ughaibu Posted July 7, 2007 Report Share Posted July 7, 2007 You're using various concepts, evolution, pre-determination, prescience, points in the "space-time block", etc, that are time-dependent, this is inconsistent with the claim that time is an illusion. It seems uncontrovertial to me that my parents were alive before I was born, if time is an illusion then I am as much unborn as I am alive, if probabilities are involved I'm presumably much more unborn than I am alive. The distinction betwen alive and dead (unborn) seems to me to be as basic as one can get, so your belief appears to involve a contradiction. For these reasons I find your belief uncompelling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martillo Posted July 7, 2007 Report Share Posted July 7, 2007 snoopy,You 'think' you have 'free will' to go to the beach, a restaurant or to the cinema.  That is the illusion of 'free will'  It appears to you that you have 'freedom of choice' to do these things but your thought processes are necessarily governed by natural laws. You are 'part of the universe' and therefore must be governed by those laws. What I am saying is that although it is 'self apparent' to 'you' that you have free will this is simply an 'illusion'.What I am saying is although you appear to have 'free will' you are wrong and that it is just an 'illusion' that you think you do.Well, all what I can say now is that I completely disagree with you.For me "free will" does exist, is not any illussion.There is enough degree of freedom in the Universe to everyone have "free will" although limited: constrained and influentiated by other ones, the environment, the physical laws, the past, our experiences, our needs, etc.We are not biological machines. ......Although we cannot 'know' what will happen in the future due to 'complexity'. But in theory if you could calculate the position of every atom in the universe and had enough computational power you could deduce what happened at every moment of the past and what will happen at every moment in the future.Wrong for me. The "free will" of living beings can drive some things in many different directions just as they want (for good or bad to others). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopy Posted July 7, 2007 Report Share Posted July 7, 2007 snoopy,  Well, all what I can say now is that I completely disagree with you.For me "free will" does exist, is not any illussion.There is enough degree of freedom in the Universe to everyone have "free will" although limited: constrained and influentiated by other ones, the environment, the physical laws, the past, our experiences, our needs, etc.We are not biological machines.Wrong for me. The "free will" of living beings can drive some things in many different directions just as they want (for good or bad to others). Yes I do realise we are not in agreement here. Let me ask you a question thenCan you 'freely' decide not to die ? Put simply you say you have 'free will' can you 'choose' not to die ? If the answer is 'Yes' I would like to know how you plan to accomplish this. If the answer is 'No' then why not ? If you truly have 'Free Will' why can't you or I or anyone else simply 'choose' to remain alive and not die ? Cheers:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopy Posted July 7, 2007 Report Share Posted July 7, 2007 You're using various concepts, evolution, pre-determination, prescience, points in the "space-time block", etc, that are time-dependent, this is inconsistent with the claim that time is an illusion. It seems uncontrovertial to me that my parents were alive before I was born, if time is an illusion then I am as much unborn as I am alive, if probabilities are involved I'm presumably much more unborn than I am alive. The distinction betwen alive and dead (unborn) seems to me to be as basic as one can get, so your belief appears to involve a contradiction. For these reasons I find your belief uncompelling. They are not time-dependent, you are thinking of time being Newtonian and not being Relative. I never said Time was an illusion.I said the 'Passage of Time' was an illusion.I said all events exist at once inside the space-time block.You seem to think this means all events occurred at the same time, which it doesn't.Your Parents were alive before you were born, this doesn't mean you can experience being dead or being unborn however.There is no contradiction you are thinking of Time and Space being independent of each other which they are notAgain I never said time was an Illusion I said the 'Passage of Time' was an illusion. I don't follow your thinking that because your Parents were alive before you were born that you can experience being dead. You need to explain this to me further. You then go on to mention probabilities, which I never mentioned in my previous posts on this subject. You further say that if such probabilities are involved you are 'more dead' than you 'are alive'. You need to explain this to me further. The distinction between being alive and dead is basic and my view would be that at this point you are 'alive' and all 'points' after your 'death' you will be dead forever. You need to explain why this is a contradiction ? Cheers:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martillo Posted July 7, 2007 Report Share Posted July 7, 2007 snoopy,Let me ask you a question thenCan you 'freely' decide not to die ? Put simply you say you have 'free will' can you 'choose' not to die ? If the answer is 'Yes' I would like to know how you plan to accomplish this. If the answer is 'No' then why not ? If you truly have 'Free Will' why can't you or I or anyone else simply 'choose' to remain alive and not die ?Just because that would go against physical laws!We don't know exactly why we get old and finally die (note we could die earlier due to accidents) but it has to do with physical or chemical, or whatever phenomena governed by some of the main laws of the Universe.As I said before "free will" is "constrained and influentiated by other ones, the environment, the physical laws, the past, our experiences, our needs, etc".You are confusing "free will" with the "magnificient power" of doing anything in spite of the physical principles and laws of the Universe!"Free will" does not mean you can do whatever you could imagine, it means sometimes you make some choices between different options available for you. It does NOT mean you could do whatever! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ughaibu Posted July 7, 2007 Report Share Posted July 7, 2007 Snoopy: Of course concepts like evolution are time-dependent, evolution is the preservation of inherited characteristics, this requires that some events precede others. I dont know what you mean by "the passage of time is an illusion", if events proceed past-present-future, that is the passage of time. If the past and the future exist "somewhere" that doesn't change the fact that our lives proceed through time. What's meant to be illusary? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopy Posted July 7, 2007 Report Share Posted July 7, 2007 snoopy, Just because that would go against physical laws!We don't know exactly why we get old and finally die (note we could die earlier due to accidents) but it has to do with physical or chemical, or whatever phenomena governed by some of the main laws of the Universe.As I said before "free will" is "constrained and influentiated by other ones, the environment, the physical laws, the past, our experiences, our needs, etc".You are confusing "free will" with the "magnificient power" of doing anything in spite of the physical principles and laws of the Universe!"Free will" does not mean you can do whatever you could imagine, it means sometimes you make some choices between different options available for you. It does NOT mean you could do whatever! Ok good, we are getting somewhere..... So you admit that 'free-will' is limited even in your definition of it. And that you can't choose not to die because it is against the laws of nature or natural law. ?? Yes we agree so far ?I hope so.it means sometimes you make some choices between different options available for you.  Ok so you can't choose not to die but you can 'choose' to have a 'cup of coffee' ? How much of this choosing is 'free will' ? There are factors you have to take into consideration.The availability of 'coffee'Your drive for 'thirst'Your addiction to 'caffeine' and your responses to 'withdrawal from caffeine' In other words can you get a cup of coffee 'physically' ?How much of the 'choosing' is 'free will' and how much is related to your body giving out a 'thirst response' driven by biochemistry ?How much of the 'choosing' is 'free will' and how much of it is related to your withdrawal response from 'caffeine' ? So you see even getting a cup of coffee is a tricky business. You might 'think' you are 'freely' choosing to get a cup of coffee but it might be more to do with your body, its 'thirst response' and your level of withdrawal from 'caffeine'. These biochemical responses drive humans to do things. Drive us all to do things. Biochemistry is governed by natural law and so are you. I am not saying you don't have 'will' just I'm not convinced that you have 'free will'. When you analyse 'free will' all you find is one act of 'will' after another. These acts of 'will' are constrained by and influenced by your physical environment. I don't see in this case how you can claim they are 'free'. They are constrained, subject to and driven by the laws of the universe. Cheers:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martillo Posted July 7, 2007 Report Share Posted July 7, 2007 snoopy,So you admit that 'free-will' is limited even in your definition of it.I am not saying you don't have 'will' just I'm not convinced that you have 'free will'. When you analyse 'free will' all you find is one act of 'will' after another. These acts of 'will' are constrained by and influenced by your physical environment. I don't see in this case how you can claim they are 'free'. They are constrained, subject to and driven by the laws of the universe.There is a difference between the fact that we could be conditioned by the environment, the physical laws, etc and to state that everything in our lifes is driven by external factors and not our own wills.May be we have a problem with the concept or definition of "free will". I understand "free will" as our own wills more related to our thoughts and not those related as a biochemical response of our bodies.Suppose the situation we are playing chess or letters. Would you say that every movement we took is a response to the environment and the physical laws? I think not. They mainly depend just on our mind's decisions on how to play the game. They would be your own decisions in a game driven by your "free will". Humans have sent a "rover" to mars and is a clear example how the Universe can change just by humans decisions. The Universe is very different since then: there is an object in Mars that wasn't before. Would you say that this was planned by the physical laws of the Universe? I think not.In this sense I say the Universe must have one or more dimensions, to accomplish the degrees of freedom needed for those things to happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopy Posted July 8, 2007 Report Share Posted July 8, 2007 snoopy,  There is a difference between the fact that we could be conditioned by the environment, the physical laws, etc and to state that everything in our lifes is driven by external factors and not our own wills.May be we have a problem with the concept or definition of "free will". I understand "free will" as our own wills more related to our thoughts and not those related as a biochemical response of our bodies. Yes I understand your concept of 'free will', what I don't understand is how our 'thoughts' are not related to the biochemical response of our bodies.  Are you for instance saying our 'brains' are not biochemical in nature ? Or are you saying or 'thoughts' are not produced by our 'brains' ? Either would be quite controversial. Suppose the situation we are playing chess or letters. Would you say that every movement we took is a response to the environment and the physical laws? I think not. They mainly depend just on our mind's decisions on how to play the game. They would be your own decisions in a game driven by your "free will". In the case of a game of chess or other game how we play the game would be influenced by our teachers, what books we had read, our natural ability of playing the game. The books and our teachers would I think you will agree be the environment that influences us. Our natural ability to play the game is dependent on how our brains work, this has to do with genetics which are just molecules which are subject to natural law and our general experiences in our lives, it has been shown that these experiences change the wiring of our brain in the form of neural networks. We do not by 'free will' change the wiring of our brains it happens automatically without our consent. So if this automatic rewiring of the brain happens without our consent, how can you be sure that any decision you take within this framework is a 'free' decision ? Any decision you take is surely going to be influenced by how your brain is wired, and this wiring has been influenced by your teachers and chess books you have read. The workings of our brains must surely be subject to natural law, I am not saying they are, as I said in a previous post Physics should be able to explain how conscious thought arises but it doesn't. Which is a mystery. But as we are inside the universe and our bodies and minds are made up of stuff that comprises the universe i.e. we are part of the universe, we should be governed by natural law as well. Saying that our minds are not subject to natural law is saying that our minds are in some way 'magical' and I'm not quite ready to believe that just yet.  Humans have sent a "rover" to mars and is a clear example how the Universe can change just by humans decisions. The Universe is very different since then: there is an object in Mars that wasn't before. Would you say that this was planned by the physical laws of the Universe? I think not.In this sense I say the Universe must have one or more dimensions, to accomplish the degrees of freedom needed for those things to happen. Yes humans have sent probes out into space, but this was done within the laws of nature the rover on mars just didn't appear there, I am not saying that the universe 'plans' anything. Things just happen as a consequence of natural laws, humanity itself is such a consequence, our technology is such a consequence of our activities in applying natural law. So I would explain that the rover on Mars is just a consequence of these laws being played out in the type of universe we live in. But it isn't 'planned', nothing is planned, as this would suggest something planned the 'universe' which sounds like God to me.  Simply adding on an extra dimension to space will not give you 'extra' degree's of freedom in which to explain 'free will'. Try it for yourself, you will see that this doesn't happen, just adding extra dimensions can give you room to explain 'extra forces' but 'free will' is not a force unless you believe in 'telekinesis'. Also adding an extra dimension gives you the problem of explaining why we don't experience or see this dimension. As I said before to mathematically explain 'free will' some sort of feedback loop is required into the 'laws of motion'. So that when the materials of a rover that is sent from one planet to another are assembled by sentient beings there is 'feedback' into the 'laws of motion' that would normally have those materials sitting on the planet of their origin. Cheers:phones: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopy Posted July 8, 2007 Report Share Posted July 8, 2007 Snoopy: Of course concepts like evolution are time-dependent, evolution is the preservation of inherited characteristics, this requires that some events precede others. I dont know what you mean by "the passage of time is an illusion", if events proceed past-present-future, that is the passage of time. If the past and the future exist "somewhere" that doesn't change the fact that our lives proceed through time. What's meant to be illusary?  Yes some events do precede each other inside the space-time block. But evolution isn't 'time' dependent it is 'space and time' dependent. Yes events occur 'past through present into the future', although we only ever experience the 'present'. But in Relativity at high enough speeds our perception of the passage of time CAN slow down or disappear altogether. In this way it is illusory. In Quantum Mechanics it actually gets worse for the 'passage of time' Richard Feynman was a genius who developed a new approach to quantum mechanics. He formalised its crowning achievement, Quantum Electrodynamics, which is the most accurate scientific theory ever devised. He also developed the Feynman Diagram, which represents the interaction of two particles as the exchange of a third particle. This diagram has time on one axis and space on the other and the interaction can be viewed as happening both in forward and in reverse time. An electron, on its way from point A to point B, can bump into a photon. In the diagram this can be drawn as sending it backwards not just in space, but also in time. Then it bumps into another photon, which sends it forward in time again, but in a different direction in space. In this way, it can be in two places at once. There is little doubt that a Feynman diagram offers the easiest way to predict the results of a subatomic experiment. Many physicists have seen the power of this tool and taken the next step, arguing that reverse time travel is what actually happens in reality. If time reversal can occur in the quantum world, it does suggest that our perception of 'the passage of time' is an illusion. Cheers:phones: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ughaibu Posted July 8, 2007 Report Share Posted July 8, 2007 But in Relativity at high enough speeds our perception of the passage of time CAN slow down or disappear altogether.In this way it is illusory. And if I'm at the top of a tall building people look "smaller than ants", that doesn't mean that people are illusory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martillo Posted July 8, 2007 Report Share Posted July 8, 2007 snoopy,Yes I understand your concept of 'free will', what I don't understand is how our 'thoughts' are not related to the biochemical response of our bodies.  Are you for instance saying our 'brains' are not biochemical in nature ? Or are you saying or 'thoughts' are not produced by our 'brains' ? Either would be quite controversial.Of course they are but this is the same to say a program is electronic in nature because is composed of electronics bits in a computer. The biochemical nature is for me the platform where our mind run like a software in a computer. The analogy is not total since a software is pre-programmed and all events are predetermined what does not happen with our minds. Our mind would be a self programmed and self driven program... In the case of a game of chess or other game how we play the game would be influenced by our teachers, what books we had read, our natural ability of playing the game. The books and our teachers would I think you will agree be the environment that influences us.They influence us but not completely determine all of our movements. We will have our own movements in each game decided just by our will. But as we are inside the universe and our bodies and minds are made up of stuff that comprises the universe i.e. we are part of the universe, we should be governed by natural law as well. Saying that our minds are not subject to natural law is saying that our minds are in some way 'magical' and I'm not quite ready to believe that just yet.They are subject to natural laws but we develop our own original thoughts with it which are related to our "free will". Simply adding on an extra dimension to space will not give you 'extra' degree's of freedom in which to explain 'free will'.As far as I can think it works. Try it for yourself, you will see that this doesn't happen, just adding extra dimensions can give you room to explain 'extra forces' but 'free will' is not a force unless you believe in 'telekinesis'.More degrees of freedom does not imply in "extra forces". You are mixturing things. I think you don't understand properly the concept of degrees of freedom. It has to do with quantity of variables needed to describe the behavior of a system... Note: "dimensions" = "degrees of freedom" at wikipedia. Also adding an extra dimension gives you the problem of explaining why we don't experience or see this dimension.I do "feel" we there is an extra dimension: I "feel" there are one or more degrees of freedom in how the Universe and our lifes run! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopy Posted July 8, 2007 Report Share Posted July 8, 2007 And if I'm at the top of a tall building people look "smaller than ants", that doesn't mean that people are illusory. Of course they are not but this effect is caused by you being 'far away' from the people in question. For this analogy to work you would have to prove you could be 'far away' from Time. In what concept could you be 'far away' from Time ? Cheers;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ughaibu Posted July 8, 2007 Report Share Posted July 8, 2007 Not at all, you're talking about the perception of time, I'm talking about the perception of people. That the perception of time changes under various conditions, for example after drinking coffee, doesn't establish that time is an illusion, any more than a ride on the waltzer establishes that the surrounding people are an illusion. In any case, what is the similarity between distorted perception and claims about the existence of god? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopy Posted July 8, 2007 Report Share Posted July 8, 2007 snoopy,      More degrees of freedom does not imply in "extra forces". You are mixturing things. I think you don't understand properly the concept of degrees of freedom. It has to do with quantity of variables needed to describe the behavior of a system... Note: "dimensions" = "degrees of freedom" at wikipedia. Well I don't think I'm 'mixturing' anything.;) I think you mean 'mixing'. Degrees of freedom can mean a lot of things at WikipediaDegrees of freedom (physics and chemistry) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaDegrees of freedom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia But I am assuming you mean the first one to do with Physics which says'In mechanics, for each particle belonging to a system, and for each independent direction in which movement is possible, two degrees of freedom are defined, one describing the particle's momentum in that direction, the other describing the particle's position along an axis defined by that direction.' Force is described as being equal to the rate of change of momentum: F= dp / dt Dimension in Wikipedia too has a lot of meanings.Dimension - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I am assuming you meant the bit about 'For example, locating a point on a plane (e.g. a city on a map of the Earth) requires two parameters—latitude and longitude. The corresponding space has therefore two dimensions, its dimension is two, and this space is said to be 2-dimensional (2D). Locating the exact position of an aircraft in flight (relative to the Earth) requires another dimension (altitude), hence the position of the aircraft can be rendered in a three-dimensional space (3D). Adding the three Euler angles, for a total 6 dimensions, allows the current degrees of freedom—orientation and trajectory—of the aircraft to be known.' But in this example there are only really 3 spatial dimensions plus 3 Euler angles. The bit about 6 dimensions is a bit misleading. sometimes it is useful to use extra dimensions in this way but should not be taken too literally. It is just a convenience. Cheers:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martillo Posted July 9, 2007 Report Share Posted July 9, 2007 snoopy,Well I don't think I'm 'mixturing' anything. I think you mean 'mixing'.Yes, sorry, english is not my natural language and I make mistakes sometimes...:cheer: ughaibu 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InfiniteNow Posted July 9, 2007 Report Share Posted July 9, 2007 snoopy, Yes, sorry, english is not my natural language and I make mistakes sometimes...:hihi: No worries. Even those of us for whom English is our natural language make mistakes sometimes. :cheer: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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