Consciousness and free will.

[alpha]

the suggestion is nonsensical, yet it's the only conclusion that can be made from your statements. if the current deterministic system was caused to be this way, then it was predetermined; and if it wasn't caused to be this way, then its current deterministicness is uncaused, which as you agreed, is nonsensical, but rejecting predeterminism (intentional or unintentional) can only lead to this nonsense.

Simply repeating the same mantra over and over again doesn't make it any more coherent.

neither is refusing to answer. was "chaotic determinism" caused or uncaused? i know it's not in your best interest to answer, but i'll ask just the same.

Until you learn what chaotic determinism is you're just never going to get it.

i think i need to requote what i found on the internet:

Well, yes. In a purely mathematical world where you can specify initial conditions exactly, chaotic systems are fully deterministic. It's not like a quantum system with wavefunction collapse, whose evolution can never be specified exactly by the initial conditions.

But in practice, we can never specify (or know) the initial conditions exactly. So there will always be some uncertainty in the initial conditions, and it makes sense to characterize the behavior of a system in terms of its response to this uncertainty. Basically, a chaotic system is one in which any uncertainty in the state at time t=0 leads to exponentially larger uncertainties in the state as time goes on, and a non-chaotic system is one in which any initial uncertainty in the state decays away or at least stays steady with time.

In the former (chaotic) case, given that we can't know the initial conditions to infinite precision, there will always be some time after which predictions of the behavior of the system become essentially meaningless - the uncertainty becomes so large that it fills up most of the state space. This is effectively similar to the behavior of a truly non-deterministic (e.g. quantum) system, in that our ability to make predictions about it is limited, so some people call chaotic systems non-deterministic.

some idiots call chaotic systems non-deterministic. it seems you don't even know the meaning of "deterministic". deterministic means couldn't have happened differently. otherwise it's not deterministic (by definition). "chaotic" just means "seemingly indeterministic" or "seemingly unpredictable (to us)", not that they are truly random. of course you know this (as you have stated it yourself), but then turn around and imply that we can make uncaused choices, without any shame. and you call yourself a scientist. our choices are either caused and therefor deterministic, or uncaused and therefor random and indeterministic.

btw, even if you say our choices are caused by us, that doesn't solve anything, as the question becomes: what caused us to make that choice? or is it uncaused? like i said, you have no way out, no matter how much biology and neuroscience you study, or even physics. nothing is gonna solve your logical fallacies.

none of us could have made any different choices at any point in our lives.

I refuse to accept that you truly believe this because no sane mind could accommodate such a concept and I don't suspect you of being insane. Illogical, yes. Crazy, no. Your argument is bogus.

remember that even hobbes accepts that nothing could've happened differently. it seems the only truly illogical person around is you. i think you meant to say: "because no small mind could accommodate such a concept", with which i must completely agree.

[Obvious Leo]

neither is refusing to answer. was "chaotic determinism" caused or uncaused? i know it's not in your best interest to answer, but i'll ask just the same.

This has nothing to do with my best interests and I've answered this dozens of times. Chaotic systems are self-causal. If you don't know what that means then stop wasting your fucking time here and go and learn it.

[alpha]

I think what you said here is problematic- that we could not make any different choices. One of the definitions of choice is deciding between different things.

yes, one of the definitions of true choice, not illusory choice.

So people have the ability to choose one way or another.

it would've been nice if you had any proof. i argue that people seem to have the ability to truly choose one way or another. i doubt you've been following the discussion long enough, so you just jumped in with an unsubstantiated claim, without even attempting to make an argument.

[alpha]

neither is refusing to answer. was "chaotic determinism" caused or uncaused? i know it's not in your best interest to answer, but i'll ask just the same.

This has nothing to do with my best interests and I've answered this dozens of times. Chaotic systems are self-causal. If you don't know what that means then stop wasting your fucking time here and go and learn it.

were they caused to be self-determining (self-causal), or they just causelessly became "self-causal"?

[Obvious Leo]

were they caused to be self-determining (self-causal), or they just causelessly became "self-causal"?

Can you seriously not see that this question is self-negating? Self-determining systems cause themselves to be self-determining. The most easily understood example is the weather. The weather patterns in our atmosphere are self-determining. Pick any imaginary date in the distant future and try and forecast what the weather patterns will be on that day. This quite literally cannot be done, even in principle. This will never be possible until the end of time no matter how powerful we learn to make our computers. However this doesn't mean that these weather patterns will be randomly caused and neither does it mean that they are predetermined. Effects will follow their causes in a perfectly orderly fashion to generate these future weather patterns but the outcome will be forever unknowable. That's what self-determinism means but I'm not kidding myself that you'll understand it because your dualistic internal narrative has entrapped you at the bottom of a Newtonian mineshaft.

[Hobbes' Choice]

I agree fully with that statement, which would be true what ever you might think of free will and determinism. It could not be any other way.

that is on which my whole argument is built. since it can't be any other way, then true freewill (that entails actual accountability) is impossible. note that i don't dismiss the necessity of what i call notional freewill and notional responsibility..

Nope.

When we accept determinism we can still be held accountable, and have moral responsibility. These things work to cause actions that avoid further transgressions.
That's why prisons are called 'correctional'.
When a crime is met with punishment, you are punishing the person for what he is rather than what he has done. But the effect is (hopefully) the same: deterrence and the avoidance of recidivism. Change is possible and the fact that the perpetrator has to face the possibility of incarceration is part of the causal picture when a new crime is contemplated.

Freewill is an abrogation of reason and would mean being able to act regardless of the efforts of society to provide deterrence.
Further - if you accept free will then the only way to prevent further crime would be to incarcerate for the rest of a person's life.

[alpha]

were they caused to be self-determining (self-causal), or they just causelessly became "self-causal"?

Can you seriously not see that this question is self-negating? Self-determining systems cause themselves to be self-determining. The most easily understood example is the weather. The weather patterns in our atmosphere are self-determining. Pick any imaginary date in the distant future and try and forecast what the weather patterns will be on that day. This quite literally cannot be done, even in principle. This will never be possible until the end of time no matter how powerful we learn to make our computers. However this doesn't mean that these weather patterns will be randomly caused and neither does it mean that they are predetermined. Effects will follow their causes in a perfectly orderly fashion to generate these future weather patterns but the outcome will be forever unknowable. That's what self-determinism means but I'm not kidding myself that you'll understand it because your dualistic internal narrative has entrapped you at the bottom of a Newtonian mineshaft.

i insist that your internal narrative is entrapped in a tiny and contradictory mind. problem # one:
1. you accept that the universe is deterministic.
2. deterministic means predictable (even if only logically/theoretically), even according to proponents of chaos theory, as i have quoted.
3. you dispute the fact that deterministic means theoretically predictable.
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4. conclusion: you keep contradicting yourself (perhaps because you reject the law of no contradiction) by saying that the universe is deterministic (predictable), yet not theoretically predictable.

problem # two:
you don't realize that something can't initially cause itself to be anything (such as self-determining), as that is the exact definition of circular logic. a system created (caused) itself as a self-determining system. so the universe was caused to exist, but without any laws to govern it, and then the universe unintentionally (and causelessly, because if it wasn't causeless, it would mean that there existed governing laws) made itself self-determining, which makes it unpredictable, not even in theory (under any circumstances). otherwise, our universe causelessly made itself self-determining.

you seem to have a flawed understanding of so many things, that idk where to start. i'll just say that for something to be a certain way (such as self-determining, or non-self-determining) it needs an initial push (cause) from an external source, even if that push is in the form of laws, design, programming, etc.. something can't just make itself something else out of the blue (causelessly). a non-self-determining system can't causelessly make itself self-determining. so there has to be a cause that made it become self-determining (even if we say it was intentionally or unintentionally designed to become self-determining).

p.s., the system we are discussing is our universe, which is supposedly 13.8 billion years old, so it was preceded by something else, and that something else is what caused (intentionally or unintentionally) our universe to be how it is (so called self-determining).

[alpha]

I agree fully with that statement, which would be true what ever you might think of free will and determinism. It could not be any other way.

that is on which my whole argument is built. since it can't be any other way, then true freewill (that entails actual accountability) is impossible. note that i don't dismiss the necessity of what i call notional freewill and notional responsibility..

Nope.

When we accept determinism we can still be held accountable, and have moral responsibility. These things work to cause actions that avoid further transgressions.
That's why prisons are called 'correctional'.
When a crime is met with punishment, you are punishing the person for what he is rather than what he has done. But the effect is (hopefully) the same: deterrence and the avoidance of recidivism. Change is possible and the fact that the perpetrator has to face the possibility of incarceration is part of the causal picture when a new crime is contemplated.

Freewill is an abrogation of reason and would mean being able to act regardless of the efforts of society to provide deterrence.
Further - if you accept free will then the only way to prevent further crime would be to incarcerate for the rest of a person's life.

hobbes, i really don't wanna argue whether people can "change" or not. as you said, all these procedures are part of the causal chain. what i do dispute is the moral responsibility part. animals can also be trained to help people or kill them (eg by reward and punishment), but that in no way makes them morally responsible for anything, in the least bit. just because humans are more intelligent, and can supposedly tell right from wrong, that still doesn't free them from the causal chain, which devours everything. my idea of "notional responsibility" fixes this problem by saying that we can punish people for what they have done, in order to hopefully cause them to change (and hopefully deterring others), even though they were determined (by countless factors, both internal and external) to do what they did (making them not truly responsible, as they couldn't have possibly done otherwise, in the least bit), and will continue to adhere completely to cause-and-effect in the future.

[Hobbes' Choice]

I agree fully with that statement, which would be true what ever you might think of free will and determinism. It could not be any other way.

that is on which my whole argument is built. since it can't be any other way, then true freewill (that entails actual accountability) is impossible. note that i don't dismiss the necessity of what i call notional freewill and notional responsibility..

Nope.

When we accept determinism we can still be held accountable, and have moral responsibility. These things work to cause actions that avoid further transgressions.
That's why prisons are called 'correctional'.
When a crime is met with punishment, you are punishing the person for what he is rather than what he has done. But the effect is (hopefully) the same: deterrence and the avoidance of recidivism. Change is possible and the fact that the perpetrator has to face the possibility of incarceration is part of the causal picture when a new crime is contemplated.

Freewill is an abrogation of reason and would mean being able to act regardless of the efforts of society to provide deterrence.
Further - if you accept free will then the only way to prevent further crime would be to incarcerate for the rest of a person's life.

hobbes, i really don't wanna argue whether people can "change" or not. as you said, all these procedures are part of the causal chain. what i do dispute is the moral responsibility part. animals can also be trained to help people or kill them (eg by reward and punishment), but that in no way makes them morally responsible for anything, in the least bit. just because humans are more intelligent, and can supposedly tell right from wrong, that still doesn't free them from the causal chain, which devours everything. my idea of "notional responsibility" fixes this problem by saying that we can punish people for what they have done, in order to hopefully cause them to change (and hopefully deterring others), even though they were determined (by countless factors, both internal and external) to do what they did (making them not truly responsible, as they couldn't have possibly done otherwise, in the least bit), and will continue to adhere completely to cause-and-effect in the future.

Your problem is that, although you are a determinist, you can't bring this understanding to explain the world around you. You are constantly at odds with everything you see feel and hear. Despite accepting determinism logically you can't figure out how to apply it to the world we live in. I said above that I was at the same place in my thinking about 20 years ago.
Rather than denying the existence of responsibility you need to apply your determinism to understanding what responsibility IN FACT is.
When there is a tiger in the woods that keeps terrorising the villagers it is idiotic to say that nothing is responsible for the blood trails and missing people. What you do is go into the woods with a gun and shoot the tiger - because the tiger is responsible. Get over it.
What responsible means is not the the tiger chose of his own free will. It is FREE WILL that does not exist. Responsibility is how we figure out how to make things better.

I don't know how more clearly I can say this (again):

When a crime is met with punishment, you are punishing the person for WHAT HE IS rather than what he has done and the choice he has made.

Your response if faulty. because if no one is responsible then no remedy can be found.

[alpha]

Your problem is that, although you are a determinist, you can't bring this understanding to explain the world around you. You are constantly at odds with everything you see feel and hear. Despite accepting determinism logically you can't figure out how to apply it to the world we live in. I said above that I was at the same place in my thinking about 20 years ago.
Rather than denying the existence of responsibility you need to apply your determinism to understanding what responsibility IN FACT is.
When there is a tiger in the woods that keeps terrorising the villagers it is idiotic to say that nothing is responsible for the blood trails and missing people. What you do is go into the woods with a gun and shoot the tiger - because the tiger is responsible. Get over it.
What responsible means is not the the tiger chose of his own free will. It is FREE WILL that does not exist. Responsibility is how we figure out how to make things better.

I don't know how more clearly I can say this (again):

When a crime is met with punishment, you are punishing the person for WHAT HE IS rather than what he has done and the choice he has made.

Your response if faulty. because if no one is responsible then no remedy can be found.

the tiger is responsible, but only as a puppet, and the same applies to people. it might be necessary to kill the puppet, but that doesn't change the fact that it was just a puppet. that's what i mean by "notional responsibility", as no sane person would ever consider a puppet truly (and morally) responsible for anything.

i think we are in agreement about this, except for semantics.

[Obvious Leo]

2. deterministic means predictable (even if only logically/theoretically), even according to proponents of chaos theory, as i have quoted.

This statement is false. Deterministic does NOT mean predictable. Deterministic merely means that effects are preceded by causes. Chaos theory makes this clear and I've advised you countless times to learn it.

.

3. you dispute the fact that deterministic means theoretically predictable.

You bet I dispute it because it's not a fact at all, it's bullshit. In the real world the future is quite literally unknowable.

[alpha]

2. deterministic means predictable (even if only logically/theoretically), even according to proponents of chaos theory, as i have quoted.

This statement is false. Deterministic does NOT mean predictable. Deterministic merely means that effects are preceded by causes. Chaos theory makes this clear and I've advised you countless times to learn it.

3. you dispute the fact that deterministic means theoretically predictable.

You bet I dispute it because it's not a fact at all, it's bullshit. In the real world the future is quite literally unknowable.

perhaps hobbes can back me up here. doesn't being deterministic necessarily make a thing logically (theoretically) predictable under certain circumstances, regardless of how impractical this might be?

[Obvious Leo]

How much rainfall can I expect to get on my fuchsias on 28/11/3015?

That is a non-computable question because every single event which occurs within 1000 light-years of earth from now on is potentially a casual agent. In fact there is a non-zero probability that the earth will no longer exist on this date.

[alpha]

How much rainfall can I expect to get on my fuchsias on 28/11/3015?

That is a non-computable question because every single event which occurs within 1000 light-years of earth from now on is potentially a casual agent. In fact there is a non-zero probability that the earth will no longer exist on this date.

i've said it before and i'll say it again; logic, reasoning, and philosophy are not (nor will they ever be) your thing. your wasting what few brain cells you have on these incomprehensible (to you) fields.

[alpha]

Tell me what you think of the essay I linked to, alpha.

hope you didn't bail on me! i need you helping me fight the good fight with leo et al.

i read almost the whole essay, and even though i didn't completely understand every single part, my overall impression of it isn't too positive. while i might accept some ideas (or at least find them plausible), there are notions which are either too vague, or with which i simply disagree.