...unless we ARE the interface for understanding it???!!! (He said in a wild speculative tone).
Yeah, long live the simulation theory
But (again)...my hunch is that it is not just knowing that cannot be sufficiently precise, perhaps even the "setting" of the initial conditions was not that precise either...e.g. as far as I know, it is impossible - even in principle - to predict exactly when a single atom of a radioactive element will decay...that is the kind of thing I meant by "quantum indeterminacy" earlier...the half life is a bulk property and works when there are lots of atoms...but also in principle, a single atom decaying unpredictability could initiate a chain reaction that was itself entirely unpredictable...and a chain reaction could, I presume, knock the bit of the universe where it happens "off the rails" and change the course of the evolution of the universe thereafter...I'm probably not heading in a useful direction with this...but I'm keeping it in, because I am fairly sure its right...
We obviously have to extend this to free will, as that is what we are talking about. And if that article I linked you earlier is true. It raises a new line of questions, which I honestly hadn't even considered before that article, which is whether something even affects us. Quantum whatever could be completely random, but if it can be demonstrated that it doesn't affect us, then we are back to the start. This is far beyond my understanding, again hardly understood anything from that article.
I raised this question to another person here in the thread but I don't think they answered. But I don't see the evolutionary benefit of free will? If evolution is survival of the fittest, then free will doesn't seem to be particularly beneficial or needed. If we agree that the majority of animals don't have it, and are doing just fine, why would it be beneficial for humans? Let's assume that we don't have free will, then nothing would really change about how we go around things, clearly, our moral codes are completely screwed, but in regards to how we behave I don't think anything would really change, we would still create computers, planes, aim to learn things and expand our knowledge etc. So looking at it from an evolutionary perspective, there doesn't seem to be anything really gained from having free will when it comes to survival, it seems very much like a human desire. But maybe I just don't see the benefit of it?
2. Are we genuinely able to change them with genuinely purposeful deliberateness? Because even if the answers to 1 are all positive, we could still be conscious automatons simply responding as nature requires whenever we make a "choice".
I think where I at least is most in doubt, is because we can train ourselves, even if we ultimately have no free will and that is whatever
You can still train yourself in things and become better, does it matter where the interest came from, if you are happy doing them?
Also, we do seem to have the ability to at least suppress a lot of these influences and even our emotions. Like your example with the shark, even though we fear it and our instinct after such an event might be to not want to go near the ocean again, we can overcome it. Even if we ultimately had no say in whether we decided to overcome it or not, at least the feeling or experience of having the option might be enough. Obviously doesn't solve the moral issue, but even that is a problem today, with or without knowing whether we have free will or not.
I'm not sure that all morality goes out with free will - maybe morality will simply become whatever is the most rational way of dealing with human issues...for us that's a scary thought - but 'dog eat dog' works pretty well for lots of animals that don't seem to be troubled by 'morality'...not saying we should revert, but maybe we could find a way forward that leaves both animalistic behavior and irrational moral strictures behind us, regardless of whether we truly have free will or not.
I think Robert in the video makes a good example, if we look to the past, humans have judged each other due to reasons that are demonstrably wrong, like burning witches etc. We have assigned all kinds of well-known diseases to whatever we thought was right at the time. And we have judged people based on these wrong ideas.
But what im thinking, is that if there is no free will at all, and we assume we created a device that could scan fetuses' DNA for whether they would become murderers or not. Then we would have to manipulate the DNA to get rid of it, which would be the humane thing to do. But let's assume we couldn't do that. Then we are faced with a moral issue, if this person will become a murderer should we let them be born to either kill someone or to force them to live in a facility?
My point is, that it wouldn't make sense for morality to be as it is, if we know with 100% certainty that people can't change. And if that is the case, then passing moral judgments around would be kind of weird, in fact a lot of things would be extremely weird
Exactly - are the fundamental limits of precision limiting what can be known, or delimiting what can be? I'm guessing its probably both (but at different levels).
I have no clue. Humans are capable of insane things, just look at the amount of knowledge we have acquired in the last 300 years, it is crazy
Even my grandparents would be completely in shock today if they saw the things we have. My mother has told me a story about when she was little and had to wash the dishes with her friend they would often imagine that maybe someday you could get a machine to do it.
And today, the hot topics are robotics and AGI, what will it be in 30 or 50 years?
