According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[BSilvEsq]

I didn't suggest that a belief in RF being true would be a contradiction; It is the belief that RF has value that would be contradictory.

If you believe that RF is true, then you must logically believe that knowing that it is is valueless. The knowledge gets you nothing you weren't getting anyway.

Still not sure I agree about there being a contradiction.

The posited contradiction is that (i) the universe is, in fact, fatalistic, and (ii) a person within that fatalistic universe believes there is value in believing in a fatalistic universe. In a truly fatalistic universe, every seeming belief is a fated brain function. So, just as the having a belief in a fatalistic universe is meaningless, but not contradictory, in a truly fatalistic universe, the same is true of having a belief in the value of having such a belief -- like a computer that asserts "I find value in believing I am alive even if I am not alive" when it is turned on simply because it has been programmed to say that whenever it is turned on.

 

[pood]

What is the evidence for a fatalistic universe? I submit none. As mentioned earlier, if I could view the whole history of the universe somehow from outside of it, like a putative spectator god, what evidence could I adduce that the universe had to be that way, as opposed to the fact that it just was that way?

 

[bilby]

The posited contradiction is that (i) the universe is, in fact, fatalistic, and (ii) a person within that fatalistic universe believes there is value in believing in a fatalistic universe.

That's still not quite what I am trying to say.

Rather:
The posited contradiction is that
(i) fatalism implies the impossibility of alternative consequences or beliefs, and
(ii) a person within a fatalistic universe gains something they value, as a consequence of their (true) belief in a fatalistic universe, that they would not have gained had they not believed.

One (or both) of these must be false.

 

[BSilvEsq]

Bsilv

More wordy talking around an issue. You claimed a connection between Buddhism and determinism, present it.

Christians quote 'Christian scholars'. They abound with an array of interpretations, inventions, and they do not all agree.

As with Jesus there are no contemporaneous accounts of an historical Buddha and who he was. The main story is anecdotal.

Steve, I previously provided my explanation of the claimed connection between Buddhism and determinism, along with citation to the Repetti article. It is post Number 1,133 in this thread, which is addressed to you and posted at 8:25 p.m. three days ago.

You can read it at https://iidb.org/threads/according-...ill-does-not-exist.27739/page-57#post-1316238.

In your post from earlier today, you also did not ask me to explain the claimed connection between Buddhism and determinism (which I already had done 3 days earlier). Rather, you simply made the following declarative assertions (among others):

As to Buddhism and determinism you would have to quote chapter an verse and authorship.

Over here in the USA identifying as Buddhist has very little meaning. Many identify for different reasons.

You would have to show the 'scholars' you refer to and what their lineage is. In traditions like Hinduism and Buddhism lineage of a teacher or author is important.

I expressed agreement with everything you stated in your post, writing "Not arguing with anything you wrote."

I then volunteered the identity of two scholars, whose work draws a connection between Buddhism and Determinism (as previously discussed at length in my post from earlier in the week), and I then offered some general observations about scholarship, in general.

I fail to understand how my relatively brief post that replied to a post of yours that did not ask any question is "More wordy talking around an issue."

Oh well, c'est la vie (whether it must be so or simply will be so).

 

[BSilvEsq]

One such axiom that has borne a lot of weight, though, is "there is something happening, and I am some mere member of it".

All good on the full post from which I pulled your last statement.

When I began reading the last sentence (quoted above), I thought you were going somewhere else:

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear

Stay Well

 

[BSilvEsq]

What is the evidence for a fatalistic universe? I submit none. As mentioned earlier, if I could view the whole history of the universe somehow from outside of it, like a putative spectator god, what evidence could I adduce that the universe had to be that way, as opposed to the fact that it just was that way?

Nobody can possibly know what, if any, evidence could be adduced about the universe from outside the universe. Nobody can possibly know what it would be like to view the universe from outside the universe. Nor, for that matter , is there necessarily such a thing as "outside the universe" -- which is, itself, another non-falsifiable hypothesis. In fact, I find it amazing that folks in this board talk about the possibility of a multiverse with infinite possibilities while shunning discussion of a form of Determinism that Jarhyn brands Radical Fatalism. It seems to me that these are two extreme sides (or bookends) of non-falsifiable paradigms of the universe.

 

[Jarhyn]

Nobody can possibly know what, if any, evidence could be adduced about the universe from outside the universe

You still have yet to provide any evidence that the concept is coherent in the first place.

 

[bilby]

Nobody can possibly know what, if any, evidence could be adduced about the universe from outside the universe. Nobody can possibly know what it would be like to view the universe from outside the universe. Nor, for that matter , is there necessarily such a thing as "outside the universe" -- which is, itself, another non-falsifiable hypothesis.

Sure, but then, nobody can possibly know what it would be like to travel on a tram at a significant fraction of lightspeed, and yet conducting that thought experiment turned out to be pretty useful for Einstein.

Imagination need not be constrained by possibility in order to be useful; But that doesn't imply that all imaginary conjectures are useful, or are equally useful.

The concept of viewing an n dimensional object from an n+1 dimensional "external" perspective is perfectly commonplace for n<=2; We consider points on a line, or lines on a plane, without any issue. To extend this to thinking about three dimensional objects from a temporal perspective is a very small stretch, and most people have no problem with it; Extending the same concept into five or more dimensions is much more effort (because we evolved in an environment without any pressure to do such thinking). But it's not some wildly exotic idea, like lightspeed tramways, or universes which exist entirely in our imagination, or universes in which we have no freedom to choose.

 

[bilby]

I find it amazing that folks in this board talk about the possibility of a multiverse with infinite possibilities while shunning discussion of a form of Determinism that Jarhyn brands Radical Fatalism.

For a discussion that we are "shunning", we don't half spend a lot of time on it. This thread has over 1,200 posts, and is far from the first thread in which we have discussed the topic.

 

[DBT]

Meaningless. For instance, what does ''noise overcoming signal'' even mean in relation to compatibilism

Wow, you are tetchy tonight!

Go ahead and study what "noise vs signal" is, with respect to software engineering and semiconductor mechanics, then come back please.

When put in the context of "an object is freely traveling on a trajectory until acted upon by an outside source", it SHOULD be kind of obvious.

We are not talking about software engineering. The subject is the question of free will.

As it stands, we have several definitions of free will, the compatibilist version in relation to determinism as they define it to be, the Libertarian version, common usage of the term, social convention, law, etc.

I didn't ask you about software development or noise versus signal, but the validity of these claims. The validity of compatibilism, not in relation to software engineering, but their own definition of how the world works.

You can also include a description of your idea of free will and how it may work in relation to how you conceive the world works, be it deterministic, probabilistic or however you think it is. Or not, whatever suits, but software engineering doesn't relate to free will.

Or perhaps you still maintain that computers may be conscious and may have free will?

 

[DBT]

Meaningless. For instance, what does ''noise overcoming signal'' even mean in relation to compatibilism

Wow, you are tetchy tonight!

Go ahead and study what "noise vs signal" is, with respect to software engineering and semiconductor mechanics, then come back please.

When put in the context of "an object is freely traveling on a trajectory until acted upon by an outside source", it SHOULD be kind of obvious.

We are not talking about software engineering. The subject is the question of free will.

As it stands, we have several definitions of free will, the compatibilist version in relation to determinism as they define it to be, the Libertarian version, common usage of the term, social convention, law, etc.

I didn't ask you about software development or noise versus signal, but the validity of these claims. The validity of compatibilism, not in relation to software engineering, but their own definition of how the world works.

You can also include a description of your idea of free will and how it may work in relation to how you conceive the world works, be it deterministic, probabilistic or however you think it is. Or not, whatever suits, but software engineering doesn't relate to free will.

Or perhaps you still maintain that computers may be conscious and may have free will?

 

[DBT]

Pragmatic is my middle name.

Regardless of convoluted long running philosophical debates over thousands of years we are faced with a reality as it is not what we want or imagine it to be.

We have to make decisions. What to do fora living, grocery shopping, who to vote for.

Determinism is a brief as is a religious belief.

Pragmatically we have free will, our choices are not forcibly coerced. At least in western liberal democracies.

Pragmatically endless debate for pleasure over free will and determinism on the net 24/7 is a modern luxury.

Yet the world is sufficiently determinist to enable us to predict events when sufficient information is available, calculate orbits, place landers on Venus, Mars, Titan, predict the return of comets, etcetera.....

At least, as some compatibilists define it, Adequate Determinism

''Adequate Determinism is the kind of determinism we have in the world. It is the determinism of Newtonian physics, capable of sending men to the moon and back with astonishing accuracy. It is the determinism of those physiologists who think that quantum uncertainty is insignificant in the macromolecular structures of cell biology.
We are happy to agree with scientists and philosophers who feel that quantum effects are for the most part negligible in the macroscopic world. We particularly agree that they are negligible when considering the causally determined will and the causally determined actions set in motion by decisions of that will.''