I am not the Lord of the Wind

He means filling gaps of knowledge with unverified data is detrimental for the purposes of knowing the truth.

O. I indeed misunderstood. That doesn't make much difference though:

As there is an infinite amount of events in infinite time line, their value is unknowable.

For example, if you kick a ball and it moves in a given direction, it's safe to assume that it moved in that direction because you kicked it ...

No. It move because you kicked it and because it was made out of matter that reacts to kicking and because it was not pinned down and because it was made out of a stable matter and because there was no wall in front of it and because it was quite light and so on. While these reasons are quite obvious some may be more complex. What makes you think that you know them all?

closed account (iw0XoG1T)

@hamsterman
I did make a leap, so let me restate my question: is it of no consequence to you why you are loved?
Is the love of a machine enough for you?

Rhetorical question answer not expected.

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I find the determinism - 'illusion of free will' thing to be 'very easy'.

I don't. I find it rather depressing.

EDIT:

is it of no consequence to you why you are loved?

Sorry. Could you rephrase that? I don't think I understand this question.

Is the love of a machine enough for you?

Yes. The problem is that you don't like the word machine. Determinism says that there are reasons why you are loved. Do you think that love is only valuable if it is not anyhow related to surrounding world?

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because it was made out of matter that reacts to kicking and because it was not pinned down and because it was made out of a stable matter and because there was no wall in front of it and because it was quite light and so on.

No. Those are all conditions it needed to meet in order to move noticeably after you kicked it. What caused it to move was the fact that you kicked it, as opposed to moving because an invisible force moved it just before you did.
Don't confuse requirements with causes, which is easy to do with the careless use of "because".

EDIT:

I find it rather depressing.

So do I. Then I remember that knowing my own predictability, and my happiness (which is nothing more a set of states of the machine) are perpendicular.

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Don't confuse requirements with causes, which is easy to do with the careless use of "because".

Cause is also a requirement. Also, cause may not be present at all. For example: "mass creates gravity" states that mass is requited for gravity. But is it really the only one requirement?
I don't see how this is relevant though. If the ball was nailed to the ground, it wouldn't move. Therefore (if for some reason you wouldn't see the nail) you would assume that it is not possible to kick it. That assumption is wrong because of unknown variable.

I don't find it depressing at all. I've found I have quite a strong resilience to depression. When I first though about love it depressed me, because my only conclusion (at 4am) was that love was false and served only to cause a pair bond. But now I realise that it's ok, because
a. I'm doing my part for my species (actually I'm doing a different part by abstaining from reproduction (for the forseeable future, that is, I'll probably change my mind when I get older; also 'abstaining from reproduction' =/= abstaining from sex; I'm not ~~stupid~~celibate)
b. I can just roll with it and my limbic brain will take care of it.

Alot of nihilists seem to find nihilism depressing, but they're wrong to. Existential nihilism says there is no inherent meaning to life. As I already said, this isn't a bad thing. It gives you the freedom to define your own meaning for life. Freedom is almost always a good thing. I don't find determinism depressing either. It gives me something to blame other than myself when I make a mistake -- I know that it had to happen, and that I'm probably better off for it (for example, I barely passed most of my end of year (GCSE) exams; but instead of going to the school all of my friends go to, I get to go to another school which may even be better. This also means I get to make new friends. Plus I met a girl who goes there on the induction day).

Also, I've decided that you're right; there is no free will. But that's ok for the reason I just said.

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Cause is also a requirement.

Yes, but that doesn't make them the same thing.

For example: "mass creates gravity" states that mass is requited for gravity. But is it really the only one requirement?

Using that statement and not the knowledge of what happens in nature, mass is the cause of gravity.

If the ball was nailed to the ground, it wouldn't move. Therefore (if for some reason you wouldn't see the nail) you would assume that it is not possible to kick it. That assumption is wrong because of unknown variable.

You're going backwards, now. The original statement was the assumption of the kick being the cause of the movement. The relationship is quite likely, since something happening just as something else is happening in the vicinity for mere chance is unlikely. Not impossible, however, which is why experiments are repeated.
The assumption of movement following a kick is different because you haven't yet observed the movement. If the event does follow, then the assumption was correct; if it doesn't then there was a variable that wasn't part of the prediction.

I don't see where this is going, though. What are you arguing? That it's impossible to predict the future, or to make likely causal chains?

closed account (iw0XoG1T)

The word machine when applied to a human being is usually considered pejorative. I find it surprising that you do not find word machine applied to a human to be dehumanizing.

If you behave badly enough will your mother stop loving you? Was your behavior what caused your mother to love you? Or does it make no difference, will she love you forever, not because you are you, but because she has no choice--just a machine.

When someone tells me that they do not care why they are loved, whether it be a machines reaction to a series of events, or the emotion of a human who has free will—I find it a bit hard to believe.

Disch (13742)

Holy thread explosion. Gotta play catchup.

helios wrote:
What are your (plural) thoughts on discrete time?

I'm a little unsure how to answer, and this somewhat of a tangent and there's a lot more direct replies I should address so I'm going to pass on this for now.

chsks wrote:
How do you deal with emotions e.g. love. Do you deny it exist?

Not at all. They exist. They're part of our internal state. To love something is an experience. That experience, like any other is grown from previous experiences, and impacts future experiences.

Do you write love off to a predetermine result of your past experiences?

I wouldn't say I "write it off", that seems dismissive. I would say it's "explained as" a result of past experiences.

Do you desire to be loved?

Absolutely. It's a great pleasure to be loved and of course I desire it.

Just because something has a rational explanation doesn't mean its value is any less. Love isn't any "cheaper" or insignificant just because there's logic behind it.

If anything, rationality enhances it. Would you rather be loved because of who you are? Or would you rather leave it up to completely random chance whether or not people love you?

hamsterman wrote:
many of my friends seem to accept determinism.

To what degree? Everyone agrees with it to a point, but when you get into personal decisions that's when many people start to turn away from it.

If god doesn't have free will, then what makes him a god? Without free will god is no different from a glass of water.

In small enough terms, everything is composed of matter and energy, and in that sense everything is the same. But to think of everything in small terms is foolish and pointless.

Do you consider yourself to be the same thing as a glass of water? Could I pick you up and drink you? Of course not.

You're not defined by your smallest parts. You're defined by all of your collective parts and the way they're configured.

m4ster r0shi wrote:
By no means I want this to be seen as an insult, but I was thinking exactly like this when I was in high school

I don't take that as an insult. ;D

What if your thoughts do affect reality?

They certainly do. But probably not in the way you're thinking. My thoughts affect my mood, which affects my actions, which affects how people react (in turn affecting their thoughts/actions), all of which affects reality.

If you mean like ESP where I can bend the spoon with my mind, I have no reason to assume that would be true, as I have never witnessed it, nor has there been any [reliable] record of anyone ever observing it.

If it's true, I'd certainly love to learn about it. But until it actually happens, I'm stuck staying ignorant about it.

And I prefer this from the 'everything is set up for you, just shut up and watch' scenario.

This is a common misconception with determinism.

Just because actions are predetermined, that doesn't mean your consciousness is any less significant. Determinism is an explanation, it's not an excuse.

I'm still responsible for my actions. I still value my life and others lives just as much. Everything is just as real to me as it is to you. I still struggle with day to day decision making like everyone else. I know my decisions will impact the flow of the rest of my life.

The only thing that's different is our answer to "why/how?". That doesn't make the answer to "what?" any different.

Anyway, I believe determinism will soon be obsolete

An interesting thing about determinism is that it both contradicts and supports other faith systems. The contradicting part is pretty obvious... but let's say for example that your belief system turns out to be 100% true. You can become omniscient and reincarnate yourself and all that.

In determinism, all that would imply is that you aren't ignorant, and that you understand the cause/effect relationship of things and are able to effectively manipulate it to your advantage.

However you accomplish your extraodinary feat, it was some action or thought that did it. Therefore that forms the basis of the cause. Therefore determinism applies.

If actions were chaotic, controlling them would be contradictory (if they're under someone's control, they're not chaotic).

Because of this, determinism can never be obsolete.

hamsterman wrote:
I don't. I find it rather depressing.

See my reply to chwsks. Determinism is just an explanation.

Having an explanation doesn't take away from the human experience. Life is just as sensational, just as wonderful.

The word machine when applied to a human being is usually considered pejorative.

Only because it has connotations of artificiality and lifelessness. The human body is a machine in the strictest sense from beginning to end.

A machine is a device that uses energy to perform some activity.

helios wrote:
The relationship is quite likely...

I'm not denying the relationship. I'm saying that there is more than one relationship some of which are unknown. Lets say that assumption "when you kick a ball, it moves" is correct only when hidden condition X is met. You can only know this if you're aware of X and if you have tried to kick a ball when X was not met. Otherwise you will stay with the wrong (incomplete) assumption that you can always kick a ball.

I don't see where this is going, though. What are you arguing?

Neither do I. My original point was that Disch should not divide assumptions into right and wrong as they are all to certain extent unprovable (that's what agnosticism says anyway).

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Actually I thought a machine was something that converted energy. For example, a microwave converts electrical energy into electromagnetic radiation (most also have buttons that beep, LED displays and timers, but that's irrelevant) and a computer converts electrical energy into light, kinetic, sound and, unfortunately, heat energy. So they don't 'use' energy, they convert it into different kinds.

So they don't 'use' energy

Ever heard of the law of conservation of energy? Of course you can't use energy. It's just an expression meaning converting it to other forms and giving it to other objects.

EDIT:

If god doesn't have free will, then what makes him a god? Without free will god is no different from a glass of water.

Do you consider yourself to be the same thing as a glass of water? Could I pick you up and drink you? Of course not.

You misunderstood me. God is supposed to be an almighty being. If he obeys the simple laws of action and reaction, he's just like the rest of us - not a god at all.

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Disch (13742)

My original point was that Disch should not divide assumptions into right and wrong as they are all to certain extent unprovable (that's what agnosticism says anyway).

If they were provable they wouldn't be assumptions.

The difference between 'right and wrong' assumptions is not whether they're right or wrong. It's whether they serve to perpetuate your ignorance or not.

The "good" assumptions I was describing didn't really answer any question or fill any pocket of ignorance. "Bad" assumptions would.

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So they don't 'use' energy, they convert it into different kinds.

That's a side-effect of the activity. The point of a microwave is that it heats your food. The fact that energy is converted in the process is incidental.

@hamsterman,
Yes, I've heard about the First Law of Thermodynamics.
@helios,
I disagree, I think it's the other way round. The purpose of the microwave is to heat your food, but that's not what it does. It converts energy for the sake of heating food, it does not heat food with the side-effect of converting energy. That's like saying getting energy from food is a side effect of eating, when in fact it is reason for eating!

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Well, we can argue semantics all day long. The point is that humans are machines.

On the subject of God, determinism is a set of rules for objects within the universe. Specifically, that the next state depends on the previous state and on nothing else.
It's incorrect to apply it to God, or you end up with paradoxes such as the ones above.
And in any case, we would first have to come up with a single definition of "God", and that just won't happen.

If they were provable they wouldn't be assumptions.

That's not really how you wrote it..

So what determines whether or not information is "true"? According to my belief system, it's whether or not it forms that ever-important cause/effect relationship. If you can see that X is the cause of Y, and X always causes Y every time X is observed, then it is "truth" or "fact" that X does in fact cause Y. It's no longer an assumption... it's proven.

Yes, I've heard about the First Law of Thermodynamics.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't doubt that.

It converts energy for the sake of heating food, it does not heat food with the side-effect of converting energy.

I don't think there is a definition of 'side effect' in physics. Therefore I choose to define side effect as the effect that itself is not needed, but unavoidable.