Quote :

"The notion of supernatural consequencs (ie, Karma, Hell, dead people watch us etc) has a huge impact on the behavior of individuals, even amongst the non-religious. I think if you somehow erased that notion from people's minds, humanity would change drastically for the worse."

I don't know to what extent this is true if it is true at all. In the case of Christianity, Hell is not an incentive to refrain from bad behavior, it's a reason to continue buying into dogma. Being "saved" gives one a pass to do basically whatever they want.

Quote :

"It hasn't been proven conclusively that being good to other people is intrinsic in our species and necessary for survival, but I think that it's valid."

Quote :

"It's also hard to argue against an inherent sense of morality."

Sociopaths exist in large numbers, and while they generally become identified as such by other people that get to know them, they still usually take advantage of a lot of people. Are all sociopaths nihilists, or do they just lack empathy some/all of the time?

Quote :

"It's folly to define your views by the lack of belief in others' views. No matter how wrong religion is, it doesn't alleviate the burden of establishing moral criterion and reasons for living. ."

Is anyone doing this? If religion/superstition were not so prevalent, there wouldn't be a need to identify as "atheist" or "agnostic," but clearly, it plays a big role in our society. No one derives their morality from their lack of faith - the point is that morality derived from ancient texts isn't just stupid, it causes problems for society, and there are much better ways of figuring out what is right and wrong.

7/8/2011 3:18:40 PM

Quote :

"Since the measuring of happiness is subjective (not the indicators of happiness, which can be studied objectively as you say), this is not a useful rule, and it may actually lead to increased suffering when it backfires. "

It is a useful rule in the sense that we can then address the question in a way that admits that there are objectively and better and worse answers. Our interpretations of the facts at hand will likely always be imperfect and prone to personal bias. But if we admit that human well being is something worth striving for, then it is important that we admit that facts about well being do exist and that the issue is not one of arbitrary preference. In other words, the rule gives us a foundation to at least begin addressing the question objectively.

Quote :

"Just because personal freedom leads to human flourishing does not mean we will automatically get personal freedom."

In no way did I mean to imply that it did. What I meant to say was that a principle that simply states that human flourishing is good is unlikely to suggest that human beings be stripped of their personal freedom. That we are not necessarily destined or preprogrammed to achieve the perfect balance of personal liberty and state authority is obviously true, but that in no way is a refutation of the principle or its consistency with libertarian-minded philosophies.

[Edited on July 8, 2011 at 3:27 PM. Reason : begin, not being]

7/8/2011 3:22:53 PM

Quote :

"Sociopaths exist in large numbers, and while they generally become identified as such by other people that get to know them, they still usually take advantage of a lot of people. Are all sociopaths nihilists, or do they just lack empathy some/all of the time?"

I think that they do lack empathy and as neuroscience matures we'll better understand why. They don't intrinsically see the value in others lives that they see in their own. I personally can't conceive of why another person's life (outside of action that would change their value like attacking me or committing serious atrocities) would have less value than my own. It seems self-evident.

7/8/2011 3:42:37 PM

Quote :

"Is anyone doing this? If religion/superstition were not so prevalent, there wouldn't be a need to identify as "atheist" or "agnostic," but clearly, it plays a big role in our society. No one derives their morality from their lack of faith - the point is that morality derived from ancient texts isn't just stupid, it causes problems for society, and there are much better ways of figuring out what is right and wrong."

It's like a town trying to decide on an AC system and some dishonest engineer gets up and claims that they can have a device that achieves better than the Carnot efficiency!

There are fundamental mechanisms that moral values and life-purpose arise from, although we haven't pinned them down in our form of existence yet. But those are what they are for better or worse. If there is not an obvious positive meaning attached to life, then there's nothing to do about that. Religion almost universally teaches that good and evil are fundamental concepts.

That idea that good and evil are fundamental concepts to the universe is probably false advertising. Maybe the disciples themselves believe it and maybe they don't. One way or the other, stories of miracles were obviously not a part of the factual life of Jesus, which means that intentional overselling was present at some point. The ballooning exaggeration was slowed once a written text existed, but that didn't stop the Catholic church from trying to pervert the message further.

But it's a pretty hard sell as someone trying to recognize the fundamental limitations. It's a hard sell when the competition has something obviously better, and it's hard to blame people for choosing that option.

7/8/2011 3:42:51 PM

thanks for the headline, cnn:

Is new movie atheist 'Brokeback'?

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/08/new-atheist-movie-the-ledge-evangelizes-godlessness/?&hpt=hp_c2

Supposedly, this move is pretty good.

7/8/2011 3:58:07 PM

Quote :

"When I talk about a world without religion I don't mean overnight, all religious people become atheists. I managed to lose my religious faith and somehow still maintain morality. Other people can too. Then they teach their children and so forth (like how it happens now)."

I agree, but I think this will become more and more difficult as atheism spreads. Today's well-established moral norms are strengthened by the pervasive belief in supernatural karma. The less belief there is in boogeymen, the harder it will be to keep those moral norms consistent. I think secular morals are not compelling enough to be self-sustaining in the general human populace. They lack the intimidation/reward of "Eternity in hell/heaven" and they lack concrete scientific foundation.

People would still obey the law and pay their taxes, but things like generosity and the samaritan tradition would suffer greatly.

7/8/2011 4:03:20 PM

Quote :

"It's a hard sell when the competition has something obviously better..."

In what sense is it even a little bit better? It's a hard sell because deeply embedded beliefs are hard to shake, not because religion deals with the fundamental problems in an "obviously better" way.

Consider the fundamental problem with what religious people are saying. They say that it is good to submit to God's will. But then they also say that "good" is defined by God in the first place. So either their logic is circular - obeying God is good because God says it is good - or they are ignorant of the fact that they are applying an external value system to God's will, which explodes the whole premise.

This casuistry may be appealing to children, cretins, and the emotionally dependent, but I wonder by what standard you think that makes it "obviously better" than a more rational understanding of the fundamental issues.

^^ Chapman's book on the Dover creationsism trial is excellent. Funny enough, I remember him writing in it that there should be more atheist characters in Hollywood films. I tend to agree, though films like this will tend to be cheesy in the way that all unsubtle films are.

[Edited on July 8, 2011 at 4:07 PM. Reason : ]

7/8/2011 4:04:32 PM

Quote :

" I think secular morals are not compelling enough to be self-sustaining in the general human populace. They lack the intimidation/reward of "Eternity in hell/heaven" and they lack concrete scientific foundation."

I don't know. Like I said, I did not suddenly become less generous. If anything I've become more generous in an attempt to show others that you don't need divine sanction to be good. I'm also teaching my children to be kind to others and using the Ethic of Reciprocity as the reasoning. (You wouldn't want someone to do X to you right? )

7/8/2011 4:29:40 PM

Quote :

"It's also hard to argue against an inherent sense of morality."

Not really:

Quote :

"It hasn't been proven conclusively that being good to other people is intrinsic in our species"

Quote :

"Nihilism is definitely a possibility for someone who concludes there is no objective "meaning" in life (not that I think a god even has the ability to confer such a thing to a human but I digress). I have just found value in empathy, and go with it."

Nihilists don't deny a practical value in empathy.

7/8/2011 4:31:16 PM

Quote :

"They lack the intimidation/reward of "Eternity in hell/heaven""

The mechanism is only "useful" if people believe heaven and hell exist. There is no reason to think that this must always be the case. In point of fact, it isn't.

Quote :

"and they lack concrete scientific foundation."

Really? You invoke that in order to compare it unfavorably to religion?

Quote :

"It hasn't been proven conclusively that being good to other people is intrinsic in our species"

Being good to other people may not be intrinsic to our species, but the sense that it might be seems to be.

[Edited on July 8, 2011 at 4:40 PM. Reason : ]

7/8/2011 4:39:56 PM

Well, I said conclusively. I think normal non-sociopathic people just feel the need to be ok to other people so they get ok treatment in return. That's what empathy is. That every culture, pre and post religion developed rules based loosely on this idea supports the idea that morality is intrinsic.

Quote :

"Nihilists don't deny a practical value in empathy."

Maybe not. Sociopaths do though.

And let me say as an aside, I enjoy the fact that this thread turned into a conversation about morality. It's definitely a conversation worth having.

[Edited on July 8, 2011 at 4:43 PM. Reason : .]

7/8/2011 4:41:03 PM

Quote :

"In what sense is it even a little bit better? It's a hard sell because deeply embedded beliefs are hard to shake, not because religion deals with the fundamental problems in an "obviously better" way. ... This casuistry may be appealing to children, cretins, and the emotionally dependent, but I wonder by what standard you think that makes it "obviously better" than a more rational understanding of the fundamental issues."

I fairly strongly believe that religion is presenting a "better package" than atheism.

1. The God of the universe cares about them personally
2. You have a personal relationship with God and/or those other 2
3. Good and bad are fundamental, so you doing good has a very particular significance in the world
4. An in-group of Christians is explicitly endorsed by God
5. Oh yeah, and you get an afterlife
6. Not ONLY do you get an afterlife, but you're not judged and are forgiven by the sacrifice Jesus already made, assuming you accept Christ of course

Dude, really, I could go on, but you'd do better to ask someone like Leon. But this isn't saying that Christianity is the best possible warm-fuzzes. I mean, if I like pasta and talking like a pirate then the Flying Spaghetti Monster should appeal to me that much more than atheism. That's just the fact of the matter.

I guess this might be kind of aside the point. If you go to church and are bothered by the inconsistencies, then obviously that's why atheists are atheists in the first place. But lots of people don't seem to have a problem dismissing them, and they stay because the grass is greener, so to speak.

7/9/2011 12:46:31 AM

Quote :

"The mechanism is only "useful" if people believe heaven and hell exist. There is no reason to think that this must always be the case. In point of fact, it isn't."

I doesn't need to always be the case. I'm just saying secular morality will ultimately reduce to practicality, once humanity has abandoned religion in disco's scenario.

7/9/2011 1:42:27 AM

^^ There's no doubt that those are the reasons the types of people I mentioned earlier find Christianity appealing. But I'm not sure why you would call any of that better than a belief system not based on such nonsense. As I said, these beliefs are only useful to those who believe them to be true.

As societies become more educated, and the sustainability of these beliefs declines, what you are sure to find is that telling people that their moral responsibilities in life have been paid for in advance by a human sacrifice in 1st century Palestine is not going to have any of the supposedly positive effects you are so inclined to attribute to Christianity. Try passing that rubbish off on the Danish, for example.

Quote :

"I'm just saying secular morality will ultimately reduce to practicality"

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I doubt I agree with it. Religious ideals are not the only ideals on offer.

[Edited on July 9, 2011 at 11:53 AM. Reason : ]

7/9/2011 11:49:15 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZI7crcz1i4

Good talk there if you have huge amount of time to spend on it.

She talks a lot about human purpose in terms of religion as well as what I would call the scientific institutions. Her criticism of the insensitivity of our academic culture of reason to the human purpose is very similar to what I get from people regarding atheism. It's not that anything is empirically wrong, it's that they come off like jerks and don't strongly express a needed degree of unknown and moral conflict.

7/12/2011 1:25:32 PM

Quote :

"Her criticism of the insensitivity of our academic culture of reason to the human purpose is very similar to what I get from people regarding atheism. It's not that anything is empirically wrong, it's that they come off like jerks and don't strongly express a needed degree of unknown and moral conflict."

I'm trying to figure out whether you're speaking gibberish or if I'm too stupid to understand what you're saying with "express a needed degree of unknown and moral conflict." What do you mean?

7/12/2011 1:46:25 PM

Quote :

"it's that they come off like jerks"

Well you proved one half of his point.

7/12/2011 2:41:19 PM

lawl.

Did you just come off as a jerk calling me a jerk? And did I really come off as a jerk with a tongue-in-check request for clarification (which may I mention was self-deprecating as well)

[Edited on July 12, 2011 at 2:49 PM. Reason : .]

7/12/2011 2:48:41 PM

^^^ apparently it was too much for me to process coherently. There are a lot of good points in there, but I'm not doing so good making those points here.

^ I'm not saying that anything you said comes off jerk-ish. But raw atheism itself often does.

7/12/2011 2:51:45 PM

I was responding to Leon.

But you said that atheists do 2 things:

A)they come off like jerks
B)don't strongly express a needed degree of unknown and moral conflict.

I understand A. I have no idea what you meant by B. Can you clarify?

7/12/2011 2:53:29 PM

There's nothing empirically wrong about atheism, or more specifically, agnostic atheism. The thing about it is that there are seriously powerful existentialist and cosmological questions that remain unanswered. Richard Dawkins, himself, has not protested reasonable suppositions about life coming from Mars, for instance. Virtually all atheists would acknowledge a strong likelihood of bizarre and extreme possibilities of the unknown, granted they are taken as a combined probabilities of nearly infinite unanticipated possibilities.

Additionally, that speaker uses the term "critical dead ends of post modernism", which include things like hedonistic definitions of happiness which is one of the few options for ethics. More generally, I think this is best described by the nihilism term used in this thread.

I feel like these are generally not central to atheism. No school of thought has things figured out. While I find it preferable to acknowledge shortcomings, instead of covering them up with lies, atheism is generally left with no explanation for the unknown, and on an individual level leaves individuals with a mandate that it is up to them to determine the meaning of their own life.

That mandate is generally unhelpful and limits atheism a philosophy that defines its limits around the boundary of what is spiritually useful. In other words, atheism is simply an incomplete description of one's world view.

But who knows if i'm making sense anymore.

7/12/2011 3:12:14 PM

Quote :

"The thing about it is that there are seriously powerful existentialist and cosmological questions that remain unanswered."

Which I and other atheists assert theism doesn't really answer either anyway. Or at least, doesn't answer truthfully and supported with evidence. How is this better?

Quote :

"Richard Dawkins, himself, has not protested reasonable suppositions about life coming from Mars, for instance. Virtually all atheists would acknowledge a strong likelihood of bizarre and extreme possibilities of the unknown, granted they are taken as a combined probabilities of nearly infinite unanticipated possibilities."

Of course. In the God Delusion, Dawkins talked about the probability of the arm of a statue waving on its own. Possible. Incredibly unlikely.

Quote :

"I feel like these are generally not central to atheism. No school of thought has things figured out. While I find it preferable to acknowledge shortcomings, instead of covering them up with lies, atheism is generally left with no explanation for the unknown, and on an individual level leaves individuals with a mandate that it is up to them to determine the meaning of their own life. That mandate is generally unhelpful and limits atheism a philosophy that defines its limits around the boundary of what is spiritually useful. In other words, atheism is simply an incomplete description of one's world view. But who knows if i'm making sense anymore."

I see nothing wrong with this mandate. It seems self-evident and empowering. I don't see it as shortcoming of atheism that it doesn't answer a particular question, even if that question is vitally important to human comfort. It's not a question for atheism to answer. And frankly, being tricked into thinking that this life is a cosmological test for which you will be punished or rewarded infinitely is infinitely worse than not finding meaning at all.

7/12/2011 3:40:26 PM

Quote :

"I see nothing wrong with this mandate. It seems self-evident and empowering."

I would describe it as trivial and disparaging.

7/12/2011 4:34:57 PM

You don't derive philosophy from atheism. Atheism is lack of belief in God, and you're trying to make it more than that. Atheism is just the unwillingness is make shit up in lieu of actual knowledge. Some things we simply don't know right now. If you're unable to grapple with that, sorry.

7/12/2011 5:06:10 PM

Quote :

"I would describe it as trivial and disparaging."

The notion that people should have to discover the meaning of their own lives is disparaging? As opposed to what, being told by an imaginary father figure what the meaning of their lives ought to be?

7/13/2011 10:17:56 AM

How do you respond to the claim that materialism cannot explain human morality and free will?

7/15/2011 3:00:31 PM

I would respond by saying that religion is simply a byproduct of our material nature, and it doesn't answer those questions any better than plain old rationality.

Though, I don't really agree that we have free will; there's just the illusion of free will. I don't think any part of our experience here is genuinely "random."

[Edited on July 15, 2011 at 4:20 PM. Reason : ]

7/15/2011 4:19:05 PM

Where is the support for this:

Quote :

"religion is simply a byproduct of our material nature"

as Christianity is a rejection of material nature, or worldliness. I may be overstepping your definition of material nature though.

7/15/2011 4:30:50 PM

Everything is a byproduct of our material nature. There is no immaterial nature evident.

Religion is a byproduct of our material nature in that it was created to fulfill a need to explain the unknown and to explain the dualistic illusion humans feel. Both of these traits are products of our animal evolution to higher minds. It survives because of children's unquestioning trust of their parents and tribal elders, another trait given to us by evolution.

Just because the words claim that the religion is about giving up worldly things doesn't mean the fact that you even practice it isn't a product of millions of years of primate evolution and thousands of years of culture and tradition.

Quote :

"How do you respond to the claim that materialism cannot explain human morality and free will? "

Cannot *currently* explain. Science cannot *currently* explain a lot of things; doesn't make making shit up any more viable. And I agree with dnumbers about objective free will.

Not only that theism raises more questions about human morality and free will than it explains. The understanding that we're innately altruistic creatures the product of millions of years of primate evolution and tribal history tells us more about our nature than any religious text.

[Edited on July 15, 2011 at 4:43 PM. Reason : .]

7/15/2011 4:38:31 PM

Quote :

"Though, I don't really agree that we have free will; there's just the illusion of free will. I don't think any part of our experience here is genuinely "random.""

O_o

So what about radioactive decay? Is that random?

Before this tangents into something irrelevant, however, we should recognize that the matter of the universe being random or deterministic is completely irrelevant of free will. It just doesn't matter. Free will is the matter of you having control over your actions, whatever that means. If your own actions are random, in the true meaning of random... you still don't have control over them.

7/15/2011 6:35:57 PM

If randomness doesn't exist the free will can't exist because that would mean measuring the state of the universe at the big bang would allow you to chart the course of history for the eternity of the universe; humanity would just be like any other particle bouncing around the place.

If randomness does exist then it would mean that intelligence could exist to exploit randomness, making free will a viable idea.

I

7/15/2011 7:06:45 PM

I was debating with some Christians earlier today and this was one of their arguments that I didn't have a solid response to.

I love how most religious defenders immediately use any gaps in knowledge as leaps of faith and use it as evidence as God's work.

What I've had to deal with lately: Chrisitians usng scholarly articles and research trying to use the bible and other ancient historical documents that make a reference to a Jesus as eye-witness accounts that should hold up to scrutiny as evidence.

7/15/2011 7:12:02 PM

http://www.wral.com/news/strange/story/9861165/

7/15/2011 8:26:51 PM

Quote :

"If randomness doesn't exist the free will can't exist because that would mean measuring the state of the universe at the big bang would allow you to chart the course of history for the eternity of the universe; humanity would just be like any other particle bouncing around the place. If randomness does exist then it would mean that intelligence could exist to exploit randomness, making free will a viable idea."

What kind of magic allows us to 'exploit' randomness in order to have real free will? The only possible way to get there is to basically employ mysticism.

Understand, what you're saying would imply that a deterministic computer (which is a separate issue from a deterministic universe) could never have free will and that a quantum computer could. And no. Either they can both have free will or neither of them can have free will.

We can start to borderline on P and NP problem discussion here. Free will may or may not exist, but to formally identify something, we can ask some better questions. I'm only interested to know if an artificial brain could be constructed that has a sense of self equivalent to that of us.

Well the answer to that is trivially yes, it could be. But now, would doing so require quantum physics in the design? (Chip designers currently avoid quantum effects, they do not employ them as part of the design) Well the answer to that could be yes or no, although I think the answer would be no. Without assuming either, we can say that such a being with an equal sense of self and cognizance has equal claim to having free will as humans. Now, either both humans and this hypothetical computer have free will or neither of them do.

7/15/2011 8:30:29 PM

Quote :

"How do you respond to the claim that materialism cannot explain human morality and free will? "

How does the existence of a definite prophecies in the Bible explain free will? A literalist Christian can’t have it both ways… either we have free will or we don’t; the Bible leans heavily against free will despite the occasional contradiction otherwise.

7/15/2011 9:19:25 PM

Quote :

"I love how most religious defenders immediately use any gaps in knowledge as leaps of faith and use it as evidence as God's work. "

Repeat after me: Science's inability to answer a question currently does not make a supernatural explanation more plausible. The God of the Gaps is one of the feeblest apologetic there is.

7/15/2011 9:43:06 PM

Quote :

"What kind of magic allows us to 'exploit' randomness in order to have real free will? The only possible way to get there is to basically employ mysticism. Understand, what you're saying would imply that a deterministic computer (which is a separate issue from a deterministic universe) could never have free will and that a quantum computer could. And no. Either they can both have free will or neither of them can have free will. We can start to borderline on P and NP problem discussion here. Free will may or may not exist, but to formally identify something, we can ask some better questions. I'm only interested to know if an artificial brain could be constructed that has a sense of self equivalent to that of us. Well the answer to that is trivially yes, it could be. But now, would doing so require quantum physics in the design? (Chip designers currently avoid quantum effects, they do not employ them as part of the design) Well the answer to that could be yes or no, although I think the answer would be no. Without assuming either, we can say that such a being with an equal sense of self and cognizance has equal claim to having free will as humans. Now, either both humans and this hypothetical computer have free will or neither of them do. "

I don’t understand your confusion. If free will didn’t exist, but randomness did exist, then there would be no reason to model a quantum wave function as collapsing upon being measured; the heisenberg uncertainty principle would be irrelevant. The fact that by measuring a quantum event, you change the outcome means that if randomness is a real thing, then free will exists. By our actions of measuring the universe, we can literally remove randomness from the universe, theoretically, until randomness didn’t exist. We would ourselves (our intelligence) be modeled as singularities in the big picture of the universe. This means that if we can’t be modeled, but we can be measured, then heisenberg doesn’t apply to us, and we choose our wave functions rather than being the collapse of a wave function. I guess the easiest way to understand this is to think about the discussion in the “does time exist thread?”

The answer was “yes” based on the principle that the universe would naturally move towards a state of more entropy, which wouldn’t make sense if time didn’t exist ( you can’t run random events backwards and always get back where you came from).

Now, we haven’t done so yet, but what happens within the next few decades(?) when we construct a molecule that is immutable (we remove all of its entropy)? That wouldn’t be destroyed by any non-singularity event in the known universe? We would have defied entropy, and for that molecule, time is irrelevant. Time, from a mathematical sense, wouldn’t exist. You could ignore entropy, which means every current known physical law of the universe, based on thermodynamics being broken, would be irrelevant. It is paradoxical for the universe to create something contrary to its laws, therefore by collapsing random wave functions, we would have defied randomness to exhibit free will and create something the universe couldn’t create.

If you believe the universe could create on its own immutable molecules, then the law of thermodynamics would be wrong, and i haven’t heard anyone seriously experiment or theorize this.


And you wouldn’t have to really build a “quantum computer” in a purposeful sense to create a thinking machine. Primarily because quantum events are implicit in classic computer design, ask the engineers trying to fab processor at 13nm about this. You simply need any mechanism to measure real randomness which could be as simple as a thermal sensor (i don’t believe there is a solution to NP problems).

And i think you’re putting too much importance on the human self of sense. I think you could design a classical computer with our sense of self, but our sense of self is largely a glitch due to our mortality and pathetically poor ability to fathom the universe. Why would you want a computer with these limitations? A truly intelligent computer could mimic this for the purpose of dealing with humans, but wouldn’t inherently understand it, because it wouldn’t need to. It would have a far “greater” understanding of itself than the limited human sense of the word.

7/15/2011 10:04:09 PM

oooh boy. This is going to be difficult.

Quote :

"I don’t understand your confusion. If free will didn’t exist, but randomness did exist, then there would be no reason to model a quantum wave function as collapsing upon being measured; the heisenberg uncertainty principle would be irrelevant. "

pro tip: Don't ever refer to a wave function "collapse" to any real physicist (myself not really included admittedly).

I hope it's clear to you that physics doesn't model a wave function collapsing. Physics actually... never said such a thing happened. The weirdness of quantum is beyond anything you have yet imagined. It gets over some of these problems by supposing (effectively) that there is not one universe, and I've heard it said that there are either infinite universes or zero. How can we exist with zero determinate universes? Go study quantum if you want to (not) know for 10 years and then maybe finally kind of get the zen of it a little bit.

Quote :

"Now, we haven’t done so yet, but what happens within the next few decades(?) when we construct a molecule that is immutable (we remove all of its entropy)?"

facepalm...

Perhaps you would like to say the state of lowest entropy? But at what temperature? And if you want a super-low entropy blob of matter, that would be the big bang. I've got nothing to help you with that statement. Sorry.

Quote :

"We would have defied entropy, and for that molecule, time is irrelevant. Time, from a mathematical sense, wouldn’t exist."

Ok, this does allude to a real thing. If you have an isolated blob of matter in its state of HIGHEST possible entropy, there is no longer a direction to time. There is still a temporal dimension, but the future and the past is undefined. However, in the state of highest entropy we don't exist. Pretty much no order exists so I don't see how this is going to be useful.

Quote :

"You could ignore entropy, which means every current known physical law of the universe, based on thermodynamics being broken, would be irrelevant."

The 2nd law. The 2nd law of thermodynamics would be broken. But really it's not the 2nd law, it's the arrow of time that's broken.

Energy is still conserved, all kinds of other conservation laws are still in effect. And quantum physics just plain doesn't care. You know the laws of quantum are time-reversible, right? That's actually why this concept of a wave function "collapsing" is such a wacky thing.

Quote :

"And you wouldn’t have to really build a “quantum computer” in a purposeful sense to create a thinking machine. Primarily because quantum events are implicit in classic computer design, ask the engineers trying to fab processor at 13nm about this. You simply need any mechanism to measure real randomness which could be as simple as a thermal sensor (i don’t believe there is a solution to NP problems)."

Look, here's something we should agree on: Math.

You understand the fundamental concept of deterministic formal systems. Math is like this in many respects. Basically all computer programs are exactly deterministic formal systems (leaving out I/O).

A computer is designed to behave as a deterministic formal system. You can go look up how often a computation gives the wrong answer due to quantum tunneling. It's not often, but it is a design limit. That is designed out of the system. Computers are completely deterministic. Unless they're broken... which happens.

Now, even if you don't believe that, you should understand the theoretical concept of a deterministic formal system. The question I have is whether or not such a deterministic system can function equivalently to a human. I think it can.

Is it possible that a deterministic formal system can have free will? Maybe. I don't know.

7/15/2011 10:40:42 PM

Quote :

"PAnd quantum physics just plain doesn't care. You know the laws of quantum are time-reversible, right? That's actually why this concept of a wave function "collapsing" is such a wacky thing."

Probability is built into quantum physics equations. If you run time backwards, you have to re-roll the probabilities still, you don't re-use the forward-time values (chaos: the beginning states aren't predictable from the ends states, and vice-versa).

It's irrelevant to the scenario though. I'm not sure why you brought up the big bang, perhaps before it banged, it didn't disperse its energy, but as soon as it became the big bang, it was not immutable. It observed the known laws of physics and dispersed, each subsequent state on average represented more entropy than the previous state, because the molecules interacted with each other in a normal, random, (presumably) quantum way.

Lets say we discover though through experiments from the LHC a way to combine some particles so that there are no probabilistic states, each state can have its speed and direction simultaneously measured, etc, there is no "randomness" if you will (don't call it entropy if you don't want to), would would this mean? We don't know enough about the universe to say this is impossible, however unlikely it is, but it's a thought experiment... if we humans have the ability to manipulate energy on this level, it implies free will, and it only implies free will in a universe with randomness. Therefore randomness in the universe implies free will.

If the universe is deterministic then it, by definition, is not free will.

Quote :

"Look, here's something we should agree on: Math. You understand the fundamental concept of deterministic formal systems. Math is like this in many respects. Basically all computer programs are exactly deterministic formal systems (leaving out I/O)."

Unless you program them to be non-deterministic, which is pretty easy to do.

Quote :

"A computer is designed to behave as a deterministic formal system. You can go look up how often a computation gives the wrong answer due to quantum tunneling. It's not often, but it is a design limit. That is designed out of the system. Computers are completely deterministic. Unless they're broken... which happens."

It happens a lot actually.

Quote :

"Now, even if you don't believe that, you should understand the theoretical concept of a deterministic formal system. The question I have is whether or not such a deterministic system can function equivalently to a human. I think it can."

If you mean a strict deterministic formal system, then it could function "equivalently" to an autistic human perhaps but not like a normal human, unless you build-in some non-deterministic elements.

Quote :

"Is it possible that a deterministic formal system can have free will? Maybe. I don't know. "

Deterministic? no. it can't, by definition of "free will."

7/16/2011 12:47:26 AM

If I present you with a system that has randomness (true quantum randomness), and this is not an intelligent system - it doesn't have free will.

Randomness is not free will itself, and it doesn't even help in producing free will. Why should it? Nobody has articulated this argument. How does randomness create free will?

Again, going back to mysticism... it's possible that one could see God as a puppet master pulling the strings at the random quantum level, and because God has the ability to impart free will, he could impart free will to us in this way. Now, that is a consistent argument. Right now we don't have a consistent argument to say from a non-religious perspective that randomness plays a role in free will.

7/16/2011 10:54:11 AM

Quote :

"Randomness is not free will itself, and it doesn't even help in producing free will. Why should it? Nobody has articulated this argument. How does randomness create free will?"

If free will didn't exist, then actions would be definitely determinable. Since actions are not definitely determinable, then logically, free will must exist. The only way for actions to not be determinable is if randomness exists. Therefore randomness <=> free will.

It's a trivial way to show that randomness implies free will. What's not trivial is why.

It's hard to even define physically what "will" is...

It's too early still for me to think metacognitively about what "will" might be.

[Edited on July 16, 2011 at 11:12 AM. Reason : ]

7/16/2011 11:11:13 AM

I've never understood what the big deal is with free will.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism

This quote sums up my feelings on the matter:

Quote :

"Arthur Schopenhauer famously said "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills""

7/16/2011 5:14:32 PM

^
to me, the problem with that philosophy is this:

Quote :

"The Compatibilist will often hold both Causal Determinism (all effects have causes) and Logical Determinism (the future is already determined) to be true. Thus statements about the future (e.g., "it will rain tomorrow") are either true or false when spoken today. Hume adds that the Compatibilist's free will should not be understood as some kind of ability to have actually chosen differently in an identical situation."

We know that at least on a physics level, this isn't true. It's possible for the initial conditions to be identical, but the outcome to be different (because randomness exists in the universe...).

You could over course determine a probability of the outcomes (or initial conditions), but when you stack probability on probability, you get randomness.

7/16/2011 6:20:41 PM

If you're saying that the future is nondeterministic, ok fine, I agree. And in that case, maybe "compatibilist" doesn't exactly describe my views perfectly.

But my point is I don't think it matters regarding free will if the future is deterministic or not.

Quote :

"Hume adds that the Compatibilist's free will should not be understood as some kind of ability to have actually chosen differently in an identical situation."

I don't give a fuck about whether or not I could "choose differently." I choose things based on my desires. If my desires were identical and the situation was replayed, why would I choose differently? If truly random processes are occurring in my brain, I don't see how that offers free will either. I'm certainly not consciously aware of those processes, nor do I choose their outcomes.

[Edited on July 16, 2011 at 8:20 PM. Reason : asdfasdf]

7/16/2011 8:02:13 PM

Sometimes I think philosophy is a disease for which the only cure is humor.

7/16/2011 8:56:58 PM

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/08/pastor-learns-the-price-of-atheism/?hpt=hp_t5

1/9/2014 11:34:15 AM

http://viral.buzz/video-checkmate-atheists-scientists-discover-god/

1/21/2015 9:24:10 AM

Quote :

"He will not pray, go to church, read the Bible for inspiration, trust in divine providence or hope in things unseen. He’s taking the opposite of a leap of faith: a free fall into the depths of religious doubt. "

There's nothing wrong with an atheist praying, going to church, or reading the bible for inspiration...

1/21/2015 9:51:20 AM