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#1
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Lots of people ask me about this. Do humans have free will?
Well if you are going to discuss this question rigorously, it is imperative that you define what you mean by "free will" in very precise technical terms. On the other hand, even though it might be very difficult to come up with this technical, precise definition, the fact is that free will is a lot like what pornography was to that judge. "I know it when I see it". I'm pretty sure that I have the jist of a proof that free will exists. Intuitively I am almost certain of it. But to turn this general idea into a rigorous proof would probably require a Godel type logician. Mere hi fallooin philosophers are probably not smart enough. I might be able to do it myself but I have got a poker tournament to deal with. Anyway, it seems to me that somewhere out there in logicland, a proof of free will can be constructed from the simple fact that PEOPLE WONDER (AND DISCUSS) WHETHER THEY HAVE FREE WILL. If Bertrand Russel were alive, I am almost sure he could elaborate. |
#2
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nsfw
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#3
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Sort of like a "I think, there I am" notion.
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#4
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Claude Shannon, when asked if machines can think: "I'm a machine and you're a machine, and we both think, don't we?"
Optional starbird quote: "The difference between a human being, and, say, a dinner plate, is that the plate lacks the illusion of free will." |
#5
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Like you say, it all comes down do definitions. I personally think we are deterministic in a random environment. That is I think if you reproduced the universe exactly, down to quantum states that were collapsed into and not, you would get the same decision from a human every single time.
Starbird, I like that second quote a lot. |
#6
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i dissagree,
this is where free will comes into play. theres no way every action, thought would be the same. whats the point in that? the objective is to be creative. |
#7
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[ QUOTE ]
...if you reproduced the universe exactly, down to quantum states that were collapsed into and not, you would get the same decision from a human every single time. [/ QUOTE ] Thanks to mr. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, the quantum mechanics was born and the causal determinism theory died. Thanks to it, nothing can be reproduced exactly and I think that somewhere down its building blocks the free will itself is in debt to the same incredible, revolutionary assumption of this above-genius physician. I would even say that in the middle of that sklanskian logicland lays the same Uncertainty Principle. |
#8
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Yes, but even if the world is not deterministic, I think that still everything that happens, (including people's) actions is governed by the laws of physics, whether the particle is here or there, or in a probability cloud, it still is governed by something that we can't control (whether quantum physics apply or not).
I don't know much about quantum mechanics but I know they are really interesting and not always intuitive. Maybe you know something eye-opening that I don't know. |
#9
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[ QUOTE ]
Mere hi fallooin philosophers are probably not smart enough. I might be able to do it myself but I have got a poker tournament to deal with. [/ QUOTE ] Sklansky posts are starting to grow on me. |
#10
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[ QUOTE ]
I'm pretty sure that I have the jist of a proof that free will exists. Intuitively I am almost certain of it. [/ QUOTE ] well, just scribble in a margin somewhere. luckyme |
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