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On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

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Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#71

Post by pdonis »

Layke1123 wrote: post #66
pdonis wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The phrase "making choices" is just semantics for the topic of free will being an illusion. I disagree. See my response to Layke1123 just now. > Knowledge is power in society. Does it change your fate? The answer is no Again, I disagree; see my response to Layke1123 just now. I understand the attitude you are taking; I just don't think it's a good idea. Believing this will cause more harm and more suffering. More o…

Your reasoning defeats itself. No system should tell people they need "rehabilitation", and yet you still support prisons that try to "rehabilitate" prisoners. People do not have choices. They are particles reacting to their environment, and what you describe as a "choice" is actually a carefully choreographed cascade of chain reactions. You can attribute a sense of "making choices" to that all you want, it doesn't c…

> you still support prisons that try to "rehabilitate" prisoners

You don't get to declare by fiat what I support and what I don't. The fact that I can make choices does not make me omnipotent. You are simply failing to recognize the fact that everybody makes choices--including the people who set up our current prison system and who keep it running. If the prisons they are running are abusing people, that is their responsibility, because they are the ones that made those choices.

> you should embrace it like some us do and learn to operate in this new mental paradigm

I don't understand what "new mental paradigm" you are even describing. But even without understanding it, I can still ask an obvious question: has this "new mental paradigm" enabled you to fix the prison problem you describe? If so, how?

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#72

Post by pdonis »

Layke1123 wrote: post #51
pdonis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when you realize the foregoing about free will is untrue and you really take the time to adapt your thinking to the understanding of free will being illusion. I assume you become more compassionate You assume wrong. The most brutal totalitarian governments in history have been built on the same understanding of humans that you describe. So that understanding can go either way: it can make you more compassionate, or…

I fully believe my decisions and actions are largely determined long before I am fully aware of what is taking place. This doesn't make me despair or not care to do anything, but makes me extremely resilient and adaptable to changing situations. I can acknowledge that no matter what I want to do, I cannot stop my leg from twitching when someone hits the nerve underneath my kneecap. I also accept that if I make bad de…

> I also accept that if I make bad decisions because of an addiction or deficient reasoning process, I willingly would accept a mechanism to correct said process or improve my deficiency.

If that's what you want, you are free to choose to accept it, yes. If you're happy with how things are for you, more power to you.

Just don't try to force your way of being happy on me. If I make bad decisions, for whatever reason, I want to have the choice of how to improve. I don't want anything else, whether you want to call it a "mechanism" or not, forcing something on me that someone else thinks is an "improvement".

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#73

Post by pdonis »

Layke1123 wrote: post #67
pdonis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This kind of reasoning actually does lead to better consequences, not worse. I strongly disagree. Believing that people don't make choices is just a handy excuse for some people to make choices that cause others to suffer. See my response to abellerose just now (edit: and my response to you upthread about child trafficking).

You can disagree. You can assert that believing people can't make choices in a true sense of free will causes other to suffer. You can also be dismissed for said assertion without providing any evidence. For instance, if your assertion is true, why do I, as someone who does not believe I make my own choices, do no harm to others? Shouldn't I be on a killing spree according to your logic? Shouldn't I be repressing and…

> Shouldn't I be on a killing spree according to your logic? Shouldn't I be repressing and hurting people left and right?

No and no. Nothing I have said implies either of these things.

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#74

Post by pdonis »

Layke1123 wrote: post #66
pdonis wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The phrase "making choices" is just semantics for the topic of free will being an illusion. I disagree. See my response to Layke1123 just now. > Knowledge is power in society. Does it change your fate? The answer is no Again, I disagree; see my response to Layke1123 just now. I understand the attitude you are taking; I just don't think it's a good idea. Believing this will cause more harm and more suffering. More o…

Your reasoning defeats itself. No system should tell people they need "rehabilitation", and yet you still support prisons that try to "rehabilitate" prisoners. People do not have choices. They are particles reacting to their environment, and what you describe as a "choice" is actually a carefully choreographed cascade of chain reactions. You can attribute a sense of "making choices" to that all you want, it doesn't c…

> You brain has hallucinated not just the outside world, but your internal world as well.

Very interesting. I agree with these statements--yet I also think they are perfectly consistent with people making choices. In your ultra-physicalist language, human brains hallucinating "the outside world" and "the internal world" are just part of the causal processes that happen inside those brains. And those causal processes still have effects outside those brains even so.

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#75

Post by Layke1123 »

pdonis wrote: post #74
Layke1123 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reasoning defeats itself. No system should tell people they need "rehabilitation", and yet you still support prisons that try to "rehabilitate" prisoners. People do not have choices. They are particles reacting to their environment, and what you describe as a "choice" is actually a carefully choreographed cascade of chain reactions. You can attribute a sense of "making choices" to that all you want, it doesn't c…

> You brain has hallucinated not just the outside world, but your internal world as well. Very interesting. I agree with these statements--yet I also think they are perfectly consistent with people making choices. In your ultra-physicalist language, human brains hallucinating "the outside world" and "the internal world" are just part of the causal processes that happen inside those brains. And those causal processes…

Those causal processes still have effects outside those brains does not remove the idea that your brain only exists because of external causal events, and your brain is only reacting to those external causal events. At no point is there a spontaneous reaction that is unpredictable according to the known laws of physics, therefore, you don't have free will.

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#76

Post by Layke1123 »

pdonis wrote: post #71
Layke1123 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reasoning defeats itself. No system should tell people they need "rehabilitation", and yet you still support prisons that try to "rehabilitate" prisoners. People do not have choices. They are particles reacting to their environment, and what you describe as a "choice" is actually a carefully choreographed cascade of chain reactions. You can attribute a sense of "making choices" to that all you want, it doesn't c…

> you still support prisons that try to "rehabilitate" prisoners You don't get to declare by fiat what I support and what I don't. The fact that I can make choices does not make me omnipotent. You are simply failing to recognize the fact that everybody makes choices--including the people who set up our current prison system and who keep it running. If the prisons they are running are abusing people, that is their res…

I didn't declare it by fiat. You claimed no system should dictate how you behave, and yet you dictate how a person should behave. Your own argument defeats itself.

"New mental paradigm" means you don't think like you used to. I.E., if you were ever religious, that was one mental paradigm. If you ever lose your religious beliefs, now you have a new mental paradigm to understand the world and operate in it.

As for fixing the prison problem, it absolutely does. It means what we have decided as acceptable public behavior is to be cultivated, and if we can remove the part of your brain that wants to violently subject others your will, we excise it and then you suddenly become a productive member of civilized society again. It's not even your whole being, just a small part of your collection of particles that we annihilate.

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#77

Post by Layke1123 »

pdonis wrote: post #73
Layke1123 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can disagree. You can assert that believing people can't make choices in a true sense of free will causes other to suffer. You can also be dismissed for said assertion without providing any evidence. For instance, if your assertion is true, why do I, as someone who does not believe I make my own choices, do no harm to others? Shouldn't I be on a killing spree according to your logic? Shouldn't I be repressing and…

> Shouldn't I be on a killing spree according to your logic? Shouldn't I be repressing and hurting people left and right? No and no. Nothing I have said implies either of these things.

Then why is my outcome not worse for believing I don't have free will?

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#78

Post by Layke1123 »

pdonis wrote: post #70
Layke1123 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can disagree. You can assert that believing people can't make choices in a true sense of free will causes other to suffer. You can also be dismissed for said assertion without providing any evidence. For instance, if your assertion is true, why do I, as someone who does not believe I make my own choices, do no harm to others? Shouldn't I be on a killing spree according to your logic? Shouldn't I be repressing and…

> You can assert that believing people can't make choices in a true sense of free will causes other to suffer. I didn't assert anything about "believing people can't make choices in a true sense of free will". Nor did I assert anything about individual cases. Since you are apparently unable to properly understand statements that use terms like "choice", I will rephrase my assertion using your ultra-physicalist langua…

How can you claim things that happen inside the human brain have causal influences on things outside the brain and yet at the same time ignore the causal influences the outside world has on the internal brain processes? Information flow is a two way street if it can happen in one direction as far as I am aware. What you seem to not grasp is the idea that external events can influence your behavior.

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#79

Post by Layke1123 »

pdonis wrote: post #69
Layke1123 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, yes, we should all stop what we are doing and fight child trafficking immediately. To argue anything else is a morally indefensible position. Now, you might say you fight child trafficking currently because you vote for people who make the laws that say it's illegal and "dust your hands", but yet it's not enough because child trafficking still happens. At the end of the day, you are ok with child traffickin…

> we should all stop what we are doing and fight child trafficking immediately. Are you doing that? If so, how are you posting here?

Well, I am debating against someone who claims free will is what will stop child trafficking. If I can convince you to move your position to mine, I can't influence others to also move to my position, and if all people end up viewing it similarly to me, I believe we will solve child trafficking.

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#80

Post by Layke1123 »

pdonis wrote: post #72
Layke1123 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully believe my decisions and actions are largely determined long before I am fully aware of what is taking place. This doesn't make me despair or not care to do anything, but makes me extremely resilient and adaptable to changing situations. I can acknowledge that no matter what I want to do, I cannot stop my leg from twitching when someone hits the nerve underneath my kneecap. I also accept that if I make bad de…

> I also accept that if I make bad decisions because of an addiction or deficient reasoning process, I willingly would accept a mechanism to correct said process or improve my deficiency. If that's what you want, you are free to choose to accept it, yes. If you're happy with how things are for you, more power to you. Just don't try to force your way of being happy on me. If I make bad decisions, for whatever reason,…

But you don't actually believe that! You would put someone in prison if they attacked you physically for no reason. You would willingly force that person into confinement until they no longer tried to inflict violence on you. You can't have ti both ways.
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