ericjarvis
give a feck for the feckless
It all comes down to how keen you are to twist things in order to continue believing in a deterministic universe. Basically I'm not keen at all.
Is there a reason for the riots?
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Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
love detective
there's no love too small
a tiny substandard Militant for the post political landscape
Well, Heisenberg says it is impossible to ever take accurate measurements, owing to the fact that the measuring affects the measured. And the chaotic nature of the processes of the universe means that without this accurate measurement, it is impossible for us to accurately predict its future path.
None of that means that the processes themselves aren't deterministic, though.
I'd say you have to twist things to believe in free will. Your way out seems to be randomness, but that is no more free will than determinism is. Leaving aside the whole argument about whether there is a stochastic process that still embeds cause and effect behind apparent randomness (in the same way that our random number generators are actually deterministic chaotic functions), I would still say that you have no more control over your own fate by having something random happen than you do by a determined mechanistic process
If neither of these things is true then where does your control come from? What actually is it, pragmatically speaking?
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
err, nope, all I ever do is take action at the grassroots level, as opposed to you, who only ever talks meaningless drivel, and does nothing else beyond that, nothing at all.
Still, if that's what floats yer boat...each to their own
ericjarvis
give a feck for the feckless
There is no evidence to imply that processes on the quantum level are deterministic. Heisenberg went well beyond saying it's impossible to measure both position and momentum. That was becoming fairly obvious anyway. What he was able to do was quantify that uncertainty. Furthermore the Uncertainty Principle appears to be pretty fundamental to an awful lot of quantum physics. I agree that it doesn't prove an absence of deterministic processes, however it does put a belief in determinism in pretty much the same category as belief in a deity. It's something that a lot of people find makes sense, but there isn't any evidence to back it up.
That's the really interesting question. My take is that we are one hell of a long way from even vaguely answering it. We'll have to have some idea of what consciousness actually is before we can really start. In the mean time I'm happy enough to operate on the assumption that whatever is actually the case, working on the basis that I actually have genuine free will is more fun than assuming I haven't. Kind of an arbitrary choice, but I don't think there's any other way of choosing given how little we know that's relevant.
You can't state that you have free will without even knowing what it is!
For me, the key question is this: if the universe was re-run and you were in the same place at the same time with the same experiences, would you have made a different choice? More -- could you have made a different choice?
There is a fallacious dualism that tends to creep in when thinking about this, separating our physical selves from some kind of abstracted "consciousness". But it's the meat that does the thinking. And the meat is subject to a particular physical state. You can't escape that. You can bring randomness into it, I suppose, although I have a suspicion that even apparent randomness turns out not to be. But randomness is not the same thing as this ideal of "free will".
For me, the key question is this: if the universe was re-run and you were in the same place at the same time with the same experiences, would you have made a different choice? More -- could you have made a different choice?
There is a fallacious dualism that tends to creep in when thinking about this, separating our physical selves from some kind of abstracted "consciousness". But it's the meat that does the thinking. And the meat is subject to a particular physical state. You can't escape that. You can bring randomness into it, I suppose, although I have a suspicion that even apparent randomness turns out not to be. But randomness is not the same thing as this ideal of "free will".
Hang on...
No evidence to back up the existence of deterministic processes? Or no evidence to back up the belief that the whole lot is one big deterministic process?
Suppose you mean the latter and suppose I grant you the possibility of random fluctuation. Does that change one damn thing?
No evidence to back up the existence of deterministic processes? Or no evidence to back up the belief that the whole lot is one big deterministic process?
Suppose you mean the latter and suppose I grant you the possibility of random fluctuation. Does that change one damn thing?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Actually, I think you can! In fact, I think that it just what humans have done. Free will is an idea we have come up with, that we have fooled ourselves into, through recognising that we are animals that act with intention but without having full access to the mechanics of that intention.
We hold quite a lot of these 'bad concepts' in our heads, it seems to me. And free will is a bad concept - I would defy anyone to provide a definition of it. It's not a question of 'do we have free will or not', more a question of 'what the hell is free will supposed to be in the first place'.
On a side note.... you realise that you live pretty close to me IRL?
Part of the same area and possibly community... and yet I have never heard or seen a thing locally about your grassroots action. Not a sausage.
Whereas I would be willing to bet, if you have any knowledge of your own area, that you have seen and probably heard mine.
I agree with this... though not with the term 'bad concept'.
Necessary concepts, I think. But just concepts. Others like zero and infinity are more easy to define..
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
agree with this
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
then look harder
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Do you mind not waving your dick in my face?
By the way, why would you have heard about Streathamite's "grassroots action"? I wasn't aware it was a requirement of activism that you boast about what you've done or how big your actions are.
past caring
The Cathars were right
ericjarvis
give a feck for the feckless
There is no evidence to back up the idea that the uncertainty principle means that quantum processes are deterministic but cannot be observed as such. Since we don't have any idea of how consciousness operates, let alone free will, there's no reason to suppose it necessarily involves processes at a quantum level. So in that sense you may be right. However the idea that the starting conditions for the universe lead to a single possible situation at any particular time is something that not only isn't supported by any evidence, it would require us to have missed some pretty major aspects of quantum physics. I accept that it's somewhat less unlikely that changes from 10 seconds from the Big Bang to the present might be entirely deterministic, but there's no evidence supporting that either.
To get back to the point. One cause of the riots is that too many people spend too much time worrying about minor things, such as how to get a new mobile phone, how to avoid getting blamed for fucking up and shooting somebody, or worrying about whether they will survice a stop and search by the plod; and far too little time worrying about all this REALLY important stuff.
Treacle Toes
Time
The People's Assembly in Dalston, Next meeting:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Step-Forward-Network/274169189266888#!/event.php?eid=231225546924418
Minutes from the last meeting on the 21st of August:
http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/2011/08/minutes-from-east-london-peoples-assembly-22-8-11/
I have read these minutes and feel that more Hackney people need to be in on this. What are you doing Sunday?
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Step-Forward-Network/274169189266888#!/event.php?eid=231225546924418
Minutes from the last meeting on the 21st of August:
http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/2011/08/minutes-from-east-london-peoples-assembly-22-8-11/
I have read these minutes and feel that more Hackney people need to be in on this. What are you doing Sunday?
You know, for as long as folk are gonna jump in one sided this will probably continue.
You're fueling his sense of being wronged... when actually the post I was replying to said much worse.
Treacle Toes
Time
I want to point out that the majority of 'grassroots' activism and development projects goes largely unreported. There is a reason why...people are not networking, skill/idea sharing enough.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
no, it's because people aren't reporting it.
Treacle Toes
Time
Err and? You haven't said anything contrary to what I have already so I don't understand you saying 'no' at the beginning of your response. People are not reporting it because they don't know about it and/or don't think it's of value, if they did they would be networking/skill/info sharing more!
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
people are skill sharing fuck loads. so i disagreed with you. if something's going unreported, the reason for it is that it isn't being reported.Err and? You haven't said anything contrary to what I have already so I don't understand you saying 'no' at the beginning of your response. People are not reporting it because they don't know about it or think it's of value, if they did they would be networking/skill/info sharing more!
and the reason it isn't being reported is because journalists and their editors don't get turned on by that sort of thing. and participants aren't reporting it because you don't report everything you do in your life unless you're stanley edwards.
Treacle Toes
Time
people are skill sharing fuck loads. so i disagreed with you. if something's going unreported, the reason for it is that it isn't being reported.
You can disagree of course.
I don't think this is just down to the 'media/editors/journalists', my original post on the subject included the word 'enough', which was important to the point I was making....people are not networking/skill/info sharing enough IMO. For me, this fact has a direct correlation to the 'amount' of reporting that is/isn't occuring.You can disagree of course.
And you are right. Pickers is also a bit right... most of the activism that goes unreported does so because it isn't deemed interesting.
But unlike pickers you realise that the onus is on those who wish to be reported to make sure it is interesting enough.
That's where the skill sharing and networking comes in.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
if you like it, 'like' it
magneze
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if you like it, 'like' it
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
err yeah, sure you know what I look like, or my RL name.
and I'm absolutely sure you're a legend in my area for that sorta thing....
you remind me of another poster...
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
btw, had a good meeting of the Tottenham defence campaign last night. We're going to blitz the broadwater farm estate this w/end but I'm not happy with the bust card we have.
So...can ANYONE please put up or PM me with a tiptop bust card, with bindman's etc's number on it?
So...can ANYONE please put up or PM me with a tiptop bust card, with bindman's etc's number on it?
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