An Intelligent Discussion on Nature

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Originally Posted by gregs656

You kinda just made my point, we all believe we have free will, but pretty much every bit of psychology suggests that our actions are determined by what's going on around us - not just based on our past but also the present situation. This allows for progress as well, you know, just because our actions may be influenced by what it going on around us - it does not mean we all make the same choices. Even reactionary behavior can be explained with out free will.

If free will exists, what's doing the willing?

IMO, the less we know about 'nature' the more we will learn in the long run - we can cure a whole lot of ills by changing the way our 'developed' society runs.

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Obviously, there are certain parameters in which decisions have to be made. But this does not abrogate the ability to choose between what is available. Also - revolutions, for example, show our ability to break from societal conditions and norms.

IMO- the less we know about "nature" the less we know. We can cure a lot of ills by changing the way developed society runs, but you have to know what is before you know what can be changed. It does no good to say that all our transportation woes would be solved if we used our wings. Stark ignorance helps how? Knowledge about our natural limitations will provide a basis on which to develop ways to overcome them. (Antibiotics, for example, require a fair bit of knowledge for proper application, and have done quite a bit of good for society at large.)

What does the choosing? Our brains.

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Originally Posted by Elliette

Obviously, there are certain parameters in which decisions have to be made. But this does not abrogate the ability to choose between what is available. Also - revolutions, for example, show our ability to break from societal conditions and norms.

IMO- the less we know about "nature" the less we know. We can cure a lot of ills by changing the way developed society runs, but you have to know what is before you know what can be changed. It does no good to say that all our transportation woes would be solved if we used our wings. Stark ignorance helps how? Knowledge about our natural limitations will provide a basis on which to develop ways to overcome them. (Antibiotics, for example, require a fair bit of knowledge for proper application, and have done quite a bit of good for society at large.)

What does the choosing? Our brains.

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Revolutions do not demonstrate free will. Revolutions have happened since dot, you can see a revolution forming - you can predict if a group of people are oppressed to a certain point, they will revolt - it is already determined. Same with any choice you make, you might have a choice, but every other factor in your life will predetermine your choice.

Do we need to know, I would argue there are many many many groups of people who lived in harmony with this planet for thousands and thousands of years and they didn't seem to require vast amounts of knowledge on genetics or fat people dying to figure out some thing was wrong. They didn't need a solution because they never had a problem. It is not stark ignorance, it is just another brand of knowledge. A shift in culture would solve a lot of problems.

Trying to overcome our natural limitations is something we should not be trying to do anyway. Modern medicine might not do as much good as you imagine - caused a lot of problems.

I didn't ask what did the choosing, I asked what did the willing.

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Originally Posted by gregs656

Do we need to know, I would argue there are many many many groups of people who lived in harmony with this planet for thousands and thousands of years and they didn't seem to require vast amounts of knowledge on genetics or fat people dying to figure out some thing was wrong. They didn't need a solution because they never had a problem. It is not stark ignorance, it is just another brand of knowledge. A shift in culture would solve a lot of problems.

Trying to overcome our natural limitations is something we should not be trying to do anyway. Modern medicine might not do as much good as you imagine - caused a lot of problems.

I didn't ask what did the choosing, I asked what did the willing.

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Well, I would point out that people didn't actually live for for very long during those thousands of years, they lived for a couple of decades, not often more than three. Yes, there were people living here for thousands of years, but in a pretty crappy way. You seem to think they had some knowledge we've lost, and you're half right. They knew how to track game and which berries were poisonous, but they didn't know how to keep from getting gangrene from a small cut, or how to prevent malaria.

To say that they didn't need a soloution because they never had a problem sounds a bit silly. Infant mortality, malnutrition, disease, predation, parisites, Oh my gosh I could go on for pages listing all of the problems our ancestors faced.

And "living in harmony with this planet", what does that even mean? Do animals really live in harmony with the planet? Bears, deer, racoons, newts? They sure don't think so. They struggle to survive, just like our pre-historic ancestors. Yeah, maybe you like to look at the bushmen of the Kalahari and think of them as the "noble savages", but I guarantee when one of them has an impacted wisdom tooth, he's damned happy to visit a modern dentist. Yes, untreated, it can be fatal. Literally.

Yes, a shift in culture would solve a lot of problems. But what sort of shift do you mean? Back to nature? No thank you. I prefer the curses of modern society, low infant mortality, antibiotics, and a triple bipass when I'm 70. By every measure, human life has improved drasticaly thanks to our knowledge of nature.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound so ranty, but I get my nose out of joint when I hear people poo-pooing the fantastic advances we've made in the past few thousand years. Yeah, cars pollute too damned much, kids watch too much tv, and I eat too much bacon fat. But let's not look to askance at what the scientific method has dropped in our laps.


And when I excercise my free will, I am the one doing the willing. You may as well ask if human thought is possible. Yes, clearly it is, as we all seem to be doing a pretty fair ammount of it. Without will, there could be no thought.

What Mr. Sixpack said.

good discussion folks, carry on.

One other item is that nature will and has carried on without humans. By understanding nature, and science in most repsects, will help us to live within it.

The scientific method is a good thing in my personal opinion, I also happen to like the engineering method also.

Regarding Nature vs. (or interaction with is better) Nurture; my boy Marlow is tenacious by nature as evidenced in the video below. At 14 months now he is almost able to walk up and down stairs on his own. His legs are just too short to make the leap on most stairs. Now we could have discouraged this level of determination in many ways or encouraged it, but we tend to simply give him emotional support for whatever he is concerned with whether he should do it or not. A parent more concerned with keeping a child in line might have anegtive nurturing effect on the child's nature.

YouTube - First Steps

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Originally Posted by joesixpack

Well, I would point out that people didn't actually live for for very long during those thousands of years, they lived for a couple of decades, not often more than three. Yes, there were people living here for thousands of years, but in a pretty crappy way. You seem to think they had some knowledge we've lost, and you're half right. They knew how to track game and which berries were poisonous, but they didn't know how to keep from getting gangrene from a small cut, or how to prevent malaria.

To say that they didn't need a soloution because they never had a problem sounds a bit silly. Infant mortality, malnutrition, disease, predation, parisites, Oh my gosh I could go on for pages listing all of the problems our ancestors faced.

And "living in harmony with this planet", what does that even mean? Do animals really live in harmony with the planet? Bears, deer, racoons, newts? They sure don't think so. They struggle to survive, just like our pre-historic ancestors. Yeah, maybe you like to look at the bushmen of the Kalahari and think of them as the "noble savages", but I guarantee when one of them has an impacted wisdom tooth, he's damned happy to visit a modern dentist. Yes, untreated, it can be fatal. Literally.

Yes, a shift in culture would solve a lot of problems. But what sort of shift do you mean? Back to nature? No thank you. I prefer the curses of modern society, low infant mortality, antibiotics, and a triple bipass when I'm 70. By every measure, human life has improved drasticaly thanks to our knowledge of nature.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound so ranty, but I get my nose out of joint when I hear people poo-pooing the fantastic advances we've made in the past few thousand years. Yeah, cars pollute too damned much, kids watch too much tv, and I eat too much bacon fat. But let's not look to askance at what the scientific method has dropped in our laps.


And when I excercise my free will, I am the one doing the willing. You may as well ask if human thought is possible. Yes, clearly it is, as we all seem to be doing a pretty fair ammount of it. Without will, there could be no thought.

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So what people didn't live very long? Are you saying that longer = better? Why? What's wrong with dieing at 45 if you expect to die at 45, surely that is no different from expecting to die at about 80 and dieing at 80. It is only a modern view of life that makes us believe longer is better. They actually do know how to prevent malaria, I've picked the plant my self. Gangrene would be treated the same as it is here I imagine, with amputation.

And yes, they do live in harmony, mostly because they struggle and they die. They take what they need and not more, they don't farm on an intensive basis and end up laying waste to huge regions - they do what they need to and nothing more - and sometimes they can't get that and they die - and no one bats an eye lid because that's just how it's meant to be.

I don't think of any one as 'noble savages', and he sure is glad to visit a modern dentist, but that doesn't mean he should, or that he will be any better off in the long run - he will die one day, that day was probably as good as any other.

Sure, i selfishly enjoy those things as well, but that's all it is - selfishness. I do not believe we are any better off, and I think that using any measure is the wrong way to do it. I would argue that the west will burn out in a relatively short space of time, this life style has no longevity to it - we are already starting to see that.

I'm not poo-pooing anything, what we have at the moment is absolutely astonishing, it will, however - be our down fall. I appreciate these are deeply emotive issues and it takes quite a lot to twist your mind round it, but think about it. Think of the huge problems that 'development' has brought, look at population pyramids and ask your self how long our culture can last how it is at the moment, then ask your self how it lasted for all that time.

Think of what we are starting to realise now, think how much of a buzz word sustainability is - there are people who have been getting it right for so long.

I'd love for you to explain that last paragraph, or even better back it up with ANY evidence. Why do you consider will and thought to be mutually inclusive concepts? It fascinates me that I said that every one believes we have free will, or at least that's true in the west, but there is no evidence and since I said that - every person who has picked up on that point has effectively said 'Don't be silly, of course we have free will, I will my self to do things all the time'

There is certainly a lot to be said for going back to nature, the beautiful thing about it is neither you or I have any say in it. It WILL happen, perhaps not in the traditional way, but it's almost an inevitability.

What, in theory, would be satisfactory evidence for free will?

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Originally Posted by jcd

What, in theory, would be satisfactory evidence for free will?

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Well, it would be almost impossible to prove free will. IMO to start with you would have to prove dualism - the idea that the mind and body are separate, or rather than there are nonphysical aspects to the mind - a soul if you like.

However, there are still problems with that. A deterministic universe would obviously not allow for the idea of free will, but nor would a random one - there would be no 'will' behind your actions. Even with dualism you would have to prove that this non-physical mind had some influence over the physical one - providing the will and not simply unpredictability.

If you cannot prove dualism, then the whole idea falls apart and it would seem what we experience as free will is the result of unpredictable behavior of a complex brain.

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Originally Posted by jcd

What, in theory, would be satisfactory evidence for free will?

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non-predictability should suffice