“Revolution in Thought: A new look at determinism and free will"

[peacegirl]

Context Pg? What context? The science stated in the book is patently false.

You can try to get around it by saying he was not a scientist or mathematician, but the fact is what he says is false. You keep trying to work around that but you are getting nowhere.

You keep trying to push a bog rock up a steep hill and it is not moving. That must be frustrating and draining.

No Steve, all of your refutations do not have anything to do with his claim regarding the eyes. You keep talking about light (Doppler, LIDAR systems, GPS, etc.) which he is not disputing. Don't you see the problem here? Yes, I am drained, but I'm not giving up. And I know my children will carry the ball when I'm gone, if this discovery continues to remain in obscurity. The rate at which we are moving as far as our development is not within my control. It may take another hundred years for this knowledge to be recognized. I have no idea, but I don't stop trying until my dying day.

 

[steve_bank]

There is a human being with feelings behind the posts, that is good to know.

And cumming full circle, what are the basic concepts? How in practice does determinism change the world?

By the way, low carb tomato soup is easy. Mix cans of plain tomato sauce and stewed tomatoes. Season with curry, garlic powder, and cumin. Add vegetables.

 

[peacegirl]

What? He did not say light bounces off and doesn't bounce off. Light is always traveling. The only thing that he disputes is that it does not take the object's wavelength with it.B

Physical objects don't have a wavelength*. He had no clue what he was blathering about, and nor do you.


* at the macroscopic scales we are discussing. Quantum Field Theory this ain't.

Bilby, please stop. Objects reflect light, but not in the way you think. Light travels, there is no argument here, but if the eyes are a sense organ, they don't see the past. They see the present. I feel bad because I don't want to make anyone upset. I hope you take these claims more seriously than these are refusals without any proof that he was wrong. The problem happens when one premise that is accepted turns into a rumor, where everyone accepts it. No one is to blame for this, but it has to be recognized for its falseness.

Why​

The spread of ideas, even when they are false, can be attributed to several psychological and social factors. These include the human tendency to seek out information that confirms our beliefs, the desire for social validation, and the influence of social media and online platforms. Ideas that resonate emotionally or are perceived as socially desirable are more likely to be shared and spread. Additionally, the concept of "self-reinforcing cascades" suggests that the quality of the information being spread can change as it spreads, leading to unpredictable outcomes. This phenomenon highlights the complexity of how ideas can evolve and spread in the digital age, often resulting in a mix of true and false information that can be as influential as accurate content.

Santa Fe Institute+5

 

[peacegirl]

I have asked @peacegirl to do this.

To post a concise summary consisting of premises and a conclusion about her author’s argument to determinism and free will.

I have not asked to her to post such an argument about light and sight because her author’s claims in this respect are obvious garbage that cannot be sustained by any argument.

I tried to help peacegirl elucidate the author’s claims about determinism and free will in a formal manner. She rejected my help.

Can she do it herself?

No, she cannot.

Let’s see if she can prove me wrong.

I'm not taking up the challenge. This in no way means I don't understand the book. The only way I can continue is if I start from the beginning and go page by page. I don't think anyone even knows what his reasoning was as to why man's will is not free and why God knew what he was doing. That is not to be taken seriously, so don't get bent out of shape because I used the word God.

You’re not taking up the challenge because you can’t meet it, which means you got nuthin’.

As a matter of face I DO understand your author’s argument about free will and determinism, and can effortlessly present an argument with premises and a conclusion to elucidate it.

No, Pood. I know your take on QM, indeterminism, and necessitarianism. I know what you believe. You actually believe we can have free will and not have free will at the same time. This is so absurd that its beyond logical thought, but when a person wants to believe something, they will ignore the contradiction. You are that person.

 

[peacegirl]

We all are, but you really didn't give his chapter on death a chance. The older we get, the more this knowledge can help give us a sense of peace.

Oh, yes, I forgot, when we die we are reborn as someone else.

That is not it. Again, you are completely confused.

That’s why he advised Jews to quit bitching about the Holocaust, because they are still alive as someone else.

That's not the reason. It is just comforting to know that whatever happened does not mean it's the end. But there is no way you would understand this because your project was to argue with anything he wrote without one ounce of understanding.

As it happens this is also basically the thesis of Tom Clark at naturalism.org. I tried to help you with that, too, and even put you in touch with him to present you writer’s ideas, which predated Clark’s own, but you threw a big tantrum and said No. So, fine. This all happened back at FF.

I contacted Clark, but he quickly cut me off and said to go to his thread and post there. He had no desire to hear what I had to say. It's so sad because the ego gets in the way.

I don’t like or dislike your author’s claims about light and sight. I just have the knowledge to know they are utter garbage, and that is all that matters.

It’s nothing personal.

Once again, the problem is with your very premise, in that it assumes he must be wrong because, in your mind, science must be right. You aren't questioning whether your conclusion could be wrong because of your premise being wrong. You assume. Assumptions are not facts.

Nope, wrong again. I assume nothing. I go by the evidence.

Virtually hundreds of experiments, some of which you can do on your own, rule out real-time seeing.

You are absolutely wrong. Instead of trying to defend your worldview, try to prove wrong the author's observations.

As mentioned, go watch the sun rise in the morning. What happens when it does completely disconfirms your author’s claims.

It does no such thing. Light is present to see each other before the Sun comes over the horizon. You are using an example of his that is hypothetical and think that you are disproving him. Nope.

 

[pood]

My friend in Harlem (a Georgia gal) recently made us collard greens, bok choy, and Italian sausage over brown rice simmered in some kind of heavy brown broth and served piping hot. There may have been other veggies in there too. OMFG it was good. Maybe we could turn this into a recipe thread. It would be much more useful.

 

[steve_bank]

Pg
Objects reflect light, but not in the way you think. Light travels, there is no argument here, but if the eyes are a sense organ, they don't see the past. They see the present.

This gets into relativity. When you hear a distant gunshot, the sound of the gunshot to him is gone wen you hear it. When you hear the gunshot the bullet has left the gun barrel.

F0r a supersonic rifle bullet you may hear the bullet whiz past your ear before you hear the gunshot.

A car is going down the road at 60 mph and honks the horn. By the time you hear it the car is not in the potion it was when the horn sounded. To the driver the sound of the horn is in the past, to you it is the present when you hear it.

Someone the Moon pulses a high power visible laser. When yiu see the flash on Eartyh te Moon is not in the same position it was when the laser flashed.

Likewise when we see light from a distant star we see the star as it was was in the past as we perceive it.

We are observing a star and it explodes going supernova. By the time we see it the event event has cone and gone.

When we look at the Sun though a telescope we constant changes. When a flare occurs we see it minutes later, we see the sun as it was minuted in the past for us.


Then there is tie dilation. For people on space station and on Earth clocks run at different speeds. The inference being people age at different rates.

Time dilation is experimentally deom0stred with clocks. GPS does not work without compensating for time dilation.

Past and present are relative to the inertial frame of the observers.

The Earth and the Moon are different inertial frames. From theory and experiment the speed of light is the same in any inertial frame.

My point was visible light LIDAR and radio wave RADAR are the same phenomena. Radio waves and light waves are the same phenomena, act the same, and travel at the same speed.

So, the author's claim that if we see someone talking on the Moon through a telescope we see lips moving instantly before w hear vice sent by radio is false,.


In the day Einstein's relativity showing space-tie was not constant and immutable was revolutionary and Earth shattering in both science and philosophy. He had rock star status.

When he worked on it he was not part of the academic community, his ideas were considered initially as too far out.

 

[steve_bank]

My friend in Harlem (a Georgia gal) recently made us collard greens, bok choy, and Italian sausage over brown rice simmered in some kind of heavy brown broth and served piping hot. There may have been other veggies in there too. OMFG it was good. Maybe we could turn this into a recipe thread. It would be much more useful.

I can smell it all the way over here.

I have Chinese neighbors next door and Vietnamese down the hall. Cooklng aromas.

 

[pood]

FOOD, FUN, LIFESTYLES

Efferent, or Instantaneous, Cooking Poised to Bring World Peace

IIDB (Internet News Service) — Linda Billingsly is a perky, effervescent mousewife and mother of 11 (Catholic) who each morning must get her brood of rug rats fed and kicked out the door in time for school. Yet it’s no problem at all.

What’s her secret?

”Efferent, or instantaneous, cooking,” she explains with a perky smile.

She throws some eggs and bacon and other crap onto the stove and voila! We eat! The crap is cooked, with no time delay.

She then serves the swill to her brood of mewling miscreants.

“People assume that afferent cooking is true, that it takes time to cook shit,” Linda explains with a perky smile. “They assume this because that is what they have been taught by sacred science, and they can’t stand to have their precious world view challenged, even though it would save them ever so much time to cook efferently and get the brats out the fucking door.”

“Mahh!” one of the brats bellows, “this crap ain’t cooked! What the actual fuck, Ma?”

“Shut up!” Linda snaps with a brittle yet somehow still perky smile.

Linda says that when leading cooks and chefs examine efferent cooking and confirm the truth of it, world peace will ensue, because everyone will be fed instantly and therefore be content.

Meantime, Linda is switching to birth control.

 

[peacegirl]

I feel very sad about the news of Nancy Guthrie's kidnapping. The reason this is so disturbing to me is that the motivation to do this crime could never occur in the new world.

Diversity in makeup, character, personality, thought and response ensures that in practically any situation someone will do or say something wrong. Take this thread as an example.

What do you mean by "take this thread as an example?" Wrong is not the issue, DBT. Besides, no one has proven him wrong. Not one person. Pood is getting very nasty, and he's got everyone here to back him up. This is his MO in his effort to ruin this author. It's happening all over again. People can listen to this imposter all they want. They can hate me. They can call me names. They can make jokes at my expense. But it doesn't change anything because they haven't understood why the eyes cannot be a sense organ, according to his observations.

 

[pood]

Pood is getting very nasty, and he's got everyone here to back him up.

No. No one is backing me up. They are backing up facts. It’s nothing personal. People here understand that science is not about personalities or authority but about facts insofar as they can be determined,

You have no facts on your side,

 

[steve_bank]

Uhhh...I debunked his example of seeing lips move on the moon frmo Earth versus voice by radio.

You just ignore the refutations and questions.

Maybe your lifelong personal bias in favor of your fathter and his book has given you a metal block to learning.

Do you understand the examples of relativity I gave you? Any questions Pg?

Y0u are at the winter Olympics yachting a downhill skier. What you see is the postilion of skier as it was a short tie in the past due to speed of light.

If you are watching the Moon you see its position as it was about three seconds in the past. Over three sends it takes reflected Sunlight to reach the Earth the Earth has rotated, the Moon has moved in its orbit, and the Earth has moved in its orbit.

Any objections?

 

[peacegirl]

The problem is that there are no physical means or mechanisms by which real time/ instant vision could work. It would have to be magic vision.

Incorrect. There is no gap if you see the object in real time, because it meets the requirements of size and luminosity. You keep assuming that, although light travels, it is bringing the image of the object to our eyes because the object reflected that lightwave. If the light does not bring the image to us through space/time, then how do we see without it violating physics? Efferent vision. You keep going back to the idea that when light strikes an object it takes on the object’s chacteristics, but that is not what is happening if Lessans is right. Light reveals. It is a necessary condition of sight, but it does not bring anything to us.

There is always a gap between light emission or reflection and information acquisition by the eyes, processing by the brain and conscious representation in the form of sight: we see the object.

That is basically how it works. No real time/ instant vision, just a physical process.

Nooo. You are missing the entire claim. Light travels, but the eyes and brain work differently than previously thought. You have to give this author a break, or you will just keep repeating the same old mantra that there is no way for us to see without light traveling to us with the image (sorry bilby, but this is the only way I can explain it). You will never get it if you keep thinking in these terms, not because he was wrong, but because you refuse to entertain the idea that there is no violation of physics.

Light in fact has speed and travel time. Light is in fact radiated by the sun, stars, etc, and reflected by the moon and other dark objects, the objects all around us during daylight hours are illuminated by the sun, and the moon and stars by night. We see these things because they either radiate or reflect light.

Without light we cannot see.

Right. Who is saying otherwise?

Go into a dark room and you see nothing, flip the light switch and there it all is, the room is illuminated.

Agreed.

It's as simple as that. The eyes acquire light, the brain generates vision. The eyes don't see, that is the function of the brain.

The brain focuses the eyes to see the real world. The brain doesn't generate vision.

Who is disputing this? The brain is involved, but it does not explain how this occurs. It's all theoretical, not fact!

You are disputing it with the claim of instant vision/seeing. Claiming that things like stars are seen instantly without the time lag between light emission and acquisition by the eyes and brain.

By making the claim, you are trying to bypass the fundamental principles of physics.

How many times have I said this version of sight does NOT violate physics? The reason we don't see stars without a time lag is the same reason we don't see the moon without a time lag. Distance is not as much a factor as size and luminosity. If a star exists but can't be seen because it is too far away, a telescope won't help. Any celestial body has to be visible, however faint, for a telescope to collect the light and magnify it. The ACTUAL star has to be visible, not just light that was emitted light-years earlier, which present-day thinking believes is all that is necessary. To repeat: The star has to be within the field of view of the telescope for it to collect the emitted light. It cannot magnify something that isn't there. IOW, if a star is too far away, and therefore too dim for it to be seen, a telescope won't be able to give us any new information.

Stars radiate light. That's how we are able to see them. Our eyes detect light from the stars and our brain generates mental imagery of them in conscious form. Stars are luminous because they emit light.

Stars radiate light, true, but they are also a mixture of plasma, hydrogen, and other gases. Light that is radiated from them allows us to see what they consist of: MATTER. If Lessans is right, the image of the star is not being sent to our telescopes from light-years in the past. We see the star because we have developed a telescope that is 9 times stronger than the Hubble and can magnify very dim light in order to be able to view the actual star.

The second part of your explanation does not follow from the first part.

Could you point out where the second part doesn't follow?

We see the light that was radiated from the star and has travelled to our eyes. Luminosity depends on distance and the size of a star.

True.

For instance, proxima centauri is closer to us than Alpha Centauri, yet while we can see Alpha, Proxima is too dim to see with our eyes because it's a red dwarf that emits less light.

I'm not sure where this disproves his claim. Red dwarfs put out less light because they have less mass, even though they are closer to us.

 

[peacegirl]

Uhhh...I debunked his example of seeing lips move on the moon frmo Earth versus voice by radio.

You would see his lips move before hearing his voice on a radio.

You just ignore the refutations and questions.

Maybe your lifelong personal bias in favor of your fathter and his book has given you a metal block to learning.

No, you just think it has given me a mental block.

Do you understand the examples of relativity I gave you? Any questions Pg?

Nothing to do with his claim.

Y0u are at the winter Olympics yachting a downhill skier. What you see is the postilion of skier as it was a short tie in the past due to speed of light.

Yes, that's the present theory.

If you are watching the Moon you see its position as it was about three seconds in the past.

Why are you repeating the very thing being disputed?

Over three sends it takes reflected Sunlight to reach the Earth the Earth has rotated, the Moon has moved in its orbit, and the Earth has moved in its orbit.

Any objections?

If the image is not in the light, it doesn't matter if the Earth has rotated, or the Moon has moved in its orbit, because we are not seeing a delayed image in the light (if he is right).

 

[peacegirl]

Eyes do not take photographs,

The brain does. You have no understanding of how the brain works, so stop pretending that you do.

Dogs can recognize their human partners by sight alone, even on videos without any smell involved, as was shown to you years ago.

The lever experiment was a complete joke. Anyone can train a dog to learn to identify a pattern and get a treat. This is not true recognition.

 

[peacegirl]

Suggestions?

If Lessans had presented his ideas as a fictional story of a person and people enacting his philosophy we might be reading it today.

Scifi and other writers have presented their vision of society as fiction and garnered an audience.

The Null-A series by A.E. van Vogt is a classic Golden Age science fiction trilogy focusing on non-Aristotelian logic, General Semantics, and superhuman abilities. Centered on protagonist Gilbert Gosseyn, the books explore themes of identity, evolution, and interstellar conspiracy.

The World of Null-A - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Gilbert Gosseyn (pronounced go-sane), a man living in an apparent utopia where those with superior understanding and mental control rule the rest of humanity, wants to be tested by the giant Machine that determines such superiority. However, he finds that his memories are false. In his search for his real identity, he discovers that he has extra bodies that are activated when he dies (so that, in a sense, he cannot be killed), that a galactic society of humans exists outside the Solar System, a large interstellar empire wishes to conquer both the Earth and Venus (inhabited by masters of non-Aristotelian logic), and he has extra brain matter that, when properly trained, can allow him to move matter with his mind.

People may not realize how controversial the original Star Trek series was in the 60s. They framed social issues in scifi getting past the censors. And of course Twilight Zone, studies in humn nature.

Woulda Coulda Shoulda

The book is not fixable. It is pseudoscience.

You yourself can not speak to it, you dodge by saying it is too complex for words.

I never said it was too complex for words. I said that the concepts don't have a perfect word that would explain what he's talking about, so he used the word that came the closest. Why are you misinterpreting what I wrote?

The book is pseudoscience. Its been refuted by several.

The issue of responsibility and free will versus determinism IOW mortality is not new.

As I understand it compatabilism originated as a solution to the moral dilemma.

With modern genetics there are questions of how much of our behavior is genetic. Is there a violence gene? Ate some people more susceptble to adduction generically?

Here in Seattle years back drugs were decriminalized. Police could not pick up anyone publiclyusing drugs. I sat in nearby park wtatychingh a guy calmly shooting up.

It became epidemic. People ODing on door door step. Eventually it was walked back after public response.

The idea of no punishment makes absolutely no sense at all.

Way back I listened to a reporter who was allowed into an area taken over by Islamicists. He said there was no crime. No one locked doors. Harsh Sharia law.

 

[pood]

Uhhh...I debunked his example of seeing lips move on the moon frmo Earth versus voice by radio.

You would see his lips move before hearing his voice on a radio.

Nope. Wrong.

Do you not know that radio is light?

If you are watching the Moon you see its position as it was about three seconds in the past.

Why are you repeating the very thing being disputed?

Cuz it is correct.

Over three sends it takes reflected Sunlight to reach the Earth the Earth has rotated, the Moon has moved in its orbit, and the Earth has moved in its orbit.

Any objections?

If the image is not in the light, it doesn't matter if the Earth has rotated, or the Moon has moved in its orbit, because we are not seeing a delayed image in the light (if he is right).

Nobody ever said the “image is in the light.” This has been explained to you uncountable numbers of times.

 

[pood]

Eyes do not take photographs,

The brain does. You have no understanding of how the brain works, so stop pretending that you do.

As a matter of fact, I do.

Do you?

No, you have no clue whatsoever.

Such a pathetic performance.

Dogs can recognize their human partners by sight alone, even on videos without any smell involved, as was shown to you years ago.

The lever experiment was a complete joke. Anyone can train a dog to learn to identify a pattern and get a treat. This is not true recognition.

We showed you that dogs can recognize their hunan partners from photos and videos alone.

So sad that you choose to willfully wallow in ignorance,

 

[peacegirl]

Suggestions?

If Lessans had presented his ideas as a fictional story of a person and people enacting his philosophy we might be reading it today.

Maybe, but it's not fictional. Actually, his last book was called This is An Urgent Message From a Visitor To Your Planet, because he thought it might go over better by being an alien who came to help the Earthlings.

Scifi and other writers have presented their vision of society as fiction and garnered an audience.

The Null-A series by A.E. van Vogt is a classic Golden Age science fiction trilogy focusing on non-Aristotelian logic, General Semantics, and superhuman abilities. Centered on protagonist Gilbert Gosseyn, the books explore themes of identity, evolution, and interstellar conspiracy.

The World of Null-A - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Gilbert Gosseyn (pronounced go-sane), a man living in an apparent utopia where those with superior understanding and mental control rule the rest of humanity, wants to be tested by the giant Machine that determines such superiority. However, he finds that his memories are false. In his search for his real identity, he discovers that he has extra bodies that are activated when he dies (so that, in a sense, he cannot be killed), that a galactic society of humans exists outside the Solar System, a large interstellar empire wishes to conquer both the Earth and Venus (inhabited by masters of non-Aristotelian logic), and he has extra brain matter that, when properly trained, can allow him to move matter with his mind.

People may not realize how controversial the original Star Trek series was in the 60s. They framed social issues in scifi getting past the censors. And of course Twilight Zone, studies in humn nature.

Woulda Coulda Shoulda

The book is not fixable. It is pseudoscience.

You yourself can not speak to it, you dodge by saying it is too complex for words.

I never said it was too complex for words. I said that the concepts don't have a perfect word that would explain what he's talking about, so he used the word that came the closest. Why are you misinterpreting what I wrote?

The book is pseudoscience. Its been refuted by several.

Who are you talking about? Yourself? Pood? Bilby? Who else?

The issue of responsibility and free will versus determinism IOW mortality is not new.

As I understand it compatabilism originated as a solution to the moral dilemma.

I know how it originated, but it does nothing more than keep the status quo so they can hold people morally responsible. I get it, but the definition fails spectacularly. To say that people have free will if they are not addicts, don't have OCD, or don't have a gun to their head, does not in any way, shape, or form prove that we actually have the free will to do otherwise. It is a semantic shift by creating their own definition, which does nothing but keep cognitive/dissonance at bay.

With modern genetics there are questions of how much of our behavior is genetic. Is there a violence gene? Ate some people more susceptble to adduction generically?

People have different personalities and predispositions, but that in itself doesn't mean everyone with certain traits will become murderers. In fact, this law proves that these tendencies will stay latent when the environmental conditions change.

Here in Seattle years back drugs were decriminalized. Police could not pick up anyone publiclyusing drugs. I sat in nearby park wtatychingh a guy calmly shooting up.

It became epidemic. People ODing on door door step. Eventually it was walked back after public response.

The idea of no punishment makes absolutely no sense at all.

It makes no sense because you are looking at it incorrectly. Lessans never said we should suddenly stop blaming. Do you see why he urged the reader not to jump to conclusions, which is the very thing you're doing?

In our present world of free will, it is not difficult to imagine what would happen if suddenly all laws, government, and forms of punishment were withdrawn. Every potential thief and even those who never thought about stealing would have a field day, and nobody would be safe. Sectarian violence would increase, causing extreme chaos and destruction. We can only begin to imagine what an aggressive country would do if there were no other powers to control the desire to spread whatever that country desired to spread. But the moment mankind understands what it means that will is not free, which prevents the very things for which government came into existence, it proves, beyond a shadow of doubt, the reality of God — this amazing mathematical power. Everything was timed so perfectly that you must catch your breath in absolute amazement when you contemplate the magnificence of this mathematical equation, which includes not only the solar system and the exquisite relationship that exists between the planets, but man himself and all the evil and ignorance that ever existed.

Way back I listened to a reporter who was allowed into an area taken over by Islamicists. He said there was no crime. No one locked doors. Harsh Sharia law.

Yes, harsh punishment stops crime in some countries, but this knowledge gets amazing results without any blame or punishment. But before this can happen, anything that is redolent of advance blame has to be eliminated for this law to take effect. You have concluded that this kind of world is impossible based on what you see happening in this world, but you are incorrect.

 

[bilby]

Objects reflect light, but not in the way you think.

You don't seem to have a good grasp on what you purport to think, so understanding what I (or anyone else) thinks may be a touch overambitious for you.

Light travels, there is no argument here,

Good.

but if the eyes are a sense organ,

They are. And I am glad to see that you are beginning to consider the possibility.

they don't see the past. They see the present.

Time is not absolute; There is no "The present", because there are no preferred reference frames.

An individual observer sees only what is in her past; This is an unavoidable consequence of the fact that information cannot travel faster than lightspeed.

If it did, we could use that fact to determine what was going to happen in our future. Which we observably can't.

An observer can detect only those events in her past lightcone, and influence only those events in her future lightcone.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone

The entire hypersurface of any observer's present is inaccessable; We cannot see the present, only the past.

Distance and time are relative. All observers measure the speed of light in a vacuum to be a constant, regardless of how they move relative to each other.

This idea is as bizarre and as counterintuitive as your idea that vision is instant, but differs from your idea in that it can be demonstrated to be true.

Crazy ideas are not a problem for science and technology. We can and do profit from them. But only if they are true, which your crazy idea is not.


https://xkcd.com/808