Free will ~ A product of imagination

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Quantum Quack, Apr 8, 2014.

  1. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,353
    QQ, regardless of what vendetta you seem to have against people who disagree with you, you can not claim he misquoted you when it is quite evident you DID type exactly what he quoted you as typing. They are exact quotes.
    Do you deny you said: "I am not suggesting that the value is independent of the process"?
    Do you also deny you said: "yes can be the only answer." in direct response to his question: Does "value" have any reality independent of the process that uses it?

    That you also said "The value of a $100 note is pure fiction uninhibited by the laws of physics as the note itself has very little intrinsic material substance." is irrelevant to the contradictory statements you did make, that he pulled you up on.

    Oh, I would agree: freewill is indeed a product of imagination... the same as flying pigs, Harry Potter, and Quarg the Almighty who rides planets like they were giant Space Hoppers.

    So thank you for clarifying your position, even if it does go contradictory to your incessant claims on other threads that freewill is genuine/real. I'm sure if Baldeee ever takes you off ignore he might thank you himself.
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,328
    It is of no consequence to me whether someone puts me on ignore or not. That is their individual choice to self censor or not.
    His arguments have been going around in circles this entire thread.
    This thread is not about me it is about the propositions as stated in the OP.
    Baldeee and now you have chosen to make this thread about me..and that is not the topic.

    What you have failed to grasp is the significance and ramifications of this statement:

    If you grasped the above, the claims of contradiction by Baldeee and now you are total nonsense. [ a terrible misinterpretation indicating just how out of your depth you both are ]
    In this sense we are dependent on the hard wired biological reality to produce fiction uninhibited by that very same hard wired biology.

    Which so far has not been addressed by Baldeee or yourself. [ perhaps you both are simply too busy trying to attack me personally rather than getting on with the job at hand?]
    When Baldeee finally is made to stand by his attempt to refute he spits the dummy and runs away.

    so maybe you would care to have a go at it instead...

    so I ask you...

    If the product of the imagination is not real then what is it, in your opinion?
    If the value of $100 printed on a bank note is not real then what is it?
    Or are you going to launch in to an "ad hominem" attack as your reputation suggests that is all you are capable of when you can not address the issue at hand?


    Note: I am looking for a "proposition killer" and as yet I have not found one...which is why I posted this thread to begin with. With sciforum member's help we may find out if there are any weaknesses or failings
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2014
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,328
    well thank you very much...

    you do know the difference between an illusion and fiction don't you...?
    If choices and decisions are fiction and are uninhibited by the laws of physics is as you have agreed, then free will is a reality of fiction we use every day and not in the slightest bit an illusion.

    Which is exactly what the OP has proposed..

    and so is E=mc^2
    and all the thousands of years of science that went into it's imagining.

    so ...uhm.... what's the problem?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    we agree!


    Can you imagine a proposition killer that makes sense?....if so I am sure we would all like to read it...
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Rav Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,422
    Actually I'm pretty sure I said more than that. Specifically, that the definition of physical has historically expanded to encapsulate more and more phenomena. And one day it may very well expand to include the phenomenon of consciousness as well. Some people might think this has already happened, but it really hasn't. What we've seen instead is a lot of people trying to quantify consciousness in terms of the current state of our understanding, which simply doesn't work. In my opinion, if the dimension of consciousness is indeed ultimately a property of a bunch of the same "stuff" that everything else is made of, then explaining it will entail the discovery of new fundamental characteristics. And that certainly wouldn't be unprecedented.

    Most objections to this seem to stem from the idea that matter and consciousness are so fundamentally irreconcilably different that a dualistic approach is absolutely necessary. But I think this betrays a failure to recognize the fact that at the most fundamental level, matter isn't actually physical in the classical sense anyway. Our best understanding says that everything we see is manifested by fields of energy, some of which permeate, penetrate and interact with everything in a very ethereal sort of way. Believe it or not, that's what the physical world actually is, and it's not even controversial to say that. So at the fundamental level at least, where's this supposed necessary dualism? What is inherently wrong with the notion that physicality, so understood, can manifest consciousness, particularly when the assumption is not that consciousness itself is an inherent property of all things but merely that the fundamental building blocks that are necessary for its emergence are? I say that matter must have such properties, or else you simply can't get there from here.

    Conscious beings who can hold ideas and information about the world in their minds certainly exist. And when those ideas are indeed being held in the mind then yes, they exist. Obviously.

    How about constructing a multiple choice question instead? I come here to casually converse, not to relive the experience of annoying exam questions.

    And again. But I feel inclined to comment here nonetheless.

    I've come to dislike the phrase "laws of physics". It implies that the behaviour of the natural world is governed by a bunch of rules we've abstracted from our imperfect attempts at modeling it. But it isn't. The natural world simply behaves according its own nature. In other words, it is possible for nature to behave in opposition to the "laws of physics", but not in opposition to that nature. So unless you are prepared to improve your question, I'm not inclined to tackle the task of answering it.
     
  8. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,328
    @ Rav

    Firstly thank you for your well considered response.

    And I do apologize for posting in the manner I have.

    I totally agree with what you have written...
    To understand the nature of consciousness may indeed require a major scientific paradigm shift by those who practice from the arm chair.

    What you have written indicates a rather profound depth of understanding that most would have difficulty accepting with out applying the effort needed to meet challenge.

    yes it is rather obvious and unfortunately sometimes it is necessary to state such.

    I do apologize.. unintended to bore you with over kill so to speak.

    I agree with what you have offered.
    Regarding the complaint, fair enough and a reasonable request... thank you..
     
  9. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,353
    I find them most logical.
    You have made it about you, QQ. I certainly haven't, and nor has Baldeee from what I can see, but do feel free to provide evidence where he has. Or where I have.
    Oh, I grasp what it is trying to say, QQ. You simply haven't addressed the criticisms of it yet. You have dismissed them without addressing them.
    Where has he misinterpreted it? You constantly make such claims without providing anything to support your case.
    And nothing within the statement speaks to the reality or otherwise of the subject of the imagination.
    Where have I attacked you rather than your argument, QQ? As Baldee has said, it is you who are generating the insults here, and then you have the gall to criticise people when they have had enough of you and your ludicrous "arguments".
    It is as real as the clouds within a Met Office computer that is trying to predict the weather.
    The value of a bank note is only real as part of a process by which the relevant parties agree to give it value. There is nothing inherently of value outside of that process.
    Excuse me??
    Where have I engaged in such? Just post one example of where I have ever done that - or retract your accusation!
    Oh, I have insulted, I have no doubt of that. But never in lieu of addressing the point!
    So post one example. And for that matter provide evidence that doing such is what my "reputation suggests".
    To the proposition that something unreal need not adhere to the laws of physics? Are you expecting people to disagree?
    As to your subsequent claim that this somehow shows that freewill is a reality, all you have done is argue that freewill is unreal, and that the subject of freewill (not the process of making the choice, but the choice itself) is similarly free from the laws of physics.
    You have not addressed the decision-making process itself, but merely the "product" of it... and for the "product" you have not addressed its reality outside of the process in question.
    Beyond that, your entire line of argument is nonsense from the outset. It is based on illogic, as has been pointed out to you, but you chose to ignore it, or simply claim the person is wrong without supporting that claim.
     
  10. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,328
    @ Rav,
    As yet you have not approached the propositions mentioned in the OP..
    Can I ask why? [The use of the terms "the laws of physics" is due to the popular usage and subsequent debates that follow]

    [if you could "put aside" to some extent the adversarial nature of it's approach.... ]

    Can you suggest a better way of presenting them so that a discussion or debate can be most rigorous and productive. I would like to eventually take it to a more qualified and erudite setting.

    [1]The product of the imagination is NOT determined by the laws of physics.

    [2]The product of the imagination does not need to defy the laws of physics but renders them irrelevant as per choice.

    [3]The human ability to produce fiction including choices and decisions, uninhibited by the Laws of Physics, is biologically "hard wired" into our brains by those very same laws...

    [4]The criteria that for freewill to be more that an illusion of appearance it must defy the laws of physics has *therefore* been refuted.
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2014
  11. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,328
    so uhm... what are you trying to say about the topic at hand...?
    Take a deep breath and post one question at a time... follow a logic trail of your own and I will respond accordingly...
    As yet you have not understood properly what I am proposing...and I am also learning how to convey them...
     
  12. Baldeee Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,226
    Thank you.
    It will be interesting to see if he does, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
    Trolls do as trolls do, Sarkus.
    There was a good film I saw recently: "Troll Hunter".
    Now I have an image to go with the name.
    And it is sad when people think that ignoring others is due to the superiority of their "argument".
    Normally if someone is having stones thrown at them, they can either throw back, or extricate themselves.
    Agreed!
    Their existence is solely as part of a process.
    Do they exist independently of that process, as Quantum Quack claimed?
    No, I don't think they do.
    They are a sort of qualia, I'd suggest, but I do not hold to the existence of qualia, but rather to the process that gives rise to them.
    Has he got you confused with someone else, perhaps?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    He previously accused me of engaging in "forum blood sports".

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    So you'll have to let me know if he does support any of these accusations.
    Experience shows that he won't address them.
     
  13. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,328
    post reported
    Off topic, worthless content and participating in forum blood sport.
     
  14. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,353
    Due to the way you chose to write that last post, this may look messy, but my initial sentences are in bold, yours follow...
    It says more of you that you are not able to follow it.
    Oh, it's "full of it", for sure. Not in the meaning you might think though. But if you think the thread is full of examples of where Baldeee (although I now see you edited your post to include me. How nice.) has made it about you, just provide an example.
    Another example of you saying "you're wrong" with nothing to support it. So where is your addressing of post 40, other than your "this makes little sense to me"?
    I have. Where has he misinterpreted it?
    Use as part of a process, yes. Where is the reality outside of that process, the process you have agreed adheres to the laws of physics?
    I think post 64 is evidence that your posts are found ludicrous. But hey, why not ignore the rest of the line you're responding to. Where have I attacked you rather than your argument? You are the one generating insults (post 52, post 53 - the whole of which is just an attempt at character assassination of Baldeee, as is post 57 which questions his honour, post 73 in which you accused him of "forum blood sport" etc), and then in post 102 you have the gall to criticise him for putting you on ignore.
    E=mc^2 is not real. It is our estimate at a universal law. Laws have no reality in and of themselves, only as part of a process. As explained.
    And how is "spent tendered" etc not a process in which value is a part? If you are going to say "not so" then at least put up an example that does not support my position.
    You accused me of launching "in to an 'ad hominem' attack as your reputation suggests that is all you are capable of when you can not address the issue at hand". Insulting you while also addressing the issue at hand is not such an ad hominem as you accuse me of.
    So again: Where have I engaged in such that you have accused me of? Just post one example of where I have ever done that - or retract your accusation!
    If there are too many posts in too many threads, just post one. It should be relatively easy.
    Where have I said so? Where have I said that something unreal needs to adhere to the laws of phyiscs? Again - support your claim!
    As for claiming "fiction is not the same as Baldeee's 'unreal'" - refer to post 40 where it is clear he considers them to be the same. You have not as yet disputed that.
    So we are to ignore your post 63 and 66 (identical posts) and your subsequent jpg-making exploits where you said that you and he agree when he said: "The process of imagination follows the laws of physics.
    The subject need not do so - until one attempts to make it real."? Another show of lack of consistency on your part, QQ.
    No it is not. You are attempting to show that the product of imagination is free from the laws of physics... and from your "logic" (and I use the term loosely) you attempt to use it to prove that freewill is thus free from the laws of physics. So it is very much the issue here.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Anything else to add, beyond your continuing lack of support for your claims and for the accusations you have thrown at both me and Baldeee?
     
  15. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,353
    :shrug:
    Are you going to report all your own posts for worthless content, insults and unsupported claims?
     
  16. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,353
    Can you explain further? You think the "product" of imagination is similar, say, to pain, and that it doesn't have an independent existence? That it's only existence is as part of the process of, say, being alive?
    Afterall, I guess a dead body does not feel pain, and a dead body is certainly not exhibiting the process of "living". So what would pain be if not merely an aspect of that process? Can we bottle "pain"? Can we pluck a thought from someone's head without capturing that process in action? If the process stops, does the thing, be it an imagined thought, a fiction, pain, do any them then exist?

    If not, and I do not necessarily disagree with this (if this is what you meant), then to speak of the "product" of the process is meaningless, as there is just the process. Hence the "product" is not real.
    Thus the claim that freewill is such a "product" means that it can be nothing but part of the process that gives rise to it, and as such must abide by the "laws of physics" (as previously agreed, even by QQ!).

    The issue then remains how the thought/imagination can be about something that appears to defy the laws of physics. E.g. I can imagine a rabbit that can leap 20km in the air. How can this occur within a process that abides by those laws? What is the nature of the "existence" of that rabbit? Is it because I create, with the same sense of "existence" a universe in which those laws do not apply? Then how can I create such a universe which defies the laws of physics of our own universe?

    But is that even relevant to the question of freewill, when freewill is not about what you decide, but about how you decide. So even if a process can give rise to things that, within their bubble of "existence" as a thought (per above), can seem to defy the laws of physics, it is irrelevant to the question of freewill if the process that brought about that thought adheres to the laws of physics/universe etc.
     
  17. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,320
    But that seems to automatically fall out of or already be subsumed under the observed furniture / eventual products of a deterministic universe (if the latter was taken to literally be the case). IOW, that such is unavoidably fated to produce its own foil: These appearances and arguments of free will [fiction] arising, support for indeterminism, etc. Even determinists can't deny that their own client (an unfolding process which from the outset was devoid of any optional pasts / presents / futures) is utterly responsible for its own situation of having to be defended, that it accordingly may be its own worst enemy.
     
  18. Baldeee Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,226
    Yes (in answer to the latter questions, thus answering the first).
    Some would argue that qualia exist in and of themselves.
    That things have essences.
    But I see it as these "essences" are merely a perception/interpretation of a process in action.
    You stop the process, the essence is not there.
    Is the essence part of the process, or of the interpretation?
    Or neither?
    Marvin Minsky is a good one to read on this general subject.
    But that "existence" is not real in and of itself, of course.
    It is real in the sense that it is part of a process, but not in and of itself.
    This is where the notion of what is "real" is a tad woolly, much like the issue of whether an illusion exists.
    An illusion exists, but not as we perceive it.
    The existence of what we perceive only exists as part of the process of perception.
    In the same way, our thoughts "exist" but only as part of the process of thinking.
    Ah, yes.
    I was getting embroiled with the claim put forth that the "product" can defy the laws of physics, and this thus "proving" that freewill can defy them (being a "product").
    But indeed the nature of freewill is not in the "product", the options seemingly available, but in the process of "choice".
    And this simply has not been addressed within this thread.
    And the OP seems doomed from the outset in that it considers freewill a "product" rather than the process.
     
  19. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,328
    hmmm... agreed...
     
  20. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,328
    Edit: this section deleted as unnecessarily confusing to the issue.

    To use a criteria that is a fictional product of the imagination, such as "The Laws of Physics" to deny the reality of Freewill, which is being claimed to be another fictional product of imagination is absurd.
    Therefore Freewill could be considered as fictionally real as "The laws of physics"

    It would be best I suppose to clarify whether "The laws of physics" are products of imagination before taking this discussion much further.
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2014
  21. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,353
    Will look him up. Thanks.
    But that is true of anything without material existence?
    Could the "Laws of Physics" even be said to exist?
    But I think we at least both agree that it is nothing to do with the "product", that it is the process.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  22. Baldeee Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,226
    Would it be true of anything?
    Well, either the thing is real / exists in and of itself, or it exists as part of a process.
    The process of "life" in humans gives rise to such things as emotions, feelings, observations, thoughts, value, worth etc.
    None of these things exist outside of this process.
    But something like a rock has independent existence.
    It remains a rock whether it is part of a process or not.
    The label "rock" assists with its identification when part of a process involving us, but it is not needed for the rock to be a rock.
    At least that's how I see it.

    With regard the laws of physics...
    One needs to be clear as to whether one is talking about the laws as we have identified them, or the objective laws that the universe adheres to.
    The former, being our best guess (albeit after years, decades, centuries of observation etc), are still only our interpretation of the laws.
    And in that regard I would say that they have no existence outside of the relevant process (of human life).
    The objective laws (that we have hopefully modelled accurately) are different, though, in that they exist in the objective way that the universe acts.
    These objective laws do not change, irrespective of what we might claim them to be.
    So I would say that these do have an independent existence, at least independent from the process of "life", of imagination, of thought, although (under this argument) we are certainly a manifestation of those laws.
    Indeed.
     
  23. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,328
    So is fiction real or unreal?
    Is fiction "a part" of the process suggested by, Baldeee?
    Define fiction and how that process appears to allow the imagination "creative license" with out inhibition? [as evidenced by the incredible diversity of human creative output in all fields of endevour]

    I have never stated that fiction is unreal.
    I have always stated that there is ample evidence to support the reality of fiction.




    From the OP
    and
    In other words with, all due respect, you Baldeee and Sarkus appear to be arguing the wrong argument.
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2014

Share This Page