ooooo.... a serious discussion!

[Jeremiah]

sorry but thats wrong. it does not follow rules but factors. many different factors that all influence one another to create a 'moment'. the only moment that could possibly exist because of what happend earlier. you live that moment...

but that doesnt mean you dont decide what happens. you do decide. but you only reach that one, exact conclusion because of the way your brain waves went at that exact time. if you happend to scratch your self for example, your brain waves would of been going at a different time than before.

you dig that?

In a predetermined world, you couldnt "happen" to scratch yourself, your brain waves would be following a predefined pattern. Nothin happens by chance, or because of decisions you made earlier to influence that certain point in life. A predetermined world is like someone in the future watching us today, knowing exactly what we are going to do, theres no chance of us doing anything different.

Our life has already been played out before us, so we wouldnt have any influence at all. To say that points in time are affected by actions we peformed earlier doesnt mean we have in some way decided what has happened, because the actions performed earlier are still part of the predetermined world, and hence we couldnt choose those actions either.

In a free-will world you have autonomy, in a predetermined world you dont. Without autonomy, there is no responsibility. We would be nothing more than humans following a path in life we cannot change, which I think would just devalue life itself Aww.. this subject depresses me

 

[Chronictank]

In a predetermined world, you couldnt "happen" to scratch yourself, your brain waves would be following a predefined pattern. Nothin happens by chance, or because of decisions you made earlier to influence that certain point in life. A predetermined world is like someone in the future watching us today, knowing exactly what we are going to do, theres no chance of us doing anything different.

Our life has already been played out before us, so we wouldnt have any influence at all. To say that points in time are affected by actions we peformed earlier doesnt mean we have in some way decided what has happened, because the actions performed earlier are still part of the predetermined world, and hence we couldnt choose those actions either.

In a free-will world you have autonomy, in a predetermined world you dont. Without autonomy, there is no responsibility. We would be nothing more than humans following a path in life we cannot change, which I think would just devalue life itself Aww.. this subject depresses me

I disagree,
you are the one that pre-determined it, therefore the responsibility is yours irrespective of whether it is destined to happen or not.
The point im making is that you are he one that chose your actions, not someone else.
If your actions were dictated to you then you would have no responsibility, but they arent.
So i fail to see how it devalues life if you have made your decisions, which you are going to do based on all the factors in that instance. you will always be the same person, and think the same way if all the variables were to be replicated exactly you would do the same thing again.
So in a predetermined world there is still autonomy, but to the extent that you choose what action you perform in any given instance

 

[Jeremiah]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what everyone believes a predetermined world is.

I'n my view, a predetermined world is like a film. Theres an entire script written for you which you didnt write, and you cant deviate from that script. In this enviroment, you dont have choices over what you say or do, it has already been written what you do and you need to follow it. You are merely an actor in the script life has given you.

So as you can see, in my view of a predetermined world, you dont have choices at all. Your life has already been planned out, all you do is follow the script that has been written for you, not by you but by some governing force over life (or something like that )

For example

So in a predetermined world there is still autonomy, but to the extent that you choose what action you perform in any given instance

In my view you have just described a world with free will since you have choices of actions. I think we might be confusing predeterminism with cause and effect, which I would say are two completley different states

 

[snushanen]

"Butterfly Effect" anyone? =) Great movie

Anyways, if I decided my own future before it happens, then that's not really predeterminism, that would be planning. Predeterminism means, that everything abides by some fixed rules, which is only partially true in my opinion. Ofc we can calculate how the stars move and what happens if we throw 1kilo out of a window in 200m height.

Human life and way of thinking are different though, as they don't follow a strict line. What works for objects is impossible to do for the human brain, as there is no way you can 100% predict its actions.

Yes we can predict what happens if we trow a 1 kilo block out of a 200 m high window etc, we can also predict far more complicated things like stars etc. Then why shouldnt we be able to predict the actions and choises Human makes, We follow the exact same laws of physics. The reason why we cant predict a choise a human makes is because the brain is far to complex and the mathematichal factors are far to difficult for uss to calculate.

I honestly belive that human life and way of thinking, making choises etc are predicteble, but to difficult to calculate.

I also think "free will" is an illusion. The only reason we belive we have a free will is because we dont know what choise we are gonna make until we make it, and when it happens we get the feeling that we could have done it otherwise 2 seconds ago, but I am not sure we could. Our choises are decided by loads of factors like our genetics, mood, our childhood etc. Some of them like genetics are already calculatable by humans.

I think every choise I am gonna make for the rest of my life is "already made" , but I will feel like i have a choise or a "free will" because I dont know what choise i am gonna make until I do it.

 

[tris-]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what everyone believes a predetermined world is.

I'n my view, a predetermined world is like a film. Theres an entire script written for you which you didnt write, and you cant deviate from that script.

thats like fate and horoscope bull shit.

maybe try looking back through your life and think of any major coincidences that seemed odd, or led to more coincidences that greatly influenced life.

do you believe such major things could just happen by chance, every single time?

snushanen got it spot on

 

[liloe]

I know people generally don't like it here, but seeing the whole discussion from a religious point of view it will never work to have a predetermined life, seeing that salvation would be kinda obsolete then =)

It doesn't even matter which religion you take, all I know are based on the fact that you have to decide for something =)

 

[tris-]

I know people generally don't like it here, but seeing the whole discussion from a religious point of view it will never work to have a predetermined life, seeing that salvation would be kinda obsolete then =)

one form of pre determinism believes there is a creator.

another form is pre determinism without a creator, which i believe in.

so religion does play a part for some, in a way.

 

[Svartmetall]

I know people generally don't like it here, but seeing the whole discussion from a religious point of view it will never work to have a predetermined life, seeing that salvation would be kinda obsolete then =)

It doesn't even matter which religion you take, all I know are based on the fact that you have to decide for something =)

See, I never bought the whole 'free will' argument as it appears in Judeo-Christian mythology.

...btw none of this is having a go at you personally, liloe ...

It goes like this:

God creates world.
God creates or at the very least - what with being omnipotent and stuff - allows the existence of Satan and Hell.
God creates Man.
God tells Man "You have free will, and can do whatever you want. Oh, by the way, if it's not what I want you to do, then you're going to Hell."

I mean, come on. It's not free will at all, it's the most stacked deck you can imagine.

 

[Jeremiah]

thats like fate and horoscope bull shit.

maybe try looking back through your life and think of any major coincidences that seemed odd, or led to more coincidences that greatly influenced life.

do you believe such major things could just happen by chance, every single time?

snushanen got it spot on

I think my definition of determinism agrees with the wikipedia definition Pre-determinism

Maybe you could offer an example of what your view of it is, that might help me see what you mean

 

[tris-]

I think my definition of determinism agrees with the wikipedia definition Pre-determinism

Maybe you could offer an example of what your view of it is, that might help me see what you mean

that is what i believe.

and also take some of my ideas from this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celestine_Prophecy

 

[Svartmetall]

...can you have post-determinism as well?

*runs*

 

[Takhasis]

<exits via the side door>...

(sorry couldnt find a decent wtf image to go here)...

 

[Chronictank]

See, I never bought the whole 'free will' argument as it appears in Judeo-Christian mythology.

...btw none of this is having a go at you personally, liloe ...

It goes like this:

God creates world.
God creates or at the very least - what with being omnipotent and stuff - allows the existence of Satan and Hell.
God creates Man.
God tells Man "You have free will, and can do whatever you want. Oh, by the way, if it's not what I want you to do, then you're going to Hell."

I mean, come on. It's not free will at all, it's the most stacked deck you can imagine.

well that really depends on what you believe,
most major religions believe in a afterlife, and the world we are in now is just a test of your character, you do good things you end up with good people, you do bad things you end up with bad people etc...
A more accurate representation would have been
you are born
you live
you die
you enter another plane of conciousness where based on your actions you either join the community (lets call it heaven) or another community (lets call it hell for sake of argument)

if you believe in evolution, dont you think it is very feasible a species has evolved to the state of being able to create planets for example using technology or otherwise.
After all 200 years ago people believed a human would never be able to fly
But tbh we are going off topic

 

[noblok]

I disagree,
you are the one that pre-determined it, therefore the responsibility is yours irrespective of whether it is destined to happen or not.
The point im making is that you are he one that chose your actions, not someone else.
If your actions were dictated to you then you would have no responsibility, but they arent.
So i fail to see how it devalues life if you have made your decisions, which you are going to do based on all the factors in that instance. you will always be the same person, and think the same way if all the variables were to be replicated exactly you would do the same thing again.
So in a predetermined world there is still autonomy, but to the extent that you choose what action you perform in any given instance

You pre-determined it in pretty much the same way a computer script pre-determines things. Given input x, it will answer output y. You don't choose what action you perform in any given instance. Choosing implies having several possibilities and in a deterministic view there's only room for one possibility.

 

[Chronictank]

You pre-determined it in pretty much the same way a computer script pre-determines things. Given input x, it will answer output y. You don't choose what action you perform in any given instance. Choosing implies having several possibilities and in a deterministic view there's only room for one possibility.

I think you misunderstand me
i am saying what is going to happen has already been mapped out based on your decisions at each instance,
you had several possibilities but you (in that instance of time) chose x.
If you go in the past you dont know you are going to make that decision, but your instance in the past you dont know what you are going to choose because it hasnt happened yet

 

[noblok]

Thing is you can't have several possibilities in a pre-determined world. There may be several things presented to you as alternatives, but in a pre-determined world you cannot choose for anything else than for what you actually choose. Something isn't really a possibility if you aren't capable of choosing it.

e.g. If you're give the choice between flying to the top of a mountain and walking up there, then you don't really have a choice, do you? (for the sake of the argument I exclude the possibility of not going to the top of the mountain)

 

[Chronictank]

Thing is you can't have several possibilities in a pre-determined world. There may be several things presented to you as alternatives, but in a pre-determined world you cannot choose for anything else than for what you actually choose. Something isn't really a possibility if you aren't capable of choosing it.

e.g. If you're give the choice between flying to the top of a mountain and walking up there, then you don't really have a choice, do you? (for the sake of the argument I exclude the possibility of not going to the top of the mountain)

i think a more accurate analogy would be jumping off a ledge or using the stairs to get down, you can do both but you chose to do 1. You have the possibility of 2 options but you choose 1.
whereas in your example you compare the impossible to the only possible route

I follow the same train of thought as Tris in the sense that there is no random in the world, just what we dont understand.
If you could compute every variable then the room for error would be near 0
For example throwing a dice is not random, you throw it and various factors affect the method it falls, if you could simulate all the factors to be exactly the same the dice will fall the same way.
Humans are very much similar, if you could work out all the factors you could work out human behaviour so nothing is truley spontaneous or random its the result of hundreds of thousands of variables to create a end product which if it were possible to recreate exactly the result would be the same.

 

[Jeremiah]

that is what i believe.

and also take some of my ideas from this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celestine_Prophecy

Tris, I understand your point of view now

 

[tris-]

Tris, I understand your point of view now

ah good. i dont think much of the idea of having a 'destiny' in the spiritual sense mind you.

 

[noblok]

In a pre-determined view there is only room for one possibility, as you say yourself:

Humans are very much similar, if you could work out all the factors you could work out human behaviour so nothing is truley spontaneous or random its the result of hundreds of thousands of variables to create a end product which if it were possible to recreate exactly the result would be the same.

You can't call something a choice if it's already decided by a number of factors out of your reach what the result will be. My analogy is a correct one. If you get the choice between cake and pie in a determined world it's already deatermined what you will pick. The other was never a real option, just like flying to the top of the mountain isn't an option.

I'll agree that flying to the mountain is an extreme example, but in essence it comes down to the same thing. Certain factors out of your reach (you being human or whatever factors deciding whether you'll take cake or pie) determine your choice.