View Full Version : "Free" Will?
J.J.Smith
04-20-2004, 16:22
To decide on something we need information. We need to know the pros and cons. If I have to decide on what car to buy, I want to know the gas mileage, size, color, etc. These are normal things we all seek to understand before we make a decision. But, to take it a step farther, to truly know if we want to buy car A VS car B we need to know everything to make it a truly free choice. Which means we need to know the future, something we can only speculate about. That is to say, say you choose car A, but if you knew that in the future car A will cause your death or misery, would you still choose it?
In effect, what it comes down to because we can't know the future, is our previous experience. "I like car B because of some experience I had that convinced me gas mileage is more important than horsepower." But where do we get our previous experience? It all seems to stem from our parents, what location they raised us, how they treat(ed) us, what school they send us to, if they can afford to send us to college, what genetics we get, etc.
We cannot however choose our parents before we are born (some may believe otherwise, but wait, I’m getting there). Since our experience starts out with our parents (or a combo of who raised us and our genetic heritage), and our parent's experience starts out with their parent's experience...
If we take it a step farther, it seems to have started with the big bang, because of where particles happen to go and how they behave. Particles had to form stars, which in turn turned out heavier atoms, blew up, made our solar nebula, formed our sun, formed earth, etc. Which formed the path of humanity...which formed our parents, which formed our previous experience.
Particles, however, went certain places, made suns, all because of physical laws, so does that mean that our whole lives turn out the way they do, that we make the decisions we make, all based on objective predestined, laws?
Now, the only way we can fit true free will (not essentially random choices based off of partial information) in is to throw in some divine presence (Not necessarily God in the Christian sense either), whether that be reincarnation where you get to choose how you start out (i.e. parents->genetics), or God created everything and our Free Will is essentially His. Or we collectively decide our own fate. Fill in what religion you want.
My college buddy Matt wrote that for our philosophy class, it's something we're discussing and I was wondering what a bunch of martial artists/buddhists etc would think of it.
Why do we need to fit in free will?
Yang Shen
04-21-2004, 09:48
In the Taoist traditions there are two parts of the whole the yin and yang of fate in this instance one part we control postnatal and one part we do not control pre natal aspects.
A lotus blooms out of a muddy pool so no matter what, who or where one came from one can become great.
Some thought patterns are a psychological problem like taking those external factors and allowing them to create and define us. In my opinion that is a mistake, taking power away from the individual to change and grow. Some psychologist may damage patients with this out look.
When we limit ourselves in thought like the way we are raised, the country we are born, the social acceptance of culture and so on we form a trap which is man caught in duality.
We are all given free will we choose to recognize or not recognize natural law, work with or against.
The primal unified energy is a creative force and through that process also creates the destructive cycle once born. The universe can be viewed as unborn continually reproducing itself with the same invisible laws but a visible difference is noted in the amounts of yin and yang within particular manifestations.
Time can be considered the invisible patterns of change so no beginning no end; the end is the beginning the beginning is the end so past; present and future are the same. Removing boundaries in the mind of this time or that time, birth and death, high and low, the yin and yang is essential then most man made or artificial consciousness (pre supposed ideas) and thought that create these boundaries in the first place dissolve.
Wu Chi (yin and yang not separated, the source) makes the intelligent mind useless. The ability for mind to function and comprehend between this and that (basic function of mind) is no longer a great tool but a deficiency because this and that are the same. The original mind is fully aware of our place in the universe and there is nothing to “know” so to come to any conclusion (because there is no end) with the intellectual mind is not possible but it can be fun to speculate as long as we do not forget we are making things up.
In a Newtonian / Darwinian universe, there is not 'need' to posit free will.
Only in an ethical universe is free will a necessity because of the separation between good and evil and the need for justice.
And Yes, I agree that a true free will choice must have a full and complete understanding of the future but without proof. "Proof" of the future constrains our choice - only an innocent choice is trully free.
Since such a set up is obviously impossible on earth, I suggest that all personal / spiritual beings were created long before the physical universe and chose their own destiny via a true free will choice made in innocence but knowing (without proof) all the ramifications and consequences of making each choice.
Then the earth etc was made for us to be able to work out ourself chosen destinies.
(This is a cursory intro to the topic of pre-conception existance, not a treatis. As such, of course it is inadequate to answer all the questions it gives rise to but these questions do not imply the lack of answers. I don't mind answering questions but I hate the bad attitude such topics often engender so I reserve the right to quit at any time. :) )
J.J.Smith
04-30-2004, 14:21
Why do we need to fit in free will? If there is no free will, then nothing really matters. Our lives would be on autopilot, no matter what we learn or do what happens would have happened no matter what...but I don't know, maybe we don't need to fit it in. I havn't thought on it enough to come to a personal decision yet.
That sort of brings up the thought that if there is an actual end to things, no continuance, then nothing really matters either. If you are to be forgotten so to speak, what does it matter what actions you take?
Even if, say there are multiple lives, and you become "enlightened" then what? Do you cease to be? I ask again what does it matter if there is an end? In the case of enlightenment being the end, then maybe I'd rather not become enlightened.
Time is an odd thing, Einstein proved that, I think we may have a far ways to go when it comes to understanding time. Maybe things will make sense in . . . time :D
I keep hearing this "Free Will" junk, and all I want to know is, who is Will, and why is he in prison? Whenever I ask, people just look at me funny and walk away...
TaoSeeker
04-30-2004, 18:32
Why does making an absolutely and truely informed choice define being free? In your example, unless one knows everything that there is to know about a situation one wouldn't be "free." However, if you did know everything about everything, your life, to you, would be a linear path with no choices involved, as they've already been made. You wouldn't be free. Now there is a new question; are we free, or do we only have the illusion of being free? Aren't really really all just prisoners in our own personality? In the end, I don't think that it really matters. The universe is relative. We are either free or not free. One can't really compare or argue. There is no universal constant. None that I have locked in by basement anyway.
J.J.Smith
04-30-2004, 20:08
" 1.
1. The mental faculty by which one deliberately chooses or decides upon a course of action: championed freedom of will against a doctrine of predetermination.
2. The act of exercising the will.
2.
1. Diligent purposefulness; determination: an athlete with the will to win.
2. Self-control; self-discipline: lacked the will to overcome the addiction.
3. A desire, purpose, or determination, especially of one in authority: It is the sovereign's will that the prisoner be spared.
4. Deliberate intention or wish: Let it be known that I took this course of action against my will.
5. Free discretion; inclination or pleasure: wandered about, guided only by will.
6. Bearing or attitude toward others; disposition: full of good will.
7.
1. A legal declaration of how a person wishes his or her possessions to be disposed of after death.
2. A legally executed document containing this declaration.
"
Welcome to the english language, Oz. :rolleyes:
And before you say anything, give a sarcastic answer, get a sarcastic response. ;)
Taoseeker- How does free will not matter? Things would be quite a bit different depending on if there is, maybe not on the outside, but still quite a bit different, or at least to me.
"Aren't really really all just prisoners in our own personality?" That's what I (we're) getting at.
"There is no universal constant." Einstein might disagree :D
Although I think I agree with you.
"Why does making an absolutely and truely informed choice define being free?" Because otherwise you don't know the consequences, in other words what will happen. If asked what you want at an ice cream parlor, chocalate or strawberry? You (everyone) attempt(s) to answer in terms of consequence, that is, if you say chocolate, that's because you want to receive a chocolate ice cream. I don't know how to make this any clearer.
Cheers
J.J.,
Sorry if I offended, but I was just trying to lighten an increasingly heavy subject.
And by the by, Einstein discarded the universal constant when it was pointed out numerous times to only be a fudge factor in his equations. It also became unworkable when new observations about universal expansion and atomic behaviour were published. He was later quoted as saying that the U.C. was his biggest mistake.
However, some modern quantum physicists are considering a variant of the universal constant to explain some of the freaky things they're coming up against. But this is a philosophical discussion, not a physical one.
TaoSeeker
05-01-2004, 17:22
I was rereading Shoshin's response, and I must say I've been entertaining that idea for a long time, nice to see others that have had the same ideas. Well, now to defend my previous post (in an effort to keep things cooking with, hopefully, little ego involved on my part.)
First things first, I believe that whether or not be have "Free Will" is a moot point because: If we don't then whatever we do won't change that anyway, and if we do, then we live life as we had been anyway. I should not say that it doesn't matter and say instead that it shouldn't matter. We'll live our lives the same way anyway.
JJ qouted me as saying "Aren't really really all just prisoners in our own personality?" That's not ALL of what I said. That was one of the questions raised by my answer to your thread. I happen to not beleive that to be true, for reasons I won't really get into.
I'm not really sure about the constant thing. That's why I said that it's not in my basement. But I'm pretty sure we're right about that. ;)
And I understand why you think that an absolutly informed choice is the only way to have free will. It's clear. Thanks. I just think that if we were privy to that knowledge, if wouldn't appear to us (from our point of view) that we didn't make any choices. If we don't make choices, do we have free will? I don't think so, any thoughts?
J.J.Smith
05-01-2004, 19:55
None taken Oz.
I'm not sure what you mean by your last part Tao.
TaoSeeker
05-02-2004, 18:06
I'm saying that if we knew everything about a given choice we would already know what we were going to choose. If we lived our entire lives like this, our life would be a straight line, with no choices being made in our own minds. Without that choice are we free? I dunno.
mantisman
05-02-2004, 22:44
Free will does not exist because we only feel free to do things within the limits of the culture we are raised in.Also within the limits of the values we are raised with. Therefore there is no such thing as free will because the choices we make are within these limitations.
J.J.Smith
05-04-2004, 00:17
Touche, Tao. Thank you for that new way of looking at it, perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between as it so often does.
Very good mantis, so maybe a "free" will within a set of choices. Kind of, "You are free to choose, but (God) I am free to say No.
Nice insight guys.
Cheers
I'm saying that if we knew everything about a given choice we would already know what we were going to choose. If we lived our entire lives like this, our life would be a straight line, with no choices being made in our own minds. Without that choice are we free? I dunno.
__________________
Cheers,
Jason Gonzalez
Agreed, this is so fundamental that in Christian circles where free will is an issue,
it is often supposed (but never / seldom accepted) that for a true free will choice to be made, God himself must blind Himself to the outcome of the created beings true free will choice or His knowledge would taint the choice.
But to repeat, to understand the nature of justice we need to understand free will but our lack of free will on Earth as corporeal beings does not interfer with our learning our lessons, as long as we feel involved and (hopefuly) chose our own lives in the first place.
Yang Shen
05-05-2004, 07:04
Some more words for fun, Free will, positive thoughts and actions can bring positive results. Negative thoughts and actions can bring negative results all this results from free will decisions and is up to individual to make choices on a daily basis.
From benefit comes harm from harm comes benefit. Lets say that kindness is a good virtue but kindness taken too far causes harm to oneself or others.
Nature shows blind kindness by supporting poison ivy as well as holly of course no good or bad but how we decide to use/have a relationship with a object creates good or bad beginning with intention. If our intentions are clouded with want, craftiness and so on we get the corresponding response in return.
Things that are conditioned by the mind are artificial and not true freedom to see that yang rises and yin sinks, understanding the unified energy that gives birth to yin and yang whom else do you seek? What needs to be known?
All things spring from this eternal energy as it is called by many names. If we hold on to the eternal what temporary or external “thing” can cloud our vision?
We are all in motion in a state of change if we all agree on something, as “this is it” that would also change with circumstance and situation, being free is to see the changes.
When it is time to be round be round, when it is time to be square be square, that is freedom not a ridged un changing idea but to master yin and yang can be difficult,
Jack Stay
07-22-2004, 10:45
I am a big believer in 'free will' and my martial arts practice has tended to reinforce that belief.
I do not believe humans as a species are automatons, a 'stimulus-response' organism. This is where I constantly clash with Marxist ideology of the economic determination of human nature - that people have no free will and are just puppets of the economic environment with capitalism as the central motivation of human misconduct. Based on my life experiences, I cannot possibly accept that viewpoint.
So as far as martial arts are concerned, I gravitated at an early age to the soft-styles of karate, jiu-jitsu, and kung fu which emphasized ki, chi, or internal strength training. I emphasized technique over power throughout my martial arts practice, and I like pressure points, and Taoist over Buddhist philosophy.
I've learned to accept full responsibility for all my decisions and outcomes in life: I habitually do not blame society for any good or bad that happens to me.
As a coping mechanism, I've learned to view any of my life's little tragedies as a problem to be solved using 'free will' - like in a Judo tournament with several bouts, one opponent is tall and thin (how do I throw him?), another opponent is short and bulky (how do I throw him?), another opponent is way too good for me (how do I defeat him?) and so on.
With 'free will' it is me, and only me, who is responsible for how I handle a life situation - not the environment or society.
Once a punk told me that one of his brawny muscular bullies was going to beat me up, and I said only if I let him!
So it is important to excel in your particular martial art style and to learn as much philosophy & literature as possible to make intelligent decisions and sagacious observations. 'Free Will' makes you a holistic martial artist, a well rounded man - rather than a mere technician, a muscle bound winning machine.
redqueen290
08-10-2004, 14:20
wow, i realli like that outlook smith, thats good, i can tell its for a philosphy class. do you mind if i send that to some of my friends?, i dont wunna steal your work. thanx,
-emily nealey :karate:
J.J.Smith
08-11-2004, 15:39
Redqueen check your private messages.
From a bit of a physics standpoint:
The "particle motions determined during big bang" argument is from classical mechanics (Newton et al) which, though accurate on a larger scale, is totally off on the smaller ones. Quantum mechanics and the other new physics have firmly established that it's not possible to predict particle motion; the only thing you can predict is the probability that such and such a motion will occur. (It's like saying "If I flip a coin a million times, I should get half heads and half tails," but you can't tell what way Toss # 652 will go.) (Loose analogy for explanatory purposes.)
It threw physics and philosophy both for a loop, because prior to that the main idea had been Newtonian mechanics and the Great Predetermined Watch Ticking Along (the idea your friend's paper talks about). The new physics has some fascinating tie-ins to philosophy - worth checking into if your friend is seriously into this free-will-with-physics stuff. (Recommend starting with The Dancing Wu Li Masters for a good gentle intro.)
Another proposed physics-free-will-related models is Many Universes (every possible action takes place, each in a separate universe, so there are an infinite number of universes with every possible stream of events out there somewhere). This sounds like one of the religous viewpoints I've heard - that God knows the outcome of all the possible actions, but we're free to choose from them. (In essence, he can see all the universes at once - which is impossible... unless you're God, I guess.)
Not sure where this point fits in, but making and knowing the rules and initial conditions for a world is different than knowing what is going to happen in it. (For a quick illustration of what I'm talking about, check out John Conway's Game of Life.)
-Mel Chua
T.
In a grand scheme of things there is absolutely no free will.
Here is why.
1)We always choose what best for 'Me' and only me. Its basic self preservation. 100% of the time your actions will be for yourself (even if it means you get to die in a heroic way), even if they look altruistic on the outside.
If we knew the future we would be 100% automatons because we would always follow the best path. Only when we don't know the future we can "guess and choose". Ignorance isn't freedom in my opinion... :)
2)Our bodies behave in predictable ways and so do our mental habits. Where is the free will? You didn't shape your essence, you didn't shape the laws by which it develops and you can't change the essence of the environment and how it develops.
We can predict where moon will end up tommorow and where Comet XYZ is at any time knowing its data. The SAME thing can be applied to living beings, they are just more complex that is all. If we know every single responce in every atom, in every mental process, etc - where is freedom? Environment affects us all, none of us are unstained by outside influences. It is not US making choices, it is the environment making it.
All we can do is try our best to find the proper environment so that it could influence us in a way we need to be influenced... Even then the choice to choose the right surroundings may be forced and not free...
This is extremely complex issue. On one hand we feel like we are choosing something, on other hand there is no choice and just a process of cause and effect lead by the great unknown...
--We can predict where moon will end up tommorow and where Comet XYZ is at any time knowing its data. The SAME thing can be applied to living beings, they are just more complex that is all. If we know every single responce in every atom, in every mental process, etc - where is freedom? Environment affects us all, none of us are unstained by outside influences. It is not US making choices, it is the environment making it.--.
Except that induction is not mandatory, in same sense as deduction: so, even though we may predict where the moon should end, we cannot be absolut sure (B. Russell, I recall).. And we can't know for sure all from atomic and sub-atomic level occasions (Heisenberg et al) .. and psychology is different than physics (all anti-positivists, anti-reductionist thinkers)..
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
Except that induction is not mandatory, in same sense as deduction: so, even though we may predict where the moon should end, we cannot be absolut sure (B. Russell, I recall).. And we can't know for sure all from atomic and sub-atomic level occasions (Heisenberg et al) .. and psychology is different than physics (all anti-positivists, anti-reductionist thinkers)..
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
True that On subatomic level we aren't sure, yet. But on macro scale we are sure. I am sure that when science progresses we will find a way to accurately predict sub atomic particles, and quantum mechanic will be more clean and Newtonian.
Our world is based on being absolutely sure, otherwise everything would fall apart. If we weren't sure that Sun would get up, we wouldnt care for the future. The facts are that we can accurately predict where and when sun, moon and other known and researched bodies will end up. We can work with any macro matter and accurately predict what will happen to it. We just need a better methods for dealing with more complex 'living matter' . How do you think spaceships get launched into space or vaccinnes being administrated (and other millions of examples)
I am not a fan of Psychology but you dont need to be a MD to see how outside influences affect us. Plain observation and reproduceble results show that environment is a factor (if not the most important). And ofcourse genes DO matter, and other laws of science (physics, chemistry, bio, socio, etc)
Sincerely,
I'm not sure are we talking about same thing.. getting rid of free will, or free will based moral argumentation, by using some sort of reductive method, to lead all back to some macro physical laws.. that sounds so Wienna circle.. and it might also be impossible to lead 'best for me' back to atomical events.. but interesting project, though..
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
I'm not sure are we talking about same thing.. getting rid of free will, or free will based moral argumentation, by using some sort of reductive method, to lead all back to some macro physical laws.. that sounds so Wienna circle.. and it might also be impossible to lead 'best for me' back to atomical events.. but interesting project, though..
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
Also.
Nothing is uncaused. Everything has a cause.
So are all your movements and decisions in life... Your past, your present and your future are all prep programmed.
Your future depends on what you do today. What you do today depends on what you did yesterday. What you did yesterday depends on what you did 2 days ago , ad infinitum.
--
So are all your movements and decisions in life... Your past, your present and your future are all prep programmed.--
Ok.. in that case, there would be no reason to give any orders to other person(s), they are going to do what is predestinated, right? Or perhaps more correctly, while someone gives an order, s/he is actually making a statement of fact: something will be happening.. So, if you would order me to stand up, spin around clockwise three times, then sit back down, touch my nose with finger, your saying it would be predestinated by some previous accidents in your life; and me doing that is predestinated by some previous accidents in my life; and we all are syncronided to whole universe, all computational.. stunning theory.
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
Ok.. in that case, there would be no reason to give any orders to other person(s), they are going to do what is predestinated, right? Or perhaps more correctly, while someone gives an order, s/he is actually making a statement of fact: something will be happening.. So, if you would order me to stand up, spin around clockwise three times, then sit back down, touch my nose with finger, your saying it would be predestinated by some previous accidents in your life; and me doing that is predestinated by some previous accidents in my life; and we all are syncronided to whole universe, all computational.. stunning theory.
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
Your "giving of order" is predetermined as well as somebody else's response to it. You might need or not need to give an "order" for other person to do something. Sometimes silence is an order as big as actually doing something.
Very basic and simple example:
If I punch someone in the face i'll get different results based on their characteristics which they are NOT in control of.
a)A girl would cry
b)Some guy could be stunned and unsured.
c)Martial Artist will block it and beat my sorry bum (In a predictable fashion. Boxer would not to a spinning hook kick to the balls)
d)Cop will arrest me.
The response is predetermined based on their inner characteristics, environment and everything else. Me punching someone out of the blue is predetermined by something (A bad day or a bad chemical in the coffee perhaps).
Of course other things get much more complicated. Your standing up, turning around and dancing is based on something from your past which I activate by giving you an order. Me giving you an order is a direct responce from something in my past... It gets complicated because there is not just one, but millions if not billions of little causes that happen.
Puppet moves by pulling of its strings. Like puppets we have billions of strings pulling us.
I could write books based on free will and causality... No, there is material for VOLUMES of books based on 3 word "Everything has a Cause" or even 2 words "Free Will".
TaoSeeker
08-25-2004, 14:10
I both agree and disagree with you Scorp. First of all, I really like Poke's post, adding physics into it. I don't think that science will become Newtonian again, I beleive it's going to become more and more philosphical. Science's and philosophy's goals are ultimately identical, to explain the universe. Secondly, I think that the free will issue is irrelevent. If we have free will, we are all exercising it, if not, then there's nothing we can do about it anyway. I think it's all an illusion. For free will to exist there must be something else to compare it to. If we all have free will than it doesn't exist, just as if everything were blue, we wouldn't have a name for it. The way that humans look at the universe is by contrast, we must complicate it because it is too simple to understand. 1=1 seems less advanced than 2+3=9-4, but it's just a complication.
corsarius
08-30-2004, 10:20
Proving whether we have free will may well be a philosophical impossibility. We can, however, reduce the problem significantly by limiting our search domain.
We can consider two specific types of free will. The first is explicit free will - the limitations placed on my actions by the world outside my head at a specific time. An explicit limitation on my free will, for example, is a wall - I can't walk through a wall even though I might want to, and so my free will is limited by this. Likewise my free will can be limited by other aspects of the world. If I attempt to speak out against my government, for example, I might be thrown into a jail cell immediately without trial - hence my will to speak out is hampered by me rotting away in a dank cell somewhere. This is a relatively uninteresting account of free will from a philosophical point of view, however, and while there are a few interesting quirks to it, we are much more interested in free will of the implicit kind.
Implicit or intrinsic free will describes our ability to control the decisions we make inside our own head. The argument seems to be that we don't really have free will, because our decisions are all based on our past experiences, and so we are "programmed" if you will, to act in certain ways. This, of course, is a tautology - the very concept of behaviour is based on past experience. Without past experience our mind is a tabula-rasa: a blank slate. Without experience we would be unable to make any decisions at all - we would just flail inneffectually. This does not, however, mean that we are automatons. Indeed, even from a biological perspective this does not hold true.
A biological neural network, if stimulated in exactly the same way on two separate occasions, will not produce the exact same out put each time. Why not? Neurons often fire in a semi-stochastic manner. This stimulates alternative neural pathways, and so the firing of a few scattered neurons can greatly effect the behaviour of the whole. Is this kind of random firing free will then? Of course not - it's simply random neural activity. It does, however, play a part in the functioning of the brain as a whole.
A major component of our mind that sets us apart and gives us what we term "free will" is our ability to introspect upon our thoughts and memories, and to actively reconstitute them in new and interesting ways. When I say "Imagine George Bush naked, and riding on a donkey" you almost instantly generate an internal image of this, even though it's fairly unlikely that you've seen this in real life (unless there's something you're not telling us!). However, your conscious brain has the ability to reconstitute what you know about donkeys, george bush, and nudity into a single cohesive whole, and to re-present that image to your consciousness using the very same neural hardware (or wetware) that you use to see the "real world" with (though at a point in processing far "downstream" from the eyes, the pre-visual cortex etc.
So - we have the ability to imaging things, and we have the ability to generate different output on different occasions using the same hardware. Interesting? Maybe, but hardly free will. Now, what if we add in a loop of consciousness. What if I said, instead of imagining george bush naked, I want you to imagine your last sparring encounter, and what you could have done to perform better. Instead of imagining a single scene we now replay the scene over and over in our head, and each time we combine all we know about martial arts and our last encounter into a cohesive whole, yet each iteration is slightly (or enormously) different due to tiny variations in our neural processing. All of a sudden we are now learning about the real world without having to interact with it - we're learning to fight just by thinking about it!
From our mental, inner experiences we can now make conscious decisions based on our current knowledge about what we can do to improve our performance. How we can change our attitudes toward martial arts, or the world in general. Whether we need to concentrate more on ground-fighting or striking, or anything at all for that matter. The point is that we are making concious decisions based on knowledge generated from within our own head.
Are these decisions based on previous experience and knowledge? Of course they are - we've already established that tautology. Are we trapped in an epistemological cage of our own preconceived notions and ideas though? The answer must be a resounding NO! Our internal, generative processes allow us to extend and modify our knowledge and beliefs dynamically, and it is this very ability which lies at the core of what we know as free will.
I both agree and disagree with you Scorp. First of all, I really like Poke's post, adding physics into it. I don't think that science will become Newtonian again, I beleive it's going to become more and more philosphical. Science's and philosophy's goals are ultimately identical, to explain the universe.
I have to politely disagree. This may seem like harsh, but hopefully it carries its point across.
Science has NOTHING to do with philosophy, and if it does it will die out and become some mysticism again. Philosophy to science is like Blind Faith to rational thinking.
Western Science operates on REPEATABLE experiments, not on assumptions and other mind created things. Philosophy is dying out (Thank God) as it has been shown as nothing more than people having a bout of imaginations, guessing, theorizing etc. Science's goal and Philosophy goals are different.
Science's goal is to show how world works. Philosophy is simply mind games, uprovable assumptions, guessing, imaginations, fairy tales etc (otherwise it would be together with science).
Secondly, I think that the free will issue is irrelevent. If we have free will, we are all exercising it, if not, then there's nothing we can do about it anyway. I think it's all an illusion.
I disagree. It is One of the most if not the MOST important issues facing a human being. Can he/she change destiny or not? Is there a purpose or it is all robotic (almost amoral). To which degree are we free or not what can we do with it?
For free will to exist there must be something else to compare it to. If we all have free will than it doesn't exist, just as if everything were blue, we wouldn't have a name for it. The way that humans look at the universe is by contrast, we must complicate it because it is too simple to understand. 1=1 seems less advanced than 2+3=9-4, but it's just a complication.
Absolute Comparison does not have to exist. What is large? What is small? You do not need absolute measures (those dont exist as far as we know). We can compare ourselves to the next step not the absolute step (impossible. Try to compare your size to the universe, brain cant handle it. But you can compare your size for example to a house). There were great people who rose higher and higher to freedom (not absolute but higherr than ours. That is a basis of comparison)
I think that those people who think something is simple, simply do not know the material good enough. The more person knows about the subject, more and more questions crop up.
Best wishes!
Good post.
Proving whether we have free will may well be a philosophical impossibility. We can, however, reduce the problem significantly by limiting our search domain.
Why not work with scientific material that has been tried and tested and proven true?
We can consider two specific types of free will. The first is explicit free will - the limitations placed on my actions by the world outside my head at a specific time. This is a relatively uninteresting account of free will from a philosophical point of view, however, and while there are a few interesting quirks to it, we are much more interested in free will of the implicit kind.
Considering that we are all products of forces around us shaping and defining us this is VERY important. A person who grew up alone in the wilderness will be much different from his twin who grew up in New York as CEO. Outside forces shape us tremendously inside and our outlook on life. (Our society vs Taliban for example).
Implicit or intrinsic free will describes our ability to control the decisions we make inside our own head. The argument seems to be that we don't really have free will, because our decisions are all based on our past experiences, and so we are "programmed" if you will, to act in certain ways. This, of course, is a tautology - the very concept of behaviour is based on past experience. Without past experience our mind is a tabula-rasa: a blank slate.
Without past expereinces of human programming we would be like animals. Have minimum free will and operate by instinct. (Eat, drink, sleep, reproduce, defend territory). Animals are great example of that. They have bare minimum of "training" (if any) yet they perform admirably. They fulfil their duty well, not like humans who ruin everything. :)
Without experience we would be unable to make any decisions at all - we would just flail inneffectually. This does not, however, mean that we are automatons. Indeed, even from a biological perspective this does not hold true.
Animals???
A biological neural network, if stimulated in exactly the same way on two separate occasions, will not produce the exact same out put each time. Why not? Neurons often fire in a semi-stochastic manner. This stimulates alternative neural pathways, and so the firing of a few scattered neurons can greatly effect the behaviour of the whole. Is this kind of random firing free will then? Of course not - it's simply random neural activity. It does, however, play a part in the functioning of the brain as a whole.
2 different ocassions ARE NEVER the same ones. Thus that arguments does not hold true. Experiment has to be exact, it must have exact parameters.
The first choice was the best that you could make at that time, the 2nd time you made similiar (not same) choice you operated with different data and as such you made a different choice.
As a child you might to decide to eat Candy rather than Healthy Food.
As an adult you might choose Healthy rather than Candy. Not because of free will but because your situation has changed, your outlook changed, and you were able to make a more informed choice.
As a child you could have gotten away with candy, you didn't know what poor health meant. As an adult you know different info and as such your internal calculated choice is the same one but the external one is different. You choose what is the best for you at that time.
A major component of our mind that sets us apart and gives us what we term "free will" is our ability to introspect upon our thoughts and memories, and to actively reconstitute them in new and interesting ways. When I say "Imagine George Bush naked, and riding on a donkey" you almost instantly generate an internal image of this, even though it's fairly unlikely that you've seen this in real life (unless there's something you're not telling us!). However, your conscious brain has the ability to reconstitute what you know about donkeys, george bush, and nudity into a single cohesive whole, and to re-present that image to your consciousness using the very same neural hardware (or wetware) that you use to see the "real world" with (though at a point in processing far "downstream" from the eyes, the pre-visual cortex etc.
Your imagination is based on something you have felt before. It is not free, it is not from blank. You cannot imagine what you have not seen/heard/tasted/known/touched etc. Also what were the reasons for you imagining that? Is there something that you are hiding? Mental thoughts have reasons for their occurance as is everything. There is a reason why psycopaths imagine one thing and normies imagine another. It is not their choice, it is choice made for them.
So - we have the ability to imaging things, and we have the ability to generate different output on different occasions using the same hardware. Interesting? Maybe, but hardly free will. Now, what if we add in a loop of consciousness. What if I said, instead of imagining george bush naked, I want you to imagine your last sparring encounter, and what you could have done to perform better. Instead of imagining a single scene we now replay the scene over and over in our head, and each time we combine all we know about martial arts and our last encounter into a cohesive whole, yet each iteration is slightly (or enormously) different due to tiny variations in our neural processing. All of a sudden we are now learning about the real world without having to interact with it - we're learning to fight just by thinking about it!
That is purely a calculation in your head for the best outcome. Computers can do the same thing on mathematical level. We are just better at it in terms of what we can caclulate. Hardly free will. Remember we are replaying a scene that has already happened. Remember that we are working with what we have received, you cannot imagine something that you have not felt. Thus we are limited to our expereinces, they dictate what the specifics of calculations we are doing.
From our mental, inner experiences we can now make conscious decisions based on our current knowledge about what we can do to improve our performance.
As you said all we do is based on something. That isn't free will, it is working with what we have which defines us.
How we can change our attitudes toward martial arts, or the world in general. Whether we need to concentrate more on ground-fighting or striking, or anything at all for that matter. The point is that we are making concious decisions based on knowledge generated from within our own head.
Our attitude toward absolutely everything is the same. Self preservation.
Specifics vary.
Decision to Focus on ground fighting or Boxing isn't a free choice. It is a choice made from nessesity. It is a calculation to determine what is best for me.
Are these decisions based on previous experience and knowledge? Of course they are - we've already established that tautology. Are we trapped in an epistemological cage of our own preconceived notions and ideas though? The answer must be a resounding NO!
You should disagree with that. You can't imagine what you have not expereinced in one form or another and as such you are a slave to your senses. Try to imagine a Ultra Violet Sirius B Alien or imagine the meaning of a word in a foreign language that you know nothing about. Imagine taste of the void or something. Hard to give an example but I hope you can understand.
Our internal, generative processes allow us to extend and modify our knowledge and beliefs dynamically, and it is this very ability which lies at the core of what we know as free will.
Processess follow a strict path. There is no choice. If you know what is the best for you, you do it. If you do not, you choose the best possible choice.
Omniscience or Ignorance you still follow one program. You always depend on something, that limits you and limits your will.
Slavery to self preservation, for success, for fame (Egoism basicly) is the only thing that drives us under many deceptive masks. It is impossible for a person in our world to go against it, we are slaves to it.
Good post you had there!
Even though taking side-track, I really, really must disagree with picture given about philosophy.. philosophy is much more than vague mind-games, fairy-tales, or blind fate.. it has been more, and, in my opinion, still is. For example, it still contains tools for rational thinking, logic, and evaluating experiences and argumentation. After all, even in this thread philosophy - and different philosophical traditions - are used and experimented: calling philosophy merely fairy-tale is underestimating both others and ones own posts/ideas/arguments.
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
corsarius
08-31-2004, 06:39
Good post.
Considering that we are all products of forces around us shaping and defining us this is VERY important. A person who grew up alone in the wilderness will be much different from his twin who grew up in New York as CEO. Outside forces shape us tremendously inside and our outlook on life. (Our society vs Taliban for example).
Indeed - these things all effect the shaping of our mind, though they therefore fall under the canon of implicit free will - and hence are worthwhile considering in that sense.
Without past expereinces of human programming we would be like animals. Have minimum free will and operate by instinct. (Eat, drink, sleep, reproduce, defend territory). Animals are great example of that. They have bare minimum of "training" (if any) yet they perform admirably. They fulfil their duty well, not like humans who ruin everything. :)
In fact without past experience humans would not reach this level. Neither would most animals. If we confine our discussions to the higher species (those which act out of more than just a-priori knowledge/instinct) we see that all animals undergo a learning process and "compile" experiences into discrete skills. Consider a bird which has been kept caged all its life - such a bird when released will be unable to fly, for the simple reason that it has not "learned" to do so. We learn all the time, and so do less complex creatures - birds learn to eat poisonous toads by flipping them over to avoid poison sacs, native wildlife learns to avoid mankind, and these skills are passed on to their young by "playing" during their infant phase and by mimicking actions of parents.
2 different ocassions ARE NEVER the same ones. Thus that arguments does not hold true. Experiment has to be exact, it must have exact parameters.
The first choice was the best that you could make at that time, the 2nd time you made similiar (not same) choice you operated with different data and as such you made a different choice.
Absolutely correct - unless we ensure they are in a laboratory. Experiments using individual biological neurons or groups of neurons have shown that even under the exact same range of inputs and conditions, the same neuron will not necessarily produce the same output. Certainly there is a significant statistical skewing of outputs toward a specific learned behaviour, but neuron behaviour is not purely deterministic.
Your imagination is based on something you have felt before. It is not free, it is not from blank. You cannot imagine what you have not seen/heard/tasted/known/touched etc.
This is partially, but not entirely true. For philosophical references here examine the work of Hume on the subject, but from a physical point of view it is quite simple to demonstrate that a neural network - even an artificial one, is capable of generating novel outputs in a variety of situations. It has been demonstrated, for example, that a neural network can generate output for something it has never "seen" before. Certainly imagination is based on previous experience, but then, we've already established this - how could it be otherwise (unless we postulate a kind of platonic idealism - a priori knowledge of form and function).
That is purely a calculation in your head for the best outcome. Computers can do the same thing on mathematical level. We are just better at it in terms of what we can caclulate. Hardly free will. Remember we are replaying a scene that has already happened. Remember that we are working with what we have received, you cannot imagine something that you have not felt. Thus we are limited to our expereinces, they dictate what the specifics of calculations we are doing.
Internal calculation for the best outcome is the whole point of life, isn't it? This is exactly the point of having such powerful brains - the ability to iteratively generate scenarios and to "choose" the most effective solution based on entirely personal judgements. We are not simply replaying scenes that have already happened - if that were the case then there would be no genesis of creative content - the human race would be completely stagnant. This is plainly not the case - indeed, many of the sentences I'm typing at this very moment are completely novel, and have never been written by any human before - I am not simply replaying canned cognitive content.
On the topic of machines being able to carry out this process, how then, do we define that we are thinking at all? If we apply this brand of reductionism, there is no reason to postulate consciousness or intelligence in any entity. Examine Searle's chinese room argument for a more in-depth examination of this topic. The long and the short of it is that if we are really simply symbol-handling mechanisms like computers, then there's no evidence that we're concious, let alone capable of willing decision.
Our attitude toward absolutely everything is the same. Self preservation.
Specifics vary. Decision to Focus on ground fighting or Boxing isn't a free choice. It is a choice made from nessesity. It is a calculation to determine what is best for me.
Processess follow a strict path. There is no choice. If you know what is the best for you, you do it. If you do not, you choose the best possible choice.
Omniscience or Ignorance you still follow one program. You always depend on something, that limits you and limits your will.
Slavery to self preservation, for success, for fame (Egoism basicly) is the only thing that drives us under many deceptive masks. It is impossible for a person in our world to go against it, we are slaves to it.
Is this an adequate definition of free will? Self preservation is indeed our goal, but as you say the specifics vary. If we all made the same decision we would all be practicing the same art. The fact that the very same arrangement of neurons will not necessarily come to the same "decision" even under identical circumstances proves at least that we are not purely deterministic in our behaviour.
We can, based on our discourse, come to a tentative definition of a "kind" of free will - the kind in which we capitalise on low level stochastic resonance in our neural structures to iteratively apply prior experience and generated knowledge in order to achieve a competetive advantage or reward/goal.
One last point:
Science's goal is to show how world works. Philosophy is simply mind games, uprovable assumptions, guessing, imaginations, fairy tales etc (otherwise it would be together with science).
This is exactly the goal of philosophy. To refer to "philosophy as simply mind games" is to deny the entire history of science. The observation that rate of descent/acceleration due to gravity is constant regardless of mass was based on a "mind experiment". Likewise the very core of quantum physics was underpinned by a series of mind experiments carried out in discourses between Einstein and his contemporaries. The same goes for chemistry (the idea of annular molecular structures in organic chemistry was arrived at by thinking about it and nothing more).
Philosophy is an extension of science - a meta-level way of discussing scientific theory. Too many people mistake philosophy (hard philosophy) for the kind of rubbish we're treated to by the mass media. This is like saying a Van Damme movie is a scholarly treatise on martial arts theory. Maths is a branch of philosophy - in maths we externalise the symbols and manipulate them in formal ways, but it's the abstraction that allows us to do so. Maths doesn't actually refer to anything in the real world at all - it's a purely mental construct. The beauty of it is that it so closely reflects reality - this is why so many philosophers are also mathematicians. Turing considered himself a philosopher: he came up with the modern concept of computation.
To speak of philosophy as a fairy tale that is dying out is to completely ignore the state of modern science. Read any book by Stephen Hawking and you will be treated to a dose of heavy philosophy. Look through the works of Hofstadter or Rodney Brooks or Daniel Dennet or any one of a hundred other modern scholars and you will see living, breathing philosophy at work.
Thanks for the response by the way - it made me think : I like that. You made lots of interesting points - I wish my students had come up with some of those points when I was teaching A.I. :)
Even though taking side-track, I really, really must disagree with picture given about philosophy.. philosophy is much more than vague mind-games, fairy-tales, or blind fate.. it has been more, and, in my opinion, still is. For example, it still contains tools for rational thinking, logic, and evaluating experiences and argumentation. After all, even in this thread philosophy - and different philosophical traditions - are used and experimented: calling philosophy merely fairy-tale is underestimating both others and ones own posts/ideas/arguments.
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
I am sorry that I was unable to find more eloquent expressions so I stuck to those.
Anyways, it is one thing to think about things and it is quite different to work with FACTS and rationalize those.
Philosophy often focuses on form without matter which is something that we cannot and should not discuss (because we do not know it).
We need to stick to form in matter (Science) rather than form without matter (philosophy).
Respectfully,
AT.
In fact without past experience humans would not reach this level. Neither would most animals. If we confine our discussions to the higher species (those which act out of more than just a-priori knowledge/instinct) we see that all animals undergo a learning process and "compile" experiences into discrete skills. Consider a bird which has been kept caged all its life - such a bird when released will be unable to fly, for the simple reason that it has not "learned" to do so. We learn all the time, and so do less complex creatures - birds learn to eat poisonous toads by flipping them over to avoid poison sacs, native wildlife learns to avoid mankind, and these skills are passed on to their young by "playing" during their infant phase and by mimicking actions of parents.
I have to disagree. About caged birds and why they didn't fly are:
a)It atrophied its strength and skill. It is physically weaker than wildlife.
b)It got conditioned to the sedentary state. It learned not to fly to survive. Normally it would fly but it got outside programming.
Reason why wildlife avoids humans isn't because it learned it's behaviour. Wildlife has a set program and whenever an animal sees something it makes a basic calculation (fight or flight) and uses it.
Infant phases: Do you know how long they last or what is being taught? If I remember correctly a rabbit mother teaches her young how to eat ONCE, then she runs away from them forever. The learning phase is extremely short and basic. Human wouldn't be taught much in 1 day, imagine an infant animal.
Also learning implies lack of free will. Why? Because you work with learned things (good or bad), you aren't free in your responces. Like a trained MA would use MA during a street fight, rather than come up with something new and maybe stupid (and maybe even effective). That could limit him, even if his training was good.
Absolutely correct - unless we ensure they are in a laboratory. Experiments using individual biological neurons or groups of neurons have shown that even under the exact same range of inputs and conditions, the same neuron will not necessarily produce the same output. Certainly there is a significant statistical skewing of outputs toward a specific learned behaviour, but neuron behaviour is not purely deterministic.
I am not exactly sure about that experiment. How do they know that? I mean
you cant turn the time back and try the experiment over. Trial A at 19:05:00 is different than the SAME trial at 19:05:01.
Brain activity and intelligence is an iffy things. There have been cases when people could function with "dead" physical brains. Just because we don't see a pattern YET in brain doesn't mean a whole lot. Neurons and opther brain activity may deal solely with the body and not the intelligence.
1000s of years ago people didn't know the patterns to planets, stars and the Sun so they worshipped them (begged them to work because without Sun we die). Today we do. Same with QM, we may not know the pattern today, but we could determine it sometime in the future.
This is partially, but not entirely true. For philosophical references here examine the work of Hume on the subject, but from a physical point of view it is quite simple to demonstrate that a neural network - even an artificial one, is capable of generating novel outputs in a variety of situations. It has been demonstrated, for example, that a neural network can generate output for something it has never "seen" before. Certainly imagination is based on previous experience, but then, we've already established this - how could it be otherwise (unless we postulate a kind of platonic idealism - a priori knowledge of form and function).
Neural networks and intelligence is an iffy thing. As I said, you cant determine someone's thought by their brain activity. If that was the case mind reading would be possible. There is no thought reading device because
brain activity and intelligence (thoughts) don't nessesarily go hand in hand neatly.
Internal calculation for the best outcome is the whole point of life, isn't it? This is exactly the point of having such powerful brains - the ability to iteratively generate scenarios and to "choose" the most effective solution based on entirely personal judgements. We are not simply replaying scenes that have already happened - if that were the case then there would be no genesis of creative content - the human race would be completely stagnant. This is plainly not the case - indeed, many of the sentences I'm typing at this very moment are completely novel, and have never been written by any human before - I am not simply replaying canned cognitive content.
The sentences are not completely novel in a sense that you got the information somewhere and you are simply putting it in words. Human race isn't stagnant, it is developin along its program. What we need to do is make it quicker so we would complete it quicker.
On the topic of machines being able to carry out this process, how then, do we define that we are thinking at all? If we apply this brand of reductionism, there is no reason to postulate consciousness or intelligence in any entity. Examine Searle's chinese room argument for a more in-depth examination of this topic. The long and the short of it is that if we are really simply symbol-handling mechanisms like computers, then there's no evidence that we're concious, let alone capable of willing decision.
Thats right. None of us are sinners because we are simply following the program. Most of humanity isn't different from mammals. Only few people throught history (those that went against the tide for example) were HUMANS. Even your thought processess aren't truly free, they are based on outside environment and on your previous thoughts. We have greater ability for freedom than animals, we are capable of rising above animal level.
Is this an adequate definition of free will? Self preservation is indeed our goal, but as you say the specifics vary. If we all made the same decision we would all be practicing the same art. The fact that the very same arrangement of neurons will not necessarily come to the same "decision" even under identical circumstances proves at least that we are not purely deterministic in our behaviour.
We all made "same" decision, but the material we are working with is different.
Because we are working with different environment we made choices that seem to be different, but they aren't in a sense that if you were in my shoes you would make exactly the same decision.
Like I say again that philosophy tends to work with abstract things. Things that aren't verifiable through experimentation. Thats my problem with philosophy. 2 Eloquent people may come up with 2 different theories. Both of which are logically sound. How do you know which one is true? You can't unless it has reproducable experiments - that makes it a Science not a philosophy.
Sincerely yours,
AT
More points:
It is impossible to come up with something new, you are always using a learned material.
If you always did boxing I can assure you that you will not use a spinning back kick during a street fight. Why? Because boxing limited you to a style of fighting (not nessesarily a bad one). There is no freedom in that. Like a machine that got Windows installed you are limited to a program. We have thousands mini programs installed on top of our background program (self preservation). We cannot go against our conditioning just like a boxing master will not fight like a taekwandoist unless a MAJOR overhaul in his program. Even then he will go back to his old ways. Where is the freedom in that?
Did he chose Boxing? Boxing chose him! Some people are attracted to arms, some to legs (TKD) why? Because physically/neurologically they are structured that way. Or maybe because that is the only option they had (no other decent school in their area).
Why a person might be attracted to MA? It is not his free choice (that is impossibility). Some people got beat up, others are slaves to competing, some live in bad neighborhoods (and have to protect themselves, self preservation) etc and etc.
Problems with Philosophy is that Philosopher A says A and Philosopher B says B. Which one is correct? In science you know, in Philosophy you take it on faith and personal taste.
Respectfully,
This has been quite interesting :) .. Interesting turn to demarcation problem of science through psychological philosophy question..
I must say that I don't share such a strong belief of science holding truth and there is also different onthologies in science even in some particular moment of time: old Kuhnian, me :D..
But perhaps we are slipping from original thread: do you wish to continue conversation of theory of science/philosophy of science/history of philosophy in this thread, or should we open a new one? We might have shared now opinions about the question of free will, and now moving to wider open sea ;)..
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
This has been quite interesting :) .. Interesting turn to demarcation problem of science through psychological philosophy question..
I must say that I don't share such a strong belief of science holding truth and there is also different onthologies in science even in some particular moment of time: old Kuhnian, me :D..
But perhaps we are slipping from original thread: do you wish to continue conversation of theory of science/philosophy of science/history of philosophy in this thread, or should we open a new one? We might have shared now opinions about the question of free will, and now moving to wider open sea ;)..
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
I think that we should continue the free will discussion wherever it leads us to. Adding another topic may simply
a)clog the forum unnessesary
b)some other people may not know where the discussion originated from.
Sincerely,
corsarius
09-01-2004, 17:20
It is impossible to come up with something new, you are always using a learned material.
Impossible? Therefore there have been no new ideas or inventions for tens of thousands of years?
(no time for a longer response right now - so I'm just picking on one point) :)
Impossible? Therefore there have been no new ideas or inventions for tens of thousands of years?
(no time for a longer response right now - so I'm just picking on one point) :)
New ideas/Inventions are not nessesarily truly new. They are just different, successful combinations of ALREADY EXISTING old stuff.
If we are to get into advanced science, time does NOT exist. Everything exists at any time (past and future). Thus all the inventions are simply a release of already existent things. But we don't need to discuss that. Simply stated all "inventions" are merely successful combo's of already existent things.
--If we are to get into advanced science, time does NOT exist. Everything exists at any time (past and future).--.
I consider first sentence of quote highly hypothetical: advanced science uses several different definitions to time (direction of entrophy growth, part of structure of space, probably some other in for exampe super-string theory).
Second sentence is against common sense, the normal definition of time-continuum: even though potentiality of phenomenon may exist before actual event, and effects of it show afterwards, the event takes place in some given moment of time.
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
J.J.Smith
09-04-2004, 15:03
"Problems with Philosophy is that Philosopher A says A and Philosopher B says B. Which one is correct?..."
Replace philosophy with science and it remains true. Havn't you noticed science is continually changing? Or do you believe the earth is flat? Philosophy and science are so intertwined to take one away, is to take them both away. Science is born from philosophy and always will be. Philosophy is the soul of science.
You speak of facts and truths, of permanence in science, but you can't really prove anything. I'm sure you've heard them all before...Can you prove you exist? Can you prove anything actually 'happened' and is not just a memory, where ARE you, ? etc. If anything, the "fake"ness of philosophy is more real than science :D Just playing devil's advocate here.
Agree with J.J here.. the science is changing, and it has been changing through the history.. And it's not only matter of accuracy of observation (flat/round Earth, speed of light, weight of Moon..), but what the observation means, what is the nature of world - which, in fact, is both philosophical and scientific question: what is light, how world *really* is constructed, what is the Earth place in universe (what is universe).. what is human, what is man's place in world..
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
"Problems with Philosophy is that Philosopher A says A and Philosopher B says B. Which one is correct?..."
Replace philosophy with science and it remains true. Havn't you noticed science is continually changing? Or do you believe the earth is flat? Philosophy and science are so intertwined to take one away, is to take them both away. Science is born from philosophy and always will be. Philosophy is the soul of science.
Please forgive me for not being clear. In Science everything that mainstream scientist says is VERIFIABLE. Science has strict and VERY rigid rules that make sure to take away any philosophizing and ideas a scientist may have.
You can verify what scientists say. Their work HAS been verified before it becomes a fact. Of course Scientific knowledge changes, but the SCIENTIFIC METHOD DOES NOT. Philosophers do not have same kind of method (scientific method). Scientists can verify what other scientists say. I am afraid to say that you can't dop that with philosophy.
You speak of facts and truths, of permanence in science, but you can't really prove anything. I'm sure you've heard them all before...Can you prove you exist? Can you prove anything actually 'happened' and is not just a memory, where ARE you, ? etc. If anything, the "fake"ness of philosophy is more real than science :D Just playing devil's advocate here.
We can't do that yet. However for everything else we have science.
In science you avoid speaking about things like those because of personal bias and lack of omniscience.
Things have to be repeatable by other people to be accepted as true otherwise it is just personal opinions.
Agree with J.J here.. the science is changing, and it has been changing through the history.. And it's not only matter of accuracy of observation (flat/round Earth, speed of light, weight of Moon..), but what the observation means, what is the nature of world - which, in fact, is both philosophical and scientific question: what is light, how world *really* is constructed, what is the Earth place in universe (what is universe).. what is human, what is man's place in world..
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
When people thought about flat earth it was not scientific. By science I mean knowledge obtained through Scientific method. About induvidial facts changing, it shows nothing harmful to science, it just shows that our knowledge keeps growing and refining. Scientific method stays the same!
The interpretation and all the fluff that is just an induvidial opinion unless it undergoes Scientific method as well.
Respectfully,
corsarius
09-05-2004, 18:44
The problem here is your definition of science as opposed to philosophy.
You seem to imply that any scientific theory is true because of its ability to repeat a result. While repeating results is essential in science it does not mean that by extension an individual scientist's theory of why that result occurs is any more true. Scientific theories are just as "imaginary" as philosophical arguments. Scientists once thought that electrons were spread dotted at random atoms like raisins in bread, then they got the idea that they were whizzing around the atom like tiny planets in orbit, now we theorize that they're a bizarre wave-particle hybrid - a kind of standing wave around what we understand to be a denser atomic core. Certainly our notion of the atom has been refined as we accrued more accurate experimental results, but in the end, our notion of an atom is a purely philosophical construct - it's no more "real" than saying atoms are really made of tiny, submicroscopic robot kippers that simply behave as if they were standing waves ;)
Certainly, philosophy has acquired an extensive amount of cruft over millenia, but at their source, science and philosophy spring from the same well-stream: explanation of the world in abstract terms.
There is definitely a lot of "pop-philosophy" out there, just as there is "pop-science" - generally the kind of science we encounter on television. Both, however, are so closely related as to be almost indivisible in their pure form. Many scientists are philosophers, just as many philosophers are scientists. Remember, maths are a branch of philosophy which underpin science, and even pure mathematics can be mathematically proven to be inconsistent (read Bertrand Russell for details).
The problem here is your definition of science as opposed to philosophy.
You seem to imply that any scientific theory is true because of its ability to repeat a result. While repeating results is essential in science it does not mean that by extension an individual scientist's theory of why that result occurs is any more true. Scientific theories are just as "imaginary" as philosophical arguments. Scientists once thought that electrons were spread dotted at random atoms like raisins in bread, then they got the idea that they were whizzing around the atom like tiny planets in orbit, now we theorize that they're a bizarre wave-particle hybrid - a kind of standing wave around what we understand to be a denser atomic core. Certainly our notion of the atom has been refined as we accrued more accurate experimental results, but in the end, our notion of an atom is a purely philosophical construct - it's no more "real" than saying atoms are really made of tiny, submicroscopic robot kippers that simply behave as if they were standing waves ;)
Certainly, philosophy has acquired an extensive amount of cruft over millenia, but at their source, science and philosophy spring from the same well-stream: explanation of the world in abstract terms.
There is definitely a lot of "pop-philosophy" out there, just as there is "pop-science" - generally the kind of science we encounter on television. Both, however, are so closely related as to be almost indivisible in their pure form. Many scientists are philosophers, just as many philosophers are scientists. Remember, maths are a branch of philosophy which underpin science, and even pure mathematics can be mathematically proven to be inconsistent (read Bertrand Russell for details).
As I said before. Scientific knowledge keeps improving. Science has a benchmark for testing the validity of an experiment. Is it THE absolute truth? No, but it is atleast it is "1 step" ahead of merely speculating about something.
What I am against is plain word talk that some philosophers like to engage in.
Word talk is just that, any person who can work well with the tongue can convince anyone anything if he really tries. Atleast with the scientific method we have a little bit more "proof". Is it all there is? No, but it is what we have right now.
Sincerely,
As said before, scientific theories, terms and hypotheses are not verifiable. They may be confirmed through experiments, or rejected, or modified. That is simply because what we - or scientist - have in our hand is events and phenomenons (as we see them), not laws of nature.That is, we cannot see theoretical entities; and from fact that perceptional implications are true doesn't imply that theory itself would be true nor that theoretical entities would be true; from facts/data/experiments one can create infinite number of (scientific) theories... you might like to dig some history of scientific explanation, and see theoretical construction, and end of Wienna circle (especially the paradox of material implication).
Again, as said, the shape of Earth is not the point itself. For several scientific (and physical) hypothesis it's quite insignificant is the Earth flat, round, pear-shaped.. see corsariu's note for electrons: it is matter of theory of nature, not matter of accuracy of data collected.
Second note: the 'scientific method', without more spesific characterization, remains still quite vague. I suppose that you are meaning some sort of adaptation of (formal) logic tool to set of events picked to confirm some hypothesis. But, in theory/history/philosophy of science, there are several different definitions to scientific method, partly contradictory to each other :confused: .. And for some reason most of these seem to take physics as the whole science - which seem to be implicit tendency in this thread, too :D - attitude, which drops a huge lump of the world of science outside of door...
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
As said before, scientific theories, terms and hypotheses are not verifiable. They may be confirmed through experiments, or rejected, or modified. That is simply because what we - or scientist - have in our hand is events and phenomenons (as we see them), not laws of nature.That is, we cannot see theoretical entities; and from fact that perceptional implications are true doesn't imply that theory itself would be true nor that theoretical entities would be true; from facts/data/experiments one can create infinite number of (scientific) theories...
Because of induvidial biases and perceptional limitations scientists don't philosophise about things. They talk only about form in matter. Scientific experiments ARE verifable and reproducable. If you do "X" you will get "Y".
Science isn't concerned about form outside of matter (which philosophy deals with), it ONLY concerns with what we can measure/investigate. That also prevents the creation of infinite theories because you can actually measure it for yourself rather than rely on 10 different interpretations from 10 diff people.
Second note: the 'scientific method', without more spesific characterization, remains still quite vague. I suppose that you are meaning some sort of adaptation of (formal) logic tool to set of events picked to confirm some hypothesis. But, in theory/history/philosophy of science,
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
SM allows there to be a criteria for validity of a hypothesis. SM is what allows to have 1 (or few) explanation as to how it happens. SM is a benchmark for validity, is it absolute? NO, but at least it is SOME benchmark. Philosophers do not have a relatively objective bench mark for truth. There isn't a criteria for sorting out philosophies. There isn't a way to validate what philosopher claims is true.
You can't talk or theorize correctly about something that cannot be experienced or perceived, which is what Philosophers are so eager to do.
Philosophies and Religions caused death and destruction and luckily they are starting, slowly (too slowly) to erode.
Respectfully,
(I never knew that I would be debating this in MA forum :) )
"I never knew that I would be debating this in MA forum"
Yeah, but isn't that good stretching for brains :D ? It took me back to old notes of philosphy of science and logic, after several years - now, I just need to find my Kuhn from some bookself ;)....
I think that one difference here lies on the slight difference on emphasing words.. scientific ideal trusts on publicity, and repeatability of tests - among several other things. However, there are areas where the repeatability cannot be achieved - similar situation cannot be formatted, for example in history.
But what I meant wasn't that experiments wouldn't be tested: I was arguing that theory/hypotheses behind the experiments - even when result will be expected - is not verified by testing. And that's because nature of logic, more precisely, nature of .. do you say 'material implication' in English for "if p, then q" -type logical sentences? Simply seeing the distribution of truth values shows that having 'q' (expected result) from test, doesn't verify hypotheses ('p'). And that, among with problems on testing latent/dispositional terms, caused several changes in theory of science (not 'scientific theory', but on philosophy of science) since 1930's.
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
"I never knew that I would be debating this in MA forum"
Yeah, but isn't that good stretching for brains :D ? It took me back to old notes of philosphy of science and logic, after several years - now, I just need to find my Kuhn from some bookself ;)....
I think that one difference here lies on the slight difference on emphasing words.. scientific ideal trusts on publicity, and repeatability of tests - among several other things. However, there are areas where the repeatability cannot be achieved - similar situation cannot be formatted, for example in history.
But what I meant wasn't that experiments wouldn't be tested: I was arguing that theory/hypotheses behind the experiments - even when result will be expected - is not verified by testing. And that's because nature of logic, more precisely, nature of .. do you say 'material implication' in English for "if p, then q" -type logical sentences? Simply seeing the distribution of truth values shows that having 'q' (expected result) from test, doesn't verify hypotheses ('p'). And that, among with problems on testing latent/dispositional terms, caused several changes in theory of science (not 'scientific theory', but on philosophy of science) since 1930's.
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
Few things to add.
We do not not and never will know what is around us. We only know what our senses tell us. Scientists are finally catching up that world only exists because we do. Without us "our world" would not exist. We need our 5 senses for our world to exist. We only receive OUR interpretation of the world which is highly subjective. If you tweak your eyes just a bit you could see heat or radiation or other colours. Our nose picks up only very little amount of different smells. There are sounds and sights that we cannot even dream of (its out of our plane). If you are born without sight then world becomes motionless and a dark void that gives certain feelings. Ability to hear opens up totally new world of music and relaxation...
Scientists are doing their job right, they investigate things through 5 senses that they know how to use. While it does not give ALL the picture that could possibly be got, it is right within those parameters.
Philosophers like to talk about unobservable things such as: Love, or Begining of the Universe or the essence G-d (TOE). I find it absurd to talk about what G-d is. Rather what are its effects on us? That can be measured, he/she/it cannot.
Begining of the universe? It began when humans began living, plain and simple. Before then, it was something unimaginable, a big "?" . Even more, before Adam humans were merely animals and their world probably wasn't our world - that was about 5700 years ago.
Love? It is impossible to talk about the essence of Love without matter incarnating it.
Here is the big difference between Philosophy and Science. I hope you can read between the lines the difference between measuring and observing, vs baseless pondering.
There you go. Nature of reality, history, SM as the only thing we can rely on.
J.J.Smith
09-09-2004, 16:36
"Without us "our world" would not exist. We need our 5 senses for our world to exist."
Ho Ho! A closet philosopher! All is clear now. ;)
"baseless pondering" Hardly, the fact that we exist, that love, etc is proof enough to not make it baseless.
"There you go. Nature of reality, history, SM as the only thing we can rely on." I prefer to rely on myself as well, making me a philosopher and scientist. This seems to be the point you misunderstanding the most.
"Begining of the universe? It began when humans began living, plain and simple. Before then, it was something unimaginable, a big "?" . Even more, before Adam humans were merely animals and their world probably wasn't our world - that was about 5700 years ago."
Now I'm confused, perhaps I didn't read your post well enough (I am tired right now). You speak of science as be all, and yet you bring religion into this?
Also, personally, I consider relgion nothing near philosophy at all. Philosophy is of the self, and relgion is following things outside the self. In fact, IMO, most religious people would consider philosophy blasphemous, as it's anti faith.
"Without us "our world" would not exist. We need our 5 senses for our world to exist."
Ho Ho! A closet philosopher! All is clear now. ;)
.
No, I am not a closet Philosopher anymore (I used to be, I admit).
Relativity, Optics, Harmonics, biology, etc is not philosophy. Everything is relative include the world that "we expereince".
Science is getting there (world that we see is relative to us as we perceive it and not absolute (just like time)) thanks to a great Jewish person (Einstein) and other people. Slowly but surely the chosen ones are doing their job, can't wait for the massess starting to do their mission. That is not a philosophical question, that is just working with facts. If you take away sight, vision/movement disappears. If you take away hearing, thought processess start to be compromised. No sight/vision from birth and you can't really think in our way. Start taking other senses and world falls apart. How world outside of our senses we do not know, we just know our sense reactions to it. Philosophers like to talk about that essence and such, but you cannot talk about something that isn't directly expereinced! Thats big diff between Philosophy and Science.
"baseless pondering" Hardly, the fact that we exist, that love, etc is proof enough to not make it baseless.
We can study love embodiyng someone. Or some form in matter, but not abstract unobservable things. Science deals with observing things and basing their conclusions on OBSERVABLE things. Philosophers like to talk about something without expereincing it, and making as many conclussions as there are philosophers.
"There you go. Nature of reality, history, SM as the only thing we can rely on." I prefer to rely on myself as well, making me a philosopher and scientist. This seems to be the point you misunderstanding the most.
Science deals with OBSERVABLE things, philosophers tend to deal with abstract (and maybe even impossible things). They are kind contradictory to each other, especially in the method of getting the facts.
Now I'm confused, perhaps I didn't read your post well enough (I am tired right now). You speak of science as be all, and yet you bring religion into this?
Absolutely nothing religeous here. I as you see am not a man of blind faith especially in Religion and Philosophy.
Science isn't the absolute. It is be all of material OUR WORLD, but it misses a big dimension. Religion doesn't study the real THAT WORLD, it deals exclusively with THIS world.
Also, personally, I consider relgion nothing near philosophy at all. Philosophy is of the self, and relgion is following things outside the self. In fact, IMO, most religious people would consider philosophy blasphemous, as it's anti faith
Yes to the first sentence. Religion is not Philosophy and I dislike both (but they serve their purpose).
NO NO NO. Religion is focused on the self. Like another great person said "Religion is opiate of the masses".
Religion is for this world and so is science and philosophy. Only science of those 3 is closer to the truth in areas it studies.
This Philosophy Vs Science is getting off topic. Here I will try to nail a final nail into the coffin.
Please answer these 2 simple questions:
1)Can we study something that we have absolutely no contact with? As in can we study something that we cannot see/hear/touch/smell/taste/imagine?
2)Should there be a guideline as to what we accept and what we reject. As in verifiable basis for our conclussion?
No, Yes = Your on track, anything else and you might as well join some religion.
The Philosophers like to talk about things that they cannot perceive, and as such create all these idols, which are false gods, false forces. Thus the philosophers not only deceive themselves and others, but break the commandment "thou shalt not have idols" .
There is only ONE interpretation of the formula in Science.
There are MULTIPLE interpretations of the same thing in Philosophy, which do you choose? Which interpetation is the right one, if any?.
----
Freedom of will argument.
A person can have only 3 amounts of knowledge
1)0%. Absolutely none.
2)Some knowledge
3)Absolute knowledge.
1)If you know nothing, than you cannot act at all. You do not know what/why/where/how/when etc. You are limited by your ignorance. Does a rock have a free will?
2) You act on what you know, you are limited by your knowledge. A boxer will box, not throw a jumping spinning axe kick to the inner knee. He is limited to his knowledge and his actions will be predictable based on his current knowledge.
3)If you know everything than you will follow the best possible plan for you, you will be a slave to success (or failure if you are a masochist).
Sincerely,
"Problems with Philosophy is that Philosopher A says A and Philosopher B says B. Which one is correct?..."
Replace philosophy with science and it remains true. .
No.
If one scientist says that "F=MA" than it is that because it is a FACT. It was verified many times in many situations by many people. If Mr. Anderson says that F=MA^2 he better have his moves ready because he would have to prove it and if he can't than F=MA remains as the truth.
Person claiming that goblins walk on the moon would be as true as a person saying that apples fall to the ground.
Thread isn't getting off topic, in the sense of it's been still a matter of philosophy of science -which was continued in this thread by your request, Scorp. But you are probably right on that very soon the argumentation will start to repeat itself, turn to harping: Scorp, you are trying to convince other to believe neutral observation language; others are trying to claim that there's been changes in theory of science since 1930's.
Because further yapping and insisting would only be digging fox-holes let's take conclusions of positions, anyone still interested.
Logic-philosophical reasoning, based on historical events, theory of science, and logic here: Neutral observational language is impossible to achieve.This was proven by persons who really wanted it to exist, logical empirists/Vienna circle. Problems are well known, well documented and generally accepted; any theorist of science knows that. Simple testing of dispositional attributes causes serious problem to such an treatise. Classic example was term 'fragile', which was tried to 'translate to pure observations' by following sentence: "For all items: item is fragile if it is broken while struck with hammer": by simple logical deduction that causes conclusion: "All items that are never struck with hammer are fragile". If such a problems are seen in quite simple term as 'fragile', one can imagine problems when speaked about time, gravity, atom, hidden aggression, social stress, intelligent....
Events of nature don't carry labels around their neck. That is, F=MA doesn't fly around and then scientist simply picks it up and adds to collection of true sentences. It contains elements that cannot be seen, tasted, or otherwise obaservational comprehended. Making up a formulation is not science: one can simply do notation like: E(x)(G(x) ->MW(x)); where E is existence quantor, G is read 'is goblin' MW 'walks in moon'.. so that wonderful formula is read "Goblin walks in moon". Also, having formula that works, or gives expected results of experiments/observations doesn't make science. Also, having terms that "sound scientific" doesn't make science: see corsarius' post about nature of electrons. One could also argue that malevolently interpreted you have now contradicted yourself: previously, on post 40, you argue that 'time doesn't exist' in advanced science. Now, F=MA is science, and it contains second time-dervate of place-cordinate, A. From contradiction one can deduct ('proof') anything, but it's not interesting base for debate.
Theories cannot be verified. Reason, shown in previous posts, and also in the first thesis in this post. Shortly, theoretical terms, that hypotheses and theories contain, cannot be translated to observational language; induction can confirm hypotheses, there's no logical verification. That's well-known, well-documented, well-studied logical consequence of certain sentences.
Read Popper. Read Kuhn. Read eveb the late Carnap.
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
Thread isn't getting off topic, in the sense of it's been still a matter of philosophy of science -which was continued in this thread by your request, Scorp. But you are probably right on that very soon the argumentation will start to repeat itself, turn to harping: Scorp, you are trying to convince other to believe neutral observation language; others are trying to claim that there's been changes in theory of science since 1930's.
I beleive that formula's are as neutral as we can get them right now. You cannot easily misinterpret F=MA as some Philosophical/ "Logical" statement.
Of course anyone can try and with enough effort maybe convince someone, but Philosophical statements have much more potential for misinterpretation.
Logic-philosophical reasoning, based on historical events, theory of science, and logic here: Neutral observational language is impossible to achieve.This was proven by persons who really wanted it to exist, logical empirists/Vienna circle. Problems are well known, well documented and generally accepted; any theorist of science knows that. Simple testing of dispositional attributes causes serious problem to such an treatise. Classic example was term 'fragile', which was tried to 'translate to pure observations' by following sentence: "For all items: item is fragile if it is broken while struck with hammer": by simple logical deduction that causes conclusion: "All items that are never struck with hammer are fragile". If such a problems are seen in quite simple term as 'fragile', one can imagine problems when speaked about time, gravity, atom, hidden aggression, social stress, intelligent....
Dear Riku,
you have been saying everything I was all along! With scientific language there is much less ambiguity and misinterpretation than with Philosophical statement.
Furthermore with science and formulas you are more precise and closer to verifiable observation. I insisited in many posts that Science isn't be all end all and it has it's unknown areas and it is not perfect. Vut admit, based on your arguments Science IS more accurate than philosophy.
Events of nature don't carry labels around their neck. That is, F=MA doesn't fly around and then scientist simply picks it up and adds to collection of true sentences. It contains elements that cannot be seen, tasted, or otherwise obaservational comprehended. Making up a formulation is not science: one can simply do notation like: E(x)(G(x) ->MW(x)); where E is existence quantor, G is read 'is goblin' MW 'walks in moon'.. so that wonderful formula is read "Goblin walks in moon". Also, having formula that works, or gives expected results of experiments/observations doesn't make science. Also, having terms that "sound scientific" doesn't make science: see corsarius' post about nature of electrons.
Did I say that labels were absolute and existent? I destroyed that concept in my time post (getting there next). F=MA is true on a certain level because it is VERIFIABLE, OBSERVABLE, REPEATABLE.
If you apply 100N of force to 10kg object, its acceleration will ALWAYS be 10 m/s. (Without taking friction/gravity and other things into consideration).
That and other formulas were actually tested, it was not a one's man "enlightment under the tree" sort of thing. This was verifiable, tested and observed through 5 senses. You can see the object move, you can feel the force (HA!), you CAN OBSERVE IT'S EFFECT.
Difference between F=MA and your goblin formula is simple. F=ma was observed, tested, verified by countless people.
Trying to talk about what exactly Force is, THAT IS PHILOSOPHISING. Is it the invisible red goblin or the gold dragon? And How could you know or verify it? You cannot, so science doesn't deal with fairy tales and deals with what it can work for now.
Is it needed to discuss the nature of "Force" (as in F=MA)? NO! We know what to expect if we are given 2 of 3 data (f, m, a). Why it is F=MA and not F=M*2A, is not science's business. It is philosophy's business and that is not productive or result producing.
Just get the job done, find out what can be found out and do not even think about something that cannot be perceived. That could and should be science's motto.
One could also argue that malevolently interpreted you have now contradicted yourself: previously, on post 40, you argue that 'time doesn't exist' in advanced science. Now, F=MA is science, and it contains second time-dervate of place-cordinate, A. From contradiction one can deduct ('proof') anything, but it's not interesting base for debate.
Not really, 0 contradiction. Time exists relative to us. Formulas, forces, matter and other exists relatively to us, in OUR WORLD. What exists relative to something else could be totally different. If I remember I said about an "Absolute" or advanced. On our level time feels as it exists, but for some other point of view it is totally different, that is for sure.
We could say that there are 2 truth's. The conventional and the absolute.
Obviously when I say F=MA or time, or sun rotating around the earth - that is for conventional, easy to use in lingusitics terms. On absolute (or advanced) level they do not exist, they exist relatively to us. We frequently say things conventionally and not absolutely.
For example: In many (if not each) language we use the phrase "Sun sets, sun rises" indicating that sun rotates around the earth. is that truth? YES.
Sun does rotate around the earth, but in a conventional sense, relative to us.
On a higher level (in real life) We rotate around the sun.
Theories cannot be verified. Reason, shown in previous posts, and also in the first thesis in this post. Shortly, theoretical terms, that hypotheses and theories contain, cannot be translated to observational language; induction can confirm hypotheses, there's no logical verification. That's well-known, well-documented, well-studied logical consequence of certain sentences.
Read Popper. Read Kuhn. Read eveb the late Carnap.
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
You are true. All these philosophical statements cannot be verified. But scientific formulas that became knows as FACTS are true on our level, and it is the only thing we can talk about. We should talk about something that is observable rather than something we may never come into contact with.
That is why for example there is the commandment not to make any graven images. Because they are all false and would stray a person off the right track of understanding, because there are things that cannot be understood (at least not yet)
You can verify that F=MA and ALL the other formula's that SM has brought.
Of course you will need training, education and proper equipment to do it. (Don't expect to verify the existence of sub atomic particles at home). But what you cannot and must not do is to talk about the essence of the force/time/matter etc, that is philosophising. How can you prove that it is the red dragon and not the green dragon pushing those objects around? You can't. We can just agree on F=MA.
With respect,
J.J.Smith
09-10-2004, 17:58
Scorp- Who are you trying to convince here? That's a lot of words, and you argue well, but to what end?
(I'm going to hold back here because this is off topic, and might be considered rude. I trully don't mean this to be a personal attack in an attempt to "win" this debate. I hardly care if I change anyones mind. For me anyways, this is simply a nice mental exercise.)
"I as you see am not a man of blind faith"
Oh, but you are, maybe not blind, but you certaintly hold a lot of faith in science. Unless you've personally derived it all yourself (not possible.)
Now this isn't meant to sound like an attack, I have much faith in science as well, and it is great for what it does. But to be limited by it is foolish.
In general you are using circular logic to prove your point. Like "Look how real reality is! It's so real because of these things you find in reality!"
Again, all these things that are "real" and that we measure and "observe" all brain impulses, experience, memory or whatever you want to call it. Everything is, reality, fantasy. So how is fantasy any less real that "reality" when it ends up coming down to the same thing?
No one can ever really prove to me that F=MA. Only I can choose to make it my reality and even then I can't totally believe anything.
"Religion is focused on the self."
No way. Everything in religion is taught from someone else here. A priest, parents, etc. An unrelated book written by man a couple thousand years ago.
I think we have here a definition problem though. Now if you meant spirituality, that is within.
For someone who isn't a philosopher, you sure do claim to know a lot about them and what they think. :rolleyes:
Again I think we both may just have different ideas on what philosophy is, and it sounds like you've had some negative experience with it.
PS oh, and you are so closet philsopher. :D
Science never assumes anything. Just because science right now can't observe/prove/experience some things doesn't mean they discount it. And you are discounting philosophy, and assuming some other things.
With respect,
Scorp- Who are you trying to convince here? That's a lot of words, and you argue well, but to what end?
If I am trying to convert anyone then I am contradicting my beleifs.
A Person ALWAYS beleives what his heart wants to hear. You will never convert a passionate Christian or a Muslim. Doesn't matter how logical and good your opinion is, people always stick to what is in their heart. Plus, I don't want to shorter anyone's personal development process by impossing things they haven't reached yet. It is not the mind but the heart which is the prime mover, if you are passionate about something no amount of reason will convince you otherwise.
I am trying to get dialectics going and improve my communication and english abilities (and work the brain). I got into this thread by accident and I am not letting it loose, I am a scorpion by birth.
(I'm going to hold back here because this is off topic, and might be considered rude. I trully don't mean this to be a personal attack in an attempt to "win" this debate. I hardly care if I change anyones mind. For me anyways, this is simply a nice mental exercise.)
Please be as argumentative as possible. Not everyone is right all the time and it is worth doing some mental exercise. I don't mind argumentations against me, it just makes me stronger. You can be mean and rebute me harsh, this goes for the record (MODS are you reading this line? I am not offended).
Like someone said "Bring it!"
"I as you see am not a man of blind faith"
Oh, but you are, maybe not blind, but you certaintly hold a lot of faith in science. Unless you've personally derived it all yourself (not possible.)
Now this isn't meant to sound like an attack, I have much faith in science as well, and it is great for what it does. But to be limited by it is foolish.
Please forgive me for not being clear, or for being too subtle. On MANY occasions I have said that science isn't everything and on many occasions I said good things about the Scientific Method rather than pure mind games on unreal things. Science is good on a certain level (Our world) was in many of my replies.
My faith is in the SM and material aspect of what Science teaches.
In general you are using circular logic to prove your point. Like "Look how real reality is! It's so real because of these things you find in reality!"
I asked many questions which weren't answered satisfactory so I am forced to repeat them under many ways possible so it is looking circular. Besides you need to hit the nail few times for it to go fully through. I have provided bench marks for reality (ON OUR LEVEL) testing such as (Observation, repetition, conclussion based purely on facts and not someone's sudden enlightment).
Again, all these things that are "real" and that we measure and "observe" all brain impulses, experience, memory or whatever you want to call it. Everything is, reality, fantasy. So how is fantasy any less real that "reality" when it ends up coming down to the same thing?
Difference between fantasy of one man and "reality" is that reality applies to all while fantasy applies only to that particular person. What we know as reality can be called a mass fantasy, BUT its "rules" are applicable to all and as such are Beneficial. What we know as reality is relative as I have often said. But we should concern ourselves with what applies to all rather than to one "smart guy who meditated under bodhi tree".
No one can ever really prove to me that F=MA. Only I can choose to make it my reality and even then I can't totally believe anything.
Disbeleif doesn't change the fact. Don't beleive in F=MA, make an experiment!
As I have said before, heart is stronger than the mind. No amount of logic will convince anyone if their heart isn't there.
"Religion is focused on the self."
No way. Everything in religion is taught from someone else here. A priest, parents, etc. An unrelated book written by man a couple thousand years ago.
I think we have here a definition problem though. Now if you meant spirituality, that is within.
What I meant by that phrase was:
Religion is egotistical.
It applies to THIS world. Heaven is just better living here, better material life,
many virgins forever if you do good things. Pure mercantile and selfish thing.
True spirituality is not egotistic and is absolutely different from chores of angels, people in white toga's and clean gardens.
For someone who isn't a philosopher, you sure do claim to know a lot about them and what they think. :rolleyes:
I was very interested in pure philosophy before, but not anymore. I have a mentioned this in one of the replies. Basicly I grew out of this for a reason I have stated multiple times.
Philosopher A claims A, philosopher B claims B. Which one if any is correct.
Epicure said that our senses are correct, Kant did not. Materialistic philosophers say one thing, "spiritual" (not really) say something opposite. How can you check?
Again I think we both may just have different ideas on what philosophy is, and it sounds like you've had some negative experience with it.
I grew out of it after reading MANY viewpoints on life and such. From greek to Communist philosophers.
PS oh, and you are so closet philsopher. :D
Science never assumes anything. Just because science right now can't observe/prove/experience some things doesn't mean they discount it. And you are discounting philosophy, and assuming some other things.
With respect,
You can beleive whatever you may, as I said I am not (and trying my best) not to be a philosopher for stated reasons.
Science never assumes anything. You are correct, that is what makes IT true on it's level of knowledge. Philosophy assumes things and because of that it makes conclussions on things that IT assumes which may be radically different from the higher truth. There are plenty of cases when facts get mistranslated by philosophers because they make unsubstantiated assumptions.
About science discounting what it does not know is for a reason. We can't disprove that pink/blue giant Unicorns with 10 heads and 20 tails are living on the moon of pluto. Does that mean that we have to beleive in Unicorns living on the moon of Pluto (Charon)? There is no evidence against them! :)
I may have been harsh on Blind Faith, Religion, Philosophy in my replies...
But some things are put there for a reason to be used and thrown away, all are needed for our growth.
As someone has said (rough paraprhase)
"Those with ears, let them hear. Those with eyes, let them see".
"Seek and ye shall find".
J.J.Smith
09-11-2004, 01:25
Oh ho you forgot to add "with respect" I must have secretely offended you. ;) JK
After reading your last post we actually have very similar beliefs. The main difference being; I think it is only one's own perspective that matters, and you seem to put more importance on how it affects the "real world."
Your english is pretty good, only a few words here and there that are off.
"If I am trying to convert anyone then I am contradicting my beleifs. "
That was my failed attempt at a sly way of saying you are deceiving yourself. More of a half hearted comment I can't be sure on, just prodding the scorpion so to speak. See if there's any truth in what I guessed.
"It is not the mind but the heart which is the prime mover"
I'm not sure exactly what you mean here, or if you are referring to me or not. So I'll just say normally most people would consider me very analytical, and few would accuse me of being lead/controlled by my heart.
"and not someone's sudden enlightment"
Again, with these types of comments it makes me think we are talking about two different things here. My philosophy is based on MY logic and critical thinking. There is nothing sudden about it. It sounds like you studied scholarly "philosophers" IMO most should not be considered philosophers. Most get hung up on the HISTORY of philosophy and what soandso said. Don't get me wrong the history can be great, but it's not what's important, at the most it's a decent tool to spark thoughts. At the worst it's a bad distraction and source of bias.
"Difference between fantasy of one man and "reality" is that reality applies to all while fantasy applies only to that particular person."
Sigh, we arn't understanding each othere here. My whole point is that reality is all one big fantasy. Your reality is not the same as mine. Yes, we have the same basic hard corded rules. But, No, those rules don't = the same experience. Which is all we are.
"But we should concern ourselves with what applies to all rather than to one "smart guy who meditated under bodhi tree"."
Why? WHY? Why should I concern myself with what applies to others? And again with that type of comment, see mine above.
Now, I agree some time should def be spent on science, science is great. But you seem to be saying that's it, that's all that matters. I say No way is science the half of it.
In general here I'm not sure exactly what you really believe/are arguing. You do seem to contradict yourself a bit, so I can only reply to specific parts. Also, we both know communication is hard as hell over the internet, my compliments on doing a commendable job.
"I was very interested in pure philosophy before"
"I grew out of it after reading MANY viewpoints on life and such. From greek to Communist philosophers."
Again, I could be wrong here, but I think it was more like the oppposite, not pure philosophy at all. Reading view points is so not practicing philosophy, no more than reading texts on science is practicing science.
"You can beleive whatever you may, as I said I am not (and trying my best) not to be a philosopher for stated reasons."
Like I said, now Im not sure, you're a bit confusing. But I think you are actually a true philosopher and you don't realize it, or call it by a different name.
Of course, in my opinion science, in a way, is a philosophy since I hold personal perspective just as valid as shared perspective(? not sure on the term here). But now Im splitting hairs here..
"Philosopher A claims A, philosopher B claims B. Which one if any is correct.
Epicure said that our senses are correct, Kant did not. Materialistic philosophers say one thing, "spiritual" (not really) say something opposite. How can you check?"
By whatever I believe. That's right, that's truth for me. Again, our main difference in opinion here seems to be, I hold that there are multiple truths, and you say there is only one truth. Correct me if im wrong.
You can cite some formula F=MA and say well that's one truth, how can there be mutliple truths for that? Yes, technically F=MA but how does that apply to the individual? We all experience 'F' differently. We all experience everything differently so that in effect there are no single truths but different truths for each being.
E's gravity is 9.8 m/s but when Im falling, I don't go "Gee this sure feels like 9.8 m/s!"
"There are plenty of cases when facts get mistranslated by philosophers because they make unsubstantiated assumptions."
Don't start trying to pull this crap, so called scientists do the same thing. Humans do it, it is nature.
"Does that mean that we have to beleive in Unicorns living on the moon of Pluto (Charon)? There is no evidence against them!"
You twisted my logic. Never said anything of the sort, and nor would any decent philosopher believe it either. You seem to think that just because philosophers don't use empiricism that they just make up whatever the hell the choose.
"Those with ears, let them hear. Those with eyes, let them see".
"Seek and ye shall find".
Yes, but don't forget that applies to you as well.
"Closed mind, open ears."
Thanks for this discussion scorp, and everyone else as well. Not that it's necesarily ending or anything, just wanted to say thanks before I went any further. It has really made me think on some things. Mostly strengthen my beliefs.
Ok., I consider that short walk to philosophy of science, and mainly it's debate to instrumentalism/realism -juxtaposition, has achieved the most informative level it can reach by hand of us, and I'll close this thread .. Perhaps we didn't achieve consensus, perhaps we showed how people from different paradigms really live in different worlds ;) .. However, the conversation has been vivifying and interesting, and I might use some notes found in further studies of mine - so thanks for everyone. If you feel that something important has left without saying, PM me, or the person you want to talk with.
Best thing having philosophical conversations in net is that no-one have to be afraid of facing another philosopher with poker:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/06/1031115933871.html?oneclick=true
:D :D
Once more, thanks for all participants.
With respect,
Riku Ylönen
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