Hard Determinism

[Tanker]

In a world where an electron could potentially be in every point in the universe at any one time...


(insert favorite carl sagan quote here)

We are like machines, but we have fuzzy bits.

weirdest post ever

I agree with AIP. if you understand the reference it makes perfect sence.

[Miss Anthrope]

Unfortunately it's not weird. Read physics.

Speaking of that, I read QED. Got a little befuddled by all the "arrow" stuff and numbers, especially the parts taht went on for pages (never been good with that stuff, unless I REALLY focus and keep re-reading), but Feynman's good enough at communicating the concepts anyway, so I learned a lot more about the weird properties of photons and electrons (I've been aware of that stuff on a rudimentary level and always thought it was bizarre, but after QED I realize it's even more bizarre than I already thought possible) and learned a bunch of things that I always wondered about (like the "rainbow" effect on oil). But moreso, I think it made me realize how much I don't know. I kind of wish I had the mind for physics, it's so awe-inspiring. I can't even look at my desk lamp the same way, it just sits there, silently mocking me with its glowing mysteries.

One part of the book actually creeped me out a little, the part where he says that it seems like nature just does one thing and just does that over and over. Back when i was about 20 I tried hash with a friend of mine and despite having no significant knowledge of physics, i started going into deep thought about reality complimeted by that typical "wow, everything is so significant" kind of feeling, and I guess I couldn't wrap my mind around the level of reality I experienced, eh, hard to explain exactly what I was thinking, does "mind wide open" make any sense? Anyway, the thought popped into my head, "It's just one thing, the same thing is happening all over." Without trying to claim to be a genius or anything, and I'm certainly not trying to claim any kind of psychic powers, I think it's kind of cool that through some sort of subconscious method I had come to the same revelation about reality/nature (or maybe, based on my lack of knowledge, it was just a meaningless thought; that's just as possible. Still thought provoking, though).

Good recommendation! Now I wish we had an equal amount of information about the other extreme, the macro-universe, like what might be outside the hypothetical "edge" of the universe or whatever, so that I could blow my mind in "both directions" (though some of projected numbers about the size of the universe are pretty mind blowing themselves, virtually unfathomable to the point of absurdity).

[AlP]

Ha ha, I remember I had the "there's only one particle" idea when I was a kid. I wrote it down in one of my school books and my peers, on discovering my ramblings, mocked me for a considerable time. Glad you liked the book.

Edit:

Now I wish we had an equal amount of information about the other extreme, the macro-universe, like what might be outside the hypothetical "edge" of the universe or whatever, so that I could blow my mind in "both directions"

You've seen Carl Sagan's Cosmos series I hope? =)

[brekfustuvluzerz]

Unfortunately it's not weird. Read physics.

ha, no i understand the quantum physics reference, i just couldnt make sense of the post overall as far as the carl sagan quote thing (was that a reference to my sig?) or the machines with "fuzzy bits"

[brekfustuvluzerz]

good reply, and i agree that your sentiments are different from the ones i listed, what you said just reminded me of the same desire to not consider the difficult truth. the reason i find hard determinism to be likely is that in my own personal experience, i find that i am always doing the best i possibly can for myself. this is hard to explain, but i'll try. every decision that i make i feel i can trace back to a few main reasons that moved me to make that choice. for example, last night i stayed out with some friends a little too late and drank a little too much. when i crawled into bed i told myself that i was going to work, regardless of how tired/hung over i was. so this morning the alarm goes off and i sit up in bed and quickly decide that i am not going to work,

No, what you say does make sense, and bear in mind that I'm not out to try and falsify hard determinism. Thanks for explaining things a little more, becasue I was originally a little insulted, partly my fault for using the hyperbolic humor. While I doubt I would want to "roll over and die", I have considered the difficult truth, and I find it very rather depressing. My major concern about such a thing becoming fact is very related to ethics, and whether or not the human race would actually make the necessary adjustments to the way we treat criminals and each other based on such knowledge. There is enough inhumane treatment already, so to be forced with the knowledge that all criminals are just innocent conscious entities trapped inside of a faulty piece of hardware is very much to me like imprisoning a young child. The only justification for it would be from a utilitarian POV, in which case I'd probably become an uber-misanthrope/radical becasue I would not want to be complicit in a society that willingly allows such a degree of inhumane treatment simply for the benefit of themselves even though they acknowledge that the criminals are fundamentally innocent...so basically, there would be no difference between criminal and law-abiding citizen.
Now if real ethics won out and it was decided that criminals must undergo intensive rehabilitation and could be introduced back into society "guilt-free", that would be a different story and I could really be proud of humanity...but personally, I think the utilitarian approach would win out.

Again, what you describe makes sense, and i agree with those aspects of your observations. I don't believe that I can choose to harm a person for no reason. This is why I'm "inbetween" hard and soft determinsim. Like you, I notice that most of the things I do are sort of automatic, to a degree that I believe that any free-will we have is extremely limited, perhaps limited to "little windows". I also think that (and for some reason my mind is kind of relating what I'm about to say to what Heretical Rants wrote about being "fuzzy") we have the greatest control over our thoughts (if there's anytime I feel the most in control it's when my mind is being bombarded with thoughts and I suddenly decide to stop them). Maybe that's illusory, who knows, but if it isn't, I believe it can be connected to a sort of external exercising of free-will. For instance (and this is going to be an extremely rudimentary thought experiment of what would defintily be an extremely ridiculous and convoluted thing to do), say I think "What if I wanted to decide to kill my mother. I can't do that, I don't want to. I would have to almost program myself to do such a thing." So, this absurd version of me starts employing mental gymanstics over a long period of time so that I reach a point in which I'm obsessed with killing my mother, and thus I do. Now, of course, it could be argued that HD is still possibel and that all of that was inevitable anyway; i.e. I don't use such a thought experiment to disprove HD in any way, but just to illustrate a type of free-will we might have. To come back away from thought experiment land, and back to real life implications, it doesn't do me much good to not believe that I have some degree of choice. For instance, if I choose to play videogames rather than get work done, and later while lamenting my bad decision, I feel as though i have a choice to believe that I can either pat myself on the back and think "it's OK, you had no choice, it was just your fate" or believe that I'm a goddamn idiot and rightly bombard myself with mental punishment so that I get back on track. My self-discipline is very much based on wheter not I can blame myself, because I can be  adversely opportunistic if I'm capable of finding an "out"; might be related to my almost all-encompassing "agnostic" way of thinking: the middle  can be a very convenient place to be. this also might be why I'm kind of the opposite of you as far as my behavior: I often go through lengthy "consideration" periods (like in a case like the one you described about going to work) with no real consistent standard in how I make my decisions, and because of this I can be very erratic. This makes me feel like I'm always making my own choices.

So yeah, while I wouldn't just give up on life, I think HD as a fact would have very negative affects on many aspects of my life, and many other people as well. i'm all for scientific progress, but not just for the sake of progress, so HD might be one of those things best ignored since a belief in some degree of control over one's life is a beneficial trait.  And from an ethical POV, if society didn't adjust itself to accomodate such knowledge I would be extremely depressed (might sound odd from a self-professed misanthrope, but understand that my misanthropy stems from a sympathetic outlook, not a simple bitter "screw everyone" attitude because of stupid petty social injustices expereinced in high school and other such things; I actually like people very much, just not as a whole or group. One example: mob mentality.)

i literally agree with every word you said, except that i think my "control" of my thought may also be determined, even if i can't say how. as far as the part about feeling insulted, please don't. i did not mean to lump you in with that fundamentalist mentality, although it does read that way now that i look at it. i have read enough of your posts to know that i really respect your thoughts on this forum. there are a handful of people here who i make sure to read their post (even if i am not interested in the topic) and you are one of them. [/asskissing]

[Miss Anthrope]

i literally agree with every word you said, except that i think my "control" of my thought may also be determined, even if i can't say how. as far as the part about feeling insulted, please don't. i did not mean to lump you in with that fundamentalist mentality, although it does read that way now that i look at it. i have read enough of your posts to know that i really respect your thoughts on this forum. there are a handful of people here who i make sure to read their post (even if i am not interested in the topic) and you are one of them. [/asskissing]

No worries, I wasn't too insulted. I always try to keep in mind that with written discussion, "tone" is hard to convery, so if something seems like it might have a negative tone, I read while imaging someone saying it during a discussion/argument, and what you wrote, though the comparison was a little iffy, didn't get me worked up or anything. We're cool,  and we never weren't  

Ha ha, I remember I had the "there's only one particle" idea when I was a kid. I wrote it down in one of my school books and my peers, on discovering my ramblings, mocked me for a considerable time. Glad you liked the book.

You mean like there's just one particle, and reality is just the result of it being in a certain amount of places at any given time (or something like that)? Pretty "out of the box" thinking for a kid! You know, I think I actually read something like that once, I just can't remember where  or much about it (i think the reasoning behind it was over my head so I didn't really absorb it).

[AlP]

Ha ha, I remember I had the "there's only one particle" idea when I was a kid. I wrote it down in one of my school books and my peers, on discovering my ramblings, mocked me for a considerable time. Glad you liked the book.

You mean like there's just one particle, and reality is just the result of it being in a certain amount of places at any given time (or something like that)? Pretty "out of the box" thinking for a kid! You know, I think I actually read something like that once, I just can't remember where  or much about it (i think the reasoning behind it was over my head so I didn't really absorb it).

Yeah that was my stupid idea. I had just learned about the atom. Must have been 13 or so. I've always been creative =).

John Wheeler called Feynman late one night with an idea about there being a single electron that travels backward and forward in time, thereby appearing to be in several places simultaneously. I think I read that in QED!