Today, I've just had one of the dumbest arguements I've ever had with someone on this website. I made a comment about free will and apparently I was wrong.
The other person seems to think that free will is the ability to make choices like walk, talk, etc...
My arguement is that the meaning of free will is to have the ability to make actions without being condemned to hell whether it is good or bad.
What do you think?
I don't believe there is such a thing as free will, but believe that the lack of free will doesn't really have any affect on anything in a practical sense.
Will-be-free
The ability to do what makes you happy or gives you pleasure (or pain) without condemnation or the hinderance of others.
I don't believe there is such a thing as free will, but believe that the lack of free will doesn't really have any affect on anything in a practical sense.
This is basically what I think.
"Free will" is just whatever you define it to be. But, if you define it as having the ability to choose to do something that isnt predetermined, then we dont really have free will. Whatever you choose is an outcome of the physical processes of the brain. How else could it be?
Edit: In other words, you dont really have a "choice" in what you do. It's just predetermined. You only have the illusion of choice, the illusion of free will. But, in practical terms, there's no difference.
Free my n!gga Will !
that's clever
I don't believe there is such a thing as free will, but believe that the lack of free will doesn't really have any affect on anything in a practical sense.
This is basically what I think.
"Free will" is just whatever you define it to be. But, if you define it as having the ability to choose to do something that isnt predetermined, then we dont really have free will. Whatever you choose is an outcome of the physical processes of the brain. How else could it be?
Edit: In other words, you dont really have a "choice" in what you do. It's just predetermined. You only have the illusion of choice, the illusion of free will. But, in practical terms, there's no difference.
Leaving any religious definitions aside for a moment, I find both of these comments interesting. Are you saying that the physical processes of the brain are somehow independent from our conscious, unconscious and subconscious influence or is it more of a dance between our conscious decisions and our physical brains where experience is taken into account? Or are these basically saying the same thing?
I guess with the use of the phrase of "illusion of choice" I actually already have my answer. I guess what I am struggling with is the idea of predetermination. Of course for me this idea is loaded with theological implications so I am having a hard time understanding its use in this context. What actually seems to be happening is more of an "on the fly" process than any meaningful "predetermination" unless of course one only means a predetermination which occurs in milliseconds which for all intents and purposes would also be "on the fly".
But even if one were to posit that all is merely brain processes I still feel that the "self" is much more complex and noble than simply a bag of meat with self awareness. In that sense each noble self has freedom as a complex machine despite the technicalities concerning how it functions.
Well with the theory of an infinite amount of parallel universes created every second because you could have done something different would kind of destroy the predetermination arguement.
I don't believe there is such a thing as free will, but believe that the lack of free will doesn't really have any affect on anything in a practical sense.
This is basically what I think.
"Free will" is just whatever you define it to be. But, if you define it as having the ability to choose to do something that isnt predetermined, then we dont really have free will. Whatever you choose is an outcome of the physical processes of the brain. How else could it be?
Edit: In other words, you dont really have a "choice" in what you do. It's just predetermined. You only have the illusion of choice, the illusion of free will. But, in practical terms, there's no difference.
Leaving any religious definitions aside for a moment, I find both of these comments interesting. Are you saying that the physical processes of the brain are somehow independent from our conscious, unconscious and subconscious influence or is it more of a dance between our conscious decisions and our physical brains where experience is taken into account? Or are these basically saying the same thing?
I guess with the use of the phrase of "illusion of choice" I actually already have my answer. I guess what I am struggling with is the idea of predetermination. Of course for me this idea is loaded with theological implications so I am having a hard time understanding its use in this context. What actually seems to be happening is more of an "on the fly" process than any meaningful "predetermination" unless of course one only means a predetermination which occurs in milliseconds which for all intents and purposes would also be "on the fly".
But even if one were to posit that all is merely brain processes I still feel that the "self" is much more complex and noble than simply a bag of meat with self awareness. In that sense each noble self has freedom as a complex machine despite the technicalities concerning how it functions.
Yeah... I guess a definition is in order. I mean "predetermined" in the sense that you can know ahead of time what will happen, given enough information about the starting state. So, not in the sense that everything has been previously decided by someone/something.
The possession of free will does not indicate non-accountability for your actions. You can murder, but expect to be thrown in jail and eventually end in hell if you believe in it. Of course my deterministic friends will proclaim that the concept itself is an illusion, but I disagree for several reasons.
Well with the theory of an infinite amount of parallel universes created every second because you could have done something different would kind of destroy the predetermination arguement.
That's certainly an interesting thought.
While quantum physics certainly makes absolute predictions about the future not possible, I dont think that it really validates the idea of free will. I mean, what happens from a point in time to a future point in time is still based purely on physics, and on scales other than the very small, quantum processes are not really relevant. So, for the brain as a whole... I'd say that thoughts are still deterministic. But... it's something I'll give more thought to. It's an interesting topic.
Free will is an illusion.
Free will is subjective.
Free will is subjective.
/Thread
I don't believe there is such a thing as free will, but believe that the lack of free will doesn't really have any affect on anything in a practical sense.
This is basically what I think.
"Free will" is just whatever you define it to be. But, if you define it as having the ability to choose to do something that isnt predetermined, then we dont really have free will. Whatever you choose is an outcome of the physical processes of the brain. How else could it be?
Edit: In other words, you dont really have a "choice" in what you do. It's just predetermined. You only have the illusion of choice, the illusion of free will. But, in practical terms, there's no difference.
Leaving any religious definitions aside for a moment, I find both of these comments interesting. Are you saying that the physical processes of the brain are somehow independent from our conscious, unconscious and subconscious influence or is it more of a dance between our conscious decisions and our physical brains where experience is taken into account? Or are these basically saying the same thing?
I guess with the use of the phrase of "illusion of choice" I actually already have my answer. I guess what I am struggling with is the idea of predetermination. Of course for me this idea is loaded with theological implications so I am having a hard time understanding its use in this context. What actually seems to be happening is more of an "on the fly" process than any meaningful "predetermination" unless of course one only means a predetermination which occurs in milliseconds which for all intents and purposes would also be "on the fly".
But even if one were to posit that all is merely brain processes I still feel that the "self" is much more complex and noble than simply a bag of meat with self awareness. In that sense each noble self has freedom as a complex machine despite the technicalities concerning how it functions.
Yeah... I guess a definition is in order. I mean "predetermined" in the sense that you can know ahead of time what will happen, given enough information about the starting state. So, not in the sense that everything has been previously decided by someone/something.
To do away with your definition of free will, think about the concept of the police always catching the criminal; even the best plan eventually has a mistake in it. Similarly, the concept of the police always catching the criminal is the reason I believe that an artificially intelligent device will never truly materialize; despite all of the planning that goes into programming, some condition always tends to develop that the programmer could not have developed a fail-safe or program for; the best example is the Kepler Telescope; the latest Mars explorer will eventually breakdown too; thus, because of this alone, I have to give great credence to the concept of God the Creator: all living systems are so well developed to their environment that it's simply ridiculous to think otherwise; thus, you're wishing that otherwise was the case (e.g. things just conveniently formed to fit an environment), but, again, wishing will never make it so. And free will is a complicated process outside of creatures being created to adapt to its given environment; free will is the very concept of a consciousness; some people may claim they have no consciousness, but, free will, nonetheless remains at play to decide who will be judged for Heaven and who will be judged for Hell; people like you, who want so much for people to really believe that you're more than confident in what you say, is very much like that person claiming that they have no consciousness; but, on judgement day, suddenly, that non-existent consciousness appears to ask not to be judged harshly (e.g. think about it, even Ted Buddy and Timothy McVeigh got weak in the knees, while being led to the electric chair).
Well with the theory of an infinite amount of parallel universes created every second because you could have done something different would kind of destroy the predetermination arguement.
Not precisely, besides the fact we have no real evidence in support of a multi-universal theory, its not about human choices, rather the "choices" of the smallest most fundamental particles. For a simple example if we have an electron that can move either left or right, the universe will split into one reality where it went left, and another where it went right. Thus each time anything happens on the very smallest scale, the universe splits into multiple other universes where each one represents one of the possible outcomes of that event. At least that is what a multiversal theory would entail. Anyway, such multiversal theories don't really have any strong evidence to back them. However coming back to free will, your actions are the result of physical processes in your brain such as the movement of electrons between neurons, you have no control over whether the electron goes left or right (or wherever) but the movement of the electron between the neurons is what causes you to think and act.
In simplest terms, you have no control over the physical processes within your brain, the physical processes control thought and action though, therefore there is no free will, simply the results of predictable physical processes...
Well with the theory of an infinite amount of parallel universes created every second because you could have done something different would kind of destroy the predetermination arguement.
That's certainly an interesting thought.
While quantum physics certainly makes absolute predictions about the future not possible, I dont think that it really validates the idea of free will. I mean, what happens from a point in time to a future point in time is still based purely on physics, and on scales other than the very small, quantum processes are not really relevant. So, for the brain as a whole... I'd say that thoughts are still deterministic. But... it's something I'll give more thought to. It's an interesting topic.
And on the whole thing about free will just being an illusion, I'll have to say I disagree. If I create a robot with an ultrasonic sensor and let it roam about but program to turn in random directions then that robot has free will. If I were to go into the future before the robot is even created and then go back in the past and create that same exact robot then I would know where that robot will turn before it even makes a decision. I haven't destroyed your free will; I just know what you are going to do before you do it. I can set up multiple obstacle courses for that robot but I would still always know where it will go becuase I has already seen the event. And no matter what I do an event, that I know of, must happen.
Wow. I likes.
I have to give great credence to the concept of God the Creator: all living systems are so well developed to their environment that it's simply ridiculous to think otherwise; thus, you're wishing that otherwise was the case (e.g. things just conveniently formed to fit an environment), but, again, wishing will never make it so. And free will is a complicated process outside of creatures being created to adapt to its given environment; free will is the very concept of a consciousness; some people may claim they have no consciousness, but, free will, nonetheless remains at play to decide who will be judged for Heaven and who will be judged for Hell; people like you, who want so much for people to really believe that you're more than confident in what you say, is very much like that person claiming that they have no consciousness; but, on judgement day, suddenly, that non-existent consciousness appears to ask not to be judged harshly (e.g. think about it, even Ted Buddy and Timothy McVeigh got weak in the knees, while being led to the electric chair).
If you're talking about evolution, then your premise is wrong. Animals are well developed for their environment because of how evolution works, not because of random chance. There's nothing "convenient" about it. There's no need to have a supernatural explanation because evolution explains how things got to be the way they are. You should understand evolution before you criticize it. Otherwise it's just a strawman.
Well with the theory of an infinite amount of parallel universes created every second because you could have done something different would kind of destroy the predetermination arguement.
Not precisely, besides the fact we have no real evidence in support of a multi-universal theory, its not about human choices, rather the "choices" of the smallest most fundamental particles. For a simple example if we have an electron that can move either left or right, the universe will split into one reality where it went left, and another where it went right. Thus each time anything happens on the very smallest scale, the universe splits into multiple other universes where each one represents one of the possible outcomes of that event. At least that is what a multiversal theory would entail. Anyway, such multiversal theories don't really have any strong evidence to back them. However coming back to free will, your actions are the result of physical processes in your brain such as the movement of electrons between neurons, you have no control over whether the electron goes left or right (or wherever) but the movement of the electron between the neurons is what causes you to think and act.
In simplest terms, you have no control over the physical processes within your brain, the physical processes control thought and action though, therefore there is no free will, simply the results of predictable physical processes...
well said.. though i think it's more of a technical loop hole in taking a general concept and putting it into extra literal dissection, it's a good point.
Well with the theory of an infinite amount of parallel universes created every second because you could have done something different would kind of destroy the predetermination arguement.
Not precisely, besides the fact we have no real evidence in support of a multi-universal theory, its not about human choices, rather the "choices" of the smallest most fundamental particles. For a simple example if we have an electron that can move either left or right, the universe will split into one reality where it went left, and another where it went right. Thus each time anything happens on the very smallest scale, the universe splits into multiple other universes where each one represents one of the possible outcomes of that event. At least that is what a multiversal theory would entail. Anyway, such multiversal theories don't really have any strong evidence to back them. However coming back to free will, your actions are the result of physical processes in your brain such as the movement of electrons between neurons, you have no control over whether the electron goes left or right (or wherever) but the movement of the electron between the neurons is what causes you to think and act.
In simplest terms, you have no control over the physical processes within your brain, the physical processes control thought and action though, therefore there is no free will, simply the results of predictable physical processes...
That's basically what I was trying to say. I meant "you could have done something different" just in the sense of those particles in the brain taking different paths and all that adding up to different choices. Of course it wouldnt be a conscious choice, just a difference due to small uncertainties in the particles that make up the brain.
And on the whole thing about free will just being an illusion, I'll have to say I disagree. If I create a robot with an ultrasonic sensor and let it roam about but program to turn in random directions then that robot has free will. If I were to go into the future before the robot is even created and then go back in the past and create that same exact robot then I would know where that robot will turn before it even makes a decision. I haven't destroyed your free will; I just know what you are going to do before you do it. I can set up multiple obstacle courses for that robot but I would still always know where it will go becuase I has already seen the event. And no matter what I do an event, that I know of, must happen.
That robot wouldnt have free will because it doesnt have a consciousness. A random number generator doesnt have free will... the concept just makes no sense when applied to non-conscious objects.
In any case, it all just depends on how you define "free will". For humans, you can say that they do or do not, depending on your definition.
I have to give great credence to the concept of God the Creator: all living systems are so well developed to their environment that it's simply ridiculous to think otherwise; thus, you're wishing that otherwise was the case (e.g. things just conveniently formed to fit an environment), but, again, wishing will never make it so. And free will is a complicated process outside of creatures being created to adapt to its given environment; free will is the very concept of a consciousness; some people may claim they have no consciousness, but, free will, nonetheless remains at play to decide who will be judged for Heaven and who will be judged for Hell; people like you, who want so much for people to really believe that you're more than confident in what you say, is very much like that person claiming that they have no consciousness; but, on judgement day, suddenly, that non-existent consciousness appears to ask not to be judged harshly (e.g. think about it, even Ted Buddy and Timothy McVeigh got weak in the knees, while being led to the electric chair).
If you're talking about evolution, then your premise is wrong. Animals are well developed for their environment because of how evolution works, not because of random chance. There's nothing "convenient" about it. There's no need to have a supernatural explanation because evolution explains how things got to be the way they are. You should understand evolution before you criticize it. Otherwise it's just a strawman.
Well, enlighten me; what part of evolution do I appear to be going astray? There's an environment and something there that is living that has to survive in that environment; so, explain how you perceive evolution to work? By the way, below is a scientific article to shake some of your perceptions about our sides "lack of knowledge" of evolution:
Cosmos Episode 2: "Mindless Evolution" Has All the Answers -- If You Don't Think About It Too Deeply
Casey Luskin March 17, 2014 2:22 AM
With more eye-popping CGI and new splendid scenes of Neil deGrasse Tyson touring the solar system in his high-tech spaceship, Cosmos Episode 2 weighed in Sunday night on some of life's most profound questions. Toward the end of the episode, Tyson honestly admits, "Nobody knows how life got started," and even says, "We're not afraid to admit what we don't know," since "the only shame is to pretend we know all the answers." By this late stage of the episode, however, that came off as a nervously inserted qualification since the rest of the episode had so vigorously argued that what Tyson calls the "transforming power" of "mindless evolution" or "unguided evolution" indeed has all the answers to how life evolved on Earth. Except, that is, for a few cases where evolution was guided by human breeders, through "artificial selection."
Cosmos Episode 2 structures its argument much as Charles Darwin did in the Origin of Species. The opening scenes discuss how human breeders artificially selected many different dog breeds from wolf-like ancestors, including many popular breeds that "were created in only the last few centuries." The argument is simple -- and it's the same type of argument that Darwin made: "If artificial selection can work such profound changes in only 10 or 15 thousand years, what can natural selection do operating over billions of years?" The answer, Tyson tells us, is "all the beauty and diversity of life." In other words, Tyson wants you to believe that natural selection provides all the answers for everything since life arose. Just as he did in Episode 1, Tyson has overstated his case. The great evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr explains precisely why Tyson is wrong:
Some enthusiasts have claimed that natural selection can do anything. This is not true. Even though "natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation even the slightest," as Darwin (1859:84) has stated, it is nevertheless evident that there are definite limits to the effectiveness of selection.1
Aside from the fact that artificial selection involves intelligent agents rather than unguided processes, Mayr makes one of the most important points in the context of artificial selection of dogs, for human breeders consistently hit limits in just how far they can breed dogs. The textbook Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism explains:
Intense programs of breeding (and inbreeding) frequently increase the organism's susceptibility to disease, and often concentrate defective traits. Breeders working with English bulldogs have strived to produce dogs with large heads. They have succeeded. These bulldogs now have such enormous heads that puppies sometimes have to be delivered by Cesarean section. Newfoundlands and Great Danes are both bred for large size. They now have bodies too large for their hearts and can suddenly drop dead from cardiac arrest. Many Great Danes develop bone cancer, as well. Breeders have tried to maximize the sloping appearance of a German Shepherd's hind legs. As a result, many German Shepherds develop hip dysplasia, a crippling condition that makes it hard for them to walk. When breeders try to force a species beyond its limits, they often create more defects than desirable traits. These defects impose limits on the amount of change that breeders can ultimately produce.
Darwin's theory states that the unguided force of natural selection is supposed to be able to do what the intelligent breeder can do. But even a process of careful, intentional selection encounters limits that neither time nor the efforts of human breeders can overcome. Consequently, critics argue that by the logic of Darwin's own analogy, the power of natural selection is also limited.
Darwin's theory requires that species exhibit a tremendous elasticity -- or capacity to change. Critics point out that this is not what the evidence from breeding experiments shows.2
These aren't just talking points from Darwin-critics. The same is heard from leading evolutionary biologists who say inconvenient things that Cosmos was content to ignore:
The following are three major areas of misconception among the Neo-Darwinists... Artificial selection on quantitative traits was taken as a model of the evolutionary process. It was easily shown, in agriculture or in the laboratory, that populations of most organisms contain sufficient additive genetic variance to obtain a response to selection on quantitative traits, such as measures of body size or increased yield of agriculturally valuable products such as milk in dairy cattle or grain size in food plants. Generalizing from this experience, it was assumed that natural populations are endowed with essentially unlimited additive genetic variance, implying that any sort of selection imposed by environmental changes will encounter abundant genetic variation on which to act. Moreover, this model was extended to evolutionary time as well as ecological time. This way of thinking ignored the substantial evidence from selection experiments that the response to selection on any trait essentially comes to a halt after a number of generations as the genetic variance for the trait in question is depleted; thereafter, further progress depends on the introduction of new variants either through outcrossing or new mutations (Falconer, 1981).3
Ernst Mayr concurs, citing "[t]he limited potential of the genotype" which shows "severe limits to further evolution":
The existing genetic organization of an animal or plant sets severe limits to its further evolution. As Weismann expressed it, no bird can ever evolve into a mammal, nor a beetle into a butterfly. Amphibians have been unable to develop a lineage that is successful in salt water. We marvel at the fact that mammals have been able to develop flight (bats) and aquatic adaptation (whales and seals), but there are many other ecological niches that mammals have been unable to occupy. There are, for instance, severe limits on size, and no amount of selection has allowed mammals to become smaller than a pygmy shrew and the bumblebee bat, or allow flying birds to grow beyond a limiting weight.4
We cannot simply assert that evolution can do just "anything" or "all" we want it to -- there are both genetic and physiological limits to how far breeders can change organisms. If we are to take artificial selection as an analogy for what can happen in the real world, shouldn't this suggest there are also limits to evolution?
I'm sure Tyson would reply that we can overcome genetic barriers to further evolution through mutations, which provide new raw materials for evolution to act upon. According to Tyson, mutations "entirely random," and can cause changes like transforming a bear's fur color from brown to "white," like "polar bears," giving it a camouflage advantage in a snowy environment. (Technically, Cosmos got this small detail wrong, since the hairs of polar bears are transparent, not white.) "No breeder gathered these changes," he tells us, since, "the environment itself selects them."
Fair enough. While we might disagree with Tyson that natural selection is "the most revolutionary concept in the history of science," no ID proponent denies that natural selection is an important idea that can explain many things. Changing the color of a bear's coat from brown to white is probably one of them -- it's a small-scale, microevolutionary change. The difference between ID proponents and evolutionists like Tyson is that ID proponents acknowledge that natural selection is a real force in nature, but we don't just unconditionally grant it the power to do all things. Instead, we test forces like natural selection, and find that there are limits to the amount of change it can effect in populations.
For example, after saying the "tree of life" (more on that shortly) is "three and a half billion years old," Tyson just asserts that this provides "plenty of time" for the evolution of life's vast complexity. Is this assertion true? We've heard that "plenty of time" claim before -- in fact I recently rebutted that precise phrase and argument when Ken Miller made it in his textbook.
Tyson's main argument that selection and mutation can evolve anything focuses on the evolution of the eye. Here, he attacks intelligent design by name, noting that some have argued that life "must be the work of an intelligent designer" that "created each of these species separately." I've never heard of an ID proponent who requires that every single species was created separately, so that's a straw man. Tyson calls the human eye a "masterpiece" of complexity, and claims it "poses no challenge to evolution by natural selection." But do we really know this is true?
Darwinian evolution tends to work fine when one small change or mutation provides a selective advantage, or as Darwin put it, when an organ can evolve via "numerous, successive, slight modifications." If a structure cannot evolve via "numerous, successive, slight modifications," Darwin said, his theory "would absolutely break down." Jerry Coyne essentially concurs: "It is indeed true that natural selection cannot build any feature in which intermediate steps do not confer a net benefit on the organism."5 So are there structures that would require multiple steps to provide an advantage, where intermediate steps might not confer a net benefit on the organism? If you listen to Tyson's argument carefully, I think he let slip that there are.
In his account of the evolution of the eye, Tyson says that "a microscopic copying error" gave a protein the ability to be sensitive to light. He doesn't explain how that happened. Indeed, Sean B. Carroll cautions us to "not be fooled" by the "simple construction and appearance" of supposedly simple light-sensitive eyes, since they "are built with and use many of the ingredients used in fancier eyes."6 Tyson doesn't worry about explaining how any of those complex ingredients arose at the biochemical level. What's more interesting is what Tyson says next: "Another mutation caused it [a bacterium with the light-sensitive protein] to flee intense light."
This raises an interesting question: It's nice to have a light-sensitive protein, but unless the sensitivity to light is linked to some behavioral response, then how would the sensitivity provide any advantage? Only once a behavioral response also evolved -- say, to turn towards or away from the light -- can the light-sensitive protein provide an advantage. So if a light-sensitive protein evolved, why did it persist until the behavioral response evolved as well? There's no good answer to that question, because vision is fundamentally a multi-component, and thus a multi-mutation, feature. Multiple components -- both visual apparatus and the encoded behavioral response -- are necessary for vision to provide an advantage. It's likely that these components would require many mutations. Thus, we have a trait where an intermediate stage -- say, a light-sensitive protein all by itself -- would not confer a net advantage on the organism. This is where Darwinian evolution tends to get stuck. Indeed, ID research is finding that there are many traits that require many mutations before providing an advantage. For starters, protein scientist Douglas Axe has published mutational sensitivity tests on enzymes in the Journal of Molecular Biology and found that functional protein sequences may be as rare as 1 in 1077.7 That extreme rarity makes it highly unlikely that chance mutations alone could find the rare amino acid sequences that yield functional proteins:
According to Axe's research, most enzymes sit at Point A, high atop their fitness landscape, and many amino acids must be present all at once to get high enzyme functionality. This suggests that many mutations must be present in order to find the right sequences that yield stable protein folds, and thus functional enzymes. I'm sure producers of Cosmos would reply that the "billions and billions" and of years of evolution provide "plenty of time" even for such unlikely events. But unless we test this claim, it's a naïve response. In 2010, Axe investigated how many mutations could arise in a multimutation feature given the entire history of the earth. He published population genetics calculations indicating that even when we grant generous assumptions favoring a Darwinian process, molecular adaptations requiring more than six mutations before yielding any advantage would be extremely unlikely to arise in the 4.5 billion year history of the Earth.8 The following year, Axe published research with developmental biologist Ann Gauger describing the results of their experiments seeking to convert one bacterial enzyme into another closely related enzyme -- one in the same gene family! That is the kind of conversion that evolutionists claim can easily happen. For this case they found that the conversion would require a minimum of at least seven simultaneous changes9, exceeding the six-mutation-limit that Axe had previously established as a boundary of what Darwinian evolution is likely to accomplish in bacteria. Because this conversion is thought to be relatively simple, it suggests that converting one similar type of protein into another by "mindless evolution" might be highly unlikely. In other experiments led by Gauger and biologist Ralph Seelke of the University of Wisconsin, Superior, their research team broke a gene in the bacterium E. coli required for synthesizing the amino acid tryptophan. When the bacteria's genome was broken in just one place, random mutations were capable of "fixing" the gene. But even when only two mutations were required to restore function, Darwinian evolution got stuck, apparently unable to restore full function.10 Again, "mindless evolution" couldn't overcome the need to produce multi-mutation features -- those that require multiple mutations before providing an advantage. Theoretical research into population genetics corroborates these empirical findings. Michael Behe and David Snoke have performed computer simulations and theoretical calculations showing that the Darwinian evolution of a functional bond between two proteins would be highly unlikely to occur in populations of multicellular organisms under reasonable evolutionary timescales when it required multiple mutations before functioning. They published research in Protein Science that found: The fact that very large population sizes -- 109 or greater -- are required to build even a minimal MR feature requiring two nucleotide alterations within 108 generations by the processes described in our model, and that enormous population sizes are required for more complex features or shorter times, seems to indicate that the mechanism of gene duplication and point mutation alone would be ineffective, at least for multicellular diploid species, because few multicellular species reach the required population sizes.11
In other words, in multicellular species, Darwinian evolution would be unlikely to produce features requiring more than just two mutations before providing any advantage on any reasonable timescale or population size.
In 2008, Behe's critics sought to refute him in the journal Genetics with a paper titled "Waiting for Two Mutations: With Applications to Regulatory Sequence Evolution and the Limits of Darwinian Evolution." But Durrett and Schmidt found that to obtain only two specific mutations via Darwinian evolution "for humans with a much smaller effective population size, this type of change would take > 100 million years." The critics admitted this was "very unlikely to occur on a reasonable timescale."12
What does this all mean? For one thing, it means Cosmos is wrong to assert we know that there is "plenty of time" for the "mindless evolution" of complex structures to take place. Both theoretical and empirical research suggest there are very good reasons why producing many of the new proteins and enzymes entailed by eye-evolution, and probably many other evolutionary pathways, would require the generation of multi-mutation features that could not arise via "mindless evolution" in the 3.5 billion year history of life on Earth. For another, it means Cosmos is pretending to have all the answers about how life evolved, when in fact it doesn't. And thus, as as David Berlinski has pointed out, it means that evolutionary biologists are very far away from explaining the evolution of the eye.
Evolutionary Apologetics and the Tree of Life
The second episode of Cosmos showcased quite a lot of evolutionary apologetics. What do I mean by that? I mean attempts to persuade people of both evolutionary scientific views and larger materialistic evolutionary beliefs, not just by the force of the evidence, but by rhetoric and emotion, and especially by leaving out important contrary arguments and evidence. This episode focused its evolutionary apologetics on the tree of life.
Tyson states that we have an "understandable human need" to think that we're special, and thus "a central premise of traditional belief is that we were created separately from the other animals." If you believe that, then you should know that it's Neil deGrasse Tyson's intention to talk you out of that "traditional belief," and he's going to use beautiful animation to do it, while ignoring explanations like "common design" and otherwise misstating the evidence. This episode shows a beautifully animated "tree of life," saying "science reveals that all life on earth is one," and that "accepting our kinship with other animals" is "solid science." But it's not enough for Tyson if you just accept those evolutionary scientific views. The main message here is that humans aren't special, since we are just "one tiny branch among countless millions." In case you think there's room for reasonable intellectual doubt, Tyson compares evolution to gravity, casting evolution as an undeniable "scientific fact." Perhaps common ancestry is a fact. But what is Tyson's evidence for it? It's this: similarities in DNA sequences between humans and other species. The episode portrays similar DNA sequences between humans and other species -- butterflies, wolves, mushrooms, sharks, birds, trees, and even one-celled organisms -- and says that because "we and other species are almost identical" in some core metabolic genes, "the DNA doesn't lie" and we are "long-lost cousins" with all these other organisms. With evolutionary apologetics in full force, Tyson even says this realization offers a "spiritual experience" -- a nice bit of "woo," included presumably to help appeal to the masses. Spiritual or not, is it true that there's a grand "tree of life" showing how we're related to all other organisms? A 2009 article in New Scientist concluded that the tree of life "lies in tatters, torn to pieces by an onslaught of negative evidence."13 Why? Because one gene yields one version of the tree of life, while another gene gives another sharply conflicting version of the tree. The article explained what's going on in this field:
For a long time the holy grail was to build a tree of life," says Eric Bapteste, an evolutionary biologist at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France. A few years ago it looked as though the grail was within reach. But today the project lies in tatters, torn to pieces by an onslaught of negative evidence. Many biologists now argue that the tree concept is obsolete and needs to be discarded. "We have no evidence at all that the tree of life is a reality," says Bapteste. That bombshell has even persuaded some that our fundamental view of biology needs to change."
According to the article:
The problems began in the early 1990s when it became possible to sequence actual bacterial and archaeal genes rather than just RNA. Everybody expected these DNA sequences to confirm the RNA tree, and sometimes they did but, crucially, sometimes they did not. RNA, for example, might suggest that species A was more closely related to species B than species C, but a tree made from DNA would suggest the reverse.
The problem is rampant in systematics today. An article in Nature reported that "disparities between molecular and morphological trees" lead to "evolution wars" because "[e]volutionary trees constructed by studying biological molecules often don't resemble those drawn up from morphology."14 Another Nature paper reported that newly discovered genes "are tearing apart traditional ideas about the animal family tree" since they "give a totally different tree from what everyone else wants."15 So severe are the problems that a 2013 paper in Trends in Genetics reported "the more we learn about genomes the less tree-like we find their evolutionary history to be,"16 and a 2012 paper in Annual Review of Genetics proposed "life might indeed have multiple origins."17
Don't expect Neil deGrasse Tyson and Cosmos to disclose to viewers that there are problems with reconstructing a grand "tree of life." They need to maintain the pretense that "mindless evolution" provides all the answers -- complete with a "spiritual experience" -- even while disclaiming the fact that they're making such a brash claim.
If not by "mindless" or "unguided" evolution and common ancestry, how can we explain the fact that genes in different organisms are so similar? Though Neil deGrasse Tyson never mentions it, a fully viable explanation or these functional genetic similarities is common design.
Intelligent agents often re-use functional components in different designs, which means common design is an equally good explanation for the very data -- similar functional genes across different species -- that Tyson cites in favor of common ancestry. As Paul Nelson and Jonathan Wells explain:
An intelligent cause may reuse or redeploy the same module in different systems, without there necessarily being any material or physical connection between those systems. Even more simply, intelligent causes can generate identical patterns independently.18
Likewise, in their book Intelligent Design Uncensored, William Dembski and Jonathan Witt explain:
\
According to this argument, the Darwinian principle of common ancestry predicts such common features, vindicating the theory of evolution. One problem with this line of argument is that people recognized common features long before Darwin, and they attributed them to common design. Just as we find certain features cropping up again and again in the realm of human technology (e.g., wheels and axles on wagons, buggies and cars) so too we can expect an intelligent designer to reuse good design ideas in a variety of situations where they work.19
Thus, common design is a possible explanation for why two taxa can have highly similar functional genetic sequences. After all, designers regularly re-use parts, programs, or components that work in different designs. As another example, engineers use wheels on both cars and airplanes, or technology designers put keyboards on both computers and cell-phones. Or software designers re-use subroutines in different software programs.
But common designers aren't always obligated to design their designs according to a nested hierarchy. So when we find re-use of functional components in a pattern that doesn't match a nested hierarchy, we might look to common design. But wait -- that's exactly what we have here: similar genes being re-used in different organisms, but in a pattern that doesn't match the "tree-like" distribution predicted by Darwinian theory! Unfortunately, Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn't inform his viewers of any of this.
The Evidence for Design Speaks for Itself
In this second episode of Cosmos, Neil deGrasse Tyson and his co-creators hoped to convince viewers that intelligent design is wrong, but discussing by simply the complexity of biology, they couldn't help but expose people to the evidence for design in nature. When Cosmos Episode 2 showed brilliant animations of walking kinesin motors, and discussed the fact that DNA is a "molecular machine" that is "written in a language that all life can read," it unwittingly showed that intelligent design is a viable explanation. After all, what is the sole known cause that produces languages and machines? That one singular cause is, of course, intelligence. Even when you try to disregard the evidence for design in nature, it nevertheless speaks for itself.
[Update, 3/18/14: In a rebuttal filled with ad hominem attacks, journalist Chris Mooney attempts to respond to this article by claiming that "science deniers" are "freaking out" over Cosmos. His one substantive rebuttal is that the "tree of life" is doing just fine because of the "Open Tree of Life project, which plans to produce 'the first online, comprehensive first-draft tree of all 1.8 million named species, accessible to both the public and scientific communities.'" I'm sure that's a worthwhile project, but Mooney's comments don't address the fact a "treelike pattern" is fundamentally incompatible with much of the data being discovered by molecular biology.
The condundrum folks working with the Open Tree of Life project will face is this: Which tree is the real tree of life? They'll find that one gene gives you one version of the tree of life, and another gene gives an entire different, conflicting version of the tree of life. This is because the genetic data is not painting a consistent picture of common ancestry. Mooney wants his readers to think these are isolated problems, since the attempt to "reconstruct every last evolutionary relationship may still be an open scientific question, but the idea of common ancestry, the core of evolution (represented conceptually by a tree of life), is not." Actually, conflicts in the tree of life are rampant. As a 2012 paper in stated, "Phylogenetic conflict is common, and frequently the norm rather than the exception," and "Phylogenetic conflict has become a more acute problem with the advent of genomescale data sets."20 Or, as Michael Syvanen stated for the New Scientist article quoted above, "We've just annihilated the tree of life. It's not a tree any more, it's a different topology entirely." That seems to suggest scientists contributing to the "Open Tree of Life project" may have be in for far greater difficulties than Mooney is letting on. In short, Mooney hasn't addressed the criticisms I raised.
Had Mooney provided a non-ad-hominem-filled, evidence-based rebuttal that addressed my points, then I suppose I might have be wondering if my views are wrong. But given that he's resorting to so much namecalling and has not engaged our arguments, far from "freaking out," I'm actually quite encouraged.]
References Cited:
[1.] Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is, pg. 140 (Basic Books, 2001).
[2.] Stephen C. Meyer, Scott Minnich, Jonathan Moneymaker, Paul A. Nelson, and Ralph Seelke, Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism, p. 91 (Hill House, 2007).
[3.] Austin L. Hughes, "Looking for Darwin in all the wrong places: the misguided quest for positive selection at the nucleotide sequence level," Heredity, 99: 364-373 (2007).)
[4.] Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is, p. 140 (Basic Books, 2001).
[5.] Jerry Coyne, "The Great Mutator," The New Republic (June 14, 2007).
[6.] Sean B. Carroll, The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution, p. 197 (W.W. Norton, 2006).
[7.] Douglas Axe, "Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds," Journal of Molecular Biology, 341 (2004): 1295-1315; Douglas Axe, "Extreme Functional Sensitivity to Conservative Amino Acid Changes on Enzyme Exteriors," Journal of Molecular Biology, 301 (2000): 585-595.
[8.] Douglas Axe, "The Limits of Complex Adaptation: An Analysis Based on a Simple Model of Structured Bacterial Populations," BIO-Complexity, 2010(4):1-10.
[9.] Ann Gauger and Douglas Axe, "The Evolutionary Accessibility of New Enzyme Functions: A Case Study from the Biotin Pathway," BIO-Complexity, 2011 (1): 1-17.
[10.] Ann Gauger, Stephanie Ebnet, Pamela F. Fahey, and Ralph Seelke, "Reductive Evolution Can Prevent Populations from Taking Simple Adaptive Paths to High Fitness," BIO-Complexity, 2010 (2): 1-9.
2): 1-9. [11.] Michael Behe and David Snoke, "Simulating Evolution by Gene Duplication of Protein Features that Require Multiple Amino Acid Residues," Protein Science, 13 (2004): 2651-2664.
[12.] Rick Durrett and Deena Schmidt, "Waiting for Two Mutations: With Applications to Regulatory Sequence Evolution and the Limits of Darwinian Evolution," Genetics, 180 (November 2008): 1501-1509.
[13.] Graham Lawton, "Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life," New Scientist (January 21, 2009).
[14.] Trisha Gura, "Bones, Molecules or Both?," Nature, 406 (July 20, 2000): 230-233.
[15.] Elie Dolgin, "Rewriting Evolution," Nature, 486 (June 28, 2012): 460-462.
[16.] Bapteste et al., "Networks: expanding evolutionary thinking," Trends in Genetics, 29 (2013): 439-41.
[17.] Michael Syvanen, "Evolutionary Implications of Horizontal Gene Transfer," Annual Review of Genetics, 46 (2012): 339-56.
[18.] Paul Nelson and Jonathan Wells, "Homology in Biology," in Darwinism, Design, and Public Education, p. 316 (Michigan State University Press, 2003).
[19.] William Dembski and Jonathan Witt, Intelligent Design Uncensored: An Easy-to-Understand Guide to the Controversy, p. 85 (InterVarsity Press, 2010).
[20.] Liliana M. Dávalos, Andrea L. Cirranello, Jonathan H. Geisler, and Nancy B. Simmons, "Understanding Phylogenetic Incongruence: Lessons from Phyllostomid Bats," Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 87 (2012): 991-1024.
It doesn't have to have a conscious but how it reacts to it's enviornment and obstacles in its way is not far off at all. The fact that it was built, just as humans were, and can make its own decisions based off of my programming grants it "free will". To prove that it does make sense to non-conscious objects would be me programming the robot to do something specific. Like me making the robot turn right every single time it meets an object or it to go straight when I tell it to.
Free will is just reacting off the fly without anyones interference or influence and that's what the robot does.
@papinacho: But predetermination largely does.
I have to give great credence to the concept of God the Creator: all living systems are so well developed to their environment that it's simply ridiculous to think otherwise; thus, you're wishing that otherwise was the case (e.g. things just conveniently formed to fit an environment), but, again, wishing will never make it so. And free will is a complicated process outside of creatures being created to adapt to its given environment; free will is the very concept of a consciousness; some people may claim they have no consciousness, but, free will, nonetheless remains at play to decide who will be judged for Heaven and who will be judged for Hell; people like you, who want so much for people to really believe that you're more than confident in what you say, is very much like that person claiming that they have no consciousness; but, on judgement day, suddenly, that non-existent consciousness appears to ask not to be judged harshly (e.g. think about it, even Ted Buddy and Timothy McVeigh got weak in the knees, while being led to the electric chair).
If you're talking about evolution, then your premise is wrong. Animals are well developed for their environment because of how evolution works, not because of random chance. There's nothing "convenient" about it. There's no need to have a supernatural explanation because evolution explains how things got to be the way they are. You should understand evolution before you criticize it. Otherwise it's just a strawman.
Well, enlighten me; what part of evolution do I appear to be going astray? There's an environment and something there that is living that has to survive in that environment; so, explain how you perceive evolution to work? By the way, below is a scientific article to shake some of your perceptions about our sides "lack of knowledge" of evolution:
...
Sorry, but I'm not going to read all that. I read the first part and skimmed the rest. This is hardly a "scientific article" as you claim. I suggest that if you want to know about evolution that you read actual scientifically-based articles and not Creationist ones.
As far as where you're going astray with evolution, it's the part where you imply that organisms are designed to suit their environment, and that evolution doesnt have an explanation for this. Evolution is actually not very difficult to understand... but it does require that you learn how it actually works.
It doesn't have to have a conscious but how it reacts to it's enviornment and obstacles in its way is not far off at all. The fact that it was built, just as humans were, and can make its own decisions based off of my programming grants it "free will". To prove that it does make sense to non-conscious objects would be me programming the robot to do something specific. Like me making the robot turn right every single time it meets an object or it to go straight when I tell it to.
Free will is just reacting off the fly without anyones interference or influence and that's what the robot does.
That's not what free will is.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/
“'Free Will' is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives."
A rational agent can technically be anything, but it's usually a person or other entity that has the ability to reason and make choices.
A machine that simply uses a random number generator to make "decisions" does not have free will.
Of course there are different ways to define free will (as I already said). Depending on that you can say that humans have or dont have free will. But, whatever definition you use, a robot that simply makes decisions based on programming and randomness does not have free will any more than a toaster does.
Being able to give the inherit meaning to everything from your own life to the lamp sitting to my right, that it is no ability within god's reach to determine the actual meaning or value of any object but rather your responsibility to do so.
I have to give great credence to the concept of God the Creator: all living systems are so well developed to their environment that it's simply ridiculous to think otherwise; thus, you're wishing that otherwise was the case (e.g. things just conveniently formed to fit an environment), but, again, wishing will never make it so. And free will is a complicated process outside of creatures being created to adapt to its given environment; free will is the very concept of a consciousness; some people may claim they have no consciousness, but, free will, nonetheless remains at play to decide who will be judged for Heaven and who will be judged for Hell; people like you, who want so much for people to really believe that you're more than confident in what you say, is very much like that person claiming that they have no consciousness; but, on judgement day, suddenly, that non-existent consciousness appears to ask not to be judged harshly (e.g. think about it, even Ted Buddy and Timothy McVeigh got weak in the knees, while being led to the electric chair).
If you're talking about evolution, then your premise is wrong. Animals are well developed for their environment because of how evolution works, not because of random chance. There's nothing "convenient" about it. There's no need to have a supernatural explanation because evolution explains how things got to be the way they are. You should understand evolution before you criticize it. Otherwise it's just a strawman.
Well, enlighten me; what part of evolution do I appear to be going astray? There's an environment and something there that is living that has to survive in that environment; so, explain how you perceive evolution to work? By the way, below is a scientific article to shake some of your perceptions about our sides "lack of knowledge" of evolution:
...
Sorry, but I'm not going to read all that. I read the first part and skimmed the rest. This is hardly a "scientific article" as you claim. I suggest that if you want to know about evolution that you read actual scientifically-based articles and not Creationist ones.
As far as where you're going astray with evolution, it's the part where you imply that organisms are designed to suit their environment, and that evolution doesnt have an explanation for this. Evolution is actually not very difficult to understand... but it does require that you learn how it actually works.
I seriously wonder, are you sure what a scientific article is? You need to separate your clear phobia against creationism, and read the contents of this particular scientific article, thoroughly; the article makes references to scientific journals; therefore, it's a scientific article, it just rebuts the information that was misleading the public about where science really is in the area of evolution.
I have to give great credence to the concept of God the Creator: all living systems are so well developed to their environment that it's simply ridiculous to think otherwise; thus, you're wishing that otherwise was the case (e.g. things just conveniently formed to fit an environment), but, again, wishing will never make it so. And free will is a complicated process outside of creatures being created to adapt to its given environment; free will is the very concept of a consciousness; some people may claim they have no consciousness, but, free will, nonetheless remains at play to decide who will be judged for Heaven and who will be judged for Hell; people like you, who want so much for people to really believe that you're more than confident in what you say, is very much like that person claiming that they have no consciousness; but, on judgement day, suddenly, that non-existent consciousness appears to ask not to be judged harshly (e.g. think about it, even Ted Buddy and Timothy McVeigh got weak in the knees, while being led to the electric chair).
If you're talking about evolution, then your premise is wrong. Animals are well developed for their environment because of how evolution works, not because of random chance. There's nothing "convenient" about it. There's no need to have a supernatural explanation because evolution explains how things got to be the way they are. You should understand evolution before you criticize it. Otherwise it's just a strawman.
Well, enlighten me; what part of evolution do I appear to be going astray? There's an environment and something there that is living that has to survive in that environment; so, explain how you perceive evolution to work? By the way, below is a scientific article to shake some of your perceptions about our sides "lack of knowledge" of evolution:
...
Sorry, but I'm not going to read all that. I read the first part and skimmed the rest. This is hardly a "scientific article" as you claim. I suggest that if you want to know about evolution that you read actual scientifically-based articles and not Creationist ones.
As far as where you're going astray with evolution, it's the part where you imply that organisms are designed to suit their environment, and that evolution doesnt have an explanation for this. Evolution is actually not very difficult to understand... but it does require that you learn how it actually works.
I seriously wonder, are you sure what a scientific article is? You need to separate your clear phobia against creationism, and read the contents of this particular scientific article, thoroughly; the article makes references to scientific journals; therefore, it's a scientific article, it just rebuts the information that was misleading the public about where science really is in the area of evolution.
off topic?
I seriously wonder, are you sure what a scientific article is? You need to separate your clear phobia against creationism, and read the contents of this particular scientific article, thoroughly; the article makes references to scientific journals; therefore, it's a scientific article, it just rebuts the information that was misleading the public about where science really is in the area of evolution.
A TV show review that mentions some scientific literature is not a "scientific article".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_literature
Scientific literature comprises scientific publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences, and within a scientific field is often abbreviated as the literature.
A scientific article has a standardized structure, which varies only slightly in different subjects. Ultimately, it is not the format that is important, but what lies behind it - the content. However, several key formatting requirements need to be met:
@the_stegman: @edamame: @_cain_: @yodaprime: @spider-man: If God is Omniscient there is no free will.
The monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) tell us that God is omniscient - he knows everything. They also tell us that we human beings have free will - we make our own decisions and chart our own lives. That means, believers say, that we choose whether to be good or bad, whether we obey God's laws and go to heaven or we sin and spend eternity in hell.
Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? But there's a problem: you can have either God's omniscience or human free will, but you can't have both.
2.8a God knows, we don't
The explanation is simple. Take the game of pool. If you know the speed at which a ball is traveling, the exact point it will hit another ball, the weight of each ball, air pressure, friction and all the other factors that affect both balls, you can predict exactly in which direction and how far the second ball will travel.
It's a fairly simple calculation for physicists and it's instinct for good pool players. The rest of us know in theory how it works but we don't have the knowledge or skills to play good pool every time.
The same principle applies in every situation in life. Given enough information, we can predict what will happen next, in nature and in people. We look at dark clouds and know it will rain soon. If the sun comes out it'll be warm and we'll maybe get a tan. A duck lays an egg and at some point a duckling will hatch.
| Prediction depends on omniscience - total knowledge. If you know everything, you can predict everything - the exact moment a dropped ball will hit the ground, the precise effect an espresso will have on busy executive's ability to think, whether a disaffected youth will put on a suicide belt and blow up a crowded market. Of course we do not have total knowledge - and we never will have it. But, believers tell us, God knows; God knows everything. He knows every detail about us, from the chemical content of the air we breathe to our exact |  DNA model with phosphate structure |
DNA, from every thought that we hide from ourselves to the slightest nuance of our every mood. He knows what we will do and say in every situation, whether we will lie or tell the truth, whether we will love our neighbor or hate her, whether we will worship God or spurn him.(http://www.godwouldbeanatheist.com/2problem/208omni.htm).
2d We are not free
The fact that God knows everything means that human beings have no free will. In our minds we are free - but the freedom is illusory. We think we are free because we do not see or understand all the influences on our personalities and lives - our parents' attitudes towards us, the viruses lurking in the air, airline timetables, bank crashes, friends' emotions, a shop window display. And so on.
But for God, we have no free will. He knows already every influence, past, present and future on our lives. He knows how we behave - and will behave - in every situation. He knows whether we will worship or abandon him. It makes no difference what we do, whether we pray and worship or sin and blaspheme; God knows, even before we are born whether we will enter Heaven or Hell after we die. Our free will is an illusion; our lives are forever fixed in the amber of God's mind((http://www.godwouldbeanatheist.com/2problem/208omni.htm).
Some believers accept this principle, known as predestination. They accept that God knows who will be saved and who will not and nothing anybody can do will change that situation. Within that group, some believe that they have been saved, which means that it doesn't matter how badly they behave because God has reserved a place for them in heaven. You can work out for yourself the fault in their logic...
It's not only humans who have no free will - neither does God. Because he knows everything, he knows his own being and future. He cannot choose to act because he knows already what his choices and actions are. God is trapped in eternity in his own omniscience...Source: |
Source:(http://www.godwouldbeanatheist.com/2problem/208omni.htm).
@willpayton: depending on the definition then, are we not in the same boat as the machine? Are we not slaves to our own psyche/personality/mental hardwiring?
the only thing you [or your source] proved is a lack of ultimate privacy.
@yodaprime: Then why make the thread.This should be locked.@saren
@yodaprime: Then why make the thread.This should be locked.@saren
lol while i agree it's not something that should go on for several pages, locking it might be a bit dramatic as long as we can stay on topic which doesn't seem likely. Probably because we already said the best answers several times but people tend to over think and wanna be "more correct" than the last guy...
but honestly...
This is free will :
I rule me.
or if you want the complex version
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/
“'Free Will' is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives."
A rational agent can technically be anything, but it's usually a person or other entity that has the ability to reason and make choices.
free will being an illusion is a good argument but you did it wrong.
@willpayton: depending on the definition then, are we not in the same boat as the machine? Are we not slaves to our own psyche/personality/mental hardwiring?
It just depends on the definition I suppose, but generally "free will" implies a certain amount of the ability to think and be aware enough to make choices. So, a human and a toaster might both be forms of a machine, but the difference is the human has a complex thought process that leads to the decision. In other words, it's a matter of degree.
Of course where you differentiate between one and the other... I dont know. But, you can certainly say that a human has the ability to think, and a toaster doesnt. It just gets difficult when you get an artificial brain and that brain starts to get as complex as a human brain.
It doesn't have to have a conscious but how it reacts to it's enviornment and obstacles in its way is not far off at all. The fact that it was built, just as humans were, and can make its own decisions based off of my programming grants it "free will". To prove that it does make sense to non-conscious objects would be me programming the robot to do something specific. Like me making the robot turn right every single time it meets an object or it to go straight when I tell it to.
Free will is just reacting off the fly without anyones interference or influence and that's what the robot does.
That's not what free will is.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/
“'Free Will' is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives."
A rational agent can technically be anything, but it's usually a person or other entity that has the ability to reason and make choices.
A machine that simply uses a random number generator to make "decisions" does not have free will.
Of course there are different ways to define free will (as I already said). Depending on that you can say that humans have or dont have free will. But, whatever definition you use, a robot that simply makes decisions based on programming and randomness does not have free will any more than a toaster does.
I disagree. It does have various alternatives. It can turn left or right 360 degrees or even 2. Assuming that the theory that the guy brought up was actually true then the electrons would be no different than the numbers.
It doesn't have to have a conscious but how it reacts to it's enviornment and obstacles in its way is not far off at all. The fact that it was built, just as humans were, and can make its own decisions based off of my programming grants it "free will". To prove that it does make sense to non-conscious objects would be me programming the robot to do something specific. Like me making the robot turn right every single time it meets an object or it to go straight when I tell it to.
Free will is just reacting off the fly without anyones interference or influence and that's what the robot does.
That's not what free will is.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/
“'Free Will' is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives."
A rational agent can technically be anything, but it's usually a person or other entity that has the ability to reason and make choices.
A machine that simply uses a random number generator to make "decisions" does not have free will.
Of course there are different ways to define free will (as I already said). Depending on that you can say that humans have or dont have free will. But, whatever definition you use, a robot that simply makes decisions based on programming and randomness does not have free will any more than a toaster does.
I disagree. It does have various alternatives. It can turn left or right 360 degrees or even 2. Assuming that the theory that the guy brought up was actually true then the electrons would be no different than the numbers.
Free will is not about alternatives, it's about choice. If I toss a coin, it can land on heads or tails. That doesnt mean a coin has free will.
I have to give great credence to the concept of God the Creator: all living systems are so well developed to their environment that it's simply ridiculous to think otherwise; thus, you're wishing that otherwise was the case (e.g. things just conveniently formed to fit an environment), but, again, wishing will never make it so. And free will is a complicated process outside of creatures being created to adapt to its given environment; free will is the very concept of a consciousness; some people may claim they have no consciousness, but, free will, nonetheless remains at play to decide who will be judged for Heaven and who will be judged for Hell; people like you, who want so much for people to really believe that you're more than confident in what you say, is very much like that person claiming that they have no consciousness; but, on judgement day, suddenly, that non-existent consciousness appears to ask not to be judged harshly (e.g. think about it, even Ted Buddy and Timothy McVeigh got weak in the knees, while being led to the electric chair).
If you're talking about evolution, then your premise is wrong. Animals are well developed for their environment because of how evolution works, not because of random chance. There's nothing "convenient" about it. There's no need to have a supernatural explanation because evolution explains how things got to be the way they are. You should understand evolution before you criticize it. Otherwise it's just a strawman.
Well, enlighten me; what part of evolution do I appear to be going astray? There's an environment and something there that is living that has to survive in that environment; so, explain how you perceive evolution to work? By the way, below is a scientific article to shake some of your perceptions about our sides "lack of knowledge" of evolution:
...
Sorry, but I'm not going to read all that. I read the first part and skimmed the rest. This is hardly a "scientific article" as you claim. I suggest that if you want to know about evolution that you read actual scientifically-based articles and not Creationist ones.
As far as where you're going astray with evolution, it's the part where you imply that organisms are designed to suit their environment, and that evolution doesnt have an explanation for this. Evolution is actually not very difficult to understand... but it does require that you learn how it actually works.
I seriously wonder, are you sure what a scientific article is? You need to separate your clear phobia against creationism, and read the contents of this particular scientific article, thoroughly; the article makes references to scientific journals; therefore, it's a scientific article, it just rebuts the information that was misleading the public about where science really is in the area of evolution.
The Atheists have come along and co-opted the Sciences; apparently you can't be a scientist if you're not also an Atheist, and the most spectacular thing is that people actually buy it. And then these same people, (your average joe Atheist) talk about the brainwashing and dogmatism of fundamentalist religion. It's a joke.
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