/biz/ - Business & Finance

[Anonymous No.23194186]

Do rich people believe in free will or determinism?

[Anonymous No.23194210]

>>23194186
determinism.
your free will is determined by them.

[Anonymous No.23194370]

Determinism

[Anonymous No.23194424]

>>23194186
Free will

[Anonymous No.23194460]

>>23194186
Free will is ridiculous. The idea that your environment and DNA has no bearing on your decision making and choices are "free" and not influenced or caused is just foolish

[Anonymous No.23194601]

free determinism

[Anonymous No.23194671]

nah its both, free will AND determinism. It would be impossible for what is commonly thought of as free will to even exist because that would mean we're free from external influences, so what free will really is, is the making of decisions based on our past influences, which is pretty much determinism.

[Anonymous No.23194814]

>>23194460
Everything you know including time itself coalesces around your subjective experience and nobody has even the slightest clue what that actually is.
The best perspective is the Hermetic, Platonic and esoteric Christian view. The essence of our subjective experience is timeless, beyond the material world and shared. Our decisions are made in this third realm and reflected in the deterministic physical world. As above so below.

The rules that dictate how the world plays out were defined by something outside those rules, we are sitting there, outside the rules looking in at physical reality through our flesh incarnations.

[Anonymous No.23194881]

Rich people don't waste time thinking about such things until they have already made it.

[Anonymous No.23194953]

>>23194186
whatever the opposite of Marx believed, as Marx was wrong

[Anonymous No.23194988]

>>23194814
I too have audism.

[Anonymous No.23195057]

>>23194814
The neoplatonic view aka christian view only exists because people wanted an escape from this shitty world so they chose to believe in a world beyond. I can respect it in an artistic sense but if you truthfully believe it in 2020 you are in denial about the absurd.

[Anonymous No.23195122]

>>23195057
The idea gives no escape. It's a model that describes what we actually perceive. No physical model is capable of doing that. You choose to ignore the parts your physical models can't describe because they scare you. You're the one deluding yourself to find escape from reality and then projecting that on everyone else.

[Anonymous No.23195166]

>>23195057

[Anonymous No.23195375]

>>23195166
shut the fuck up let me have this

[Anonymous No.23195401]

>>23195375
>>23195057
true
>>23195166
why did you post a picture of yourself

[Anonymous No.23195423]

also, free will does not exist

the more entitled you are the more likely it is that you will disagree with this statement

grow up, theres no babayaga in the clouds judging your every move, its your mothers job - until you move out of the basement that is

[Anonymous No.23195638]

>>23194186
Determinism.

The entire concept of free will hinges on the existence of the "self" as a distinct entity in the Cartesian dualist sense. In reality, our actions, thoughts etc. are all produced by the interaction between our environment and our nervous system.

Besides, Libet's electroencephalographic studies in the 1980's essentially crushed any possibility of free will. There is a measurable change in electrical potential that occurs in a population of neurons that are about to fire called "readiness potential", Libet determined that the build up in readiness potential occurs >300ms before the moment at which the subjects made the decision to move. If the circuit that initiates movement begins to fire 300ms before the decision to move enters your conscious awareness, how could you possibly have free will?

Consciousness is an epiphenomenon and we have no agency, but we feel as if we do.

[Anonymous No.23195673]

>>23194460

That's not what either of those concepts mean at all.

[Anonymous No.23195784]

>>23195673
You have no idea what the free will vs determinism argument even is do you?

[Anonymous No.23195792]

>>23194186
Only god has truly free will. I have 90k chainlink

[Anonymous No.23195932]

>>23194881
Predictive power is what makes people rich. Whoever models reality best has the most predictive power.
Hard work and money is useless if you don't know where to apply it. No great man in history was an atheist.
>>23195638
Labeling a thing doesn't explain anything. When you say consciousness is an "epiphenomenon" and act as if you solved something is only demonstrating the point of how brainwashed you people are by your labels.
>we have no agency, but we feel as if we do
If we modeled your entire brain in a computer there would be no way to measure if it's conscious. Just think about why that is. If coherent consciousness emerges in complex systems with memory like an ape or computer brain that just proves the qualia these brains modulate was already there embedded in the rules of reality.

[Anonymous No.23196019]

>>23194186
Determinism but in the sense they feel they are absolutely meant to be rich and powerful

[Anonymous No.23196385]

>>23195638
It's still your choice, even if unconscious. Unless you define "you" as only your conscious self, but that's not true.

[Anonymous No.23196563]

>>23195166
What does his physical appearance have anything to do with his superior way of thinking? Socrates was ugly af but he was considered the wisest if not most brilliant man of his time in terms of existentialism and philosophy

[Anonymous No.23196827]

>>23196563
Why did so many independent thinkers pop up at the same time saying the same things and wearing the same hat?

[Anonymous No.23196837]

>>23196385
What triggered your unconscious choice?

[Anonymous No.23196890]

It seems like if one is a materialist atheist, then one must conclude free will does not exist. Everything "choice" you make is influenced by 2 things, your genetics and your environment, neither of which you have any control over. In this case, you are a train running down tracks, under the illusion that you get choices. A powerful illusion, but an illusion all the same. The alternative is that your choices come from somewhere else, that somewhere being non-material, supernatural, or some phenomenon that we don't have any evidence for; i.e. your soul. If you believe in the former scenario, how can you justify holding people responsible for their actions? I suppose consequences are part of the environment that will dissuade anti-social behavior, but inflicting suffering in retribution for acts the perpetrator had no control over seems unreasonable.

[Anonymous No.23196933]

>>23196837
What defined how the chain reaction leading to the trigger for your choice unfolded?

[Anonymous No.23196971]

>>23196890
Even if you're purely a materialist, there's so much about the universe we don't understand yet. We can't even explain consciousness and why we experience things. Saying there's no possibility of free will is assuming way too much about how things work.

[Anonymous No.23197019]

>>23196971
yes. I've seen people argue that if the quantum world truly is random it could be a part of our consciousness / free will.

[Anonymous No.23197074]

>>23194186
Free will for rich people. Determinism for the poor.

[Anonymous No.23197078]

>>23194186
I have a complicated quantum answer that could change science but I'm not rich unlike the resd of you so I won't share it. The only clue I'll give is that it extends the applicable range of the Heisenberg principle beyond particles, and I only later found out about the principle, felt like a godly alignment in science.

[Anonymous No.23197089]

>>23194671

based and quantumpilled

[Anonymous No.23197097]

>>23194671
thank you. no one ever gets this

[Anonymous No.23197105]

>>23194953
Karl who?

[Anonymous No.23197367]

>>23194186
The amount of cope in this thread is astonishing.
If you literally, unironically, believe in free will you are a deluded individual.
Take a look at this short lecture by Sam Harris:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCofmZlC72g

[Anonymous No.23197435]

>>23195638
Judge, I had to kill him.
It was determined.

[Anonymous No.23197447]

Determinism. Free will is in essence one free binary thought: To live with faith in God or to live without it.

[Anonymous No.23197478]

>>23197447
spell god without any capital letters pussy, i dare you.

[Anonymous No.23197494]

>>23197367
If you feel like sam harris adds something you're probably just recently starting to think about the subject.

[Anonymous No.23197555]

>>23197367

There is no way to be 100% certain of determinism unless we are able to travel into the future and then back to confirm our observations. Since traveling backwards in time is impossible the question will forever remain a mystery

[Anonymous No.23197726]

>>23197555
So we don't know enough about the universe to be certain on determinism, but we know enough to be certain reverse time travel is impossible. yeah ok.

[Anonymous No.23197742]

If you happen to believe in evolution, then you cannot believe in free will. The entire point of evolution is that genetic (and epigenetic) traits that you have no control over bestow you with an arsenal of abilities, instincts, inclinations, etc that result either in your successfully reproducing, or failing and being removed from the gene pool. If you reproduce, then those genes and their related traits were 'successful' against the backdrop of whatever fitness filter existed at the time.

None of this would work if a human (or indeed any animal) could simply decide to just do whatever in spite of the instincts, abilities and inclinations that their genes have given them. A man with a strong genetic predisposition for ADD which lessens his fitness in a given environment, uses his free will to just 'get over it' and dominate the sexual arena and create lots of children... all of whom will have a genetic predisposition for ADD as well. A narrative of creatures with maladaptive traits simply overcoming those traits through force of free will and passing them on to their successors is incompatible with a modern understanding of evolution.

[Anonymous No.23197753]

>>23197494
>>23197555
In a hundred years the idea of 'free will' be as laughable as the idea of 'souls'.
Memeing about christianity, time travel, quantum mechanics in order to try
to rationalize your way of life and pretending you or your brain have magical
powers will only cause yourself to become more deluded.

[Anonymous No.23197788]

>>23194671
Ah the serious post. Seriouly, it is possible that almost everything is under the law of causality, and choice only have a tiny influence on your existence. Fish jump, but always fall back into the river. REad Berserk.

[Anonymous No.23197844]

You are fundamentally the phenomena experiencing the decision making process. That you can describe the process in physical terms is self evident but it doesn't have the implications you atheist religious fanatics believe it does. You just can't conceive of anything outside your cult brainwashing. Forget accepting the idea, you can't even conceive of it.

[Anonymous No.23198002]

>>23197844
>atheist religious fanatics
LMAO, christcucks truly work in mysterious ways.

[Anonymous No.23198100]

>>23198002
You're so brainwashed by the premises given by your cult that you can't conceive of ideas that aren't compatible with them. You're a member of the dumbest religion in human history. A joke that will echo for millions of years.

[Anonymous No.23198132]

>>23197753
Why is it that despite thousands of years of research, really unraveling the world we live in, has still not disproved the idea of a soul?

[Anonymous No.23198421]

>>23198100
I am not part of any religion or cult.

>>23198132
Yeah well it hasn't disproved that my genitalia is the largest in the universe either.
There is no need to fill in gaps of knowledge with made up spiritual nonsense.

[Anonymous No.23198520]

>>23194186
Research shows that people who believe in free will do better. Now consider the truth table: either there is free will, then non-believers are wrong and limit themselves and their potential, or there is no free will and free will believers just happen to do better, and have happier lives where they at least have the experience of influence over their lives.
Don’t be a grumpy determinist, take charge over your life.
Also, to any intellectual determinist: consider the fact that maintaining order and predictability is a costly enterprise, it takes a lot of energy to make something stable enough to become predictable. Where would this infinite additional energy be entering the universe?

[Anonymous No.23198565]

>>23195638
>The entire concept of free will hinges on the existence of the "self" as a distinct entity in the Cartesian dualist sense
It does not. A computer could have free will. In fact, a computer does, namely your brain.

[Anonymous No.23198681]

they are 3 positions on free will, not 2.

You can be a hard determinist, and think we live in a determined universe therefore, no free will

You can be a Libertarian, and think free will exists, therefore the world is not (entirely ) determined

Or you can be a compatabilist, and believe that free will exists, and free will exists only because the world is determined. (often, they claim that people confuse the existence of randomness with freedom).

[Anonymous No.23198719]

>>23195638
a determinism epiphenomenalism?

you my friend, will surely not make it.

[Anonymous No.23198741]

>>23198565
You don't understand what free will is if you think something that is literally programmed to do something can "choose" to do something else.
It may be programmed to make a choice, but it will always come to the same conclusion, just like us. Also, the actual act of choosing and what is rationalized or not is part of what determines the outcome. Just because there appears to be a choice does not mean the outcome is not determined, or could randomly go either way, aka "free"

[Anonymous No.23198801]

>>23198741
If i can anticipate your every move before you do it, are you "programmed"?

but being able to perfectly predict something does not mean something is not free. In fact, entire theological systems are built around this like Molinism. God, the perfect knower has counterfactual knowledge of what each free being will freely do in each circumstance so his providence involves putting people in situations where they will do X to get closer to Y while remaining free.

[Anonymous No.23198824]

>>23197019
Randomness is not the friend of free will, random events are no more free than predetermined ones. What free will means is that an entity has the ability to make rational plans for goals regarding improved survival and proliferation opportunity and execute those plans with better than random chance of success. A robot could do this and thus have free will. How well its free will would work would be a function on how reliably (predictably) its hardware works. If there were a bunch of random errors in its circuits that would not help but hinder its exercise of its free will, so quantum fluctuations would not be a source of more free will.
People generally look at the universe and this issue backwards. The correct perspective is that complete, random chaos is the base state, the universe started as utter chaos, and then some modest trace of stability can evolve by exploiting laws of causality. More and more stability evolves, until pockets of stability (our brains) sophisticated and insulated enough from randomness that they can support rational agents - free will - appear.
The universe is a progression from complete chaos into containing temporary pockets of stability (not contradicting 2nd law of thermodynamics) , it is the opposite of an orderly, predeterministic place and free will relies entirely on exploiting whatever temporary stability that exists.
Once this perspective clicks and you realize stability is costly and rare, everything will click into place and the paradox around free will based on randomness will evaporate.

[Anonymous No.23198912]

>>23197742
>A narrative of creatures with maladaptive traits simply overcoming those traits through force of free will and passing them on to their successors is incompatible with a modern understanding of evolution
It is not. Read up on the Baldwin effect to see how a few generations later the predisposition for ADD in your example will be gone.

[Anonymous No.23198930]

Spinoza was right on the free will issue. Unlike popular opinion, Spinoza was not a hard determinist (unless you think free will is discrete and not continuous)

freedom is the ability to exhibit one's nature unimpeded and for Spinoza onlike the One ultimate Being (God or the holistic universe as a whole) is free in this sense. But finite beings have qualified levels of freedom relative to their environment. People can also increase or decrease their level of freedom to some degree by living a life of reason . (little known fact, is that Spinoza agreed with Hume on "Reason being a slave to the passions" but Spinoza adds that reason is no less a passion!

Of course im not expecting philosophical astute people here lol.

[Anonymous No.23198956]

>>23198801
see Calvinism, Lutheranism, all major Reformed faiths since the medieval era, virtually every major Christian religion outside of Catholics, and you will see determinism for the very reason you describe. God knows the future, God cannot be wrong, therefore all of your actions including your salvation is already pre determined.
If your actions are pre determined, you cannot have free will. No matter how many times you watch star wars, Darth Vader will never defeat Luke in the end. We know the outcome, we know what they will do in the movie, and we cannot be wrong about that information, just like God

[Anonymous No.23198972]

>>23198824
If you define free will like this then even a fly would have it.

[Anonymous No.23198990]

If strict determinism were true then there would be no need for the evolution of neural structures like the prefrontal cortex that support self-conscious decision making. The prefrontal cortex demands vast amounts of caloric energy relative to its size and would not have evolved as an accident; you can't just wave it away by calling it an epiphenomenon. It's equally valid to argue that the physical world is secondary to conscious existence because we have direct evidence of our conscious experiences but the existence of physical reality can only be inferred through our senses.

[Anonymous No.23199038]

>>23198956
you are quoting me every school of theology that's determinist (inluding functionally extinct ones like calvinism) to prove what exactly?

You are completely ignoring molinism, open theism, Arminianism and a bunch of other schools that defend free will that are arguably more popular.

Most theologians and philosophers of religion are compatabilists about free will, not determinists, or libertarians. .

[Anonymous No.23199051]

>>23198741
People who don’t believe in free will also have the hardest time defining it. Since they genuinely don’t get the concept, all they can do is define illogical straw men and shoot them down. And when proponents define “kinds of free will worth having”, to paraphrase Dan Dennett, objections always revolve around that free will not being “free enough” for some arbitrary standard that isn’t satisfied until all “free events” are completely random - at which point detractors fail to notice that they are also not free, so that standard is meaningless for objection. In the end, predeterminists are simply unable to comprehend the concept of something being free while not random, and it eventually get tiresome to explain colors to a blind man. But free will and materialism does not contradict each other and people who reject free will usually rather reject straw men and fail to even grasp the consistent and useful actual concept.

[Anonymous No.23199090]

>>23198930
shit I gotta read more Spinoza, but I think reason being a passion is interesting af

>>23198824
it depends on how free will is defined. Using the definition of it being something that can't be predicted in a deterministic fashion, than randomness would very much support free will, not work against it. I don't know enough though to choose which definition of free will is best. Different people might also mean different things from the same term.

[Anonymous No.23199089]

>>23198972
>If you define free will like this then even a fly would have it.
This is not a problem for the model, but a strength. There is nothing in the concept of free will that precludes flies from having limited amounts.

[Anonymous No.23199126]

>>23199090
How would you distinguish between a random event and a free will event if the only definition/requirement is that the event can’t be predicted?

[Anonymous No.23199134]

>>23198824
>The universe is a progression from complete chaos into containing temporary pockets of stability
Yes. The coherent reality is built up around the origin of life, an anomaly in the infinite chaos. The big bang only has significance in that context.
>>23198972
Yes. Even trees operate in the same story we do even though there are infinite layers they could operate on. They choose to spend their energy on making discrete apples for consumption by animals.

[Anonymous No.23199207]

>>23199090
Lol if your choices are random then you are no more free than if your choices are decided for you. Free will means making choices informed by your past experiences, which requires at least a certain amount of determinism.

[Anonymous No.23199230]

>>23199051
I'm using the wikipedia definition
"Free will is the ability to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded"
But I recognize there are many different modern definitions of free will, just like racism.

[Anonymous No.23199359]

>>23199207
That’s a bingo.
To add, many people when trying to discuss free will fall into the trap of discussing something else that they think to be the same thing, namely if our consciousness can have influence over the world rather than just observe it. The argument goes that it would be totally mysterious for something outside the physical world to cause events in the physical world. This doesn’t take into account the possibility that consciousness is an entirely physical phenomenon. And if it isn’t, it doesn’t explain why the physical world influencing the qualia of our experience is any less mysterious than the arrow of causality going the other way.
But mostly it misses the fact that it’s orthogonal to free will. A computer with no conscious experience could have free will, and a being could in theory be conscious without having free will. So any time a detractor start talking about souls etc, you know they have got their concept muddled and no longer follow a rational course of thought.

[Anonymous No.23199388]

>>23199230
Right, unimpeded by random influence, i.e. a rational.process of decision making, that’s consistent with what I say.

[Anonymous No.23199433]

>>23199126
From the outside you wouldn't be able to, but maybe the person causing the action can? I don't think its a very strong argument though.

I think that what we call free will is like what you said, ration decision making.

>>23199207
>Free will means making choices informed by your past experiences, which requires at least a certain amount of determinism.
yeah, I said almost the exact same thing earlier

[Anonymous No.23199484]

>>23199359
Well its true that dualists presuppose often presuppose that free will comes from the mental existence to avoid the causal closure of the physical, but that doesnt mean they believe only free will can only happen on a dualist framework. (many do happen to think this way though).

But this kind of reasoning of yours

1. does not prove materialism/physicalism is true.
2. Even if you did provided an argument for why positing a dualist substance view is incorrect, idealists have exactly the same advantages of your position, and possibly neutral monists as well.