent most of this discussion saying it isn't true but you haven't really provided any provable alternative.
I don't even need proof (that seems a high bar here), just an idea of what sort of phenomenon is being argued for would satisfy me for the moment.
Is it a soul? That's fine if so, but it should be made clear that that's what's being advocated. If it's not a soul, what is it?
Edit: Also I'm not entirely sure I believe you? If you just wanted to "explain" it one would think you'd post the explanation and peace out. Not continuously ask others to explain themselves over and over.
What there's absolutely no way to prove or disprove absolute determinism or free will.
Okay, but we don't need to absolutely prove or disprove something to believe or disbelieve something. You've explained your view on the implications of free will, I don't entirely agree, but I'm more interested in what you think free will actually is, or how you would define it.
I assume you do not believe it applies to inanimate objects. Does it occur in single celled beings? Plants? Insects? Squirrels? Just humans? Is it some force acting on the brain? What exactly are we talking about here?
To me, "free will" does exist. As long as we agree that it is a clever illusion/rationalization created by our thoughts. But it is still real because "we" are our conscious thoughts. The idea that "free will" doesn't exist is, for me, on par with saying I don't exist.
Also to me this doesn't conflict with the concept of everything being predetermined based on inherent physical properties of all matter and energy.
There's just no way for anything to actually objectively matter if nothing we think about future actions is true or effecting at enacting change
Again, the second premise is flatly not true.
We are effective at enacting change all the time. Criminals are rehabilitated, diseases are cured, etc. People make efforts, intervene, and have an effect on the world. How is that emptied out of value when it's determined? People still have feelings, endure suffering, find pleasure, experience love and anger, enjoy a cheeseburger etc. Events still occur and people still have subjective experience. The world isn't any different if it's deterministic.
Change doesn't mean breaking the chain of causality. Change is a difference created by causal relationships. The uncertainty of the future, an essential property of our experience, is itself a causal force.
If you don't actually exist, and are just a fluke of of the dominoes falling... why is murdering you wrong?
How is this determined? Not existing and existing is a massive gap between concepts, and if humanity truly do not exist how come we have our individuality and react to things like we do as existing? I'd think if we were mindless automatons in meat suits humanity would not look like how society is shaped in the past, or present.
In a determinist worldview you don't have individuality. What you perceive as reaction is just poor instruments and woefully insufficient data gathering capacity.
All your behaviors, all of society, every thought that has ever occurred since the instant of creation, all of it is inevitable and predictable. You are an automating, bound to think, act, feel, and do only as you are caused to and no other ways. Your opinions are irrelevant and inevitable, an effect of the birth of the universe, and you cannot act on them because there is no you and no acting. There is only the universe, iterating, unchangeable and irresistabke.
It's a nightmare!
How are your opinions irrelevant? They are causal forces that have consequences. You act on them all the time, as we're doing right now.
Determinism is not predictability. We do not perceive all of time. Determinism not the idea that we can determine the future in its totality (this is probably impossible and paradoxical). It's the idea that events are determined by their causes.
Determinism is the ultimate predictibility! The only reason we can't predict the future in a determinist universe is that our instruments for analyzing the current state of the universe are rudementary at best. Each state absolutely and perfectly leads to the next, nowhere else.
The concept of "you act" is the same kind of approximation as saying "the sun rises" and is just as accurate.
Posts
That's all act means.
In effect without free will our meat suits are similarly meaningless. Just a collection of atoms moving along like dominoes falling amid a further collection of falling dominoes the universe basically just a big congealed mass of atoms moving along a path set at creation that nothing any of us thinks about it can change. Our thoughts are even a result of the dominoes falling and nothing we think matters.
Pretty much, yeah. It's really neat!
Yes, but we don't say it's the machine's fault. It's the fault of whoever made it, or random chance, etc.
We do not try and convict machines of crimes because that would be silly. The idea of guilt requires agency.
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You said no, but you're agreeing with me!
"Could"--by which we mean possibility--is not necessarily a fundamental property of an event or entity. It is contingent on the perspective of the person describing it, and could be different
If we can trivially or quickly predict a result, we don't say "could."
But human minds are spectacularly complex, and may function on a level of emergent complexity that makes them impossible to predict. We can't even predict what an ant will do, or how a fluttering leaf will fall.
Remember: it is trivially easy to produce even a simple system that cannot be predicted except by running the system itself, where no heuristic can actually provide useful predictions.
The first bolded seems inaccurate to me. Thoughts are just as real a phenomena as gusts of wind, and are among the things that act upon the rest of things and thus change them. Action is the medium through which thoughts can effect external change, but they can effect internal change too. edit - well I guess you're right, actually, the "path" isn't changed but thoughts are nonetheless among the things that move us down the path
The second bolded still seems mostly like an emotional response to the proposition, and I still don't see why it's a necessary one. I still think that what we think matters, regardless of why we think those things, because those thoughts have real effects that are felt by real people.
Except those changes were always going to happen it was pre determined. The thoughts weren't a thing you actually came to through any internal will. It is simply the result of atoms moving. A total fuckin fluke of the dominoes falling. Us "thinking things" is just the result of atoms moving in a completely predetermined systemic collapse.
Essentially our thoughts don't move us down the path, our cognition of our thoughts are the result of moving down the path. I can't type the letters here until after innumerable dominoes fall that were always going to fall and any concept of self i have in the game is... humans being silly. I don't actually exist. The concept of I is just the result of the dominoes falling.
A flow chart doesn't make a choice when it has a decision. A state machine doesn't make a choice when it moves to the next state. Whether or not they're sufficiently complex that we don't or even can't know what the outcome will be doesn't change that.
imo, talking about choices and decisions only makes sense if we have a magical self that has something called free will.
Otherwise, they're just shorthand for complicated processes.
We still jail people for unintentional consequences, we segregate those unable to control themselves from general population.
edit-
And, we actually do convict machines, we just do it through systems different than the courts.
For instance, my car was sentenced to mandatory treatment (breaks and a seatbelt needed fixing) this year.
If anything, we are lot harsher on machines because we don't value them like we do ourselves.
And?
Pretty much, yeah, to the bolded.
The only meaning it's going to have is the meaning you and others create for it.
Except the feeling of meaning isn't a choice in it either. It too is the meaningless result of dominoes falling.
Correct.
I just want to make sure that we're all thinking of the same thing when we read a word.
What do you mean by meaning?
That the feeling of something being important or significant to me is determined does not make it feel any less important or significant to me.
So like... why ever get angry about anything ever?
None of it actually matters, any insistence that it does matter, at any level, is just humans being silly. Why actually care about anything good or bad happening to anyone? there was no way to stop it, and them caring about it happening to them is meaningless because they don't actually really exist and are just the fluke result of dominoes falling.
Because it's what we do. And my human brain is all about its continued, subjective existence.
Yes but it being important or significant to you is unimportant because those states are merely a fluke in a totally uncaring machine we have no actual agency in.
Sure it matters. It matters to me. That matters.
If there is free will, what is it that makes the decisions? Where does free will happen, and how? Do human decisions not occur in the central nervous system? The brain is undoubtedly a physical object, its neurons must follow physical laws, the thoughts generated are understandable as electro-chemical phenomena, so from where does the free will originate? Does it not imply some non-corporeal soul-like entity?
Why does being a fluke in an uncaring machine make a difference?
In the end, the universe will face a heat death and it will be as if everybody I knew and loved didn't exist. It isn't like free will would change that at all.
Not to rain on your parade but your "free will" is not a counter to nihilism. Shit would be just as meaningless and irrelevant if I could act against causality, whatever that means. we could all be leading meaningless and irrelevant lives in a vast uncaring universe even with free will!
if I could, in a situation where all my reasons, motivations and inclinations would lead me to make a particular choice, make a different choice, then things don't become more meaningful than if I couldn't.
Except it isn't you're brain can't make active decisions about anything, you're merely perceiving the wave of dominoes falling.
So it is like a rollercoaster ride that is predertermined but I still find thrilling.
A state machine doesn't choose its next state, but state machines aren't conscious, either.
Consciousness is v weird to me. It might just be a very complicated thing that fools me into thinking I'm making decisions, but it does a pretty good job of it.
If you've got proof of it being something else I'm all ears. You've spent most of this discussion saying it isn't true but you haven't really provided any provable alternative.
Is it a soul? That's fine if so, but it should be made clear that that's what's being advocated. If it's not a soul, what is it?
I'm merely explaining the implications of full scale absolute determinism.
Edit: Also I'm not entirely sure I believe you? If you just wanted to "explain" it one would think you'd post the explanation and peace out. Not continuously ask others to explain themselves over and over.
I assume you do not believe it applies to inanimate objects. Does it occur in single celled beings? Plants? Insects? Squirrels? Just humans? Is it some force acting on the brain? What exactly are we talking about here?
Objectively matter to what?
If you have religious beliefs (or in my case hopes) then sure, what you do presumably matters to a higher entity.
If you don't then what are things supposed to matter to outside of our own subjective selves?
I don't grok the idea that anything can objectively matter. It is like saying something is objectively beautiful.
Nope
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Also to me this doesn't conflict with the concept of everything being predetermined based on inherent physical properties of all matter and energy.
All those threads where we register such anger with our current predicaments.. a waste
None of the folks we're angry at are responsible or knowing actors they are just another part of the uncaring machine.
Again, the second premise is flatly not true.
We are effective at enacting change all the time. Criminals are rehabilitated, diseases are cured, etc. People make efforts, intervene, and have an effect on the world. How is that emptied out of value when it's determined? People still have feelings, endure suffering, find pleasure, experience love and anger, enjoy a cheeseburger etc. Events still occur and people still have subjective experience. The world isn't any different if it's deterministic.
Change doesn't mean breaking the chain of causality. Change is a difference created by causal relationships. The uncertainty of the future, an essential property of our experience, is itself a causal force.
Determinism is the ultimate predictibility! The only reason we can't predict the future in a determinist universe is that our instruments for analyzing the current state of the universe are rudementary at best. Each state absolutely and perfectly leads to the next, nowhere else.
The concept of "you act" is the same kind of approximation as saying "the sun rises" and is just as accurate.
I dunno
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