151–160 of 274 posts
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> I have never seen them referred to as human. I have never seen anything else. But then in French, they are called Neandertal men and Denisova men . So pretty clearly humans.
I think it's typical in non-technical English to use "humans" to refer to homo sapiens only, unless you qualify it, like "archaic/early humans". Without additional context I wouldn't assume somebody talking about humans meant to include e.g. Neanderthals.
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Why should yours? It seemed like you liked musing about this topic so I added a bit. You (and I) have no idea if the universe is or not a computer. If you don't see the connection of free will to error margin of a deterministic system then I'm not sure how else to put it. Just imagine a deterministic program getting a bit flipped by a cosmic ray and turning non deterministic and apply that to the universe's system of…
I'm also not seeing the connection to free will. Did the program choose to be broken by a cosmic ray? Did the cosmic ray choose to break the program? Stochasticty doesn't imply volition.
Cosmic rays are just an example to explain that there's external causes of non-determinism to a deterministic system. Another example I gave above was the limit of precision of the system itself, allowing for "free will" (meaning something which isn't perfectly explainable by just the laws+starting conditions).
To me it's obvious the universe is deterministic, but the fun part is imagining ways in which it might not be. Comparing the universe to a computer is a fun way to think about it.
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Is it? This is literally the first time Ive seen the word human applied to other hominids. I see many discussions about neanderthals and denisovians and so on. I have never seen them referred to as human.
I'll admit this is the first I've encountered the concept that "neanderthals and denisovians and so on" are not human. Maybe not biologically modern humans, but I'd certainly consider them fundamentally human.
The Wikipedia article [1] on humans makes the same point. It does acknowledge that some use the term human to refer to all members of the genus homo, but this is not the common usage.
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Is it? This is literally the first time Ive seen the word human applied to other hominids. I see many discussions about neanderthals and denisovians and so on. I have never seen them referred to as human.
Wait a minute. I am part Neanderthal. Does this mean I am only part human?
Yes, solo geniuses might often make unbelievable inventions on their own.
But science, progress and innovation are all social concepts at the end of the day.
I find this pretty amazing.
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It is also reasonable to argue that they and we are subspecies of the same species not rather than separate species.
Of course we are not separate species since successful interbreeding did happen (when the populations interacted).
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>If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will That seems like a bizarre leap. What's the connection?
Because it implies that we only behave based on how we feel, not how we think. The thinking part is an illusion. Therefore, our “consciousness” has no effect on how we behave. I’m not willing to die on this hill by the way so if someone else comes along and argues otherwise, I’m open to other ideas.
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The fun thing is that for those of us who cannot it’s as hard to believe others can conjure images. Yes the idea of mental imagery is deeply ingrained in our language but I’d always assumed it was allusion till I learned of aphantasia when I was 30. One of the more cliche, and not super useful tests, is “imagine a ball on a table, someone pushes the ball and it begins to roll. What color is the ball?” For me that was…
So for me I definitely visualized a ball on a table, but the color wasn’t resolved, if that makes sense. After hearing the question asked it kind of snaps out of superposition into a red color (but there was definitely a color-choosing step that happened after hearing the question). Same thing happens if you ask “what surface is the table on” or “what country is this image in”. It’s layers I can add to the mental sta…
For me when someone asks “What color is it?” I think to myself “I don’t know you’re the one telling the story you tell me.”
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There are also humans who can’t conjure up an image in their head. Mozilla cofounder wrote a fairly famous piece about his own experience. https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/25/11501230/blake-ross-cant-... If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will and are just a bunch of chemicals controlling our behavior. It…
What even is "free will"? It's an idea that falls apart on close inspection. You think "I will wash the dishes". You wash the dishes. Ta-daa, free will! A paralyzed person thinks "I will raise my hand". Nothing happens. No free will! An ADHD person says to themself "I will wash the dishes". They don't get washed. A different part is broken than to the paralyzed person, but the result is the same. A lazy person says t…
Firstly, a person suffering from ADHD can do the dishes, despite the odds being against them. And a paralyzed person can raise their hand, given advances in technology.
And these are bad examples, as being incapacitated isn't an argument against free-will. The paralyzed still wants to raise their hand, even if they are unable at the moment. And the far more difficult question is if that want was entirely predetermined by the universe or not.
Quantum randomness and the huge number of variables at play point to the fact that believing that we don't have free-will is a non-falsifiable notion.
Consider this thought experiment: God comes to you and says ... "Here are 2 universes you can observe, one in which people have free-will, and another, that looks similar, but its people are just sophisticated automatons. Make an experiment to say which is which."
Your irrefutable argument quickly falls apart because there's no way you can show any relevant evidence for it. And it's worse than talking about the absence of God, because we experience free-will everyday. It's like talking of consciousness — we can't define it yet, but we know it's real, as we're thinking and talking about it. And a theory being non-falsifiable does not make it false. God could exist and you could have a soul.
You may or may not believe in free-will. But not believing in free-will is dangerous because it makes one believe that everything is predestined, so there's no point to doing anything, no point in struggling to achieve anything, no point in trying to escape your condition. If no free-will is possible, does life have any value at all? And that's the actual philosophical bullshit.
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Quite a lot of humans don't think in language, or do only some of the time, see e.g. https://www.iflscience.com/people-with-no-internal-monologue... , https://www.livescience.com/does-everyone-have-inner-monolog... , https://www.bustle.com/wellness/does-everyone-have-an-intern... .
I'm highly suspicious that the whole "inner vs no-inner monologue" thing doesn't actually exist and has more to do with these things being extremely hard to explain using language, and people describing their subjective experience in subtly different ways.