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2 philosphical questions.....

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Postby Mr Sauceman » Wed Oct 24, 2007 1:26 pm

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Postby black_knight6 » Wed Oct 24, 2007 1:53 pm

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Postby k3nt » Wed Oct 24, 2007 2:41 pm

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Postby black_knight6 » Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:29 pm

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Postby GodlikeRoy » Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:36 pm

Poker is silly.

It is not enough to be good at chess, you must also play well.

Somewhere in the world someone is training when you are not. When you race him, he will win.

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Postby redhouse » Wed Oct 24, 2007 5:34 pm

It does in the 'old' sense of 'act on x' because you can't actually act on anything 'you' think or do because the way that we talk about them presumes free will. So, yes, you do lose that ability.

That's what's LOL-worthy: even if you 'think' you're choosing to commit suicide, there is no choice

The decision to commit suicide would just be a deterministic consequence of the acquired knowledge that free will doesnt exist. Why is it lol worthy to say acquiring this knowledge will make me 'want' to kill myself. Its just a comment on the expected reaction. There's no contradiction. Same as saying "if it rains i'm going to get wet".
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Postby black_knight6 » Wed Oct 24, 2007 6:03 pm

The contradiction is that it's not really 'you' doing it anymore...the concept of 'you' changes. I made that point in part because people are discussing whether it would be good/bad to tell people...but there's no such question anymore: there's no decision possible.
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Postby redhouse » Wed Oct 24, 2007 6:22 pm

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Postby Beavis68 » Wed Oct 24, 2007 8:27 pm

the thought of my wife being my sister kind of turns me on..............


if i was going to do in old age I would like to know, if I were dying in the next year, no, I wouldn't want to know.
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Postby EscapePlan9 » Wed Oct 24, 2007 8:34 pm

TL;DR to all of you guys, so I'll just say my piece. Free will is bullshit. There's no doubt in my mind that our actions are the result of the culmination of all the antecedent (and current) biological and environmental factors in our lives.

Think about the physics involved with free will and you'll quickly realize how ridiculous it is. Where is it located? How does it interact with the body? How does it interact independently of the body? How does one "freely" choose any action?

Also a random action isn't any more free than a determined action.
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Postby Schuster » Thu Oct 25, 2007 1:31 am

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Postby black_knight6 » Thu Oct 25, 2007 2:57 am

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Postby EscapePlan9 » Thu Oct 25, 2007 5:24 am

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Postby EscapePlan9 » Thu Oct 25, 2007 5:40 am

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Postby geiststaat » Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:57 am

Compatibilists (or soft determinists) think free will is compatible with a deterministic world. The mere fact that given a particular set X of prior conditions necessitates a particular decision/act does not mean that we are not free (so say the compatibilists). Various locutions have been used to describe it, Mill says we are free when actions flow from our character. If you were a different person then you would have chosen differently, hence you chose it and are responsible for it. Problem is whether you are responsible for your character.

The question of knowing the date of your death is interesting. If it's fatalistic, then nothing you can do will change it, aside from perhaps killing yourself earlier. Basically, on that date, the reaper shows up. If it is merely deterministic, then there's a pretty large question as to what set of prior conditions necessitate it. Is this the date of your death if things continue as they are now? If so and it's soon, time to move. Hell, just stand in front of your house for a couple minutes before you get in the car (thus changing the causal network). Is this the date if you know that it is the date? This would be more along the fatalistic lines. Nothing you do would throw off the date, since all your decisions and actions are already part of the prior conditions.

At any rate, I'd want to know. I would do pretty well on the ole life insurance game. Now, if everyone knew, then life insurance would disappear. Even if you don't know the exact character of the date, i.e., the fatalistic or deterministic conditions, the donks would probably behave in ways that could give you a good idea. So, if lots of people jump in front of buses and such and die, because they are going to be dead in a day or two anyway, then looks like the sort of determinism that you could thwart. If there are a lot of people dying early, however, this in and of itself could have an effect on your own date, no matter what you do.
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