Sharing my Philosophy of Life and Living

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by quantum_wave, Aug 27, 2016.

  1. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    Man is gettin AI started... but soon enuff AI will take over an not even the sky will be the limit of posibilities.!!!
     
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  3. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Really? Plenty? Where? I've never encountered anyone who thinks their choices are an illusion. It's hard to even imagine how one could hold such a cognitively dissonant view seeing real life pretty much requires we make choices all the time.
     
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  5. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    People who tend to follow the determinism track, seem to believe that even our choices are part of determinism. That the choices we make couldn't be arrived at solely by ourselves.
     
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  7. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Well I know for a fact that when I choose to go get some food, my body moves and I drive to the store to get it. I have an immediate and direct experience of myself choosing an action and then the action following it. I wonder what they claim caused the action?
     
  8. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    Well this is good a time as any to drop my anchor... lol.!!!
    Im one of the few who thanks the universe is prolly deterministic... but even if it ant... i still thank that thers no such thang as free choice... i.e... free will (the ability to do otherwize) is an illusion.!!!
     
  9. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    triple post
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2016
  10. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    sorry... somptin went wrong an this got posted alot.!!! (deleted agan)
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2016
  11. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    double post
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2016
  12. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    It's doesn't really matter in practical terms. All we are arguing is philosophic in nature. On the quantum level it seems rather random. Newtonian physics considered it, on that level, more deterministic.

    On the level that we actually function it seems like we have free will and undoubtedly we do to a degree. We also have the unconscious level guiding us which can hardly be called free will and we have our environment and genes.

    This can only really be a philosophy discussion since in practical terms the answer has to be both.
     
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  13. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    Heres a video whare Sam Harris explains the illusion of free will... an not to brag... but i had most of what hes talkin about figered out befor he got out of grade school... lol.!!!

     
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  14. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    lol I know, but the thought behind it is mainly that even our choices were influenced by deterministic factors in that we wouldn't have chosen any other choice, if that makes sense. Those factors if you will, led us to our choices. So looking at determinism from a philosophical viewpoint, it sort of suggests that free will is merely an illusion. It's pretty intriguing, if you're into that kind of thing.

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  15. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I try to accept my experience of my own thoughts and actions and intentions as real given events, not illusions. If we go down the path of choices being illusions, then what else falls away? Reason? Morality? Sense experience? There has to be a fundamental acceptance of our own volitional agency on our own experience, or nothing would make any sense. That's what I think. And I have no reason to think otherwise.
     
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  16. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    I don't think our experiences are illusions. Even if there were no free will our experiences wouldn't be illusions.
     
  17. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, you have encountered some for there are a number on this forum. I, for one. Cluelusshusband. And others.
    As Seattle says, it's only a philosophical position as, practically, we are bound by the illusion and can not operate outside of it. Indeed my view is that consciousness (as opposed to subconsciousness) necessitates the illusion to be able to operate. If our conscious self did not see itself as having causal agency / freewill then it would surely perceive itself as simply a hostage in a body that it can't control. But then even one's thoughts would not be free, and thus I can not see how consciousness would arise.
    Yes, we have what we perceive as "choice" and it is this perception of choice that many/most/nearly everyone would call freewill. Indeed, practically speaking this is freewill. But philosophically my view is that whatever choice we make is caused by something, ultimately the vast complexity of interactions within our brain driven by stimulus and experience, memory and instinct etc, including the vastly complex feedback systems, but all those interactions operate according to the immutable laws of the universe, be that at the quantum level or the more classical level. And there is no causal agency within those laws (as currently understood).
    Hence my view is that causal agency only arises at/above a level of complexity (it is an emergent property), and is simply a perception of activity when the underlying levels are simply unable to be understood (due to the micro-level nature of the interactions). Thus we group the end result of those interactions and perceive it as "choice" / "freewill".

    Ask me whether I prefer coffee or tea and I can tell you the answer and give some pretty good reasons. But they will stop at the subjective... "I prefer the taste..." etc, but that preference is itself caused by the way my brain interprets signals from the tastebuds and aroma sensors, and the brain interprets them in that way because of its structure, which in turn is caused (probably) by genetics and subsequent experience, with each of those caused by ... etc.
    Did I really have any choice?

    Yes, I could mull over a choice, or even choose to do that which instinct might suggest I shouldn't. But this cognitive assessment is all done in accordance with existing causes. There is not one choice that can ever be said to be I caused, which is what true "freewill" is considered to be, at least by those who consider it an illusion.

    But does any of this mean that we don't make choices, practically speaking (I.e. from the perspective of perception either by ourselves or others)? No. We are all caught by the illusion, unable to see through it on a practical level, only at a philosophical level.
    Maybe it's easier to understand my view by considering that the term illusion is simply meant to convey that how I think it operates is vastly different to how it is perceived to operate, even by myself, and that given how I think the universe operates, how freewill is perceived to operate (i.e. us as the ultimate instigator of an action) is imposible, thus illusory.

    Simples, really.

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    Of course, I could be wrong in how the universe operates, and that we really are, somehow, ultimate instigators of actions. That would require, as I see it, some non-material aspect to existence, and I'm not so inclined to that.

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  18. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

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    Thank you all for the overnight activity.

    The complexity at the quantum level means that the simplest event involves the convergence of perhaps trillions and trillions of individual sub-quantum events, as I have hypothesized in the my Alternative Theories threads about the ISU model. That model invokes the premise that there is an invariant mechanistic underpinning to events that govern quantum action. There it is again, a reference to the "as yet" unknown invariant natural laws that govern the universe

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    .

    There is a school of thought, quantum mechanics, that suggests each of those tiniest of events are random at the sub quantum level, which makes quantum events random, which in turn makes the "as yet" unknown laws that govern consciousness, thought and the workings of the mind, dependent on the underlying randomness.

    That line of reasoning can justify the view, which I hereby label as irrelevant, that freewill really is a false perception. False because the human can't possibly gather and retain all of the detailed information about the trillions and trillions of quantum level events, to find the true random root of a single cause and effect. There is such a complex chain of random events that lead to the outcome of a particular human thought or perception, that it may as well not be given any consideration at the grand level of human thought and action.

    Our inability to put our finger on the preponderance of all of the random events might very well be the mechanism of the perception of freewill that is born into humans, which are arguably at the height of the evolutionary process on Earth. It would go like this: we can't possibly know the full details of all of the individual random events, so the human has evolved in an environment where there is no perception of the random quantum events. Evolved life forms from that host environment don't require any regard at all for the sub-quantum details; they function perfectly without that information, so it might as well not be there at all.

    The perception at the human level is that the only thing that governs our freewill is the ability of our mind to hold memories, and act on them with a time delay, at our convenience. That is a philosophical explanation for the obvious existence of freewill, but it doesn't remove the fact of the underlying randomness; it only makes it irrelevant at the level of human thought and action.
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2016
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  19. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Me, too. It seems logical to think this way, but determinism (the philosophical view) suggests that everything that happens to us, was bound to happen and our choices had little to do with the outcomes. I've always thought it odd that some people spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what life might be about, instead of just living it. lol
     
  20. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I do that alot---think about things rather than living them. I've tried to reconcile this tendency of myself to stay inside my own head with an actual experience of life many times. Jungian psychology. Existentialism. Now I'm at a phase of just goin with the flow. A sort of spontaneous Taoism or living in the present. Actually it wouldn't bother me much if my choices were predetermined. I'd feel like there was a guiding destiny to my life. Things couldn't have been otherwise. No room for pride or regret.
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2016
  21. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Maybe that is why forums like this exist, so we can analyze to death all about life. lol And not be judged for it. I know for myself that I've spent a lot of time analyzing life and while there's nothing inherently wrong with doing so, it can rob you of the joy of just living life.

    Getting back to choices, determinism only suggests that the choices we ''think'' that we have control over, we could only have chosen based on some external circumstances and events, that caused those choices to be made. Example - if you were robbed as a teenager, you might be afraid to live in a dangerous neighborhood. So you choose to live in a safe neighborhood when you're an adult, but was that really a choice, or did the robbery (an external event) cause you to make no other choice? It seems like you made the choice, but the event preceding it caused you to make that ''choice.'' I follow your line of thinking about it, but this is sort of what determinism suggests, to a degree. My example is very simplistic - who wouldn't want to live in a safe neighborhood?

    Okay it can be fun to analyze.

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  22. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

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    I can relate to that

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    . The universe is as it should be and could be no other way, and the way it is features the natural generation of intelligent, self aware individuals, with free will. The underlying mechanistic randomness is like a stage upon which we live out our lives, shaping and choosing the way that our lives turn out, to a great extent.

    A fun hobby, indeed.
     
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  23. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    I can relate to that

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    .!!!

    The universe is prolly the only way it can be... an the way it is -- features the natural generation of intelligent... self aware individuals who are so caut up in the illusion... that most of 'em still believe that will is free.!!!
    An even tho the underlying mechanism apears to be random... they want to believe that this randomness somehow leads to free will.!!!


    See... we agree... except for a tweek or 2.!!!

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    Anybody else like to take a shot at it

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