A Refutation of Determinism - Page 3

#21 12-13-2005, 05:55 PM

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C) Human life is significant

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What's significant about a cosmic accident that no one remembers when it's disappeared?

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It's significant to me, right now. It makes me happy.

stackm · #22 12-13-2005, 07:10 PM

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You are born into life, and immediately breathe "air". So much for "free will": how is it that we are related in "free will" to our earthly state?

The difficulty is that in static thought it looks at "freedom" and "free will" as a present end state without mobility.

Another approach could be; does mankind display evidence of a "freer(?) will" in an evolutionary sense? Is this "freedom of will" the evolutionary work of man?

Man walks the earth and in the determinist sense he is "not free". I believe it was Spinosa who likened Man to a thrown rock who thinks he is free.

So what is this "free will" we talk about?

carlo

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It doesn't matter if we actually have the traditional conception (or any conception) of free will - that's my point. We should act as if we are 100% sure we do, however, because to do anything otherwise is a poor decision for the reaons mentioned.

BTW, good call to those who said that this post should not really be titled a "refutation." A better choice of words would have been, "An Argument Against the Relevance of Determinism."

hmkpoker · #23 12-13-2005, 07:12 PM

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C) Human life is significant

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What's significant about a cosmic accident that no one remembers when it's disappeared?

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Significance is relative. My life is the most significant thing to me.

#24 12-13-2005, 09:19 PM

I have not read any replies and only half read the original post.

It is clearly better to believe in God than not (Pascals wager) but no one can actually (at least I could never be) influenced to believe in something for that reason.

chezlaw · #25 12-13-2005, 09:31 PM

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I have not read any replies and only half read the original post.

It is clearly better to believe in God than not (Pascals wager) but no one can actually (at least I could never be) influenced to believe in something for that reason.

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No no, we're rational chaps here and gamblers who like +ev. Pascal's wager isn't even +ev let alone clearly +ev.

Search the archives if that's your fate.

chez

#26 12-13-2005, 09:33 PM

If you believe in God and are right you get heaven. If you are wrong you get dirt.
If you don't believe in God and are right you get dirt.
If you don't believe in God and are wrong you get hell.

Clearly +EV to believe in God.

chezlaw · #27 12-13-2005, 09:36 PM

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If you believe in God and are right you get heaven. If you are wrong you get dirt.
If you don't believe in God and are right you get dirt.
If you don't believe in God and are wrong you get hell.

Clearly +EV to believe in God.

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Clearly not. I don't want to be rude but this silly idea was killed off years ago and many times. I'm not doing it again so use the search function if you care.

chez

stackm · #28 12-13-2005, 11:10 PM

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If you believe in God and are right you get heaven. If you are wrong you get dirt.
If you don't believe in God and are right you get dirt.
If you don't believe in God and are wrong you get hell.

Clearly +EV to believe in God.

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Clearly not. I don't want to be rude but this silly idea was killed off years ago and many times. I'm not doing it again so use the search function if you care.

chez

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I also explained how Pascal's wager is not analogous to the argument that I'm making here. It's not just that believing in free will is +EV - it's that believing in determinism is completely meaningless.

#29 12-13-2005, 11:32 PM

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I have not read any replies and only half read the original post.

It is clearly better to believe in God than not (Pascals wager) but no one can actually (at least I could never be) influenced to believe in something for that reason.

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what about the possibilty that there is a greater chance that you will be punished for believing in a false deity that a specific god existing... you would still have to come to the conclusion that there is a greater chance (above 50%)of the specific god you worship being real than the chance that there is a different god that would punish you for this... and that's not considering other factors that would make this figure requirement to be even higher.

carlo · #30 12-14-2005, 12:41 AM

Are you saying that in a deterministic state(not talking about beliefs here) one can say "the devil made me do it" and that's that? This concept of determinism sounds like the sprockets on the bicycle wheel, rolling on.

Are you saying that free will is a matter of choosing or choice? Did you choose to breathe air,enter into your family, nation, race, religion, clan,etc.

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t doesn't matter if we actually have the traditional conception (or any conception) of free will - that's my point. We should act as if we are 100% sure we do, however, because to do anything otherwise is a poor decision for the reaons mentioned.

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You're playing the "as if" game which states we cannot know of a matter(or anything in it's usual context) and therefore "act as if you know but really don't know". Very pragmatic(Dewey would be proud) but this offers nothing of the matter(free will or determinism). This is a get out of jail free card.

Since when does one worship before the alter of "free will" or "determinism" in everyday life. Does your mood of soul depend upon your belief in free will or determinism? What does "belief" have to do with it. It seems that to "believe" ina matter directly implies a diminished knowledge of that particular object.

carlo