99Percent

tk: Again you are confusing science with philosophy.
Wow, so subatomic particles have free will? That sounds god-like And you are reffering this within the dimensions of quantum physics. Its pretty obvious that we humans operate and perceive reality at the more mundane level of Newtonian physics. Besides predictability of quantum particles fall in the realm of probability. There really is nothing scientifically unpredictable about them. Yet when you see a human being at the edge of the Brooklyn Bridge about to commit suicide, there is nothing in science that can tell you if he is in fact going to commit it, because its common sense that tells you each individual is unique.

Gurdur: Yet another fallacy - science can't show a negative or non-existence. Only logic can prove it, through predetermined definitions and concepts.
Look, free will is impossible to prove, because to scientifically prove it you would need to turn back time which is impossible. Free-will can only be accepted through common sense and reason. Stop making circles around it trying to appear that science is some kind of absolute source of knowledge. It isn't, it's merely a tool to obtain knowledge of which you will still need to interpret within a philosophical frameset of which you seem to direly lack
This is merely an appeal to authority and also an argumentum ad populum. The source of my assertions is me. OTOH, your "qualifications" seem utterly useless so far because you keep on making the same fallacies over and over again. For yet another example - science is not based on consensus if it is to be objective.

Gurdur

Oh puh--leeeeze; would you like to claim that logic can prove something exists that science can't ?

If something exists, it has some effect on it's surroundings; this effect is scientifically quantitively and qualititively measurable.

If something cannot be shown to exist, better if it can be shown not to exist, all the logic in the world won't ressurect it.

Logic is no use without empirical observation.

heh, heh, you wish to claim knowledge comes from other avenues than observation and prediction from already-observed events and things ?

You wish to claim knowledge as per divine relevation ?

You say something is true merely because you say it is true ?

And you claim I "direly lack" some philosophical frameset you claim I need ?
heh, heh, lived so far without it, will go on doing so.

And BTW, scientific research into free-will doesn't seek to prove it exists --- see Popper's irreducible original premises work --- science seeks to show how free-will could arise and work.
(Well, some scientists; others seek to show exactly the opposite. That's life ! )

heh, heh, I love this.

1) I brought up my qualifications merely to illustrate that I do have experience in fields you keep making ex cathedra statements from faith upon.
As you say, your source is you --- we are expected to accept your judgments on faith.
Nope, sorry, no way.

2) No-one else seems to agree with you as to the supposed fallacies you think I commit.

3) You're wrong about "consensus in science" not being a means to reaching a halfway objective result --- ever heard of the peer-review process ?

Hugo Holbling

You misunderstand me again. I have no desire to debate your Objectivism here; i merely suggest some avenues for you to pursue if you want to challenge your ideas. I regret to report that i have not lost any sleep yet worrying about whether you take my advice or not. If you intend to wax philosophical here then you can expect to be pulled up for writing nonsense. Alas, i do not suffer from the same craving for faith as you, and i have none to convert you to.

I think you're right about Derrida being beyond your comprehension, so i'll leave it and wait for someone else who is at least interested.

Is this an Objective claim? Why should i? I suspect you've confused philosophy with hermeneutic praxis, but i don't want to test you.

Thanks for looking out for me. Are these also Objective claims? I've seen some free thinking here, but it isn't coming from you.

Once more from the top: i don't care if you take me seriously or not. Perhaps if you don't it would even the sides a little, as i don't take your rantings as anything more than foundationalist bluster.

Right on cue, you help me prove my point. Since you can tell me what i need, i'll suggest that you need to study epistemology from the last 50 or so years, especially from outside the Anglo-American universities. You could also use a sense of humour.

You are doing yourself a great disservice by not taking my advice, my child.

99Percent

Oh well, it was interesting for awhile but its obviously apparent that this discussion is getting very close to insults and to the ridiculous and therefore nowhere.

Unfortunately (or not, to the relief of some I guess) I will therefore stop responding unless someone comes along and really addresses the arguments i've made instead.

There is a point of diminishing returns in these types of discussions and my experience has told me this is the point.

tk

If everything were predictable, then there would only be two probabilities, 1 and 0, but this isn't true. Probability theory is about unpredictability.

(Psychiatry may just have something to say about this topic. Stay tuned.)

But free will can be disproved. If someone can demonstrate that the exact readings of the Geiger meter in fact follow some secret mathematical progression, then it's a first step towards disproving free will. Once a statement can be disproved, it falls within the scientific realm.

On the contrary, the problem seems to lie with philosophizers who keep trying to set down bogus `limits' on what science can and cannot do.

The writers of the Bible tried that once: They came up with Genesis, because they thought science can never explain creation... until Darwin came along. They thought science can never explain the movements of the sun and the stars, and next we know, we have Copernicus.

And guess what, we have some bloke coming in and telling us that we should try the same thing again.

Scientists don't claim to seek "absolute truth", unlike the charlatan philosophizers of the past and present. However, it's the most reliable method for seeking truth, simply because it's grounded in fact and verification -- rather than arbitrary `axioms' drawn from one's back orifice.

(Science can be evaluated under any of several philosophical framesets. Religious fundamentalists can simply say that all science is useless because Yahweh/Allah controls everything. Cynics will say that is no `truth', since the `laws' of the world seen by different people may be different. And so on. If we assume that there's an objective truth, then the philosophical frameset that makes the least assumptions is simply the law of non-contradiction.)

Ah, the rhetorical technique of expressing disinterest...

99Percent

tk: My apologies tk, I gave up hope prematurely as I did not wait for your response.
Think about this. How do you know in fact that the above is true? Is it through science itself? Or through common sense? The point is, is that science, which is merely a tool, has its limits of which your reason has to take over eventually.
Free-will, is in fact, disproved scientifically, because pure logic dictates that we are bound by TLOP (The Laws of Physics) and therefore we don't have, in fact, any free-will. But TLOP goes a lot lot further than common human understanding of reality (see quantum physics for example) so in the practical human realm of things we do in fact have free will. Its a contradiction that needs to be understood (of which several here seem to want to futily fight with the tool that dooms them instead - science).
There are limits on what science can and cannot do. For example science will never be able to explain consciousness or the nature of existence itself - these belong entirely in the realm of philosophy, no matter how much you kick and scream because science is in fact a subbranch stemming out epistomology.But its merely a method regardless. The only ultimate source of knowledge is your philosophy itself because as a human being with built in reason you are a natural valuer of knowledge. Otherwise you would be bogged down to such irrelevant "knowledge" as knowing the amount of steps required to get to street level from your room, or the amount of tiles in your hallway or whether its currently cloudy in Beijing or that there is a one major nebulae in Triangulum.I agree absolutely, and there must be at least one philosophical frameset of which you must use. Its a great disservice to one's self to deny altogether that such philosophical frameset even exists because of the stupid fear of being "dogmatic", "faithful", blah blah blah.

tk

There is a difference between
(1) being bound deterministically
(2) being bound nondeterministically
(3) not being bound at all.

As an example of (1), consider a state machine M with 3 possible states A, B, C, and with the following possible state transitions:
A -> C
C -> B
B -> A
Thus, if M is in state A at time t, then at time t + 1 it is guaranteed to be in state C, and so on.

As an example of (2), consider another machine M' with the same 3 states, but with these possible transitions:
A -> A, B
B -> C, A
C -> B
Suppose M' is in state A at time t. Then at time t + 1, we know that it cannot be in state C. However, it can be either in state A or B, and there's no telling which. Thus the motions of the machine are bound somewhat, but it's not completely deterministic.

As an example of (3), consider another machine M''' with the same 3 states and these transitions:
A -> A, B, C
B -> A, B, C
C -> A, B, C

If we consider the world as a huge machine, then the laws of physics only say that the world acts like a machine similar to M', not necessarily the `clockwork' machine M. Physical laws are not incompatible with free will.

By considering a random variable X uniformly distributed within { 1, 2 }, i.e. Prob(X = 1) = Prob(X = 2) = 0.5, then asking "Is X certainly equal to 1?"

It's a whole lot harder, but it doesn't mean it's impossible.

Some framesets are compatible with science, others are not.

Gurdur

Yes, but you forget to mention that you are the one indulging in abuse; time and time again.
Everyone who has ethics widely different from yours is supposed to be an "intellectual cop-out"; I am supposed to have committed numerous logical fallacies you can never actually detail; you avoid the questions again and again, and simply resort to abuse.
And this is not just my opinion -- is it now ?

Every argument you've ever made that could be taken as a logical argument has been addressed --- so instead of your pretending, how about bringing up any logical arguments of yours you feel have not been addressed ?

And how about you answer the questions ?

MY ORIGINAL QUESTION TO YOU, WHICH YOU HAVE EVADED FOR 15 PAGES OF 3 THREADS:

QUESTION:

People obviously in the majority over history believe in and accept social ethics.

How can you then deny social ethics actually exist ?

elwoodblues

People obviously in the majority over history believe in and accept the existence of god.

How can you then deny the existence of god?

Come on, Gurdur, you're better than that.

Gurdur

Come on, Elwood, you're better than that:

I've been through this in excruciating detail over two threads.
You want all those posts repeated ?

Here are the main points just for you:

1. An ethic exists if a significant group lives by it
   
2. A significant number of people accept social ethics.
   
3. Ergo, they exist.
   
4. In order to argue against this, you must posit a mechanism whereby ethics exist contrary to the mechanism I have posited --- and moreover, one that doesn't just depend on your say-so.
   
5. Objectivism claims its ethics exist, but that social ethics don't exist. Ergo, this Objectivist claim that social ethics do not exist is simply false --- as proven by empirical observation.
   
6. Note this says nothing about whether an ethic is right or wrong --- it is simply about the existence of that ethic.

Now how about you go back through this thread and and the other thread on this, and see what I've already written in detail ?

You're jumping in so late in the day.