Two cents: if energy is the foundation of causality, motion, and force, wouldn't it first have to have been in a state of perfect stillness? How could it get, from itself, from that state into the complex universe we experience? — Gregory

Here's a hypothetical possibility: there exists a quantum system whose quantum state is zero energy. A quantum state consists of a superposition of multiple eigenstates; this translates to zero energy actually existing as every possible level of energy, that essentially add to zero. This comprises the "perfect stillness" you reference. A universe is an antecedent of a single eigenstate - one whose energy is high. This eigenstate evolves (call it a big bang).

I don’t know about Trump supporters, but it’s the routine snobbery I oppose. You don’t like the way Trump talks and I respect that, but not liking the way the president talks is not sufficient enough to justify obstructing the office or the president from doing his job. It doesn’t justify the marches, some being the biggest in history, when not a single injustice was involved — NOS4A2

Trump's words both anger and scare people. They inflame emotions on both sides.Trump supporters applaud Trump "fighting back", no matter how low he goes. Marches and demonstrations are the public fighting back.

"Obstructing" the office? What actions have been inappropriately obstructed? Energy is certainly spent on political fighting, but has Trump done ANYTHING to rise above politics? Both his rhetoric and his policies have been extremely partisan and inflammatory, and thus polarizing. Push back is the consequence.

People thought the purchase of Alaska was stupid. The Danes sold the Virgin Islands to the US for $25 million. These aren’t stupid ideas and the outrage about it was misinformed. — NOS4A2

I'm sorry, but your rationalization of Trump's behavior on the subject is misinformed. It's absolutely understandable why the Danes would consider the idea absurd, and Trump attacking the PM for stating this is a new low (if that is possible). Understand, I'm fine with thinking outside the box. Doing so can result in both the brilliant and the idiotic. You discover which by floating the idea and getting feedback. The appropriate thing to do is to accept the feedback, not to take it as an insult and fight back.

What the implications be for our species if an individual (coming from out of nowhere) had managed to complete the Grand Unified Theory in mathematics? — Steven Twentyman

Zip. Nada. Zilch. It would be a big deal to a handful of people, but it would change no one's life.

One set of people that would be influenced would be Christian apologists: they would develop a new version of Cosmological Argument to "prove" God's existence.

He’s hearing countless arguments from countless advisors and opponents, supporters and antitrumpissts alike. Perhaps he is taking account of both sides. I don’t see the contradiction in entertaining opposing arguments. — NOS4A2

If you listen to everything he says carefully, you can perhaps see his opinion evolving. There's nothing wrong with that in principle, but he does tend to make declarations that he will do X, and later change his mind and declare he's going to do Y. How do you know when he'll really do what he says he'll do, since he changes his mind so much? This also suggests that his initial declaration were not the product of sound deliberation. Where's that $2B of infrastructure money? Where's that fantastic health care plan?

Not everyone listens to him that carefully. They may not notice his shifting positions, but when they hear what they want to hear - they remember this. When he doesn't say what they want to hear, they either ignore it or assume that since he's so brilliant, he'll eventually come around to do what they think is right.

Couple this with his rhetorical hypocrisy: he's simultaneously on both sides of a moral principle. Pleading the 5th implies there's something to hide when it's a political enemy, but when he's called upon to provide information, he's unwilling or secretive. He casts direct insults on political opponents and even on foreign allies, but he can't take even a negative reaction to some ridiculous idea he had (buying Greenland). Trump's diehard fans forgive all this - they don't judge actions and words on principle, they judge on whether you're with him or against him.

If we then define free will as the ability to consciously influence the outcome of reality, determinism necessarily precludes it. — ho ching leung

I strongly disagree, and I think this erroneous conclusion is a consequence of conflating logic with causation.

Contrast chains of logic with causal chains. Where Pi are propositions, and Ci are causes:

P1 =>P2=>P3=>....=>Pn (P1 implies P2, P2 implies P3...)
C1 ->C2->C3->...>Cn (C1 directly causes C2, C2 directly causes C3....)

Logic is transitive, so the above logic chain entails: P1=>Pn for all n. The intermediate Pi are irrelevant.

On the other hand, causation is NOT transitive. C1 does not directly cause Cn for all n. No Ci is irrelevant.

This matters because you are one of the Ci: you were caused, but you nevertheless are a causal agent - and a complex one at that. What are you? You are the sum total of your initial physical state (the DNA that comprised the zygote from which you emerged), and the various changes to yourself as a result of living. Collectively, these result in you having feelings, conditioned responses, desires, urges, knowledge, ways of thinking...etc. These are the things that went into making you who, and what, you are today, and your unique combination of these things are what "determine" the choices you will make. But since they are YOU, it is still YOU that is making the choice. A different YOU would make a different choice, so you are a critically important part of the causal chain. You become a different YOU when you learn from past mistakes, or introspectively decide to behave differently - perhaps more or less selflessly. Without you being who and what you are, the future causal chain (your output) would be different.

Bear in mind that although your factors were the product of determination, this does not imply you were designed to make the choices you make. It doesn't imply there's a puppetmaster pulling your strings, forcing a choice. You are the causal agent.

The best responses to theism are materialist (physicalist) metaphysics and cosmology. Every argument I've seen for God are based on arguments from ignorance or based on unstated metaphysical assumptions.

I don't think anyone has considered the basis of morality, which I argue is empathy. If we lacked empathy, there would be no morality. Morality is the intellectualization of empathy, turning it into a calculus.

It is no coincidence that a variety of cultures independently developed the "golden rule".

To add to the confusion, consider what (if any) difference there is between ontology and metaphysics. Both pertain to what exists.

This is a feature, not a bug. It enables Trump supporters to hear whatever they want to hear. You want gun background checks? You don't want background checks? No problem: there's Trump comments supporting both sides of this. It's a buffet of words: pick our what you like, and ignore the rest.


Imagine a president bending to the will of the people he governs. The thought is almost unthinkable. — NOS4A2

You're idealizing a non-existent scenario. The people do not have a single will. The phenomenon I identified is of individuals inferring from his words that the president is bending to THEIR will, while those with the opposite opinion feeling he is bending to their will. Why don't contradictions matter to you guys?

His earlier remarks are so absurd that he can't help but slip back into contradiction — S

This is a feature, not a bug. It enables Trump supporters to hear whatever they want to hear. You want gun background checks? You don't want background checks? No problem: there's Trump comments supporting both sides of this. It's a buffet of words: pick our what you like, and ignore the rest.

Free speech in the U.S. does not mean you can say anything, in any context, and suffer no consequences. There are laws against slander and libel. You can be fired for making negative comments about your employer. an absence of restriction is untenable. Hate speech is similar to slander.

I disagree. Our world views are largely a consequence of our environment, and speech constitutes a large part of that environment.

Then how come my speech isn’t contributing to your world view? It seems to have the opposite effect. — NOS4A2

TV commercials do not cause every viewer to immediately go and and purchase the advertised product. Nevertheless they are effective at inducing some demand for the product.

There are no consequences, positive or negative, to speech. — NOS4A2

I disagree. Our world views are largely a consequence of our environment, and speech constitutes a large part of that environment.

I'm guessing you must think it's bad to inhibit people from doing what they want. Is that it?
— Relativist

Yes. Didn't I explicitly say that? I thought I had. — Terrapin Station

My point was that we judge whether or not to restrict free speech based on the anticipated consequences, since we agree "objective moral values" don't exist.

The positive consequence is letting people do what they want a la consensual actions, rather than controlling others. — Terrapin Station

"Letting people do what they want" is not a consequence, it's just a generalization of "let people say what they want". I'm guessing you must think it's bad to inhibit people from doing what they want. Is that it? If so, why do you regard this as bad?

As I've been explaining over and over in this thread, I don't accept that we can at all demonstrate that there are negative consequences (especially of the sort that I'd legislate against, as I've been describing just today, in posts just above) — Terrapin Station

Free speech is not some objective moral value. You value it because of what you perceive to be the positive consquences. The negatives have not been demonstrated to your satisfaction, but neither have you demonstrated the positive consequences to my (and perhaps others') satisfaction.

But why? You subjectively value free speech so highly that you are willing to accept the negative consequences.

Note that you treat unrestricted free speech as the ultimate good.

If you don’t believe in free speech for views you despise, you don’t believe in free speech. — NOS4A2

When you refer to it as views I despise, that puts a subjective spin on it. I despise some right wing ideology, but I absolutely believe they should be able to voice their views. It boils down to whether or not there are standards that are more objective that can be applied. For example, do you think we should allow a public call-to-arms to start killing blacks? IMO, it's appropriate to silence that sort of speech.

While it is appropriate to hold everyone personally accountable for his own actions, let's bear in mind that our individual world-views are a product of our environment. Whether or not it fits some legal definition of "hate speech", when people talk in degrading ways about minorities or ethnic groups, it contributes to the spread of bigotry toward those groups. Speech can do even worse than spreading bigotry: it can normalize mistreatment. After the 2018 Pittsburgh Synagogue killings, I found some white nationalists saying "what's the big deal? Killing is a crime, but at least there's a few less Jews around". That may or may not constitute criminal hate speech; it doesn't tell people to kill Jews, but it expresses and spreads a horrible attitude - a world view that killing Jews isn't all that bad. It would be a good thing to draw a line somewhere that limits the extent to which people can make such public comments. I don't know where the line is best drawn, but I support having the line.

Rather than having the abstract discussion that seems to taking place so far, I recommend that everyone peruse what bigots are saying on the White Nationalist Stormfront forum. It can get pretty chilling.

But motion would be at least logically prior to time. Maybe we aren't evolved enough to understand these questions, but motion being prior to time is the topic I would like to discuss, if anyone's interested. — Gregory

Motion prior to time seems logically impossible. Motion entails change of position over time. In the absence of time, it logically impossible for there to be motion.

Aristotelian-Thomist arguments make a bit of sense in terms of classical (non quantum) physics: all motion in the universe is a product of thermodynamics. However when you bring Quantum Mechanics into the discussion, the argument runs into trouble. There are cosmological hypotheses that offer explanations for the high energy/low entropy state of the early universe without the need for a "prime mover" to make it go.

Certainly all are speculative, since they make assumptions that go beyond established physics - but they at least serve to falsify the argument from ignorance entailed by the Aristotelian-Thomist paradigm.

I hear a lot of Trump supporters praising Trump for "firing back" with insults and degrading statements, while complaining only about the low behavior when it's directed at Trump. Here's how you avoid being hypocritical: call out inappropriate behavior regardless of who's engaging in it.

I think firing back is completely appropriate, and wholly deserved. — NOS4A2

Indeed! Any firing back on that moronic guy in the oval office is richly deserved! Thanks for giving us carte blanche to say what we think of the pussy-grabbing jerk. I'm an agnostic, but I sincerely hope there's a hell he can rot in when he dies.

...
Man that felt good to express my feelings so openly! But I hope it's obvious how unproductive it is to engage in trash talk. It just inflames the side you're trashing, likely resulting in more of the same. Trump appeals to his base (like you) this way, but it is inflamatory -causing fighting back, and escalating the bad feelings on all sides.

Trump has been ridiculed since the beginning, caricatured in popular culture, burned in effigy, murdered in music videos and photo shoots; his looks, his body, his voice, his hair, his hands, his mannerisms have all been mocked and ridiculed incessantly; his family, his career, his legacy, put to the violent grindstone of popular opinion.

But he is still there firing back. — NOS4A2

I hear a lot of Trump supporters praising Trump for "firing back" with insults and degrading statements, while complaining only about the low behavior when it's directed at Trump. Here's how you avoid being hypocritical: call out inappropriate behavior regardless of who's engaging in it.

Denmark's PM called the proposal to by Greenland absurd. Trump's response:

"I thought that the prime minister’s statement, that it was 'absurd,' that it was 'an absurd idea,' it was nasty, I thought it was an inappropriate statement," Trump told reporters before departing the White House for a speech to a veterans group in Kentucky. "

Even if you (somehow) disagree about it being absurd, it should be no surprise that the PM would consider it so. Calling her "nasty" is yet another low in the Trump presidency.

A necessary condition for doing any science is choosing/determining which evidence to believe and how much weight to give it. How do you do that without free will? Because without free will, you're simply compelled to believe that a particular piece of evidence supports a hypothesis. It might, it might not. — RogueAI

I assume you mean "how do you do science without libertarian free will". The answer: with compatibilist free will. Compatibilists account for free will in a manner consistent with determinism. Some people feel that's not free enough because they don't like the idea that what they did was, in principle, determined.

1. The ability to make choices is a necessary condition for the evaluation of evidence.
2. Evaluating evidence is a necessary condition for science.
3. Without free will there is no ability to make choices.
4. Without the ability to make choices, evaluation of evidence is impossible.
5. If evaluation of evidence is impossible, science is impossible.
6. There is no free will.
7. Therefore, science is impossible. — RogueAI

Don't you believe you actually make choices? It seems absurd to deny this. The act of making choices and evaluating evidence could be described algorithmically, so it's consistent with determinism.

Reflect on a choice you made at some point in the past. Why did you make THAT choice instead of an alternative one? Clearly you had reasons for making the choice that you did. Is it possible that you could have landed on all those reasons and made a different choice? You arrived at those reasons after deliberating on your options, anticipating what would happen with each. The strength of various desires entered in. Maybe you overlooked some things, or failed to anticipate something. But given the series of thoughts and feelings that led to constructing the reasons for your decision, how could you have made a different one? With hindsight, you may have come to wish you'd made a different choice, but this hindsight constitutes knowledge you didn't have at the time, or an amount of self-control that you lacked at the time. If indeed no other option could have been selected after that exact deliberation, then your decision was determined by that deliberation.

.

I suggest that choices are determined irrespective of whether or not libertarian free will exists. Reflect on any past choice, and think about why you made it. If those are really the reason for the decision, then you could not have possibly made a different decision given the fact that those reasons were present.

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking, but I wouldn't call something a choice if it's determined. — Terrapin Station

What do you call those things you do every day, in which you make a selection from among multiple options? Obviously you are making a choice. Sure, the factors that go into making those choices are determined, but you still go through the process and make the selection based on factors within you. What would indeterminism add to the process that constitutes an improvement?

I wasn’t arguing it wasn’t. Not that I said “no it is not a choice”. Not “no it is not my choice”. The “choice” was made by me certainly but I don’t think it was much of a choice to begin with, that’s what I meant — khaled

When a choice presents itself, you make it. You say it wasn't "much of a choice", but what you would consider as more of a choice? How would indeterminism change the process or make it more of a choice? You agree that adding some randomness to it wouldn't be an improvement - it would be worse.

My issue is that it wouldn't be better. If determinism was false, we'd still have options before us and we'd still make choices based on our background knowledge, desires, etc. These would still constrain our imagination, and we wouldn't be any smarter, so it wouldn't be any better in any way.

It is at this point we should recognise that our freedom to choose or choose from is determined initially by our awareness of information. — Possibility

See my above reply to khaled.

I believe I could have controlled that influence and chosen a different city. — Possibility

Of course you could, had it occurred to you to take more time or to use Google. But it hadn't occurred to you. Given exactly the same sequence of thoughts (and identical backgound knowledge, desires, etc), you would have had exactly the same answer. This is true even if Libertarian Free Will were true. If there's a reason for a choice, then that choice is determined. If the choice was made for no reason - that is not an act of will

Depends on what you mean by choice. If you just mean “did you pick this option” then obviously yes. But if you mean “did you pick this option because of some capacity you have that doesn’t have the properties of either random or deterministic choice” then No. It wasn’t a choice, it was a random quantum interaction somewhere in my brain that picked this option among many. At least from what we’ve discussed so far, the world is split into random and deterministic interactions. I don’t see room for “free” interactions. — khaled

Set aside the issue of whether or not the world is deterministic, and think introspectively about choices you have made. Don't you sometimes ponder and weigh your options, consider the consequences and risks, and ultimately choose what you consider the best, or most desirable, option? I'm arguing that this is what makes it your choice: every factor that led to the decision was within you, part of you. It was driven by your beliefs, your background knowledge, your desires, your idiosyncracies. These are part of what makes you YOU. Determinism doesn't remove YOU from the causal chain.

If you have a child that misbehaves, will you refrain from disciplining the child because you know he didn't really have a choice? I'm just asking everyone to get real. When philosophizing leads you to conclusions that are contrary to common sense, it means you need to rethink your philosophizing - because maybe you're overlooking something. I think I've shown what that is.

I would also challenge someone to define what “free will” is in a way that doesn’t just boil down to “random will” — khaled

Didn't you choose to write those particular words? Were you not free to write something different?

I certainly chose to respond in the way I did. In my estimation, that makes it a freely willed decision. What makes it a freely willed decision is that I made it; I wrote what I wanted to write.

I think Terrapin is saying:
1. the will is determined or the will is free (premise)
2. the will is not determined (because of QM?)
3. Therefore the will is free

I agree that the conclusion follows from the premises, but it is not what is meant by the term "free will." If Shroedinger's cat survives the box, it's not because of free will. What I think is overlooked is the meaning of "the will" - which is that functional component of the mind that makes decisions..

I argue the same is the case for websites like Ashley Madison. They too cause conflicts in society, broken families, which lead to long term poverty, problems with children and so on. Furthermore, they also encourage and applaud deceiving "Life is short. Have an affair". They make a virtue out of the social sin of oppressing and deceiving others. Thus such an organisation deserves not only to be outlawed - but treated exactly like ISIS - with all their associates and members tracked down and brought in front of the law to be judged for promoting and engaging in illegal activity (in this case, the illegal activity would be anti-social behaviour and fraud). But to allow them to continue to function - and not only this - but to make money out of such an activity - that is the most monstrous absurdity. — Agustino

Your ISIS analogy fails because it facilitates crimes, whereas affairs are not crimes. Do you have any data support your claim that clandestine affairs cause more broken homes? It's conceivable that the homes get broken by the discovery of the affair, which would imply these sites are doing a service by making it easier to do them secretly.

About 10 years ago, a married aquaintence of mine had an affair through Ashley Madison (or something similar). He resorted to this because his 20 year marriage was celibate. He was devoted to his wife, so he didn't want to divorce her or hurt her - but he really didn't want to live without sex for the rest of his life. His affair was short-lived, and I'm pretty sure his wife never found out about it. I lost touch, but based on his facebook status - he still seems to be married to her. In a sense, Ashley-Madison saved his marriage.

QM has virtual particles fluctuating in and out of existence. — PoeticUniverse

That's only approximately true.

Here's the QFT view of things.

Matter is composed of particles. The set of known particles comprise the standard model of particle physics.

Particles are not anything like free floating ball bearings (as the imagination might lead us to think). Rather, they are disturbances in quantum fields. There is a quantum fields associated with each elementary particle (e.g. there is an up-quark field, a Higgs-field, etc). There is exactly one of each type of field, and each exists throughout space. These quantum fields are considered the fundamental components of existence.

Obviously, particles interact with one another. But since particles are actually quantized disturbances in fields, these can be considered interactions between quantum fields. But quantum fields also interact with one another in non-quantized ways. Such interactions are treated mathematically as "virtual particles."

So when it is said that virtual particles pop in and out of existence, it's actually just referring to interactions between fields that occur because the fields are waves and therefore fluctuate.

Matt Strassler has a great article describing virtual particles here.

Call me optimistic but it's either Biden making concessions to Sanders/Warren or bust for him. The other contenders are focused squarely on scoring points by making Biden look bad. — Wallows

I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few Republicans vote in the Democratic primaries out of being sick of the orange one. I'd expect Biden to be the Democrat they would choose.

Why are so many people so quick to jump to a conspiracy theory? More than likely, Epstein simply committed suicide (and BTW, it's been reported that the suicide watch had stopped). What did the guy have to live for? It kinda seems the rational thing to do.

he’s been in public eye for 50 years and has never been known as racist. — halo

ROFL! Right, and he's always been a faithful, loving husband, too.

Your argument seems to be that democratic candidates should embrace Republican talking points and accept elements of their policy proposals. — Maw

No: I'm not saying to embrace their talking points, in saying they shouldn't play into them. In particular, consider Medicare For All. IMO it has near zero chance of passing, but even if it could - it's too big, and too soon. We absolutely need a public option- that should be campaigned for. If successful, it will eventually crowd out the private options. IMO this is smart policy, and smarter politically.

I'm not saying Republican proposals should be embraced, but I definitely reject "no compromise" attitudes, whether it's from the "tea party" Republicans or a progressive mirror image. Even if Dems win the Presidency and the Senate, they won't be able to pass anything significant without compromising with Republicans because of the 60 votes needed for cloture.

I agree with what you said, but there's another big issue. Few actually consider themselves racists, but many have thought to themselves "they should go back where they're from" (as an example). Trump appeals to these suppressed tendencies, and emboldens them to say it out loud. Since they "know" they aren't racist, it is obviously leftist propaganda to label it such.