Behaviour report by the London school of economics

Sir_Humphrey

ninky wrote: »

the same reason it is harder to predict the results of the national lottery than it is to predict the results of tossing a coin. you are working with a lot more data and variables.

National lottery numbers and coin tossing (if both done correctly) are both impossible to predict.

Science is pretty successful at explaining complex systems, but is still in it's infancy in explaining the brain. The brain on the face of it has some properties that are still far beyond the most powerful supercomputer.

I don't want to agrue too much about things that cannot be proven, but I am most persuaded by emergent property dualism/anomalous monism as a theory of mind, which in my view supports a restricted version of libertarian free-will. However, I make no claim of actual knowledge on this.

ninky_2

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

National lottery numbers and coin tossing (if both done correctly) are both impossible to predict.

i meant once the initial process is instigated. i think if you had the capacity to study the variables involved you could predict them. in both cases they are simply responding to physical input. it's just impossible for our brains alone to predict the result. for example, it the coin is tossed in exactly the same way and all factors are otherwise equal the result would always be the same. likewise with the lottery. if the start in the same order and the same physical forces are exerted on them you would always get the same lottery results.

i'm not quite sure how the randomness works in the lottery. does a computer pick the balls or something?

Sir_Humphrey

ninky wrote: »

i meant once the initial process is instigated. i think if you had the capacity to study the variables involved you could predict them. in both cases they are simply responding to physical input. it's just impossible for our brains alone to predict the result. for example, it the coin is tossed in exactly the same way and all factors are otherwise equal the result would always be the same. likewise with the lottery. if the start in the same order and the same physical forces are exerted on them you would always get the same lottery results.

Well, that could be the case, and plenty of philosophers believe that to be the case - I remember having a similar conversation with one of my philosophy tutors who thought that was the case. However as things stand, it is not possible to say that is the case.

ninky wrote: »

i'm not quite sure how the randomness works in the lottery. does a computer pick the balls or something?

Actually, if a computer did pick the numbers, it would be non-random. That is part of the reason why they use those elaborate, million pound machines. Reconciling the concept of randomness with determinism requires some of the verbal trickery so beloved of Dennett. [Edit: to explain, Dennett argues that free will is compatible with determinism, but that free will is not the ability to take a different course of action).

We could spend months discussing this going around in circles, I think we have probably said all that is to be said now TBH unless I have missed something obvious.

lemonjelly

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

I think these arguments boil down to the fact that some people crave certainly, and some people can cope with not knowing the answer to certain things.

I am one of the latter.

Ninky's horror at the thought of having no free will is a rite of passage for First Year Philosophy undergraduates.

Good god YES! I remember this soooooo well!:D

lemonjelly

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

National lottery numbers and coin tossing (if both done correctly) are both impossible to predict.

Science is pretty successful at explaining complex systems, but is still in it's infancy in explaining the brain. The brain on the face of it has some properties that are still far beyond the most powerful supercomputer.

I don't want to agrue too much about things that cannot be proven, but I am most persuaded by emergent property dualism/anomalous monism as a theory of mind, which in my view supports a restricted version of libertarian free-will. However, I make no claim of actual knowledge on this.

Uh-oh, you mentioned the word!

ninky_2

so lemonjelly and sir humphrey did you both do philosophy degrees?

lir?

lemonjelly

ninky wrote: »

so lemonjelly and sir humphrey did you both do philosophy degrees?

lir?

I did a philosophy degree yes.

I actually wanted to do english, but didn't get in.

There is a ridiculous thing (imo of course) that people are expected to know what degree they want to do & what career for the next 40+ years.

I still don't have a clue!

The university offered me philosophy & I accepted. After accepting, I went & researched what I'd commited myself to for the next 3 years (NB something I would completely argue against in my job!)

I found it a really interesting & fascinating degree. & I still continue to read the books I read for the course, & also many related books too.

Sir Humphrey is also correct, in that most who quote dawkins knows diddley squat about philosophy. It's just that they've heard of him & think others have too, so he's worth quoting.

Ninky, if this thread is interesting, can I suggest an interesting read as being The Minds I by Hofstadter & Dennett http://www.amazon.co.uk/Minds-Fantasies-Reflections-Penguin-Science/dp/014006253X

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of essays etc & return to it a lot.

lemonjelly

To add to the above regarding rites of passage, there are certain books I've read, where the implications of what you are reading suddenly hit home so hard, that I've literally dropped the book, almost in fear, almost in sheer awe at the concept of what you are trying to understand.

I must've bored some of my friends rigid trying to explain the concepts to them. Most however did find conversations interesting, & I believe indirectly they helped me with my studies - as my friends weren't at university.

Sir_Humphrey

ninky wrote: »

so lemonjelly and sir humphrey did you both do philosophy degrees?

lir?

I did PPE.

I am not sure what the practical [sic] difference between property dualism and anomalous monism. I suppose the former is the position if you are trying to argue from the mind outwards and the latter if you are arguing from the real world inwards.

It is certainly not a belief in any sort of ghost in the machine. There is an interesting line recently developed by Peter King (who briefly tutored me in ethics) and others that argues that viewing Cartesian dualism as a ghost in the machine is to misunderstand what Descartes was trying to say.

Monism is probably the "establishment" position in analytic philosophy, but that could be changing.

lostinrates

ninky wrote: »

so lemonjelly and sir humphrey did you both do philosophy degrees?

lir?

Rather obviously, I would have thought!, not. I do know a lot of philosophers though..I'd rather not expand on this on the open forum though.

edit: going back to uni/doing something academic..has been another recent suggestion made. I don't really fancy it tbh....I'm just not ''there'' emotionally to do an undergrad degree full time, nor am I intellectually/with memory there to progress in my old or a related subject.

I might OU, or audit a course somewhere when we move. Not going to do it unless my heart is in it. secnd edit: tbh my brian isn't upto it IMO. unless I read ''insert insult-subject of choice''