View Full Version : This Dinosaur Comic is for Alex
tracilicious
10-18-2006, 11:26 PM
It just doesn't get better than dinosaurs (http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=866) discussing free will.
RStar
10-18-2006, 11:32 PM
Wow, that's cool.
To bad it didn't get them anywhere, though. They're all dead.;)
Just for the record, I do not agree with the second panel. There are random events (in the sense that while still subject to purely physical precedents, the outcome can not be known by even perfect knowledge of all precedents). This, however, does not create free will.
And with Dilbert and dinosaurs on my side, I think I've attained a quorum and can now impose my unwill on the population of the world.
€uroMeinke
10-19-2006, 12:29 AM
And with Dilbert and dinosaurs on my side, I think I've attained a quorum and can now impose my unwill on the population of the world.
Or at least entertain that dellusion
Exactly! (Though I'm not entirely sure if dellusion is a typo or a joke I'm not getting.)
Kevy Baby
10-19-2006, 07:10 AM
I like that the strip uses the same artwork, just changes the text each time.
tracilicious
10-19-2006, 07:12 AM
And with Dilbert and dinosaurs on my side, I think I've attained a quorum and can now impose my unwill on the population of the world.
That's nothing to brag about. It's not like they chose to be on your side or anything.
Seriously though, is there any proof or hints of proof at no free will, or did some guy just jump out of bed one day and decide to thumb his nose at free will? Did I just choose to type that?
Ghoulish Delight
10-19-2006, 08:26 AM
Seriously though, is there any proof or hints of proof at no free will, or did some guy just jump out of bed one day and decide to thumb his nose at free will? Did I just choose to type that?Read Douglas Hofstadter's essay `Who shoves whom around in the careenium?' (available in the compliation "Metamagical Themas"), it does a good job of painting the picture. Essentially, it boils down to the fact that we exist in a physical universe and that, in the end, our thoughts are the result of our brain, and our brain is a physical thing guided by physical laws. Electrons, protons, neutrons whizzing around. Entirely too complex to predict, but entirely bound to their natural course.
One of the things Hofstadter points out is that the usual definition of free will, namely, "I can choose to do anything I want" has a rather fatal limit built in. Not "anything", "anything I want". When you start to explore where that subset of anything comes from, the concept of choice begins to slip away.
There are lots of hints of no free will, in that free will requires a violation of everything we know about the physical laws of the universe. Free will requires that at some level there is a particle that can choose its own course independent of all external interactions, the causality can be severed. There is simply no evidence that this happens, there is no theoretical framework for how this would happen, and three are no gaps in the existing theoretical framework that would be better explained with the assumption that this does happen.
So, similar to my stance on god, until there is either actual positive evidence for ones existence or a compelling theoretical framework (that is, one with more predictive/descriptive power than current theoretical frameworks) that requires ones existence, there is simply no reason to assume it exists.
Other than your self perception, what evidence is there of free will? Because I can make you perceive all kinds of things that you will reject out of hand simply because it contradicts what you understand to be the nature of the world. In taking the position that free will does not exist, I am not the one making extraordinary claims.
That said, I do agree with the cartoon in that whether free will exists or not is purely academic, because in not existing, we are so hard wired to perceive it that we have no option but to feel like it does exist and to believe we're behaving accordingly. On the basis of our ability to perceive it, there is no practical difference between a universe where free will is possible (other than that this means science is, fundamentally, rendered valueless) and one where it is not.
This doesn't bother me. But to assert that free will does not exist (or, more accurately, to assert that there is no reason to assume it does) does bother a lot of other people for some reason.
And there is, of course, the petty nature of what most people view as free will. Apparently it is only available only for trivial ends. Am I going to drive to work at 45 miles per hour or 48 miles per hour? I'm completely free to decide.
But could I decide today to be gay instead of straight? No, that's genetic and imposed on my physical processes. Could I invoked my free will and become an ardent Communist? Probably not. Can I, through, free will suddenly begin enjoying raw tomatoes? Those who believe free will exists not only have no fundamental evidence for the position but also are forced to create a subjective, arbitrary line in the sand for how free will can manifest istelf and when it will be overhwhelmed by purely physical processes. I simply say that free will is always overwhelmed by purely physical processes.
For most people self-awareness and self-motivation are interminably intertwined. I don't see why that must be the case.
As for whether some guy woke up one day and decided to take this stance, the existence or non-existence of free will is a very old question. Major strands of Hinduism and Buddhism to not accept the idea of free will. With the birth of the idea of a god that exists outside of time, came the idea that all events must therefore be foreordained (Calvinists, in Christianity being the best known example). Many scientific philosophers (such as William James) have long said essentially what I do that ethically we act as if free will exists but that there is no objective evidence for it. It is an old, old question.
€uroMeinke
10-19-2006, 08:53 AM
Not to go down this path - I guess I go with the phenomenological and pragmatic approach when looking at free will.
Metaphysics almost always reduces down to some point of unknowablility, that are perceptions, even those enhanced through science still fail to reveal the true nature of reality. Honestly, ther is no way I can really know if other consciousnesses exist a priori - so I have to either accept that they do, or reject it. The former seems to give me a better go at living my life, the other appears to lead to insanity and ostracism (not that it matters if you don't believe others to exist anyway)
Likewise, free will is how I experience the world. It makes sense that I can prioritzie my desires and calculate to indulge one while denying another. It seems to me that is what consciousness is. Rejecting free will reaaly does nothing to enhance the pragmatic aspects of your life, unless you wish to shirk responsibilities.
It may well be that free will doesn't exist, but I think I live a better life if I live it as if it were true - for at it's core it's unknowable - and honestly, I'm not sure how I'd live my life otherwise, if I plan to hold people responsible for their actions and decissions as I take responsibility for my own.
Ghoulish Delight
10-19-2006, 08:57 AM
It may well be that free will doesn't exist, but I think I live a better life if I live it as if it were true - for at it's core it's unknowable - and honestly, I'm not sure how I'd live my life otherwise, if I plan to hold people responsible for their actions and decissions as I take responsibility for my own.Which is exactly what Alex said.
That said, there are some fringe ideas for the core nature of reality that, if proven true, would do away with the possibility of free will.
If, for example, we were ever able to prove the existence of the infinite multiverse (while there are thoeries supposing such a reality none have yet found a way to test the hypothesis) this would remove the possibility of free will.
blueerica
10-19-2006, 09:46 AM
This thread delivers!
€uroMeinke
10-19-2006, 06:03 PM
That said, there are some fringe ideas for the core nature of reality that, if proven true, would do away with the possibility of free will.
If, for example, we were ever able to prove the existence of the infinite multiverse (while there are thoeries supposing such a reality none have yet found a way to test the hypothesis) this would remove the possibility of free will.
As would the omniscience of God
Not necessarily. Just because God has already experienced the entirety of time and therefore knows the decisions everybody made would not necessarily mean that the entitities within time were excluded from having choice.
tracilicious
10-19-2006, 06:14 PM
Damn, I love the free will threads.
Prudence
10-19-2006, 06:22 PM
Dammit, thanks to this conversation I now have a Rush song in my head. And I hate Rush.
SacTown Chronic
10-19-2006, 06:40 PM
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice, Pru.
€uroMeinke
10-19-2006, 06:59 PM
Not necessarily. Just because God has already experienced the entirety of time and therefore knows the decisions everybody made would not necessarily mean that the entitities within time were excluded from having choice.
But that then perverts the nature of time (though who knows what time's true nature really is?) - and perhaps even the omnipotence of God, if in his omniscience he is incapable of changing the inevitable outcome of time
I'm not sure I see how it would pervert the nature of time? The idea that god exists outside of time, or in the entirety of time simultaneously is a common one in many religions.
But time is a very malleable thing so I'm not sure if it has much of a nature that can be perverted.
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