*


And yes it will be destroyed soon.

I can't find my book, The Trial of Socrates, by I.F.Stone*. Anyway, although Duffee wrote an eloquent post that I want to agree with, I'm bringing this all back down into the dirty world of reality.

Details would make the post too long. The Wiki page on the trial of Socrates is, surprisingly, not bad.

Here is the gist. Intellectual conceit, a contempt for democracy, and direct annoyance at the jury during the trial doomed Socrates. The Dialogue Crito is just his back and fill techniques/arguments to justify his botched and wrong headiness at the trail. Especially after his conviction and the second vote on his actual punishment. He flippantly suggested that he should be fed at public expense for his hard work at making his fellow Athenians think. He did then modify this to a fine (twice), which his friends at the trail would guarantee (Plato among them) but by then it was too late. More of the jury then voted for the death penalty (which is what the prosecution purposed) than had voted for his conviction in the first place. He had decided to provoke the jury to the death penalty and had already made up his mind to die during the trail, not after.

Some of the outcome was dictated by the overall political turmoil that had recently embroiled the Athenian City State. Politics has always been a dirty game. But in the end Socrates doomed himself by a childish conceit and then weaseled ways to the bitter end to justify that choice. Even to the point of refusing to escape.

You can construct arguments counter to this but I suggest that most are just as disingenuous as Socrates was at his trail.

See Plato's dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo

Also take note that his friend Plato wrote the dialogues and he is not an unbiased source.


*Stone was a LLL Journalist.

"In the end your mind is just a collection of coin flips that is defined in such macroscopic terms that may look like a deterministic machine but it isnt. Its emergent properties cant escape that either." - Masque.

Are you saying that nothing is deterministic until we define it to be so? I must say it certainly feels like that when you're tripping on hallucinogens.

Perhaps this propensity to define systems as deterministic is just an evolved tool to allow us to make some sense of the overarching system around us? thereby facilitating our chances of long-term survival?

What do you think it will change if people would be taught there is no free will and they would understand this? Maybe they won’t understand all the technicals (I’m speaking about people with medium IQ) but they will understand there is no free will and people aren’t responsible for what they are doing because they can’t control their brains. Especially if they are taught this in school at a small age. Today there are many intelligent people who believe in free will. Usually only physicists think there is no free will.

Will religion disappear? Without free will religion wouldn’t make any sense. Why send people to heaven or hell if they are not responsible for what they are doing?
Will people make more bad things if they know there is no free will, or will they be more tolerant and will not hate others as much and will not want to revenge knowing there is no free will?

In this article http://blog.case.edu/singham/2010/11...fense#comments
it says that “When we punish people for crimes, it should be solely for the purpose of deterring them and others from committing those same crimes in the future. The idea of punishment as a deterrent to crime makes sense even in the absence of free will but to be effective as such, punishments must be applied consistently. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said (Pinker, p. 181), "If I were having a philosophical talk with a man I was going to have hanged (or electrocuted) I should say, 'I don't doubt that your act was inevitable for you but to make it more avoidable by others we propose to sacrifice you to the common good. You may regard yourself as a soldier dying for your country if you like. But the law must keep its promises.”

I don’t think people would buy this explanation. If someone is not responsible for what he’s doing it wouldn’t be justice anymore to punish him. But we must punish him in order to deter others from commiting the crime. However many will not agree anymore with harsh punishments if they don’t believe in free will. It is true many people today like the punishments to be very big but this is only because they believe in free will, they want justice to be made and they believe the offenders deserve to be punished. They think more at justice and vengeance than at deterring people from commiting crimes. Many agree with the religious hell where there can be no deterrent. The only reason God punishes people in hell is for vengeance. And people agree with that only because they believe in free will and that the sinner has freely chosen the hell.

If we want to sacrifice individuals for the common good even if they are not responsible for what they are doing why not punish the innocent children of the offender for the crimes of their parents? It would still be for common good. But it would also be injustice. So many will not agree with this communist idea (that we should sacrifice individuals for the common good). The society of the future will be more liberal than it is today. I think people who make serious crimes will also be put in jail for life but there would be no capital punishment and the jail would be like a hotel or a Scandinavian jail. Because there would be no need for revenge if free will doesn’t exist. People who make non violent crimes will still be punished but maybe not with jail but with alternative punishments (for example humiliation in public or public whipping is not as severe as many years in jail but it works as a good deterrent because the offender will perceive humiliation as very severe even though it isn’t, other examples can be big fines or community work). I think Europe will make these changes before USA. And probably the inovations in technology will play an important role.

I’m not speaking about what people should think but I’m trying to guess what would normal people think supposing they would accept the idea there is no free will. Nowadays we know only what physicists think because almost everyone else believe in free will.

When I walk out of the bathroom on my way to the desk, I’ve just made some type of set of intersections in space. I and many other atoms existed in specific places at specific times (and this includes the material and electric that make up my thoughts and memories).

I could likely get close to repeating those from time to time, but altogether, there’s FAR more involved than just the walk.

Like, what did I eat that morning? What happened that morning as I was walking into work, and that I told others, etc? What memories do I have, and what am I thinking?

So, let’s say that I get to my desk, and I decide to email one person over another.

You can test whether I was going to do this if it’s a 50/50 type of decision.

I mean, something burns, and I pull away…that’s happening about 100% of the time.

But, if I have many different people I’m going to email?

You can reconstruct that without my knowledge (well, I would become an observer too in your reconstruction) and have the theory either proven or disproven by running it X number of times and recording the new me’s decisions for each time. Otherwise, the technology doesn’t exist yet, but once we have the computing power to store all of these positions, then recreate them and play them over and over with replica’s of me, and replica’s of my environment in specific plank times, then you can run the experiment.

If I email the same person in every single reconstruction, then our free will wouldn’t be there.

If I email one other person, even 1 time out of 1 billion, then we have free will.

not necessarily. for example randomly distributed outcomes wouldn't be much of a demonstration of free will in a libertarian sense. libertarian free will isn't the opposite of determinism.

Yes...you're right...probably a better example could be had.

Replay a 13 year old male over and over to see if he picks the same girl to eventually marry?

Forgive me for not reading this thread if this has already mentioned.
But there is an experiment where it can be detected up to 6 six seconds using brain scanners on a subject before the person themselves becomes conscious of a decision they are about to make.

It's usually a binary decision, like, choose left or right when ready. Not conclusive proof, but interesting and perhaps worrying.

As Sam Harris once said, finding conclusive proof that determinism is true, would cause a bigger uproar than say finding out the major religions or false, or there is no God to put it another way which I think is totally true.

I’m 100% sure free will doesn’t exist and I don’t think this is a controversial subject (whether free will exists or not because it’s clearly it doesn’t exist).

What is controversial is if QM is deterministic or random, but either way free will doesn’t exist. Even if souls would be real free will still wouldn’t exist (what you do would be caused by the soul so no free will, so no reason to believe in free will even if you're religious).

Here are some good articles on the subject:

http://jaymans.wordpress.com/2013/09...d-this-is-why/

http://jaymans.wordpress.com/2011/11...-of-free-will/

What surprises me is the number of intelligent people who believe in free will. Probably it's quite disturbing that free will doesn't exist and they don't want to accept this.

I did however offer a way to make this not disturbing at all and in fact very important (exciting due to chaos and complexity, not at all mechanical) to live and participate (actively because our own systems introduce causal influence by their own QM interactions) in the game played. We live and participate as physical systems in a global building of wisdom and share responsibility in all that happens and what we define as local responsibility in how we behave is simply an expression of that wisdom ie dont kill others, be kind, cooperative etc is introduced as influences in our behavior that is quantum mechanical at the basic levels but nearly deterministic yet also chaotic at larger scales. To build that wisdom (culture, higher complexity etc) we need to live and interact with the rest of the universe. Our existence is at the root of the progress towards higher complexity and wisdom (we are effective ongoing experiments).

I've never had anyone explain to me what this proves. When given a choice between squeezing a left or right hand, and no consquences are attached, it becomes a random choice. So it would make sense to let your brain "flip a coin," and it's neat we can see the results with brain scanners before I even realize it myself. But it's a meaningless decision, more of a random selection than a choice.

Try attaching meaning, something the subject cares about that requires a bit of thought. If pushing the left button means choosing a wife vs the field, a cheaper state school vs a private school, killing ten children vs twenty adults, will the brain scanner reveal my decision before I'm aware?

The researcher becomes conscious of a decision, 6 seconds before his subject becomes conscious of a decision he makes. 6 seconds is a very long time.
I don't see it as proof of anything other than that. Time itself is still mysterious.
It could be interpreted to mean, we act first and then consciousness comes in a later stage, as though we are slaves to our neurons and our consciousness comes along for the ride, which is determinism in a nutshell.

Or, perhaps it's more correct to think our actions and consciousness are intertwined somehow. I know that if touch fire, it's a bad idea because of my consciousness, so my consciousness dictates not to touch fire in future?
Take that with a pinch of salt, I'm just thinking while I'm typing and not sure it's relevant.

As for your question, I'd imagine the scanner would detect in advance those actions in advance yes.
Free will is just what we call, when we are faced with a decision. Whether it's left or right, kill someone or not.



Michio Kaku believes in free will due to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
If you rewound the clock to the creation of the earth and then roll forward to now it would not be the same. The nuerons are leaky and messy and have quantum effects. Though the brain is largely deterministic. You can see that a psychopaths brain is wired differently than ours. Ahhh, seems contradictory.

I believe the thoughts that enter my head are random though. I don't feel guilty for any thought that enters my head. It's only when I carry out an action that's harmful I feel guilty. I'm okay with that.

It's whether this whole thread was determined at the big bang, assuming that theory is true, is what I'm not uncomfortable with. How could anyone be?

maybe these age old questions are there to never to be answered.

It is no more impressive than me knowing what my woman will pick for lunch prior to handing her the menu.

I guess the interesting bit to people is that it feels like you are a guy sitting inside of your head and that clearly isn't the case.

I'd be interested if you have a better source for this study than I do. Libet's experiment that Harris quotes in his book does not show what Harris says it shows. I'd suggest you take a closer look if this topic interests you. Libet himself has argued for years that this study does nothing to affect the free will debate, and the results themselves have been questioned, debated, and attempted (unsuccessfully) to be replicated ever since.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/106/3/623

Harris is really bad for this type of thing. He is incredibly well-spoken and a great deal of fun to listen to. Unfortunately he is rather sloppy in his homework and borders on privileging sensationalism above fact. He admits that he has not read the history of this debate, concluding moral philosophy to be "too boring" to investigate.

FWIW I deny the existence of free will, but Harris does not present the debate fairly.

It's actually coincidental that I mentioned Harris and that experiment in the same post because I know Harris mentioned it in his talk about free will. You can see this experiment being performed in the documentary
Human Consciousness BBC Documentary Mind Science on youtube.

I am a hard determinist.

How does this affect your life? Did you make any changes as a result of such a realization? Did any of your attitudes towards other people change?

Yes, I get less angry than most people. I'm more accepting of different beliefs/ideologies and personalities and behaviours.

You could come to the same conclusion if there were some randomness as well. It is hard to justify being mad about coin flips.

Added to your post.

Otherwise you never played Blackjack in the days of free online bonuses lol.

That is nearly perfect proof that the "sapiens" in "**** sapiens" is meant ironically.

I don't disagree with that.

Maybe we should be creative and rename our species to **** sapiens "sapiens" at least after the Singularity has kicked in?