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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 06/14/2008 : 19:41:57 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ricky
I'd be surprised if actions at the quantum-level in no way affected the macro-level. |
There are approximately 2,900 C-14 decays in a 150-pound person every second. That works out to one decay event per cell per 820 years (on average), so over a whole human life, perhaps 10% of the neurons in the brain have had single C-14 decays occur inside them. (Post-above-ground-atomic-testing, of course - before then, the rate would be lower.)
What other radionucleides are commonly taken up by biological tissues? We can run the same caluclations on them.| And as soon as they do, you can no longer call this universe deterministic. |
That depends on whether quantum events are truly random. It may be the case that we just haven't figured out the pattern, yet. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/14/2008 : 19:43:28 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
This device comes pretty close to finding a free-will enabler. |
Are those headphones plugged into your butt? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 06/14/2008 : 19:48:49 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Kil
This device comes pretty close to finding a free-will enabler. |
Are those headphones plugged into your butt?
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Can't you take anything seriously?
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/14/2008 : 20:00:50 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Can't you take anything seriously? |
In a thread about one of the deepest philosophical questions of all time? Are you kidding me? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 06/14/2008 : 20:21:30 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Ricky
I'd be surprised if actions at the quantum-level in no way affected the macro-level. |
There are approximately 2,900 C-14 decays in a 150-pound person every second. That works out to one decay event per cell per 820 years (on average), so over a whole human life, perhaps 10% of the neurons in the brain have had single C-14 decays occur inside them. (Post-above-ground-atomic-testing, of course - before then, the rate would be lower.)
What other radionucleides are commonly taken up by biological tissues? We can run the same caluclations on them.| And as soon as they do, you can no longer call this universe deterministic. |
That depends on whether quantum events are truly random. It may be the case that we just haven't figured out the pattern, yet.
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Certainly nuclear decays are not the only quantum event that occurs in the human body.
As for quantum physics being random or not, it is a new science, sure, but all the evidence we have seems to be pointing in the random direction. It is something we don't have a full understanding of yet, but again, I'm going to stick to the evidence with this one. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/14/2008 : 20:46:54 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ricky
Certainly nuclear decays are not the only quantum event that occurs in the human body. |
Well, my point was that the quantum effects are really going to be drowned out by all the classical physics going on. Cells function just fine even though every structure in them is constantly bombarded by the Brownian motion of every other thing in there (all that water!). We like to think of (for example) Calcium channels being "open" or "closed" but in reality they're "open most of the time" or "closed most of the time" and change on a millisecond-by-millisecond basis.
Probably the biggest effect a quantum effect could possibly have is a nuclear decay occuring within a DNA strand in such a way as to turn a cell cancerous. But that won't have bearing on the "free will" question, as we don't choose to get any disease, really.| As for quantum physics being random or not, it is a new science, sure, but all the evidence we have seems to be pointing in the random direction. It is something we don't have a full understanding of yet, but again, I'm going to stick to the evidence with this one. |
I happen to think that for all intents and purposes, it will always be considered to be random. But again: living in a non-deterministic universe doesn't mean that we've got free will. Neither do we have "random will." There is no evidence that we are anything but stimulus/response engines (even though the stimuli and responses can be extremely complex when compared to, say, a paramecium). |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 06/15/2008 : 04:22:01 [Permalink]
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I will admit that to the extent that we are slaves to our genetic programing, we lack free will. However, within that programing we can do anything we want with no outside supervision, be it go to church or heist a liquor store. For me, 'outside supervision' is the working phrase, as it was for the ancient philosphers who first came up with this impossible-to-resolve question.
Sorry, but like those philosphers, I don't know anything about quantum physics, and, well, isn't 'string theory' a prototype fishing line?
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Killer Bud
New Member
5 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2008 : 09:40:14 [Permalink]
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I need to be more careful. I hit a deer head on last night doing around 70 mph, and totalled the front end of my car. I only had about a half a second to react and brake. It wasnt enough time, and I saw the deer bounce off my bumper from the impact doing flips head over heels off the side of the road.
I started getting all philosophical immediately afterwards. I thought if only I had driven about 15 mph slower, (the speed limit was 55). It was foggy, and I knew that deer are in the area I hit it at, because I drive the road almost everyday and have seen them.
Taking in all these variables, it almost seems like I set myself up for failure in a predetermined sense, simply because I was in a hurry. It was almost like I could see the odds increasing in my mind, everytime I make a trip with these variables, eventually Im gonna hit one, and finally I did.
So now, I am dealing with the consequences, I live 75 miles from work, and now I have to drive my other vehicle, which means instead of 25 dollars in gas round trip it is going to double, because my other vehicle is a gas hog. heh
I have also been recently pondering moving closer to my job or changing jobs closer to home, because of the spike in fuel prices. These types of variables mixed in with my deer incident have almost been a catalyst to resolve my situation in a time frame now quicker than I had originally anticipated.
All in all these variables seem like they are tying into predetermined circumstances.
The only free will that I have been able to ascertaine related to the incident, is I made a choice earlier that evening, to leave a couple hours later to work than I usually do. I had the option because a employee had to take an extra 3 hours to get to work the day before, so I had a 3 hour window to return when I did.
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Zebra
Skeptic Friend
USA
354 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2008 : 13:33:02 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Killer Bud
I need to be more careful. I hit a deer head on last night doing around 70 mph, and totalled the front end of my car. I only had about a half a second to react and brake. It wasnt enough time, and I saw the deer bounce off my bumper from the impact doing flips head over heels off the side of the road. |
Yikes. It sounds like you weren't hurt, though? What was that blasted deer doing going 70 mph, anyway? ;)
| I started getting all philosophical immediately afterwards. |
A close call does that, doesn't it? (For a human. One imagines the deer didn't get philosophical, nor have its life flash before its eyes in the last moment.)
| I thought if only I had driven about 15 mph slower, (the speed limit was 55). It was foggy, and I knew that deer are in the area I hit it at, because I drive the road almost everyday and have seen them. |
OK, so if you had been driving more slowly, you would have been at a different place on the road when that particular deer crossed. Or, you would have had more time to see it & react.
| Taking in all these variables, it almost seems like I set myself up for failure in a predetermined sense, simply because I was in a hurry. It was almost like I could see the odds increasing in my mind, everytime I make a trip with these variables, eventually Im gonna hit one, and finally I did. |
I think we need to define "predestined" and "predetermined". I totally disagree that any of this was predetermined, though once certain events occurred others became more probable.
Yes, because you were driving fast in the evening on a foggy road in deer country, it was more LIKELY that an untoward event would occur...but "predestined" or "predetermined"? No.
We're talking chances, probabilities, likelihood here. There are all sorts of variables. By driving more slowly on a foggy road you could have increased the chance that you'd be rear-ended by a vehicle traveling 70 mph. Etc, etc.
| So now, I am dealing with the consequences, I live 75 miles from work, and now I have to drive my other vehicle, which means instead of 25 dollars in gas round trip it is going to double, because my other vehicle is a gas hog. heh |
Ouch! But more of this aspect of the scenario seemed predetermined to me...by owning a vehicle which gets low gas mileage, and having to drive so far from work, then as the price of gas goes up you will have to spend more to drive this vehicle that distance.
| I have also been recently pondering moving closer to my job or changing jobs closer to home, because of the spike in fuel prices. These types of variables mixed in with my deer incident have almost been a catalyst to resolve my situation in a time frame now quicker than I had originally anticipated. |
Many people are making different choices, or changing aspects of their lives in order to have different choices, given more difficult economic circumstances. What a hassle, though!
| All in all these variables seem like they are tying into predetermined circumstances. |
On the other hand, couldn't any set of circumstances or cascade of events SEEM like it was predetermined or predestined? What would it take to convince you it wasn't? Or, to convince me that it was?
| The only free will that I have been able to ascertaine related to the incident, is I made a choice earlier that evening, to leave a couple hours later to work than I usually do. I had the option because a employee had to take an extra 3 hours to get to work the day before, so I had a 3 hour window to return when I did. |
You call this free will, but if the employee hasn't been delayed the previous day, this option wouldn't have seemed available to you, isn't that right? So how do you know that this wasn't the predetermined part of the whole thing?
My view of this is: coincidences, interacting with the decisions we make (many of them small), interacting with situations outside our control. Employee was late, therefore you had the opportunity to leave later to work the next day. You chose to take that opportunity. You chose to drive faster than usual, faster than you knew was advised given that this road is crossed by deer. And then, a deer crosses the road, in a way or place or moment such that you had very little time to react (would it have ended differently if the deer had been moving more slowly, or had stepped onto the road on a long straight stretch, or or or or or?).
I don't buy the notion that any of the actual events, as they happened, were predetermined or predestined. As I said yesterday, the only predetermined part was that the deer was going to die at SOME point, though it didn't have to be at that time or place nor in that manner. I also don't buy the notion that free will is solely responsible for this chain of events, though I do think that you have free will to make decisions which influenced the chain (time you left for work, speed at which you drove, maybe even the road which you took, how closely you were paying attention to your driving, some of your chain of thoughts since then, your decision to post about it).
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I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone* -Dick Cheney
*some restrictions may apply |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2008 : 14:54:50 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
I will admit that to the extent that we are slaves to our genetic programing, we lack free will. However, within that programing we can do anything we want with no outside supervision, be it go to church or heist a liquor store. |
But through what mechanism do you pick what to do? Is there some "free will" generator inside your head, or is it the case that your current state-of-mind coupled with your current environment determine, ultimately, the choice you will make?| For me, 'outside supervision' is the working phrase, as it was for the ancient philosphers who first came up with this impossible-to-resolve question. |
"Outside supervision" reeks of God. Forget about it. Instead, just find the free-will neurons and pick up a Nobel Prize.  |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Zebra
Skeptic Friend
USA
354 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2008 : 15:24:06 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by filthy
I will admit that to the extent that we are slaves to our genetic programing, we lack free will. However, within that programing we can do anything we want with no outside supervision, be it go to church or heist a liquor store. |
But through what mechanism do you pick what to do? Is there some "free will" generator inside your head, or is it the case that your current state-of-mind coupled with your current environment determine, ultimately, the choice you will make?
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Humans' decisions are made within their brains, the complexities of which we are only beginning to understand. Obviously, a human can only think of something which his/her brain can conceptualize, and can only do something which is within his/her physical capabilities, and is very likely only to do things which he/she has been taught, & are accepted within the culture (though there are exceptions to this, of course). And, OK, most people operate much of the time on autopilot, doing the same things day after day, not straying far from home. But they/we can choose to do something different, on a "whim", reacting to the complex & multiple inputs with an unexpected (to others, at least) output/action.
Dave, how would you describe or define "free will" & how would you think it could be recognized if/when it occurs? Filthy, how would you? Killer Bud, how would you? |
I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone* -Dick Cheney
*some restrictions may apply |
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Killer Bud
New Member
5 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2008 : 15:55:32 [Permalink]
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I guess the best way I could describe Free Will is with this poem by Robert Frost. Its not a very scientific explanation, but im not a scientist.
I do believe though that if predetemination was able to be proven scientifically, a lot of ministers would be looking for a new line of work.
Robert Frost (1874–1963):1920
The Road Not Taken
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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| Edited by - Killer Bud on 06/15/2008 16:09:42 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2008 : 16:43:51 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by filthy
I will admit that to the extent that we are slaves to our genetic programing, we lack free will. However, within that programing we can do anything we want with no outside supervision, be it go to church or heist a liquor store. |
But through what mechanism do you pick what to do? Is there some "free will" generator inside your head, or is it the case that your current state-of-mind coupled with your current environment determine, ultimately, the choice you will make?| For me, 'outside supervision' is the working phrase, as it was for the ancient philosphers who first came up with this impossible-to-resolve question. |
"Outside supervision" reeks of God. Forget about it. Instead, just find the free-will neurons and pick up a Nobel Prize.
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But Dave, if I had such a generator, would I not be controlled by that?
I think that as soon as you throw sapience into the predetermination equasion, it is forced to become random. Therefore, unless there is an exterior influence, PD cannot exist.
It does have rather a stench of religion, doesn't it? But then, the ancient people who first posed the question (and should have been flogged for it) most likely were religious in some way.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2008 : 17:01:47 [Permalink]
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| Dave, how would you describe or define "free will" & how would you think it could be recognized if/when it occurs? Filthy, how would you? Killer Bud, how would you? |
I dunno.... Jumping bail, maybe?
But that's an example, not a definition. Free will might be defined the ability to concieve and perform actions independant of outside influences, and to be able to choose among, or ignore entirely the suggestions those inluences might put forth.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Zebra
Skeptic Friend
USA
354 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2008 : 19:43:17 [Permalink]
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If predetermination occurs, why couldn't taking the road less traveled, or jumping bail, be predetermined (even if they feel like "free will")?
But, how can we possibly know whether or not predetermination occurs?
As filthy said, predetermination requires an outside influence. Predetermination requires there being something which experiences time in a different way than we do, in some manner other than a unidirectional unidimensional vector. That something would either have to record, in some manner, what is going to happen - if there's no record of that, there wouldn't be a way to determine whether a sequence of events is occurring as "predetermined" - or, it would have to influence what is happening so that it comes out in a certain manner. Both of these are outside our experiences, & it seems to me, are outside our ability to investigate & detect. (And, if there were predetermination, our efforts to detect it would be predetermined, as would the outcome of those investigations.) |
I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone* -Dick Cheney
*some restrictions may apply |
| Edited by - Zebra on 06/15/2008 19:45:09 |
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Predetermination or Free Will?
