82
   

Proof of nonexistence of free will

 
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Wed 13 Oct, 2010 02:14 pm
@guigus,
Listen guigus--get in an ice-bath and then get in one adjusted by the science of your serving wench's elbow. Have a good long soak in both, preferably in the order I have placed them, and then explain which one represents nothingness.

Quote:
Don't you agree that "cold" relates to "hot" as a less energetic state?


Yes- the molecules in the former are in slower motion but looked at in that way the words "cold" and "hot" are meaningless. They only have meaning in terms of sensual experience in organisms which have language.
guigus
 
  1  
Reply Wed 13 Oct, 2010 07:09 pm
@spendius,
spendius wrote:

Listen guigus--get in an ice-bath and then get in one adjusted by the science of your serving wench's elbow. Have a good long soak in both, preferably in the order I have placed them, and then explain which one represents nothingness.

Quote:
Don't you agree that "cold" relates to "hot" as a less energetic state?


Yes- the molecules in the former are in slower motion but looked at in that way the words "cold" and "hot" are meaningless. They only have meaning in terms of sensual experience in organisms which have language.


And to those organisms, like us, it means precisely... an absence: the absence of (enough) heat, hence a nothingness -- where you would expect some (additional) heat, there is... nothing. It amazes me your resistance to accept the obvious.
Fil Albuquerque
 
  1  
Reply Wed 13 Oct, 2010 07:31 pm
@guigus,
You are quite the man...out of an Hitchcock production or a Franz Kafka book...(Die Verwandlung) Mr. Green
guigus
 
  1  
Reply Thu 14 Oct, 2010 11:20 pm
@Fil Albuquerque,
Fil Albuquerque wrote:

You are quite the man...out of an Hitchcock production or a Franz Kafka book...(Die Verwandlung) Mr. Green


What a convincing philosophical argument!

Rhetorics apart, perhaps you should read "Being and Nothingness" by J. P. Sartre, which gives us hundreds of examples of nothingness in practical life. Assuming of course you consider Sartre an author of acceptable quality.
Fil Albuquerque
 
  1  
Reply Fri 15 Oct, 2010 06:54 pm
@guigus,
I did the reading on that book when I was 17...and I am guessing that almost two decades after maybe I have to go trough it a second time just to shred some light upon your ubiquitous reasoning...
north
 
  1  
Reply Fri 15 Oct, 2010 08:31 pm

stagnation

ironic really
guigus
 
  1  
Reply Sat 16 Oct, 2010 06:17 am
@Fil Albuquerque,
Fil Albuquerque wrote:

I did the reading on that book when I was 17...and I am guessing that almost two decades after maybe I have to go trough it a second time just to shred some light upon your ubiquitous reasoning...


Be my guest, I'll be waiting.
0 Replies
 
guigus
 
  1  
Reply Sat 16 Oct, 2010 06:23 am
@north,
north wrote:


stagnation

ironic really


What is this? A dialog from some play?
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 16 Oct, 2010 07:19 am
@guigus,
Quote:
Assuming of course you consider Sartre an author of acceptable quality.


I can't say I do guigus. Imagine the human brain as a vessel in which something is being cooked. The fundamentals are given. Protein, fat &Co but with a pinch of this and a pinch of that. My taste buds find the Sartre spice vaguely unpleasant. But that's just me. My flavourings have more--I almost said "gaiety" but I remembered that homosexuals have ruined that word--more fun shall I say. Which gaiety once was but now seems its opposite.

There seems to me that there are some authors who one ought to have read to be thought intelligent. Sartre is one of them. One has lost all acceptable quality when one succumbs to temptations of that nature. Especially considering that the great books are being ignored during the reading of those sorts of authors. And goodness knows there are enough great books to last anyone ten lifetimes. Such is the eagerness to embrace books which one ought to have read in order to be thought intelligent, if only to be an acceptable member of social circles in which books are read for the same reason, that even the titles of many great books are unknown.

Take Tristram Shandy for example. I consider that anyone who has not discovered that book by the time they are 40 must not have an authentic sense of humour. A sense of humour in the literary world would lead directly to it. There is a sort of trail through the maze. Stages drop away like they do on a space mission launch. Only the books that are famous over time matter.

I had Proust sitting on my shelves for 10 years waiting for the right opportunity to read it.

I would say Sartre is not acceptable quality because a familiarity with it speaks of an attraction to cleverness rather than to the absurdity of the condition of the pointedly intelligent person. The absurdity being a fact.
guigus
 
  1  
Reply Sat 16 Oct, 2010 06:35 pm
@spendius,
spendius wrote:

Quote:
Assuming of course you consider Sartre an author of acceptable quality.


I can't say I do guigus. Imagine the human brain as a vessel in which something is being cooked. The fundamentals are given. Protein, fat &Co but with a pinch of this and a pinch of that. My taste buds find the Sartre spice vaguely unpleasant. But that's just me. My flavourings have more--I almost said "gaiety" but I remembered that homosexuals have ruined that word--more fun shall I say. Which gaiety once was but now seems its opposite.

There seems to me that there are some authors who one ought to have read to be thought intelligent. Sartre is one of them. One has lost all acceptable quality when one succumbs to temptations of that nature. Especially considering that the great books are being ignored during the reading of those sorts of authors. And goodness knows there are enough great books to last anyone ten lifetimes. Such is the eagerness to embrace books which one ought to have read in order to be thought intelligent, if only to be an acceptable member of social circles in which books are read for the same reason, that even the titles of many great books are unknown.

Take Tristram Shandy for example. I consider that anyone who has not discovered that book by the time they are 40 must not have an authentic sense of humour. A sense of humour in the literary world would lead directly to it. There is a sort of trail through the maze. Stages drop away like they do on a space mission launch. Only the books that are famous over time matter.

I had Proust sitting on my shelves for 10 years waiting for the right opportunity to read it.

I would say Sartre is not acceptable quality because a familiarity with it speaks of an attraction to cleverness rather than to the absurdity of the condition of the pointedly intelligent person. The absurdity being a fact.


Now a simple question: did you read Being and Nothingness?

Sartre is one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, and one of the greatest philosophers too. No one would dispute that, regardless of their agreeing with him or not. (He won the Nobel prize of literature for some reason, don't you agree? Perhaps not.) Anyway, the fact that you don't "like" an author is by no means a valid reason for not accepting that author as being of "acceptable quality." Such an attitude reveals a sad and pretentious confusion.
0 Replies
 
guigus
 
  1  
Reply Sat 16 Oct, 2010 08:01 pm
@spendius,
spendius wrote:
There seems to me that there are some authors who one ought to have read to be thought intelligent. Sartre is one of them.


So that's the reason why you didn't read him? To rebel against that bias? How old are you?
guigus
 
  1  
Reply Sat 16 Oct, 2010 08:10 pm
@spendius,
spendius wrote:
My flavourings have more--I almost said "gaiety" but I remembered that homosexuals have ruined that word--more fun shall I say. Which gaiety once was but now seems its opposite.


I think the word "gay" was ruined by a society that could only refer to homosexuals by means of euphemisms -- a really sad society -- which is fortunately changing.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Tue 19 Oct, 2010 05:20 pm
@guigus,
Quote:
So that's the reason why you didn't read him? To rebel against that bias? How old are you?


It's impolite to ask a person's age.

No. That's not the reason. I have read some of his stuff. I thought Roads to Freedom pretty good but his style is not to my taste. Maybe it's the translation. Jokes don't translate too well.

And there's so many writers who have the style I like. I read to be entertained. Style is the first thing. Everytime.
guigus
 
  1  
Reply Thu 21 Oct, 2010 05:28 pm
@spendius,
spendius wrote:

Quote:
So that's the reason why you didn't read him? To rebel against that bias? How old are you?


It's impolite to ask a person's age.


I am not really curious about your age: I was rather implying you are a bit immature. But I think you are just pretending to ignore that (it is just sad when you have to explain an irony, isn't it? It loses all the fun).

spendius wrote:
No. That's not the reason. I have read some of his stuff. I thought Roads to Freedom pretty good but his style is not to my taste. Maybe it's the translation. Jokes don't translate too well.


Good for you that you read some of Sartre's "stuff." But the two great books by him are Being and Nothingness and the Critique of Dialectical Reason. The last one is my favorite. Sartre himself rejected his own existentialism by the time he wrote the Critique, which is the mark o a great thinker: the capacity to humbly recognize another thinker (Marx) as greater and closer to the truth. This is something you don't see every day.

spendius wrote:
And there's so many writers who have the style I like. I read to be entertained. Style is the first thing. Everytime.


If you really think style is the first thing, then I recommend you change from philosophy to fashion.

0 Replies
 
Tigger31337
 
  1  
Reply Sun 31 Oct, 2010 10:53 pm
@litewave,
> There are only 3 possible ways your action can originate:

False.

> 1) When you have reasons for your action - then the action is the result of those reasons.

Sometimes, but not necessarily.

> None of those possibilities allow for free will because you are always compelled to your action

False.

> and never in control of your action.

Also false.

Wow. What a particularly bad proof!

guigus
 
  1  
Reply Mon 1 Nov, 2010 05:19 am
@Tigger31337,
Tigger31337 wrote:

> There are only 3 possible ways your action can originate:

False.

> 1) When you have reasons for your action - then the action is the result of those reasons.

Sometimes, but not necessarily.

> None of those possibilities allow for free will because you are always compelled to your action

False.

> and never in control of your action.

Also false.

Wow. What a particularly bad proof!


Here is the real structure of this "proof":

1. There is always something compelling you to act, whatever it is.

2. Whatever it is that compels you to act, it is never yourself.

3. Hence, there is no free will.

Which is just another way of simply asserting there is no free will, without proving it in any way, since neither 1 nor 2 is ever proved.
0 Replies
 
Cyracuz
 
  1  
Reply Mon 1 Nov, 2010 01:37 pm
"In the area of oral and written communication such as conversation, dialog, rhetoric, etc., a proof is a persuasive perlocutionary speech act, which demonstrates the truth of a proposition." Wikipedia on "proof".

This kind of proof is the best you can hope for when it comes to the concept of free will.
It is meaningless to argue the existence or non-existence of free will, since it is merely an idea. The question should be wether or not the concept of free will gives any meaning in the context you wish to use it, and if there are other ways to account for these things that are perhaps more practical and meaningful.

Isn't the whole concept of free will a remnant of religious thinking? I mean, isn't the concept originally a religious concept?

guigus
 
  1  
Reply Tue 2 Nov, 2010 03:16 am
@Cyracuz,
Cyracuz wrote:

"In the area of oral and written communication such as conversation, dialog, rhetoric, etc., a proof is a persuasive perlocutionary speech act, which demonstrates the truth of a proposition." Wikipedia on "proof".

This kind of proof is the best you can hope for when it comes to the concept of free will.
It is meaningless to argue the existence or non-existence of free will, since it is merely an idea. The question should be wether or not the concept of free will gives any meaning in the context you wish to use it, and if there are other ways to account for these things that are perhaps more practical and meaningful.

Isn't the whole concept of free will a remnant of religious thinking? I mean, isn't the concept originally a religious concept?


As long as you can argue about something -- including mathematics -- it must be "merely an idea," so your point vanishes. The problem about free will boils down to the problem of your acts being determined by something alien to your own capacity to choose, that is: it boils down to the problem of determinism, which it is a first-class philosophical problem.
Cyracuz
 
  1  
Reply Tue 2 Nov, 2010 03:52 am
@guigus,
No, gigus, my point does not vanish. You can argue the existence or non-existence of entities, you cannot argue the existence of non-existence of a way of thinking.
The best you can do is say that the idea does not sufficiently describe the phenomenon of choice as it presents itself to us. I would agree with that statement.
But arguing the existence of free will is to argue wether or not it has being, when it was never suggested that the concept has being.
guigus
 
  1  
Reply Tue 2 Nov, 2010 04:32 am
@Cyracuz,
Cyracuz wrote:
No, gigus, my point does not vanish. You can argue the existence or non-existence of entities, you cannot argue the existence of non-existence of a way of thinking.


Whenever you argue about anything -- in the sense of doubting its existence -- it must become to you just a "way of thinking," or a belief. Conversely, whenever you take something for granted -- that is, for an indisputable fact -- you immediately cease to be able to "argue" about it.

Cyracuz wrote:
The best you can do is say that the idea does not sufficiently describe the phenomenon of choice as it presents itself to us. I would agree with that statement.


When you discuss the idea, you are discussing the phenomenon: there is no other way of discussing any phenomenon, other than discussing an idea that describes it.

Cyracuz wrote:
But arguing the existence of free will is to argue wether or not it has being, when it was never suggested that the concept has being.


The existence of free will is precisely the subject of this thread: its existence is in dispute here, which would be impossible if it had never been "suggested that the concept has being," don't you agree?
 

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