rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Dr. Emmanuel Wu) (03/29/85)
>> Why are you trying so bloody hard to forcefit your notions of "without free >> will I wouldn't do any of these things". If your chemical makeup was such >> that you enjoyed and took pride in your work, you most certainly would. >> [ROSEN] > This is, of course, the question. The answer is, though, because I would have > no reason to enjoy or take pride in my work any more. I could not help but > do the things that I did. [LAURA] You can't help but do the things you're doing right now. What's the difference? Explain why there would be "no" reason. > I don't take pride in *other people's* work, and > I don't take pride in the actions of other people. If my behaviour is > entirely determined, then I would view my own actions as I viewed the > actions of other people -- and indeed, my way of viewing other people > would change. That's your choice to take pride or not. It has no bearing on the actual nature of the world around you. It is a decision you make based on your own preconceptions. > Do you write lousy code? Today, I would criticise you for it. But, of > course, if you couldn't help but write lousy code, then there is no > reason for me to upbraid you for it, since you didn't choose to write > lousy code. But your criticism might induce me to seek ways to improve my programming abilities, because you might use arguments that convince me that it might be worthwhile to do so, or I might simply respect your opinion. But it would *influence* me to take some course of action. Of course, if your "criticism" was in the form of an "upbraiding", it might not have that same effect. > Are you an Identity Christian? Well, these days I will > flame you into the ground. But, of course, if you were not free to > not become an Identity Christian, it seems foolish of me to criticise you > as if it were your fault, or your responsibility. If you're in the blaming business, finding fault with people for the circumstances of their lives, then of course feel free to do so. I don't automatically assume (as some would) that because a person is a certain way, he/she is that way by "choice" and thus worthy of "punishment". If given the opportunity to change, if shown the "errors of their ways", if offered reasoning as to why they are that way and how they might change, they might still not do so. The human mind's conditioning may preclude any such change, and often that is sad. Still we can try and hope. (Need I give examples of the above?) > Do I say I love you? > Oh well, today I believe that it is because you and I share similar > values and I admire you for having them. Of course, if you are in no > way responsible for the values that you have, then it is foolish of me > to admire you as if you had anythng to do with it. You just happened to > be that way, but I could as easily love someone who shares none of my > values, for they just happened *that* way as well. Gee, love seems > kind of pointless. To you. I find that the people I love specifically (as opposed to a more generic love for people in general) are those people who share similar tastes/values/experiences/outlooks/etc., and it doesn't faze me one bit (as it seems to faze you) that the person I love may not be ultimately responsible for their current state due to "free will". I love them just the same. > Gee -- *EVERYTHING* seems kind of pointless. I think > I will pack it in now, now that I understand that there is no such thing as > personal responsibility, I don't think that there is anything worthwhile > any more. Have I got a robot pal for you? (Oh, Marvin...) That's some outlook, Laura, and I feel really sorry for you. Could you explain WHY you thus think that nothing is worthwhile? > How can you say that life is ``as full as I make it''? What you have been > telling me is that *I* *can't* *make* *it*! You must have been telling yourself that, because I certainly didn't tell you that. > If I could, if I could really > chose to make life more or less full, then I would have free will. But, if > I can't, then no life is full -- some only appear more full by a standard > that assumes that there is such a thing as personal responsibility. Without > personal responsibility, all talk of a ``meaningful life'' is so much crap. I don't follow at all. As the people I described above, you can choose to change your life as you see fit. But you WILL not do so unless you change the outlooks/preconceptions you have that lead you to the erroneous conclusion that life isn't worthwhile in the absence of free will. > Everybody gets what they were destined to get in life. Some people are > destined to be called ``meaningful'' and others aren't. But who cares? It > wasn't by their actions that they determined what they were destined to get -- > what they were destined to get was determined even before they were born > out of the equally destined lives of their ancestors. The way you use the word destiny implies an ordered plan of sorts. Destiny and determinism don't necessarily imply that. Sure what's going to happen is going to happen. If you are incapable of realizing the erroneousness of your own preconceptions regarding life, then you WILL live out life with the same notions, that in the absence of free will you have nothing to live for. But you're NOT incapable of doing so. SO why not do so? >> Why are you asking me to prove something I don't believe? To what end? > What is meaningful about knowledge if one cannot influence one's own actions? The knowledge itself influences the actions directly. By seeking it you are taking charge of your life. >> Knowledge is as meaningful as its usefulness, as useful as its application. > Why should I care? Because you're alive, and you have a stake in your own life, making it more enjoyable, and by caring you directly improve the quality of your own life. >> Even without application, pure knowledge can have beauty. > Again, why should I care? If the future, like the past, is fixed then > why should the application of anything interest me? If it doesn't, that's your problem. Period. It interests me. Free will or not. What does that tell you? >>>>If I program a machine to ask the question, does it have free will? >>>Now, here is an instance where we must be careful of what we mean. >>>what do you mean by ``ask''? If you mean ``print out the question >>>on a terminal'' then I would say ``no''. On the other hand, if you >>>programmed a machine and then it spontaneously came up with the >>>question ``does man have free will'' then I would have to answer that >>>I do not know -- but I would be inclined to suspect that it does. >> What makes you think that human beings don't ask questions by simply >> going through a series of internal processes and then "printing out the >> question" or "asking it orally"? Straw man. What makes you think that >> humans "spontaneously" ask questions rather than going through such >> such processes as I describe above to do so? > Rich, I have never said that human beings *don't* do that. I do not think that > this notion of doing things is incompatible with the notion of free will. I > do not know whether a machine can or can not have free will. When I used the > term ``spontaneously'' I meant to distinguish it from the case where I > (using the bourne shell) type: > > PS1="Does man have free will?" > export PS1 > > There. My terminal will print out ``Does man have free will'' a lot, but > I don't think that the 11/44 in the department of Zoology has it. On the > other hand, if you wrote an AI program that produced a machine that > passed the Turing test, and, if one day you walked by it and it typed > out at you ``Does man have free will'' then I would have to wonder about it. Yeah, me too. I'd have to wonder was it planned like a $PS1 prompt, or did it arrive at it on its own through an elaborate process. Neither is free will. >>> All I am assuming is that either men have free will or they don't, >>> and that the expression ``men have free will'' is meaningful. >> It is just an utterance of sounds. It is only as meaningful as its >> veracity. If it is false, then it is false. > No. No. No. No. No. Veracity has nothing to do with meaningfulness. > ``My father has blue eyes.'' This is a wonderfully meaningful statement. > It is also completely false, since my father has brown eyes. Then all properly constructed sentences are meaningful, even though their meaning may be incorrect. Semantics... > In addition, > I would contest that it is just an utterance of sounds. It must be more. I > never spoke it out loud, and there is no reason to assume that you did > either. You interpreted the string of letters in a certain way -- you > saw that it represented certain concepts that you already had. I am not > asking you to evaluate a string of letters, but rather the concept that > that string represents. You have no idea what an imbecile I am, Laura, I have to read these things out loud to understand them (esp. your articles :-). Whether an aural or visual medium, the words are just utterances of sounds and/or configurations of visual symbols that REPRESENT concepts. >> The point was that your statement claiming that because I am seeking >> knowledge I am using free will was totally erroneous, plugging in random >> words to suit the conclusion you want to reach. My asking questions to >> gain knowledge does not imply use of free will, but somehow you claim to >> reach that conclusion above. I am politely trying to say "What the hell are >> you talking about?" It is YOU who are playing Humpty Dumpty here. Any >> question I ask (about free will or about snerdfelb) have equal POTENTIAL >> meaning. Only the reality of the answer shows how meaningful the >> information obtained really was. Remember, though, that even asking a >> "stupid" question can result in useful information. > If ``truth seeking'' is significant, and it is significant because it > enables one to avoid making mistakes, then it follows that it is > possible to avoid making mistakes. But this assumes that choices are > possible, that is that the future is not fixed as is the past, but > rather that there are possible futures -- one in which a mistake is > made and one in which it is not. It also follows that through one's > own thought one can influence which of the possible futures is the one > that becomes the present and eventually the past. This is all I want > from free will. Therefore: [Little Conclusion Time] > > In asking the question ``does man have free will'' one is implicitly > assuming that the answer to this question is yes. One's own thought? You're assuming your own conclusion here: that the thoughts voluntarily influence the behavior. The information obtained through knowledge-/truth-seeking influences the choices you will make in the future. BUT: in what way is that VOLUNTARY, or FREE? The act of seeking knowledge, the method of acting on that knowledge, all are determined by one's existing chemical state, no? One's thought causes the change in influence on your potential behavior, but does one "choose" to make that change or does the change come about through a "natural" process? You can choose to seek knowledge and thus produce hopefully beneficial (involuntary) influences on your behavior and your life. But if you have the outlook you describe earlier, you might not do such seeking, and you'll be the lesser for it in life. -- Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/29/85)
Rich, I am going to try this again, from scratch. It is not htat I do not care about definitions, it is simply that I think that the notion of free will is embedded in what we mean by certain words. In the absense of free will it is difficult to see what these words are going to mean. Here goes. When I look at the past I do not think that I can change it. The past is fixed, finished, done with, over. There are things that I do not like about the past, but that is tough, there is nothing that I can do about it now. What you are doing is proposing a future thatis as fixed as the past. Whatever future is going to be, is going to be, and, just as the past cannot be changed by me, the future cannot be changed by me either. The future happens to be unknown by me, but that is the only difference. Given a sufficiently powerful way of understanding everything that is, one could predict exactly what is going to happen in the future. I don't care if you are God or Hari Sheldon (sp?) -- it still means that any sense of choice that I think that I have is is misconception on my part. Whatever I am going to do, whatever it is, I am compelled to do. I could not do other. When I think like this, I feel like an actress on a stage. I am merely going through set motions. there is no chance for ad-libbing -- i just follow the stage instructions. Upon deeper reflection, I find that I have no more reason to take pride in my actions than I have reason to take pride in the fact that dropped objects fall or that any other action occurred. I am just a small and insignificant part of what has happend/is happeniong/will happen -- and moreover there is no reason to give any part any more significance than any other part. If I am an evil person, then I was going to be an evil person, and Hari Sheldon or God could have told you about it before I was born. If I am a good person then I was going to be a good person, and likewise this fact could have been relayed to you before I was born. For what should I have any self-respect? My actions are not self-willed actions -- they were inevitable since the beginning of time. However, without self-respect, I find that the things that once gave me joy can no longer give me joy. My joy was a very selfish and personal joy, and I now see that my self is no more significant than any other thing that is. To actually believe this would cause me to literally go out like a candle. I could no longer have any aesthetic appreciation for anything, and I could no longer value anything. I would see no reason to value anything over any other thing, since they are all as they had to be. Do you understand what I am saying? I am saying that without a self that is willed, I cannot give a damn about anything, since I cannot see any reason to care. Whether I care or not, hte future that was going to be will be the present soon enough. Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
mms1646@acf4.UUCP (Michael M. Sykora) (04/01/85)
>RE: From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP > Subject: Re: To Laura: outlook on life and free will Allow me to interject a point or two here: >But you don't know the "stage instructions". You have no knowledge of >your future actions (as you just said). No matter whether they are >predetermined and predictable or not, you are still about to partake of >those actions and their consequences. And to experience them fully. Exactly when does one come to know the "stage instructions," only at the time of action? Assuming you brain communicates instructions to your body, how and where from does your brain obtain this information ? >To which I say again: so? I have self-respect. I learn from the >experiences around me, and those experiences led me to have the self-respect >that I not have, and mold my reactions to the world and allow me to >experience it in the way that I do. I take pride in my actions, because >doing so is part of my nature, and by doing so I improve my life through >learning and doing. Self-respect implies a self. What is this self that you're refering to? By the way, "mold my reactions" and "I improve my life through learning and doing" sound conspicuously like statements of a free will. >> However, without self-respect, I find that the things that once gave me >> joy can no longer give me joy. My joy was a very selfish and personal >> joy, and I now see that my self is no more significant than any other >> thing that is. To actually believe this would cause me to literally go >> out like a candle. I could no longer have any aesthetic appreciation for >> anything, and I could no longer value anything. I would see no reason to >> value anything over any other thing, since they are all as they had to be. >On the contrary, I feel just as much reason for feeling joy and for >enjoying things in life, especially knowing that every experience I've >had has actually led me to the point where I am right now, giving me >my perspective, my taste, my capacity for enjoying things in life. You're >damn right: *your* self is no more significant than any other thing that is. >To believe that is deeply irrational, self-centered, and egocentric. BUT, >for you, the organism that IS you, the experiences that you have ARE >most important. Not in the fabric of the whole universe, but from your >own perspective. Each experience molds your life, changes your outlook, >etc. If you take the steps to let it. I hope what I am saying would >influence you to choose to do so. By mentioning self-centeredness and egocentricity, you imply that there is something wrong with them. But if someone is self-centered they are not, according to your contention, that way by choice. Then why bother bringing it up? What significance could it possibly have? "fabric of the whole universe" -- Huh??? How can what you are saying INFLUENCE anyone to CHOOSE to do anything, if they don't have free will? What meaning does INFLUENCE have here? (Presumably, you are not connected physically to the person you're INFLUENCing.)
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Dr. Emmanuel Wu) (04/03/85)
>>But you don't know the "stage instructions". You have no knowledge of >>your future actions (as you just said). No matter whether they are >>predetermined and predictable or not, you are still about to partake of >>those actions and their consequences. And to experience them fully. > Exactly when does one come to know the "stage instructions," only at the time > of action? Assuming you brain communicates instructions to your body, > how and where from does your brain obtain this information ? What information? The "instructions"? Why do you think the word is in quotes? They're not necessarily pre-written like a play. They result as consequences of existing chemical states. >>To which I say again: so? I have self-respect. I learn from the >>experiences around me, and those experiences led me to have the self-respect >>that I not have, and mold my reactions to the world and allow me to >>experience it in the way that I do. I take pride in my actions, because >>doing so is part of my nature, and by doing so I improve my life through >>learning and doing. > Self-respect implies a self. What is this self that you're refering to? > By the way, "mold my reactions" and "I improve my life through learning and > doing" sound conspicuously like statements of a free will. The self is all the parts of one's body that experience the world and store information about that experiencing. The aforementioned statements only "conspicuously" sound like free will if you already believe in free will. The fact that reactions are molded precisely by the current physical state of the brain and the world around it do not at all imply a notion of free will, nor does a statement about "improving my life". >>On the contrary, I feel just as much reason for feeling joy and for >>enjoying things in life, especially knowing that every experience I've >>had has actually led me to the point where I am right now, giving me >>my perspective, my taste, my capacity for enjoying things in life. You're >>damn right: *your* self is no more significant than any other thing that is. >>To believe that is deeply irrational, self-centered, and egocentric. BUT, >>for you, the organism that IS you, the experiences that you have ARE >>most important. Not in the fabric of the whole universe, but from your >>own perspective. Each experience molds your life, changes your outlook, >>etc. If you take the steps to let it. I hope what I am saying would >>influence you to choose to do so. > By mentioning self-centeredness and egocentricity, you imply that there is > something wrong with them. But if someone is self-centered they are not, > according to your contention, that way by choice. Then why bother bringing > it up? What significance could it possibly have? Because being that way posits an erroneous misconception about the world that is a detriment to the experience of life. > How can what you are saying INFLUENCE anyone to CHOOSE to do anything, if they > don't have free will? What meaning does INFLUENCE have here? (Presumably, > you are not connected physically to the person you're INFLUENCing.) The information sent by my words is interpreted and saved by the other person, the listener. Based on how he/she is currently "made up", this information may or may not have a certain effect (as other stored information does) on the way that he/she experiences life. i.e., an influence on that person's life. There. -- Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr
barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry) (05/11/85)
> I never said treating time like a dimension was science fiction. I said >that treating time as a *spatial* dimension was science fiction. I don't >think there is *any* reason to believe that "time is 'spacelike'" OR that >"space is 'timelike'" so you won't get any disagreement from me there. > > Maybe I'd better clarify what I mean. Length, depth, and height are spatial >dimensions. They are, for all intents and purposes, the same. They are all >measured with the same instruments and calculated in the same units. Time, >on the other hand, can only be measured by its effects (a gear turning in a >clock, a candle burning down, radioactive decay, or whatever) and has its >own units. Things move through 3-space in all different directions. Things >"travel through time" in one direction only. I could go on, but I think >you get the picture. "Timelike space" and "spacelike time" are not only found in science fiction. Current physical theory suggests that the time and space dimensions really do swap roles in a black hole; movement through space becomes unidirectional and constant velocity, while movement through time is freed up. One of the ways of describing an event horizon is to say that it's a boundary at which space and time axes get swapped around. Apologies to the real physicists out there for this "pop physics" description, but I think it gives the general idea. If not, I'm sure you'll let me know :-). - From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry NASA-Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- USENET: {ihnp4,vortex,dual,hao,menlo70,hplabs}!ames!barry