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Author Topic:   Is the future inevitable?
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1504 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


Message 53 of 109 (774273)
12-15-2015 12:41 PM


here we go again....
Identical universes hmmmmmm.
Does identical universes open the can of worms of stochastic drift and QM uncertainty principle, multiverses, probabilities and etc...
Its a crap shoot, (heh) see what I did there?
I believe the universe is deterministic but it is so incredibly complicated in how every single event sparks zillions of other events on and on. It is for all intents and purposes indeterminate.
As far as human free will is concerned, it has been shown that the thing in your brain sitting in the "consciousness" chair, that you call YOU is actually not in the driver seat instead is directed by our subconscious brain. But that's ok too because the time between choices and choice is a few seconds so we get to maintain the illusion of being in charge. We may be like machines operating in a deterministic world that through cause and effect manipulates how we interface with reality. This sounds rather like there is no free will. But I contend it is just a matter of how you look at it. The ghost in the machine may reside within the quantum world.
What intrigues me the is the idea of the brain possibly being a quantum computer. So far no experiments bear this out. The hypothesis is that there are quantum level entanglements in the microtubules of our brains resulting in consciousness.
The jury is still out on this one, but it is one of the last bastion of hope the free willers myself included.
Free Will versus the Programmed Brain - Scientific American

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

Replies to this message:
 Message 54 by caffeine, posted 12-15-2015 2:12 PM 1.61803 has replied

  
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1504 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


Message 56 of 109 (774297)
12-15-2015 6:04 PM
Reply to: Message 54 by caffeine
12-15-2015 2:12 PM


Re: here we go again....
Hi Caffeine,
Here is more recent paper published in Nature April 2008
here
It seems to indicate at least seven full seconds of lag time before the conscious mind is aware and decides to do what the subconscious tells it to do.
Another article published 2013.
Just a moment...
Click on PDF to read the paper.
This may not be the end all of proving no free will, but it does seem to do more than mere assertion that the conscious mind is driving all our decisions and that the subconscious is doing it a full seven seconds before our conscious mind gets the memo.

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

This message is a reply to:
 Message 54 by caffeine, posted 12-15-2015 2:12 PM caffeine has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 66 by caffeine, posted 12-16-2015 3:48 PM 1.61803 has replied

  
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1504 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


Message 65 of 109 (774355)
12-16-2015 3:40 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by Stile
12-16-2015 1:51 PM


Re: Is Truth Unavoidable or is it random?
Hi Stile,
Stile writes:
You can think of freewill as "no one can predict what I'm going to decide to do!"
But scientist can. Scientist can know what your going to do up to 7 seconds before you do it. Granted it for now it is a simplistic experiment, but the foundations of this research is beginning to show our subconscious and body are pulling the strings.
Stile writes:
You can think of freewill as "the ability to make conscious decisions about your future actions based on your own personal past experience."
But are you making conscious decisions or merely being alerted after the fact of what your body and subconscious was going to do anyway? As current research is beginning to show.
But wait.......
It gets even better than that!
**best Morpheus voice**
What if I told you our brains may be influenced by the the bugs living in our digestive tracts.
The most extreme example of brain control is the Zombie ant fungus A fungus that makes the ant bite and hang on vegetable material, so the fungus can propagate itself. Certainly a case of reality being stranger than fiction. I know, I know a ant brain compared to a human brain no comparison. But still intriguing that the human microbiome is now being studied to realize how much this collective organism affects us. Their cells out number ours 10 to 1.
Stile writes:
so it doesn't make a difference. It's inconsequential to this sort of idea of freewill.
Perhaps, but more and more it is beginning to look like human beings are like machines that have a brain that responds to our hormones, biochemistry, pheromones, tactile receptors, our internal gut flora biochemistry, conditioning,subconscious and who knows what other influences.
At the end of the day it is as you say a matter of how you look at it.

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Stile, posted 12-16-2015 1:51 PM Stile has replied

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1.61803
Member (Idle past 1504 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


Message 67 of 109 (774357)
12-16-2015 3:53 PM
Reply to: Message 64 by Tangle
12-16-2015 3:40 PM


Re: Is Truth Unavoidable or is it random?
Thats rights Tangle,
Kind of humbling that from the big bang, the formation of the universe stars, galaxies, planets;to the formation of Earth, life and man.... and every conceivable event thereafter that has resulted in you posting that

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by Tangle, posted 12-16-2015 3:40 PM Tangle has replied

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1.61803
Member (Idle past 1504 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


Message 70 of 109 (774366)
12-16-2015 4:28 PM
Reply to: Message 66 by caffeine
12-16-2015 3:48 PM


Re: here we go again....
caffeine writes:
There's no requirement that the timelag between beginning to make a conscious decision and completing it be less than 7 seconds, is there?
As I understand it, no. The salient point I think is that the areas of the brain, that have been mapped that are responsible for non conscious thought are lighting up and indicating the choice of Right or Left ...before the person presses the freaking button.
quote:
2).Next, we addressed the
key question of this study, whether any brain region encoded the
subject’s motor decision ahead of time. Indeed, we found that two
brain regions encoded with high accuracywhether the subject was about
to choose the left or right response prior to the conscious decision
(threshold P 0.05, family-wise error—corrected for multiple spatial
and temporal comparisons;
Then the person selects a letter that corresponds to time when they made the choice for the purpose of showing how soon the area lit up before the person chose.
In my view it is still your brain and you are still the one pressing the button. So who cares, it is just a matter of how you look at it imo.
However it you care to check it out:
I saw a very interesting documentary on PBS in October called
"The Brain with Dr. Eagleman The Brain with David Eagleman | PBS
Episode 3 is called "Who is In Control?" They had a interesting experiment where a subject was placed in a scan and a hat/head piece put on the subject that could stimulate areas of the brain.
By using a combination of mapping and stimulation technology the neurologist was able to have the subject make choices several seconds before the subject reported making the choice. The mind blowing part being they did not make the choice even though they where adamant afterwards they did. For some reason it seems the conscious mind maintains the illusion of control no matter what.
I dont expect this to convince anyone though. Check it out and judge for yourself. It's a interesting series.

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

This message is a reply to:
 Message 66 by caffeine, posted 12-16-2015 3:48 PM caffeine has not replied

  
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1504 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


(1)
Message 79 of 109 (774425)
12-17-2015 3:28 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by Stile
12-17-2015 3:11 PM


Re: Is Truth Unavoidable or is it random?
STEP AWAY FROM THE BONG.

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by Stile, posted 12-17-2015 3:11 PM Stile has seen this message but not replied

  
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1504 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


Message 93 of 109 (776339)
01-12-2016 10:38 AM
Reply to: Message 92 by Son Goku
01-12-2016 6:48 AM


Re: Quantum Events
Hi Son Goku,
So the universe/cosmos is in your opinion.
a) deterministic and finite
b) deterministic and infinite
c) indeterministic and finite
d) inderterministic and infinite
e) a combination of a and c
f) a combination of b and d

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

This message is a reply to:
 Message 92 by Son Goku, posted 01-12-2016 6:48 AM Son Goku has replied

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1.61803
Member (Idle past 1504 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


Message 103 of 109 (776381)
01-12-2016 4:32 PM
Reply to: Message 95 by Tangle
01-12-2016 2:24 PM


Re: Quantum Events
Tangle, he said not deterministic.
50 million "little grey cells" just shit the bed mon ami. ~ as inflected by Poirot

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

This message is a reply to:
 Message 95 by Tangle, posted 01-12-2016 2:24 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 106 by Tangle, posted 01-12-2016 4:50 PM 1.61803 has seen this message but not replied

  
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