Talk:Not Circular Reasoning

Nice one. ^bomination 17:45, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Free will

Should be more stuff about how there is no scientific consensus that "...we are just machines and that our thoughts are really motions of atoms in our brains, which are just ‘computers made of meat’. " Straw man. Ajkgordon (talk) 17:52, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

What do scientists say our thoughts are, other than motions of atoms in the brain? ListenerX^TalkerX 17:53, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, there's loads of stuff mostly but not exclusively around quantum mechanics. Ajkgordon (talk) 18:20, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Ah; the old "at the quantum level everything is totally random" business. But is that really comparable to Sarfati's idea of material vs. spiritual sources for thought? ListenerX^TalkerX 18:25, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

No, it's nothing to do with quantum effects. Schroedinger did postulate it, but there's no evidence to back it up. If anything, it's emergence, which says we're more than just the motions of atoms in our brains (while at the same time we just are motions of atoms in our brains). ^bomination 18:29, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

But wouldn't that still deny free will? The stuff that I've read is more about collapsing wave functions and the like enabling our minds to make free will choices and arguing against determinism. Ajkgordon (talk) 18:38, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I would say the same thing, that any nondeterminism on the atomic level does not translate to human free will. ListenerX^TalkerX 18:43, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, you might. But the point here is that there is much scientific rejection of determinism and that scientists don't simply claim that our brains are "computers made of meat" and have no free-will, as Sarfarti states. Ajkgordon (talk) 18:46, 9 March 2010 (UTC) self-caused

Putting aside it's not exactly a given, quantum non-determinism is just a limit on the accuracy (and thus certainty) of your calculations. This is big in its own right, and it leaves the door open for even those effects to somehow snowball into the macroscopic world, but even in the most earth-shattering interpretation you only really ruled out for good predeterminism. Any other slightly looser version of causal determinism still stands then (especially when you can still assume the indeterminism of each single interaction to have an almost arbitrarily small upper bound). And as ListenerX hinted, that's pretty far from the "get out of the physical cause-effect constraints" card that certain people pretend instead to be playing (as if grasping at straws so much to destroy reductionism, that when they eventually find the smallest opening to even just shake the situation they call it a day in joyful tears). Thankfully if I may say so.. because there seems hardly something less empowering of the human condition than arguing that your thoughts aren't approximately fully controlled/caused by whatever mind-bodily entity that makes up your person and personality, but they are actually meaningfully and regularly swerved by the most stochastic processes of nature that we know off. --Mirh (talk) 00:34, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

flowers

So the total predictability of a woman liking flowers gives her free will, as opposed to just triggering a mental algorythym? Someone see a BIG contradiction here?

I have long curled hair, and a lot of women like that. Is this because women have the free will to overwhelmingly make the same decision, or is it simply because women (and men) are programmed to like long clean hair because it's a sign of health, ergo a selection factor for evolution... 195.130.159.242 (talk) 08:29, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

First, evopsych sucks. Second, biological determinism does too (let alone with codewords like "programming", that could only make sense in-context if interpreted genetically). Third and most important, the whole fundamental point is that the mental algorithm is literally what makes and is *her*. It must be able to revise itself I guess, in order to claim some decent amount of freedom.. but it seems obvious that the standard could never be "absolute metaphysical freedom" (which you could already trivially deny by pointing out that without blood and sugar you simply just die on the spot). --Mirh (talk) 00:34, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

It IS circular to use Matthew to prove Genesis, etc.

The simple savages who wrote the New Testament HAD ACCESS TO the Old Testament when they wrote it. So of course Matthew "proves" Genesis, because he had Genesis in front of him when he wrote his "inspired gospel" nonsense. 5.64.54.208 (talk) 05:05, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Is it circular reasoning

... or is it water going down the plughole? 82.44.143.26 (talk) 13:48, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

LOL

Not me? (TIL this article exists) --Goatspeed. _{How's my editing}CircularRasoning^{See what I'm planning} 11:52, 22 December 2023 (UTC)