• Thanatos Sand
    843
    no separation between our brains and us? really, then you have full awareness of everything happening in your brain? you can control your own heart rate? stop it even?

    You're hilarious since you clearly don't realize that all your awareness comes from your brain. If you did, you wouldn't ask such ridiculous questions. So, your question about your heart is irrelevant nonsense.

    there IS a separation between us and our brains, as i said before, WE are the conscious experience, our brains are highly complex computers which cause us and many other things, we are not our brains, we are but one element of our brains. possibly not even a necessary one

    Wrong, all that conscious experience happens because and within your brains. Someone (you) never took basic biology in college. You're so adorable; it's like you think we exist in our spleen.
  • Thanatos Sand
    843
    but what did you mean by 'you need to read better'? i read your comment like nine times, maybe you need to write better? maybe not, im not sure, have i missed something? please let me know.

    The fact you don't know what "you need to read better" means just further confirms you do. Thanks.
  • Thanatos Sand
    843
    "So, the only one with an issue with considering things outside your own perspective is clearly you, Peter."

    I would love to know what your talking about... please do explain, i would appreciate it.

    I made that clear in what I wrote above that sentence. I'm sorry English challenges you so.
  • PeterPants
    82
    umm... Thanatos, i think you need to step back for a second, because you arguing against an imaginary straw man.
  • PeterPants
    82
    "The fact you don't know what "you need to read better" means just further confirms you do. Thanks."

    oh, lol, you meant i need to read MORE, right? like read books and things, not that i need to read your comments better... right?
  • Rich
    3.2k
    im saying that the belief that a person could do different things given the EXACT situation,PeterPants

    Of course a person can. A person can decide to go left or right. A person then does it utilizing internal energy, which is why we have internal energy to move in the direction we choose.

    What is strange is the idea that since deterministic set of laws would so proceed as to concoct a universe where everyone is tricked into an illusion of no choice, except those who know that there is no choice, and for some reason these deterministic laws start unveiling the illusion.
  • PeterPants
    82


    ↪PeterPants
    "So, the only one with an issue with considering things outside your own perspective is clearly you, Peter."

    "I would love to know what your talking about... please do explain, i would appreciate it.

    I made that clear in what I wrote above that sentence. I'm sorry English challenges you so."


    no... no you just insulted me without explaining why, i think im very good at considering things from outside my own perspective, you simply asserted im not. please back that up. im not interested in baseless assertions.
  • PeterPants
    82
    "Of course they can. A person can decide to go left or right. A person then does it utilizing internal energy, which is why we have internal energy to move in the direction we choose.

    What is strange is the idea that since deterministic set of laws would so proceed as to concoct a universe where everyone is tricked into an illusion of no choice, except those who know that there is no choice, and for some reason these deterministic laws start unveiling the illusion."

    you need to try harder to actually understand what i am saying, because again, your arguing against a position i dont hold.
  • Thanatos Sand
    843
    no... no you just insulted me without explaining why, i think im very good at considering things from outside my own perspective, you simply asserted im not. please back that up. im not interested in baseless assertions.
    I already backed it up in my above tweets. if you can't address what I wrote, then you'll just have to keep crying about it.
  • PeterPants
    82
    im saying that the belief that a person could do different things given the EXACT situation,
    — PeterPants

    Of course a person can. A person can decide to go left or right. A person then does it utilizing internal energy, which is why we have internal energy to move in the direction we choose.

    What is strange is the idea that since deterministic set of laws would so proceed as to concoct a universe where everyone is tricked into an illusion of no choice, except those who know that there is no choice, and for some reason these deterministic laws start unveiling the illusion.
    Rich

    ok, so here is where most of the misunderstanding lies i believe.

    indeed a 'person' can decide to go left or right, im in no way saying they cant. what im saying is that its their brain that does the deciding, it does it based on programming (genes ideas beliefs etc) and the decision is not influenced by your conscious experience of it. but the real point is that if you go back in time to the moment of deciding to turn left, if all the atoms in the universe are exactly as they were, you will turn left every single time. you cant change it, its determined by forces you cant change.
  • PeterPants
    82


    crying about it? wow. im sorry we couldn't have a more civil and grown up discussion.
  • Thanatos Sand
    843
    Of course they can. A person can decide to go left or right. A person then does it utilizing internal energy, which is why we have internal energy to move in the direction we choose.

    What is strange is the idea that since deterministic set of laws would so proceed as to concoct a universe where everyone is tricked into an illusion of no choice, except those who know that there is no choice, and for some reason these deterministic laws start unveiling the illusion."

    you need to try harder to actually understand what i am saying, because again, your arguing against a position i dont hold.

    No, you need to try harder since nothing you wrote there addresses anything I said. So, i'm done entertaining your nonsense. Since you clearly can't address my actual posts, I won't read any more or respond to any more of yours. Adios, Pedro.
  • Thanatos Sand
    843
    what im saying is that its their brain that does the deciding, it does it based on programming (genes ideas beliefs etc) and the decision is not influenced by your conscious experience of it. but the real point is that if you go back in time to the moment of deciding to turn left, if all the atoms in the universe are exactly as they were, you will turn left every single time. you cant change it, its determined by forces you cant change.PeterPants

    I do have to say this is the most phenomenally awful, incoherent run-on sentence I've seen in a while. Adieu, Pierre...for good.
  • PeterPants
    82
    man, i love it when someone misrepresents me, misunderstands 90% of what i say, criticizes me for positions i dont hold, refuses to explain themselves and insists that i manage to understand them on my own, insults me three different ways, and then runs away saying they wont be back, wont read any response or anything. lol.
    I mean, im on the internet, i expect this stuff to happen, but still.

    goooood riddance.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    indeed a 'person' can decide to go left or right, im in no way saying they cant.PeterPants

    If you are saying this, then the person is making a choice.

    what im saying is that its their brain that does the deciding,PeterPants

    I prefer to say the mind is making a choice, but no matter, a choice is being made.

    The rest I'll skip, because it isn't relevant for discussion at this time. The point is a choice is being made. If there is a choice, there is no determinism.
  • PeterPants
    82
    Yes Rich, im saying a person makes a choice in a manner, we are back to the language issue, im saying that a persons brain makes a choice, but its a determine choice,, they could not have done otherwise, considering the history of the universe, it was always going to happen that way.

    But they still made their 'choice'.

    A computer program controls a robotic arm that sorts out green and blue cubes, the arm 'sees' a blue cube, and 'decides' to grab it and move it into the blue crate.

    A choice is made, determinism remains.

    I feel like you would be better served if you take a more charitable stance with this discussion, you seem to be searching for flaws in what im saying (and no doubt their are many because language is imperfect) it would be easier for you to get to where i am, to understand what is actually in my head, if you just reel back a bit on the defensiveness... and uh... sorry about this terribly insulting and condescending advice.. i know exactly how it sounds. but i believe its true.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    determine choicePeterPants

    No such animal. You can't have your cake and eat it simply by stringing two words together.

    But you are not the first to try. Lots of people want their called and eat it. They want everything to be determined (it is a desire) but then they have deal with the problem that it has nothing to do with life as we experience it. Just look at our conversation. What kind of cockamamie deterministic laws would create such a conversation.
  • PeterPants
    82
    hmm... i cant understand your criticism at all..

    did the robot or did the robot not, choose to move the blue cube into the blue crate?
    clearly it the action was determined by its programming, whether we call it a choice seems irrelevant, what im saying is that we are that robot, just FAR more complex.

    as to you comment about this conversation, you say;

    "What kind of cockamamie deterministic laws would create such a conversation."

    well firstly, its not deterministic laws, determinism is a law, its not made up of laws.. so i dont get that bit.
    secondly though, this world, with all its unbelievable complexity lead to this conversation. obviously.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    did the robot or did the robot not, choose to move the blue cube into the blue crate?PeterPants

    The robot didn't choose. It was programmed to do it. It has no choice. If it had a choice, there would be complete havoc in the warehouse.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    determinism is a law,PeterPants

    No such animal. It is a concoction of the creative mind to replace the word God.

    When you discover the law that created this conversation, give me a ring.
  • PeterPants
    82
    ok then, by that same reasoning, we have no choices, we are programmed to do what we do, by evolution.
    to assume there is a difference, seems to me, to be a symptom of delusions of grandure. :P

    whatever language game you want to play is fine, call it a choice or dont, whatever. doesn't bother me.
  • PeterPants
    82
    all of the laws of the universe created this conversation, along with everything else.... i dont see what your talking about..

    your not.. your not giving me the old, 'you cant explain EVERYTHING so your wrong' nonsense are you? i hope not.
    Are you expecting me to explain in perfect detail, every single thing that led to this conversation?
  • PeterPants
    82
    OH, btw, when i said determinism is a law, i wasn't stating that its a fact of reality, i was giving its catagory.. maybe thats where we got muddled here..

    i wasn't saying it was necessarily true, i was jsut saying its an idea like gravity (categorically speaking), its a law itself, not a group of laws.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    Ok, now you are saying there is no choice.

    It's OK. If you want to believe you are a pre-programmed computer, it is no skin off my teeth.
  • PeterPants
    82
    want has nothing to do with it... its where my logic has led me. im open to being corrected but so far all you've offered is your own personal feelings that you dont want determinism to be true. forgive me if they dont convince me.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    There is zero logic in determinism, zero evidence, and what's more it explains nothing. It is nothing more than a desire by someone to have something directing their life. Religious people might call it God. Atheists call it Determinism.

    As for me, I make choices.
  • PeterPants
    82
    .... there is zero logic and zero evidence for what exactly??

    what on earth do you think im talking about here... im saying something does NOT exist... of course there is no evidence for it, thanks for supporting my argument?

    confused am i.
  • PeterPants
    82
    or are you saying there is zero evidence that our actions are determined by reality?
  • Rich
    3.2k
    Zero. It it's impossible to predict human actions. The reason is choice and will.
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