I didn't really have a favorite band and left it blank, but then decided it'd be much funnier to try it lots of times with band=1, then =2, etc. and see get results from #0 to #10. Many of them are disturbing, but none so much as #6.
I just took it myself, and without any sort of cheating, I got uqx :> :> :>
The question is, I can now avoid sleeping with him? It seems rather deterministic to say I'm 'bound' to sleep with him. Do you think it is legally binding? What happens if I don't sleep with him now? Eh? EH?
No, you have to define something, and then decide whether you *have* that. And then you argue over whether the thing you defined is called 'free will' or not.
As I say, I need to argue about this properly later.
What I meant was that everyone seems to *violently*[1] insist they have free will, though no-one can define it. And also, regardless of what you define, you have to *act* as if people do, eg. by holding people accountable, whether they *are* or whether you're just destined to act as if they are. So it's all rather circular.
Obviously in terms of actual learning, the approach of sticking to defined terms is much better, and easier, and hopefully less divisive, and I hope to get people to adopt it. But I bet everyone says "But i DO have free will. i must do..."
I always get lost 1/3 of the way through abstracts of philosophical (and indeed, any academic) pdfs, but it looks... reasonable to me.
Why was it derressing? Just because it was an essay, or because you didn't like the article or because you don't like the idea of not having free will or am I missing the point again? :)
because you don't dispose of free will by saying "we don't know what it is so let's not bother with it". people mostly want to discuss the notion of "free will", not some random other thing.
I agree that 'dispose' is a bad word, but 'there is no property coinciding very much at all with what we think free will should be' sounds reasonable (and I would tend to think true).
I don't think it's unhelpful. I think it clears up a gigantic mound of confusion between people who think they have a common definition and really don't.
Stopping there is unfortunate too, but no-one person could do everything. The obvious next steps seem to be:
(1) Is there some definition we didn't think of which is a good one for free will?
(2) Why are poeple fascinated by free will, and can we resolve the argument without a good definition?
my impression is that people have a notion---"free will"---that has its roots somewhere in theology or philosophy---I don't know the details, and that they want to know what that means, so that they can see if we have it.
to say that we can't define it so we should go and define something else instead doesn't help anything at all. There are millions of things we can define that have nothing to do with free will. Defining them isn't particularly interesting to the theological/philosophical issues.
But there's some things we can't define, and I think accepting that is necessary, because then we can move on to other, perhaps more useful, approaches.
But sometimes people's notions are wrong. Analogy. People thought light had to be either a wave, or a particle. They insisted they had to know which. Then someone came along and showed they were asking the wrong question. Light was something else, that was often quite like one, but sometimes quite like the other.
Understanding progressed, but first by accepting that the original question was unanswerable.
I think the same applies here. I don't think there is a definition of free will that fits our notion of what it should be. I think we need to define our wave-function equivalent. Alternatively, I'm game to looking for a definition, but if I think there isn't one, and you think there is, I think you should do the looking :)
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jack
no subject
Date: 2005-03-11 12:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-11 02:59 pm (UTC)The question is, I can now avoid sleeping with him? It seems rather deterministic to say I'm 'bound' to sleep with him. Do you think it is legally binding? What happens if I don't sleep with him now? Eh? EH?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-11 03:04 pm (UTC)If I was you, I wouldn't try to second guess the universe[1].
[1] Free will will appear later in my philosophy series. But I think we have to assume we have it, even if it's an essentially meaningless concept.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-11 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 02:03 pm (UTC)What I meant was that everyone seems to *violently*[1] insist they have free will, though no-one can define it. And also, regardless of what you define, you have to *act* as if people do, eg. by holding people accountable, whether they *are* or whether you're just destined to act as if they are. So it's all rather circular.
Obviously in terms of actual learning, the approach of sticking to defined terms is much better, and easier, and hopefully less divisive, and I hope to get people to adopt it. But I bet everyone says "But i DO have free will. i must do..."
[1] Sometimes literally
no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 04:15 pm (UTC)disposing of free will means you say "look, it's not an issue and we shouldn't discuss it".
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/cogaff/Aaron.Sloman_freewill.pdf
no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 04:22 pm (UTC)Why was it derressing? Just because it was an essay, or because you didn't like the article or because you don't like the idea of not having free will or am I missing the point again? :)
no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 04:49 pm (UTC)I don't think it's unhelpful. I think it clears up a gigantic mound of confusion between people who think they have a common definition and really don't.
Stopping there is unfortunate too, but no-one person could do everything. The obvious next steps seem to be:
(1) Is there some definition we didn't think of which is a good one for free will?
(2) Why are poeple fascinated by free will, and can we resolve the argument without a good definition?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 05:36 pm (UTC)to say that we can't define it so we should go and define something else instead doesn't help anything at all. There are millions of things we can define that have nothing to do with free will. Defining them isn't particularly interesting to the theological/philosophical issues.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-16 12:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-16 12:08 pm (UTC)Understanding progressed, but first by accepting that the original question was unanswerable.
I think the same applies here. I don't think there is a definition of free will that fits our notion of what it should be. I think we need to define our wave-function equivalent. Alternatively, I'm game to looking for a definition, but if I think there isn't one, and you think there is, I think you should do the looking :)