• Jackson
    1.8k
    In other words there is nothing necessary in the universe necessarily because necessity is meaningless. Is that an accurate summary or am I missing something crucial? Also if you replace the word necessary with the word probability it doesn’t seem like a radical transformation. To use your example if you don’t eat you will die could also be replaced with the statement if you don’t eat you will probably die and the meaning is still basically similar.Average

    Yes. Empirical.
  • Average
    469

    I don’t know how empiricism is connected to these concepts but I’m glad that I understood your intended meaning.
  • Average
    469

    I don’t know how empiricism is connected to these concepts but I’m glad that I understood your intended meaning.
  • Jackson
    1.8k
    I don’t know how empiricism is connected to these concepts but I’m glad that I understood your intended meaning.Average

    From Seth Lloyd, a few years ago: "the only way to figure out what's going to happen in a computing system is to go through the computation."

    https://www.edge.org/conversation/seth_lloyd-seth-lloyd%E2%80%94life-what-a-concept

    There are no "short cuts." It has to be played out to see what it was about.

    Next: "PRESS: You mean this metaphor of the computer very literally — you can literally envision the universe as sort of going through a set of procedures that you could trace back.
    LLOYD: Yes, I don't even mean it as a metaphor.
    PRESS: How do you avoid the Gödel trap, in the sense that there are things that exist that you can't possibly explain the origin of?
    LLOYD: Exactly. The halting problem and Gödel's theorem are essentially the same problem — they're very closely related, and Turing knew about Gödel's work when he came up with the halting problem.
  • Average
    469

    I know nothing about computation but I think I get the idea. You need to perform an experiment to test a hypothesis. That’s basically what you’re saying unless I’ve misunderstood you.
  • Jackson
    1.8k
    I know nothing about computation but I think I get the idea. You need to perform an experiment to test a hypothesis. That’s basically what you’re saying unless I’ve misunderstood you.Average

    It's the concept of a series or algorithm where it is supposed to continue on to infinity and retain the same outcomes. People now see that is false and cannot be proven true.
  • Average
    469

    I won’t pretend to understand a mathematical concept like infinity. Also discourses that involve algorithms as an important component will inevitably be viewed by me as somewhat cryptic due to my limited exposure to such notions.
  • Joshs
    5.2k


    From Seth Lloyd, a few years ago: "the only way to figure out what's going to happen in a computing system is to go through the computation."Jackson

    According to Wiki,

    “In his 2006 book, Programming the Universe, Lloyd contends that the universe itself is one big quantum computer producing what we see around us, and ourselves, as it runs a cosmic program. According to Lloyd, once we understand the laws of physics completely, we will be able to use small-scale quantum computing to understand the universe completely as well. Lloyd states that we could have the whole universe simulated in a computer in 600 years provided that computational power increases according to Moore's Law.”

    This is an interesting blend of deterministism and indeterminism. It is a determinism in that the laws of physics can be understood ‘completely’.
  • Jackson
    1.8k
    According to Wiki,Joshs

    don't care about wiki
  • Joshs
    5.2k
    According to Wiki,
    — Joshs

    don't care about wiki
    Jackson

    You think this is not what Lloyd is claiming? Would take me probably a half hour to confirm that this is exactly what he is claiming. Should I waste the half hour or do you think what I quoted sounds quite consistent with what you quoted from Lloyd?
  • Jackson
    1.8k


    I ignore posts with wiki.
  • Joshs
    5.2k
    I ignore posts with wiki.Jackson

    Good for you. Then ignore the wiki quote and pay attention to my comments. My comment is that Lloyd is offering an interesting blend of determinism and indeterminism. What is deterministic about his model is that he begins from determined laws of physics to produce indeterminism. That’s why the predictions are probabilistic rather than inferential. Lloyd , like Turing, is subject to Wittgenstein’s critique.
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k

    As I can see, you didn't deserve my reply to your topic. Well, it's the last one. You are a tired thinker afterall ...
  • TiredThinker
    819


    As it turns out, most vision problems require much more than lens. Lol. The human eye has many fallible parts unfortunately.
  • punos
    440

    Exactly, that is why it must be examined.
  • punos
    440
    The human eye has many fallible parts unfortunately.TiredThinker

    You do realize i was making a metaphor?
  • Gnomon
    3.5k
    Why is it so difficult to provide just one reasonable account or mechanism by which freewill can be realized, even if just a hypothetical one? Anyone??punos
    1. A practical "difficulty" arises when a holistic (general) Philosophical question is expected to be answered in terms of reductive Scientific mechanisms.
    2. Another adversity is that the skeptical questioner usually assumes that the question refers to absolute freedom from natural laws, as recounted in magical myths. Yet, like everything else in this world, human freedom is Relative to the wider context.
    3. One more obstacle to reasonable discussions of Free Will is that many intellectuals today are philosophically Fatalistic in their presumption of Absolute Determinism. For them, the notion of exceptions to Fate is absurd.
    4. Perhaps the biggest dilemma in Free Will Discussions though is the scientific "axiom" (unprovable assertion taken on faith to be self-evidently true) of the inevitable "second law" of Cause & Effect that drives all things to ultimate destruction.

    With so many obstacles to overcome before even getting to the starting line, FreeWill advocates are handicapped & hobbled. So, all I'll say is that I have written down several "arguments" in favor of limited freewill for moral agents. That's what I call "unscripted freewill". Generally, Nature seems to be an unbroken chain of Cause & Effect. But Life itself is an exception to the ruthless rule of Entropy, relentlessly reducing organisms to ashes. Moreover, human Culture has a history of exceptions to that deterministic Law of Disorder.

    Admittedly, both of those exceptions are temporary. But Life has been staving-off Death for multiple millennia, and Culture has been pushing-back unruly Nature for thousands of years. So, for those interested in atypical arguments for Freedom Within Determinism, I can provide links to a few of those reasons for acting as-if we have some freedom from Fate. :smile:

    Paradox of Freewill :
    Modern Science is based on the assumption of an unbroken chain of Cause & Effect, since the Big Bang beginning of the world. Logicians have created supposedly airtight arguments against the possibility of libertarian freedom-of-choice. And some theologians, who take the Bible at its word, have concluded that divine omniscience means that the entire existence of the creation was foreknown in detail; hence allowing no opportunity for individual sinners to make the fateful choice between Good or Evil, God or Devil. Thus, the incompatibility of Fate and Freedom has been debated for millennia. And the beat goes on . . . .
    http://bothandblog5.enformationism.info/page13.html
  • enqramot
    64
    I fear you're asking the impossible here. It's like saying: "I'd very much like to believe in square wheels, I challenge anyone to show me one!" Nope, mate. Can't be done.
  • Cidat
    128
    Free will does not exist. Studies have shown that our brains make decisions before they reach our consciousness. If you had free will, you'd be aware of your decisions at the same time that you make them.
  • boagie
    385
    Come on people, you don't even know what your next thought is going to be, free will?
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