This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The fact that we can make more humans does not demonstrate that humans are deterministic machines, or that we can make a human-equivalent deterministic machine.
Based on what direct evidence? This is not an abstract, unfalsifiable question by default. If what I am going to choose is predetermined, you could demonstrate that by successfully predicting what I will do next to an arbitrary degree of precision, or by demonstrating arbitrary control over my decision-making through some form of mechanistic tampering with my inputs. Only, neither you nor anyone else can do either to any significant degree, and in fact the above statement makes no testable predictions, nor is based on any testable predictions. Worse, multiple generations of scientists have previously claimed to be able to do exactly that, and have observably failed. You are repeating their claims, modified only to the extent that you carefully avoid any claim that could be tested empirically under current conditions.
The only reason my choices "can't" be free is because them being free would contradict materialism. Only, I can directly observe my choices, and they do in fact appear to be free, and the apparent fact that they are free has material consequences that can be measured and observed in the real world. Your just-so story about how they only "appear" to be free in every single observable way is precisely analogous to Sagan's invisible dragon.
By focusing my will, determining the action I wish to take, and then following through on it, despite incentives to do otherwise. I can directly observe every part of this process, as can you. I can embrace unthinking habit and instinctive responses, or I can cultivate my will and consciousness of choice, as can you. This experience of exercising the will could indeed all be an illusion, but if it is, no evidence of it being so has ever been presented.
I reiterate: your belief in Determinism is not based on evidence of Determinism itself, because such evidence does not exist. You believe that our minds are deterministic and that the evidence of free will you have directly observed every minute of every day of your entire life must be an illusion, because if it is not, then it implies that Materialism is wrong, and you are committed on a pre-rational basis to Materialism. Yours is an argument from logical inference, dependent on logical axioms, not a position derived at from direct observation of facts on the object level. And this is normal, because all human beliefs are derived in exactly this way.
What determines what you will or what action you chose? Unless you're flipping a coin you're always going to chose it based on who you are genetically and your interaction with the universe up to this point. That is it. Those are the only inputs. There isn't any other option. There is no such thing as free will because there literally can't be.
All direct evidence available to me indicates that I determine what actions I choose, through an exercise of non-deterministic free will.
Genetics determinism should be considered a subset of physics-based determinism, but it hardly matters because there is no evidence to support either. You can sequence someone's genome and measure their environment, and you still can't predict or manipulate their thoughts or behavior with any appreciable degree of accuracy.
...Unless we accept that Materialism appears to be wrong in this case.
...Unless we accept that Materialism appears to be wrong in this case. You are demonstrating the nature of axiomatic thinking perfectly. You are not providing direct evidence of Determinism, you are simply repeating that a commitment to Materialism demands that one accept Determinism, despite all evidence to the contrary. And that is my entire point.
"All direct evidence available to me indicates that I determine what actions I choose, through an exercise of non-deterministic free will."
What does this mean? How can you exercise "non-deterministic free will"? Are you just flipping coins all day? Even those would be predetermined to land a certain way.
The laws of the universe are deterministic at the scale humans operate on. If by some weird twist of fate they aren't. It is random, in which case you're not making any choices either.
There is no scenario in which "free will" could ever even be a thing.
It is a physical and even metaphysical impossibility. What would be the weird thing floating outside of you making the decisions? Why would it make them the way it did? If it makes them based on any rules or information or past history then it isn't free will anymore. "Free will" isn't a thing.
The ancients were 100% correct. It is all fate.
It means that when a computer does something wrong, we yell at the person who programmed it, and when a machine does something wrong, we yell at the person operating it, but when a person does something wrong, we yell at that person in particular. This is how it works in every facet of human interaction, and for the obvious reason that doing otherwise doesn't work.
More specifically, it means that I am conscious, that I can direct my conscious experience through choices with apparent total freedom. I can think about what I want to think about. I can not want to think about things for a set of reasons, and want to think about them for another set of reasons, and make a decision about what to do. It means I can decide whether to get up in the morning or sleep in, decide what to eat, what to drink, what to do, who to talk to, what words to say. It means I can compose this post to you by choosing each word, based on the message I wish to convey. These conscious experiences of free will are notably distinct from non-conscious impulses, itches, sensations, etc, and can with effort directly override the later. One can choose to suppress the response to and experience of severe pain, for example, through the direct application of one's will.
They observably are for all inert matter. They ought to be for human minds, if Materialism is true. They do not appear to be, if our internal experience is to be believed, which is why this has been a hotly-debated topic for decades even when very nearly everyone involved in the debate very much wants the same answer. The problem is that the evidence we actually have flatly contradicts that answer.
Well, the Christians could be right, and humans could be an immortal soul housed within a material body, not subject to the deterministic rules of the temporary physical universe. Alternatively, we could be living in a simulation, our understanding of causality and material reality could be based not on baseline reality, but on the simulation's own arbitrary-though-internally-consistent code, while our free will could come from a separate module that runs on different principles. So that's two scenarios where free will could ever even be a thing.
But the point remains that you simply repeating yourself: free will can't exist because it breaks Materialism. This does not change the fact that all the direct evidence indicates that free will does in fact appear to exist. All your arguments to the contrary are inferential, not direct. If I want to prove that a machine is deterministic, I show you how the gears work. If I want to prove that a computer is deterministic, I show you how the circuits work. The human mind from the inside does not appear to be gears and circuits at all. It's possible that appearances are deceiving, but "possible" and "proven" should be distinct concepts.
How so? Is there any answer that doesn't amount to "because Materialism demands it be so"?
These are all things you were already going to do exactly that way based on the billions of years that came before YOU. What makes you make those choices? Your mind, which is a result of genetics and the impact of the material world on that genetically distinct mind. You've never had a moment of free will, nor have I, and we never will. If you believe in chemical reactions or electricity or gravity...free will can't exist.
P.S. is your religiosity argument really based on simulation theory?
Okay. Please demonstrate that this is true by making a testable, falsifiable prediction about the behavior of another human, with enough specificity to clearly distinguish between the two models.
Alternatively, I can believe in chemical reactions, electricity, and gravity, and note that our understandings of these a) do not appear to be complete, b) do not seem likely to be made complete in the future, and c) do not have anything useful to say about human behavior. If human brains actually worked like clockwork and could be manipulated like clockwork, I would agree that they seem to be clockwork. But they don't, so I don't. Instead, when the theory and the actionable observations of reality appear to contradict each other, I go with the actionable observations. Why should I do otherwise? What does "assume that determinism is true, despite it appearing in every testable way that it's false" add to my thinking? Does it help me make better circuit boards or chip designs?
Not particularly. Both Christianity and Simulation theory posit that observable reality is not baseline reality. I think the apparent existence of entropy and the apparent existence of free will are two solid indications that observable reality is not, in fact, baseline reality, and that the nature of baseline reality is probably not accessible to us under present conditions.
Yes it does. If natural laws don't work and time isn't real and consequences don't follow actions... then yeah...you can't make computer chips.
If they aren't real at all, that would follow.
If they aren't universal constants in areas having nothing to do with computer chips, it doesn't follow.
Materialism's core claim is that all matter works according to the same principles, and so you can't claim exceptions in one area. Yudkowski's Universal Fire is as good a formulation of this claim as any.
This is the basic argument you are making, yes?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link