Ponderings of science, philosophy, history, society, and many other topics
Click through for source and bonus red button caption at smbc-comics.com. This SMBC gets at something that's often bothered me about the way many people talk about the block universe concept. The block universe is the idea that if the universe is fully deterministic, then its entire history from beginning to end exists in an … Continue reading The block universe is interesting, but not comforting
George Ellis has an article at Aeon on free will that is garnering some attention. Ellis' case is a fairly classic one. Brain are complex systems whose operations, due to chaotic and stochastic dynamics, cannot be predicted. Furthermore, minds constrain the detailed physical reactions, a case of downward causation. And if that weren't enough, there's … Continue reading The necessary attributes of a responsible agent
I've seen the TV show Devs come up in a number of conversations on social media, and several people recommended it. But it was JamesOfSeattle's recommendation that finally got me to check it out. The result was, as usual for a show I really enjoy, a weekend binge. As the show starts, we find Lily … Continue reading Devs
Ethan Siegel on his Starts With a Bang blog has an interesting review of Paul Halpern's new book on Einstein and Schrodinger, and their refusal to allow the implications of quantum physics to dissuade them from idea that the universe is strictly deterministic. It's an interesting post and one that I recommend reading in full. … Continue reading Einstein, Schrodinger, and the reluctance to give up hard determinism
I've mentioned a few times before that I'm not a convinced determinist, at least not of the strict or hard variety. I have three broad reasons for this. The first is that I'm not sure how meaningful it is to say something is deterministic in principle if it has no hope of ever being deterministic … Continue reading Chaos theory and doubts about determinism
Ignostic Atheist called my attention to this video of Brian Greene contemplating free will. Greene's take: useful to buy into but illusory. I know many readers will disagree about the 'useful' bit, while I prefer 'emergent' instead of 'illusory', but basically agree with his sentiment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBNzaXx6eKg
Jerry Coyne as a new post up on free will. One of the recurrent arguments made by free-will “compatibilists” (i.e., those who see free will as being compatible with physical determinism), is that those of us who are incompatibilists—in my case, I think people conceive of free will as reflecting a dualistic “ghost in the … Continue reading Free will and determinism are separate issues
This is a bit whimsical but seems relevant to some of our recent conversations on determinism. Click through to see the full sized version. via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
With the essays traded between Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris, free will is back in the web conversation. I wasn't planning on making another free will post myself, having been mostly satisfied with my previous statement on it. But I've had a few conversations lately, both here on the site and in some other mediums, that … Continue reading Free will and the value of compatibilism
Conversation on yesterday's post on free will has me thinking about determinism. First, what is determinism? According to Merriam-Webster, my favorite dictionary because they seem to be extremely good at cutting to the chase, determinism is defined as: a theory or doctrine that acts of the will, occurrences in nature, or social or psychological phenomena … Continue reading Determinism isn’t as certain as many assume
SelfAwarePatterns 