The Philosophy Thread

[sam fisher]

If everything that makes up the Universe is entirely deterministic then what you say is more or less true, including this topic being created, you posting what you posted, me posting this reply to it and all the replies to come etc.

See this and this for some more detail.

 

[jlepley]

If the universe were infinite, there would also have to be an infinite amount of matter, or no matter at all. But if there were an infinite amount of matter, there would be no empty space. But there is empty space. And there is matter. Thus, our universe is not infinite.

 

[sam fisher]

Why would there have to be infinite amounts of matter or none at all?

 

[trix]

If the universe were infinite, there would also have to be an infinite amount of matter, or no matter at all. But if there were an infinite amount of matter, there would be no empty space. But there is empty space. And there is matter. Thus, our universe is not infinite.

Also, how does infinite matter mean no empty space? There could be infinite matter AND infinite space, for all we know. Assumptions have no place in philosophy!

On an unrelated note, what about sound? From my understanding, sound is never truly gone, it only spreads out so thin it falls under our range of hearing. This could mean that every word ever spoken is still floating around... and if we only had instruments to detect and separate it, we could learn the complete true history of our entire planet, maybe even our species! Crazy...

 

[jlepley]

Because there has to be a ratio. If the universe is infinite, can half of it be matter, and half of it empty space? What is half of infinity?

 

[trix]

Because there has to be a ratio. If the universe is infinite, can half of it be matter, and half of it empty space? What is half of infinity?

Half of infinity is still infinity, that's the point.

 

[sam fisher]

But is it countably infinite ?

 

[trix]

Countably? Well you can't count to infinity, if that's what you mean.

At least *I* can't. Maybe you have more fingers then me.

 

[XxionxX]

OK this thread is really hard to follow. I am not certain where we are or where we are going with this discussion, but I did notice that someone mentioned ten dimensions. I really like this video even though I know it is not strictly in line with all the math about our universe. I think it is a fun thought experiment at the very least.

I don't know how to contribute to the discussion as it currently stands, but I am willing to listen to explanations. I know that when I explain concepts to people who don't know what I am talking about I gain a greater understanding of them myself. But maybe that is just me... No worries! Just trying to help.

 

[mali]

^ That vid has been posted already if I'm not mistaken

edit:
Btw, this thread is meant to be the place for all kinds of more or less philosophical discussions, so just go ahead if you want to discuss something

 

[XxionxX]

^ That vid has been posted already if I'm not mistaken

Sorry I was trying to pay attention to the whole thread, but my eyes kind of did this @_@ I was hoping to contribute. Total fail. This thread makes me feel like I walked into a quantum physics class with John von Neumann teaching (I am just starting algebra).

 

[mali]

Hey, no need to feel sorry

edit: Regarding determinism, it's a theory which might be true for the part of the world it describes. Many ideal models exist for certain things to make them easier to classify, but these ideals seldomly fully describe the "real world".

edit: The past can be described in a deterministic way. If everything is past, because there is no present and no future, everything is deterministic. We are currently somewhere in the past where _our_ future hasn't happened yet, but on a larger scale our future is already the past.

edit: The real question is if these scales are actually worth anything.

 

[Mr.Confuzed]

The location or the "where" in this case is the "when". The edge of the universe carries the present so does the center of the universe and existence is the part between it. Basically a flaw in the nothing(or the everything depends on the point of view). So when the universe accelerates while expanding it in fact tries to collaps. It's inverted and the suction seemingly comes from outside.

Sometimes I wonder if even you know what the hell you're talking about, because I sure don't.

In reference to dflemstr's theory of Mandelbrot flawification, what makes you think that the universe is becoming less ordered all of the time? It seems to me that life itself is a force that opposes disorder.

In reference to trix's theory of infinitely audible history: It is possible that, at some level, the universe is digital. If true, then your sound data will eventually be lost to rounding error and be permanently unrecoverable. Not that it matters, since we aren't going to be able to recover it anyway.

 

[dflemstr]

Wow, I should visit off topic more often; seems like I've been missing out...
Anyways, typing on my phone so I'll be brief (yeah, right)

Infinity:
I think that the universe is perceivably infinite, but that it in "reality" is finite. Think of it like this: imagine that you were a flatlander (if you don't know what a flatlander is go watch that 10th dimension video), and lived on, say, a sphere. To you the world would seem infinite since no matter how far you travelled you wouldn't find an end to it. And someone in a 3D world would look at you and laugh himself silly, since he would know that your world indeed was finite but that you were unable to see into the third dimension. Now transfer the whole idea to a three-dimensional world.
So because our universe is infinite, does this imply silly things such as that the universe has to be filled with matter? No! Why would it? PI has an infinite number of nines in it, but is every digit of PI equal to nine? I think not.
Does it imply that everything which could possibly happen is happening right this moment somewhere in the universe? Definitely.

Determinism:
Determinism has to apply to our universe, or else math wouldn't make sense (to anyone). Since 2 isn't = 3 it is safe to assume that the universe is deterministic. So that would make free choice into an illusion, everything is predestined etc... Nothing too surprising.

Sounds and stuff:
Sounds can't travel through vacuum and get cancelled at some point by atomic vibrations such as orbiting electron fields. Things such as light, or gravity, though, are harder to quell. Mind blowing thought: we are all currently being attracted by every piece of matter in existence. The black hole at the center of the andromeda galaxy, a grain of salt on Alpha Centauri, my toe nails. Thanks to gravity, we're all linked. Pantheists rejoice.

Chaos:
Why I think that the universe is becoming less ordered all of the time? Because of the second law of thermodynamics. And because nothing else makes sense. Note that max order = everything is at one point, and max chaos = everything is spread out evenly across space.

Digital universe:
Most things we have discovered so far in the realm of reality have been digital, so maybe. But we'll never know, since all our measuring instruments are of the same digital nature.

 

[mali]

Determinism:
Determinism has to apply to our universe, or else math wouldn't make sense (to anyone). Since 2 isn't = 3 it is safe to assume that the universe is deterministic. So that would make free choice into an illusion, everything is predestined etc... Nothing too surprising.

I'm not sure if declaring free choice an illusion is the right conclusion to draw from determinism. I think we'll soon discover a semantics problem when we dig deeper.

My first assumption at the start of this thread is an example how different viewpoints can lead to interesting results. We are basically already dead in our deterministic world, but we are writing stuff here _right now_ so we are either not always dead or not dead yet or not alive at all, etc.

We are hanging around at our borders of mind all the time in this thread, unable to look beyond. It's too early to neglect free choice at this point, imo.

 

[jlepley]

Determinism:
Determinism has to apply to our universe, or else math wouldn't make sense (to anyone). Since 2 isn't = 3 it is safe to assume that the universe is deterministic. So that would make free choice into an illusion, everything is predestined etc... Nothing too surprising.

The problem with that statement is that humans are capable of making spontaneous, decisions. Humans, and any other form of sentient life, bring randomness to the universe, doing away with any notions of predestination.

 

[Mr.Confuzed]

The problem with that statement is that humans are capable of making spontaneous, decisions. Humans, and any other form of sentient life, bring randomness to the universe, doing away with any notions of predestination.

Are those spontaneous decisions the result of a deterministic process that we don't understand (our feelings)? If not, then what determines the decision?

 

[trix]

Determinism:
Determinism has to apply to our universe, or else math wouldn't make sense (to anyone). Since 2 isn't = 3 it is safe to assume that the universe is deterministic. So that would make free choice into an illusion, everything is predestined etc... Nothing too surprising.

The problem with that statement is that humans are capable of making spontaneous, decisions. Humans, and any other form of sentient life, bring randomness to the universe, doing away with any notions of predestination.

Ahh but that is exactly the point, from our perspective, entwined within this universe, things appear random and spontaneous, however, we have no way of knowing if that is really true or not. Maybe the "random" "spontaneous" decision you made, was made because of everything that was going on at the time, combined with everything that makes you, you. And who you are, could simply be a combination of every experience and simuli you've had throughout your life.

Look up determinism, on more then just wikipedia, and understand the theory you are arguing against.

 

[dflemstr]

Determinism:
Determinism has to apply to our universe, or else math wouldn't make sense (to anyone). Since 2 isn't = 3 it is safe to assume that the universe is deterministic. So that would make free choice into an illusion, everything is predestined etc... Nothing too surprising.

The problem with that statement is that humans are capable of making spontaneous, decisions. Humans, and any other form of sentient life, bring randomness to the universe, doing away with any notions of predestination.

Ahh but that is exactly the point, from our perspective, entwined within this universe, things appear random and spontaneous, however, we have no way of knowing if that is really true or not. Maybe the "random" "spontaneous" decision you made, was made because of everything that was going on at the time, combined with everything that makes you, you. And who you are, could simply be a combination of every experience and simuli you've had throughout your life.

Look up determinism, on more then just wikipedia, and understand the theory you are arguing against.

Yeah, listen to trix; and here's my reasoning behind why I don't think there's a free will:

According to Determinism, everything that happens is a result of previous accumulated events as you all should know by now. This means that for there to be a free will, the human brain has to contain something that can create events that don't originate from previous events.
Now, how is the human decision making process built up?

• First, we have reflexes; nothing too fancy, just hard wired nerves between sensors and (mostly) muscles.
  So when we e.g. stumble it triggers a sensor in our knee (the same one that doctors like to hammer on) and our leg moves forward. The decision making process? Event → Reaction, ergo:
  
  Deterministic.
  
• Then we have the autonomous brain parts; those that keep our heart beating etc. Those aren't affected by any decision making process. So,
  
  Deterministic (if you don't do something you're at least not not deterministic )
  
• Then we have (according to Freud) the id, the ego, and the super-ego (bad Latin translation: identity, me and I; or: the "the", the "me" and the "over-me") aka instincts, conscious action and morals:
  • Our instincts are triggered via external stimuli and our body's status. The id can only be mutated via bodily malfunction or extreme psychological stress. So, it's our surroundings that determine how the id contributes to our decision making process.
    
    Deterministic.
    
  • Our morals are determined by people and intelligent analysis. So if someone tells us not to murder because we will get punished, this becomes a schema in our decision making process (or our mind accommodates and adapts the new stimulus, or whatever) so this part of our decision making machinery is directly influences by our surroundings and society.
    
    Deterministic.
    
    (Sidenote: Freud interestingly argued that the "id" only contributes to the decision making process with either "libido" or "destrudo" aka "the will to create" and "the will to destroy". So everything you do instinctively can be derived from these two impulses.)
    
  • Finally, our conscious action (the ego) plays the role as a decision making unit that draws compromises between the id and the super-ego. So when you make a conscious choice "I'm hungry, should I steal that burger or should I go home and grab some money and then buy a burger?" it's always a granular choice between doing what the "id" tells you to, and doing what the "super-ego" tells you to. And it's a balance; when you're extremely hungry, you WILL steal that burger, and when you have lots of people around you, you WILL go and grab that money even when you're really hungry.
    So is the ego deterministic? Well, neurologists have found out that we have protein chains in our brains that basically work as mutation strings, or random number generators. So, if the balance between "id" and "super-ego" is even, it's chance that makes the balanced decision for us by creating a random compromise. And when one impulse, either "id" or "super-ego", is strong enough, then it's that impulse that directly determines what we'll do.
    As we know, proteins obey the laws of physics and chemistry, so even our random actions are predictable or at least derived from previous events. So the 'ego' is also:
    
    Deterministic.

So it seems like everything is deterministic about our nature, and that there isn't anything in our universe that seems to be non-deterministic.
The implications that this has is that everything about the universe is predestined; we're just in a big cellular automation and are experiencing constant state transitions that we cannot actively influence.

The only way we could have a free will would be if there was a fourth element in our consciousness that could contribute with impulses, and there might actually be one...

Think about something: what is it that makes us self-conscious? I don't mean like "Hey, I'm me." because that's just chemicals. I mean like: what is it that is looking out through our eyes, that feels what we feel, and "reads our thoughts", which makes us different from, say, a really smart machine or a humanoid robot? Because you could theoretically build a human, atom-by-atom, to be an identical copy of a real one, and it'd be self-conscious, in that the brain of the produced creature would think of "me" as himself and so on, but the question is: would that copy be a shallow machine; a machine that only reacted to stimuli and had thoughts and fancies like any other human but only was a really good machine, or would it be some creature that actually "is conscious" and had the same self-perception as we do? If you don't understand what I'm referring to here, then ask and I'll explain.

(By the way, I suddenly feel the urge to go write a Conway's Game of Life cellular automation program for the Pandora... It's my 'id' talking to me )

 

[mali]

According to Determinism, everything that happens is a result of previous accumulated events as you all should know by now. This means that for there to be a free will, the human brain has to contain something that can create events that don't originate from previous events.

I don't agree and I think we have a problem with scales here. On a meta level the world is deterministic and below that level everything is deterministic too, but this large scale is of no use in a philosophical discussion about free will, imo.
An atom in a living being behaves exactly like an atom in in a stone. The atom in the living being changes the location inside the space-time continuum on an additional axis compared to the atom in the stone though, and if a living being takes the stone and moves it to an other place, that atom has then also been manipulated on a "life axis".
If we define free will correctly, it can coexist with determinism, imo.

edit:
Determinism is basically an empirical observation and can't be verified nor falsified. Determinism is irrelevant. It's like sieving sand without a sieve. Everything falls through and you don't get answers.