Comment

Comment by roland707 on October 31, 2011 at 9:17am

Monica, I had this exact conversation with a female coworker Friday! Dejavu

Comment by Glen Rosenberg on October 29, 2011 at 7:37am

So maybe evolution is the development of the cortex to awareness of its trap.

Randomized parts is new understanding, at least from what my string remembers. Used to think you were insane, now just slightly off!

Comment by John Camilli on October 29, 2011 at 1:53am

None. It's not even my choice whether or not I respond to this. The energy that moves my fingers across the keyboard has existed for billions of years. I cannot stop it from moving them as it does. Parts of the interactions that resulted in my current action may have been randomized, but I cannot claim responsibility for those parts anymore than I can claim the actions that were determined.

 

Not that I can prove any of that, but it's the only conclusion I'v ever come across which does not contradict itself. "Choice" contradicts causality, because there certainly has to be a component of understanding involved in something that could be called a "choice," but any understanding is invalidated by contradicting causality because it is one of the key assumption of epistemology, and thus logic and rationality. One cannot use logic to contradict causality as that would be using logic to defy logic, so it would be impossible to have a scientific theory that affirms the existence of choice.

 

Anyone who believes in choice cannot believe in science.

Comment by Glen Rosenberg on October 29, 2011 at 12:36am

John,

Did not you learn your lesson?

Choice is not free. It is dependent. It describes a relationship between entities. Or something along those lines.

You might be correct. But you have to live the lie or else you become mush. Then again what choice do you have when your segment of string is aware?

Comment by John Camilli on October 29, 2011 at 12:14am

You are both wrong. Humans do not possess the mythical ability called "choice." Think about it: to "choose" is to introduce or re-direct some impetus required for action, where previously there was none (or to absorb and be unmoved by some impetus that was). Humans would have to be Gods, able to create something from nothing or nothing from something, in order for "choice" to exist.

 

What we have instead is an intellect that is excedingly capable of predicting the future as it happens. We are so good at it that many of us come to believe our thoughts CAUSE our actions, but this very simply and obviously contradicts every principal on which science is based. Science springs from the philosophy of epistemology (the study of knowledge and its limits), which is itself based on three assumptions - causality, locality and identity. Epistemology basically asserts that effects are the results of causes, that the universe is full of distinguishable parts, and that those parts interract according to natural laws (which Uncertainty says we can never come to understand completely). Every scientific theory is a subset of those three assumptions. "Choice," on the other hand, would mean an interruption of natural laws by some agent not controled by those laws, or the uncaused introduction/ destruction of some otherwise natural - ideas that are logically impossible in science. So if you beleive in choice, then you CANNOT believe in science, unless you don't understand one or both and are only convinced that you believe in both (a JTB, Gettier problem).

 

The simpler explanation, which does not contradict those theories, is that all human action (and inaction) is the result of prior causes; of conserved energies, present long before they congealed into the thing you call "your self," which arrogantly claims responsibility for everything it does while "living."

 

We are puppets of existence, my friends. We control nothing.  We only think we control the actions of which we become aware before they occur, but it is not so.

Comment by AtheistTech on October 28, 2011 at 9:51pm

I believe that if heterosexuality would be studied as intensely homosexuality, humanity would benefit immensely. To study homosexuality exclusively is to set homosexuality as deviant and something that needs to be corrected. I don't like that perspective.

Comment by Greg LeGore on October 28, 2011 at 9:38pm

Monica, until the evidence is decisive one way or another, we should maintain a bit of scepticism regarding any topic.  In this case, the evidence is, in my assessment, tipping toward the 'homosexuality is somewhat inborn' view.  Future insights may change this one way or another, but I think this nicely sums up the current thinking:  http://www.truthwinsout.org/opinion/2011/10/19114/

 

Regardless, we heterosexuals have destroyed the institution of marriage - how can gay people who want a LESS reckless, more committed lifestyle be seen, in any way, as destroying or weakening marriage.  Makes no sense.