Government for the people. How?

[Izzy]

The objective of this thread is to altruistically* design a political structure wherein the needs and interests of EVERY inhabitant of this country are met. (None of this "general public" crap, we should try to make everyone happy. ) It's impossible to not be aware of how inconceivable this sounds, but I think by being mindful of what we're trying to accomplish, but.. just might be feasible?**

Now, before we can even begin devising laws, creating our constitution, bill of rights, etc., I think it's best we assemble a list of what people want from their government. Feel free to contribute ANYTHING. (I stole some of these from the world's smallest political quiz and the bill of rights. >_>)

1. Government should not censor speech, press, media, or internet.
2. Military service should be voluntary.
3. There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults, where a consenting adult is anyone of 16 years of age or older.
4. Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs.
5. End government barriers to international free trade.
6. Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security.
7. Keep government welfare, but no taxation without representation.
8. Freedom of speech, religion, sexuality, peaceful protests, and petition.
9. Soldiers may not be quartered in a house without the consent of the owner.
10. People may not be unreasonably searched or kept in captivity.
11. The right to a free, public, and speedy trial.
12. Laws are to remain the same from State to State.
13. Eventual globalization is a priority.

*We can get into the semantics of altruism later. I have.. mixed feelings, but this most closely elucidates my intentions. (Lol, I swear, I bounce back and forth from being the apathetic hippy civilian who just wants to live to the extremely fervent humanitarian practically daily. >_>)
** Eh, truthfully, it isn't. Too many people disagree on matters of religion, which define the moral code for a LOT of people (even if they don't strictly adhere to it, haha). We need to agree now to define morals for ourselves and not base them off of religious texts. Like, if someone proposes "Don't kill", that's perfectly acceptable, and I expect it to be fully ratified. If someone else suggests "Love God", this is more open to debate. While you can submit ideas that coincide with religious texts, submit them because they are mandates you want and agree with, not just because your scripture of choice tells you to follow them.

Edited February 13, 2014 by bonanova

[Guest]

Oh god, can we not talk about AP History classes? I'm so screwed for tomorrow because I didn't do any of my APWH work.

Wait, free will as in the deterministic kind, like "I am deciding to move my arm right now", or free will as in freedom within our nation? Free will as in I'm predestined to type this exactly as I am, up to every typo that needs to be back spaced?

Free will as in the philosophical idea that doesn't really exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will . I'm not going to say anything more unless someone wants to actually discuss it.

[gvg]

I'd like to know why you say that there is no free will. I think there is; for example, I can choose to study for something and do great, or not study, flunk, and become a bum. Is this what you mean by free will? If not, then please explain a little more.

[Izzy]

I think you and unreality should discuss it. I've yet to be convinced one way or another.

[Framm 18]

Cost of Living?

I really don't know much about it, but it seems wrong that a $1 here in Knoxville, does not equal a $1 in San Francisco for example.

Edit: If there is anything that could be done that is.

Edited August 16, 2010 by Framm 18

[gvg]

Well, if the laws were the same in all states, that would include the cost of living I assume.

[unreality]

I never said I thought there was free will; just that it was far from black and white. Your very nature of thinking it was black and white led you to believe I thought free will was real when I disagreed with you saying it was black and white. If you get me talking on free will you'll hear me talk about a lot of issues that are all interconnected, a lot of philosophy and a lot of computer science stuff, geeky stuff you probably don't care to hear about. If asked directly I would say "we have no free will" but it's a meaningless statement to say "we have no free will" without a lot of context; inherently it means nothing except to scare people or make a bold empty assertion. What matters is other neurological and philosophical concepts attached to these meanings.

Okay before I stray too far, my main point was that it's not a simple matter. It's not something you should throw in a pile of "oh things that shouldn't be really worth talking about for too long because they're pretty black and white and i'll convince you i'm right in under 3 pages". This is a terrible attitude to discuss philosophy for two reasons:

(1) assuming you're 100% right

(2) assuming i disagreed with whatever you thought about free will without:

(2a) you knowing whether I knew your position and

(2b) you knowing my own position

But if you want to be more open-minded and maybe have an intelligent discussion with other people in this board that care about these things and have thought very deeply about them, I suggest you should start a topic, or find one already discussing the issue (there's a few I think). Don't necessarily assume my current thoughts are in perfect tandem with posts I have previously made. In the span of just a few years I have had many experiences and thoughts and revelations. I have enough maturity to realize I am not always right and that there's always room for further contemplation of others' ideas and this has led to many changes in my opinions, along with much introspection on matters of the world, have led me to the precarious philosophical perch on which I stand [edit -typo]

Edited August 16, 2010 by unreality

[Guest]

I'd like to know why you say that there is no free will. I think there is; for example, I can choose to study for something and do great, or not study, flunk, and become a bum. Is this what you mean by free will? If not, then please explain a little more.

No, that isn't free will. The thing about the free will "debate" is that it's almost 100% a discussion of what free will is. If someone thinks that people have free will then that's almost always because they don't have the same understanding of what free will is. Thus, if you and I were discussing this, we ought to decide whether we are compatibilists or incompatibilists. A compatibilist is someone who thinks that the idea of free will is compatible with the idea of determinism (incompatibilists are the opposite). Determinism is the idea that all events are causally determined by previous events. In other words, given a specific present universe, there is only one possible future. So if we were to agree that there is only one possible future, then an incompatibilist would agree that free will doesn't exist (i.e. people don't have "free will" to choose from various possible futures because there is only one possible future). A person's "choices" are perfectly determined by previous events in the same way that any other event in the universe (like a tree falling down) is perfectly determined by previous events. So unless if you want to say that humans have "free will" then you have to admit that trees have the "free will" to fall down as well, etc, due to the nature of the universe being deterministic.

If you want to say that the universe is not deterministic, then the only other possible way the universe could operate that I can think of would be that events are random. I don't know if true randomness actually exists, but if we were to say that it does, then that just makes our actions random and thus we still do not have free will.

So I said I wasn't going to say anything about this, but I'll just state the whole "debate" as I see it. You can look at a human and see that he appears to get to decide whether he raises his hand or not. You can look at that "choice" that that human gets to make and call that "free will." I'll then ask you if you consider salt to have the "free will" to dissolve in water. I would argue that this is just as much of a "choice" as a human's choice to raise or not raise his hand. You might say that the chemical property of the salt and water cause the salt to decide and thus it is not a "choice," but I would say the same thing about human actions. Just because humans are more complex doesn't mean they have this "free will" thing. So by saying that humans have free will, then rocks and everything else in this universe must also have free will. I then ask, so what is this "free will"? I really can't think of a good definition of a "free will" that actually exists. The good definition of "free will" that I think doesn't exist is something to do with the ability to freely make choices. Note that the choice is not free if the choice is determined (as in determinism) and the choice is not free if it is random. Looking at free will like that, I don't see a possible way that it could exist. Anyways, I'm not sure why I brought any of this up. I think it's just because its an example of an issue that I think I understand as well as I possibly can understand it.

So I say that we don't have free will, but humans and the world around us is so very complex that we can only very poorly predict the future. We can't know the future so it's not like we would say that "Bob is doomed to murder someone some day." That may be true, but we have no way of knowing its true until it actually happens. So the view that free will doesn't exist is in no way pessimistic or saddening or anything like that. Anyways, if you haven't made up your mind on the subject, just ask yourself, "what is free will?" and I think you will find that either you will define it in such a way that it does not exist or else you will define it in a silly, useless way that makes it so that it does exist. I will also say that the silly definitions of free will that do exist don't actually hold up. If you have free will, did you have free will when you were five years old? When you were one year old? The day you were born? The day before you were born? When you were a zygote? When you were a distinct egg and sperm? Looking at the issue like this makes one realize that regardless of the definition of free will, it must be something that either everything in the universe has to an extent or else it is something that nothing in the universe has. I suppose you could define it in a similar way as "alive," but I don't think you will find a useful "free will" line like the "alive" line of our birth. Such an arbitrary line for when a choice is a "free will" choice and when a choice is not a "free will" choice is surely a silly line to come up with. So I then conclude that such a thing doesn't exist. Either events in the universe are determined or they are random. In both situations, humans do not have free will. I can't think of a third type of universe in which things did have free will. I think this is because "free will" as I can best define it is essentially a logical contradiction. If we define free will in such a way that Thing A has free will only if IT can choose between two or more possible futures in a non-deterministic, non-random fashion, then I wonder, how does that Thing A, actually choose one of the futures? What's the mechanism? It doesn't seem to work. I don't see how free will could exist. I think it's a concept that people came up with to describe the illusion that we experience where we can apparently make choices. The thing is though, I don't think that "we" are actually making the choices. Rather, "we" and the rest of the universe is acting in a deterministic fashion to determine our actions in the same way that the way that any other even in the universe is determined (like a rock bouncing around). So if you want to say that humans have free will then you must also say that everything else also has free will. In that case, I don't see what this "free will" is. If a rock has free will then is saying that something has free will just mean that events will occur involving that thing? That's silly. I said I wasn't going to mention anything about this. If any of you have anything to say, feel free to.

I'll also note that it's far easier thinking about this yourself than trying to express your thoughts in the English language so others can understand.

[gvg]

I see what you're saying, but my thinking is that all living things have free will to choose their 'future' (alive for a human = able to live on it's own). i think that there are multiple futures based on the actions of an individual; these actions then affect others. Thus, a sort of mix. I'm a compatibilist, I suppose, based on that view. I explained it better in the Evidence of God's Design thread.

[Guest]

I never said I thought there was free will; just that it was far from black and white. Your very nature of thinking it was black and white led you to believe I thought free will was real when I disagreed with you saying it was black and white. If you get me talking on free will you'll hear me talk about a lot of issues that are all interconnected, a lot of philosophy and a lot of computer science stuff, geeky stuff you probably don't care to hear about. If asked directly I would say "we have no free will" but it's a meaningless statement to say "we have no free will" without a lot of context; inherently it means nothing except to scare people or make a bold empty assertion. What matters is other neurological and philosophical concepts attached to these meanings.

Okay before I stray too far, my main point was that it's not a simple matter. It's not something you should throw in a pile of "oh things that shouldn't be really worth talking about for too long because they're pretty black and white and i'll convince you i'm right in under 3 pages". This is a terrible attitude to discuss philosophy for two reasons:

(1) assuming you're 100% right

(2) assuming i disagreed with whatever you thought about free will without:

(2a) you knowing whether I knew your position and

(2b) you knowing my own position

But if you want to be more open-minded and maybe have an intelligent discussion with other people in this board that care about these things and have thought very deeply about them, I suggest you should start a topic, or find one already discussing the issue (there's a few I think). Don't necessarily assume my current thoughts are in perfect tandem with posts I have previously made. In the span of just a few years I have had many experiences and thoughts and revelations. I have enough maturity to realize I am not always right and that there's always room for further contemplation of others' ideas and this has led to many changes in my opinions, along with much introspection on matters of the world, have led me to the precarious philosophical perch on which I stand [edit -typo]

Did I say that I thought that you thought that we had free will? I don't remember doing so, but if I did, then I didn't mean to say it.

I do remember saying that I would persuade you in under three pages or something, but by "persuade" I also include the possibility that in under three pages we would realize that we are already in agreement.

Judging by...

" If you get me talking on free will you'll hear me talk about a lot of issues that are all interconnected, a lot of philosophy and a lot of computer science stuff, geeky stuff you probably don't care to hear about. If asked directly I would say "we have no free will" but it's a meaningless statement to say "we have no free will" without a lot of context; inherently it means nothing except to scare people or make a bold empty assertion. What matters is other neurological and philosophical concepts attached to these meanings."

... I would bet that we are in fact in agreement on the subject of free will. I realize that saying "we have no free will" is pretty meaningless also. The discussion is really one about what free will IS. Once you agree on a definition it's not at all difficult to quickly agree on whether free will exists or not and what things would have to be true to make it exist, etc.

As for the computer science and other geeky stuff, I am pretty sure that I have thought about all of what you are saying also. Can a computer program have free will? How complex does it have to be before you say it has free will? ... I would reduce all the complexity down to say that either everything in the universe has free will or else nothing has free will. Because I don't see the point in saying that everything has free will then I say that nothing has free will. The "free will" that people use in the normal English Language (not the same definition as the philosophical definition) is just an illusion of our complexity. In reality, I think we are the same as chemicals in a beaker or a computer program. If you say that humans have free will then either you must also say that everything else has free will or else you must define an arbitrary line at which something becomes complex enough to have "free will" or not. At what point in our evolution would humans have acquired the characteristic of free will? At what point in our individual lives would we have gotten it? I don't see a meaningful definition of free will that it's worth saying we have.

"(1) assuming you're 100% right

(2) assuming i disagreed with whatever you thought about free will without:

(2a) you knowing whether I knew your position and

(2b) you knowing my own position"

I make assumptions about the definition of free will. Then I assume that if free will is as I define it, then I know logically very simply whether or not it exists (or at least I know what factors would cause it to exist or not). You can't be "right" in a free will debate. There's no right or wrong. It's just how you define free will. Based on my definition of it, then yes, I would say that I am definitely right that it doesn't exist. That's not cockiness or immaturity resulting in me unable to admit that I am wrong. It's just me assuming a definition of free will and then realizing that based on how I define free will, free will doesn't exist.

For 2, 2a, and 2b, all I meant was that if we were to discuss it I think I could illustrate my view quickly and you would either agree with it or else disagree with it because you define free will differently.

"In the span of just a few years I have had many experiences and thoughts and revelations."

In the area of philosophy I would say that I have too. I seem a lot more conscious now than I was a few years ago.

[Guest]

I see what you're saying, but my thinking is that all living things have free will to choose their 'future' (alive for a human = able to live on it's own). i think that there are multiple futures based on the actions of an individual; these actions then affect others. Thus, a sort of mix. I'm a compatibilist, I suppose, based on that view. I explained it better in the Evidence of God's Design thread.

Do you think that the living things deterministically choose their future? In other words, do the sum of all of the experiences in a person's life and the make-up of his brain and the information that he takes in through his senses, etc, determine his actions? I'm sure you would say roughly yes, at least. I'm not sure if you would bring it all the way (as I do) to say that the their choices and actions are perfectly determined by past events. If you do and you're an incompatibilist as I am, then you and I would agree that we don't have free will.

I will also say that I'm not religious and I suspect that you being religious and believing in a God might make you want to come up with a definition of "free will" that holds you responsible for your actions on a moral level. In other words, you might not want to view the world as perfectly deterministic if that means that people who commit murder, etc, were essentially "destined" to do such things. Then you would have to ask, why would God intentionally make people commit murder? Thus, you would probably introduce a "free will" to fix all of these things. So no offense to you or your religious beliefs, but I think that they will result in you coming up with an understanding of free will that I don't agree with. I wouldn't agree with it because I would argue that everything, including rocks, also have free will.

You said "that all living things have free will to choose their 'future' (alive for a human = able to live on it's own." I must admit that I think this is a pretty vague, arbitrary definition. What is "living on its own"? So a toddler doesn't have free will, but eventually it will gradually develop free will as it becomes an adult? It is my view that if you define free will in that manner, then the term becomes essentially meaningless. Is it saying that as one's consciousness increases he becomes more responsible for his actions morally? He has more "free will" instead of having his actions be determined by his circumstances, etc, as a baby's actions are? If you do this, I think the term becomes to vague for my liking. I don't saying that something has free will then. Is the point that by saying something has free will you are saying that it is responsible for its actions?

Trees are alive too, do they have free will? Only animal life? Not including babies? Only things with matured brains? When one puts these stipulations on it, it makes it seem like you're describing consciousness. Surely consciousness is a spectrum too. You are more conscious now than you were when you were five years old and you were more conscious when you were five than they day when you were born. Are you saying that things that are more conscious have more free will and thus more moral responsibility for their actions?

So I really don't see the point in defining free will in such a way. I think that avoids the philosophical definition of free will that deals with whether determinism is true or not. And I think the determinism, causality stuff is the more fun stuff to think about. I find it more interesting to think about then how we should arbitrarily define the lines at which something goes from not having free will to having free will. Such arbitrary lines don't sound like philosophy to me.

[Guest]

Unreality, the thing about the concept of 'free will' is that I think I have exhausted it enough. I have thought about it so much that I think I have realized everything I will ever realize about it. It was very interesting at first. It was the first philosophical thing I had ever thought about. My brother made me unconsciously conduct a thought experiment when I was about twelve years old. We shared a bedroom and one night he asked me what would happen if we copied the entire universe to make a new one. "If everything was exactly the same... including everyone's thoughts, memories, past experiences, etc. If you and I in the copy universe were sitting in a room exactly like this one having this exact same discussion... what would happen?" I answered that we would do the same things in both universes. We would make the same choices because we have the same backgrounds. Everything is exactly the same. This made me realize that we live in a world of cause and effect! I hadn't realized such a thing before and I soon thought more and more about it until I decided that it was a world of perfect cause and effect. Either the future of both this universe and the replicated universe would be perfectly identical, or else they would differ essentially immediately. But, how would they differ if they started out exactly the same? I didn't see how this was possible. Is there randomness in our universe? How does the random outcome get chosen? Is there true randomness? Blah blah blah, I thought. It was very fun and interesting to think about, but I think I have exhausted the fun out of it and have made up my mind on all of it. This is why I wouldn't enjoy discussing it as much and this is why I proposed a three page limit on a discussion of free will with you. I didn't want to bother trying to get you to understand my views on it if it took more than that long. Anyways....

Is there any philosophical topic like this that you are still trying to make your mind up about? Free will was the first subject I thought about, then consciousness, then religion and evolution and how a lot of common religious beliefs don't make sense to me given what I had decided was true about the universe. But, I no longer am unsure about my position on free will or consciousness or the existence of a god. You're right that the free will issue isn't exactly "black and white" as I said it was, but I think it's a lot clearer than politics. It's like the existence of god issue. I have made up my mind on my position just as confidently and feel I understand it all very well. It's not at all like politics where I'm not even sure if I should approach politics from an individual moral perspective or from the perspective of wanting what is best for society as a whole. Anyways, if you know of a philosophical topic that you're still struggling to make up your mind about (or have only recently made up your mind about), then I would be interested to hear what topic that is so I can enjoy thinking about it as I once did with free will, determinism, consciousness, artificial intelligence, religious stuff, etc. I thought about all of that over about a year my junior year of high school, solidifying my views so much that I don't find it too much fun thinking about such things anymore. I need other people to spark my brain with new ideas for me to investigate. Maybe I should read a book? Sadly I am deficient in reading. 570 SAT Critical Reading, and as much as I despise the College Board and their examinations for being so silly, I must admit that the reading one accurately depicts my mediocrity. I read slower than a lot of really... dull... people. Maybe this is because I don't read a lot (I just finished reading James and the Giant Peach today though!), but I don't enjoy reading long books when it takes me so long to pick out many ideas. My thinking brain works a lot faster than a book can communicate an idea to me because I am such a poor reader. It's sad. I wish I had read more as a young kid. Sorry I'm ranting on your thread, Izzy.

[gvg]

Yes, I think a tree has free will of a sort. It can decide to absorb water, it can decide to shed it's leaves, or it can decide to do nothing. However, in the case of a tree, it will most likely do what is necessary for survival. That is why we can predict certain things, but never with 100% certainty. Now more complex life, like animals, are different. We can once again predict, but with less accuracy, as it has more free will than plants. Humans have even more, and nobody can predict with true accuracy what they will do. I also think that baby do have free will; they can decide to cry for food or to touch the stove, or to not do either.

And religion has nothing to do with it, because to me, God is only a background being, the ultimate libertarian paternalist (if you don't know what that is, read the book 'Nudge.' It's a great book on the subject, and also discusses where libertarian paternalists stand on different issues). He knows what each future is based on what that person does. It's slightly predetermined, but not fully. Thus, I'm a compatibalist.

(Oh, and give me more examples of philosophical topics. I'm pretty much done with the ones you listed.)

But enough of this free will stuff unless we go into a new thread. This isn't the place for it. Back to politics =)

Edited August 16, 2010 by gvg

[Guest]

I don't know if you guys have discussed this issue in our (I'll include myself here) "perfect" political system....

The "law", by law I mean how will the system make people obey the law (if there's gonna be any)? By means of Police? Military?

What would happen if one day, a group of people start to disagree with our "perfect" system? What will we do with these "rebels"? Will we let them talk to everybody and (maybe) convince them that our system is not right, or that they propose a better system? Or will they be forced to think like us?

Just a couple of wonderings I had, but I'm not sure if that was covered already... Yeah, too lazy to check all those pages

Thoughts?

[unreality]

before we move on, I have to apologize to Use the Force for underestimating the time he'd put into thinking about it. We agree exactly about free will. We only differ in one point: I think that at a certain point in complexity, a self-reference can create "godelian truths", or statements in a logical system (think: the universe) that are true but cannot be proven from within the system, and also "undecidable statements" which cannot be evaluated to true or false (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del_sentence#Examples_of_undecidable_statements, http://tal.forum2.org/geb). These self-referencing paradoxes I think could hold the key as to a "jump" in complexity that allows at the very least self-cognition/awareness/consciousness (whatever you want to call it) but probably not free will, at least not based on the nature of particles in the universe (exactly like you said - either determined or random, leaves no room for some slippery concept called 'choice').

However my lack of belief in 'free will' doesn't mean I sit on the couch all day moping (the Lazy Bones paradox ()). You don't either, but you cited your reason as not knowing what the future holds.

Now I do think there's a bit of randomness in the universe at some level or another, or at least extreme sensitivity to initial conditions that, when applied to infinitesimal possibilities (see Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and the inability to accurately measure certain properties of particles), create chaos out of order.

That means I don't believe the future is fixed, nor do I believe it is possible to travel back in time information or particles or waves or energy or anything else (even though those are all the same thing lol) within the same universe (it can create a branchoff universe, but anyway let's not get into time travel lol), so that's not the reason why I believe in responsibility for my actions.

My reason for believing in my self-responsibility without believing in free will is twofold:

(1) we can't ignore this one - personal experience in life. You can sit around forever waiting for your subconscious to take over your actions all you want, but it doesn't work. Your consciousness is in a constant neurological loop with the vast enormity of the rest of your brain and it works together. If you wait for your hidden daemon (lol) to take over and write your english paper, it's not gonna happen. You are you.

(2) regardless of if my choices are fixed with a splash of chaos, they're still "my choices" in the sense that my evolved complex self-aware brain evaluated its input, ran its "wetware" computer programs (so to speak) and created output. I am a conscious witness to this manipulation of sensory & internal data. How big a part the tip of the iceberg (conscious mind) has in the whole neurological decision making process is the more interesting thing to argue about, though neither of us know enough about neuroscience to make it interesting. But i've read some interesting experiments about reaction times and whatnot.

Anyway, I think we agree completely, especially if you agree with the two things I just said above

[gvg]

JarZe: Let 'em talk. Aren't we doing the same thing?

And the police are fine; there isn't a major issue there IMHO.

[unreality]

And the police are fine; there isn't a major issue there IMHO.

are you kidding me???????????????????????????????? :o

[Guest]

We only differ in one point: I think that at a certain point in complexity, a self-reference can create "godelian truths", or statements in a logical system (think: the universe) that are true but cannot be proven from within the system, and also "undecidable statements" which cannot be evaluated to true or false (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del_sentence#Examples_of_undecidable_statements, http://tal.forum2.org/geb). These self-referencing paradoxes I think could hold the key as to a "jump" in complexity that allows at the very least self-cognition/awareness/consciousness (whatever you want to call it) but probably not free will, at least not based on the nature of particles in the universe (exactly like you said - either determined or random, leaves no room for some slippery concept called 'choice').

I hadn't thought about anything regarding these "godelian truths" before. I'll look into that. I have thought about how thinking of consciousness as a spectrum all the way from humans to rocks doesn't necessarily work. There's some biological thing that I'm not knowledgeable about, but apparently there very well may be an exact "line" where an organism suddenly becomes conscious. Of course, the organism becomes more and more conscious as it grows in complexity (roughly), but there may be an actual "line" other than an arbitrary one. This "line" has something to do with some specific structures in our brain that may be what causes us to be conscious (rather than having us be philosophical zombies). I don't know anything about this really except that it's quite plausible that we could define a "line" at which point something goes from not conscious to conscious without that line being an arbitrary one--it could have a solid basis in neuroscience. However, having said this, consciousness doesn't change the fact that either the universe is random or determined and thus I still wouldn't say that conscious beings have free will.

Now I do think there's a bit of randomness in the universe at some level or another, or at least extreme sensitivity to initial conditions that, when applied to infinitesimal possibilities (see Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and the inability to accurately measure certain properties of particles), create chaos out of order.

Well yes, I don't think this is actually "random." It's extreme sensitivity to initial conditions as you said, which makes things extremely unpredictable, as you said. Because we're operating within our own universe, we can't "run" the universe to predict the future. As a result, future events becomes extremely unpredictable, especially when you're trying to predict the exact actions of complex human beings.

So I think our complexity makes our choices/actions very unpredictable from within our universe, thus giving us the illusion of having "free will."

it can create a branchoff universe

I actually am still uncertain about this idea. Is the universe constantly branching into infinite universes? There are interpretations of quantum theory that say stuff like this, but I'm still very skeptical. I don't think this is relevant to free will, but it most certainly is relevant to whether the universe is deterministic or random.

My reason for believing in my self-responsibility without believing in free will is twofold:

(1) we can't ignore this one - personal experience in life. You can sit around forever waiting for your subconscious to take over your actions all you want, but it doesn't work. Your consciousness is in a constant neurological loop with the vast enormity of the rest of your brain and it works together. If you wait for your hidden daemon (lol) to take over and write your english paper, it's not gonna happen. You are you.

(2) regardless of if my choices are fixed with a splash of chaos, they're still "my choices" in the sense that my evolved complex self-aware brain evaluated its input, ran its "wetware" computer programs (so to speak) and created output. I am a conscious witness to this manipulation of sensory & internal data. How big a part the tip of the iceberg (conscious mind) has in the whole neurological decision making process is the more interesting thing to argue about, though neither of us know enough about neuroscience to make it interesting. But i've read some interesting experiments about reaction times and whatnot.

I definitely agree with the red statement. That is quite interesting. If our consciousness if just "observing" our mind make our decisions, then our conscious doesn't in fact play a part. But, if our conscious mind actually does help us make decisions and whatnot and we also assume that the universe is deterministic then that means that means that both we control our actions with conscious mind and yet our conscious mind is behaving deterministically. It sort of seems like a logical contradiction. We're saying IF our conscious minds actually do play a part in our decision making process (rather than an "observation" part), then that means that our consciousness is making the choices, but at the same time in a deterministic world our consciousness is determined. Eh, anyways. You're right. I fully agree with you that neither of us are knowledgeable enough to make an interesting discussion on this.

As for the rest of (1) and (2), I agree with you. I think another way to view the responsibility that you are saying is to look at society conducting its laws and ask, "Is it moral to punish a murderer if he was doomed to commit the murder because of the deterministic nature of the universe?" Looking at that question I would ignore the morality as being silly and see the society as a whole. If we want the society to prosper, then we ought to punish murderers, regardless of any arguments saying that in a deterministic non-free-will world people don't have a "moral responsibility" for their actions. Also, as far as we know, we none of us are to any known (known to us) fate, so we might as well live our lives in such a way that we take on responsibility for our own actions. So anyways, I definitely agree with you that no free will doesn't pose a threat to an issue of responsibility for our own actions.

So we do agree completely. That's always fun .

[Guest]

gvg: And the police are fine; there isn't a major issue there IMHO.

unreality:are you kidding me???????????????????????????????? :o

Me: Hahahaha I think it's safe to say that there are problems with almost every aspect of government. It's hard to make them perfect.

I look at things like how my Dad failed to come to a complete stop at a stop sign in the middle of nowhere without any other cars around and yet there was a police car hiding off the road and it came over and gave us a ticket. How stupid is that? And yet under our laws, there is nothing that we can do about it. There's no way to make laws where you can force the government to "be reasonable." Either they won't have any power or else they will have the power to do unreasonable things. This is the sacrifice you make though if you want to prevent crazy drivers from being on your roads before they crash and kill someone or destroy a building.

I think it could definitely be improved (the police too), but I don't think that the best of improvements would ever make them perfect. Whenever people disagree on anything they will always be imperfect. And of course I love diversity so I would hate to make the entire human race into a single mind that always agrees on everything. Because of that, the police and other aspects of government will always be far from perfect. They can be improved though.

[Guest]

I don't know if you guys have discussed this issue in our (I'll include myself here) "perfect" political system....

The "law", by law I mean how will the system make people obey the law (if there's gonna be any)? By means of Police? Military?

What would happen if one day, a group of people start to disagree with our "perfect" system? What will we do with these "rebels"? Will we let them talk to everybody and (maybe) convince them that our system is not right, or that they propose a better system? Or will they be forced to think like us?

Just a couple of wonderings I had, but I'm not sure if that was covered already... Yeah, too lazy to check all those pages

Thoughts?

In a way this has been the main issue throughout the thread. Either you have to have some sort of universal law enforcement (military or police) to enforce the laws of the single standard, that will undoubtedly upset many extremists, or else you have to turn to anarchy (contractual governments)to make sure that it is not considered "normal" or "okay" for any human to tyrannically ignore the lack of consent of another human and impose laws on him against his will.

Even I, the relative extremist here, have admitted that I don't want anarchy. I want some form of a tyrannical government. Therefore, it is inevitable that some people will disagree with our "imperfect" system (it's not perfect... it can't be unless everyone agrees on everything... which is something I don't want ). Do we let them leave to England? Buy out their land to start their own country on it? Use force to keep them our prisoners? Your wondering are the root of the problem behind the objective of this thread. I think the answer is to find the right balance between allowing people as many freedoms as we can while preserving the right amount of the democratic (not political party) majority of our nation's values (thus imposing some of these things on society). There's no simple answer to what that balance is, but I think that it's generally more conservative than our current government.

[Izzy]

I'll admit I haven't read much beyond UtF's first post with the copied universe situation (school started today and I have four tests this week ), but I'll get through it at some point. But, I sat here for a while thinking about that situation, and here's what I came up with:

Even if the universe started out exactly the same, with an identical Big Bang, I don't think everything that follows would be identical to what's currently happening. I don't have a lot to back it up with (I wish I understood the forces behind the brain a lot better), but the dispersion of the particles after the big bang was random. Those particles, then, eventually became what we are today. Think of a random number generator. Before you tell it to generate a random number, it's turned off, so ultimately dead to the world. No information is inputted whatsoever. Clicking one button doesn't (I think?) stimulate the generator in a way to make the number it outputs predictable, otherwise if the button is pressed again and again in a certain way under controlled conditions (somewhere where it isn't affected by *anything*, we should receive the same output, but we don't. I saw it simulated with a pool table to one point (can't remember if it was on TV or online). From that (man, I really wish I had more to back it up with, I need to find the link), we can see randomness is real. And I don't see why that wouldn't carry on into an uncontrolled world. I think that can be compared to the mind.. somehow.

Basically, I'm unsure. It might just be wishful thinking on my part that I'd like to know my life isn't predestined. Going back to the random generator, think about StumbleUpon. Assume I stumble upon a website talking about free will like this. It depresses me, and I decide to kill myself (lol, don't worry, just an extreme example, it isn't going to happen). Had the generator given me *any* other output, the situation would have been different. I'm not saying our personalities aren't dominated by genes sort of pre-defining us, but I think the little random things influence us enough that if the big bang is recreated exactly how it happened, things wouldn't be exactly the same.

[unreality]

Even if the universe started out exactly the same, with an identical Big Bang, I don't think everything that follows would be identical to what's currently happening. I don't have a lot to back it up with (I wish I understood the forces behind the brain a lot better), but the dispersion of the particles after the big bang was random. Those particles, then, eventually became what we are today. Think of a random number generator. Before you tell it to generate a random number, it's turned off, so ultimately dead to the world. No information is inputted whatsoever. Clicking one button doesn't (I think?) stimulate the generator in a way to make the number it outputs predictable, otherwise if the button is pressed again and again in a certain way under controlled conditions (somewhere where it isn't affected by *anything*, we should receive the same output, but we don't

That is not true, I'm sorry. Many random number generators (RNGs) which are better described as PSEUDO-random number generators (PRNGs) use the timestamp of the number generation to affect the outcome. That's not all cases, however, all PRNGs (at least all that I've heard of) use an input called a "seed" to generate a string of random generators, using some kind of function to change the previous number into the next.

But no matter what is used, it will only be "pseudo-random" in terms that it's chaotic, yes, unpredictable, yes, but "truly random" (if such a thing exists), no. A computer program cannot (as far as I know) generate something "truly random" because in reality that concept doesn't make sense. The best PRNGs do create statistically distributed pseudorandom numbers, but with the proper information, they can be predicted. It's the nature of a deterministic system.

That being said, it hasn't yet been established if the world is deterministic. Use the Force thinks so, but the combination of chaos (extreme sensitivity to initial conditions) plus Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle could lead to some kind of randomness - maybe. I don't know.

I saw it simulated with a pool table to one point (can't remember if it was on TV or online). From that (man, I really wish I had more to back it up with, I need to find the link), we can see randomness is real.

That's not a controlled enough environment to conclude that randomness is real. It is my belief that NOTHING is. The only way to truly know is two parallel universes running side by side starting from the same seed; however by their very nature it would be impossible to observe the other.

Basically, I'm unsure. It might just be wishful thinking on my part that I'd like to know my life isn't predestined.

You're thinking about this the wrong way. Nothing is "predestined" in terms of a driving intelligence; these are all blind processes. Nothing can be predestined from within the system because it would encapsulate the whole system which would include an encapsulation of itself ad infinitum. In a simulation from the past forward you would never get past the point of infinite recess in the present. No, you have to be outside of the system. Which you aren't. The contents of the subset cannot know or predict of anything predestined, and if by Universe we mean the set of EVERYTHING that it directly means that your life is not predestined in or by anything in this universe (and by our definition of universe, nothing was outside of the universe either).

Going back to the random generator, think about StumbleUpon. Assume I stumble upon a website talking about free will like this. It depresses me, and I decide to kill myself (lol, don't worry, just an extreme example, it isn't going to happen). Had the generator given me *any* other output, the situation would have been different.

again see my response about number generation inside computers. How exactly did you think computers generated random numbers? Magic? They use "pseudo-chaotic" algorithms with lots of bitshifts and hashcodes and modulus and stuff.

I'm not saying our personalities aren't dominated by genes sort of pre-defining us, but I think the little random things influence us enough that if the big bang is recreated exactly how it happened, things wouldn't be exactly the same.

This is still scientifically a valid position. As of right now we don't know one way or the other, to the best of my knowledge.

{edit - typo}

Edited August 16, 2010 by unreality

[Guest]

Izzy, your understanding what is seemingly random is not quite correct. I do not believe the dispersion of the particles after the Big Bang was random, but only seemingly random in that we can not predict the pattern of the dispersion due to our lack in understanding of the physical laws of our Universe. The chaotic nature of the Universe is actually ordered. It is due in part to our incomplete understanding of the Laws, and in large part because of the Laws, as why our scientists have come up with the Uncertainty Principle. The random number generator is not truly random either, but uses a seed. With the "hidden" seed, the algorithm used creates a very close approximation to what we can, in probability, take as random, but if one has a supercomputer, the correct variables, and the time, one may be able to accurately "predict" the value of what is generated.

How much of our lives is predestined? I can not say. I do believe in a Divine Being who created our Universe and has a plan for us, but I also believe He has granted us a type of Free Will, our Uncertainty Principle, so to speak, in an otherwise ordered Universe.

[Guest]

Basically, I'm unsure. It might just be wishful thinking on my part that I'd like to know my life isn't predestined.

Going back to the random generator, think about StumbleUpon. Assume I stumble upon a website talking about free will like this. It depresses me, and I decide to kill myself (lol, don't worry, just an extreme example, it isn't going to happen). Had the generator given me *any* other output, the situation would have been different. I'm not saying our personalities aren't dominated by genes sort of pre-defining us, but I think the little random things influence us enough that if the big bang is recreated exactly how it happened, things wouldn't be exactly the same.

StumbleUpon isn't random--it's pseudo-random. I have doubts whether true randomness actually exists. (Note: There is a major difference between "random" and "unpredictable." There are a great deal of things in our universe that are NOT random that are unpredictable simply because we'd have to predict them from within this universe.

All I'm saying that either determinism is true or it isn't true. If it isn't true, then the only thing I can think of to make it untrue would be that events are random, at least to an extent. If this is true, then your future is random, not determined, and I would still say that you do not have free will. However, if I had to guess I would say that the universe is deterministic. I'm not entirely positive about this, but it makes more sense than the random option. Again, I don't even see how there can be true randomness. If you have a random number generator (NOT a pseudo-random number generator), how would it go about deciding which number to generate? It can't just do it "randomly." If it spits out 3, could it have spit out 2 (instead, at that same moment in time) if it wanted to? Is that possible? If so, how would it have chosen 3 instead of choosing 2? There can't be a physical process to choose the number that I know of without that process being deterministic. Anyways... I thought we weren't going to have this discussion here.

Have fun with high school; I'm starting college in six days!

EDIT:

Woops, unreality got to this just before me and said much of what I said (and what I mean to say, but forgot to say). He added, "That being said, it hasn't yet been established if the world is deterministic. Use the Force thinks so, but the combination of chaos (extreme sensitivity to initial conditions) plus Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle could lead to some kind of randomness - maybe. I don't know."

I'll clear up that I don't "think" (as a rational person), that the universe is deterministic. Like unreality, I too don't know. However, as a GUESS, I would guess that the universe is deterministic. I'm siding on determinism because I'm yet to understand how true randomness can exist. I consider both determinism and randomness to both still be possible in our universe. I don't which is true, as nobody does with certainty. The scientific world is still skeptical on this issue (I'm pretty sure... unreality thought this too).

Edited August 16, 2010 by Use the Force

[Izzy]

Again, I'm not claiming to know one way or another, so this is all just speculation. What if we were able to conduct a perfectly controlled experiment in which no outside forces (aside from, like, gravity, but that's constant anyway) act upon the object. Construct a coin flipper, that flips the coin with the same amount of force every time in.. some sort of controlled space. Idk if that's feasible, but can't we make computer simulations or something?

Also, I realize that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so I see how it makes sense that one thing led to another. However, until the human mind is better understood, it's impossible to know one way or another and it's sort of silly to say you do. Think of dreams as an example. Until we know precisely what stimuli causes them and how neurons interact with one another during once, it's impossible to link them to a previous cause. I know we're bound by the laws of the universe, but with conscious thought, I think the difference is that we can now do what we want while still abiding by those laws. For example, the atoms that make up my fingers as I type this don't know what they're doing or why they're being pushed around. Only my brain knows why. So while atoms (even though my brain is composed of atoms) move around in a deterministic fashion, my consciousness controls them to my will, and all of a sudden they aren't doing what they would be doing if I wasn't conscious. So, it all comes down to whether or not the random yet deterministic motion of atoms controls my thoughts. ..I don't think so, because I find it difficult to believe that the universe's forces would have something be manipulated in such a way that it thinks. ..If that makes sense.

Actually, I think I read something about this at one point. Off to raid mah bookshelf.

Ah, okay, found it. Read this in the full. From Quantum: A Guide For the Complexed

Sorry this got so lengthy, I was trying to be entirely clear. I didn't have time to finish writing it (there's a note at the bottom), but.. I'll get there eventually.

"In fact, until the quantum revolution, scientists were confident that [predicting the future] was indeed possible in principle, suggesting that even if we could not predict them all future events were preordained and destined to take place.

Isaac Newton believed that every particle in the Universe should obey simple laws of motion subject to well-defined forces. This mechanistic view - one that is still shared universally by scientists and philosophers more than two centuries later - states that no matter how complex the working of nature are, everything should be ultimately reducible to interactions between the fundamental building blocks of matter. [...] But in principle, if we could know the precise position and state of motion of every particle in a give system, no matter how many are involved, then we should be able to predict, through Newton's laws, how these particles will interact and move, and hence how the system will look at any given time in the future. [...] This is known as determinism. [...] Indeed, simple mechanistic examples, such as the ones [that Izzy omitted] pale to insignificance when we consider how we might deal with the immense complexity of the human brain in order to understand the nation of free will. But the principle is always the same: since humans are ultimately made up of atoms too then Newton's laws should also apply in our brains. So when we make what we perceive to be a free choice about something, this is simply the mechanical process and atomic interactions in our grey matter following deterministic laws just like everything else.

[...] One of the most profound changes in human thinking brought about by the quantum revolution was the notion of indeterminism - that is, the disappearance of determinism, along with the concept of the clockwork universe. So I am sorry to break the news to you, but 'fate' as a scientific idea was proven to be false three-quarts of a century ago. In quantum mechanics, things are very different. Let us take a closer look at the origin of quantum unpredictability and indeterminism.

*describes determinism again and the accuracy of Newton's laws on macro objects, showing how accurately we can predict things if all knowledge is known*

So why can we not apply the same equation to describe the way a microscopic particle, such as an electron, moves? If the electron moves over here now, and we apply a certain force to it, for instance by switching on an electric field, then we should be able to say for definitite that it will be in such and such location five seconds from now. Not so. It turns out that the equations that govern the behavior of everyday objects, from grains of sand to footballs to planets, are useless in the quantum world.

Paraphrasing: Shrodinger didn't like de Broglie or Bohr's idea, so devised a new equation that describes not the way a particle moves, but the way a wave evolves.

Solving the Shrodinger equation provides us with a mathetmatical quantity called the wave function. This is where all probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics comes in. For the case of an electron, for instance, the wave function does not give us the precise location at a moment in time, only the likelihood of the electron being found somewhere if we were to look for it there."

..And oh my god, I am bored of typing. Picture instead, yeah?

...Stupid pictures didn't upload.

..And oh my god, it takes this dude like the rest of the book to sum up what he's saying. I read this in like 6th grade, and don't remember enough to do it justice myself. D: ...But.. yeah. Idk. I seriously have to do homework now, I might post more exerts of the book when I have the time.

[Guest]

Also, I realize that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so I see how it makes sense that one thing led to another. However, until the human mind is better understood, it's impossible to know one way or another and it's sort of silly to say you do. Think of dreams as an example. Until we know precisely what stimuli causes them and how neurons interact with one another during once, it's impossible to link them to a previous cause.

I think that until we discover phenomena in our universe that are uncaused, then its safe to assume that phenomena like dreams are caused by previous events. Just because we don't know exactly what the specific parts of the brain that cause the dreams to occur are doesn't mean that we can't safely assume that they are being caused by other events. Everything else that we know of has a cause (ignoring things like the first event of our universe (if it exists), etc), so why would we leave dreams out just because we don't know enough about neuroscience? Dreams aren't much different than our normal thoughts, or us raising our arms, or trees falling over, or anything else like that. Those other things have causes so I think it's very safe to assume that dreams have causes just the same.

I think it's quite fine to be skeptical about whether or not the universe is deterministic, but to suggest that dreams are different than any other ordinary events in our universe (different in terms of whether or not they are caused, deterministic, or have an element of randomness) seems slightly silly to me, no offense.

So while atoms (even though my brain is composed of atoms) move around in a deterministic fashion, my consciousness controls them to my will, and all of a sudden they aren't doing what they would be doing if I wasn't conscious. So, it all comes down to whether or not the random yet deterministic motion of atoms controls my thoughts. ..I don't think so, because I find it difficult to believe that the universe's forces would have something be manipulated in such a way that it thinks. ..If that makes sense.

I'm pretty sure I know what you're saying, but I disagree with it. Ask yourselves, at what point in your life did your brain become conscious enough that suddenly your actions stop becoming deterministic and all of a sudden became controlled by "you" in some non-deterministic fashion.

I think it makes a whole lot more sense to say that the events comprising our conscious thought are deterministic. The future is not predetermined, but it is determined meaning that the present state of the universe can only result in one possible future. We're thinking and determining our own actions, but that thought process is still entirely deterministic (or random... but we don't have free will). Think of how our consciousness is the result of our physical brain. The firing of neurons are still deterministic (assuming that our universe is) so of course our thought process would be too.

I'll reply to the rest later perhaps. I don't have time now.