A Seed Called Hope

[Assaultman67]

I am inclined to agree with R_T, at least for the most part. I do not believe in free will.

Consider the last choice you made. It could be anything, some big life-changing decision or just what flavour of ice cream to get... whatever. If time were to be rewound back to that exact point, with those exact same circumstances, would you make the same choice? (Bear in mind that "exact same circumstances" means you have no memory of previously making that choice or its outcome.)

I think you would. As would I.

So you guys think that we will always make the same decision in the same scenario that we can perceive? Doesn't that suggest that time is constant and linear huh?

You could go back and forth along that line of time but without any change to the initial conditions nothing would ever change in future events. (Edit in bold. Sorry about not finishing this sentence ... I get sidetracked on other thoughts and forget to finish sentences sometimes.)

What if time was actually planar?

Implications such as that suggest that at a single moment in time, infinite paths can (and do) develop from it. We, as people, both diverge and converge from ourselves as we take different paths. One version of me might die tomorrow, another might become the president of Antarctica.

conversely, it also means that there could be an infinite amount of scenarios that play out and lead to this exact same moment as well. Every moment is just an intersection of possible pasts and futures.

What you guys need to prove, is that the world doesn't have a single random functional component to it. And to be honest, physicists could probably work on that one for an eternity without significant progress.

TL;DR: as "variables" go to infinity => "'Hyperdimensional butterfly effect'= metaphysics"

[Untadaike]

I like chips.

[Grayswandir]

Implications such as that suggest that at a single moment in time, infinite paths can (and do) develop from it. We, as people, both diverge and converge from ourselves as we take different paths. One version of me might die tomorrow, another might become the president of Antarctica.

Doesn't the only path that matters (without pulling in all this metaphysical garbage) to us is the one that actually happens? The one that affects us and what goes on? Aren't the rest hindsight and what ifs?

[Assaultman67]

Implications such as that suggest that at a single moment in time, infinite paths can (and do) develop from it. We, as people, both diverge and converge from ourselves as we take different paths. One version of me might die tomorrow, another might become the president of Antarctica.

Doesn't the only path that matters (without pulling in all this metaphysical garbage) to us is the one that actually happens? The one that affects us and what goes on? Aren't the rest hindsight and what ifs?

It's hard not to pull in metaphysical garbage when the question itself is metaphysical ... a metaphysical question would probably get a metaphysical answer.

Well, they all happen theoretically. but I assume you mean "the one I feel that I am in now" (as I'm probably simultaneously saying this in slightly different ways in who knows how many alternate time paths)

Anywho, what I was saying is that even if we go back to that point in time, we may have a different outcome due to dimensions we can't even perceive (or pretty much comprehend) having an effect on our lives ... It's kinda trippy shit to think about.

Even very small changes in those extra dimensions, ones greater than the universe itself, would have very large changes on our existences due to our universe containing natural "lorenz equation" components that make up "the overall formula of the universe". So even if you set the universe to the EXACT same state it was at that point, even the smallest changes in a higher dimensional state will cause changes to our universe.

hence why I said "hyper dimensional butterfly effect" ... It seemed to sum up the concept fairly well at the time

Of course, if you talked to a mathematician, he would basically say I'm full of shit. A physicist might agree with me depending on his interpretation of the question.

[Renegade_Turner]

Nothing about the question, as you call it, is "metaphysical". I don't know where that comes from. Everything about it comes from logic and reality. There are no other planes taken into this equation. It comes down to who we are as people and the decisions we're going to make, and the decisions we have already made. As Zhukov said, bring yourself back to any decision you've made in life, with the exact same scenario and circumstances, and you'll make that decision again because that's where your mind will take you.

I don't know why you're bringing physics into this. I guess it's because of what you studied and everything must become an equation withs proofs and results.

You say I need to prove something about this to you. I don't need to prove anything, the reality of our conditions as humans comes from in here. *Taps head.* Some things don't have formulas or equations. This is a theory and it's up to each person to accept or reject it. I just think that logical reasoning brings me to this conclusion. For me, it's become an inescapable truth, as I've already said. This isn't any of that "Everything happens for a reason" stuff that people seem to cling onto the notion of because it gives them a reason to keep moving forward. I just think everything happens because, well, everything has to happen, or else we wouldn't exist. There's no reason for some things, they just happen. And there's no reason that some people turn out "good", and some people turn out "bad". That's just the way the cards are dealt. And bringing in moral high ground points like "Everyone has their choices and they have to stand by them." is a shallow one in my book, and it's easy to say things like that when you've been dealt the good hand in life.

Bringing alternate planes of reality into this isn't something that really holds water with this theory. There are no alternates planes of reality, there is only the one that we're in, and it's always flowing forward and fluctuating based on all lifeforms and the decisions they make or the actions they take, be it animals, plants, the weather or any other factor that can act on another. This isn't Donnie Darko, this is real life flowing forward at a constant.

And the butterfly effect is an interesting thing to think about, but I don't believe in possible alternate realities. Any action anything takes changes its life forever, and that path it takes is what's real, and anything else is lost in the "metaphysical" theories, and gone forever.

[Cake]

If all our actions are determined by the circumstances we´ll be in(which seems quite reasonable to me), we could also just stop doing anything, but then again we couldn´t because the circumstances we´re in make us do something else.
LOL.

[Renegade_Turner]

Haha, but even taking a moment to consider that the circumstances you're in changes your actions results in your circumstances changing and therefore your actions changi- HEAD HURT

[Grayswandir]

My brain ---> <---- Me

[Assaultman67]

Nothing about the question, as you call it, is "metaphysical". I don't know where that comes from. Everything about it comes from logic and reality. There are no other planes taken into this equation. It comes down to who we are as people and the decisions we're going to make, and the decisions we have already made. As Zhukov said, bring yourself back to any decision you've made in life, with the exact same scenario and circumstances, and you'll make that decision again because that's where your mind will take you. ...

Reminds me of:


everything boils down to math at some point.

What you are describing is that we (as humans) can theoretically be predictable by a function (a very large function, but a function indeed) based on time only with fixed constants determined by all the information in the universe ... f(t) or "the glorious function of everything"(t)

basically at a specific time, the universe will never ever be different. no matter how many times we go back to that point, every atom, in the universe will be in the exact same spot.

Do you follow that far?

What I'm saying, is that the "glorious function of all that ever was" needs input that superceeds the information of our entire universe and includes information from all other extra dimensions we can't even comprehend fully because those dimensions affect this universe.

This change of information propogates causing to a different chain of events. INCLUDING, coming to different conclusions at a particular point in time.

[Renegade_Turner]

I'm sorry, but I lost interest after that picture...

[Assaultman67]

Ok, I give up trying to explain.

Read this article instead, maybe it will help you understand what I'm talking about. You may want to scroll down to the "Implications for Fatalism, Determinism, Free Will, and the Self" section if you don't want to read too much.

(It's actually VERY applicable to what we're talking about and relatively unbiased to either side of the debate.)

[Renegade_Turner]

I'm not really enthusiastic about trawling through a big long article if it's along the "other dimensions we can't comprehend" stuff you were just talking about.

It's not that you're failing to explain, it's that it doesn't really interest me. I don't agree with it.

I never said we were being controlled by a function. Everything does not need to be put into mathematics. The human mind is more complex than that. It's not that there's any formula to it, it's that we'll react the same way as people if given the same choice in the same circumstances. If you want to call being the type of person that makes a certain type of decision a function, I'm a little perplexed. I see what you're saying, but I just think it's wrong.

[Assaultman67]

That article doesn't actually say you're wrong about your fatalistic view anywhere in it, it just explains the properties a universal function would have and its implications on different views.

... I've completely failed to understand you ... You're the one who brought the subject up

You think events will unfold exactly the same way throughout time and people will not make different decisions than the one before given they were in that exact same scenario as before ...

Yet you refuse to realize that you are describing a universal function in which at one point in time, there can be only one result.

Do you just feel uncomfortable rationalizing the human consciousness down to a mathematical function?

Also ...

I never said we were being controlled by a function. Everything does not need to be put into mathematics. The human mind is more complex than that. It's not that there's any formula to it, it's that we'll react the same way as people if given the same choice in the same circumstances.

This is unexpectantly spiritual

...

am I being trolled?

[Untadaike]

I never said we were being controlled by a function. Everything does not need to be put into mathematics. The human mind is more complex than that. It's not that there's any formula to it, it's that we'll react the same way as people if given the same choice in the same circumstances. If you want to call being the type of person that makes a certain type of decision a function, I'm a little perplexed. I see what you're saying, but I just think it's wrong.

I agree, we're creatures of extreme habit. Every day, our neural patterns become more and more cemented into doing the same actions, thinking the same thoughts, day after day after day. Of course we'll make the same decision twice, three times, for the rest of our fucking lives. We just fool ourselves into believing that we're unpredictable and independent and that we're improving our minds with each day.

[BlackHole]

I felt like writing long response, but then I figured it would take way to long. So many interesting statements, so much stuff to think about... I could spend weeks talking about them. I'd invite you guys to come over here for a drink and some fun discussions, if it weren't for the fact that I've got no time and the prospect of real-life flamewars ain't that attractive either.

Personally, I don't believe that in the exact same (physical) circumstances humans would always make the same choice. They would in most of the cases, but not in all. Humans ain't predictable like that. I think we consist of both a physical, down-here-at-earth part, and metaphysical (call it the spirit or something like that) part.

The physical part perceives our world, bound by the laws of nature. We see, hear, feel with it. It is the place where our emotions reside, where the conscious part of thinking happens.

The metaphysical part is where our personality resides. It is heavily influenced by the physical part though for example our emotions. We usually have no idea what is going on over there, yet we can notice the results of our "subconscious" thinking. Though we can barely understand or influence how it works, we can consciously "override" the decisions it makes, thus forcing us to ignore how we'd naturally feel and respond to certain things.

The physical part can be perfectly predictable. In fact, if there was a way to separate it from the metaphysical part, we would be 100% predictable. It's the metaphysical part where we gain our "randomness". That's what makes us humans different from for example animals: the fact that we're not just building on what we know, but have the ability to come up with completely original things.

None of this makes any sense. There is not an universal answer. But we can make usself believe there is an answer, we can come up with one, and live with it.

TL;DR: You should try updating your drivers.

~ Black
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who do not.