December 28th, 2009 at 1:31 pm by David Farrar
- Paul Walker analyses the economics of Boxing Day sales. His conclusion is they are a way to get customers to reveal their price sensitivity.
- Brian Edwards blogs that he does not believe in free will and that everyone is a product of their genetics and environment. I disagree entirely and there there are countless examples of people with appalling genetics and environments doing well, and also of people with superb genetics and environments doing very bad things.
- Gooner at No Minister has been reading letters to the editor and highlights the Labour party activist who blames John Key for a possible reduction in screening hours for Coronation Street. Wow you almost have to feel sorry for them, when that is what they are reduced to.
- Whale Oil has created a Wiki page for his defence, where lawerly people can contribute ideas for his defence against the breach of name suppression charges.
- Lindsay Mitchell highlights hows a Southland foodbank co-ordinator is blaming the increased demand for assistance on the new National Government, despite National maintaining benefits and cost of living adjustments. Maybe he thinks the recession was caused by National?
- No Right Turn wants to Mondayize Waitangi Day and ANZAC Day. I tend to agree.
- Chris Hipkins notes this is the end of the first decade of the millennium (pedants go away), and that we have gone from Clinton to Obama, terrorism at the start of the decade was associated more with Northern Ireland, and you needed a dozen currencies to travel through Europe.
Tags:
Blog Bits
This entry was posted on Monday, December 28th, 2009 at 1:31 pm and is filed under NZ Politics.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
December 28th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
No surprise that Brian Edwards is a hard determinist. That’s a typical lefty stance. The Marxists, Maoists, and Stalinists were hard determinists.
It also conveniently means Edwards is not responsible for his dirigiste, welfarist world view. “My genetics and environment made me this way.” Edwards is thus ultimately pessimistic and passive.
Hard determinists are the other end of the spectrum to libertarianism. Common sense and the standpoint of compatabilists is that both are wrong. Much of what we do is predetermined (breathing etc), but we also can by our free will make free choices.
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Jack5,
Why would you freely choose to act one way rather than another?
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
And in case I’m busy with family when you reply, I’m going to assume your answer has something to do with your desires or values or preferences.
So I’ll just follow up with:
“Why did you choose to desire/value/prefer that?”
And when you answer that with what will presumably be some further or prior desire/value/preferance, I’ll be asking:
“Why did you choose to desire/value/prefer that?”
And this will go on for some time until someone steps in with, “Free will’s just magic, okay! WHY DO YOU HATE FREEDOM?”
Ironically, this whole argument is determined in advance.
Actually, that’s not ironic at all.
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Scott Adams blogs on free will (and the lack thereof) a lot. In a sense, it’s obvious that there is no free will: people are made of chemicals, atoms, elementary particals, etc. The laws of physics don’t stop working just because an atom is part of a human being. But this lack of free will is at a very low level, much too fine-grained to be predictable with any current or forseeable technology or science, so I don’t actually find it an interesting line of speculation. I have a better life if I act as though I have free will, which is good enough for me
[obviously the religious types will say that people have a free-will supernatural appendage that exists outside the universe, but that suffers from the same lack of testability that most religious doctrine has]
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
And DPF, the absurdity of free will doesn’t mean that people with appalling genetics and environments can’t do well, or that people with superb genetics and environments can’t do very bad things.
It means that, when those things occur, it is intelligible to ask, “Why did this person succeed? Why did this other person do very bad things?”
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
2010 is an apt year for pushing to ‘Mondayise’ Waitangi and ANZAC days. I call 2010 ‘The Year of the Boss’ as both days fall on the weekend (this happens every 10-11 years but never happens in leap years).
I woud push for a standard Easter too. The ‘Full moon’ formula (contained in the Anglican Common Prayer Book and in UK legislation referenced by NZ legislation) is so arbitary that it has limited liturgical significance. An early Easter is a pain in the neck for schools and perhaps even for churches.
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
If you apply the Easter formula to AD33 (or whatever year is appropriate), what do you get?
[DPF: Friday the 3rd of April 33 AD. First Friday in April would work for me.
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Ryan Sproull posted at 2.02
The answer: Why wouldn’t you?
I toss a coin to decide whether to riposte to your post after first assigning actions to each of the two outcomes? Is the fact the resultant heads told me to riposte determined?
What’s your answer, Ryan, to the argument: if there is no free will there are no moral choices. There are moral choices. Therefore there is free will.
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
“It means that, when those things occur, it is intelligible to ask, “Why did this person succeed? Why did this other person do very bad things?”
That’s right Ryan, and the answer to both those questions is: because they willed it through their thoughts which turned into actions.
The thing that a lot of people fail to realise is that thoughts are things. Everything around us that is man-made was once a thought in someone’s head. You and I were once nothing more than a twinkle in our parents’ eye. Everyone’s results in life and everyone’s relationships they build throughout life are determined by what they think both about themselves and about others.
And guess what. Thoughts are free.
Read Victor Frankle’s Man’s Search for Meaning about how people in concentration camps survived. It’s because they willed themselves to remain alive so they could bear witness to what happened. That’s an extreme example of the reality of that point. Another person cannot control a person’s inner thoughts, no matter what they do to that person.
Sure, thoughts can be influenced and we see that all the time. Look at consumerism, whereby people obsess about possessing meaningless objects the pleasure of ownership which takes flight the moment one gets it. Look at society’s obsession with airhead celebrities whereby e.g. some people think Keisha Castle-Hughes has something relevant to say about AGW. I could go on but you get the picture.
The point is, thoughts are things, and we are all free to think. If we weren’t, we would never have heard of e.g. Nelson Mandela or Ghandi who I simply choose because they’re political leaders who rose above their “determined station” to become amongst the greatest people who have ever lived. I could name others in any field: science, philosophy, commerce etc etc.
Edwards is wrong, wrong wrong. But I’m not surprised. And as someone said above, this really is what lefties believe and you could see it coming out in spades during Hulun’s execrable regime. If only such fools would realise they are completely mistaken and instead educate people about the opportunities that are available to them were they merely to think their way to success in any field, this country would be No. 1 in the OECD, we would have the highest number of Nobel Prize winners of any nation, everyone would want to live here and who knows, perhaps some of us could even address the intractable problems of world peace and global poverty.
But I’m not holding my breath.
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Answer: Confused
The Romans used the Julian Calendar – not the Gregorian one now in use and the date was calculated from the first full moon after the Vernal equinox which would have occurred around about March 15th at that time.
Easter is calculated using a lunar calendar not a solar one – get over it and relish it.
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Obviously.
The first premise is mistaken. “If there is no free will there are no moral choices” is not true.
One could even argue:
1. There are moral choices.
Vote:2. Free will is a contradiction in terms.
Therefore: Free will is not necessary for there to be moral choices.
December 28th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
That is simply avoiding the problem with a restatement. The answer to, “Why did you choose that?” cannot be, “Because I chose that.”
For an action to be intelligible as a choice, as a willed action, it must be intelligible to inquire, “Why did you do that?”
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Read Victor Frankle’s Man’s Search for Meaning about how people in concentration camps survived. It’s because they willed themselves to remain alive so they could bear witness to what happened.
An argument that’s both offensive and stupid. Over six million people died in the concentration camps; lot’s of people that really, really, wanted to survive were killed. Survivors mostly made it through blind luck. Does anyone think Primo Levi wanted to live more than Anne Frank did? Frank got typhus and died, Levi got scarlet fever and lived. Where did ‘free will’ enter into the equation?
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
It is only because the good Dr Edwards has free will that he is free to believe that he doesn’t.
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
“An argument that’s both offensive and stupid.”
Only if you don’t understand it Danyl. Just because you will it doesn’t mean you will succeed. But if you will yourself to fail: i.e. give up; apparently you do succeed, 100% of the time.
One of those little foibles of the law of free will, I guess.
If you doubt the law, then why don’t you also read Napolean Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. He was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie to find out why people like himself became fabulously wealthy while others who had much more opportunity, breeding and everything else that Edwards recommends, fell by the wayside.
Hill essentially concludes precisely what I said above.
It’s true, whether you believe it or not. The evidence is all around. Disregard at your peril (i.e. your own chance of happiness and success).
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Ryan Sproull 3:00 pm,
So Ryan, do robots make moral choices?
Vote:Or do they simply respond to certain stimulii?
And are people ‘robots’, or independent agents that make freewill moral choices based on their value system?
December 28th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
“For an action to be intelligible as a choice, as a willed action, it must be intelligible to inquire, “Why did you do that?”
Ryan, read my original comment again:
The answer toward how to get people to become successful regardless of their upbringing or current personal circumstance is quality education that transmits without fail an accurate message with respect to the way the world really works:
“If only such fools would realise they are completely mistaken and instead educate people about the opportunities that are available to them were they merely to think their way to success in any field…”
If you did that in our education system, properly, you would get results as I outlined above.
I’m frankly amazed that both you and Danyl apparently fail to see the truth of it. It’s self-evident, everywhere you look.
How the hell, do you think, people ever become “self-made” if not through the application of this law? And such people exist all over the place and come from all walks of life. It’s ubiquitous but unfortunately in our society today, while it’s common-sense, it’s not common-practice.
You can see it in DPF. His company and this blog was once nothing more than an idea in his mind. He made it into what it is through thinking and application of action of which thought was the genesis.
You address that and make it common-practice throughout the education system and watch NZ fly.
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Gotta love these nature vs nurture arguments. And there have been so many studies to test it, and time and again come up with the answer that it appears to be about evenly split. You cannot get past the potential, or lack thereof, inherent in the genetics, but there are enough examples of nurture outdoing nature that it comes up evens.
And I see that time and again in all of science. If there are two opposite theories that appear to be evenly balanced by the evidence, some going one way, some the other, then there is usually a third way, not recognised immediately, that falls somewhere in between and is supported by all the data, not just some. Nature finds a way. Hmmm … sounds like a line from Jurassic Park! sigh
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
First of April would be more appropriate.
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Ryan Sproull in his 3.00 post jumps to the centre of the free will v. determinism argument by stating (or implying) that the concept of moral responsibility is compatible with determinism.
Sorry, Ryan, can’t agree with that.
And on free will generally, I like the following quote from Nehru. I guess it represents the compatabilist position, which seems to fit the world, IMHO:
Determinism is too much like the fatalism of certain religions.
Vote:December 28th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
People pushing for a standard easter tend to forget one thing – Easter isn’t set by worldly governments but by an ecunumical council of christianity which hasn’t met in over a thousand years.
Vote:December 29th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Boxing day sales are simply part of current marketing methods, it’s just another sale with the name of the day (in fact most boxing day sales have been three day sales). They have already changed to end of year sales. Next will be new year sales or whatever name of the day the marketers come up with. Then summer sales etc etc. Sales used to be once a year, often now they are once a week, just another new marketing attack.
A sale used to be a special time of the marketing year for a business with special prices. Now a sale is part of normal marketing, and rarely is there anything special about them. Not all retail changes operate like this but many do. 50% off, or “up to 50% off selected items” has become meaningless.
Many shops have cried sale too often to move me. I used to look out for sales to try and find bargains. Now I look out for non-sale items to avoid being ripped off with grossly inflated prices.
Vote:December 29th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Determinism is disgusting. You have to be a thicko to be fall into that trap.
Vote:December 29th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Reid, you may have misunderstood me. Your answer implies determinism, and I am not disagreeing with determinism. Whether education is the answer or not (and I strongly suspect you are right), my point is that the question – “Why do some succeed while others don’t?” – can be given an answer like yours, rather than “Just cos some people choose to succeed.”
Looking at the rest of your comments, I must not have been very clear to you. I am not denying that people make choices, or that people “turn their ideas into reality” and all that. I’m simply saying that people have reasons for acting the way they do.
Vote:December 29th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Kris, my point is that moral choices based on their value system logically cannot be “free will”. You didn’t choose your value system, so you didn’t choose the thing that your moral choices are based on.
As for robots, I do not think robots make moral choices, at least for now.
Vote:December 29th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Jack, I didn’t say whatever you mean by “moral responsibility” is compatible with determinism. I said that moral choices are compatible with determinism. Also, they must, because saying “free will” is like saying “square circle”, and yet we make moral choices every day.
I would have to hear exactly what you mean by “moral responsibility” and why you don’t think it’s compatible before answering that question.
Very cute, but not addressing the logical necessity that free will is a contradiction in terms. Everyone on this thread is very eager to say that I am wrong about this, but it’s also like there’s a collective agreement to not address my actual argument. I’ll post it again:
1. Choices are made for reasons. For any action that is intelligible as a choice, it is intelligible to ask the chooser, “Why did you choose that?” We do it every day. It is an inherent part of our notion of choice, that when we choose we have reasons for choosing one course of action over another.
2. “Reasons” includes all of those things that provide those answers – value systems, beliefs about the world, etc.
3. Reasons must either be chosen by us or not chosen by us.
4. If we chose our reasons, we must have had reasons for that choice.
5. If we did not choose our reasons, our actions are determined by factors entirely outside of our control.
Whether or not it is distasteful, it is the way the world is. I don’t have any problem with it.
Vote:December 29th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Ryan Sproull 11:24 am,
Of course moral choices are freewill choices. Just as my ‘value system’ is the values I ‘choose’ to live by.
As you know, and we’ve discussed previously, I believe in absolute objective morals.
As a Christian I ‘choose’ to adhere to the Bible (the basis for absolute objective morals). Sometimes I go off track (ie sin), but this too is my ‘choice’. No one forces my hand in any decision I make, including God. Others may encourage me to make certain choices, but at the end of the day it is me alone that makes those choices.
For example, the Bible encourages us to repent of our sins and receive Christ as our Lord and Saviour. But it is clear, and God makes it clear, that this is the individual’s choice.
Vote:All decisions, values based or not, are made by the individual. While external influences may exist, this doesn’t alter the fact that choices made are the responsibility of the individual that makes them.
The Biblical judgement makes this point clear – the individual will be judged for the decisions they have made; but primarily for whether or not they have believed upon Christ for their salvation.
December 29th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Kris,
You are simply repeating your conclusion over and over, without addressing my point.
WHY do you choose to adhere to the Bible? When you sin, WHY do you choose to sin? No one forces your hand in any decision you make, but without reasons for acting (desire to please God, fear of heights, desire for chocolate, respect for law, etc.), you couldn’t make any decision at all.
Vote:December 29th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Ryan Sproull 12:36 pm,
The answer as to WHY I make choices, moral or otherwise, is related to, “why do I exist at all?”
The reason I make choices is because God has given me a brain; one which makes rational judgements. He has given me the ability to make choices. He has also given me a conscience, and therefore the ability to make ‘moral’, or value based choices. And of course we all have been given a conscience.
We’ve covered all this before, but I’ll say it again:
As a Christian, when I received Christ I was given the Holy Spirit which works in conjuction with my conscience, and helps me make moral, values based judgements. The Holy Spirit also works in conjunction with the word of God.
But despite ALL these influences I can still make freewill choices that go against every indicator at my disposal.
Bottom line:
Vote:God gives each and every one of us freewill; the ability to choose.
December 29th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Ryan,
Just because there are stimulus/response patterns in the choices people make, does not indicate determinism.
You are testing freewill against whether or not people are independent supermen.
Freewill does not require that my choice to win an olympic medal is fullfilled to be accurate.
Because there are clear patterns of people murdering, stealing, being succesful, or religous in given situations, does not indicate determinism, it tells us that we are genetically similar and of a particular time and place. We have a set of needs and desires due to our physical surroundings, namely the need to eat, stay alive, and breed, this is genetics and biochemistry, not determinism.
The differences between our society and cavemen is the exercise of freewill of all that have been before us. Kris follows the bible because someone chose to write it and others chosed to follow it, it has become a popular choice.
Detminism/Fatalism is a vile mental laziness.
Vote:December 29th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
What you are saying is that unless we are gods, we have no freewill.
There are reasons behind the choices people make.. of course. You are looking too closely, are the choices people or their replacements going to make in a million years already determined? No, our choices today and in the future will decide whether or not actions of murder, theft, and cooperation are more or less popular than today.
The genes we have today that appear to limit some of our choices are the result of the choices of the millions before us, we are now choosing to breed for smarter rather than bigger, calmer rather than angrier, etc, etc. and our choices are changing. The fact that these choices and changes are predictable does not alter the fact that they are the result of free will.
Predictablility does not equal determinism.
Vote:December 29th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
I find it perplexing when intelligent people like David Farrar feel that they are forced by their political ideology to reject rational scientific positions on determinism. I happen to think that you can be a hard determinist and still advocate punishing criminals. I wonder if David’s thought processes go something like this…… if hard determinism is true, that means that a criminal had no choice but to commit their crimes….if they had no choice then it is hardly fair to punish them. …if there is no punishment then there will be a lot more crime and victims of crime…. I don’t want any more crime, so I’m going to decide that hard determinism is not true.
Of course you shouldn’t base your scientific beliefs and your social policies on how you think the world SHOULD be. You should grow up and face the world as it IS. Don’t be like the Soviets in the 1930s who -when they couldn’t accept Darwinian evolution (it seemed too much like capitalism) decided to base their collectivized agriculture on Lamarkism. Famine resulted.
If you subscribe to the modern scientific world view that matter and energy act accordance act in accordance with physical laws then you must be a hard determinist. If not, then you must think that there is something magic or supernatural about people that means that the atoms and molecules in our bodies can – to some extent at least – behave in ways which are not dictated by these laws. Presumably you don’t think that people can flout the laws of gravity, and levitate. But you do think we can flout the laws of cause and effect, action and reaction. That is fine I guess. Even in the 21st century there are plenty of religious and superstitious people. I just didn’t think David Farrar was one of them. I find it annoying when intelligent people like him express such superstitious viewpoints without even seeming to know that this is what they are doing. You don’t you have to believe in superstitious claptrap to recognize the undeniable fact that some people can rise above their humble circumstances. You don’t you have to believe in superstitious claptrap to think that it is necessary to punish criminals. Even if hard determinism is true, if a criminal knows that the crime he is contemplating is likely to be punished then in many cases he is less likely to do it. His knowledge of the likely punishment is one of the inputs in his brain, one of the causes in the cause and effect equation . Hence punishment can be justified if it acts as a deterrent. And preventative detention can be justified if the risk of offending is too high. If we accept this then the debate can focus on things that really matter. A person like Brian Edwards might think that punishment doesn’t work as a deterrent, or as a preventative measure.
You are free to disagree with him, and advocate punishment as a justified deterrent. I just wish you didn’t do your position a disservice and feel you have to stoop to invoking magic and superstition. You have stronger arguments than that.
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 12:12 am
Wrong. If you subscribe to a scientific viewpoint, you realise that you do not understand the entire science of the entire universe, and the limit of your understanding may even be, in part, the human mind.
And this statement is incorrect because it is based in the arrogance of believing that this is the only alternative to your first incomplete possibility.
What I recommend you do, is stop thinking, go outside and play, then you will know as much about this topic as the smartest PhD’s in the world and you won’t be wasting your life on an issue that doesn’t matter.
Grow up.
Yes, including many of those at the forefront of the ‘modern scientific world view’, probably almost all if you included all those that can’t provide a scientific explanation of why the universe/s exists.
Isaac Newton:
“Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done.”
Albert Einstein:
“I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.”
Stephen Hawking:
Vote:“the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws.”
December 30th, 2009 at 12:30 am
Sonny, I appreciate your comments. I probably was a little too absolutist in my comments. If you are saying that free will is still a possibility, then we are in agreement. I admit science doesn’t know everything. And hard determinism could be wrong. But – based on what we know at the moment – surely the evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of hard determinism? I mean, if you had to bet on free will or hard determinism, are you telling me you would bet on free will?
You quote Hawking who says ….
“the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws”
Do you agree with this quote? If so I can’t understand why you are not leaning towards the determinist position. If not even God can break the the laws, then how can we break the laws? Is there some way that we can have free will without breaking the laws? Maybe there is. But what is it? But how anyone firmly believe in free will without this evidence. Isn’t the rational position to be agnostic, but to veer strongly towards determinism based on what we currently know? What do you believe Sonny?
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 1:46 am
Absolutely, ask any child.
The ‘laws’ could possibly be beyond the comprehension of the human mind and may include free will. How can you discuss a black and white situation of breaking or not breaking laws when you do not understand those laws or how they work? All that physics gives us is more names, knowing what a quark is does not tell us anything more than knowing what an atom is, perhaps we will call the next particle we discover ‘magic’.
The answer to this question will come from trusting and living the human impulses of curiosity and creativity (ie stop thinking, go and live). So far these impulses have got us to a position where the more tedious amongst us are asking these sorts of questions, much like in Hitchhikers Guide, in a few more millenia of evolution we might actually know what question to ask. When as humans today are to rocks, the pinnacle of evolution 5 billion years ago, we will be as rocks to the ‘humans’ of the future.
In short, if you want to know the answer, trust god, he will tell us in time. All the pathways of determinism will eventually run up against him. Until then, it is none of our business.
PS Good to see you drop the ‘religous, superstitous claptrap’ angle, I am agnostic but I find anti-religous sentiment to be unintelligent bigotry.
The evidence is all around, people can look to closely, I just lifted my hand and moved it to the right, there was nothing 5 minutes ago that was going to dictate the direction I chose to move my hand. I know nobody that lives their life as a determinist construct, I trust those instincts as smarter than our intellects.
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 2:25 am
Thanks for explaining Sonny. I think we have established (and sorry if I have this wrong) that your reason for believing in free will is not any way scientific. It’s down to instinct and/or common sense, or even mysticism/religion. That’s fine of course. It’s fine to be religious (sorry about my ranting earlier). But I think people need to admit that when they say they think free will is probably true they are basically being religious. Yes it seems to me that I do have free will. My gut feeling is that I do, and I certainly find it easier to live my life day to day as if I do. But I think we should have a healthy scepticism for our instincts and common sense (especially when they seem to conflict with the scientific evidence). Yes if you ask a child if she has free will she will say “of course”. Ask a child (who hasn’t yet been educated) and she will also say that the world is flat and you fall off if you go off the edge. I would say that you moved your hand just now because (probably) the electrical impulses in your head caused this to happen, and they were in turn influenced by a huge number of inputs (including the text you are reading on this blog). Or I could be wrong, and there could be a ghost in the machine that gives you a degree of free will. A soul. You are clearly a religious person (or you seem to be with your references to trusting that god will tell us the answer in time and until then it’s none of our business) and you believe in free will. That is at least a consistent position to take. My post was to highlight how many people seem to be inconsistent in that they profess to be scientific – and not religious – and then they believe in free will. I would be interested to see if David Farrar thinks he is being religious when he says he believes in free will.
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 4:05 am
But Will, you are not being scientific, that is my point. In this argument there is no scientific perspective, you are completely unable to describe the factors that make up a deterministic pathway.
To claim that there is a deterministic sequence of events that caused me to choose right instead of left is a lie, it is a guess, a statement of faith. ‘Electrical impulses’ is not a complete description, you must explain what makes up an electrical impulse, whatever item of language you use I will then ask the same until we get to the point where yours and everyone elses knowledge ends. To claim that there are no suprises to be found anywhere beyond our knowledge and comprehension is unscientific, it is actually impossible to scientifically go back 1 second in a deterministic chain of events. At some point you will make a ‘good enough’ observation of the events without truly understanding the underlying causes, the appropriate level to make that at is my decision to move right.
You can choose any sequence of determined events and I can ask, ‘what caused the first action?’, you then eventually end up at the big bang, so can you have a go at describing what determined that please?
No they wouldn’t by the way, they would have to be told this. But this is a good example of why you should be humble about claiming that there will be no suprises in all future scientific discoveries, as they would have been told that as it was once the extent of our scientific knowledge, we are the flat-earthers of the future.
I am not a religous person, btw. I do not use the term ‘god’ internally, only to make a point to others. But I must say you are being hypocritical in professing to being ‘scientific’ – and not religous – when believing in determinism.
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 4:20 am
In the last 2?billion years of the universes 10? billion year history the highest know consciousness has gone from rocks to trees to worms to dogs to humans, will todays human consciousness be the highest in another 10 billion years? Why would we expect evolution of the mind to halt now? I do not think a dog could conceive of these questions and if it decided that the universe could only exist in terms that its mind understood, it would be wrong. Humans today should be humble enough to realise the same, we may not be capable of understanding the universe and beyond.
This is why it is none of our business. Because the dog level of consciousness evolved to our level by getting on and doing what it knows and now we can ask those questions.
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 5:14 am
Sonny, I agree that science doesn’t have a complete explanation of anything. It can only approximate and theorise. Science will have many surprises in the future. One of them may well be that we do – after all – have free will. We can only theorise based on the very little that we think we know. If you – Sonny – think that “there is no scientific perspective” on the question of free will then you must therefore have no scientific opinion on whether free will exists. You can have a religious opinion on it, but not a scientific one. So when you said earlier that you would “bet on free will” you must be doing this for non-scientific reasons.
So we both agree that you are being non-scientific here. Where we disagree is whether I am also being non-scientific.
I happen to think that whether or not we have free will is a question on which we can have scientific theories. Unless you want to go all Zen on me and say that “we both have and do not have free will”, then we either do or we don’t. Does a rock have free will? Does an enzyme have free will? What about an amoeba? Or a dog? When you drop a rock it falls to the ground in a precisely pre-determined fashion. Every time. This simple experiment tells us it definitely doesn’t have free will. It is acting precisely in accordance with gravity, there is no room for any decision making here. Now, an enzyme is way more complicated, and we can’t predict exactly what it will do in response to certain stimuli. But we don’t doubt that in theory its response is pre-determined as well. It doesn’t have free will, it’s just that there are too many factors to take account of and we aren’t smart enough at present to predict what an enzyme will do every time. What you seem to be saying is that a person is different to a rock or an amoeba. Well it is different, it is a lot more complex. But an enzyme is a lot more complex than a rock, and its “actions” are impossible to predict. But its actions are in theory pre-determined. So an enzyme is no different to a rock in this respect, and it has no more free will than a rock does. All I am saying is that I see no scientific reason why a human has free will any more than a rock does, or an enzyme or an amoeba or a dog. You think that a human is different, but can give no scientific reasons why (only quasi religious ones). I think that on the balance of probabilities, it seems to me that we have no more free will than a rock. I don’t see why this isn’t scientific. I can’t prove this theory 100%, and you are right to say that future evidence may come around and prove the theory wrong (in fact some would say that apparent quantum randomness has already proved it wrong). But since when did this make a theory unscientific? In fact the ability for a theory to be disproven is one of the things that means that it is scientific.
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 6:09 am
I don’t have to have a complete description of the physical laws to know that a rock doesn’t have the free will to control the rate of its fall. If the rate a rock fell was different every time we dropped it then we might think that it is possible (though unlikely) that a rock is a conscious entity with the power to control its descent. But the fact that a falling rock is affected by gravity with such predictability means that it is clearly not deciding how quickly to accelerate towards the ground. There is no room for any other conclusion. I don’t completely understand gravity (nobody does) and I don’t need to understand it to reach that conclusion. Once the rock hits the ground and bounces around a bit then we should theoretically be able to predict where exactly on the ground it comes to rest. But we can’t even do this simple thing. Does this mean that the rock decided where it would come to rest? I would say no, for a number of reasons, including that the resting place was pre-determined from the moment the rock left my hand. So there was no room for a decision by the rock. Unless we are somehow different from a rock in a fundamental way (not just how complex we are) and exempt from the laws that we don’t understand but which nevertheless govern its existence with such predictability then I cannot see any room for a decision to be made. Yes, it feels like we are in control, but on the currnt evidence it seems this is probably an illusion.
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Paul Walker analyses the economics of Boxing Day sales. His conclusion is they are a way to get customers to reveal their price sensitivity.
He missed the obvious conclusion. They are mainly about cashflow. Staff costs go up over xmas, as well many retailers will be looking to buy in new season stock for Jan / Feb delivery -
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 9:10 am
Does the idea of science exist? Yes. Is it definable? Yes. But what I said about not understanding it applies to all science, if science is observable knowledge, then it requires the correct experiment and the correct measurement. If I want to determine the atomic number of an element, I do a series of experiments and come up with a measurement. This measurement will always contain the same unknowns as I stated earlier, the atomic number will always be an observable sum of unknowns, but it is scientific and accurate as we know it. There is nothing you know that you can absolutely describe and verify.
The correct scientific measurement for free will is also of an observable sum of unknowns, holding your hand up and choosing which way to move it is the appropriate level of repeatable experiment and it is a common observance and opinion of 99% of mentally capable people that we have observable free will.
BTW A human is not practically able to control its rate of descent either and it has free will.
You have no observable evidence that it is an illusion and there is observable evidence that we do have free will. Just because you do not understand it does not make it an illusion or else all physical reality is an illusion.
Your position is weak-minded, it is a pit stop where most intelligent people spend 8 seconds and then move past it.
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 9:48 am
So is Edwards saying his genes made him into a know-it-all-boring-old-fart-socialist-dickhead and there was nothing he could do about it?
As an example of Edwards’ ‘dickhead-ism’ – is he saying his pathetic, disgraceful, unprofessional interview [which was the cause of the show being cancelled] with Rodney Hide back in 2003, where he was trying to get Hide to engage in defamation, was somehow unavoidable? was not deliberate? Edwards was not in control of his actions? (that he is genetically a c**t rather than merely acting like one at the time?)
Hmmmmm… interesting
http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Sonny. A person could control their rate of descent by going spread eagled or going into a ball, but the point is that if an aspect of something’s behaviour appears to be under the control of something outside of that thing (i.e. the laws of gravity) then that thing, be it a rock or a person, is clearly not in control of that aspect of its behaviour, and it can’t have free will. Holding your hand up and choosing to move it is not an experiment that proves free will exists. All it shows is that it feels like we have free will. I agree with you that it feels like we have free will. I just don’t see the mechanism for us having free will and I think if someone is arguing that people are independent agents that can act outside of known laws then the burden is on you to come up with something more than “it feels like I am doing it”. There is plenty of evidence for matter behaving predictably and in accordance with known laws.
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
What determined the big bang will?
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
This does not disprove it. As you also do not see the mechanism for anything that happens in the universe.
Well then you are saying that all science is a feeling. Gravity just feels like it exists, time just feels like it exists.
The burden is actually on you to produce these known laws that define how people act and their deterministic pathways.
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Sonny,
Could you explain what “free will” means to you? Because when people describe to me what they mean by it, they are usually describing the “independent supermen” idea that you and I both seem to reject.
You keep talking about things that influence choices – such as genes, environment, etc. What I don’t see is what else is there besides what you call influences?
My argument is that people’s choices are ultimately determined by factors outside of their control. I don’t bother with long convoluted arguments about atoms in bodies obeying the laws of physics. The issue to me is not a scientific one, it’s a logical one. For something to be “under our control”, we have to have chosen it, but to choose something, we need to refer to reasons, and those reasons must ultimately be outside of our control.
Technically, obviously, the decisions of people or their replacements a million years from now are determined. Things cannot help but be how things will be. I don’t see what’s so abhorrent about the thought that the world makes sense, that effects have causes.
I can cause fewer people to park illegally by loudly tripling parking fines in Auckland. Nothing else will have changed but what I have changed, and they will act differently because of it.
So again, what is it that you mean by “free will”, and how does it relate to these observations?
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
They still have free will whether to park and recieve a fine Ryan, incentives and motivations do not disprove free will you simpleton. I have no interest in such an imbecilic question.
Free will can be predictable, it does not have to be random to be true.
Vote:December 30th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
tone it down eh? no need to call Ryan an imbecile and a simpleton. Was he rude about you?
When you say…
“Free will can be predictable”
… how can that be? So are you saying that if you were in a lab in the future and a scientist has your brain hooked up to a scanner, and the scientist says to one of his colleagues (out of your hearing) “oh I can see from his brain patterns that he is about to scratch his nose in 5 seconds.” And then you do scratch your nose in 5 seconds. Are you saying that that was an act of free will on your part, even though the scientist predicted you were about to do it and you apparently had no choice but to do it? Now I am not sure that science will advance that far, but if it did and if it could predict what you were about to do (big ifs of course), then surely the fact that you are shown to behave so predictably shows that you do not have free will. The point of this is not whether such a brain scanner to predict your behaviour is possible …but to show that free will and predictability are surely incompatible. Unless you have a very different definition of free will.
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 4:56 am
…and btw the word “predictable” is almost synonymous with “predetermined”. If the outcome of some process can be predicted then by definition the outcome of that process is pre-determined. So when Sonny you say “free will can be predictable” you are saying “free will can be pre-determined”. You are not making sense.
You ask “what determined the big bang?” Well I don’t know of course, and I don’t need to know for our purposes here. I don’t understand why you are bringing it up. Are you trying to change the subject or do you think that if you can show that science doesn’t know everything then that means that it doesn’t know anything? That doesn’t follow. If the behaviour of matter appears to be theoretically predictable according to laws then it is hard to see where there is room for a conscious entity to choose to do something different than what the laws dictate. Yes we don’t totally understand the laws, and they are not complete, but they nevertheless seem to work and if all matter is governed by them then why not the matter in your brain?
When you say…
“The burden is actually on you to produce these known laws that define how people act and their deterministic pathways”
Well of course science has produced plenty of laws and theories (gravity, relativity, quantum physics) that predict the behaviour of matter with extreme precision and allow us to do things like send probes to Saturn with pin point accuracy and build computers. The burden is on you to show why you think these laws do not apply to a brain as they do to other matter. You only reason so far seems to be something like “well I can move my hand whenever I want and it feels like I am doing it”.
Your theory of free will makes no predictions that have been able to be tested (so far) and it conflicts with theories that have made predictions that have been tested time and time again.
BTW if i was you I would bring up quantum randomness here, as it seems to show that the behaviour of particles on a subatomic level is sometimes not predictable and so for example sometimes whether a electron turns left or right seems to be completely random and not determined by the properties of the electron or its environment. Einstein famously hated this finding of course, because he couldn’t bear to think that “God” would “play dice” (using the term “God” figuratively of course in the same way you do Sonny) and it conflicted with his belief that there probably was no free will. I think this is your best line of attack on determinists like me. Maybe this fundamental lack of predictability provides the wiggle room in which some limited form of free will can express itself. But this idea has its own difficulties, because if the behaviour of a system (e.g. a brain) is 99% predictable and 1% random then there is still no room for free will. Your decisions are either pre-determined or random, or a combination of both. Random behaviour is not normally regarded as willed behaviour. Unless you argue that the electron’s variable movements in your brain were not random, but were somehow controlled or willed by your mind. But then what controls the motion of electrons that are behaving randomly inside something that is not a brain? Is free will somehow inherent is all matter then? Now things start to get really mystical….
But anyway, unless you are prepared to go down this line, I don’t see how anybody can make a case for free will.
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 7:13 am
If I offer 100 people $1 million dollars each to sell their houses to me and 100 of them accept the offer, this may have been a predictable result but each decision will have been made with free will.
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 7:19 am
In order for me to tine down my description of Ryans musings, he would have to tone up the content.
People tend to hold the determinst position because they think it is smart or they have a wider understanding. The point needs to be made plain that it is a limited and dumb position.
He has proved his frequent idiocy through 3000 posts, it has only taken you 16 will.
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 7:29 am
You’ve really jumped the shark here.
Splash.
This where the information that made me choose right had to come from, or are there other inputs?
This is like saying ‘I can do addition, therefore I know Mathematics.’
Wow, you’re so smart but this is what I’ve been talking about all along.
…and then you admit you are wrong.
Because you think like a turd.
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Sonny Blount 7:29 am,
Is that a turd with or without freewill?
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Sonny, I’m still not clear on what you mean by “free will”. Are you saying there is something more than incentives and motivations involved in making a choice? Can you explain what that thing is?
If it is not random and it is not determined by motivations and incentives, what is it? It’s chosen, which means it’s chosen for reasons. Again, what more is there to choice than choosing for reasons?
And Will, “quantum randomness” doesn’t solve the logical issue at stake here. If it’s random, it’s not chosen. If it’s chosen, it’s chosen for reasons. If it’s chosen for reasons and no other factors are at play, it is determined by factors outside of the control of the decider. If it’s chosen for reasons and “something else”, then explain to me what this “something else” is, what it feels like, how it relates to human experience.
Because in my experience – and I don’t have first-hand access to anyone else’s – all decisions are made for reasons and only for reasons. If I have every reason to choose action A and no reason to choose action B, it is not possible for me to choose action B.
The confusion of “free will” seems to me to be caused mainly by our ability to imagine having done something other than what we most wanted to do at the moment of decision.
Perhaps as an example of free will, someone could give me an example of a time they have wilfully chosen to act a way contrary to their desires, motivations, incentives, etc.
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 1:37 pm
That is pathetic Ryan.
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 1:43 pm
You’ve got me there. Hadn’t thought of that.
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Ryan Sproull 1:18 pm,
Every time I choose NOT to sin, Ryan, I am acting contrary to my “desires, motivations, incentives, etc.”
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 1:56 pm
You have no desire, motivation or incentive to do what’s right, to please God, etc?
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Sonny you never once referred to randomness on a subatomic level. You try did quote Einstein to support your position, which I found quite funny since Einstein was actually a hard determinist. For your next trick will you quote Richard Dawkins to support creationism? Now you are calling me a turd, so I guess when you are reduced to abuse like that you really are losing the argument. Anyway I enjoyed the debate but it seems like it is over now. Maybe you could try and use some of your free will to restrain yourself from calling me some other name as a parting shot.
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Ryan Sproull 1:56 pm,
I answered your question, Ryan, and my answer is a valid example of what you asked for.
You wriggle and squirm and obfuscate your way around the topic, and I can understand why Sonny accuses you of asking “imbecilic questions” and of being “pathetic” in your reasoning.
I really had to engage my freewill and choose whether I would even bother responding to your tripe.
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Kris,
I may not have been clear in what I was asking for. I was asking for an example of you doing something other than what you want to do at the moment of decision. Obviously, you desire to please God, to do what is right, etc. So on those occasions when you choose not to sin, your desire to please God is greater than your desire to sin.
I may not have been very clear about my point, which is simply this: people have reasons for doing what they do.
When you choose not to sin, I can ask you, “Why didn’t you sin just then?” and you would have an answer, presumably along the lines of, “I wanted to, but I would rather serve God.”
So your example was not of “free will”. It was an example of you doing what you want to do: you want to serve God.
I’m asking for an example of a choice where there is no answer to the question, “Why did you do that?”
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 5:54 pm
I said:
What do you think I am talking about, your comprehension and interpretation skills are very poor. I don’t need to explicitly state the theorems that are at each of our limits to satisfy your pretentious, weak mind do I?
I have come to the conclusions that I have partially because of studying quantum mechanics and philosophy at university, I don’t feel the need to namedrop theorems I imperfectly recall into conversations where they aren’t needed though. But if you like I can do a trawl of wikipedia and cut and paste something like this:
Well you need to go and edit wikipedia if you think the quote is wrong. Here are some more Einsstein quotes for you:
“In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views.”
“science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind … a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist.”
“I’m not an atheist. I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds.”
so I guess when you are reduced to abuse like that you really are losing the argument.
I said ‘you think like a turd’ not ‘you are a turd’, an important difference to me but I guess you are having more comprehension difficulties there. I have read over a dozen of your posts and replies and come to a negative conclusion about your ability to think on this issue, I have no problem communicating this negative opinion to you, if you do not like my choice of words and you can substitute another.
This is a another logical fallacy you are indulging in. It means I have a negative opinion of your position and would like to tell you that.
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Einstein definitely did not believe in “free will”.
However, just because Einstein didn’t believe in free will, doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as free will.
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Ryan,
I was actually going to point out that if Einstein was a hard determinist and believed the quotes I have given, then he was a hypocrit, which supports my point about ‘absolute determinism’.
The passage you have given does not contradict free will.
Free will is more apparent in small decisions with no consequence such as moving my hand left or right. Situational factors (nature and nurture) may overwhelm its appearance in what people make of their lives and most of what they feel and think, but it is still there.
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Sonny,
The quote, at length, is saying what I have been saying. He goes on to say that it means he cannot help but forgive everyone for their actions. You can read the whole thing in Ideas and Opinions, in a section called “The World as I See It”.
In the quote I gave, Einstein quotes Schopenhauer saying the same thing I said earlier – you can choose to do what you want, but you can’t choose what to want to do.
If this does not contradict your idea of free will, I’m going to have to ask once again for you to explain what you mean by “free will”.
What seems more apparent to me in those small decisions of no consequence is the difficulty of prediction when there is barely any motivation to act one way or another, rather than free will.
The opposite kind of situation, where motivations are clear and strong, seems to me where the absence of free will is most apparent: when you have every reason to choose action A and no reason to choose action B, it is not possible to choose action A.
That seem to me to be the heart of it. Do you agree or disagree with that statement?
“When you have every reason to choose action A and no reason to choose action B, it is not possible to choose action A.”
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Disagree.
By free will I mean that there is a point where a physical event of something with it is caused by something other than just the preceding physical event.
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Okay, fair enough. What is it caused by, in your opinion?
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Don’t have a clue. I can only observe the wider effects as sentience.
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Fair enough. The part I have a problem with is with the very idea of choice. Whatever or wherever is the cause of the effect that is the action – animal brain or spiritual soul – for it to be a choice necessarily implies reasons for choosing one option over another. To me, to choose is to choose what is most preferable at the moment of decision.
Do you agree with this definition of “to choose”?
“To act one way, rather than another way, for reasons.”
And if not, could you provide a different definition?
And I know this is a tedious discussion. Please feel very free to say, “This is boring the shit out of me, it’s the holidays, I’m not going to spend my time this way.” It’s a pet interest of mine and I could go on for days, but I’m well aware that not everyone shares my bizarre enjoyment of it. : )
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Free will is a bit like free left turns…I always say take anything that’s free.
On the other hand, the best things in life usually come with a price. And the premium goods are usually just that much nicer, longer lasting and, somehow, more satisfying.
So where do I get my premium will?
Vote:December 31st, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Sonny, your cut and paste quotes from wikipedia are part of the philosophy of first cause. It is not without some merit but it hasn’t has many advocates since the 17th century and science has learned quite a bit since then. I also find it interesting that someone who claims that he is “not a religous person” is relying on thinking that is part of the religious philosophy of “deism” which includes the “belief that a supreme being created the universe”. The most prominent recent advocate of first cause in the 20th century was Frederick Copleston who was a jesuit priest. So you claim not to be religious, but you keep on relying on religion. It is fine to be religious of course, but I thought you were claiming to have scientific reasons to support free will?
I don’t dispute the accuracy of your quotes about Einstein. But I do dispute that they support free will. All they are saying is that science is limited and we can’t rule out the existence of God. I don’t think that this means that we must have free will, and neither did Einstein. Why do you – as a supposedly non-religious person – keep bringing up God? Yes Einstein believed in some sort of God (though he defined God in such as way that most religious people would think he was an athiest or at least a heathen). But he didn’t believe in free will.
I see that you don’t think Ryan’s quote from Einstein contradicts free will. I disagree. But in case that quote wasn’t unambiguous enough for you how about this one from the great man….
“I am a determinist. I do not believe in free will. Jews believe in free will. They believe that man shapes his own life. I reject that doctrine. In that respect I am not a Jew.”
I agree with Ryan when he says that just because Einstein didn’t believe in free will, that doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as free will. But it is interesting that you have picked him as an ally when his views are diametrically opposed to yours. Nevermind, why don’t you just call Einstein a rude name like a turd or a hypocrite?
Vote:January 1st, 2010 at 12:39 am
Also Sonny, you claim that the following quote from you was about randomness on a subatomic level.
“All that physics gives us is more names, knowing what a quark is does not tell us anything more than knowing what an atom is, perhaps we will call the next particle we discover ‘magic’.
Electrical impulses’ is not a complete description, you must explain what makes up an electrical impulse, whatever item of language you use I will then ask the same until we get to the point where yours and everyone elses knowledge ends.”
I know you think my reading comprehension is poor, but it seems to me that you are indulging in a bit of revisionist history here. What you are saying there is that we have incomplete knowledge. Everyone except a religious zealot has recognized that since Socrates. You are not saying that in the 1920-30s scientific knowledge advanced to the point that we discovered that there appears to an inherent randomness in the behaviour of subatomic particles.
But whether you did or did not refer to such randomness before is kind of irrelevant except as a face-saving exercise for you. As I have recognized already, randomness on a subatomic level might pose problems for determinism (although many scientists dispute this). But it still doesn’t really have any bearing on the idea that I find most interesting, which is that we don’t have free will. It means our behaviour is either determined in advance or it is random (or a combination of both). Either way there does not appear to be room for it to be willed by us.
Vote: