Animae

I apologize for taking my time with this reply; I’ve had some other things on my mind lately. Correct me if I’m misunderstand what you are saying, but when you say that free will is a “metaphysical first cause” do you mean in the sense that in the brain we would have a bunch of neurons and then ex nihilo we have a neuron that fires? That would be downright uncanny stuff, enough to make neurologists seriously reconsidering dualism. Well it definitely isn’t harmful to have some a priori speculations about it, there is certainly a bit of work on free will that can be done on the philosophical side of things, for example if we where to conclude that free will is impossible under any circumstances other than with a first cause, then we would know that either science is doing something wrong (as a first cause is contradictory to everything in science so far) or that our preconception of free will are flawed. We clearly have free will in some context, but how wide that context is something we can speculate about, hence my posts about this topic. If you think a philosophical approach is fruitless perhaps you could tell me why you think that is the case. But determinism clearly does not ignore the “internal” part of the equation; to say that what’s on our minds doesn’t matter is not determinism but rather behaviorism. If I’m eating icecream it would not be because my body on its own had decided to do so, but because I wanted to do so, however under determinism our wants and wills are part of what is determined. There are of course solutions to this “problem” (I don’t think it should be considered as such) like dualism, but as usual, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence… But introspection only gives us the nature of minds on a psychological level, not on what is actually happening in our brains (neurology), therefore introspection is just superficial. It would be quite surprising if someone knew what was going on in her head while introspecting! Many parts of our psychological activity is also completely transparent to introspection (subconscious) so introspection should not be taken beyond what it is actually capable of, lest we want it to be completely unreliable guesswork. That is not to say that I believe that we are not in control of ourselves, or even carefully deceived, I’m just asserting the clear limits. I’ve just thought up a little thought experiment that may make you think a little more about choices. Does a chess playing program have the ability to choose? There is no denying that there are different possibilities for it to take, but can it be said that it choose from its options? Since you assert that human beings (or at least most of them) are capable of “real choices” (I’m not denying that we have) perhaps we should take a look exactly where the choice/not choice distinction starts to blur. Perhaps you are familiar with the sort of intrusive neural implants that have been made on animals as research. One intriguing experiment consisted of controlling the movements of a mouse with a computer. This was done not by controlling the impulses directly to make it move its limbs in a specific fashion—as this would have been more complicated—but rather by manipulating what the mouse wanted to do. When they wanted to make the mouse go to the left, they just made it want to go left, and it did! Surely, a person would notice such an impulse and we would feel controlled. But what if it was a lot more subtle? Now to the thought experiment: Lets say that a group of evil scientists (seems like they always are in experiments such as this one ) want to win a chess contest by any means necessary. No one of them are good enough and they don’t have the time to learn to master the game so they decide to use a subject—let’s call him Joe—to win the game for them. They face the same problem with Joe as with anyone else, they don’t have the time to train him so they come up with a devious plan; What about implanting a chess program in his brain? The AI would be able to defeat any human player, and as it would not be noticed that Joe had a computer in his head (a tiny one obviously) they could easily win. But how would they make the AI “talk” to Joe? It might send auditory signals, but then Joe would be aware that he is being helped, and could give away the evil scientists plot. The ideal way would be to give Joe cues that seemed perfectly natural, how about using the AI to direct his will? He could of course play in any way that he wanted, but somehow he feels inclined that he should make his moves exactly as the AI tells him to. Now Joe ends up winning the contest, and he (to himself) seemed to play in complete accordance to his will. But did he play of his free will? Now I’m not saying that this is the way our lives unfold, but I think that will is something that requires careful consideration. For the fact that most of what you are saying sound more or less like things quoted directly from those books, I would say that I am familiar with them. Seriously, are you trolling? As nothing you bring up has anything to do with the topic, I’m going leave your post at that. If you want to talk about the “bankruptcy of physics” feel free to make a new tread and I’ll try to clear up whatever misunderstanding of modern physics you might have. You should however not expect me to buy some obscure book, as I’m sure you could put down in your own words (or link to something on the web I can access). Yet we dream, you can try if you are aware during a dream to feel anything of your external body, you won’t feel a thing. So if a mind could be kept dreaming (can probably be done with the right substances) there would be no reason why we couldn’t still be alive with the appropriate life support. I completely disagree with this. To say that ideas don’t exist physically is like to say that the pictures on my hard drive don’t exist physically. It is certainly true that they aren’t expressed the same way (there is no picture in “1” and “0”!) but to say that they don’t exist is completely missing the point. Ideas are made out of something (something that thinks… hmm), when I look out the window at the sharp sunlight slipping through the canopy of the trees you surely wouldn’t say that all that is actually physically in my head (I mean, there wouldn’t even be room for such things unless my head is one of those sci-fi multidimensional spaces or maybe the objects are just really small! ) . But when I get such pictures in my mind, there is some neural activity that makes those pictures! Perhaps with tools of enough sophistication we could take a peak in someone mind. Likewise, there has to be something that free will reduces to. It would not just disappear, but it might present itself in an altogether different way that we expect it to—but it’s there somewhere. The only way it could “disappear” is if in fact free will as a folk psychological concept is dead wrong, just a complete misunderstanding. But you seem pretty ardent that free will is actually real, with such confidence there is nothing to fear right? The ghost must be there. It’s easy to throw around such words such as emergence and hope the whole deal to be swept away under the rug but the thing is that such features are also subjects of science. Imagine if a physicist walked in the office of a biologist and declared that living organism did not exist anymore (scientifically), since they have been reduced to particles! Well the idea of determinism is considered justified by induction and it is as old as science itself. The actions considered are of course actions on a more basic level than human action, but if science is upheld as metaphysical fact, then determinism seems inescapable, with the exception of quantum physics, but even that randomness is just… well, random. It does naturally face the usual problems of induction, but nature seems quite strict to play along the rules. You could of course always bring up emergence, but the thing is; emergent properties emerge from whatever it consists of, not from nothing. For example, when temperature in a gas is said to emerge from the average kinetic energy of the particles it consists of, that property comes from the particles, not from magic. While it’s perhaps a bit early to speculate about the human mind (considering the sorry state of the theories of consciousness, or rather the lack thereof) there is no reason to believe that different rules would apply to it. But there is always the safe way out by upholding dualism (I do consider that to “cheat”). Your reduction to the absurd there is invalid, as you rely on a hidden premise. Even if determinism implied an infinite regress or a first cause or any other (arbitrary) oddity, it could always be solved by an (arbitrary) ad hoc hypothetic. And when people counter an ad hoc hypothesis used to save an argument from an arbitrary claim by another ad hoc (also perfectly arbitrary) solution I think it’s best to leave such speculation aside . I might just be reading a bit too much into it, but it seem to me as if you are drawing a “hard” line between the subjects. Sort of like putting yourself in a corner where science will never reach and say: this is philosophy. Science is not inherently reductionist; in fact there is the usual heated debate of holism vs. reductionism among other things, even in such fields as physics which I believe is often seen as reductionist. If you would choose to draw the line of philosophy about timeless things that could never be disproved (or believed to never be disprovable) where does all that stuff that does not really fit into science end up? Should all the rest of philosophy be thrown in the dustbin? But some of that stuff I really useful, not only as inspiration, but also as a way to find what we are looking for in the first place ( i.e. possible ground for science). If I understand you correctly, you seem to say that something will be lost in the reduction and this is something that I disagree with. But maybe I’m just over-interpreting what you are saying. So that means that there are multiple consequent actions? Could you perhaps show me where the same effect can indeed lead to different results (that’s what you are saying right?). That sort of causation clearly does not apply to physical objects bouncing around, so I must say I’m at loss of where such causation happens. If you want to give it exclusively to human being then I have an objection unless you cheat here (dualism). To say that a different kind of causation applies to the human will then I think that is quite an extraordinary claim and to say simply that it is so because the nature of free will, is simple dodging the question using circular reasoning. If the free will is indeed different, then it must be different in virtue of something. This something is what I want to find.

Did I write of my free will? Of course, no one put a gun to my head, nor am I a philosophical zombie. It thought these things where obvious, and if you look at the first post I made in this tread you will see that I made out quite clearly (IMO) what I was talking about. I don’t think there can be any mistake that I was not talking about the psychological concept of freedom. In fact I cannot grasp that anyone could actually interpret my writing as such a discussion. I never thought this would be necessary to mention in a philosophy forum, but when philosophers talk about free will they talk about its metaphysical status, not if we are zombies or not. I don’t think any sane person would suggest such a thing. So I don’t understand why you bring that up again and again. If you think that the question of the free will's metaphysical status is a misconceived question or that it is uninteresting or perhaps impossible to answer, well then how difficult is it to just say that? I’m curious, would you care to speculate on what more would be needed than a computer to create a mind? Well I’m not “looking for free will” I’m looking for how it works. As I’m sure you understand the point of the argument I presented earlier (the one in my first post in this thread) is that free will is not a metaphysical “first cause” if the premises are upheld. I think I made it clear that a metaphysical “first cause” is not necessary to uphold free will. I agree that free will does not need to be a metaphysical concept, but there are certain consequences for such a view. Under such a concept of free will, if an entity with a specific identity (as all entities certainly have if the law of identity is metaphysical) was put in a certain situation, only one outcome becomes a possibility, something that I thought Objectivism wanted to altogether avoid. And the next question that come to mind, why does Objectivism reject determinism, that itself is a metaphysical concept, if the upheld view of free will is not (a metaphysical concept)? What a weird way to distinguish science from philosophy! It’s certainly very unorthodox, but while I understand the practicality of such solution I do think that it has its share of problems. Thank you for making that clear, but then Objectivism is entirely compatible with determinism. So the Objectivist approach to free will is compatibilism? Or are there some distinctions? Clearly, someone would not believe in god for no reason. So I’m sure that a religious person would contest that their faith is based on nothing in reality. Back in your previous post you mentioned “deterministic causation”, so what other types of causation are there? And under what criterion is the differentiation made? Just saying that it is observed does not say anything. Causation is a metaphysical concept, but I can’t see these types as metaphysically different. Such a distinction between philosophy and science gives at best an impoverished philosophy, and at worst reducing it to the obvious. No offence, but you clearly don’t have any idea of what you are talking about. Not that it has anything to do with the topic, but I’ll do you a favor to show you your mistake. Physics is about one thing and one thing only. That is to make observations and to create models that predict accurately predict the observations. If you take a course in quantum physics you will most likely never hear anything about the Copenhagen interpretation, or the many world interpretation and rightfully so, as they are not science. They are philosophical interpretation—purely metaphysical concepts which attempts to provide the “why?” behind physics. Physics is not metaphysics—for obvious reasons—so there is no “bankrupt state of physics”. As long as the predictions are accurate, there is nothing to object. Or do you believe that some results nature shows us are “wrong”? Physicists are not out to paint a beautiful painting or to make an esthetically pleasing sculpture, that is outside the scope of science. Science is not normative, nor should it ever be. And the only philosophy scientists need to keep making a good job is the scientific method that provides the rails that science can never stray from. And if you still think that modern science is “corrupt”, perhaps you ought to consider that the very device you are using right now is made possible by “bankrupt” science. Considering how successful their “corrupt” philosophy is, they ought to indulge even more! Imagine what wonders that would bring! Sigh… Where do I deny choice? To say that choices are superficial is not the same thing as to deny that there are choices...

It’s debatable what would happen to a mind if it was completely disconnected from sensory input. But considering the fact that we sleep and that does not seem to kill us, I think that we can take a bit of sensory deprivation. Who knows, the artificial mind might dream. But in case we simulated a mind, we would want to interact with it somehow, or let it interact with some kind of environment. So this is no a problem for my argument. Certainly, senses are right about what they tell us—but how does your senses tell you that a choice is part of a deterministic chain of events or that it is a ‘first cause’? I don’t think it is unfair to ask for some evidence for such a thing. And I don’t see any reason there would be no way to explore free will by means of reason. Or is it holy, or perhaps outside the possible grasp of our reason? Or are some people born blind to the free will, just like some are colorblind? So do you mean that by introspection we can declare our free will to act as a ‘first cause’? I don’t see where I’m calling introspection in question—introspection just as perception must be correct in what it actually tells us. But the nature behind what it tells us is not mystically unveiled merely by observation. In no way do I see the inside of an orange just by looking at one, but I can always peel it… I don’t see exactly how you see my previous post as stabs against free will. If you look at what you quoted and insert “God” instead of “real choices” and “free will” perhaps you will see why those are bad arguments. How about the bolded part: Oh and by “real choices” I mean choices that are ‘first causes’. Free will is perfectly possible without that ‘first cause’ property. It does of course have some implications, but that would be the whole reason why this problem is interesting in the first place. That determinism and free will are compatible has been show countless time before. Not at all, what I’m saying is that we cannot know what causes free will just by introspection, just like we cannot know the underlying cause of the experience of redness before we inquire in the nature of the senses and whatever we experience as red. No we don’t, but to know the actual nature of those things we do have to understand the workings of the brain. While most people (if not all) have experienced happiness and many of those may know what caused them to be happy, I don’t think most of them understand what it is that makes such experiences possible. The same problem obviously applies to free will. The argument that I constructed in my first post in this tread does in no way require the assumption of determinism. It states simply that; either it is impossible to create a mind with a computer, or that the concept of ‘first cause’ must be abandoned in the case of free will (provided my other premises are correct). So determinist is not where I started, but merely the conclusion of the argument. If my argument requires any further metaphysical assumptions than is held in the premises, I would appreciate if you showed them to me. Oh and I don’t take my argument for granted, I still consider the premises to be on shaky ground and I had hoped to see if someone with more extensive knowledge might have some objections. Unfortunately that doesn’t say anything, the law of causality as you have put forward together with the law of identity still leaves the door open to all kinds of ‘mysticism’. Mystical things would just need to act in accordance to their (mysterious) nature. It’s interesting that you distinguish between different kinds of causation, what would be the proper way to categorize causations as different types? And what is God an axiomatic concept in theology? Under what kind of authority should we consider existence, consciousness, sensory evidence and human volition outside the realm of inquiry? Saying that those things cannot be analyzed makes no sense. Perhaps it is meant in a philosophical way, because science is obviously already trampling holy ground. I cannot grasp that it is not clear yet; I have not denied nor do I intend to deny that we have volition! Nor did I deny that we have free will. What my argument shows is that (in case the premises are not mistaken) is that free will is not the ‘first cause’ kind of free will.

I don’t see exactly what you mean, are you saying that a brain is not enough to create a mind? The brain would certainly need some kind of life support, for example energy and nutrients. The mind would still be in the brain so to speak, no matter what kind of support it would need. Surely I am still me if I lose both arms and legs. And if we had life support sophisticated enough, we could keep a person alive without any internal organs (other that the brain of course). If you mean that there can be brain without a mind, that is a possibility but then such a brain is not functioning properly so I don’t see the problem with that. You can obviously not have a mind without a brain, unless you introduce some sort of soul but there is no evidence for such a thing. If we look at what the neurons do, then we see that their functions are essentially processing and storage. The approach might be different from the ways that our computer hardware work, but I don’t see any reason why we could not carry out the same operations with a computer. Nowhere did I deny that we have free will, I just set out to see what this free will really is. In fact if you look at my argument again, you will see that I started off with the assumption that the concept of free will corresponds to something in our minds. Instead of assuming that the will is able to act as a first cause (in a mysterious way that no one understands) I think it makes sense to try to figure out what free will exactly is about. Even if all my premises were sound, that would only mean that the free will is in compliance with determinism, not that free will is impossible. And if you don’t like that kind of free will, well it’s reality and that is what we get to deal with. So I take it that you think that my first premise (the computations made by the human brain are ontologically equivalent to the computations that a computer can make) is not sound. If you make an argument against it that I’m interested in what you have to say. I don’t think it’s fair to compare “simple programs” as equivalents to our minds. That would be akin to compare a space shuttle with a toy, or a bacterium with a human being. The hardware and software we have access to today is little more than toys compared to the sort of computations that take place in the human brain, but you might consider that these brains had millions of years in the making. Compared to technological evolution, biology is standing still. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that we will be outpaced and outsmarted a thousand-fold. In a hundred years, the human brain will be just another fossil. I don’t see where I deny “the obvious” so if I missed anything, I would appreciate that you would point it out. And I don’t see what Kant has to do with this, but then I haven’t really studies his ideas yet. And you could not help misunderstanding my post despite having free will?

Whenever choices are necessitated (thus not really being choices) or not is certainly an interesting topic. Now just because many philosophers in the past have failed to answer that question in a satisfactory sense does not mean that the problem is unsolvable or that the question is invalid, only that the approaches used so far have been flawed. I don’t think that the argument that we must have true choices since it is the way it appears to us is in any way satisfactory. Intuition—while often really useful—is clearly not good enough in this case. Neither does the argument that it’s awfully practical to say that we actually make real choices make a strong argument. To say that we have free will because we label process “X” as “free will” does not actually tell us anything about this elusive free will. Imagine if you asked a chemist what gold was, clearly if he just pointed at gold and proclaimed “this is gold” we would have reason to be disappointed. Free will must of course face the same enquiry as anything else if we are to understand what it really is. Here we might take some inspiration from scientists and break it in parts, and see if we can make some sense of it. Free will is a property of the human mind, but how much should we break the human brain before we can find it? Is free will found in the atoms that make up our brain? Surely it would be odd if atoms could have free will or consciousness of any kind. Is it in the neurons or the patterns that they create that choices become possible? Unfortunately we can’t approach free will the same way that a chemist might do to figure out the chemical properties of a rock, as I’m sure no one would find it ethical to mutilate the brains of living human beings even for such a noble cause. And since the brain works in a similar fashion neural nets, it would probably be difficult to find a specific function and determine how it works. If scientists of the eighteenth century would have got their hands on a modern computer, we should not expect them to figure out how it works. And taking it apart might just break it… Some questions are better left alone, in cases where the knowledge necessary is not accessible or possible. But I don’t think this is the case with free will, and I don’t see why any stones should be left unturned. We may not have the tools to inquire in it directly today, but big efforts are made to reverse engineer the human brain part by part and it’s only a matter of time (decades) until we have a complete human brain simulation on a computer. That would be where I think a bit of healthy speculation can be entertained. First of all, we need the premise that the computations made by the human brain are ontologically equivalent to the computations that a computer can make. Otherwise it would of course be impossible to completely simulate a human brain (for example consciousness might be “missing”). The second premise would be that computations done by a computer must be deterministic (pseudorandom, chaotic and unpredictable all are deterministic). The third premise would be that the human mind (consciousness, free will—that stuff) is in fact wholly emerging from the brain. If we now were to simulate a human brain on a computer under these premises, we would find that free will is not capable of “real” choices, but is acting perfectly deterministically. It could of course be tested by letting the simulation run a specific scenario a couple of times, and resetting it each time (there would be ethical issues as this is a human brain after all). So now either one of the premises are false, or we don’t in fact have “real” choices (though we will still experience them as such). Now if we look at the premises a bit closer: 1. “The computations made by the human brain are ontologically equivalent to the computations that a computer can make” This premise appears sound—like I mentioned earlier, we are already underway to simulate parts of the brain and no computational problem have been encountered yet as far as I’m aware of (with the exception of computers not being fast enough to perform a full simulation yet, but that’s another story). 2. “Computations done by a computer must be deterministic” This once again appears like a sound premise, but to be honest, I don’t have any proof whatsoever for this one. So it’s a pure assumption on my part. If any program could be shown to be nondeterministic (pseudorandom, chaotic and unpredictable obviously don’t qualify) then this premise would crumble, and real free will might become a possibility once again. 3. “The human mind consists wholly of the brain” This seems very likely. Unless we introduce some nonmaterial parts which we have no evidence for, this premise is sound (consciousness could be seen as non material, but it emerges from the brain unless it is a soul in the dualistic sense). There is of course the possibility that the first premise would be mistaken, for example if the whole of human knowledge is regarded as representational and not about the things as they actually are. I don’t intend to defend such a view here, and as Objectivism has a different view on the whole thing this, I think that it is best to leave it at that. Edit: Typo

I’m not denying that we experience angles in reality, what I’m saying that there is no such standard as a “degree” in reality, just like a unit of length—or any other unit—it’s reference is a matter of choice. The reason there is 360 degrees in a circle is because we define it as such. It’s not just a matter of language, but let’s say for the case of the argument that the whole base of math can be derived by induction. Now if a mathematician wanted to justify his one of his theorems—that is, to check if it is true or false—he would not do so by looking at reality. He would validate it a priori, and quite often it is actually impossible to even compare it to something we experience, as many mathematical concepts are beyond human experience. So whenever at the fundamental level, the mathematician uses concepts derived from experience does not change the fact that he proves his theorem through reason. A priori and a posteriori does not refer to where the concept comes from, as far as I understand it. It refers only to the method by which we validate knowledge. Otherwise I could say that since I learned about triangles in elementary school (or whenever I now learned about them first) my knowledge of triangles is a posteriori. Where we pick up ideas is not really of interest epistemologically. Yes, I experience it therefore it is true (I don’t think that there is any need to mention that it implies that my brain functions properly, I’m not hallucinating or anything). Oh and I use the term “justified” as synonym with valid in this context. All knowledge must of course be valid—otherwise it’s not really knowledge but rather belief. I don’t think that philosophers mean knowing-that-precedes-knowing or anything bizarre like that when they refer to a priori knowledge, at least I don’t think that what most philosophers mean by it. To me it seems that a priori/a posteriori simply refers to whenever the knowledge is attained by deduction or induction. And a priori/a posteriori does not refer to the same thing as analytic/synthetic so they should not be confused. Edit: Wikipedia seems to agree on the a priori/a posteriori distinction as being the distinction between inductive and deductive knowledge. "The terms "a priori" and "a posteriori" are used in philosophy to distinguish between deductive and inductive reasoning, respectively." Wikipedia

But what about the proposition “the sums of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees”? There is no such thing as a degree in reality; you could just as well define triangles to have a sum of angles of 2000 degrees or 2 degrees if you want, as long as the definition of a degree is used consistently it would work with any value (some are however more convenient). Yet when I say that the sums of the triangles angles are 180 degrees, surely that statement must be considered knowledge. So I don’t see how that can be justified from experience. The same essentially applies to the form of the triangle itself. If someone were to point out a triangle in reality and say, “this is what I mean, thus it is justified by experience” I would simply ask: how do you know that figure is a triangle? Well justifying is kind of important, because otherwise how do you know something? I’m sitting in front of my computer right now. How do justify that statement, that is: how do I know it is true? Well as I experience it right now, I can say that that statement is true by experience. But consider now if I somehow at a later date I happen to forget that I wrote this post, and looking in this tread I see my post again. From that I could conclude that I, at some previous time was sitting in front of my computer and wrote this post. But that proposition would not be true by experience, so I would have to justify it by reason. And in case a priori is limited only to pure a priori justification (a priori without any experience, like an innate idea or some other odd thing I guess) then the concept becomes useless, why define it in such a fashion?

I don’t really understand the Objectivist position on this, is it considered invalid to justify knowledge from reasoning, or is simply the distinction between a priori/a posteriori considered invalid? And in consideration to knowledge being experience free, who has claimed such a thing? To quote Kant on this: “That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt”

I don’t see what this misunderstanding is about. It is obvious that we have free will; however that does not mean that we ought not to explore what we actually mean by “free will”. To say that that it is self evident is at best careless and at worst the risk of assuming a mistake, not to mention that it is obviously not so self evident considering that some people don’t understand what is meant by “free will”. Needless to say, the “free” in “free will” has been used and abused many times. Without defining what is meant by free will, any discussion about it collapses into a meaningless game without any solid rules. Know that I don’t enter this discussion with the interest to “win” I merely want to understand what this problem is about. Sometimes, knowing why something is wrong can be more revealing that knowing why something is right. Now to the problem; what do I mean by free will? I'm not sure if it is out of evasiveness that no one has been willing to throw out a definition, but let me give it a try. My definition is simply; will that is internally unrestricted, e. g. if I go down to the kitchen to get something to eat, I choose whatever I will to choose. By “internally” I mean consciously, subconscious actions are not affected by free will (but the process of learning the subconscious reactions could very well be conscious). If I wanted (consciously) to get a sandwich, but my body somehow decided to get an apple, my will would not be free. It is important to note that it is only in case of a choice that free will must be unrestricted. If I would will to do something physically impossible, and find myself unable to do so it is not a breach of free will as impossible actions do not constitute choices, more on choices later. By “free will” I do not mean free from causation and identity. A free will is not a “first cause”, it does not choose arbitrarily and it is just like everything else; caught in the chain of determinism. The free will acts in accordance to its identity and to say that under the exact same event—where the mind has the same identity—would yield different outcomes is as far as I understand impossible. The very reason I choose what I choose is due to my mental (internal) identity. Only in case of a magic will, somehow free from causation, would it be possible to see different outcomes of the same events. A choice is an instance in which our internal identity determines the outcome, and only if the identity is different, could the outcome change. The reason why it is a choice for me to pick what I want to eat is because of my internal identity. If whatever is in my head at the moment was different, a different choice would have been a possibility. If someone else was in the exact same situation, they might make a different choice. Likewise, it is enough that a different mind was “possessing” my body, a different choice could be made. That mean that choices are not really choices as we usually think of them, as only one outcome is possible, but this outcome is entirely dictated by my conscious state; the identity of my conscious mind. This does of course not mean that external events do not affect the choice, if there was a sandwich on a table in front of me, my degree of hunger would affect the choice, however it would not dictate it (otherwise it would obviously not be a choice). So does this mean that since my choices are “determined”, that responsibility becomes impossible? That since my actions are determined, if I would for example kill someone, I would be no less guilty that a stone that falls to the ground due to gravity? I would say the exact opposite is true; it is since I have a determined identity that responsibility can exist in the first place. If a person’s will could suddenly (magically) turn into a different will, then how could it be object to responsibility? Let me also define determinism so that there is no confusion over the term: That an action is determined mean that there is a single outcome and that if all information is provided it is possible to calculate the outcome. That “if” is quite important, as it is possible (and often expected) to be unable to determine the future states of a system, due to inadequate information (the weather is a good example). However that does not mean that the system is not deterministic. It is even possible to have deterministic systems that are always impossible to predict, since the information required to do so is unattainable. For example all the digits of pi are determined, yet we will never know them all, as there are an infinite number of them. An example of a system that behaves deterministically, yet was once unpredictable is the orbit of the planets. To claim that since we cannot currently predict something does not imply that it is not a deterministic process. To say that since we don’t know every state in a system, it cannot be deterministic is obviously wrong. While I was not around at the time, I’m quite sure that the planets did not behave erratically before we put up the laws “forcing” them to have determined orbits. As Tensorman proved quite nicely, there is no paradox in predicting the whole of reality; such a thing is impossible, unless you are “outside” of reality and it thus becomes a system isolated from the prediction.

As I was reading a book on lucid dreaming one section about creativity caught my attention: Bold mine Now I find the second trait to be especially interesting and it brought my mind to The Fountainhead. It’s easy to see how those traits fit on Roark and how Keating got nowhere by measuring everything by other peoples standards. It also seems fit well my experiences so far, when I know to have achieved something really good, the praises seem insignificant in comparison to my own satisfaction. Seems like it is only when we have done something that does not reach our potential that we need others to tell us how “great” it is.

Well I must have written my previous post in an incomprehensible way since it was my very point that separation of ethics and economics was not possible, thus concluding that the claim that economy should be handled pragmatically without any consideration to ethics is just nonsense. Edited: typo

Let’s see if I understand this discussion. This discussion does as far as I see come down to two fundamentals, namely the separation of ethics and economy and the separation of (political) power and the economy. Now the idea that the economy should be ethically agnostic is impossible, since if you throw values out the window there will be nothing left to valuate economy by. Without values there is no way to say that a society consisting of a bunch of starving homeless people is any worse or better that a rich free society. The argument that an economy should be pragmatic (without ethical consideration) is therefore worthless since if it is to be pragmatic is must have some objectives (values!). How can any system be regarded as perfect if there is no standard to measure by? That would be like saying that the hammer is the perfect tool. The question is; the perfect tool for what? So I would like to ask Rourke ; by what standard to you measure economic systems? Wealth generation? Now to the other issue: If economics is separate from the state, as is advocated by Objectivism then it is not possible to get political power directly from having a lot of money. So the issue of big companies getting too powerful is void in a country in which economics and politics are separate. Essentially; there would be no conflict of interest. Does this make any sense or am I just confused?

I have recently finished reading Virtue of Selfishness, and I am content with the extent of it I have manage to integrate with my mind, yet I still miss some of the pieces, however it is not those that were actually there but rather those that were not that elude me. As I understand it, the ethics of Objectivism are derived from the nature of man, and in such a fashion it constitutes of an ethical system that doesn’t try to pet against the fur. So it manages to escape from the issue that plagues altruism; that it require something more… real that our nature, something purer that our carnal needs, an essence of mysticism. Ever since I came across certain other ideas, I have been suspicious on how one attributes unseen causes to observable effects. It is obvious that Miss Rand was an excellent observer however I can but wonder how she investigated man’s nature. How is it possible to differentiate between two entirely different theories that procure the very same outcome? Or to put it in simpler words, how can I know whenever the cause attributed to some outcome is correct? A simple approach would be to observe someone that lives in perfect accordance to the ideals of Objectivism and if the person is anything like the characters from Ayn Rand’s books then I would be prone to think that there is some sense in it. Unfortunately I have never seen an Objectivist, and neither have I seen a unicorn. I could perhaps try to live by Objectivist values myself and see what happens and I definitely intend to, but still the thought lingers that I might as well become a priest. The one thing that makes Objectivism so much more appealing, other that the fact that I don’t have to be a sacrifice to live by it, is that I just haven’t found how to break it yet. I have always loved taking things into pieces, pure unbridled curiosity. I could of course always throw reason out of the window and in such a sense break it, but I think that constitutes a breach of the rules. And playing a game and cheating is never fun. It seems to me that the acid of my mind just can’t weaken the structure Objectivism. But perhaps in the future I will find something; I know I still have a lot to learn. I guess there are two things that comes across in a post such as this one; ignorance of the things I do not yet understand and my impatience, the understanding that nothing will come to me if I just wait long enough. It probably has much to do with the fact that my soul still is more like a blank page than just lacking the finishing brushes to make it complete. Somehow I have always been better with the eraser than with the pen. Luckily for me Rand has show me one of the many path to walk, I may still not be able to walk it with my eyes closed, I still have to learn where to put my feet, but at least I have something to find at the end of the road. At least I have the eagerness to earn new scars in battle ahead and in the end; it might be all that matters.

Novel perhaps, but the thing is that it was completely intentional, I was searching for that sake of the searching in itself, hoping to ‘learn from the journey’ instead of having a specific goal. Not that I think that is a stupid idea, it’s just flawed in the sense that without a goal it’s difficult to stay motivated. It was a bit like saying that today I will do greatness, while having no idea what greatness could possibly be. Well I can’t compare it to being in love, since I unfortunately never have been in love. But I think of it as a reminder of rationality in a quite irrational world. Something of a beacon of hope. And now that I've smelt the scent of blood I can join the hunt .

Greetings fellow individualists, I’ve decided to go with a perhaps a slightly unorthodox way to introduce myself, but I think that the best way to introduce myself is by revealing a little bit of my mind and why I’m here. I first time came in contact with the Objectivist ideals in The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind and I completely fell in love with the series, not so much for the story nor by the way it was written or the setting. It was the living; breathing, feeling and thinking characters that left me spellbound. How could they be so alive that people I had lived with all my life suddenly seemed lifeless? Every word they would utter seemed so important, so full of meaning. The books filled my heart with longing, longing to know and perhaps meet someone that was ‘alive’ not just a corpse living because it’s the only thing we can do, yet I did not dare to hope to ever know someone like that, everything I had ever experienced so far just told me that people like the characters in those books just did not exist. Yet from that point on, I’ve always felt that there is something missing in people… At that time did not know what it was that made them different, but it made me look for it. When I meet new people I always sought for it but the more I learned about them the more I knew they did not have it and just as a problem is only interesting to the moment it is solved I lose interest. I asked myself it could come to be that music would grant me greater inspiration that the very other individuals that I shared existence with. Once when I was 15 years old I vowed to learn the truth and that no price would be too great to attain that. Little did I know then how far that would take me. I became a seeker, and I most excelled at it because I never found anything. I wallowed in nihilism, finding neither truth nor any values, and somehow I asked myself why I was indifferent to people around me. Yet I could never turn to faith. I just couldn’t close my eyes, the insanity that people around lived with I knew I could never cope with it. I guess it’s like swimming too far out in the sea and getting caught by the current; you know you will never get back to the shore. Every time I attained understanding of something I merely lost interest and walked on to find something new. And then I came across Atlas Shrugged. I don’t think I have ever been this impressed and inspired! While anyone can say whatever they want about the story and the characters, the ideals are nothing less than amazing albeit a bit brutally presented. Many times did it seem like I was reading my own mind, the trail of thoughts I’ve had numerous times. It was like I had been insane all my life only to realize that it was the exact opposite of insanity. So I am to assume that most other people are irrational, while I have thought about that possibility a lot, it just stuck me as a bit dangerous even though I had rational arguments for it. Atlas Shrugged made me realize some other things that I had completely missed, like never ever take someone else’s truth as your own. It seems completely obvious yet it easy to be guilty of it, just like I took some ideas of generally accepted philosophy for granted (and that brought me straight to nihilism, oh the irony ). I also realized something that is painfully obvious to me now and that is that inspiration does not come before I work for it. I guess I never checked my premises. I commonly hear how you have to be smart to get into science, fit to get into sports and creative to be an artist, but isn’t it actually the opposite? Doesn’t the artist get creative by actually creating? Can you eat you cake before you baked it? Most of today mainstream fiction seems to be about just that, to get everything by an opportunity they had no involvement in that grants them exactly everything they want for a price that they don’t need to pay. Now, just like so many times before I have something I want to understand in front of me, yet Objectivism has one very fundamental difference to anything I have ever come across before. That is the fact that it regards man as an end in itself. I would say I have never been tempted by faith before, but Objectivism is indeed a beautiful weapon. Why do I say faith? Because if I were to just buy that philosophy right now that’s what it would be for me. But as alluring as that may be the reward to be reaped from actually understanding it in depth would be worth all the more. So is this my homecoming? Will I become a finder? I guess that remains to be seen but for once I’m actually prone to think that I might find something of real worth.