cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
Logic is only as good as its premises.
The Junk Drawer
- Thread starter Jimdamick
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DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
It depends on the purpose of the exercise, objective knowledge or subjective enlightenment. With high resolution MRI scanners and the other instruments of science, there is less distance between the two in this realm, Buddhist monks (1000s of hours of training) actively cooperate with scientists in this area. Then again many don't look at Buddhism as a religion but more as an ancient system of mental training, psychology and moral philosophy.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
I’m suggesting that your “and proved it with logic” is overreach. Siddhartha was a man of his time and place, and nobody, even an exceptional mind like his, can effectively operate outside that cultural set of premises.
(also: logic is purely objective. Adding subjective elements exceeds logic.)
Fogdog
Well-Known Member
It's a decent model to use when trying to predict what other people will do. It's just that I know of times when I made choices, so as with all good models, it's useful but wrong. The Theory of Relativity is another example of a good model.
Nobody can ever know what another person is thinking so you might be correct when using your model of the Budda or whatever that Stanford guy's name is but, can still be wrong at the core of your belief.
If you want to believe it is absolutely true then you are on the path toward absolutism. I don't think you are very far down that path but you have have made absolutist statements many times in this forum, so I put you on the "be wary of what he says" category of absolutists that I know.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Very true, but many have remarked he had an amazingly modern and logical mind for the times in which he lived. He actually only promised to end dukkha, or suffering as it is translated, but it might mean discontentment also. Like the Greek philosopher's, thoughts and ideas must be tested against reality, but that had to wait for millennia. I will say this though, many of the scientists who have studied Buddhism and meditation were captivated by it at one level or another, not the religious part though.
Fogdog
Well-Known Member
Because scientists 
.
People can believe what they want. If you want to believe there is no free will, nobody is going to stop you. It's your choice to make.
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cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
In fairness, Buddha himself taught that there is no soul, and death brings dissolution.
The reincarnation claptrap is the usual sediment of religion that a big new idea picks up on the way. Which is why technical Buddhists can engage in genocide, like in today’s Myanmar. Buddha would have been heartbroken.
Sorta like the disconnect between what Jesus said and Catholic dogma. Crusades.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
The Buddha explicitly discards the absolute free will or ultimate self-control or ultimate bearers of moral responsibility, but not the minimal power of free will, self-control or moral responsibility; and so, his view shifts from the agent causation (independent ownership) to the causal sequence of impersonal ...Dec 12, 2017Because scientists
People can believe what they want. If you want to believe there is no free will, nobody is going to stop you. It's your choice to make.
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Freedom of the Will and No-Self in Buddhism - SpringerLink
printer
Well-Known Member
"The Buddha taught that most of us are not free at all but are being perpetually jerked around -- by attractions and aversions; by our conditioned, conceptual thinking; and most of all by karma."
www.learnreligions.com
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Wonder if believers in Buddha vary in beliefs as in other religions? I have the feeling, yes. People are people all over.
What Do Buddhists Believe About Free Will?
Free will is a huge component of much of western philosophy and religion. What does Buddhism have to say about free will?
Wonder if believers in Buddha vary in beliefs as in other religions? I have the feeling, yes. People are people all over.
Fogdog
Well-Known Member
OK, I'm good with a cheat code. There is no free will unless one exercises it.
Sativied
Well-Known Member
Aside from the God and heaven/hell related questions good questions (imo there’s never a good reason to indulge in monotheis abrahamic mythology when it comes to trying to understand the nature of reality), but the one above is definitely in my top 10. What happens when you truly realize there is no spoon.
While perhaps relatively god-like, there are more reasonable options. Like our descendants. We’re not far from creating a sim at the level of detail and complexity we are in. “Years” is just something we perceive. More likely in the eyes of those ‘gods’, our universe is like a sky flower for us last night, over before you know. This is where I i-apparent-rl I make this bang and fizzle sound combined with a hand gesture that doesn’t even look like fireworks.
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DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
It enables conscious choices, the foundations of not just morality and ethics, but of logic and reason too. However, what comes into our conscious minds is governed by subconscious processes, conditioning and previous thoughts. The concept of free will like instinctive conscious duality has survival value.
Sativied
Well-Known Member
Free will ≠ freedom of action (the power to freely express the will one already has in action).
So what you’re restating in different wording is “I believe in free will and so should you”. Or “Your free will is your choice..” - Ayn Rand
Appreciate any effort of reasonable people trying to understand what‘s wrong with religious folk and Trump supporters but ”if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” People can believe what they want… good one
But, can they choose what it is they want to believe? Can they will the will?
Buddha did not quite discuss free will in the same terms it's debated in Western philosophy and influenced western society. In Buddhism there’s no self, and as a logical consequence no free will. That said, Nietzsche despite his poor sources of Buddhism liked it much better than christianity (mind you that bar is so low it’s measured in negative units) and he more so than most western great philosophers agrees with certain views. Polar opposites on other things like desire. If there’s no free will you can’t will yourself to have no desire. It’s only natural to follow your instincts.
Anyway, as a free will believer, what are your thoughts about electrical components gaining free will?
Or more importantly, let’s assume magats and far-right nazi types have no free will, bevel ist bevel, how do we stop them and the leaders they manifest?
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
That is one of the Big Ones.
Only non-snappy answer I can imagine is:
outlast and outvote them. I think we are at that place where the price of freedom begins with steadfast vigilance and goes onto resolute but legitimate action. The end must not justify the means.
printer
Well-Known Member
More reasonable options? Why does it have to be reasonable. Read a SF book years ago and there was a local god in the Earth vicinity (from what I recall they were not spacefaring yet) and he got to make the rules, hailed down fire and brimstone when needed, Then in another galaxy there was a different god with different 'desires'. They were just advanced beings that each had their own little sandboxes to play in to amuse themselves. Then there was the book where god was asleep. He absolutely adored the fine thread count of his sheets and there was nothing better than freshly laundered ones.
While not the same book, I just looked up The Master and Margarita (translated from Russian), I thought it was but now remember the book being a large softcover (not bad for 45 years). The one with god sleeping not TMAM. TMAM is about the devil going to Moscow it is a good read if anyone is inclined.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
A New Kind of AI Copy Can Fully Replicate Famous People. The Law Is Powerless.
New AI-generated digital replicas of real experts expose an unnerving policy gray zone. Washington wants to fix it, but it’s not clear how.
www.politico.com
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
A thought:Free will ≠ freedom of action (the power to freely express the will one already has in action).
So what you’re restating in different wording is “I believe in free will and so should you”. Or “Your free will is your choice..” - Ayn Rand
Appreciate any effort of reasonable people trying to understand what‘s wrong with religious folk and Trump supporters but ”if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” People can believe what they want… good one
But, can they choose what it is they want to believe? Can they will the will?
Buddha did not quite discuss free will in the same terms it's debated in Western philosophy and influenced western society. In Buddhism there’s no self, and as a logical consequence no free will. That said, Nietzsche despite his poor sources of Buddhism liked it much better than christianity (mind you that bar is so low it’s measured in negative units) and he more so than most western great philosophers agrees with certain views. Polar opposites on other things like desire. If there’s no free will you can’t will yourself to have no desire. It’s only natural to follow your instincts.
Anyway, as a free will believer, what are your thoughts about electrical components gaining free will?
Or more importantly, let’s assume magats and far-right nazi types have no free will, bevel ist bevel, how do we stop them and the leaders they manifest?
what if the question of free will is not a y/n but more nuanced? I find the idea attractive. Not sure if inevitably.
Fogdog
Well-Known Member
I simply know that I've made choices during my life that made all the difference in where I am today. Nobody can tell me that I didn't.Free will ≠ freedom of action (the power to freely express the will one already has in action).
So what you’re restating in different wording is “I believe in free will and so should you”. Or “Your free will is your choice..” - Ayn Rand
Appreciate any effort of reasonable people trying to understand what‘s wrong with religious folk and Trump supporters but ”if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” People can believe what they want… good one
But, can they choose what it is they want to believe? Can they will the will?
Buddha did not quite discuss free will in the same terms it's debated in Western philosophy and influenced western society. In Buddhism there’s no self, and as a logical consequence no free will. That said, Nietzsche despite his poor sources of Buddhism liked it much better than christianity (mind you that bar is so low it’s measured in negative units) and he more so than most western great philosophers agrees with certain views. Polar opposites on other things like desire. If there’s no free will you can’t will yourself to have no desire. It’s only natural to follow your instincts.
Anyway, as a free will believer, what are your thoughts about electrical components gaining free will?
Or more importantly, let’s assume magats and far-right nazi types have no free will, bevel ist bevel, how do we stop them and the leaders they manifest?
The usefulness of a model based upon the assumption of no free will applies to the actions of others. You cannot know what I'm thinking but you can observe what I've said and done to infer what I'll do next. At its simplest, a model that uses past events to predict what a person will do is probably pretty good. Like predicting the weather based upon the weather today. It's not always going to be right but is a workable model as long as people are alert to indications when the model is sending an error.
Because I don't believe in fate or determinism, I can't or won't answer your question regarding MAGA or Nazis. They have free will and I believe everybody can change. But I don't really care what they believe or what their value systems are. Let the justice system judge them according to their actions. For those that violate the law, we have plenty of prison space for them. As that Stanford guy described incarceration within the framework of "no free will" model, think of it as quarantine.
Regarding machine "intelligence". What we call AI today is not I. It's a statistical stochastic empirical model that is based upon a large database of observations of whatever the system is programmed to process. It can be human speech or human behavior but it can be weather, traffic, supply chains, crops, whatever the system is designed to analyze and the data that is fed into it. When people communicate with generative speech AI, like a mirror, it casts a reflection in the form of speech. Its speech appears conscious to a human observer but only appears to be conscious because our minds see things in it that trigger this belief. It's just a program and it does what the people who programmed the computer designed it to do. It doesn't think, it doesn't have intelligence, it has no mind.
Which gets us to the question that I find interesting. What is the mind? What is consciousness? I don't think anybody can answer that right now, so I'm listening and watching that area of science/technology/knowledge develop. There are plenty of observations and convincing data to allow us to conclude that consciousness does not reside in any place in our bodies. There is no observable consciousness without a brain but there is no part of the brain where it resides.
Why the Brain Is Not at All like a Computer
As soon as you assume that each neuron is a microprocessor, says Danilov, you assume that there is a programmer. There is no programmer in the brain; there are no algorithms in the brain. However…
mindmatters.ai
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Fogdog
Well-Known Member
Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams (RIP). Odin really liked the muslin sheets that lined his bed at the old folks home. Thor was not amused. It was a case that Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency was working. One of the sub plots involved his refrigerator that he and his housekeeper were dueling over who would clean it. (spoiler alert) The refrigerator eventually exploded when the contents of the refrigerator coalesced into a new god.