What to do in case of train wreck ?
OK, so I have no idea whether free will really exists or not. Further I don't think I can confound on this issue, so I don't talk about. However ignorance has never stopped Jagadguru from expressing himself and express he does. So far it is the usual divine argument, but suddenly who else but our Desi John Galt enters the fray.
Now as I understand, to prove free will, you have to prove there is an agent, independent of the neural processes (which are biological and hence chemical in nature), and of a conscious nature, which affects the human actions or (perhaps) more accurately affects the human judgement.
Also as far as my understanding goes, this concept has remained central historically to christian theology as well as jurisprudence.
But so far no amount of observation has succeeded in finding that independent agent.
This failure has been cited by the opponents of free will as absence of free will, instead suggesting that human actions can be reduced to chemical reactions, and accusing proponents of free will of attempting to except human from natural laws.
Therefore the task for proponents is cut out, they have to either discover an independent agent, or else a serious flaw in assumption of biological reductionism. But as is usual with the case of our hero he introduces quantum mechanics to support free will, to which I can only say WTF !
Again my knowledge of quantum mechanics is sketchy, but as far as I know, quantum mechanics introduces uncertainty in observation, which I suppose will put a spanner in determining chain of cause and effect. But even if it is true, it is woefully insufficient to establish presence of any independent agent.
If I were trying to BS, I would have gone with system theory, it seems like to hold more promise.The irony is that both our protagonists are accusing each other of being "theists". I ask, is it possible to be any more wannabe ?
I think that Ayn Rand should be prohibited to teenagers. I mean think of it, hormonal changes, insecurity, a time for transition, why aggravate that with pseudo-philosophy.
And asnwer to the question in title is, to buy a ticket for ring side and enjoy.
7 comments:
Gaurav,
If one supports the notion of free will, one does not have to find an agent, because what you're basically claiming is that free will itself is the agent. To establish that A exists, often we only prove that B exists, where B is an observable effect of A. This shatters the formal bounds of propositional logic and cause and effect, but can yet be considered acceptable logic, even in the natural sciences. An example is the assumption of the existence/truth of the Schrodinger wave equation which has never really been proved but on the baiss of which the entire quantum mechanics is developed. Every correct prediction by a quantum mechanical theory is seen as yet another reinforcement of the correctness of the wave equation - though logically, A->B says nothing about the truth value of A if we only know that B is true.
If one believes that randomness is a property embedded into some natural phenomena, one does shatter definite causuality. In such a scenario, one can claim that human free will is one of the (some claim, the only) sources of randomness in the universe. My understanding is that randomness and is simply a synonym for non-determinism and free will is a subset of that. Free will, is thus, not really a provable objective - it is more of an axiomatic claim that proponents seek to justify using certain empirical evidence, akin to the claim of 'natural rights of man' or indeed, akin to the claims of a 'god'. It is definitely extremely hypocritical for anyone to assume the existence of free will/ randomness and then call people who believe in an independent transcendent entity 'irrational'.
The desi John Galt is thus, guilty of unthinkngly labelling his opponent a theist because he believes that that somehow propels him to a higher 'rational' ground. The introduction of quantum mechanics, though, is not at all WTF. Free will is closely tied with randomness, non-determinism and probability, which are all closely tied with the use of quantum mechanics to study natual phenomena.
Quantum mechanics is also tied very closely to the transcendent-immanent god of Vedanta. Hence the connections that I draw between randomness and belief. Do expect a post on it sometime soon.
Ban Ayn Rand? You are not getting laid for having said that. Drink some whisky and ponder why more girls read Any Rand than boys.
And I am saying it again, I am No. 1 bhaktha. You seem to have someting always to add to/comment on what jagadguru says. Real bhaktha's like me just read him. I am not taking No. 1 position from you, because it never was yours to begin with.
Ritwik,
I knew it was not a good idea to write about something I dont know about. Anyhow let me damn myself further
"If one supports ....B is true."
I am not sure what you mean here, I defined free will as an agent not that it works through an agent. And ofcourse when I said "prove free will", I meant discover phenomena which conclusively prove existence of free will through inference. And this is the way most of sciences work, i.e. through empirical observations, propositional logic is the overall framework in which these observations and any derived results operate.
Now coming to free will, I will further elaborate my understanding which is that free will is an independant "and responsible" agent. By which I mean that if a man is supposed to have free will he is responsible for his actions.
Causation essentially dictates that behind every effect there is a cause, determinism (or incompatibilist version of it at any rate) draws on causation to refute presence of free will, (this as you can see goes beyond empirical observations)
Now Quantum mechanics as I understand basically is about uncertainity in observations, in effect assigning probability for occurence of events, therefore it is against determinism (or is it reductionism, oh boy I am confused), or introduce probabilistic causation (or introduce randomness).
However presence of probability or randomness is not an indicator of presence of responsible agent. Infact it is an arguement against presence of responsible agent, and therefore free will.
Ofcourse one can claim that free will resides beyond h/4pi, however considering that God also resides there I dont see how is it possible to adjust both :-)
Hey Jagadguru,
Why do I have to hear such words by Sriram. Is my devotion flawed ? Why so much torment, how long I will be denied your blessings ?
Hey jagadguru, Divine personalities like thyself know only to love. Why dost thy followers fight each other over thy name?
Is it true that most libertarians support free will? I know many ( i.e., > 1 ) libertarians who don't believe in it; may be people are confusing the metaphysical philosophy of libertarianism" with the individualist political philosophy that is called libertarianism.
Apologies for the flawed grammar in the above comment - I was too drunk with divine love.
Frog
1st comment : I am myself confoundend why cant people just accept me as the parambhaktha or his divine self.
2nd comment I am not sure how much libertarianism is dependant on free will. This article says it does, but I know many "libertarians" who do not believe in free will.
My take is if libertarianism is taken as axiomatic position (Ritwik and myself had a discussion on that some time back )then free will is essential. However if the intent is utilitarian then I dont think free will is necessary.
Also I dont think there are two different philosophies of libertarianism as you said in comment, but two aspect of same ideology. The political part is the directive and metaphysical part is its explaination.
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