However, in physics, complex systems might behave chaotically (evolution strongly depends on the initial state) but still their evolution is deterministic. I think indeterminism is most often confused with "lack of knowledge" and probability. The fact the observer can't determine precisely the system's initial conditions doesn't mean it won't evolve as it should. The system is just a trajectory in a 4D space, regardless of how much do we know at one precise moment.
I enjoyed this video, and I am a recent subscriber of both of your channels. My opinion on this is not set in stone, but I was wondering, it seems to me as if we have been slowly discovering that more and more about how the brain works, how it stores memories, and the like, and while we may not yet be able to quantify or compute some of the interactions within the brain at the moment, it seems possibly, if not likely, that we will at some point in the future. Just a thought.
If simple matter has no freedom, why would more complex matter (our brain) have it, why would our brain be exempt from nature. Complexity allows the illusion to appear - making the jump from no freedom to freedom is irrational. If free will were to exist, it would have to be supernatural in someway.
I'm wondering when you think fee will begins for a human.Conception? 1 month old? 6 month? 1 year? 2, 3, 4..?
18 months when it is thought "self-awareness" begins?
I do not look at determinism nor free will nor God as things. These are words that arise from a contextual utility. So no, I'm not making the agnostic's argument. Please watch my video "Free Will and Grammatical Settings" before assuming too much more about my position and confusing yourself further.
You have to start with the simple and go from there. As a human gets older and thought becomes more complex, it still boils down to the simple factors which contribute to our behavior - there is nothing new being added.
Our species created this term "free will", gave it meaning, and said we have it, and on a day to day basis it seems like we have it.
Our species also thought the Earth was the center of the universe, because we did not have the ability to know otherwise.
What other factors go into human behavior besides past experience, genetics, and the interaction of the two, and how could free will be exerted on any of these?
Where and when would the said "free will" come into play?
Oversimplification much? I'm guessing you mostly mean memory by "past experience." There's also abstraction, which is a product of past experience, but hardly linear.
I think determinists don't look at their language enough. To think the world deterministic is to think the world determinable, yet determinists mix this word and physicalism, as if physicalism is exclusive to determinism. We are wholly physical, but that doesn't mean we're deterministic.
It is true that a deterministic model would never be complete if we were the ones that created it. However, this does not exclude a model that exists outside our universe.
Listen to your words again: "... this does not exclude a model that exists outside our universe." Models are MADE. They are intentional representations. Every metaphor is a mode; every new component of a sequence is a changed representation of the last. You're mixing models with contextless components. There are no complete models.
You do not need to quantify something in order to understand its effect. The quantification of past experiences is not the issue so much as the idea that these things are capable of having an effect on future decisions.
azrienoch: you don't need a simple cause effect relationship for determinism to happen. I agree it's too complicated to make a model of how humans make choices, but that doesn't mean if we didn't have all the scientific knowledge possible we couldn't predict everything. I happen not to believe in determinism, but if I was a naturalist I do not see anything in nature that would avoid this.
But if you (with all force of futures discoveries) model this in machine, which is able to predict states of second machine, which observes first machine, your system falls, and it is NOT possible to predict in full range.
You can say human beings are too complicated, but that doesn't nullify the possibiility of them being determined. I agree that we can't there needs to be evidence that everything is determined, but you your a naturalist all you have is chance and determined laws of nature applied on matter and energy.
What you say about determinism is not about determinism, it's about predicting the course of the universe. But that's not what determinism is, determinism is the belief that the course of the universe is not one out of many, but that's it's the only possible course of the universe.
The limits of our ability to quantify something has nothing to do with the reality of the process. It's the difference of a large function as compared to one that is an arbitrarily large number of factors more complex. They are both in principle deterministic. The idea of an infinitely sided die or coin is not really applicable I don't think; for a finite number of objects, a finite number of arrangements exist. Also, why would behavior exhibit pattern if it was not somehow BASED on a pattern?
The lack of quantifiability does not disprove determinism. Something may be hypothetically predictable, without being observably predicted, and still function on a deterministic framework. Why can't we disprove determinism using randomness? The fact that something can happen spontaneously without any causation suggests that the cause-effect pattern can be broken. Quantum mechanics is sufficient without appealing to ignorance on arguments of nonquantifiability.
Quantum mechanics doesn't prove randomness in the universe, rather, it predicts reality using probability. This doesn't mean that the "universe IS probability" as some like to imagine, but that the universe can be predicted using probability where only outcomes can be observed.
Remember, randomness can never be proven. Proof requires predictable causation, while randomness is the absence of any causation at all.
Perhaps I should rephrase. What I mean is that determ states that there is no randomness in the world at all, and that if one knew all of the factors that led up to an event, one would know exactly what would happen. This is predicated on Newtonian physics, namely his three laws of motion. If an object can spontaneously move, without any causation, then determ is disproven, because there would be no way to predict that motion. I may have misunderstood QuantM though, in which case I apologize.
Because the universe isn't "determinable", does that mean it isn't deterministic? certainly not. I see no reason to think that, one day, neural circuist could not be mapped out with accuracy. Any evidence to the contrary? Also, "Experience", while not quantifiable in itself, has certain effects on the brain, such as learning, that could be quantified. All of the supposed non-quantifiable things you list are causes. Their subsequent effects on the brain could hypothetically be discerned.
You said what I was thinking. Saying the universe is deterministic doesn't mean that it can be determinable. One other point I wanted to make, in your example of the computer program; this doesn't disprove the idea that the universe isn't deterministic. Merely, it is not 100% determinable.
I suppose I should clarify because the last comment might sound nonsensical. I say the universe may be deterministic, yet indeterminable primarily because of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. You disregard this towards the start (sort of) so I suppose the point is moot.
Interesting video. I don't think the conflict is between determinism and free will. The real conflict is between metaphysical naturalism and free will. In the past metaphysical dualism and deterministic science were popular. Together, these assumptions give a way to "test" for free will, at least in theory. Phenomena outside the governance of deterministic laws are assumed to be willed by something.
If I reject both metaphysical dualism and scientific determinism, then there can be no test for free will. I'm left to conclude that free will should be interpreted as a qualia. It's something that we can only experience subjectively. My 2 cents.
on the coin thing... not quite an infinite number of sides... a very very high amount but not infinite. Even if it meant that Johnny won't kiss someone that had a mole on his head the same as the priest and the chances are one in a billion billion trillion there is still scope. The bounderies aren't infinitly open.
The problem, however, with this argument is the premise that human factors cannot be quantified. Perhaps they can, but our knowledge is simply too limited to be capable to; but then, perhaps they can't. Either way, I would be reluctant to sway to one side or the other.
Although, I am curious about your concept with the computer program, and it's direct applicability to the human experience.
P.S. Quantum Theory is 'random' by practicality, but not necessarily in nature; this misconception is due to the predominant acceptance of the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM, which concerns itself with results moreso than how these results occur.
I love to see you debate the Presuppositionalist Christians on YouTube. They assert free-will is not possible in an Atheistic universe. Among other impossible things such as the laws of logic and uniformity of nature, etc. I saw not much intelligent opposition to them. I'm afraid they might grind you up. :-)
Argh determinism is not incompatible with free will! Go read "freedom evolves" by Daniel Dennett. People need to stop mixing fatalism with determinism, which are rather different!
Both terms are from two different description systems. The first term is meaningful within the scientific language. The second is only meaningful within a subject dependent language.
To be within the context of scientific language, I would agree with kalin666 that determinism does not imply observability.
I've recently said something about this issue. You may check my "The Magic Box of Free Will". Previously I had made a couple, of which "Free Will, a Proposal" was the first.
I think they're relevant. I hope they're clear enough.
Since determinism describes how everything is only a sequence of cause and effect, including what dendrophilian calls "chemicals", and that physic laws apply to the brain as deep as to the motion of its electrons, the "will" that comes out of the brain (motion, thought, memories) cannot be free as they are bound to the physical laws that led to them.
throwing a coin is not randomness on the basis that, given a total knowledge of the context (direction, speed, rotation, barometric pressure, distance from the impact, nature of the surface...) one could calculate the outcome.
If one could compute all the factors of a person (genetic, envirronmental, chemical, up to the color of his first socks since black ones would have absorb more heat and influenced his anatomy and consequently his thoughts) they could know what this person would do as long as it keeps up to date. thats is practically impossible, however it is demermined.
You would need a very powerfull computer, perhaps the same as the one we are being simulated in right now! I wonder if its possible to run such an advanced simulation perhaps with self aware being in it.
indeed. computing the "human-algorith" I described could take a bigger computer than the universe turned into a processor: that is why I consider determinism conceptually true though practically impossible to actually compute.
Complexity and in ability to quantify experience is a little weak Az. Determinism assumes this possibility before it begins it's argument. Now you are trying to destroy it through a fallacy of irrelevant conclusion. you've only provided the ignorance or inability of science to quantify cause and effect. you have not disproved determinism.
Of course I haven't. But I have taken the first steps in the debate to showing that the debate is silly. However, I think destroying the presumptions that start the debate isn't weak at all.
This reminds me of a thing C.S. Lewis said in The Great Divorce...that the only way to see the full effects of choice and time is to be beyond them both.
And, thanks for validating my procrastinative ethos. I've got a theory that whatever I want to do, if I put it off long enough, someone else will do it instead, and do it better.
YOu say you will get around to using this against the now infamous dendrophilian paradigm of pedophillia and the penal system. I'm not sure you need such a complicated argument. He felt capital punishment was unjustified because there was no free will. If the first part of his arguement is true, the second would be more logical if he would suggest capital punishment is justified BEFORE the crime.
Interesting. I haven't heard this point of view before, and it really is contrary to what i've been saying, but it is something that i will mull over. I don't know, why are you sure that there is too much unpredicability in the human psyche? It is complex, and as yet, beyond our grasp, but still. It's part of the world, other matter interacts with it. Hm.
It's funny... I've always considered the Determinism vs. Free Will debate to be over my head. I just couldn't really grasp the issue. I suspected however, that people were "comparing apples with oranges", but I never voiced that opinion because I felt like I wasn't qualified to. Anyways... I'm working on a deeper understanding. Thanks for the help!
You are starting the arguement at the right place. Any arguement that starts with "they can't it". Needs to start at free will. I am looking forward to seeing the path you choose to take with this line of thought. 5 stars.
<i>Are</i> free will and determinism completely different things? Free will, in my opinion, is concerned with making informed decisions given some knowledge of the situation at hand - a somewhat deterministic process. Off the top of my head, I'd rather <i>equate</i> free will with determinism and contrast them both with lack of information and randomness.
Perhaps so, though I'm not entirely sure what I'd be missing. I kinda find both concepts, free will and determinism, problematic in themselves. Maybe I'll get around doing a video on this.
My school teaches that "people operate on self-interest" concept as an official part of economics curriculum. Then again, they seem to glorify a highly competitive market. Slightly off-topic: Do you believe in a personal god?
A, I responded with a video I made last week... I mentioned novelty/habit as a new framework to replace freedom/determinism because I think the latter only makes sense in a 17th century context, when we just began to discover the meaning of "think for yourself." Today we can no longer suppose that there is such a thing as a "mind" separate from "matter" (or freedom separate from determinism), though I am in no way implying that there is therefore only "matter."
I am implying that "matter" or "mind" are not at all what we have suspected. The goal in all this is to get rid of dualism, especially that form of dualism that separates self from other, or "me" from "the world."
Is it just that determining behaviour is impractical for computational or measurement problems? Is it deterministic, even if it's not practically determinable by us?
Do you think that there is a determinism to behaviour that we just can't measure, or is it that the behaviour has some indeterminism to it, which makes perfect prediction impossible in principle, because of the infinite number of sides of the coin?
Good questions. I'd say that "deterministic" requires some method of determining (and perhaps disagreement on the matter comes when people take this word "too far"). To use the coin with an infinite number of sides, we KNOW it's going to land -- it's just going to be hard to tell what side it's landed on. Without some clear idea of what is to be determined, how are we to say it was, indeed, determined? I think this idea goes far to explain why determinism seems to want to oversimplify.
If we have no method of determine it doesn't mean that universe is not determined. If mokey can't see it's cage from ouside it doesn't mean that cage not exist.
As expected, you still spoke far over my head, but I think I get the basics and thankyou, I feel much better, much more as though I do in fact have some control over my concsiousness, my choices and how my experiences inform those choices. At least I think thats what you said???
Well i guess we really cant say the mind works in a Deterministic way for sure,because we have yet to unlock all the brains secrets,but that argument for freewill seems like the god of the gaps argument,because it heavily relies on the belief that we will never be able to find that Deterministic link in the brian.
I don't think so. Again, creation and discovery are odd phenomenons when you can only roughly repeat what you've done previously. But if we're going to treat it as a god-of-the-gaps argument, then determinism is simply an overstatement, an oversimplification, not acknowledging the gaps. (These "gaps", by the way, aren't fillable.)
I think you made a great point regarding the difference between seeing a pattern, and there being a pattern. How many people see a face on the Moon, or on Mars, or in marble tiles? That doesn't mean there actually is a face there, no matter how many people see it.
Pareidolia, is the name of this psychological phenomenon of seeing a pattern in a vague, random image. Apophenia is the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.
Nicely said. I would like to follow this thread for a while. As you know, it's my current subject of interest and I hope I'll see you in a room somewhere without a lot of authoritative monologues and rhetorical posturing, where this is the subject, and the what ifs greatly outnumber the "this is how it iss". I'm off to find rabid apes contribution to the subject.
I've done a number of those sorts of videos. "The Gay Science" is one off the top of my head. Look through my vids for words like meaning and absurd and you should find them.
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?
Rybot9000 3 years ago
CRAP
yp06407012 3 years ago
However, in physics, complex systems might behave chaotically (evolution strongly depends on the initial state) but still their evolution is deterministic. I think indeterminism is most often confused with "lack of knowledge" and probability. The fact the observer can't determine precisely the system's initial conditions doesn't mean it won't evolve as it should. The system is just a trajectory in a 4D space, regardless of how much do we know at one precise moment.
JennyFarlopez 3 years ago
I enjoyed this video, and I am a recent subscriber of both of your channels. My opinion on this is not set in stone, but I was wondering, it seems to me as if we have been slowly discovering that more and more about how the brain works, how it stores memories, and the like, and while we may not yet be able to quantify or compute some of the interactions within the brain at the moment, it seems possibly, if not likely, that we will at some point in the future. Just a thought.
PyWiz 3 years ago
If simple matter has no freedom, why would more complex matter (our brain) have it, why would our brain be exempt from nature. Complexity allows the illusion to appear - making the jump from no freedom to freedom is irrational. If free will were to exist, it would have to be supernatural in someway.
I'm wondering when you think fee will begins for a human.Conception? 1 month old? 6 month? 1 year? 2, 3, 4..?
18 months when it is thought "self-awareness" begins?
lets not hide behind semantics
mikemack28 3 years ago
I've posted a video in response to your comments here. Look in the video responses.
azrienoch 3 years ago
What you're really saying in this video is that since it cannot be tested we'll never know. Same point comes up for the existence God.
Maybe there is a group of obese tigers in a far away galaxy who are actally controlling our will - or maybe they endowed us with free will.
we'll never know for sure.
mikemack28 3 years ago
I do not look at determinism nor free will nor God as things. These are words that arise from a contextual utility. So no, I'm not making the agnostic's argument. Please watch my video "Free Will and Grammatical Settings" before assuming too much more about my position and confusing yourself further.
azrienoch 3 years ago
You have to start with the simple and go from there. As a human gets older and thought becomes more complex, it still boils down to the simple factors which contribute to our behavior - there is nothing new being added.
Our species created this term "free will", gave it meaning, and said we have it, and on a day to day basis it seems like we have it.
Our species also thought the Earth was the center of the universe, because we did not have the ability to know otherwise.
mikemack28 3 years ago
"Boils down" is a favorable phrase for "ignoring." Simplicity is nice for utility, not for when you're trying to be complete in a description.
azrienoch 3 years ago
I feel that overall your argument is weak.
What other factors go into human behavior besides past experience, genetics, and the interaction of the two, and how could free will be exerted on any of these?
Where and when would the said "free will" come into play?
mikemack28 3 years ago
Oversimplification much? I'm guessing you mostly mean memory by "past experience." There's also abstraction, which is a product of past experience, but hardly linear.
I think determinists don't look at their language enough. To think the world deterministic is to think the world determinable, yet determinists mix this word and physicalism, as if physicalism is exclusive to determinism. We are wholly physical, but that doesn't mean we're deterministic.
azrienoch 3 years ago
just because WE can't quantify certain things does not mean they CANNOT be quantified. So that isn't a good argument against determinism.
GullyMac 3 years ago
It is true that a deterministic model would never be complete if we were the ones that created it. However, this does not exclude a model that exists outside our universe.
drexebo 3 years ago
Listen to your words again: "... this does not exclude a model that exists outside our universe." Models are MADE. They are intentional representations. Every metaphor is a mode; every new component of a sequence is a changed representation of the last. You're mixing models with contextless components. There are no complete models.
azrienoch 3 years ago
Observability is key in proving determinism, but lack of it is not enough to disprove it.
drexebo 3 years ago
Sounds like a predetermined conclusion to me.
azrienoch 3 years ago
You do not need to quantify something in order to understand its effect. The quantification of past experiences is not the issue so much as the idea that these things are capable of having an effect on future decisions.
drexebo 3 years ago
azrienoch: you don't need a simple cause effect relationship for determinism to happen. I agree it's too complicated to make a model of how humans make choices, but that doesn't mean if we didn't have all the scientific knowledge possible we couldn't predict everything. I happen not to believe in determinism, but if I was a naturalist I do not see anything in nature that would avoid this.
darkforce333 3 years ago
But if you (with all force of futures discoveries) model this in machine, which is able to predict states of second machine, which observes first machine, your system falls, and it is NOT possible to predict in full range.
konikula 3 years ago
You can say human beings are too complicated, but that doesn't nullify the possibiility of them being determined. I agree that we can't there needs to be evidence that everything is determined, but you your a naturalist all you have is chance and determined laws of nature applied on matter and energy.
darkforce333 3 years ago
you should get your ass on xanga.
rhino18 3 years ago
What you say about determinism is not about determinism, it's about predicting the course of the universe. But that's not what determinism is, determinism is the belief that the course of the universe is not one out of many, but that's it's the only possible course of the universe.
MrMincer 3 years ago
The limits of our ability to quantify something has nothing to do with the reality of the process. It's the difference of a large function as compared to one that is an arbitrarily large number of factors more complex. They are both in principle deterministic. The idea of an infinitely sided die or coin is not really applicable I don't think; for a finite number of objects, a finite number of arrangements exist. Also, why would behavior exhibit pattern if it was not somehow BASED on a pattern?
DiscipleZ3R0 3 years ago
The lack of quantifiability does not disprove determinism. Something may be hypothetically predictable, without being observably predicted, and still function on a deterministic framework. Why can't we disprove determinism using randomness? The fact that something can happen spontaneously without any causation suggests that the cause-effect pattern can be broken. Quantum mechanics is sufficient without appealing to ignorance on arguments of nonquantifiability.
theroamingfoot 3 years ago 2
Quantum mechanics doesn't prove randomness in the universe, rather, it predicts reality using probability. This doesn't mean that the "universe IS probability" as some like to imagine, but that the universe can be predicted using probability where only outcomes can be observed.
Remember, randomness can never be proven. Proof requires predictable causation, while randomness is the absence of any causation at all.
JimGunning 3 years ago
Perhaps I should rephrase. What I mean is that determ states that there is no randomness in the world at all, and that if one knew all of the factors that led up to an event, one would know exactly what would happen. This is predicated on Newtonian physics, namely his three laws of motion. If an object can spontaneously move, without any causation, then determ is disproven, because there would be no way to predict that motion. I may have misunderstood QuantM though, in which case I apologize.
theroamingfoot 3 years ago
Because the universe isn't "determinable", does that mean it isn't deterministic? certainly not. I see no reason to think that, one day, neural circuist could not be mapped out with accuracy. Any evidence to the contrary? Also, "Experience", while not quantifiable in itself, has certain effects on the brain, such as learning, that could be quantified. All of the supposed non-quantifiable things you list are causes. Their subsequent effects on the brain could hypothetically be discerned.
Adambiswanger1 4 years ago 2
You said what I was thinking. Saying the universe is deterministic doesn't mean that it can be determinable. One other point I wanted to make, in your example of the computer program; this doesn't disprove the idea that the universe isn't deterministic. Merely, it is not 100% determinable.
enclave2k1 3 years ago
I suppose I should clarify because the last comment might sound nonsensical. I say the universe may be deterministic, yet indeterminable primarily because of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. You disregard this towards the start (sort of) so I suppose the point is moot.
enclave2k1 3 years ago
Interesting video. I don't think the conflict is between determinism and free will. The real conflict is between metaphysical naturalism and free will. In the past metaphysical dualism and deterministic science were popular. Together, these assumptions give a way to "test" for free will, at least in theory. Phenomena outside the governance of deterministic laws are assumed to be willed by something.
marshallbs 4 years ago
If I reject both metaphysical dualism and scientific determinism, then there can be no test for free will. I'm left to conclude that free will should be interpreted as a qualia. It's something that we can only experience subjectively. My 2 cents.
marshallbs 4 years ago
The problem here is that you are talking about infinity like it is a fact. We need to prove infinity EXISTS before we can remove bounderies.
JuSdAt 4 years ago
on the coin thing... not quite an infinite number of sides... a very very high amount but not infinite. Even if it meant that Johnny won't kiss someone that had a mole on his head the same as the priest and the chances are one in a billion billion trillion there is still scope. The bounderies aren't infinitly open.
JuSdAt 4 years ago
The problem, however, with this argument is the premise that human factors cannot be quantified. Perhaps they can, but our knowledge is simply too limited to be capable to; but then, perhaps they can't. Either way, I would be reluctant to sway to one side or the other.
Although, I am curious about your concept with the computer program, and it's direct applicability to the human experience.
PsychotropicThinker 4 years ago
P.S. Quantum Theory is 'random' by practicality, but not necessarily in nature; this misconception is due to the predominant acceptance of the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM, which concerns itself with results moreso than how these results occur.
PsychotropicThinker 4 years ago
The only thing I heard here is that determinism is not true because we can't predict and calculate the outcomes.
So, this does not address philosophical determinism but merely our perception of it.
Entropy56 4 years ago
No, this argument utilizes Godel incompleteness. It is mathematically impossible.
azrienoch 4 years ago
Mathematically impossible in a Godless universe or both?
Entropy56 4 years ago
In other words a universe where a God exists who knows all things that will come to pass and claims to determine specific outcomes of future events.
Entropy56 4 years ago
On second thought perhaps Godel would say that it is impossible for any God to be omniscient since it is mathematically impossible...
He'd be burning all his clock cycles in an infinite regress.
Entropy56 4 years ago
Depends on whether the god is considered part of the universe.
azrienoch 4 years ago
I love to see you debate the Presuppositionalist Christians on YouTube. They assert free-will is not possible in an Atheistic universe. Among other impossible things such as the laws of logic and uniformity of nature, etc. I saw not much intelligent opposition to them. I'm afraid they might grind you up. :-)
Entropy56 4 years ago
Argh determinism is not incompatible with free will! Go read "freedom evolves" by Daniel Dennett. People need to stop mixing fatalism with determinism, which are rather different!
Panserborne1 4 years ago
Both terms are from two different description systems. The first term is meaningful within the scientific language. The second is only meaningful within a subject dependent language.
To be within the context of scientific language, I would agree with kalin666 that determinism does not imply observability.
uncprinciple 4 years ago
The universe is deterministic. Because everything is cause and effect which reaches into eternity.
nicolatwo 4 years ago
Great video.
TrystanCJ 4 years ago
Hi, I like your take on this matter.
I've recently said something about this issue. You may check my "The Magic Box of Free Will". Previously I had made a couple, of which "Free Will, a Proposal" was the first.
I think they're relevant. I hope they're clear enough.
schrodcat 4 years ago
Since determinism describes how everything is only a sequence of cause and effect, including what dendrophilian calls "chemicals", and that physic laws apply to the brain as deep as to the motion of its electrons, the "will" that comes out of the brain (motion, thought, memories) cannot be free as they are bound to the physical laws that led to them.
maksiiiskam2 4 years ago
throwing a coin is not randomness on the basis that, given a total knowledge of the context (direction, speed, rotation, barometric pressure, distance from the impact, nature of the surface...) one could calculate the outcome.
maksiiiskam2 4 years ago
If one could compute all the factors of a person (genetic, envirronmental, chemical, up to the color of his first socks since black ones would have absorb more heat and influenced his anatomy and consequently his thoughts) they could know what this person would do as long as it keeps up to date. thats is practically impossible, however it is demermined.
maksiiiskam2 4 years ago
You would need a very powerfull computer, perhaps the same as the one we are being simulated in right now! I wonder if its possible to run such an advanced simulation perhaps with self aware being in it.
SSJSampson 4 years ago
indeed. computing the "human-algorith" I described could take a bigger computer than the universe turned into a processor: that is why I consider determinism conceptually true though practically impossible to actually compute.
maksiiiskam2 4 years ago
Complexity and in ability to quantify experience is a little weak Az. Determinism assumes this possibility before it begins it's argument. Now you are trying to destroy it through a fallacy of irrelevant conclusion. you've only provided the ignorance or inability of science to quantify cause and effect. you have not disproved determinism.
Nichomachean5 4 years ago
Of course I haven't. But I have taken the first steps in the debate to showing that the debate is silly. However, I think destroying the presumptions that start the debate isn't weak at all.
azrienoch 4 years ago
This reminds me of a thing C.S. Lewis said in The Great Divorce...that the only way to see the full effects of choice and time is to be beyond them both.
DarkGnome133 4 years ago
dude, I think you're running low on Mountain Dew
R4ndomCrap 4 years ago
Determinism is a THOUGHT
EXPERIMENT in which we agree ahead of time
that the quantification of experience leading
to future behavioral probabilities is, in fact,
PLAUSIBLE and POSSIBLE in this universe. It
is NOT an argument regarding our current
scientific ignorance, nor wether a practicing
behaviorists can "currently do it". It means that it could be done, IN THEORY, without violating any law of physics. This strikes at
the heart of free will.
otonanoC 4 years ago 2
I agree
Nichomachean5 4 years ago
Yes. Free will vs. Determinism is a false dichotomy. Thank you.
squarecircle 4 years ago
No, it's the other way around.
azrienoch 4 years ago
Woot! Way to rend false dichotomies asunder!
And, thanks for validating my procrastinative ethos. I've got a theory that whatever I want to do, if I put it off long enough, someone else will do it instead, and do it better.
kylben 4 years ago
YOu say you will get around to using this against the now infamous dendrophilian paradigm of pedophillia and the penal system. I'm not sure you need such a complicated argument. He felt capital punishment was unjustified because there was no free will. If the first part of his arguement is true, the second would be more logical if he would suggest capital punishment is justified BEFORE the crime.
rebyoshi 4 years ago
lol, Johnny might have just had some sort of "head trauma"
ryanisfootdrums 4 years ago
Interesting. I haven't heard this point of view before, and it really is contrary to what i've been saying, but it is something that i will mull over. I don't know, why are you sure that there is too much unpredicability in the human psyche? It is complex, and as yet, beyond our grasp, but still. It's part of the world, other matter interacts with it. Hm.
existentialistcat 4 years ago
It's funny... I've always considered the Determinism vs. Free Will debate to be over my head. I just couldn't really grasp the issue. I suspected however, that people were "comparing apples with oranges", but I never voiced that opinion because I felt like I wasn't qualified to. Anyways... I'm working on a deeper understanding. Thanks for the help!
D4Shawn 4 years ago
if i were to tally up all your videos i think you may have smoked that cigarette at most half a dozen times.
does your behavior follow this pattern on a subconscious scale? O_o
=P
sheepwshotguns 4 years ago
You are starting the arguement at the right place. Any arguement that starts with "they can't it". Needs to start at free will. I am looking forward to seeing the path you choose to take with this line of thought. 5 stars.
squitmaa 4 years ago
<i>Are</i> free will and determinism completely different things? Free will, in my opinion, is concerned with making informed decisions given some knowledge of the situation at hand - a somewhat deterministic process. Off the top of my head, I'd rather <i>equate</i> free will with determinism and contrast them both with lack of information and randomness.
Naphra 4 years ago
Take a look at my comment in redliterrocket4's direct response to this video.
azrienoch 4 years ago
Yup, I did already :)
Naphra 4 years ago
Okay, well, I guess all I can tell you is you can if you want, but I think the more we crumple things up together, the more we'll miss.
azrienoch 4 years ago
Perhaps so, though I'm not entirely sure what I'd be missing. I kinda find both concepts, free will and determinism, problematic in themselves. Maybe I'll get around doing a video on this.
Naphra 4 years ago
Nice video, gives me a lot to think on.
Neonsolid 4 years ago
My school teaches that "people operate on self-interest" concept as an official part of economics curriculum. Then again, they seem to glorify a highly competitive market. Slightly off-topic: Do you believe in a personal god?
cryptographix 4 years ago
Nope. Not for me.
azrienoch 4 years ago
Kudos for you.
cryptographix 4 years ago
Actually computer programs can contain themselves. See:
tinyurl -dot- com -slash- 2g7a4v
so its not hard to imagine that a computer could model itself.
websnarf 4 years ago
The model would never finish. If it did, it took a shortcut, and there's no way determinism can be concluded using shortcuts.
azrienoch 4 years ago
Right ... the model has to finish?
websnarf 4 years ago
I'd say so. Otherwise the end isn't known.
azrienoch 4 years ago
A, I responded with a video I made last week... I mentioned novelty/habit as a new framework to replace freedom/determinism because I think the latter only makes sense in a 17th century context, when we just began to discover the meaning of "think for yourself." Today we can no longer suppose that there is such a thing as a "mind" separate from "matter" (or freedom separate from determinism), though I am in no way implying that there is therefore only "matter."
redliterocket4 4 years ago
I am implying that "matter" or "mind" are not at all what we have suspected. The goal in all this is to get rid of dualism, especially that form of dualism that separates self from other, or "me" from "the world."
redliterocket4 4 years ago
Yes, another excellent point. I'm watching your vid as I type this. Thanks for bringing it up.
azrienoch 4 years ago
I just posted another vid specifically as a response to this one.
redliterocket4 4 years ago
Is it just that determining behaviour is impractical for computational or measurement problems? Is it deterministic, even if it's not practically determinable by us?
Do you think that there is a determinism to behaviour that we just can't measure, or is it that the behaviour has some indeterminism to it, which makes perfect prediction impossible in principle, because of the infinite number of sides of the coin?
theinquisitor 4 years ago
Good questions. I'd say that "deterministic" requires some method of determining (and perhaps disagreement on the matter comes when people take this word "too far"). To use the coin with an infinite number of sides, we KNOW it's going to land -- it's just going to be hard to tell what side it's landed on. Without some clear idea of what is to be determined, how are we to say it was, indeed, determined? I think this idea goes far to explain why determinism seems to want to oversimplify.
azrienoch 4 years ago
If we have no method of determine it doesn't mean that universe is not determined. If mokey can't see it's cage from ouside it doesn't mean that cage not exist.
madeye0 4 years ago
Well said.
paralleldivergence 4 years ago
I'm not sure people take the word too far, the determinism in my AI notes is:
The next state of the environment is completely determined by the current state and the action
executed by the agent.
But: even if the world is deterministic but only partially
observable, then it may appear to be stochastic to the agent.
I think you need to separate 'determinable' from 'deterministic', they're different.
GirlyVoice 3 years ago
As expected, you still spoke far over my head, but I think I get the basics and thankyou, I feel much better, much more as though I do in fact have some control over my concsiousness, my choices and how my experiences inform those choices. At least I think thats what you said???
thequestionmarkofGod 4 years ago
Well i guess we really cant say the mind works in a Deterministic way for sure,because we have yet to unlock all the brains secrets,but that argument for freewill seems like the god of the gaps argument,because it heavily relies on the belief that we will never be able to find that Deterministic link in the brian.
worldlystone 4 years ago
I don't think so. Again, creation and discovery are odd phenomenons when you can only roughly repeat what you've done previously. But if we're going to treat it as a god-of-the-gaps argument, then determinism is simply an overstatement, an oversimplification, not acknowledging the gaps. (These "gaps", by the way, aren't fillable.)
azrienoch 4 years ago
I think you made a great point regarding the difference between seeing a pattern, and there being a pattern. How many people see a face on the Moon, or on Mars, or in marble tiles? That doesn't mean there actually is a face there, no matter how many people see it.
zorio 4 years ago
Pareidolia, is the name of this psychological phenomenon of seeing a pattern in a vague, random image. Apophenia is the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.
StevenErnest 4 years ago
Nicely said. I would like to follow this thread for a while. As you know, it's my current subject of interest and I hope I'll see you in a room somewhere without a lot of authoritative monologues and rhetorical posturing, where this is the subject, and the what ifs greatly outnumber the "this is how it iss". I'm off to find rabid apes contribution to the subject.
rUTokKIN2ME 4 years ago
Nice Vid. Would you mind making a short Vid on nitzsche and nihilism? I'd like to hear your opinion.
RavingJudas 4 years ago
Thanks.
I've done a number of those sorts of videos. "The Gay Science" is one off the top of my head. Look through my vids for words like meaning and absurd and you should find them.
azrienoch 4 years ago
Are you a fan of Albert Camus?
Mjhavok 4 years ago