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Post by George Ortega on Nov 10, 2014 22:28:04 GMT
Absolutely no action mechanism, (way of explaining an action) allows for a human free will. If causality (determinism), acausality (sometimes referred to as randomness, indeterminism and probabilities), causa sui (self-caused), ex-nihilo (out of nothing) and numinous (spiritual) mechanisms all render free will impossible, what is preventing academics, who often devote years to the question of free will, from understanding this very clear, powerful, and unequivocal truth?
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Post by chandlerklebs on Nov 11, 2014 7:01:58 GMT
I think it is mostly the fear that they will lose their job if they were to understand and promote the truth. This type of fear is yet another demonstration of why their will is not free.
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Post by George Ortega on Nov 12, 2014 18:51:41 GMT
Bucking convention, especially church-sanctioned convention, certainly motivates some scholars to take the unscientific position that we have a free will. I think, however, that many scholars believe in free will because they got through school, and get through life, on of their excellent memory, and ability to recall memories, but that they are quite limited in their rational thinking skills.
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trick
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Post by trick on Nov 12, 2014 20:16:44 GMT
I agree with your assessment that most haven't acquired appropriate skill that allow them to think "outside the box" so to speak, yet many have great rote memory skills. I also think that not seeing the variables of their causation and the intuitions that follow allow them to ignore the rational assessments that go against those intuitions.
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Post by chandlerklebs on Nov 13, 2014 3:03:28 GMT
Bucking convention, especially church-sanctioned convention, certainly motivates some scholars to take the unscientific position that we have a free will. I think, however, that many scholars believe in free will because they got through school, and get through life, on of their excellent memory, and ability to recall memories, but that they are quite limited in their rational thinking skills. I can't help but find it ironic that those with a good memory don't seem to remember the causes that led them to be the way they are now. Since I have a poor memory, I was forced to understand things in order to help me remember them. |
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Post by George Ortega on Nov 13, 2014 9:24:38 GMT
I agree with your assessment that most haven't acquired appropriate skill that allow them to think "outside the box" so to speak, yet many have great rote memory skills. I also think that not seeing the variables of their causation and the intuitions that follow allow them to ignore the rational assessments that go against those intuitions. At a certain level, it's impossible for anyone to see all of the variables, or specifics, involved in the causes to anything, however, how is it that many "scientists" haven't sufficiently learned that causality is the governing principle of not just nature, but of scientific method? Unfortunately, many decades ago, some scientist's poor critical analysis skills, and perhaps their emotional needs hijacking their reasoning, led them to make the absurdly unscientific claim that some events in the quantum world are actually uncaused. |
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trick
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Post by trick on Nov 13, 2014 13:28:45 GMT
In the quantum world I believe it due to Bell's theorem which shows that certain events cannot be caused locally, the Newtonian causality that Einstein thought was needed. Due to this they assume the events were without a cause (e.g. Copenhagen) rather than non-local events (e.g. Bohmian mechanics), even though the idea of acausal events are way more (logically) problematic than nonlocal events, which are unintuitive as well (hence, I believe, causing the confusion by physicists who are often only taught the Copenhagen interpretation).
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Post by George Ortega on Nov 13, 2014 23:34:54 GMT
Yes, it seems increasingly acknowledged now that some events, like entanglement, are not locally caused, however, they are, nevertheless, non-locally caused. Ascribing acausality to an event must always be based on an ignorance of the cause, and as such, especially given the ubiquitous nature of causality in both the macro and quantum world, (i.e. particle measurement causing changes to particle position and momentum as required by HUP)the conclusion is as mistaken as it is unscientific.
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Post by chandlerklebs on Nov 14, 2014 0:41:42 GMT
Yes, it seems increasingly acknowledged now that some events, like entanglement, are not locally caused, however, they are, nevertheless, non-locally caused. Ascribing acausality to an event must always be based on an ignorance of the cause, and as such, especially given the ubiquitous nature of causality in both the macro and quantum world, (i.e. particle measurement causing changes to particle position and momentum as required by HUP)the conclusion is as mistaken as it is unscientific. Another thing that people do when they don't know the cause of something is to make up a cause for it that is not proven. As you know, free will is a common answer people give for why evil exists in the world. |
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Post by George Ortega on Nov 14, 2014 8:02:48 GMT
Great point; belief in free will makes "understanding" so conveniently easy, however ascribing evil to a free will without acknowledging the antecedent causes to that evil ironically renders us far more impotent to actually do something constructive to overcome that evil. It is amazing how many scholars genuinely fear that civilization will crumble if humanity fully understands that free will is an illusion, as this position shows a profound lack of knowledge and appreciation regarding our personal and societal governance by both pleasure and morality principles.
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trick
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Post by trick on Nov 14, 2014 16:45:28 GMT
Yes, it seems increasingly acknowledged now that some events, like entanglement, are not locally caused, however, they are, nevertheless, non-locally caused. Ascribing acausality to an event must always be based on an ignorance of the cause, and as such, especially given the ubiquitous nature of causality in both the macro and quantum world, (i.e. particle measurement causing changes to particle position and momentum as required by HUP)the conclusion is as mistaken as it is unscientific. Exactly, we have evidence that some causes are nonlocal, and no evidence of acausal events, so the postulation of such not being caused is unscientific (keeping in mind we never really see a cause but infer them through consistent correlation). In those cases in which we don't have evidence for a cause (e.g. that aren't entangled), and in which local causality is ruled out, at best one should be agnostic in their position rather than postulate acausal events (such as what Copenhagen does), with the understanding that nonlocal causality is the more probable of the two given the fact that there is actual evidence for (local and nonlocal) causal events and none for acausal events. |
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Post by George Ortega on Nov 14, 2014 21:23:49 GMT
I'm not sure our not having a free will is such a mystery. What is far more perplexing to me is how so very many Ph.D.s, even in physics like Kaku, are apparently incapable of understanding your above points regarding the non-scientific nature of ascribing acausality to that phenomena about whose causality we are so clearly just ignorant.
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trick
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Post by trick on Nov 14, 2014 23:00:15 GMT
I'm not sure our not having a free will is such a mystery. What is far more perplexing to me is how so very many Ph.D.s, even in physics like Kaku, are apparently incapable of understanding your above points regarding the non-scientific nature of ascribing acausality to that phenomena about whose causality we are so clearly just ignorant. It is quite baffling, but to me it shows that someone can be brilliant when it comes to science, and at the same time horrible when it comes to philosophy. It seems the two would go hand in hand, but it appears such just isn't the case (as with Kaku, etc).  |
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Post by George Ortega on Nov 16, 2014 9:34:01 GMT
It would be helpful if academics who understand free will to be an illusion began to conduct studies to better identify the various source of other academics inability to grasp this truth. Apart from week critical thinking skills, I think some academics simply lack the emotional maturity to, as science demands, overcome their personal needs and wants regarding "how" reality "should" be.
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trick
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Post by trick on Nov 16, 2014 13:41:05 GMT
It would be helpful if academics who understand free will to be an illusion began to conduct studies to better identify the various source of other academics inability to grasp this truth. Apart from week critical thinking skills, I think some academics simply lack the emotional maturity to, as science demands, overcome their personal needs and wants regarding "how" reality "should" be. I like that idea, but can you imagine the uproar in the scientific community if scientists attempted to build a study to explain other scientist's "inability to grasp the truth"? I can only imagine! ;-) |
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