LanceGary
07-02-2011, 16:32
see
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1888712007/ref=pe_5050_18686950_snp_dp
danbaron
08-02-2011, 09:00
To begin with, I admit, that I want, "free will", to exist.
(Even if from the science I know, I can't imagine how it could exist. Of course, there could be lots and lots of science, that no one on this planet currently knows about, correct?).
I feel negatively about what seems to me to be the idea of this book.
So, I'll criticize it.
But, I'll do it primarily because I like when we (all of us) discuss our points of view about various ideas.
Even when those points of view are polar opposites of each other.
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All I have to go on, is this description from Amazon.
Ethics of Luck: The story of a group of science students who build their own pacifist community
For those of us who have the misfortune of being determinists – those of us who have the misfortune of realizing that there’s no free-will, life can be bleak – very, very bleak. Our world is just a machine – a cold, chunk-a, chunk-a machine. It’s lonely, too. We learn right away that nobody wants to talk with us about determinism. And even if somebody did, it’s hard to find the right words to use. Determinism doesn’t have much of a vocabulary. This is the story of the Metadars – a group of science students who did indeed talk about determinism – who did indeed talk about their place in the chunk-a, chunk-a world. And when they couldn’t find the right words to use, they made-up new ones. And when they couldn’t find the right rules to live by, they made-up their own. This is the story of a group of science students who stared into the cold, bleak machine. They analyzed it, found-out how it worked, and then gradually taught themselves to be machinists. They invented new tools such as the ‘Fountain-Flush’. They invented new measuring sticks such as the ‘Genocide Slide’. Together they grew to accept and even enjoy their deterministic lives as they engineered their chunk-a, chunk-a world into a place of less violence, a place of less fear, and a place of less pain. Welcome to the community of the Metadars.
From the title, maybe we are supposed to be surprised that people who believe there is no free will, can have ethics, and, can be pacifists. If they have no free will, then, if they have ethics, it is because they have no choice. Likewise, for being pacifists.
I don't understand why the word, "Luck", is there. It seems to me, that if everything big enough to not be governed by quantum mechanics, is deterministic, then, science students who are deterministic machines (and live in a deterministic macro-universe), would have no personal experience with luck. In fact, I think for them, "luck", would be imaginary.
I have a problem with the phrase, "those of us who have the misfortune of realizing there is no free-will". I guess they are saying that whatever seems self-evident to them (I haven't seen any accepted proof that there is no free will.), automatically, must be true. And, if the universe is deterministic, what meaning does the word, "misfortune", have?
They write, "life can be bleak - very, very bleak". Since life is deterministic, there is no, "can be". "Can", implies possibilities. From their viewpoint, there are no possibilities. Life is exactly what it is, and could not be different.
If it's, "lonely", then, it would be impossible for it to be any other way for them. Since they are deterministic machines, theoretically, every feeling they would ever have, could be predicted at their births.
If, "it's hard to find the right words to use", that fact was also pre-determined.
If they, "did indeed talk about determinism", then, they had no choice but to do so.
When they, "made-up", "words" and "rules", again, they had no choice.
They, "stared", "analyzed", "gradually taught themselves", "invented". They, "grew to accept and even enjoy", "they engineered". All of these things had nothing whatsoever to do with them choosing to do so, because, according to their premise, they are incapable of choosing (or deciding) anything at all.
If their world became a place of, "less violence", "less fear", and, "of less pain", then, it could not have become anything else.
:mad::p
LanceGary
08-02-2011, 20:40
I'll respond to your interesting observations when I get chance. Here's a web site associated with this thread:
http://www.metadar.org/Join/join.html
Lance
danbaron
09-02-2011, 07:35
I looked at the web site.
Are the Metadars, like, halfway between a monastery and a cult?
I'm joking, but, I don't know exactly what to make of them.
For instance, I detect some strangeness in some of the definitions in the glossary, and also by the fact that the book was written by, "Secretary Michael".
Dan :o
LanceGary
09-02-2011, 13:25
I looked at the web site.
Are the Metadars, like, halfway between a monastery and a cult?
I'm joking, but, I don't know exactly what to make of them.
For instance, I detect some strangeness in some of the definitions in the glossary, and also by the fact that the book was written by, "Secretary Michael".
Dan :o
You're right. I think they are nutters.
With respect to free will I think Daniel dennett wrote this:
"Free will" is a certain highly organized system (agent) just
producing its own decisions (autonomy) as opposed to being completely
remote-controlled or whatever by thing(s) external to that system
(heteronomy). The belief in machine-like global laws, block-time, and
any other "predetermined fate" speculations doesn't alter the fact
that it is the bodily processes (system) of John Doe that is locally
making its own judgements. The former overarching items would be too
stupid, unaware, and incapable of even caring about John Doe's
existence, much less be dictating commands to such a tiny being from
their broad scale.
And if another human holds a gun to John Doe's head and tells him to
obey or else, it is still the brain of JD that must apprehend the
situation and spit-out a decision/action based upon it -- the bloody
gunman certainly can't patch his brain to JD's to perform such neural
processing for him. If JD happens to be an idiot in terms of
intelligence, then his "bad judgement" to not obey stands out all the
more as being a product of his free will: A decision made by the
biological system called John Doe, not some machine-like cosmos at
large in a presentism-based "doctrine of determinism" or some block-
universe at large in an eternalism-based "doctrine of determinism".