On Friday, August 24, 2012 3:50:32 PM UTC-4, John K Clark wrote:
On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote:
> I did it for many reasons
And a cuckoo clock operates the way it does for many reasons.
None of them are the reasons of a clock. If you must manufacture reasons,
then they can only be the reasons of human clockmakers and human consumers
of clocks. It could be said that there are reasons from the molecular layer
as well - of tension, density, and mass. There are no cuckoo clock reasons
though.
> some of them my own.
In other words you have not divulged to others some of the reasons you
acted as you did, and no doubt some of the reasons you don't know
yourself. No matter, they're still reasons.
No, privacy is not the difference. My motives are not only the motives of
cells or species, they are specific to me as well. The cuckoo clock can't
do that. It can't intentionally try something new and justify it with a
reason later.
Anything that can be imagined as occuring before something else can be
called a reason - a butterfly wing flapping can be a reason for a typhoon.
There are countless reasons which can influence me, but I can choose in
many cases to what extent I identify with that influence, or I can defy all
of the influences with a creative approach which is not random nor
predetermined by any particular reason outside of my own.
> Your argument is that grey must be either black or white.
No, grey is a state of being every bit as logical as black or white,
and because it is logical we know that everything is either grey or not
grey.
And free will is every bit as logical as grey. We know that everything is
either voluntary or involuntary. I wouldn't say that, but you would have to
agree to that if you are to remain consistent in your position.
> It's interesting that you bring up Lewis Carroll (as you have
before) as an insult, when actually the Alice books are brilliant
explorations on consciousness and sense-making.
And he was a brilliant satirist on how illogical many of our most
strongly held beliefs are. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson would laugh at your
ideas.
And Richard Phillips Feynman would laugh at your lack of ideas. What does
your opinion of my ideas have to do with anything? If you can't refute
them, just concede. Why claim the dead as your allies against me?
>>> Are your opinions on free will robotic or random? In
either case, would there be any point in anyone else paying attention to
them
>> Point? It sounds like you're asking for a reason, well such
a reason either exists or it does not.
> What do your assumptions about my motives have to do with
anything?
That's a stupid question; if you had motives, regardless of what they
are, then your actions are deterministic.
That's a stupid answer. My question was very specific: "Are your opinions
on free will robotic or random?" You are trying to create a diversion to
cover up that your approach fails the test of its own limited criteria. If
your opinions are robotic or random, then they don't matter and they aren't
opinions. This has nothing to do with me or my motives.
> What is useful about saying that something 'either exists or it
does not'?
That's an even stupider question, true statements always have uses.
>
An even stupider non-answer. Just because a statement is true doesn't mean
it is a useful statement. Even if it were true, you are still admitting
that your edicts of binary mutual exclusivity are no more relevant than
saying anything at all.
> Everything exists in some sense. Nothing exists in every sense.
And with that you abandon any pretense that you want to figure out how
the world works and make it clear that what you really want to do is
convince yourself that what you already want to believe is in fact true.
And its going to work too because if you take the above as a working axiom
in your system of beliefs then you can prove or disprove anything you want,
you can even prove and disprove the same thing at the same time.
Not at all. I am asserting positively that this is actually the nature of
the world. All forms of proof are relative to the context in which they are
proved.
> According to your views, you don't have any views, and neither do
any possible readers of your views.
That is ridiculous.
I agree, nevertheless it is the inescapable reductio ad absurdum of your
stated worldview.
> All of it is either robotic or random.
What does that have to do with the price of eggs? What does that have
to do with not having views??
Because if your views are robotic or random then they are not views, they
are noise.
Since you mention the price of eggs, lets go with that. The market for eggs
is not automatic, nor is it random. Despite attempts to beat financial
markets using technical analysis alone, such attempts repeatedly fail
because no formula can account for all real world possibilities. There
might be a new egg substitute invented, which no model can assign a
probability for. It isn't random, nor is it determined by any historical
reason except in hindsight.
> I am saying that if you are right, then there is no point
whatsoever for you to ever speak again.
In this context a "point" is a reason, a cause, and If I choose to
speak again I will do so because I have a point to make, that is to say I
will do so for a reason; OR perhaps you're right and I will speak again
but have no point at all, in other words I will do so for no reason, I will
do so at random.
Why would you speak at all? How can you 'make a point'? To whom? Other
random robotic minds? What would the difference be?
> You are trying to wriggle out of it by subjecting anything I say
to the same black and white reductionism
Everything is not black or white, BUT everything IS black or not black
OR white or not white; most things are not black and not white, and
nothing, absolutely nothing is not black and not not black.
That's false. Grey is not black in one sense but not not black in another.
Look at this picture:
http://www.pptbackgrounds.net/uploads/white-to-black-gradient-backgrounds-wallpapers.jpg
Can you tell me at what point grey becomes independent of black? If I cut
off the bottom five rows of pixels, does that mean there is now no black?
When you look at images like this:
http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/The-Same-Shades-of-Grey.jpg
you should be able to understand that visual sense is not an expression of
objective absolutes, but rather a relativistic continuum of juxtaposition
and meta-juxtaposition. This is what I am saying is happening on every
level of consciousness and the cosmos: Realism derived from multiple
channels of sense interpretation. Everything is true, false, neither true
nor false, and both true and false in some sense.
Craig
John K Clark
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