11-03-2011, 08:04 PM
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Spiffiest wanger
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Re: A Revolution in Thought: Part Two
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
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Originally Posted by specious_reasons
I think that we functionally have free will, even though we don't. You could probably predict the actions of any individual at any point in time provided you knew enough about that person's past and current experience.
The trouble as I see it, is knowing enough. The more universal the behavior, the easier it will be to predict. A simple example: If I'm taking with a person, and I point at something, I can predict with a reasonable confidence that a person will look at where I'm pointing.
Yet, there's a small chance that the person won't. Maybe that person knows that I have a habit of pointing to people's plumber cracks, dead things, or other unhappy occurrences. Maybe they just didn't happen to be looking at me when I was pointing, or maybe they have some form of social disfunction.
Unless I know all of this, I can't predict with 100% certainty. I generally treat free will as an information problem.
This is a reason why I have a problem with Lessans. Understanding that I don't really have free will generally doesn't affect how I behave, because I can't always predict how my actions will affect others. I have some idea, because I can predict based on reasonable assumptions, but I can't possibly eliminate all risks.
...and sometimes, I'm just resigned to the fact that I'm not always a nice person.
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Specious_reasons, with all due respect you have no idea what this discovery is about. Please go back and reread the last few posts I gave. I explained very clearly that this has nothing to do with the conventional definition, so why are you harping on this? I have no clue.  |
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