[OT] Plato's Pub and Philosophical Society

[QuarianRex]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
The qualities of that force set the entire universe in motion in a direction determined by the qualities (power, direction etc) of the force. Every movement of every atom from that moment until now, including the atoms in your brain clustered together right now in the right pattern to form the decision "I will eat" or "I will not eat"... every single movement in the entire universe is predetermined in just the same way the the balls on the pool table were. you have no free will. Your decisions are just cause-and-effect results of physical phenomena within your brain, which in turn are only the way they are because they were put there by other cause and effect reactions, and so on right to the big bang.

Interesting statement. The problem is that it doesn't take onto account gestalt, or emergent, properties. When a system (whether it be composed of atoms, neurons, people, cultures, etc.) gets to a certain level of complexity it can display qualitatively different features, ones that cannot be predicted solely through knowledge of the constituent elements. Examples of such would be the emergence of life from matter, the emergence of consciousness, the emergence of the nation-state, the properties of many drugs, breaching the speed of light, etc. Using the billiard analogy, this would be equivalant to a particularly complex shot causing all the balls to merge into a 30 foot tall MechaGodzilla that promptly dashed off to play in the land of Nod. The laws of physics could not predict that.

Determinism falls apart in the face of such drastic shifts in expectation.

[Suicide Junkie]

While there are properties you may not expect, that's because you aren't following the exact cause and effect, (mainly because its too hard to think about)

Things like the game of life (Link) have emergent properties, but still, if you follow the rules, and know the exact starting conditions, you can predict.
Try the "shooter"; its pretty cool.

Also, what are you referring to about the speed of light? All of the reports I've seen were basically media-hyped illusions.

[ March 20, 2003, 22:26: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Jack Simth]

However, the more complex the system, the more effect even a small change can have. When you get to things as complicated as the human brain, quatum mechanical effects can no longer be ignored. However, one of the big things in QM is randomness and chance. For an organism as complex as a person, prediction based on the laws of physics breakes down. In the game of life you link to runs on a very small set of rules that ignore all possibility of QM effects.

[Krsqk]

This is all interesting, but we're still don't have any working definitions. I'll start the ball rolling (and you all can kick it straight back in my face ):

Free will--the ability of an organism to make a decision independently of outside factors, including prior experience, available data, and previous input (training, education, etc). Free will acknowledges the influence of both internal and external factors, but reserves the responsibility of choice to the organism in question.

Determinism--the principle that thought and decision processes are predetermined by prior scientifically explainable physical or chemical processes. Determinism holds that the entire future of the universe was determined at the beginning of time, and the concept of free will is an illusion derived from the complexity of the physical forces involved.

Do those sound like good working definitions? Or should we make some changes/scrap and start over?

[Jack Simth]

Those are decent working definitions for now.

[dogscoff]

quarian: your emergent properties would still result from physical laws. The fact that no human could ever collect enough data to apply those laws and make a prediction is irrelevant. it's stilldetermined.

acording to a determinist...

just for the record, I'm not a determinist. I prefer to believe in the quantum stuff. God does play dice.

Krsqk: Your definitions fit nicely.

[QuarianRex]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Also, what are you referring to about the speed of light? All of the reports I've seen were basically media-hyped illusions.

I was referring to the fact that the theory of relativity does not apply to anything going past lightspeed. Physical(?) laws after that point would be qualitatively different.

Originally posted by dogscoff:
quarian: your emergent properties would still result from physical laws. The fact that no human could ever collect enough data to apply those laws and make a prediction is irrelevant. it's stilldetermined.

Perhaps, I was pointing out that the sometimes drastic changes that occur with emergent properties would nullify previous predictions based on the prior qualities. For example, projections based on the entropic qualities of quantities of matter are moot when said quantities acquire the anti-entropic qualities of life.

Perhaps this would be a better argument against prophecy. As complex systems grow in complexity they inevitably qualitatively change, thus nullifying existing predictions. Determinism is a little more annoying since it relies on supernatural influence (whether it be a god, a set of laws, etc.) and so is exempt from most rational arguments (it can always claim omniscience).