TV Show: “You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.”
Obamaland, 2012: “There is no such thing as a self-made man. Every businessman has used the vast American infrastructure, which the taxpayers paid for, to make his money. He did not make his money alone. He used taxpayer infrastructure. He got rich on what other taxpayers had paid for: the banking system, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and Commerce Departments, and the judicial system, where nine-tenths of cases involve corporate law. These taxpayer investments support companies and wealthy investors. There are no self-made men! The wealthy have gotten rich using what previous taxpayers have paid for. They owe the taxpayers of this country a great deal and should be paying it back.”
Sounds like the science is settled on free will.
Time to move it along now.
ET: But revnant dream – progressive collectivism, by its nature, rejects free will. It rejects the capacity of the individual to think, to reason, to dissent, to create
=====
ET: You use word “think”, “reason”, “dissent”.
What are those words really mean?
When you *think*, what really happen is that your brain is exchanging chemical message between neurons. Thinking is not some immaterial process that occur outside of the laws of physics.
All these exchanges of electrical flow between neurons are all regulated by laws, math, etc… a neuron cannot *decide* to send a message or not to another neurons. There is no choice.
This process is of course very complex and we cannot predict it with current technology.
Hence Free Will is an illusion.
This is very relevant to the original topic of this threat.
Free will?
Wasn’t that a movie about a killer whale? ( kidding of course! )
If you insist on believing there is no such thing as free will then that is fine by me… now STFU and pay your tuition!
Just watching Piers Morgan interviewing the Romney’s. Piers is a different man in England. However I was looking at Romney and thinking what kind of man he is, and the jive ass clown who he is opposing. How did the U.S. get to this point? Scary!
Commies hate free will.
ET
Thats what they want you to think ET. That all is meaningless because its just chemical organics. mean while they milk the cow in a forward way.
Ive heard this tripe in just about every form. From animals self sacrificing to allow greater genetic diversity to other fantasies. Its all part & parcel with a purely materialistic approach to matter being God the beginning of all.The reason is to justify any atrocity to humanity or individuals. To make atheism seem rational.
Its pretty obvious free will exists.
Any fool who fell in love knows it.
Its not all chemicals. People really do sacrifice themselves for others as the three fellows of the mass murder who died for girl friends proved.
To people who change their minds from one world view to another. To advertising. Frankly the way Women & men think differently, defies all ideas of a fixed mentality or genetic overdrive.
Theories are nice but reality is lived in. By there own thinking these folks didn’t originate this thinking, it was inevitable by genetic inclination.
I would respect your opinions, Quebeckercommie, but I’m just not able to and I have no choice in the matter.
Actually the private sector pretty much built this whole flippin thing. Mostly my ancestors. But that’s not important in this context. Until the late 60’s the leadership od the Democratic party understood that the business community drove the economy and they were along for the ride. Since then we have made two generations of people who don’t want to work. And people like Barrykins like that because he can give them food stamps and they’ll vote for him.
Que. Lack of free will has forced me to say you are in trouble mentally. I supposed my free will would allow me to disagree with myself, however I chose to have no choice. Both of me agree you are in trouble mentally.
Ahhh Quebecois NDP separatiste.
You are going out of your way to show money spent on your education has been completely wasted. Over qualified to work at McDonalds but a little short for a real job because your brain is a biological computer. Perhaps if you upgraded from DOS and manage to get to WIN 95 level, you would understand that all 3 words in your handle spell failure to compute and the rest of the country has rejected your modem as outdated and unworkable. All your soul brothers are enjoying themselves over at rabble.ca and you continue to pee into the wind at a grownups web site.
You say “Will (choice) simply doesn’t exist within the law of physics.”
Guess that means you are stuck on this site with a groundhog scenario of constant ridicule while all your like minded friends are having fun at rabble .ca Perhaps you can dig deep and at least change your handle so you don’t start every post sounding like a complete idiot. C’mon, try to find that will that the rest of these bloggers take for granted. Try harder….c’mon…….
As with most statist statements, the reality is the exact opposite of what they proclaim. All of the institutions named serve to inhibit progress rather than supporting it, especially the legal system. If the government is so helpful to business, why has most US manufacturing moved offshore?
There is a kernel of truth in there but it has to do with the fact that man is a time-binding animal. What we’ve inherited from our predecessors is a vast store of knowledge both practical and theoretical which allows us to do more and more as individuals find novel ways of making use of this storehouse of knowledge. Some animals build coral reefs but humans collect knowledge and the store of knowledge has been expanding for thousands of years.
The role of government in this process has been primarily disruptive. In 1776, a very novel approach to the problem of governance was taken when the US government of the time chose to let the people decide how to manage things on their own. The immense progress in the US was a direct consequence of the government staying out of things.
Throughout history it has been individuals who have been responsible for lightning advances: Galileo, Newton, Liebnitz, Planck, Einstein and Feynman in rough temporal order. What is possible depends on the status of the human store of knowledge at the time; Babbage was before his time when he attempted to make a computer in the 1800’s, but Turing and von Neumann happened to live at a time where there ideas could be put into immediate physical form, albeit crude by todays computing standards.
WRT QNS’s outdated rantings, the arguments date from the era of the Laplacian universe where, knowing the initial position of every atom in the universe then it’s future could be predicted as far into the future as one cared to calculate. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle was the first blow to this perfect deterministic model but strict determinists believed that they could still predict the state of macroscopic bodies interacting at non-relativistic speeds.
Then, chaos was discovered and the whole Laplacian clockwork universe was shown to be impossible. The future is unpredictable given the effects of deterministic chaos. This is especially significant in biologic systems where the only time one finds regularity is when the system is malfunctioning; chaos is the norm. Free will comes from the indeterminacy that deterministic chaos produces.
The process of logic cannot be measured by any physical instrument either, the standard by which quebecois apparently judges the world.
If it could, chances are he would barely move the needle.
Or, put another way … if clues were shoes, he’d be barefoot.
So taxes are a downpayment?? Don’t you just want to slash your wrists?
Chill out people … have some dog.
Quebecois NDP separatiste >
“All these exchanges of electrical flow between neurons are all regulated by laws, math, etc… a neuron cannot *decide* to send a message or not to another neurons.”
At first I thought you believed you were Napoleon Bonaparte. Now I see that you believe you are God.
Wow, did you actually come up with all that yourself, or did you read it in a book somewhere?
“Obama is repeating propaganda that was first used in public by Elizabeth Warren … which was taken by HER from commie radical George Lakoff from Berkeley university. …” said OMMAG
And if you look at a picture of George Lakoff you’ll realise he didn’t get to be that size on food he grew or caught himself. Somebody, actually a lot of people, have had to work to make him that big.
Methinks QNS is challenged when it comes to abstract concepts.
Highly intelligent, unable to process abstract concepts.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say there’s an evidentiary indication of ADD spectrum.
Folks:
The Quebebooisie is still under the thrall of Newtonian mechanics, just as most Marxists are still under the thrall of 19th century technology.
He understands nothing of quantum mechanics (which my pal, the Phantom, alluded to earlier). Even Einstein, quasi-athiest, once protested “Do you think God plays at dice?!” when confronted with quantum theory but even he acquiesced eventually. Anyone who’s read the “The Dancing Wu Li Masters” knows that the Chinese philosophers suspected this thousands of years ago.
Quebooboisie manifests the colossal ignorance of of the static mind. Like Marx, like Lenin, like Mao, his world view does not take into effect new technologies, or new theories. Listening to him is like listening to 50’s newspapermen predict the future of news, or 70’s broadcast newsmen predict the future of news, or 90’s cable newsmen predict the future of news.. does anyone else see a pattern here?
The Quebooboisie is a cultural anachronism, born of a backward province, with a backward view of history, and an inability to look forward. As a result, he’s either a harmless idiot to be ignored, or a defenseless tool to be toyed with, depending on your level of individual cruelty.
…Or the mean…if ya know what I mean…
I suspect the real purpose behind this paragraph is to obliterate the notion of TRADE.
An economy consists of acts of production, trade and consumption. One of its essential characteristics is the ability of each individual to use his own judgment regarding the value to himself of each produced item. Without this, the economy grinds to a halt.
It’s true that businessmen — as does everyone else — use infrastructure, but their own taxes helped pay for it. So to say, “The wealthy have gotten rich using what previous taxpayers have paid for. They owe the taxpayers of this country a great deal and should be paying it back” is a lie. The “wealthy” owe nothing back because their wealth comes from their own production and from trading with consumers. The Obama/Warren/Lakoff false statement is designed to appeal to the looters, who are stuck at an infantile level of relating to others and to material goods. A two-year-old child needs to have everything handed to him. An adult does not.
Note the attempt to demonize the “wealthy”. Substitute any minority group and the leftists are all over you (perhaps with justification at times since most discrimination is not rational). But apparently you can go after the wealthy or the businessman with impunity (ditto for Christians). The same bias is characteristic of Canada’s “human rights commissions”, and it helps explain why they are evil. It’s all part of the political correctness agenda, in which early 20th-century Marxists, puzzled as to why the working classes were not rising up to overthrow capitalism as their theory demanded (answer: they were making too much money and the standard of living was rising quickly), came up with the idea of utilizing minorities, immigrants and the underclass as a substitute working class for the same purpose.
The left likes to obliterate the notion of trade, in the hope of making people forget the truths of economics. Similarly it likes to obliterate the notion of merit. A third trick is to blur the distinction between voluntary and coerced. All these tactics are designed to push forward its own malevolent agenda.
Wait – we should give you more money because people now dead built something for themselves? Are you high?
What I find most hilarious about Obambam is his complete inability to have ORIGINAL THOUGHT. Like many if not most ‘academics’ he has read a book somewhere and consequently tries to adopt the thinking in the book into his own kaleidoscope of ideas. Unfortunately such closed thinking is incapable of embracing the subtleties of life and thus the speaker in this case Obambam comes across sounding like a bubble headed twit.
The opinions of someone like quebecois are what is known as ‘reductionism’. Very mechanical. He reduces all reality to the smallest material bits (atoms) and then considers that all interactions are mechanical, electromagnetic and ruled by such laws.
He knows nothing of quantum uncertainty – which uncertainty isn’t due to our ignorance – but to the fact that the particles are subject to a network of interactions and thus, their future path cannot be predicted.
And he knows nothing of complexity, which shows that when this ‘mass’ reaches a critical threshold, it becomes self-organized rather than externally organized. So, an animal is not operating merely as a mass of externally-ruled atoms but as a self-organized organism.
It also interesting that quebecois is unable to answer questions. When asked why, if he is a predetermined mass of atoms, he chose to reject his religion – he refuses to answer. But, his action shows that he is not a predetermined machine but can make choices. Heh.
Anyone who got rich used the infrastructure? Sure. And anyone who sits around watching TV and eating junk food bought with a government EBT card is using the exact same infrastructure. So what? It’s a trivial point and a non sequitur to demanding higher taxes.
If all the federal government did was infrastructure there would be little to complain about.
I agree with the other commenters: He’s forgetting the fact that the rich are also taxpayers and paid to create the system that they use. Is he saying that they don’t have a right to use the system they paid into creating?? That only poorer citizens have the right to use the infrastructure of a country even though the rich mostly paid to build it? That they have to somehow pay more than they already did (which is more than most)? Yeah, sounds like a bonny good idea to me. What an idiot.
James Taggart now runs Wall street
Bertram Scudder owns the MSM
Balph Eubank runs the national arts council
Dr. Floyd Ferris runs the national science achademy
– and Wesley Mouch is in the White House
John Galt’s time has come.
ET:
First, yes I am a reductionist, I believe reductionism is true. If you want to understand the whole, then you need to understand the part. The whole is just a high level manifestation of the sum of the parts.
Second, I know about quantum uncertainty. You really believe Free Will comes from quantum uncertainty? As a matter of fact, I believe the uncertainty is there because we haven’t fully understood all of physics. When we fully understand we’ll be able to know where the “uncertainty” come from. I doubt the universe is random. It might be, but I doubt it.
Third, no I do not have Free Will. I didn’t really choice to reject Catholicism. It is part of my chemistry.
“Third, no I do not have Free Will. I didn’t really choice to reject Catholicism. It is part of my chemistry”
So you don’t choose to come here and get hammered almost daily – it’s just part of your chemistry. And it’s just other’s chemistries that make them argue with you. I’d ask “what’s the point?” and just put down the laptop but I guess it’s just not in my chemistry to do so.
There’s no way to prove either side in this, but if there is no free will we have a damned good approximation and I certainly feel like I *could* put down the laptop right now.
The sad part is that you have the choice to believe you have free will or to believe you don’t. Does anyone find it odd that someone who feels like they don’t make their own choices is so willing to let the government make their choices for them?
Steven Burton: You can also choose to believe that the earth is flat.
That doesn’t make the earth flat.
no, quebecois, free will doesn’t come from quantum uncertainty. QU is an example of randomness, of chance, rather than necessity. The reason chance exists is because the interactions of mass at the quantum level are so numerous and nonlinear that there is no certainty as to which input will affect an output. You can only be certain in linear interactions. Not in non-linear ones.
And no, your claim that there is no uncertainty only ignorance ignores that networked interactions are non-linear. Certainly applies only to the linear world.
Free will is due to the capacity for reflective analysis of input data. This reflexive analysis is the opposite of mechanical linear reaction and enables the organism to self-organize its output and make constructive decisions about its future. Should the Founders of the US speak out against repression or remain silent; should Rosa refuse to give up her seat on the bus or go to the back?
You reject that you have the capacity for reflection, for analysis; that is, for thought. You are merely a programmed mechanical robot. Now, can you explain why you, as a robot, have certain ‘output’ or opinions, and other people, whom I presume you also consider mechanical automons, have different opinions? Is it all preprogrammed? Who programs human beings? And why?
ET/ QNS >
“This reflexive analysis is the opposite of mechanical linear reaction and enables the organism to self-organize its output and make constructive decisions about its future”
And what are the odds that this evolution to reflective analysis would happen; let’s say from the creation of elemental mass & space from absolute nothingness?
What is outstanding hypocrisy with Atheists to me as an Agnostic are the absolutes based entirely on conjecture and theory coupled with an admitted ignorance of the whole universal picture.
QNS is an example of an intellectual parrot, repeating every crackpot theory he’s heard on Utube or read in a pseudo science book. If it feels right, it must be so.
ET does seem to raise a level above that by entertaining mainstream scientific theories, crackpot or otherwise.
Either way, without any absolute proof of anything but a few pieces of the universal puzzle they have apparently an independently determined that the science is settled on Free Will and Thought. An amazing amount of hubris nonetheless.
“Steven Burton: You can also choose to believe that the earth is flat.
That doesn’t make the earth flat.”
No it’s not the same thing at all. It’s actually a very unique thought exercise, I doubt it applies to any other subject ever. You can choose to believe in free will, or you can choose not to believe in free will. You chose not to, based on half decent evidence in biology and chemistry which says to you it’s all chemical reactions. You will argue the point based on the words “you chose” but I don’t think the words exist to argue against your point. You apparently believe all history down to the very thoughts we have is predetermined so there’s no “winning” this argument with you. I just think it’s very sad.
knight 99 – I don’t understand your point.
Are you arguing that free will does not exist?
That would seem to me to be a weak argument since all evidence shows that we humans are quite capable of choice. Our laws, after all, are based on that assumption, as are our basic moral values.
Or are you focusing on the cause, the origin, of free will and claim that we don’t know that origin?
You talk about the ‘odds’ of reflexive analysis emerging. I’d say that they are pretty strong for one thing we know about energy is that it entropically dissipates unless it is continuously organized into mass – and complex organisms organized energy to mass far more efficiently and with less dissipation that simple material forms. So a system that can maintain itself as that organism is more robust as a ‘mass’ than one that falls apart as soon as the wind touches it.
What does atheism or agnosticism have to do with the reality of free will?
And which ‘mainstream scientific theories’ that I refer to are, in your view, crackpot?
lol what does any of it have to do with the OP?
Sadly, all this thread reminded me of is that in the books there was this utopian communist race (the Caelar) that after encountering American type humans (from the “Enterprise” time frame) formed the borg way in the past. They’ve all since rejoined that wonderful communist utopia. Not before giving Deanna Troi the body of someone 10 years younger. Not sure where I’m going with this. I guess the only cure for big government is more government? Not sure if the authors meant it that way, and I didn’t even think of it that way until today, but it’s sorta the message there.
ET >
I do believe free will exists. It’s the mechanics and origin of free will that I’ve put to question.
“What does atheism or agnosticism have to do with the reality of free will?” – ET
The Atheistic viewpoints of both yourself and QNS attempt to explain free will and thought purely from a current scientific perspective and dismiss the possibility of a greater consciousness that may or may not drive or have put into motion thought and free will.
I do understand that it is not provable with our current knowledge, but it should not be dismissed outright especially when our current understanding of the universal clockworks is also mostly theory.
In a nutshell I am not claiming free will does not exist, I’m criticizing the certain claim that free will is purely a chemical neurological affect brought on by necessity via evolution. The claim in effect means that free will is not really free will but a predetermined or unavoidable process of evolution void of anything that is not material.
Even from a purely evolutionary process we could hypothetically continue to evolve and eventually become limitless consciousness capable of creation. Why could this have not happened before? Why not in another universe or dimension perhaps?
The theories of parallel universes, the omniverse, multiple dimensions, etcetera if true make everything and anything possible, including creation and or a guiding force for humanity in the universe. Simply the abstract physics and time dilation involved is well beyond our current comprehension and excludes certainties or absolutes.
Knight 99 – ah, now I see what you are talking about.
After all, I think we have to acknowledge that free will exists. The fact that we have laws, a legal system, a constitution, a political system- these are all based on an acceptance of the reality of choice, ie, free will.
As for its origin, please don’t align me with the simplistic reductionism of quebecois. He rejects complexity, rejects complex adaptive systems, and considers that our world is merely a mechanical composite of atomic particles that interact according to electromagnetic laws. He’s quite the robot.
I consider that mass organizes itself in a more complex manner by means of evolution, such that self-organization emerges and therein, reason, symbolism, referencing and the option of choice etc emerges. I certainly don’t reduce the emergence of choice, ie free will, to any physical determinism.
What developed, and we can’t deny this development, is the action of reasoning. Reasoning is not reducible to matter, ie, to neurological impulses because it makes use of signs, either indexical or symbolic. We can think about the wisdom of confronting that lion without actually doing it.
Yes, I do reject any possibility of a ‘greater consciousness’ because I reject Platonism, ie, I reject the notion of some abstract non-physical force that exists on its own (how?) outside of mass. I’m an Aristotelian; form exists within matter. Never just by itself.
Therefore I reject your hypothesis of evolving into a ‘limitless consciousness’. That would mean that we’d be pure form without matter. My view rejects this as impossible.
ET >
“…..please don’t align me with the simplistic reductionism of quebecois”
Oh I’d never be so cruel. I made and meant a clear distinction between your arguments.
“Therefore I reject your hypothesis of evolving into a ‘limitless consciousness’” – ET
Ok.
Glad you caught on to my intent. It wasn’t meant to sell, it was meant to open a broader perspective on the subject, shades of grey instead of black & midnight.
ET: read Sam Harris’s Free Will.
http://www.amazon.ca/Free-Will-Sam-Harris/dp/1451683405
Sam Harris is very good when he talks about science.
But an idiot when he talks politics.
quebecois – no thanks. I choose not to read it.
Oh, and he’s confusing consciousness with free will. The fact that there is, according to Libet, a 5 second delayed consciousness of one’s choice (you can see this at intersections when the light turns green) does not mean that the individual did not freely make the choice to move forward.
I don’t know about anyone else but I find two atheists arguing about the existence of free will absolutely hilarious. Kinda like Curly from The Three Stooges debating Foghorn Leghorn.
By that logic, politicians owe us everything, since they produce nothing and gum up the works for those who do.