Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It’s Complicated: Unraveling the mystery of why people act as they do

theamericanscholar.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 190 posts

Re: It’s Complicated: Unraveling the mystery of why people act as they do

#121

Post by wcarron »

felipeko wrote: post #41
robotresearcher wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The richest country in the world has been at war overseas almost constantly since the end of WWII.

And it went to war for the following reasons: a) scarcity of resource (oil) / humanitarian reasons (whichever you prefer to believe) b) was provoked into it (because of cold war or terrorists)

This is demonstrably false. You need only look at the actions of our government (e.g. The CIA) to discern that the United States has gone to war (or "military conflicts" or whatever they call them these days) for reasons such as A) financial gain for private persons and companies B) financial gain for politicians C) financial gain for the country D) political gain for individuals E) extending a miltary based hegemony F) moral agendas (e.g the War on Drugs) etc, etc. The United States is by no means some perfect rational actor which engages in war solely for economic reasons or for "self-defense".

Re: It’s Complicated: Unraveling the mystery of why people act as they do

#122

Post by wvlia5 »

36bydesign wrote: post #108
personomas wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I've been trying to figure out how to live while minimizing the extent of my personal fabricated narrative. > sounds interesting. Do you know of any suggested reading on the topic? The Bible, there's no better. Jesus preaches and teaches truth, truth will erode this false fabricated narrative.

Minimize your personal fabricated narrative by abiding by a 2,000 year old fabricated narrative. Checks out.

Lol ;D

Re: It’s Complicated: Unraveling the mystery of why people act as they do

#123

Post by FabHK »

amasad wrote: post #87
zzzzzzzza wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"mainstream science maintains that we're neither individuals nor have free will" lol. You haven't even bothered trying to give a definition of what free will is... The definition of which is something for philosophers to debate. What I think you mean to say is, at the level of human perception, mainstream science maintains the universe is deterministic (as opposed to non deterministic (which quantum mechanics might b…

I probably shouldn't be replying to people who end sentences with "lol". But ok, I'll bite. >You haven't even bothered trying to give a definition of what free will is I assume you read the article and we're using that as context in our discussion as people do when they're discussing articles on HN. >The definition of which is something for philosophers to debate. Not really, there are three accepted mainstream philo…

Where it might be worth highlighting that the "libertarian" in this context is different from the political "libertarian".

> the "universe is deterministic" is part of what mainstream science claims

Well, deterministic or fundamentally random, right.

Re: It’s Complicated: Unraveling the mystery of why people act as they do

#124

Post by matt4077 »

prmph wrote: post #115
md224 wrote: post #62

> there is no homunculus (or soul, or separate entity) calling the shots for you, but even if there were a mini-me inside of you making choices, that mini-me would need a mini-mini-me inside of it, ad infinitum. I find it kind of amusing that people think free will is an illusion. It's a great illustration of how you can get people to believe anything, including things that violate their most fundamental perceptions.…

I think this is the most insightful comment on HN I have read in a long while. We are limited by the concepts our minds can form. As I commented before, free will could arise from an infinity of antecedents; the fact that we find it difficult to wrap our minds around such a concept does not in any way imply anything about its veracity. I could not agree more; things like consciousness and free will are very likely to…

You don't need to grasp any of the complexity to believe that free will does't exist. In fact the argument is almost a truism: as long as the mind is something created by the brain, and the brain is governed by the laws of nature (both known and unknown), then there's no free will.

It's a somewhat tired argument, because it's mostly semantics. But it really doesn't matter how complex the brain is.

Re: It’s Complicated: Unraveling the mystery of why people act as they do

#125

Post by matt4077 »

amasad wrote: post #38

The schism between our science and politics is finally getting airtime. Liberal western politics are based on individual liberty and free will. However, mainstream science maintains that we're neither individuals nor have free will. Do we try to reconcile both views? Or do we drop one in favor of the other? This, by the way, is also the subject of Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, by the same author behind Sapi…

Politics are a bit ahead of you, at least in the most advanced countries (Scandinavia etc.): They have almost completely eliminated concepts such as (moral) guilt from law. They may send you to (a rather comfortable) prison, but never as retribution. Only being an actual, ongoing danger to others can justify taking someone's freedom. Same with drug addiction: it's treated as a disease, not personal failure.

Re: It’s Complicated: Unraveling the mystery of why people act as they do

#126

Post by taneq »

amasad wrote: post #105
taneq wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we had free will we'd choose not to get into big online discussions about whether or not we have free will, without first defining what we meant by free will...

I tend to agree with you -- the universe can't be so lazy as to generate such a useless string of words that is your comment. For the definition I refer you to introductory philosophy texts.

> For the definition I refer you to introductory philosophy texts.

Because that's the definition that everyone is using in this kind of free-form conversation? Nah. If we were all using the same definition, it wouldn't generate this much discussion.

Re: It’s Complicated: Unraveling the mystery of why people act as they do

#127

Post by matt4077 »

amasad wrote: post #87
zzzzzzzza wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"mainstream science maintains that we're neither individuals nor have free will" lol. You haven't even bothered trying to give a definition of what free will is... The definition of which is something for philosophers to debate. What I think you mean to say is, at the level of human perception, mainstream science maintains the universe is deterministic (as opposed to non deterministic (which quantum mechanics might b…

I probably shouldn't be replying to people who end sentences with "lol". But ok, I'll bite. >You haven't even bothered trying to give a definition of what free will is I assume you read the article and we're using that as context in our discussion as people do when they're discussing articles on HN. >The definition of which is something for philosophers to debate. Not really, there are three accepted mainstream philo…

> Not sure what this exactly means, but the "universe is deterministic" is part of what mainstream science claims.

It doesn't. Quantum physics is as mainstream as they come, and so is chaos theory.

But determinism doesn't actually have much to do with "free will". There are many known indeterminate stochastic processes, yet nobody would claim that they possess free will, i. e. radioactive decay.

Re: It’s Complicated: Unraveling the mystery of why people act as they do

#128

Post by amasad »

matt4077 wrote: post #125
amasad wrote: post #38

The schism between our science and politics is finally getting airtime. Liberal western politics are based on individual liberty and free will. However, mainstream science maintains that we're neither individuals nor have free will. Do we try to reconcile both views? Or do we drop one in favor of the other? This, by the way, is also the subject of Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, by the same author behind Sapi…

Politics are a bit ahead of you, at least in the most advanced countries (Scandinavia etc.): They have almost completely eliminated concepts such as (moral) guilt from law. They may send you to (a rather comfortable) prison, but never as retribution. Only being an actual, ongoing danger to others can justify taking someone's freedom. Same with drug addiction: it's treated as a disease, not personal failure.

I've heard that about Scandinavia. That's a great step forward!

Re: It’s Complicated: Unraveling the mystery of why people act as they do

#129

Post by amasad »

taneq wrote: post #126
amasad wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree with you -- the universe can't be so lazy as to generate such a useless string of words that is your comment. For the definition I refer you to introductory philosophy texts.

> For the definition I refer you to introductory philosophy texts. Because that's the definition that everyone is using in this kind of free-form conversation? Nah. If we were all using the same definition, it wouldn't generate this much discussion.

We're commenting on an article by a philosopher about an advanced text about human behavior by a top scholar that is also making claims about philosophy. Surely, I can't be faulted for assuming some competency in basic philosophy in the discussion.

Re: It’s Complicated: Unraveling the mystery of why people act as they do

#130

Post by andrei_says_ »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #10

This is true even at a personal level. If you think you know why you act the way you do but you have never done an experiment to validate it you have a pretty good chance of being wrong. Even for simple things, like how fast you drive, is it the speedometer and you are looking at it, or is it how your engine sounds, and if turn up your music do you drive faster and is that because you are more aroused/excited, or is…

I've been sitting with an Advaita teacher for a while.

One of the pointers is to observe one's own choices. I am still looking for this mythical free will thing people keep taking about.

Post reply on HN