Every little things we do can and WILL affect our life. It's just how it is. :)
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I believe we all are just walking on a thread coming to one point of time (yes, I believe in singularity and its existence in the future). Men may walk on different paths but the destination will always be the same. There is no greatest good (summum bonum) but there is a greatest evil (summum malum) (kudos to those who get this reference). That greatest evil is the fear of violent death and we are anything except people who can look bravely at Death in the eyes. Immortality is where we're heading, where we'll end, and where we'll stay forever.
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of course... i always said that if i had even a little confidence in my self, the human kind would be under the rule of my Saturnite Super heated power fist...
now on topic, things happen because people make them happen, is worthless to think about "what could have happen if..."
Life is a succession of decisions, actions and re-actions.
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I think there are some people who are naturally born with amazing talent, but are never known, because they have no-one to encourage them. No one who sees their potential. No one who knows what they can do. They just live their lives, finish elementary, middle, and high school. Go on to college. Find a job. Marry. Have a family, and live "happily ever after" without ever knowing, and/or showing their gifts.
I think having good friends is a great thing.
I'm probably talking about something totally different than what you were talking about, but, there's my thoughts.
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I absolutely believe that there are some very talented people in the world, but they just didn't get their shot because of extenuating circumstances. It's sad, but that's like really. :(
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For every choice you make, there are a hundred choices you didn't make.
While people are undoubtedly influenced by their individual circumstances, those circumstances don't define who you are. They only make some choices harder to make, or in some cases even put them out of reach entirely. But in the end choosing to do something or not do something, regardless of what the circumstances are, is what defines you. Put two different people in the same situation, and there's a good chance they won't make the same choice. I think humans have more potential than they can ever realise in a single lifetime. Someone might have the potential to become a world-famous singer, but they never tried to make a career of it so they'll never realise that potential. Others might have the potential to cure cancer, but they chose to be a racecar driver instead of going to medical school. A person with the potential to be a brilliant world leader might be born in a ghetto, only to join a gang and die in his teens. No one will ever know. I suppose there's something sad in that idea, but since everyone has more potential than they'll ever use, that just means your options are open, and there's no one "right" (or "wrong") choice for anyone.
To be honest, I find the concept of "fate" or some other form of predetermined destiny to be distasteful. Fate imples a certain lack of free will. It does away with responsibility and trivialises accomplishments. Something doesn't happen because "it was meant to be." No, fuck that. Something happened because someone or something made it happen, for better or worse. Your ability to make your own choices (even though they might seem extremely trivial at times) shapes you, the people around you and even the world. To put it dramatically, you are the master of your own fate. Good decisions and bad decisions (unfortunately it's not always easy to tell which is which), those are the things that brought you were you are today and made you who you are today.
Even something as trivial as posting vaguely philosophical questions on video game messageboards in stead of whatever else you could be doing has an effect. ;)
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yet science seems to point to the fact that there really is no true free will. so unless you believe in god(s) and/or magic that lets the brain supersede the laws of physics (assuming we have an accurate enough picture of physics), then you're stuck with a model that's all about "fate" :P
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Please point me to any reliable study that claims anything like that. Don't just make shit up and claim science agrees with you.
And even if it was true, that doesn't make it less distasteful. It absolves people of responsibility and trivialises anything anyone could ever do. That's an awfully bleak philosophy to have.
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Actually, on a macroscopic level, reality does appear to be deterministic. Just because something is 'bleak' (i.e., you don't like it) doesn't make it incorrect.
The only exception is the probabilistic elements of quantum mechanics on tiny scales. These effects largely cancel on the macroscopic level, however. The only possible hitch is the question of how much of an influence quantum effects may have on the neurological level. If it's enough to influence cognitive decision-making process, then it's possible that at least some behaviors are non-deterministic.
However, having our actions determined by probability instead of mechanistic determinism isn't exactly something I'd describe as less 'bleak.' Even if deterministic views are wrong in this regard, I wouldn't say it's much of an improvement, and you still experience the illusion of choice either way, so there's not really anything to be upset about.
As far as absolving people of responsibility, that's not really an issue. People's behavior is rewarded or punished according to how it affects society, generally. These responses, too, are largely deterministic, and their purpose is (or should be) to bring the greatest benefit/least harm to that society through adjusting that behavior, again in a deterministic fashion. Ideas like 'responsibility' aren't really relevant.
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Except "ideas like responsibility" are incredibly relevant. Why else do you think criminals are punished less harshly if they are not responsible for their actions (for example because they're mentally impaired)? In most courts, two murderers might commit the exact same crimes and be just as likely to do it again (ie the damage to society is the same), but they might still be punished differently if one of them has diminished responsibility (or full blown mental disorder/insanity).
And apart from the practical, don't you think it's bleak that according to your philosophy, nothing you will ever do is actually your own accomplishment? According to you, everything is predetermined by an endless cause and unchangeable effect. So if you do something great, that doesn't mean you chose to do it and did it despite all the things that might make you not do it, but because you literally had no choice but to do it.
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Addressing your example of the 'criminal justice system' (a ridiculous misnomer, as it has nothing to do with justice in my experience), the sort of 'lessened penalties' you refer to are either because the act in question was accidental rather than intentional, or else because the person is found to be mentally incompetent. In neither case is responsibility an issue.
In the former case, the collection of matter responsible for the behavior is not liable to repeating it, due to the event being happenstance. Responsibility is not an issue.
In the latter case, the collection of matter responsible for the behavior is prone to such events due to a defect in its nature. While you refer to lessened penalties in such a case (rare as they are -- less than one percent of insanity pleas are actually successful), the fact of the matter is that finding someone incompetent to stand trial usually leads to life-long placement (or at least decades) in an institution, and might as well be a prison sentence, often a longer one than what would be faced otherwise for that matter. Again, responsibility is not an issue.
As far as whether or not we choose our own actions and whether or not that's a happy thought, it doesn't really matter. One of the first things I mentioned in my previous post is that liking or disliking something doesn't make it any more or less true. If it is the case that things happen in a deterministic fashion, disliking it doesn't change that fact. It's just another unpleasant fact of existence that must be come to terms with, like death and other natural processes that may be unpleasant but cannot be changed or avoided indefinitely. Also as mentioned earlier, you will still continue to experience things as though you are making choices and as if your behavior is chosen and not compelled. There is no reason for one's behavior to be influenced by the knowledge of things happening deterministically, and it's a very simple matter to just ignore it and get on with one's day-to-day life.
In short, while I understand your dissatisfaction with the idea of determinism and I sympathize, all of your arguments basically amount to saying that it must not be true because it is bad or unpleasant or may have unpleasant consequences. This is not an argument, but a plea that it not be true, and it clearly has no force when viewed rationally.
Since you brought up the issue in other posts, there's not really a need to try and bring up specific references. Deterministic behavior is basically Newtonian mechanics in a nutshell. In modern physics, the only things to run counter to it are some of the quirks of the quantum world, which I addressed earlier, and, even if they do exert an influence, replace deterministic causality with what is basically randomness, which I still assume is not any better in your view (although if it is, feel free to cling to that, especially since I personally believe it does play a role in influencing individual behavior).
I sincerely hope you are able to come to grips with the issue in some form or fashion, though. I can tell it seriously vexes you.
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Except that a difference in punishment is a difference in punishment. You can't claim something is irrelevant when there's an obvious difference in the way it is treated.
Contrary to what you seem to think, I can come to grips with the idea that this is what you believe, but I find it rather arrogant that you claim your beliefs have some sort of scientific underpinning while at the same time outright refusing to provide any actual proof of such. I do not intend to criticise your beliefs or imply that you shouldn't believe what you do. If you believe that you have no free will, then I can respect that belief even though I obviously do not agree with it. Just because I find something distasteful doesn't mean it should be outlawed, after all. It's just your insisting on your opinions being factual (or unambiguously "true") that bothers me. I've asked more than once for any kind of scientific underpinnings for this claim, but you refuse to provide such. Is it soo much to assume you are simply unable to provide it, and are merely calling on an authority that does not exist in order to lend your argument credibility? I would still very much like to invite you to prove me otherwise.
And yes, Newtonian physics are deterministic. Though however accurate Newtonian physics are on a certain level, they are archaic and inadequate on other levels and fail to provide a model for "everything there is", including but not limited to any sort of understanding about something as esotheric as the nature of free will. You might as well call on Democritus' views on atomic theory to explain the behaviour of quarks. It wouldn't take much more than a cursory glance through the more reliable online articles on the subject of free will to realise that there is no consensus regarding the nature of free will, neither in the scientific nor in the philosophical world, so forgive me if I find you incredibly arrogant in claiming you know the truth where the professionals don't. I'd suggest you base your opinions on facts, not the other way around.
And since both you and Monukai are failing to provide any hard scientific ground on which to base your argument (regardless of repeated claims to the contrary, I should say!), I feel I can say with some certainty that, yes, how much I like it does indeed play a role in whether or not I personally accept it as a philosophy. If something is a proven fact, I have little choice but to accept it (I can of course just choose to ignore it, but we can agree that would be pointless). But since it isn't (or in any case, not yet), I have the free will (hah) to choose whether I believe your hypothesis based on your arguments alone, or not. And your arguments alone boil down to an appeal to an authority that doesn't seem to exist. Though I can accept and respect your beliefs, I simply cannot accept your argument if it's based on such weak foundations, nor have any kind of respect for it.
If I really have no free will as you claim, it seems it's my destiny not to believe you.
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I still fail to see the link you're trying to establish between 'responsibility' and the way crimes are dealt with. You seem to be working from the assumption that this process is based on the idea that certain acts are wrong, and that the people who perform them are 'evil' and thus deserve to be punished. While this may indeed have played a part in the formation of criminal codes and penal systems, I dismiss all this out of hand. Morality is a matter of opinion. There is no objective measure of good or bad. I work under the assumption that these systems have a more rational purpose, namely, to benefit society by reducing instances of behavior by individuals that tend to be injurious to society as a whole. Whether or not someone is 'responsible' for that behavior and deemed worthy of punishment in the other way of thinking is completely irrelevant in mine.
As for the remainder of your argument, you concede that Newtonian mechanics is a deterministic system. Exactly what other system do you think governs human behavior apart from possibly quantum mechanics, which I have addressed elsewhere? The reason I don't provide more detailed or specific evidence is that essentially the entire body of physics is my evidence, and it is well beyond the scope of this discussion. Also, while we're on the subject, you still haven't provided a shred of evidence to the contrary, despite my pointing it out in my last post. If you mean to go against the whole of scientific understanding developed over the last few hundred years and propose a mechanism for free will, you're going to have to supply an alternate system which somehow operates against or outside of all known physical laws and theories and supply substantive evidence for its existence and action.
And yes, I don't really expect to change your mind. However, there's no flaw in my arguments, or if there is, you haven't brought it up yet.
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Ah, so you're falling back on the old religious argument. "If you can't disprove my claims then that must mean I'm right." I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. YOU (along with Monukai) were the one who claimed that "science" agrees with you and that free will is impossible, so I've repeatedly challenged you to back that claim up. Meanwhile, you have consistently failed to do so, even while repeating the same claim. You're now boasting that "there is no flaw in my arguments" when your only real argument is a wild claim you are entirely unable to back up. Frankly, I find such intellectual dishonesty rather pathetic.
But fine, I'll humor you and provide some backup for my claim that it is indeed possible that free will exists. Here we go. And while I'm at it, how about some backup for my claim that determinism is not a healthy philosophy? Here we go again! See, that wasn't so hard, was it? Perhaps now that I've shown you how to do it, you'd like to try it yourself?
Forgive me for being a bit of a condescending prick here, but you're making it hard not to with your insistence that your arguments are to be accepted as unambiguously "true" just because you keep repeating "science says so!"
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Here is something for you to start with, then.
Your only support is rubbish. Such a 'free will function' would be information existing in the material world, or else unable to affect it, and thus every bit as subject to a Laplacean demon as anything else. Even this tenuous attempt to establish the possibility of free will fails utterly with no effort at all.
The other link is irrelevant. I'm going to say it one more time, using small words, since it has apparently not gotten through yet.
If that were the case, it's hard to make a case for the Holocaust having happened, for example. I don't know what you think trying to argue that determinism or belief in it having negative consequences is meant to prove, but it proves nothing. Just because you don't like something, even if it has harmful consequences, that doesn't make it incorrect.
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You might have noticed I never said "it is bad so it's not true", so please do not put words in my mouth. It's rather unsporting. That article is supporting my earlier statement that, in absence of conclusive evidence either way, I find determinism to be distasteful and even potentially harmful. Please, do pay attention. And simply linking me to a general work like that, which not only has nothing to do with free will but also represents an outdated and inadequate model of our reality, is just grasping at the same single straw you've been trying to shove in my face this entire discussion. If Newton is the whole of your argument, then I'm seriously starting to wonder why you started this argument to begin with. All the while, you offhandedly dismiss me when I provide you exactly what you're asking for in a clear, concise manner, without repeatedly whining about how my statements are so full of truthiness that they need no evidence to back them up. Do yourself a favor and learn from the example rather than acting like a petulant child.
This is what you get when you claim you have some kind of unshakable truth on your side without really knowing what it is you're talking about. You're reasoning from a highschooler's grasp on physics and claiming you know something that no modern scholar, scientist, or philosopher has ever been able to prove to the best of my knowledge. If you had simply stated "this is what I believe," then I would have respected that. I'd have disagreed with you and possibly expressed my misgivings, but I wouldn't have argued a point of personal philosophy. Is it possible that there is no such thing as free will? Of course it is! Hell, I'll even go as far as to admit that the odds are in your favor! But is that an uncontested fact? No, it most certainly is not.
You, however, in the endless arrogance born of ignorance (or perhaps the other way around - who knows?), claim to hold the Truth that no one else has seen. And so adamant is your belief in this Truth, that you genuinely seem to believe that you don't need any evidence. This is where my problem with your argument lies, as I have mentioned before. You're treating science like a religion where claims are to be accepted on faith alone. This is why I expressed my disrespect your argument, and you with it. It takes a big man to admit he dug himself into a hole he can't reason himself out of. It's a shame your ego would rather see you cling to base intellectual dishonesty than to be that man.
After all this, you still have yet to provide a single piece of conclusive evidence in favor of your argument. I'm simply going to end this discussion here and now unless you provide the proof you have been adamantly refusing to provide so far. The ball is, as it has been all along, in your park. So unless you want to continue this discussion on a more sincere level and either retract your outlandish claims or back them up properly, I suggest we simply call it quits now, lest we run around in this same circle forever.
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Considering the way you keep repeating yourself and ignoring my points, I suspect we're working from a different set of assumptions that need to be addressed.
I dismiss the possibility of immaterial causes entirely. I believe this is the basic problem. I think you're taking for granted that the possibility of immaterial causes is on the table, when, in my view, it's not even a consideration.
I do not admit of the possibility of the existence of deities, an afterlife, supernatural beings, or anything of the sort. If it does not exist physically, then it does not exist. You can disagree with that, but it's an entirely separate argument. If you want me to accept the possibility of an immaterial cause, then we'd have to back up from free will vs. determinism to that first.
As a consequence of this assumption, I consider the human mind and all human thought and behavior to be products of the brain. The brain, having a physical existence, is entirely subject to the physical laws as we know them -- namely, Newtonian mechanics (which you have already granted is deterministic in nature) and quantum mechanics (which I have addressed as non-deterministic but probabilistic in nature and not admitting of free will, which you have not disputed). I omit general and special relativity as being irrelevant to a discussion of neurochemistry.
So, unless I'm missing something, there's nothing further to discuss unless one assumes the existence of immaterial causes, which I addressed above. If you have anything else to offer besides ad hominem insults and other non-argumentation to try and dress up the fact you don't seem to have any counter-arguments to put forth, I think we're done here.
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Who the hell brought religion into this? Free will is not a religion. The only reason I even mentioned religion is that your entire argument seems to be based on faith and poorly-understood "facts". Don't look for an easy way out by pretending my argument has at any point been a religious one. That's just a whole new level of pathetic.
You claim that in a physical universe free will is impossible. This seems to be entirely grounded in your belief that the entire physical universe is based on Newtonian physics. This is simply not true, and if you had even the most basic understanding of what "physics" is, you would already know this. There are a great many things that Newton did not (and could not, at the time) know about, that have over the many years since him have shaped our understanding of the universe in every way. That doesn't mean Newtonian physics aren't valid anymore, they're perfectly valid if you apply them to the scale they're meant to be applied at. This is what I mean by your high-school level of understanding. You learn Newtonian physics in high-school because they're likely the only physics you'll ever need unless you go to study physics in higher education, which is fine, but then you go and assume that's all there is, which is ridiculous.
It's like... all right, allow me to entertain you with a little parable.
Once upon a time there was a map-maker. Let's call him Newton. Newton was the finest map-maker in the land of Aah, creating maps with accuracy and detail never seen before. Whever anyone needed a map, they'd turn to Newton for his maps, and he never got a single dissatisfied customer. The king of Aah had also heard of this map-maker's prowess, and one day he visited Newton's store. "Map-maker," he said "I planning a visit to my distant relative, the queen of Bee. I require a map showing the route from Aah to Bee!" However, the map-maker had never been outside of Aah. No matter how accurate his maps were, he simply had no maps showing the route from Aah to Bee. He explained to the king that he had no maps on the land outside Aah and the king was disappointed, but understood and left the store. Several days later, the king's fool arrived at the store. Let's call him Wesley. "Map-maker," Wesley said "I can't find my socks anywhere. I require a map of my bedroom!" However, the map-maker had no maps that would help Wesley. He had a map of the king's castle, and could even point out the fool's bedroom on the floor plan, but he knew he had no maps of the fool's socks. Newton explained this to the fool, but Wesley dismissed him and demanded he showed him where his bedroom was on the map. The map-maker did so, after which Wesley spent a few minutes examining the map. After a while, Wesley jumped up. "I get it," he exclaimed "there are no socks anywhere on this map, which must mean that there were never any socks to begin with!" Newton laughed and pointed out his own socks, but Wesley was adamant. There was no way those things on Newton's feet could be socks, for they weren't even on the map! If the map-maker was so famous for his great maps, and the socks were not on his map, the only logical conclusion was that there were no socks at all!
I don't think I need to explain the moral of the story. Just because something falls outside Newton's model doesn't mean it doesn't exist, or is somehow some kind of metaphysical notion from the same realm as ghosts and deities. There are many things that Newton knew nothing about that are fundamental to current models of the way the universe works. Even Newton's theory on gravity, which he is most famous for, has been replaced by general relativity. The only reason you still learn about it in school is that it's typically accurate enough for daily use and much easier to work with than general relativity. So as much as you'd like to fool yourself into thinking otherwise, simply yelling "BUT NEWTON!" without any further explanation is just betraying your own ignorance.
I've shown you a source explaining the possibility of non-deterministic free will in easy to understand terms (doing so, quoting from the abstract "without employing metaphysics"), which you dismissed entirely simply because it didn't fit your 1700s world view. That's just more of the arrogance and intellectual dishonesty I've addressed several times already. You either need to get over your own ego, or never talk to anyone smarter than you ever again.
Meanwhile, you still haven't been able to produce any evidence of your own claims of what you believe to be "true". If "science" proves you right, as you claim again and again ad nauseam, then you should be able to back this up. That's like 90% of what "science" is: Being able to back up your claims and theories with hard evidence. You obviously do not have such evidence, so I have no choice but to conclude you know nothing about the subject and think name-dropping some high-school level science you barely understand yourself magically makes your argument immune to criticism.
A~nd now I've once again gone and written a lot, even though I said I would stop replying unless you posted something that wasn't grade-A bullshit. Regardless, I really hope you at least managed to learn something here. Even if you take away nothing else from this, remember these two simple rules: Newton is not the end-all authority on the entire physical world, and you shouldn't make claims you can't back up.
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I'm not reading this. I've wasted too much time on this already. The very first line shows you equivocating immaterial causes with religious subjects exclusively. Your argumentation is full of straw-manning, ad hominem attacks, and various other tripe, and your insistence that I should use appeals to authority, i.e., referencing outside material, is laughable. It's logical argumentation, not a research paper. The only reason to reference other material is if you're having trouble understanding the subject under discussion or if there is a prior body of argumentation to which I can refer to save some time. Nothing I've referred to should fit either of those categories assuming the person I'm speaking with is scientifically literate. Believe whatever nonsense you like.
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If you start your argument by claiming that "science" proves you right, then you need sources. If your entire argument hinges on that claim and you cannot provide sources, your argument is shit. Without sources, your entire argument entirely comes down to "whatever I say should be accepted as universal truth, even though I don't have anything to back it up except flawed logic and blatant lies and I'll ignore anything that proves me wrong." You don't need sources to clarify your case, you need your sources to have a case to begin with, because your entire argument boils down to a single unsourced claim repeated ad nauseam.
If you honestly think that makes your argument valid in any way, you're every bit as big a moron as I've been saying. That's not an ad hominem (please, do look up what those fallacies actually mean before you start throwing them around), that's me judging your intelligence and level of education (or lack thereof) by the refuse that flows from your brain onto the internet.
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Trying to have logical argumentation with someone who doesn't know how is frustrating. It's like trying to play a game with someone who doesn't know the rules so they just make up their own and declare themselves the winner. Since I'm done with cleaning up all the old forum threads, I'll take a little time to construct my argument more formally, listing my assumptions, reasoning, and conclusions so you can see how it's done.
1) I exist. (assumption)
2) I inhabit an environment which I will generally refer to as the 'universe' or 'world.' (assumption)
3) The sensations I experience (sight, sound, smell, etc.) generally correspond to this world in ways that are meaningful and fairly accurately represent it in some basic ways. (assumption)
4) Phenomena occurring in the universe which are not available to me through direct observation (the electromagnetic spectrum outside the range of visible light, most individual cells, molecules, atoms, subatomic particles, distant astronomical objects, and so on) may be ascertained through the use of various forms of instrumentation. (assumption)
5) This world is filled with objects, which are composed of matter and/or energy (which are interchangeable, but that falls outside the purview of this assumption, really). (assumption)
6) Things may be divided into what is material and what is immaterial. (assumption)
7) All of the things described by 5 may be deemed material. (definition)
8) Scientific inquiry gives us the most accurate description of the universe available to us, as evidenced by the positive results of its use in altering that universe. (arguably a conclusion from observations, but I won't bring positivism into this discussion; let it stand as an assumption)
9) All material things can be fully described by current areas of scientific inquiry, barring some radical new physics being discovered in the future. These areas are Newtonian mechanics and modern physics, that being quantum mechanics and general and specific relativity. (assumption)
10) The only things not governed by these are immaterial things (such as the mind in the classic mind-body problem). (consequence of 5-9)
11) Immaterial things, owing to the complete lack of any credible evidence of their existence, do not exist. (assumption)
As an aside here, this is really about the only part of my argument that one can reasonably take issue with unless one throws their lot in with absolute crackpots or embraces solipsism or some other view which pretty much eliminates the possibility of building an argument in the first place. Hence, this is why I assumed you must be working from the assumption that the mind, or part of it, must act on an immaterial basis. However, you have steadfastly refused any attempt on my part to come to a civil agreement to disagree, instead insisting on trying to be 'right' to gratify your pseudo-intellectual vanity.
12) Two possible interpretations of human motivation and action, hereinafter referred to as 'behavior' and regarded as products of the human mind, are free will and determinism. In free will, humans act according to choices made freely with no constraint or compulsion. In determinism, they are compelled to follow a specific course of action. (definitions)
13) The human mind and human behavior are a product of the physical brain and have a merely physical existence. (consequence of 11)
14) The mind and behavior are governed by physical laws. (consequence of 9 and 13)
15) Newtonian mechanics yields outcomes deterministically. (this is really a definition, but we can call it an assumption if you prefer; either way, you've already conceded it)
16) Quantum mechanics produces outcomes probabilistically. While this is arguably incompatible with determinism, it does not allow for free will either. (again, definition or assumption depending on how rigorous you want to be about it)
17) General and specific relativity concern phenomena occurring at scales which are irrelevant to our considerations, but do not allow for the possibility of free will, in any event. (definition/assumption again)
18) Free will does not exist. (consequence of 14-17)
Now if you actually have anything worthwhile and intelligent to say, instead of, "hurr durr lolz u dum, i rite," then feel free to point out the flaw in my argumentation or the point with which you disagree with very specific and detailed reasoning, or else just fuck off, you idiot.
In conclusion,
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the different flavors of determinism are built on the laws of physics, that's what they are based on, they are based on science--they were literally conceived of as a result of our physical understanding of nature--they follow from what we know about nature, and determinism is generally (but not entirely) believed to be incompatible with free will. it's free will that doesn't follow from science, if you believe we have a pretty good understanding of physics, then our brains work under a strict and rigid set of physical laws, we "think" because our brain sends electrical impulses and sets off chemical reactions. to have a free will our brains would need to work outside of the laws of nature, in a mystical bubble that only our conscious controls...
Also I don't think it "absolves people of responsibility," just because some heinous crime was predetermined doesn't mean we shouldn't put some nutjob in a prison for doing it, he or she is still chemically imbalanced and likely to commit such a crime again (generally speaking), and Wes also brought up some good points on that topic as well. I've been subscribed to the broad idea of determinism for some time and 99.999% of the time I'm not even consciously aware that I don't have free will. At any rate, whether it's distasteful or not is neither here nor there (and I personally feel that such a viewpoint is quite interesting and illuminating).
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So, no source then? Ok.
Determinism is not a science. In fact, as far as I know determinism is very much a philosophical byproduct of early Newtonian science that has been somewhat out of style since quantum mechanics and chaos theory became popular. Unless you can prove me otherwise, I'm fairly certain that there is no scientific consensus of any kind regarding the nature of free will.
And yes, whether something is distasteful or not does matter in this case. Since apparently you can't back anything up with facts, it all comes down to one's personal take on the idea. Not only are the moral implications of a purely deterministic universe quite far-reaching (as I tried to explain in my reply to wbarton), but it's ultimately also an entirely futile philosophy. It determinism is true, then believing in it or not is inconsequential, as is everything else. But if it's not true, then I'd consider believing in it to be potentially harmful on an individual as well as a societal level. Philosophy is in many ways a guiding force, and adhering to something that essentially says "nothing you do is your fault" just doesn't seem to be a healthy way of living your life.
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You scared me to death that under youtube link there is Polish group Weekend... They play disco polo. It's awful. It's tragicomedy and disgrace. Thankfully The Weekend is quite nice.
Not sure if Gombrowicz was translated to English but (as far I remember) in Ferdydurke he was writing also about that. Everyone wears masks. In every situation we are changing them one way or another.
Well, that's natural. We all are affecting each other. Always. Every action provides reaction. Even such scratching your head or catching her boob (why she even care?!). But everyone can try to reduce how area influence themself.
Also I believe in tabula rasa theory but with exception that (un)fortunately actually we have some predispositions since we're born...
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was expecting a clip from yes man, got this, so much better!XD
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I believe in a flavor of determinism, that everything on the macroscopic level is determined by cause and effect, so if someone doesn't turn out to be an astronaut or an actor or whatever, there wasn't a damned thing they could have done about it.
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This life is a test, giving you the chance to prove who you really are. The next life is when the full accounting takes place. As you have no control over anything except your intention and the efforts you make to implement that intention, those are the two things you are judged upon.
Some may think the above has nothing to do with the question posed by the OP, but that is because they have not read it carefully enough.
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It's not. Haven't you noticed how this life isn't fair?
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For every failure you have to go through there is a place in multiverse where you have succeed. But is that really you? Just feel happily for that guy in alternate reality. Because you are also that guy for someone else in the web of opportunities.
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There's no such thing as fate. Nothing is meant to be or not meant to be. It's all about the choices we make and consequences they have that affect our life. There are A LOT of people with naturally born talents that never use them simply because they don;t want to or never discover them. Dwayne Johnson could have stuck to wrestling and never give acting a shot. Many people laughed at him, saying he has no talent whatsoever. But after making really good movies with really good performances, like Snitch, for instance, he became one of Holywood's biggest stars. That would have never happened if he hadn't believes in himself. Roger Federer is the greatest talent in tennis history. Perhaps there were others as good as him, maybe even in his generation, but they probably never held a tennis racket in their hands. Same thing with him, if his parents wouldn't have taken him to a tennis club when he was 5 years old. Or if he had decided he didn't like tennis and doesn't want to play regardless of how good he is. It's all about choices. Sure, there are things beyond our control, like if a giant meteorite hits Earth and kills us all, but for the most part, it's on us.
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There is a story.
Someone ask a musician if he can be a musician or not.
"No, I didn't see the spark." the musician says.
Years later, the one who asked question become a successfully merchant.
Once on his fly, he meet the musician again.
"Thank you for telling me not to be a musician. If you didn't give me the advice, I might still wasting my time."
The musician looking at him and say,
"I already forget who you are. Accturally, I told everyone who want be a musician so.
If he has spark, he wouldn't care about what I said. And I will meet he again on the stage."
This story is true and false.
It is true because if you don't work hard, hard enough to ignore all debuff (like the musician's "NO"), you won't qualified for the thing you want.
It is false because the thing you want need more than work hard.
Sadly we won't know what is the more we need unless we fail. Or even after fail, we still didn't know.
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Yeah that's why I decided to pursue a career that involves the one thing I'm good at, rather than do whatever results in the most money.
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Half of the internet's idea of "fun" is to post trashy comments on everything and that might just demotivate that next michael jackson of yours even more.
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You know, this reminds me of something that's kind of like a self-causing loop, forgot the name.
There are two types of people in the world, each of which causes the other.
The kind of person who doesn't actually know a lot or isn't actually very good at something, but believes that they are superior to others or better at this task.
The kind of person who is rather skilled, and finds that certain tasks come easily to them, but is so afraid of being seen as the first type of person that they downplay their skills and intentionally lower their self-confidence.
If you think you're the first type, you end up becoming the second. If you think you're the second type, you might end up becoming the first.
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I've been wondering. Do you think that some people don't become someone they could have become just because of different circumstances? For example, let's say there's a guy who could sing like Michael Jackson if he just did it and trained a little but he doesn't believe in himself so it never happens and his life turns out in a different way. Or let's say there's a girl who is amazing at acting and it comes naturally to her but she doesn't even know it. Hence she doesn't pursue that goal and she never becomes one of the most amazing actresses that ever lived. Or do you guys believe in "if that didn't happen then it wasn't supposed to happen" excuse? Or maybe you have a different view on the matter altogether. Let's hear your opinions.
Bring the 707 out...
Believe
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