Free Will Or Determinism

Determinism all the way. Even if our choices are predetermined they are being made. The feeling that we can control our fate and such I believe has a positive effect on that. If everyone thought they couldn't change anything alot would probably end up doing nothing or not trying. It would change who they were

Not really.

Damn. I was going to get into what would be the root of determinism (ie the natural laws), or the sub atomic, for example you say determinism, which would mean our choices are pre-determined by our brain, which is determined from neurons (in a collective sense), which are determined by the sub atomic and on and on till we get small enough into the Quantum world, where things actually become in-deterministic...

Only cause our current understanding shows it as such. At one time or another pretty much no one saw any direct causes to anything... ohter than Zeus getting angry

WE think we know. WE could be wrong

Well and I'm not fond of very theoretical stuff.

Both! In the realm of natural phenomenon (ie earthquakes) it's determinism all the way. On the other hand when it come to rational beings there is an amount of free will. Not the ability so much to choose to be in an earthquake or not, but once it occurs what actions you choose to take.

I personally find philosophy without science boring (akin to an Einstein quote), but everyone accepts it to a degree whether they realize it or not, especially when a pill saves their life or they land on the moon.

“Another anime without a definite ending.”

The reference to the ‘one truth’ in the anime is a dead give away. Western thought is constructed upon linear thinking. Eastern Thought is based upon circular thinking. In the the east they know that everything is circular having no end and no beginning. This anime reminds me a lot of Gasaraki. It leads the viewer into a narrow corridor and the viewer’s anticipation is due to the effect Western thinking has on the brain believing that ‘we are going to get somewhere.’ A concept touched upon by one of the greatest philosophical minds of the 20th Century Alan Watts. “You are all there was and ever will be.”

If you are upset with the ending it is because you are stuck in a narrow corridor looking for the ending. Everything is a play on words. The matrix literally translates to the word for great mother in the Navajo language. The Native Americans understood this too. People cannot be ‘con’trolled if they know the ‘one truth’ that we are all energy and that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

Just a little food for thought here as well. The English language is the language of free radicals, so next time you are bored in this thing we call eternity just look for every word that has a ‘con’ in front of it. It will tell what beliefs, ideas, ‘con’structs are false beliefs, etc. I.E. ‘con’stitution, ‘con’sciousness, ‘con’trol—there are no such things in the universival mind (eastern thought or thought of the whole being which is vague) only in the ego of men (western thought or thought of the individual which is very specific but narrow) do such things exist! To understand anime you have to understand yin and yang concepts.

The Ying Yang symbol, like much of Taoism, can be difficult to comprehend for westerners, because western philosophy has its base in platonic duality. In our dualistic system, there is good and evil, right and wrong, left and right, heaven and hell, Jesus and Satan. ‘BIG O and BIG FAU’ So when discussing philosophy, westerners tend to break things down into either/or. Something is either good or evil. Moral or immoral.

Eastern philosophy as a whole is not dualistic. There is no supreme God, nor any ultimate evil. It is a much more organic viewpoint of the universe.

The Yin Yang does NOT represent good and evil. An easterner would tell you that too much darkness is blinding, but so is too much light. However, do not construe this as morally ambiguity, they do not associate light and dark with good and evil. In fact, in Eastern philosophy, the color white is the representation of evil, since white represents emptiness. But white is also the color of purity, which is consistent with the organic nature of eastern philosophy.

The light and dark of the yin yang represent the masculine and feminine. The light is the masculine, which represents reason, logic, intelligence, action, and cold heartedness. The dark is the feminine, which represents passions, emotions, wisdom, non-action, and rage. The Yin Yang represents the ideal harmony between the two, which is complete balance between one’s masculine light and feminine dark.

Taoism may have some folk shamanistic aspects to it, but philosophically Taoism is non-deistic. Without a God that issues moral proclaimations, actions become defined not according to adherence to a canon, but according to circumstance. In Taoist religion, demons are not necessarily evil, they represent playful abandon, which in human action can either be cruelty or joviality. As opposed to Christian dualism, Taoism has much more in common with Aristotilean ethics, which preaches that there is no set in stone laws of ethics, only the ends which the action undertakes to achieve, and the means which one uses to achieve the ends.

Another important aspect of Taoism is action vs non-action. That does not necessarily mean ambitiousness vs laziness; a taoist would say that there are times when action needs to be taken, and there are times when non-action needs to be taken. A proverb in the Tao Te Ching states “The way to settle muddy water is to do nothing”. This also applies to politics, which early Taoist philosophers were heavily involved in. According to the Tao Te Ching: “A poor ruler is someone whose actions are despised by the people. A good ruler is someone whose actions are loved by the people. The best ruler is someone whose actions go unnoticed by the people”. So a taoist might say that Warren Harding’s racket would be an example of a bad leader, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal social programs would be an example of a good leader, and Calvin Coolidge’s refusal to sign new laws and his habit of spending hours of the day in inactivity would represent the best kind of leader. We love Franklin Roosevelt for his actions, but Calvin Coolidge was probably the better president because he did not choose to interfere with the people’s lives.

The concept of non-action as a means of improvement is a central concept to Taoist politics as well as taoist ethics. The wise man carefully weighs when it is time for action and when it is time for non-action, understanding that both action and non-action can lead to either improvement or disaster.

I hope I didn’t get too long-winded, but Eastern Philosophy is radically different than Western philosophy and there are a lot of important differences in mindsets that need to be discussed when talking about the yin yang.

And perhaps in keeping this all in mind you can see that the series BIG O was actually about “you” and your choice just like when Roger is sinking to the bottom and he realizes everything was his choice to begin with. It had nothing to do with the ‘con’structs of his world. This is the ultimate understanding of free will and living in the NOW–infinity. As long as you are guided by choice that adheres to you past or future, belief system, etc. You will always be trapped by the situation that seems ‘real’ The only thing that is real is “you” and “you” are infinite just like the universe around you.

I mean more like easily observable and repeatable and such. Not mostly proven thru math and logic

And as far as the multiverse theory goes, the only part I really tend to reject is when someone concludes from the idea that there are an infinite number of worlds that every possible world exists. I am a pretty firm believer that we cannot jump from infinite to every. Hell, if we rolled a dice an infinite amount of times, it is POSSIBLE that we roll a 1 every time...

Your link isn't even a link! But I meant more easily observable

Its really really really observable, doesn't even need a microscope.

Title: Triple-slit experiment confirms reality is quantum

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19215-tripleslit-experiment-confirms-reality-is-quantum.html

Its amazing how many scientist hold onto multiverse theory and string theory, but this a belief in the purest sense, as much as it is believed god exist, for there is absolutely no reason, vie test or empirical evidence to believe that string theory or multiverse theory, explains anything at all. No joke. Even read Brian Greene's an elegant universe, he states there is no evidence.

There is no reason to believe 11 dimensions exist for example, the only reason they postulate 11 is because it helps the math of the theory, there is no observable, or mathmatical model this helps, outside of the theory. They've built up so much around a theory its really sad. Physics in a large part is kinda dead.

The short version, it proves everything is both a wave and a particle, so I would type in wave of probability and quantum mechanics into google search. Yes referring you to a link is the only way to make this a short version (this gets complex). If you want the long version I'll probably be bored enough to type it out for you in a bit.

Yea, I have heard what you are saying by several professors I have to talked to about the issue. But even they cannot dismiss the idea. My whole point was pretty much just arguing against those who think that infinite worlds (or universes- maybe semantics) entails every possible world. I really don't know enough about the actual theory (scientifically) to debate it. But I do think that modal logic dictates that infinite does not entail every.

I can't decide if its healthy for them to hold onto it or not. I mean science advances even with misses, but when it gets to a point to where you're basically remodeling the universe (giving it 11 dimensions) your not exactly seeing a miss for a miss, but rather doing patchwork. String theory has been around for along time...decades...and it still has no evidence....but people still believe it...and they're the worlds smartest people, I just don't get it.