DoomYoshi wrote:Unfortunately, this doesn't answer why, it only answers how. It can't answer why the tilt of the earth is that way, or why there is any earth at all. Science can only answer how, what, where or when questions. It can't answer who or why questions.
But some will point to people. We can't know why the Sun burns, but we can try to answer why a man stabbed his wife. The only reason we can answer that question is because the man has will. He can make a choice to not stab his wife. If we don't accept that he has a will, then it's useless to ask why, we can only ask how it came to be that he stabbed his wife.
Those of you who have read my posts the past few years probably know where this is going. Things happen due to three possible hows: fate, fortune or free will.
Let me stop you right there. This is an assertion you make, but it's certainly not proven. Repeating it doesn't make it any more proven.
Even assuming that those three are an exhaustive list (...which I'm not sure they are. For starters, where does chaos fit in? Are you just labeling chaos as 'fortune'?) there's no reason to assume that they need to be mutually exclusive. Most things I observe occur for a multiplicity of causes acting together. If I slide off the road, it's because the chaotic swirl of the atmosphere caused black ice at that particular spot (fortune) but also because I was twiddling with the radio instead of paying attention to the road (free will) and also because when I went to get my snow tires put on the mechanic had a heart attack and didn't finish the job (fate). All of those things are legitimate causes, because if ANY of those conditions weren't true, the ultimate event would not have happened.
But even assigning those three labels to those three inputs is not definitive. The atmosphere is largely chaotic (fortune) but it is also influenced by predictable inputs from the sun (fate) and also modified by human activities (free will). For every event, you can find multiple cause-inputs, and for each cause-input you can find multiple cause-sub-inputs, and for most events those inputs will fall into two or all three of your categories. I suspect that even with unlimited computing power, you could not construct a model that would adequately describe all the causes of all observable events.
DoomYoshi wrote:If fate and fortune describe all the natural and scientific things then it necessarily follows that free will is a non-scientific thing.
Again, not a provable assumption. For every decision, a group of neurons has to fire. Some of it is pure instinct, genetically programmed. Some of it is random environmental input. But some of it is willingly choosing to reprogram our brains. Habits are a real thing; neurons will grow to make a repetitive action easier. However, one can change habits; and the neurons will grow into new patterns. That is an exercise of will. Note, I'm just saying "will" -- I have no idea if it's "free" will or not. Will sure feels like free will, but it might be an illusion. I can't think of any experiment which would conclusively prove that my will is free or not.
The existence of free will is something I consider neither conclusively provable nor conclusively disprovable. And like most unanswered questions, it's great fodder for drunken debates in a university pub, but it has no bearing on real life. Any system of thought which insists on answering unanswerable questions as a precondition for going any further is dead at the starting line.
As someone trained in scientific thought, I can only act in accordance with the best evidence I have available. I know full well that the conclusions I reach might get blown out of the water by the next great discovery, but then again they might not. I can't waste time worrying about things I don't know or can't answer; I can only work with what I "know" or have a tentative answer for.
DoomYoshi wrote:For the last time, it's not sophistry. Seriously, record every conversation you have for a day. Then afterwards write down how much content is based on objective truth. You will realize that 95% of what people say is non-scientific truth. Yet some people claim that they only believe in science. These people are liars.
It is sophistry. I don't even know where to start with that paragraph. For starters, 95% of conversations are not about belief systems. 95% of conversations are just social grooming, monkeys making friendly noises so that other monkeys feel comfortable around them. The actual content of those conversations is not particularly important. The important thing is that we are a tribal species and our survival instinct requires that we frequently remind the tribe of our membership status, lest we be forgotten at feeding time.
One could probably go weeks at a time without any mention of anything that really matters to them. But, focusing on those conversations that are, you're being needlessly slanderous to say "those people are liars." A more accurate statement would be, "those people probably don't have the training to accurately describe their own thought process." Neither philosophy nor psychology are mandatory things to study, either by social custom or of necessity or in our educational system. They are hobbies for the minority of us who care to engage in them.
