Evolutionists, arguing for their own imprisonment?

[Azdgari]

^^ It can feel all angsty, like you can't do anything even though you clearly can.

Or, it can feel just like belief in free will does.  It depends on what you've trained yourself to feel like.

[Gill]

I don't believe it possible to train ones self to feel like they don't have free-will. 

Since, all people have an identity, which corresponds to a sense of agency.  And people begin to develop this from a very young age before they even know concepts such as free-will and determinism.  So then , it would seem an intuitive sense to begin to develop an identity.

If a baby recognizes the sense of hunger to intuitively tell them the truth that they must eat, then that sense is telling them an objective reality.  So then , the baby having also an intuitive sense to develop an identity,  could also be a sense which is informing them of an objective reality, could it not....

[Azdgari]

I don't believe it possible to train ones self to feel like they don't have free-will.

Cool.  That's the exact opposite of what I described anyway.

[Gnu Ordure]

Azd, it's 3:45am, so I gotta go.

Clarify for me, though. You say that dloubet's and my view are incoherent. I'll disagree with you on that later, but what exactly is your view?

Can you state it in a couple of sentences?

I've been responding to your statement in this post;

^^ And there are those of us who believe in free-will as a subjective, experiential truth - ie. a truth about our experience[1] - without believing it to be a physical fact.  Like me.   

1.	And since our sense of self is subjective and experiential, that's no big deal.  It's true about the part of us that cares - about the perspective itself.

How is that different to Denis's position?  - "believing that reality is deterministic while pretending we have free will", as you put it.

[Gill]

Ok. So is it the determinist's  position then that all humans intuitively develop a false sense of agency from the time they are babies? 

No, they develop senses which tell them something directly about reality, before they can even form abstract ideas, therefore, as the sense of hunger is information about reality, so is the sense of self-agency....

[Azdgari]

First of all, in practice, there's very little difference between your approach, my approach, and his approach.  As for what my approach actually is:

1. I believe that all of reality is physically deterministic.[1]

2. The emotions one experiences[2] when one thinks of one's self as having free will are essential to functioning as a human being.  The absence of the emotions one experiences[3] when thinking of one's self as lacking free will is similarly essential.

3. Those emotions are not rational.  They are arbitrary outcomes of our biology.  I've had some success conditioning myself to feel the reverse of what I described; full success would almost completely solve the problems with adopting a deterministic outlook.

4. To completely solve the problems you've brought up[4], we also must understand concepts like "responsibility" in such a way that they make sense from a deterministic perspective.  I think I've succeeded at this, and am open to discussing it further.  The problem is akin to that of a theist who becomes an atheist but retains their belief that without a god, we have no morality.  A different moral paradigm is needed for that person, since they have only "half-way" abandoned their theism.

Does that help, Gnu?

1.	Aside from quantum randomness, perhaps.  But that's not really relevant to the "free will" topic.  It all rounds out deterministically anyway.
2.	Initially, I mean, without thinking about it or conditioning one's self any differently.
3.	Again, initially, as above.
4.	And which I acknowledge to be valid.

[Azdgari]

Ok. So is it the determinist's  position then that all humans intuitively develop a false sense of agency from the time they are babies?

Not everything about it is false, but yes, the feeling tends to lead us to false conclusions.  It's not the only sense that does that sort of thing, you know.

No, they develop senses which tell them something directly about reality, before they can even form abstract ideas, therefore, as the sense of hunger is information about reality, so is the sense of self-agency....

Both can give information about reality.  Both are prone to misinterpretation.  Refraining from thinking about our innate senses critically is a really good way of promoting misinterpretation.

EDIT:  To be clear, I've stated this determinist's position.  I havn't stated "the" determinist's position, because no such position exists, beyond the idea that the universe is deterministic.  Nor does "the" free-willer's position exist, beyond the belief that humans have uncaused agency.

[kin hell]

I grew up believing I had free will.

Not from intellectually inspecting it, but from how life experience felt.

Then (from what ever intellectual trigger), I came to an understanding that my sense of free will is an illusion.

That understanding did not change a thing for me experientially.
It became a stored "filter of correction" that I rarely ever bother to even look through apart from these discussions of this very topic.

Why do I not bother to intellectually apply and maintain the filter of knowledge as a default state?

Because it makes no experiential difference.
Even with the default "knowledgeable" state applied, I would still be required to live my life in exactly the same way unless I wanted to just give up completely.

It's like the theist nightmare that if there is no god there is no point to life. Well be buggered, (ignoring the godstuff) ain't that an accurate appraisal? Yet many atheists will say that even though there is no discernible "point" to life, life in itself is worth living (depending on many variables).

If I have the choice of living as capable of freewill, or living as aware there is no freewill (but incapable of experiencing any difference apart from awareness of the deliberately applied filter of correction)
...and in both states can feel no apparent difference, why then would I bother to put the required effort into permanently reminding myself of the "knowledge" when apart from intellectually,  ........that "knowledge" is effect-less.

[Add Homonym]

Ok. So is it the determinist's  position then that all humans intuitively develop a false sense of agency from the time they are babies? 

No, they develop senses which tell them something directly about reality, before they can even form abstract ideas, therefore, as the sense of hunger is information about reality, so is the sense of self-agency....

I think you are outsmarting yourself. Developing a sense that you were not in control, would be pointless, and demoralizing.

[Azdgari]

^^ Besides which, "you" are in control, from the determinist perspective.  This is because the concept of "you" is defined as being comprised of the control mechanism of your body:  Your brain and all that.

[Samothec]

This may annoy some people but I need to address this point: quanta of light have no mass. The time dilation aspect of relativity applies to mass. This is a crucial distinction that Gill didn't (still doesn't?) understand. Thus the misconception about light being "timeless" - not at all true. Light's natural state is to travel at c so nothing needs to act upon it to "accelerate" it back up to c; the only necessary event is the removal of the force (or matter) slowing the light.

I dispute the implication that determinism is needed for people to accept responsibility for themselves. For example, Gill's very repulsive attribution of consciousness/will to the laws of physics earlier in this thread goaded me into my very first smiting. And further posts by him severely tempted me to do several more smitings but I didn't think it right for someone as new as I am to do more than one smiting already. Do I feel I had the free will to smite him? Yes. Was it the right thing to do? Well, I'm still up in the air about that since he yammered on in a science field he does not understand and tried to pervert it into a link to mystical stuff (via the twisted "timeless" junk).

I do know from personal experience that I (we?) are heavily subject to our biochemistry. But I haven't come around to the deterministic way of thinking yet - as far as I understand it.

[screwtape]

I hate free will discussions.

Getting semi-off-topic for a second here: What force acts on photons to get them "back" to c?

Presumably, that of the electron that repels it from the refracting medium.

Or you have to switch to the light-as-wave model for it to make sense.  The energy a light wave spends going through sodium is much greater than going through air, so it propagates more slowly.  When the wave exits into a medium that requires less energy, it resumes its original speed.

Not being a particle physics guy, that would be a poorly educated guess.

[One Above All]

<snip>
Not being a particle physics guy, that would be a poorly educated guess.

Not from where I'm standing[1]. It makes sense, IMO. After all, photons are pure energy (in the sense that they're massless).

1.	Note: I'm not standing at all.

[monkeymind]

This is what I am talking about. Does this make sense to anyone?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon

In physics, a photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force.

Kewl so far...

a single photon always has momentum

So it keeps going

 

According to our present understanding, the electromagnetic field itself is produced by photons, which in turn result from a local gauge symmetry and the laws of quantum field theory (see the Second quantization and Gauge boson sections below).

WTF?

[Anfauglir]

(Babies) develop senses which tell them something directly about reality, before they can even form abstract ideas, therefore, as the sense of hunger is information about reality, so is the sense of self-agency....

It actually takes quite some time before the sense of "self" develops in babies, at least according to the psychological studying I've done.  You'd need to show that a sense of self-agency is present well before abstract ideas (or language skills, come to that) for your point to have any foundation.  I'll look forward to you presenting your evidence for your claim.

And as regards "senses telling you about reality"......how many of these do you recognise?

You think you feel tired.  Then you eat something and stop feeling tired.  Apparently you were hungry, not tired.

You feel very stable emotionally.  Then someone says something in passing that makes you very angry, or upset.  Maybe you weren't as emotionally stable as you thought?

You see a friend in front of you, and call out....to a total stranger.  The person you were sure was someone you know well turned out to be someone different.

Siting on a train in a station, you think you start to move.  But you aren't - it was the train moving the other way that was actually moving.

Point being.....its very, very easy for our "senses" to thoroughly misinform us about the nature of "reality" - even when that reality is physically solid and right in our faces.  To use them as an basis for claims about something immaterial and ethereal.....well, lets just say I'd use a hell of a lot more caution in my approach.

[Gill]

" Light travels at the standard speed of light until interacting with another atom. It is absorbed and emitted, causing another slight delay. The average effect is taking more time to travel a meter through glass than through air. This works like a slower speed. An individual photon does not actually slow down. It gets delayed repeatedly by the atoms of the medium. A more dense medium has more atoms per meter to cause delays."

-Dr. Ken Mellendorf ,Physics Instructor

So then my statement is correct, although admittedly could have been better stated, that there is no deceleration of light, even though it could be thought of as 'slowing down' through a substance since the light will be delayed by interacting with a substance unlike a vacuum. Yet, remove the substance, and light is instantaneously at c again.  So it never wasn't at c, in terms of instantaneous speed.

[Gill]

Ok. So is it the determinist's  position then that all humans intuitively develop a false sense of agency from the time they are babies? 

No, they develop senses which tell them something directly about reality, before they can even form abstract ideas, therefore, as the sense of hunger is information about reality, so is the sense of self-agency....

I think you are outsmarting yourself. Developing a sense that you were not in control, would be pointless, and demoralizing.

It would be pointless because it would have no bearing on reality.  Just like a plant developing the sense of hunger.  People developed the sense of agency, because they do have a degree of control.

[Gill]

This may annoy some people but I need to address this point: quanta of light have no mass. The time dilation aspect of relativity applies to mass. This is a crucial distinction that Gill didn't (still doesn't?) understand. Thus the misconception about light being "timeless" - not at all true. Light's natural state is to travel at c so nothing needs to act upon it to "accelerate" it back up to c; the only necessary event is the removal of the force (or matter) slowing the light.

So do you think light ages?    It's the same light that was present since the big bang.   That's my whole overall point, it's timeless, because it doesn't age.   And if someone where to 'catch up' to a light beam, there would be no experience of a time dimension.

[Gill]

(Babies) develop senses which tell them something directly about reality, before they can even form abstract ideas, therefore, as the sense of hunger is information about reality, so is the sense of self-agency....

It actually takes quite some time before the sense of "self" develops in babies, at least according to the psychological studying I've done.  You'd need to show that a sense of self-agency is present well before abstract ideas (or language skills, come to that) for your point to have any foundation.  I'll look forward to you presenting your evidence for your claim.

Right.  The sense progressively develops more acutely, like all the other senses.

And as regards "senses telling you about reality"......how many of these do you recognise?

You think you feel tired.  Then you eat something and stop feeling tired.  Apparently you were hungry, not tired.

You feel very stable emotionally.  Then someone says something in passing that makes you very angry, or upset.  Maybe you weren't as emotionally stable as you thought?

You see a friend in front of you, and call out....to a total stranger.  The person you were sure was someone you know well turned out to be someone different.

Siting on a train in a station, you think you start to move.  But you aren't - it was the train moving the other way that was actually moving.

Point being.....its very, very easy for our "senses" to thoroughly misinform us about the nature of "reality" - even when that reality is physically solid and right in our faces.  To use them as an basis for claims about something immaterial and ethereal.....well, lets just say I'd use a hell of a lot more caution in my approach.

Of course, I wouldn't disagree that senses can be misleading.  But, why would all humans develop a sense that's 100% false?  When, all the other well-known senses can be said to be telling us at least some of the time about the objective reality?

[Azdgari]

So then my statement is correct, although admittedly could have been better stated, that there is no deceleration of light, even though it could be thought of as 'slowing down' through a substance since the light will be delayed by interacting with a substance unlike a vacuum. Yet, remove the substance, and light is instantaneously at c again.  So it never wasn't at c, in terms of instantaneous speed.

That is why I asked you for what you meant by "acceleration" in the first place.

And in terms of instantaneous speed, it is not the same photon.

[Azdgari]

It would be pointless because it would have no bearing on reality.  Just like a plant developing the sense of hunger.  People developed the sense of agency, because they do have a degree of control.

Of course we have control.  The problem is that you are misinterpreting that control as being supernatural.

[Gill]

So then my statement is correct, although admittedly could have been better stated, that there is no deceleration of light, even though it could be thought of as 'slowing down' through a substance since the light will be delayed by interacting with a substance unlike a vacuum. Yet, remove the substance, and light is instantaneously at c again.  So it never wasn't at c, in terms of instantaneous speed.

That is why I asked you for what you meant by "acceleration" in the first place.

And in terms of instantaneous speed, it is not the same photon.

Ok.  How about we just both agree that we're both right, it just depends on the aspects of light we're considering?  I can.

[Azdgari]

I think we should agree that we're both wrong, and that Samothec is right:

This may annoy some people but I need to address this point: quanta of light have no mass. The time dilation aspect of relativity applies to mass. This is a crucial distinction that Gill didn't (still doesn't?) understand. Thus the misconception about light being "timeless" - not at all true. Light's natural state is to travel at c so nothing needs to act upon it to "accelerate" it back up to c; the only necessary event is the removal of the force (or matter) slowing the light.

[Gill]

Well I think he is right in his context.  But, anyway, I think I'll drop the talk about light anyway for now...

[Azdgari]

Of course, I wouldn't disagree that senses can be misleading.  But, why would all humans develop a sense that's 100% false?

It's not false.  It's just grossly misinterpreted.  We also developed the senses that allow us to watch lightning strike a church steeple.  Our supernatural interpretation was false, but our observation was not.

The source of the lightning was causing it to strike the church.  It just wasn't a supernatural entity that was doing it, but a physical one.

Similarly, something we perceive as "ourselves" is in control of our actions.  It just isn't a supernatural entity that's doing it, but a physical one.

[Gill]

So then, the entire human race is suffering from a gross misinterpretation of their own intuitive senses about what's real?  Almost, a continuous delusional state that would seem.

[Azdgari]

As has been mentioned, we intuit that we are "solid" without empty space between our particles.  For that matter, we intuit that we are composed of continuous material, rather than of particles.

Our intuition is wrong.  The fact that it's wrong doesn't come up much, not in day-to-day life, and certainly not in any way involving reproductive fitness, so there is no reason to expect evolution to have weeded out this false intuition.

[velkyn]

So then, the entire human race is suffering from a gross misinterpretation of their own intuitive senses about what's real?  Almost, a continuous delusional state that would seem.

nope, since it works in reality.  Delusion is generally disfunctional with reality. 

[Azdgari]

I find it ironic that Gill is attempting to appeal to evolutionary outcomes as proof that supernatural free will is real, in a thread that began with him arguing that evolution is "deterministic" and thus incompatible with the idea of free will.