[OT] Plato's Pub and Philosophical Society - Page 21

Jack Simth · #**201** March 20th, 2003, 04:00 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Atrocities:
What is this thread about? I have never seen it before. It just appeared here magically one day. And now it has swelled in size. OMG! Its taking over!

OT topics are the meterietes of the forums - they burn big and bright, for a relatively short time until people get tired of them and stop posting. It has happened before. Set the view to "Show All Topics" and you can see for yourself. This one only has 200 Posts so far; others have many more.

[ March 20, 2003, 02:03: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

Fyron · #**202** March 20th, 2003, 04:53 AM

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Jack:
That is the fastest I have seen you back off of a position.

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Rags:
You mean I was able to turn Fyron around?!?

There is a difference between holding a position and playing Socrates.

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Rags:
Sorry to deter your philosophical debate Fyron, that wasn't my intentions, I just simply wanted to bring out that we do have free will. I will now leave and you can have your debate.

Your post had not an ounce of logical argument or philosophical merit to it, actually. All you did was to say "this is how it is". There was no reasoning given.

Quote:

Originally posted by Jack Simth:

quote:
Originally posted by Atrocities:
What is this thread about? I have never seen it before. It just appeared here magically one day. And now it has swelled in size. OMG! Its taking over!

OT topics are the meterietes of the forums - they burn big and bright, for a relatively short time until people get tired of them and stop posting. It has happened before. Set the view to "Show All Topics" and you can see for yourself. This one only has 200 Posts so far; others have many more.

I assume Atrocities was joking. Look at his post count. He has posted here enough times to know about OT topics. In fact, he has started several of those OT threads that swelled in sized.

[ March 20, 2003, 02:57: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Chronon · #**203** March 20th, 2003, 05:11 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Atrocities:
What is this thread about? I have never seen it before. It just appeared here magically one day. And now it has swelled in size. OMG! Its taking over!

Well, we seem to have left behind our discussion of Fyron's theory that the Roman Catholic Church slowed progress and lengthened the "Dark Ages" by a couple hundred years, the topic that started this thread, and moved on to all kinds of philosophical meanderings. Since we're talking about predestination, perhaps we have found our way back to early-modern religion. Are you a closet Calvinist Fyron?

[ March 20, 2003, 03:14: Message edited by: Chronon ]

Fyron · #**204** March 20th, 2003, 05:22 AM

It is probably time to give this thread a more appropriate title.

No, I am not a Calvinist. We are not talking about predestination. Predestination is the belief that everyone's final destination in the afterlife is determined before they are born. Their actions on Earth make no difference between whether they go to heaven or hell. This is wholely different than determinism v. free will.

[ March 20, 2003, 03:24: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Suicide Junkie · #**205** March 20th, 2003, 05:47 AM

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Originally posted by Jack Simth:

quote:
Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Ah, but how can you tell for sure? Or within a reasonable doubt?

Turn it around - How can you tell for sure (or wihin a reasonable doubt) that free will is an illusion? Until you can demonstrate your side, one hypothesis is as equally valid as the other. However, I made a point about quantum mechanics a while back which would support free will....

Exactly.
The post I was quoting had much determination, but nothing concrete backing it up.
I was just trying to encourage something deeper than "yes it is" "no it isn't".

Fyron · #**206** March 20th, 2003, 06:28 AM

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I was just trying to encourage something deeper than "yes it is" "no it isn't".

Yes, this was the crux of the problem. There is absolutely nothing logical or philosophical about the responses (the QM post comes close, but not quite).

The original post about this was not meant as an end-all, beat-all argument, but more as a topic to discuss.

[ March 20, 2003, 04:29: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Jack Simth · #**207** March 20th, 2003, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Yes, this was the crux of the problem. There is absolutely nothing logical or philosophical about the responses (the QM post comes close, but not quite). The original post about this was not meant as an end-all, beat-all argument, but more as a topic to discuss.

All right, then, um..

Quote:

I do not ever make a conscious choice between eating food and not eating food. According to the laws of nature, the cells in my body will begin to die without a constant supply of energy (in the form of glucose). So, I eat food. I do not eat it because I actively set out to eat it. Just a few examples for contemplation.

How then could you explain the monks who deprive themselves for spiritual enlightenment or those who suicide? If everything is determined by the laws of nature, which state that things want to survive, then they cannot be explained. They can, however, if you postulate that the people involved have free will.
If you postulate that they do not have free will, and do so as a result of social and economic pressures, then you must also explain why most people don't.
If you postulate that people do what they do because of their genetic makeup and how they were raised, then you must also address how the child of a child beater will often not become a child beater him- or her- self, despite the very strong tendency for the furtheration of the parents' habits that is known to exist.

Chronon · #**208** March 20th, 2003, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
It is probably time to give this thread a more appropriate title.

Yes, you're probably right. See new title above...

dogscoff · #**209** March 20th, 2003, 05:43 PM

Cool, a pub. Just in time, with the demise of the Cantina I have nowhere to drown the sorrows inflicted by the Iraq thread.

*dogscoff orders and downs four pints of strong lager, all the while considering whether his actions are simply the deterministically inevitible results of an uncountable accumulation of absolute probablity events in the vast atomic pinball game that is the entirity of space/time since the Big Bang, or whether the essence of consciousness actually resides in the largely unexplored realms of quantum mechanics, thus scientifically proving that the human mind is greater than the sum of its parts and releasing decision from the deterministic constraints of cause and effect, implying that free will does exist and making tomorrow's hangover entirely his own fault.

Even though Fyron hasn't got his Comprehensive Deterministic Universal Modeller (C-DUM) working yet, everyone predicts that dogscoff will soon fall drunkenly off his chair. He does.

[ March 20, 2003, 15:46: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Alpha Kodiak · #**210** March 20th, 2003, 06:05 PM

It finally all came together for me, and now I understand. We are all doomed to play SEIV forever (or at least until SEV comes out) because of all of the events that have happened in the past. We have no choice, it is simply the way it is. So if someone gives any of us grief for playing the game too much, we should just respond that you can't fight nature, that this is the way things must be. I think I like this theory....