I hate to suddenly change the subject in the midst of an already good topic but:
My current political conspiracy theory: The Republican Party is intentionally self destructing. Call it "Project Phoenix". I'll just copy and post my most recent post on this from another forum:
Thoughts?
We've talked about this before, but I think you ascribe too much intention and agency to the "powers that be". I don't necessarily doubt that the evolution you're describing may be happening, or even that it's happening for the reason you claim (i.e. a changing electorate); but I think the fantasy of a small group of men in a secret mansion, wearing expensive suits, smoking cigars and deciding the outcome of world events (a hyperbole, I know) is part of a societal obsession to attribute blame and expose a "hidden message in the text", so to speak.
This is a subject of conversation that has come up a quite a bit recently in my circle of friends. I have one friend in particular who seems pretty dead set on the idea of determinism and free will being an illusion. That if one were to know enough about reality and nature, they could conceivably create an algorithm that would be able to determine future human interactions at a biological/neurological level and, essentially, predict the future. Whereas, given my limited knowledge of quantum physics and the idea that an electron exists in a superposition of two states until we observe it, I tend to feel that our choices actually do shape reality on some quantum level. Like, if I'm trying to decide between two shirts to wear in the morning, two respective realities of me wearing each shirt exist in a superposition of one another until I make my decision. I know I have heard of hypotheses that claim an existence of alternate realities in which our lives vary slightly based on the decisions we have made, and I suppose my idea would fall into a similar category. What I do not know, is whether or not these and similar hypotheses hold any water. So, am I justified in extrapolating this idea of quantum physics to a more macroscopic situation? Are there any concrete scientific reasons why one point of view is preferable to the other?
I don't believe that one can discover a mathematical formula that can "predict the future", even theoretically. Jorge Luis Borges dealt with this in his short story, "The Library of Babel", in which he described the universe as an immense library filled with texts, every one 411 pages long and containing all the possible 411-page combinations of the 23-character orthographic alphabet. Based on the fact that there is a limited number (albeit an inconceivably large one) of combinations, those living within the library deduce that it is finite.
But Borges puts an important regulation upon his universe: he limits all books to 411 pages. In reality, if we conceive of a non-totalizable of the possible, any concept of prediction becomes (logically) impossible, although we might observe patterns and make inductions based on what we've seen.
Meillassoux writes:
"[on how the thinking of non-being or being-other is possible] On account of the fact that we are able to think - by dint of the absence of any reason for our being - a capacity-to-be-other capable of abolishing us, or of radically transforming us. But if so, then
this capacity-to-be-other cannot be conceived as a correlate of our thinking, precisely because it harbours the possibility of our own non-being. In order to think myself as mortal, as the atheist does - and hence as capable of not being - I must think my capacity-not-to-be as an absolute possibility, for if I think this possibility as a correlate of my thinking, if I maintain that the possibility of my not-being only exists as a correlate of my act of thinking the possibility of my not-being, then I can no longer conceive the possibility of my not-being, which is precisely the thesis defended by the idealist. For I think myself as mortal only if I think that my death has no need of my thought of death in order to be actual."
What he's talking about here is the idea that certain attributes/components of things exist exterior to our perceiving them. For instance, our own non-existence has to be possible without the necessary correlate of our thinking it since it presupposes that we wouldn't be there to think it. He extends this to all things in the universe, and even the universe itself. He has no need of the theory of a multiverse or quantum physics (although there seems to be some affinity there). For Meillassoux, once we've proven that things can exist without our having to think them, infinite possibilities subsist in those things (and, by extension, infinite possibilities subsist in the universe), and no "principle of sufficient reason" is needed to substantiate their coming to pass.
zabu of nΩd;10423354 said:
I've long since committed the concept of free will to the ideological garbage bin of ideas that arose as an emotional response to the stresses of life rather than from reason (along with the various other "philosophies" that are tied to religion).
Indeed; it's a highly historical concept, not an absolute.
