Argue with me about something.

[Khris]

Well, given the extreme technical and humanistic(?) development that makes the dark ages or the ancient world look like another planet, I'd say there's a good chance that at some point we actually will reach a kind of Utopia.

Go back in time to some kid living on the street a thousand years ago, with their existence defined by brutality, slavery, bigotry, barbaric living conditions, etc., and tell them about some of today's "white people problems" (my XBox got the red ring, that one girl I like unfriended me on facebook, etc.) and they will surely regard what we have now as absolute Utopia.

Let's extrapolate a bit and imagine that a few hundred years from now, we actually conquered hunger, illnesses and poverty. I don't think it's that unlikely.

[Ethan D]

Well, given the extreme technical and humanistic(?) development that makes the dark ages or the ancient world look like another planet, I'd say there's a good chance that at some point we actually will reach a kind of Utopia.

Of course the definition of Utopia will be, as it has always been, ever-changing.  I think that the human need to fix problems necessarily contradicts the concept of a true Utopia.  (I.E.  if a Utopia is a place with no problems we will not have anything to fix which in itself is a problem.)   Of course, that is assuming that people actually need to solve problems, maybe it's just me.  

BTW:  Kris, I'm not arguing with you here.  I certainly do think that a sort of Utopia is definitely achievable. (Hunger, pestilence, inequality, etc,.) I'm just pointing out a possible logical impossibility in the concept of 'Utopia.'

Let me be the existential one here and say that regardless of morals or ethics or empathy or anything of that sort, barring the validity of creationism or some other similar concept, it doesn't matter what we do. If we caused some massive climate change that brought about the end of all life on this planet, or hell, even the entire universe, none of it would really matter would it? The process would start over, and life would go on. None of it makes any difference at all.

That's an interesting thought.  Of course if you define 'what matters' by whether or not it results in the end of life itself forever then nothing we do matters, (Hopefully at least) but if you're going to define it at such an extreme point why not say even if it does result in the end of life forever it doesn't matter.

What matters and doesn't matters (I think) is defined by people. (Or whatever other possible creature finds value in things.)   I personally value all of your and my, and most other peoples' existence and would like the world to not be affected in a way that eliminates that or any of the many other things in which I find value.

Sure, if we all die, it won't matter what we thought, believed, or did, but while we are here we may as well fight to protect those things we find valuable.

"...and here at twenty-three it's the same old me..."

I never thought I'd see Relient K quoted on the AGS forums.

If at 23 you are still trying to change for the better, you're not doing anything wrong in my book.  But, I suppose that's just an opinion.

[monkey0506]

Hey, Relient K is brilliant.

I think that moving toward a better quality of life for most people is a realistic goal, but I also feel that we're always going to have Osama Bin Ladens and Adolph Hitlers no matter what we do. Sociopaths and psychopaths aren't going to disappear just simply because world hunger does. People aren't going to become better parents to their children. There's a lot of social issues directly relating to people's mental stability, and let's face it, most people aren't mentally stable.

That's what I was getting at there.

Of course quality of life is important. Hell, even moreso if this thing we call life is nothing more than a random happenstance, and when we die that's it, we're dead. I'm not trying to gear this to a debate on what happens when we die, I'm just saying that if the scientific community's consensus is indeed the correct one, then quality of life is even more important than if life continues beyond death.

So protecting what you personally value is of course important. The problem is when what "you personally value" ends up being something like exterminating Jews.

[Khris]

but I also feel that we're always going to have Osama Bin Ladens and Adolph Hitlers no matter what we do.

The important thing though is that in a better world, they couldn't gather a huge flock of followers.
Just look at the Scandinavian countries; they have the best quality of life in the world and thus simply don't need religion or fanatics of any kind who fight for a cause.
Hitler and Bin Laden rose to power because of their followers. Without them, all we'll get is a Breivik.

So once the two sources of fanaticism, that's religion and bad living conditions, are eradicated, the problem will disappear.

The only bad thing we might not get rid of is all the New Age bullshit like Tarot, Astrology, etc. though. Unless we evolve into vulcans

[Snarky]

Well, given the extreme technical and humanistic(?) development that makes the dark ages or the ancient world look like another planet, I'd say there's a good chance that at some point we actually will reach a kind of Utopia.

Go back in time to some kid living on the street a thousand years ago, with their existence defined by brutality, slavery, bigotry, barbaric living conditions, etc., and tell them about some of today's "white people problems" (my XBox got the red ring, that one girl I like unfriended me on facebook, etc.) and they will surely regard what we have now as absolute Utopia.

Not really another planet. There's a reason they call it "white people problems" or "first world problems." Put that kid in a slum in Caracas, Lagos or New Delhi, it'll feel pretty familiar. And Somalia might seem like hell. The main reason we have it so good is that we're extremely privileged compared to most people living today.

Just look at the Scandinavian countries; they have the best quality of life in the world and thus simply don't need religion or fanatics of any kind who fight for a cause.
Hitler and Bin Laden rose to power because of their followers. Without them, all we'll get is a Breivik.

Scandinavia has it pretty damn sweet, but you still have beggars, homeless, junkies, gangs, abused children and other misery. Though at a garden dinner on a sunny summer day on the Swedish coast, happy children running around while the grown-ups enjoy a glass of wine, it's hard to argue it could be more Utopian. Maybe if the Baltic was cleaned of algae...

[Cuiki]

Ok, smart people of AGS - now for something different (though kinda related in a way). I'd like to ask you what flaws you see in this reasoning.

So, I'm thinking about whether this is true or not: everything that's happened has happened for a reason. Or for multiple reasons, to be exact. I later discovered this was called determinism, but apart from finding out about the name, I've never read about it any further.

You can now skip the rest of my ramblings if you understand the concept.

Or you can just read on if you're sufficiently bored. Take this example: You find yourself in a situation where you're not sure what to do. You toss a coin in order to get one of the two random outcomes. Random as far as human perception goes, but in fact not random at all. Each toss is a consequence of several reasons, like which side is facing up before the toss, the height of the toss - generated by the force applied to the coin and maybe by the density of the air, the wind, the mass of the coin etc. (ok, ok, I'm no physicist, just trying to explain a concept here ). So the outcome you get was actually bound to happen. It goes further back, like a chain of reasons and consequences. Why did you toss a coin in the first place? Because it's an established method when it comes to deciding between two options that seem equally important or something. Why so? Because it's convenient: coins have two sides and they are usually within reach. Why are they within reach? Because they are used as a means of paying, which is a common task enough to carry your wallet around most of the time. And so on. Once more, don't take this too literally. These are just some examples to demonstrate this principle. And another thing, I believe you can use similar reasoning for why each body movement and mental process occur, and so on.

Also, the other way round: everything that is to happen has already been determined, but every event is determined by so many tiny little factors that it's probably too complex for any human being to ever be able to predict every given outcome.

Does that mean complete randomness doesn't exist? When I asked a friend about his thoughts on this, he said that even computers can't generate numbers randomly and that they just follow certain algorithms.

But then he did offer a counter-argument, which kinda puts a question mark over this hypothesis: randomness does exist even on atomic level, such as in the case of electrons, which bounce off at random angles when they hit something. Science really isn't my field, so bear with me here. How about the laws of physics inside atoms, why wouldn't the direction of each bounce be determined by them? Do we need to take a smaller scale to find complete randomness? And to go back a bit, if bouncing of electrons really is random, does it have any effect on everyday situations? Well, it probably does have some sort of effect, like how the rate at which new molecules are formed determines the composition of substances to some extent. Is randomness even the right word to use when it comes to all this?

Anyway, I don't have any specific question to ask, just interested in your thoughts about this. Come on, enlighten me a bit.

(minus points if this gets turned into a religious debate. )

[DoorKnobHandle]

The result of a coin toss is random to the coin-tosser as human beings simply can't foresee the physics involved in a coin toss (initial placement, throw height, rotational velocity and so on) and conclude the right result. When computers generate random numbers, it's similar. Even though computers aren't able to produce absolutely random numbers they can easily provide us with numbers that look absolutely random to us human beings as we are not able to calculate the algorithms used by the computer fast enough to foresee the result. That's the part that your post there was missing, randomness differs depending on who is requesting the random value.

As for the randomness on atomic level, I'm not sure that we, as human beings, have enough insight into these matters yet to confidently claim that electrons spray into a random direction on contact.

[Cuiki]

I realise all this is totally random for human perception, but I wanted to go beyond that. Just theorising, you know
Things like, if nothing is random, what is the ultimate cause. Not that anyone knows for certain, but still.

[DoorKnobHandle]

But that's exactly the problem. We can't discuss, theorize or even throw out educated guesses at things that go beyond our understanding as human beings. Whether or not something such as true randomness exists is something we really can't decide as there are a lot of random things in our world already of which we know that they aren't actually random, just random to us. And then there is stuff (chaos theory, random electron spray on contact and so on) that seems truely random but that we haven't really gotten any scientific insight into yet.

[Cuiki]

Oh okay.

[DoorKnobHandle]

What we'd need, in my opinion, is a 'spark' to the discussion of some sort. Someone who claims to be able to prove one or the other. That true randomness exists or that it doesn't exist! I've never come across anyone who claims to have prove for either side however.

[Wonkyth]

I proved the existence of potatoes.


True story.

[Bror_Jon]

@Wonkyth: No, your father and mother did that, by creating you.

On topic:
This determinism stuff makes my head sad. Infinite regresses and ultimate causes and what not pops into mind.

[Calin Leafshade]

I'm still not 100% sure on determinism.. quantum effects seem to indicate that there is a layer of randomness to reality which puts holes in determinism. Of course it could be that we just havent seen the causal agent yet.

However the real question raised by determinism is that of free will. Personally I dont believe humans to have free will anymore than complicated moist robots would. We take information and output actions in a way that is congruent with our personalities and the situation at the time.

Of course I still live my life as if we *did* have free will because that illusion is strong enough to humans to essentially make the question irrelevant.

[Khris]

My pretty simplistic take on this is that most people would change something if they had the chance to go back a few years, but only because they assume that in that scenario they wouldn't lose the life experience of the years they're going to live again.
I guess if they'd get to actually rewind their life, they'd make exactly the same choices again.

Also, to me, actual free will seems to be tied to the idea that there's something supernatural that uses our body as avatar, i.e. the soul. Since it's highly unlikely that there is such a thing, there goes actual free will.

complicated moist robots

Exactly.

On an unrelated note, here's a list of topics characterized as pseudoscience.
Think one of those is the real deal? Then hit us.

[Calin Leafshade]

Wow, theres a lot of pseudo-science..

[Babar]

I take your Determinism and raise you a Hongcheng Magic Liquid!

[NsMn]

I'll tell you what: Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

That not only makes fortune-telling impossibly, but also to find out whether there is in fact free will, or whether we're determined by past events.

[LRH]

This topic makes me think of the lazy bones paradox:

"If destiny designed a master plan which defines everything that is to happen, isn't it useless, for example, to go to a doctor? If I am ill and it is my destiny to regain health, then I will regain health whether I visit a doctor or not. If it is my destiny to not regain my health, then seeing a doctor can't help me."

Flawed? Maybe. Fun to throw out there in this discussion though.

[NsMn]

This topic makes me think of the lazy bones paradox:

"If destiny designed a master plan which defines everything that is to happen, isn't it useless, for example, to go to a doctor? If I am ill and it is my destiny to regain health, then I will regain health whether I visit a doctor or not. If it is my destiny to not regain my health, then seeing a doctor can't help me."

Flawed? Maybe. Fun to throw out there in this discussion though.

Well, but the person's fate wouldn't be to regain health, but to [not] go to the doctor AND [not] regain health. Therefore, if you don't go see a doctor, your fate will most likely be not to regain health.