Hub of Reason - 2010-12-28 (page 1 of 3)

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2:59 AM

-1

A: What is the proven fact to support the argumentation that God does NOT exist?

There is no proof either way. The Bible agrees with this: ... he that cometh to God must believe (Hebrews 11:6) The Bible makes no effort to prove itself, it simply states: The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. (Psalm 14:1) Then it becomes a question of which option makes ...

Ah, The Preacher

3:12 AM

Took me a minute to figure out I wasn't registered yet.

God

Him and his persecution complex.

0

Q: what is the core of Christianity?

I wonder what actually is Christianity: 1) After the death of Jesus his followers were 100% Jewish. They had the same traditions, Sabbath and circumvention. Only during the first concilie 40 years later they decided to stop circumvention and sabbath. Meaning: everything afterwards is not core Ch...

THAT is a really good question

really OT question...

That too

4:01 AM

the core of christianity is the ability to willfully ignore the teachings of jeebus.

4:31 AM

@Ami, I have a feeling I'm going to have to read the Stranger again soon.

You read it already?

I just finished it.

Wow...that was fast...what did you think?

I like reading, and I was interested in the philosophy.

Next step is The Myth of Sisyphus then

4:34 AM

I enjoyed it. It is a retardedly accurate summary of life, and the confident, slightly amused, indifference is familiar.

I read that essay, but I think I'm going to pick up his essay collections.

What did you think about that scene in jail where he confronts the priest?

Powerful stuff

I'm not entirely sure how to answer that question.

And I agree that it was powerful, but I'm not very good at any sort of literary commentary.

Things move through my head too quickly to accurately describe.

Camus theology is interesting because it almost resembles paganism more than atheism...

Camus, and the protagonist of "The Stranger" never grapple with the question of religion like atheists do...its as though they are living at a time where monotheism isn't even an option yet

Around what part of the book is that scene with the priest? I read the book five years ago and I don't remember that scene

Pretty much the last scene

You can get most of the scene on wikiquote.com

4:39 AM

Last three pages.

I read it twice.

I also highly recommend "The Fall," "The Plague" and his collection of short stories called "Exile and the Kingdom."

I will probably continue buying and reading them, though in the trip to the bookstore I also wound up with Stranger in a Strange Land and White Plague.

Have you read those yet?

Do you read a lot of scifi?

I haven't, and I do.

Can you recommend something for me to read?

4:46 AM

I have a lot of paperbacks. Everything I could find locally by Asimov, and a bit ordered from Amazon. A lot of Frank Herbert. Philip K. Dick.

I'm a huge fan of Philip K. Dick

I've read some Asimov but no Frank Herbert

That would have been my first to suggest for you, just because of how much he puts into his writing.

who...Dick or Herbert?

Dick. As for Herbert, I first read Dune, which I loved. I actually bought a replacement copy of it today, because I think my ex stole it when we broke up.

Have you read any Jorge Luis Borges?

4:49 AM

I haven't.

He comes from a completely different background, writes about different things and with a different story, but I think he explores a lot of the same themes as Dick.

You can get a lot of his short stories online...I highly recommend them.

I don't often read anything outside of science fiction or random non-fiction.

Have any of you read any science fiction, as in science fiction, as in as opposed to fantasy.

I'll look into them tomorrow night.

@Vitaly, you'll have to not portray your own biases onto authors books.

Borges has the following great line:
"every cultivated man is a theologian, and faith is not a requisite"

4:51 AM

I have no clue what you consider science fiction, but I consider fantasy to be sword wielding mages in terrible fucking books.

I get offended that they put them on the same shelves as science fiction.

@Vitaly what do you recommend?

@Josiah I consider a piece of literary work science fiction when it's sufficiently scientific.

Hard science fiction, then, I'd assume.

@Josiah on the minus side, not everyone would be able to follow the plot in hard science fiction. Yes.

I only care that something isn't stupidly impossible. If I'm reading a book and there are glaring scientific inconsistencies I'll put it down.

Even simple mistakes piss me off.

4:53 AM

@Ami Greg Egan, for his ideas. His writing is not as good, though.

Diaspora or maybe Schild's Ladder.

I do, though, have a desire to see the stars up close and robots that I'll let a little silliness slide so the story can be set.

@Vitaly interesting...I'll have to take a look

@Josiah When a book of science fiction ignores basic concepts such as the first law of thermodynamics, it's hardly science fiction.

A couple of Egan's short stories are freely available on his website, but are not as scientific.

He was experimenting with stylistic devices, like Jorge Luis Borges

gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/OCEANIC/Complete/Oceanic.html

This, for example.

@Vitaly I have the link open in my browser which means its officially on my reading list

4:57 AM

Incidentally, it talks about religion a bit.

@Ami Great, I'll be looking forward to your review. XD

@Borror0, meh. I'll give up the first law to see alien planets. It's well worth it.

Peter Watts' Blindsight is freely available on Peter Watts' website, too; and it's a novel.

And I think Blindsight is the only science fiction work that bests Egan's writing.

And Vernor Vinge's.

I am going to let puppies out. I'll be right back.

Blindsight: rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

Scroll to the end of the webpage to see the huge list of references Peter Watts used for his novel.

Those include Nature and Science.

This would be the first hard science fiction I've (probably) ever read

5:07 AM

@Josiah My point is that when you violate the first law, you have magic. Not science fiction.

Clarke's three laws

Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three "laws" of prediction: # When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; when he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong. # The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. # Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Origins The first of the three laws, previously termed Clarke's Law, was proposed by Arthur C. Clarke in the essay "Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imag...

@Borror0 the third law is most relevant for this discussion

I knew that was going to be brought up.

You could argue that the 3rd LTD is an exception

that's reasonable

although you'd have to justify why...and I don't think that would be easy

@Borror0, I let most authors have their own world. I don't like mine enough to force it on them.

Unless they're zooming into pixellated photos saying enhance a lot, then, well, fuck them in the ass.

Right in the ass.

In any event, I have an hour, maybe two, to get started on the next book. @Ami, thanks for the suggestion. I really enjoyed the Stranger and I probably will again in a week or two.

@Borror0, @Vitaly, If you have any book suggestions for what you consider proper science fiction, feel free to @Josiah them to me while I'm gone. I feel like going on a massive reading binge.

Enjoy man

5:16 AM

ty, goodnight guys.

night

If the technology is advanced enough to simply look impossible to us, according to our more limited knowledge, that's fine. (Ex: FTL travel) It's still science fiction. When someone starts throwing lightning from his hands because they "realigned the electrical impulses of my brain" that's magic. Sorry.

Good night @Josiah

Night

@Borror0, then we agree.

5:17 AM

what does ftl stand for?

Do they even make 'science fiction' books about super heroes and try to pass them off as scifi novels?

faster than light

Faster Than Light

That's what I was assuming he was disagreeing with.

But it seems we agree.

I figured

That example was from Fringe, on FOX

5:18 AM

FTL is necessary for so many plot settings.

but going ftl is like breaking the third law of thermodynamics...

Fringe was good because of the old guy. Only the old guy.

You mean the literally mad scientist?

You just don't understand it, you see, your science isn't advanced enough.

Yes Borror0. I always cringed at the retarded shit he said, but at the same time, love the character.

I guess the exception I have to hating scientifically idiotic things is probably when it involves Time Lords.

Greg Egan circumvented the necessity of FTL in Incandescence by introducing mind uploading and transmitters installed to retransfer uploaded sentient beings into simulated environments across the galaxy.

Therefore he successfully speaks of timeframes of thousands of years.

5:21 AM

He just supplanted FTL with something equally as dubious.

@Ami Clark's Third Law. FTL travel has tons of problems, but usually the setting has beings so much more technologically advanced that it's plausible that they have found a ways to deal with the problems.

scifi can have bad premises, stupid plot twists and dumb settings like any other genre, but looked at from a scientific point of view, ftl travel is a lot more troubling than human lightening powers

Not really. Scanning a brain and creating a simulation of its consciousness is scientifically feasible even now, unless you believe in souls @Josiah

FTL is not feasible.

No need for insults, bro.

And if you believe what Michio Kaku says I guess it's feasible.

I haven't read him.

5:23 AM

ftl has one problem...it goes against the maxwell equations and undermines the entire premise of Einstein's relativity

He's a media whore scientist.

There is simple logic: the brain is a machine, even if it's a biochemical machine.

And a machine can be simulated.

Physicist, I think. He's on TV here a lot.

Heck you heard of lattice QCD?

We have to understand the machine first.

5:24 AM

We don't need to reimplement it actually.

@Vitaly I've heard of it and refuse to believe in it

And because of that, we don't need to understand it.

Scan → load data → simulate

@Ami If the choice is between human lightening powers created by hypnosis versus FTL travel by being several centuries more technologically advanced than us, I will go for the latter.

You make it sound so easy Vitaly.

@Borror0 I fully understand and sympathize with your position from a literary perspective...I'm just not satisfied as per the explanation you gave. But that doesn't really matter anyway...

5:25 AM

@Ami why not? It produces reliable results, I think.

I suppose as long as you have a save state, even if the simulation fucks up, you can always load your save.

It'd be like playing final fantasy, only with your wife.

@Josiah I'm just explaining that it doesn't violate any laws known to us.

@Josiah FTL violates such laws, mind uploading does not.

We'll have to table this for a day or two. Remind me.

In any event, sleepy time. Night again guys.

Night again @Josiah

@Vitaly Just because a theory produces reliable results doesn't mean its true

night

5:28 AM

Good night again

Ah, I have mentioned it in the context of simulation

Given sufficient computing power, we could reliably simulate quantum objects with lattice QCD

@Vitaly oh I see...my bad

For that, we need not it to be the ultimate truth, we need reliable results

no problem

too many conversations happening at the same time

@Ami What's not satisfying? Does it not seem more plausible?

5:32 AM

In my humble opinion...if you look at the scientific data available to us, crazy lightening-mind magic tricks, as outrageously absurd and impossible as it may sound, is more likely to be justified through science than ftl travel...

thats all.

Again, I'm not disagreeing with your analysis of the story, I'm not saying I would like to read a story like that...just challenging your explanation of why one is better than the other.

@Ami The difference is that, when you ask the question "Wait, how does that work?" to the authors of both stories you get an "oops" for the electrokinesis story and a "oh, they found a workaround after a few centuries of achieving the speed of light."

That is, in one case it's impossible while in the other case it's just implausible.

I understand. Lets think of it this way...

We know that scientific discoveries and technological progress are always utilized across an entire civilization. This means that any single piece of technology implies something about a possibly infinite number of other technologies that must necessarily be available to that same civilization...

Headlights on cars, implies flashlights, bathroom lights, space heaters, etc...

You can't have headlights on cars and nothing else

Exact.

so...if an author has some crazy lightening technology which is entirely discontinuous with the technological landscape of the story as a whole...that story will suck

5:48 AM

Understatement, and that is exactly my point

awesome

The one default of this chat engine is that you don't know if someone is typing something. So, I'm not sure if you are finished or if you are writing an awesome argument, as the previous comment were just things I had to agree to before being owned by your argument.

no way man

I'm not typing anything

So am I to get owned or did we just agreement on the internet?

sorry for the confusion

we agree

5:52 AM

I'm not sure which is the most worrying

I should have made that clear...I'll know for next time

I thought we agreed, but I was not completely sure

Oh earlier you asked for recommended reading. It's not science fiction, it's fantasy done right. It's an Harry Potter fanfic where Harry was raised by an Oxford professor and thus is unusually proficient with rationality. Vitaly and I are both big fans.

fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/…

+1

Don't diminish because it's a fanfic.

does it matter that I haven't read all the HPs?

5:56 AM

It's exceptionally good.

I haven't read any of the HPs

And I still enjoyed it

okay, good to know

If you have not read the books or seen the films, there are a few ironic situation you won't get but it won't detract in any way from the story.

I read them all in one week. Well, the first five, which were all that were out at the time.

Welcome back?

5:58 AM

lol

Nah. Just got up to get milk. Going back to read more.

@Borror0 I wanted to mention that when I read the fanfic, I have the feeling that Eliezer Yudkowsky is a level above mine, as he described that feeling in regards to E.T. Jaynes

I don't think I could have possbly come up with those plot twists

Without the aid of heavy diagramming at least

Personally, I'm more impressed by his writing style than his plot twists. Whenever I read the fic or read a blog of his, it always stands out. It's never ordinary.

Here is what I refer to The Level Above Mine, if anyone is interested

I understood what you meant.

Are you a writer? Is that why it bothers you?

6:13 AM

No, it's just part of why I could enjoy something: if I couldn't come up with something great on my own, I enjoy learning/reading it

Hope it makes sense

It does

I apply that same logic to interpersonal relationships: if I could say smarter things than you in every possible and interesting way, you're a waste of my time.

I prefer being the least smart person in the room, if possible

I fear I haven't said anything smart, not yet.

You make statements a lot more interesting than the people I have to interact with on a day to day basis, in personspace.

Some people theorise that you could extract interesting information from about anyone, even a caretaker

Even the SIAI at one point invited people for the reason: “teach us anything that you think is interesting”

playing a cello, painting pictures, maths, whatever

or something along those lines

In practice, it seems that it's almost impossible to extract that information

most people just don't click with that you might be interested in something random

discuss

6:29 AM

I completely agree

on a tangentially related note, might it be the case that the more interesting people are those who are not surprised at the possibility that someone might be interested in their own field of expertise?

At first, I was going to say "I wouldn't go that far." and just partially agree but having seen my argument I have to change position: I completely agree.

I vote for the people that don't care. That just love what they're doing so much that they don't understand other people couldn't be interested.

@Vitaly If it wasn't 1:30 in the morning I'd probably have a lot more to say

We'll have to do this again some other time when I'm more awake

It's 9:33 AM here, and I have to go in 30 minutes.

Good night @Ami

6:33 AM

good night/morning

I guess that leaves me alone with the guy who's supposed to be sleeping cough @Josiah *cough

Okay, this is annoying. Is there a no parse syntax?

night again @ami, and to the rest of you...maybe..

it's hard to read when interesting things are happening.

@Borror0 not currently

welcome @realityhandbook. The conversation has just died down in here.

@ThePersonWhoStarredAmi'sMessage: you made it sound… kinky.

6:42 AM

Okay, this is hilarious. chat.meta.stackoverflow.com/chats/message/5365

@Borror0 404

Unless you refer to the picture.

I was

Good night everyone.

Atheists who don't stop about how "religious people are stupid" on every question they answer annoy me even more than creationists. You're clever enough to realize God is superfluous and to realize that scientific explanations are better but not enough to realize that you're just whining?

7:01 AM

DAMN.

No, I will not tell you how I did it. Learn to respect the unknown unknowns: yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox

Wasted my time reading and expecting a chat log

And I'm 2 minutes late.

See you later guys.

Ah, and Eliezer is wrong: since I know there is something I don't know, it's a known unknown, not an unknown unknown.

2 hours later…

9:28 AM

Is my tone too harsh in my comments on this question? atheism.stackexchange.com/questions/1499/…

9:38 AM

@aaronasterling You are being harsh. Unnecessarily and counterproductively harsh even. That much is a fact. However, whether you're being too harsh is debatable. Being angry at The Preacher is something most of us can sympathize with.

You should see the comments I wrote to him but didn't submit. lol

Did you delete them?

It would be nice if we had the luxury of saying that unnecessarily harsh is equivalent to too harsh. A productive conversation isn't possible though and I don't think that I'm the problem. I want him gone. I'm just going to leave the second one up. Thanks for the opinion.

@Borror0 You should see some of the comments that I didn't post ;)

There's a reason I made the distinction. The guy isn't interested in taking into account our point of view. He's not even a good apologist. He's just repeating stuff that sound persuasive to him. I think that says enough how close-minded he is.

@aaronasterling LOL

As much as I think he's annoying, he's just background noise. To me, the most problematic users are the ones who post bad answers that get upvoted.

Oh no doubt about that. It's unfortunate that the distinction needs to be made. I meant to type counterproductive but normally that would be a good definition of too. SE seems to be very adverse to banning users but, given the means, I would have banned him as soon as I looked at him. I guess the only thing to do is tolerate and refute/ignore him.

I have an issue with bad answers. Aside from obvious cases it's very difficult for me to distinguish between disagreeing with an answer and thinking it's bad. I'm not much of a philosopher so I don't have an incredible ability to judge.

3

A: What is the proven fact to support the argumentation that God does NOT exist?

Why is it my job or anyone's to prove an utter absurdity to be false? "Prove to me that the world isn't secretly resting on top of giant cupcakes!" "Well, here are pictures of the earth from space." "Fakes and lies. Now prove what I said! See, you can't." Yeah well, that still doesn't make ...

That's an example of bad answers where i think that's problematic

9:55 AM

Well yeah, that's just a rant. I had missed it somehow.

Is my comment on it too harsh?

If it had not been downvoted TWICE, it would be the most popular answer. Thing is, it doesn't answer anything. the asker says "I think atheists have no proof" and the answerer just goes "well, religious people are stupid so we don't need a proof to say god doesn't exist"

Refresh the page

You'll have your answer

Honestly, I don't care. He's an atheist so he should be able to handle the criticism.

Right on. I can be one of those asshole internet drivers so I tend to try to be delicate.

I argue a lot, and that can get on people's nerves so I try to be as polite as I can even if I think they're being absurdly moronic.

ObdurateDemand doesn't go that far, but it's a bad answer that deserve to be at the bottom

@aaronasterling There's a kind of atheist that is dogmatically anti-theistic. They're stuck in this mode of "religious people are stupid and amoral" and they can't concede any argument that goes against that idea. It's common around blogs and YouTube channel.

They follow the herd, just a secular one.

I agree with that completely. I have fairly strong anti-theistic views myself but I tend to direct the frustration at fundamentalists and the notion of superstition in general rather than religious people

That being said I have, under the cover of the internet, said some pretty vicious things to creationists after 50 or so forum posts. The problem is that they just don't know when they're beat.

10:10 AM

I have strong anti-theistic views too, but the goal is to be rational. While there are many problems with religions, you can't blame everything on them or say that they're stupid beyond help. That's just not a defensible position.

Blaming everything on them certainly isn't defensible. Saying that the religious are, in general stupid beyond help isn't defensible either. ThePreacher may have a genius IQ for all I know. But I get the feeling that he's something beyond help.

@aaronasterling I made my Internet debuts on an MMO forum. By the time I moved on to other places, I had learned the most important lesson about online debate: don't ever get emotionally involved. Personally, when someone say something stupid, I share their stupidity with others. It reassures me that I'm sane, not alone, and is entertaining.

From all of the creationists that I've debated, I don't think that there's anything that could be done to make them see reason. The scary thing is that he's probably thinking the same thing about me. But somehow I know for a fact that I'm right about evolution and would bet anything that I'm right about the nonexistence of anything remotely resembling the christian god.

@aaronasterling Exactly. You can even argue that their experience isn't rational, if you want. That's defensible, if you're really debator. But really smart people are theists, deists, and pantheists.

RE: Christian god
That's the only god I'm comfortable saying that he doesn't exist. There's just so many ways to prove it's a logically incoherent concept. In my answer to the question I linked to earlier, I mention the problem of evil as being a good example but there's just so many others. Contradictions in the Bible are another effective one.

If you're talking literal christian god, then yes, that doesn't exist with the same certainty that evolution doesn't occur. I'm willing to bet that nothing remotely resembling it exists either but I can't be sure with the same certainty.

There are too many ways to subtly change it to evade all of the counter arguments. At the end of the day, I have nothing but any lack of evidence or necessity and my feeling that it would be incredibly inelegant. That's enough for me to "bet my soul" on though and do it with a smile on my face.

10:22 AM

I'm talking about an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good god.

But already with that, with no definition of good, the argument from suffering breaks down. Who's to say that suffering isn't good?

Whether a concept of god is logically coherent depends on how you define it. A god that just started the Universe and then stopped interfering is still logically coherent.

@aaronasterling He's omnipotent and omniscient. He would be able to let us have our cake and eat it too.

Also, who's to say that a god has to be logically consistent. RE: having cake and eating it too, again. we think that that's good. Maybe this "god" is playing by a different set of rules where that's not good. Maybe the god wants us to suffer and that's good because it's what the god wants?

You mean "god is good because good is defined by what god is"?

Overall, I think that the arguments work against the literal christian god. I don't think that they work on gods that I could conjecture that are vaguely related to it which is why I have to equivocate on declaring that they couldn't exist. Of course I don't think they do exist and would bet anything that they don't.

Not quite.

I mean that with no a priori definition of good, good could be defined so that "god" is good. I stated it poorly earlier.

I don't think that that's terribly inconsistent either. We essentially define good to be "what we want other people to do." I've never found it to be an incredibly useful definition

10:31 AM

There's no way to arrive to a definition of good that would permit all the evils in this world, without there being special pleading for god.

Sure there is. Good is when those that have the power to further their own ends (with "those" referring to any organism, not just humans) do so without consideration to the well being of others.

I forgot natural disasters.

The problem with such a definition is that it's unpersuasive

Most theists would agree that such a definition is unhelpful and pointless

. Good is when those that have the power to further their own ends (with "those" referring to any organism, not just humans) do so without consideration to the well being of other or when an event occurs that causes organisms that are unable to cope with it to suffer or die.

At that point, you could just go ahead and say that good is an attribute of god so whatever god does or allows, it's always good no matter what.

I don't think it matters that it's not persuasive. There it is. And it would be a lot more persuasive if some god comes down from the sky, presents it and says, "I told you I was good."

10:38 AM

That would just be as unhelpful and pointless but at least rhetorically more powerful.

That's a good point

@aaronasterling To define good is such a manner would be equivocation. (I think that it's the best way to answer the definition without saying "anyone would believes in the rhetorical power of that definition is unbelievably stupid.)

It might be that I haven't found a definition of good that is more persuasive to me than that. Believe it or not, I tend to be a fairly nice and generous person too.

I mean, if that's what God meant by good, he should be sued for false advertising!

Well I'm not advocating it for its rhetorical power. I'm saying that with no a priori definition of good, we can cook up a definition that describes this universe without recourse to god. I do think that that has value insomuch as it demonstrates that we have to at least insist on a definition of good before applying the argument from suffering.

10:44 AM

Advert: Now would less pain and suffering.
Customer: Since I tried your new product, I ache far more.
Advertiser: Oh, by less I meant "a lot more."

Right but it's only because we generally use an equally unpersuasive definition of good that it would come as a surprise. To me, it's a meaningless word and I've not seen a good definition of it

I do sympathize with utilitarianism though and generally tend to apply that.

@aaronasterling To argue for that is to argue that god has poor knowledge of what humans mean by good. That would be like if when in the Bible it said "father" we had to understand "the cousin of the best friend of my niece"

To make such an argument has dramatic consequences for Christians

That is, everything in the Bible could be false

You wouldn't even be able to get to the advertiser through a throng of customers suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Why, yes, it's been an obvious allegory all along.

I mean, literally, everything. If the authors of the Bible had a poor grasp of the meaning of a very common word, how many more can they have got wrong?

Right. The christian god is toast so far as I'm concerned. I'm just saying that if we step outside of that, I can permute the notion of god to circumvent any argument against it.

10:49 AM

Most likely, a lot more than just "good"

That's why I have to merely say that I would bet anything that nothing vaguely resembling the christian god exists.

I will assert that the christian god in particular does not exist with the same certainty that I will assert that evolution occurs.

Which I will assert with the same certainty that 1 + 1 = 2.

@aaronasterling I'm saying that there is no way to circumvent such an argument without creating another contradiction which can be used to prove that such a god is logically incoherent.

Also, welcome back Vitaly

Thanks Borror0.

Coming back swinging too. Stockholm syndrome made me LMAO

Slightly off topic but how would you guys define free will?

11:01 AM

What's the name for the syndrome when captives have positive feelings towards imaginary captors who they invented in the first place to experience imaginary captivation?

@vitaly Religion?

…

I was just typing “other than ‘religion’”

There could be a term for that actually. If you view it as "an imaginary limitation" rather than a captor I could imagine that. Someone would create a limit, and even though that limit is completely arbitrary, unnecessary, and harmful, that person would feel attachment to it.

Obsessive-compulsive I think

@Borror0 I'm definitely getting in over my head here but I like Dennet's notion of free will as a property that allows agents to avoid things.

11:05 AM

Voilà!

@aaronasterling Under that model, how is "free willing" different from "willing"?

@Borror0, it's not really. It's a "compatibalist" definition. We seem to live in a universe that is deterministic at the scales where we make decisions. So I have to disagree in any notion of "strong" free will.

Which reminds me, why do people think that quantum processes are any less deterministic than macro processes?

It makes no sense to me, somehow

It goes with the belief that they are random, which I am told is false (I never learned about about quantum mechanics to know for sure).

Well, they're essentially random. The evolution of the quantum state is strictly deterministic. Where the fucker will actually end up being measured is anybody's guess before it happens.

Subject to the constrictions placed by the quantum state of course.

The question of if that "randomness" is inherent in the system or a failure of theory (my personal and uninformed feeling) is up in the air.

Is that not right? The magnitude of the wave function at a point is the square of the probability that the particle will be measured at that point in whatever space the wave function is defined on, no?

Here's my problem with the existence of the term free will vs determinism.

If we don't live in a deterministic world, where something things are not causal, then how can we will? If what I believe has been determined by randomness (ie not by causation), then how am I deciding anything? *I* am not control. It's all random.

If we are talking free from an omnipotent and omniscient creator of the universe, how did that happen? He is omniscient. He knows what I will be thinking about in 5 minutes since before he created the universe.

11:18 AM

y'know what @Borror0? ban the I word

And try to state the same without it

lesswrong.com/lw/nu/taboo_your_words

Without a first person pronoun? Easy.

If our universe is not deterministic, where something things are not causal, how can human beings will? If what one believes has been determined by randomness (ie not by causation), then how one deciding anything? He or she is not control. It's all random.

Oh, and taboo “free will” too, as E.Y. pointed out in next to the last paragraph

You're missing the idea, I am afraid.

Let me read the LW article first

Sure

I'm halfway but is he just reformulating Wittgenstein?

11:26 AM

No idea.

Because I agree, but I don't see how it applies here

Let's start with the very first sentence then

Are you sure that the will in “how can human beings will” is the same as the will in “free will”?

Have you not realized that I started the discussion by asking a definition of free will?

I am unaware of the common definitions of free will, which is why I am puzzled. From the looks of it, it does not make any sense. It's an useless term.

I don't claim to know it is. I only am describing what I understand

@Vitaly Wittgenstein states that all philosophical disagreements are debates over the meaning of words.

@Borror0 That's my feeling. It's a useless term for which any definition is therefore useless. I've long felt this way about philosophy in general and would very much like to be proven wrong.

@Borror0 Oops sorry. I somehow assumed that you were talking about the rather blurred theistic concept of free will.

I must not be thinking clearly.

11:35 AM

OT: This came up on English.SE: geekdictionary.computing.net/define/administratium

@Vitaly That one doesn't make sense either. How can god be omniscient yet allow us to make our decision? It's one or the other.

@aaronasterling lol

I too have a problem with the concept of free will

Because it's not even describing something objective

You mean material?

It's how human beings feel from inside, which doesn't necessarily has a one-to-one correspondence with reality

You mean the theistic free will or the secular free will?

11:40 AM

No, objective.

Both I guess.

What is your definition of free will?

Let's suppose that there was a definition of free will that everybody agreed on. What would we do with it? What questions would it allow us to answer other than if we have free will or not. Assume we answer that question? What other questions would it allow us to answer? It seems like a dead-end line of inquiry to me.

Some would argue it would remove the desire of vengence of many people

"There is nothing he could have done."

A neurophysiological phenomenon stemming from the fact that people do not have access to the algorithms that their brain uses to determine their next action based on accumulated memories of past experiences or something?

If a omniscient god exists, and there is no free will, then god is responsible for every single of our actions. That's why free will is an important concept for theists. If it does not exist, if our decisions are predetermined from before our birth, then it is god who is responsible for our actions - not us.

11:56 AM

By the way, I found that I've apparently forgotten some of LW posts: it has been more than 2 years

I want to re-read them wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Free_will_(solution), now.

That doesn't appeal to me very much. Just pin them down to a god and then refute the existence of that god. Then free will doesn't matter for them either

Wow the parser sucks.

Add a ) to the link.

Trick: add a / at the end: wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Free_will_(solution)

Doesn't work either.

Fine. Then cheat: wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Free_will_%28solution%29

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