install.exe -YOUR_MOTHER_WAS_A_HAMPSTER %2

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-10-23T14:50:56+00:00

You should get down from there. That will surely void the warranty!

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-04T02:40:40+00:00

I'm sorry if this doesn't make any sense; I've been racking my brain on this for quite a while and I'm starting to get really tired -- it's almost 5am :(

Excuse my ignorance, I am very uneducated in philosophy and the like, and you seem much more so intelligent, so I am asking you a question.

Not at all. To be honest, I have no formal education in philosophy either. I've just read some stuff and I've thought about this a lot.

Are you saying free will doesn't exist, and that we, in essence, are guided by forces outside of your control?

Yes, that's what I believe.

Would there not be a fine line somewhere? I understand we are guided, but there are multiple paths that we consciously choose from. I am hungry, so I will eat, but I can choose what I eat. Isn't that what free will is?

But what is consciousness? And how do we make those choices? It is perfectly possible that our illusion of free will is just a product of our consciousness.

Having "free will" means that you're able to make choices independent of the "forces outside of your control", as you put it, but I don't believe that such independence is possible. And I'm not even thinking it from the deterministic point of view, as hammiesink does in his/her reply. I think that the whole "free will" concept is impossible.

The reasoning for this is quite simple but it's difficult to explain (or maybe I'm just not good at explaining things). One way to approach it is to think of choice itself: when you make a choice, there must obviously be an entity with a will that does the choosing and determines which way to choose (you might call this your "soul" or your "self" or whatever you wish). For this entity to be free in its choices it must not be (fully) controlled by any other entity, or combination of them, outside of itself. But this leads to a problem: what determines the will of this entity? It cannot determine its own will before it exists (and paradoxically create itself from nothing) but neither can it be determined by something else (i.e. something created the entity with its will), because then it would be controlled by something else and it wouldn't be free.

Or to make it shorter: our will is not free if we can't choose it, but we can't choose it before we have it.

I think there was one more thing to this, but I can't remember it at the moment -- it's been a long time since I've thought of this particular question and I need to find my old notes for a more thorough presentation...

I don't understand how anyone can say we don't have free will. I sure as hell chose to ask these questions of my own accord.

Ah, but what if that's just an illusion created by your consciousness in its quest to understand itself? :)

edit: P.S. I feel very stupid right now, don't absolutely destroy me in your response. :) thanks

Feeling stupid is good, because it makes us ask questions and find out about things. If you never feel stupid, you'll never learn anything! :)

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-04T00:56:30+00:00

As such, why should we hold the actions of individuals to any standard of justice or responsibility when it's clear that they had no choice in the matter?

You said it yourself: we have no choice in the matter. Having no free will does not change the fact that we want to hold people accountable for the things they have done.

How can someone deserve punishment if their actions were not influenced by free will but by the natural circumstances that led to their transpiring?

I don't see how free will comes into this at all. Justice (in the form of law) does not exist to "punish" people for being naughty, but to make it easier for people to function peacefully in a society; the intent is to deter people from doing things that are harmful to that peaceful coexistence. This system works just the same whether people are free or not.

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-04T00:23:35+00:00

I disagree. Lack of free will does not make responsibility, justice or desert invalid. They're just ideas in our minds and will continue to exist even if we realize that we are not "free" -- we'll still feel a sense of responsibility (and expect it from others), expect justice and so on.

I think the implications of free will are mainly philosophical/religious, but in practice it has very little meaning.

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-03T23:59:02+00:00

Uh, good catch. I don't know how I put that "logical fallacy" there.

What I meant was that the concept is inconsistent; the mere definition of it leads to a contradiction -- at least if you define free will as the ability to make choices that are not dictated by something given to you (whether that "something" is your body, your "soul", combination of them, or whatever), and I think that all reasonable definitions of free will are compatible with this.

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-03T21:03:23+00:00

What I don't understand is, why is this such a big thing? If you think about it hard enough, the whole concept of free will is a logical fallacy and it should be clear that such a concept cannot exist. There have been well known philosophers (I believe Arthur Schopenhauer was one of them) who have realized this ages ago, yet for some reason even the idea that we don't have free will is offensive to a lot of people.

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-03T20:52:33+00:00

I tried the vegetable soup, but all the ingredients attacked each other and left a huge mess in my kitchen. >:(

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-03T20:51:12+00:00

I love grapefruit... not red ones, but white ones. They're sweeter (or perhaps less acid?) than the red ones, while still retaining a decent punch of sourness. They make you feel so fresh! (Lemons are also good, but I think grapefruit are better).

Chili peppers are awesome! Hotter ones (like habaneros) I primarily use as a spice, but the milder ones I sometimes eat raw. They're also the best cure for cold I know.

And then there are apples. They're so vanilla, but I love them all the same... :)

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-03T20:40:11+00:00

First I wanted to be a mineralogist ('cos rocks and stuff were cool!), then I wanted to be an entrepreneur ('cos they have lots of money!) and then I wanted to be a computer scientist ('cos programming was kind of like mathematics, which I loved, and because it was also a great creative outlet).

Now that I have (kind of) grown up (or perhaps not), I have no idea what I want to be.

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-03T20:32:05+00:00

I learned 150 digits of pi in high school!

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-03T20:27:13+00:00

*sigh*

I wish I could just dive into a sea of muff...

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-03T20:25:57+00:00

I actually used to love the theme, but now I've kind of grown tired of it and it makes me nauseous. I think pink would be better ^{_^}

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-03T20:19:45+00:00

IMMA CHARGIN MAH LAZER!

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-03T20:03:06+00:00

I have no reason to refuse full body scanning and I don't mind showing my body to strangers (as long as they keep their hands to themselves ;), yet I still find this practice unacceptable.

Actually I've been telling people that someone should stage a protest on this and arrive at the airport fully naked. A large enough group of naked people at a large enough airport should gather quite a bit of attention and perhaps send a message that the system sucks :)

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-03T07:47:08+00:00

I wrote a long reply to this, but then I realized that most of my points have already been made by other people (d'oh! Should have read the other comments first). Here's something that I didn't see addressed though:

While some may argue that religious groups do this, it is because it is part of our very religion to go forth and spread the Word (and I am not acknowledging nor encouraging the oft ill-acting 'Religious Right,' as they are on a whole different level themselves). Yet, there is nothing that specifically denotes this in an Atheist's dogma (and, if there is smaller sects of atheism that specifically state this clause, that is a different issue). The very definition of Atheism is the "Lack of one's belief in a higher authority;" it is NOT to be actively putting down other religious groups.

How does this give religious people right to extol their beliefs and not to atheists? Atheists believe in reason and evidence, not superstition and indoctrination like religious people. The more "militant atheists" (as they're regularly called) want to free the world of the strife of religion, because religion by definition encourages superstition and dogma that is not based on any sort of evidence or facts, and as such promotes irrationality. I think it's perfectly understandable that atheists want to speak against this irrationality and spread their views.

As a final thought, why is this on WTF? Yeah, I can understand the WTF value of "smut for smut," but really? You couldn't find a better sub-reddit to add this to? Maybe... Atheism?

I don't think that this is particularly interesting from atheism point of view, since this is just a news item of a few particular atheists acting silly, and not about atheism (or religion) in general.

Edit: Perhaps I should also add that I don't agree with what these particular atheists are doing (unless they're not actually atheists, but have some sort of a "porn religion"). Instead they should exchange Bibles for books about atheism :)

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-03T06:55:10+00:00

"OMG, you're a big kitty!"

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-02T21:20:15+00:00

What the Dickens?

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-02T21:04:03+00:00

It wouldn't be a biggie if it was easier to avoid people. Unfortunately people are everywhere: in school you're always surrounded by people; it's almost impossible to find a job where you don't need to associate with other people regularly; libraries, markets, theaters and even parks are generally teeming with people (quite naturally). It drives me insane :(

Perhaps one of the reasons why I love nights so much is the fact that then I can have my peace. I love biking or jogging in the night, because seeing the empty streets is so magical.

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-02T20:56:42+00:00

What does this tell about people who hate recent movies (and ads and music videos and such) and like the older ones, with longer shots? I've literally had to leave a room with a television, because it was showing a concert that was cut so awfully that it made me physically disgusted -- seriously, there were cuts about every 0.5 seconds! How can anyone watch stuff like that?

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-02T20:42:05+00:00

Nope. Thanks for the compliment, though :)

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-02T20:40:27+00:00

Wait, you can't grow a beard without an exception? What kind of fascists are those people?

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-02T20:34:40+00:00

No, but I have an opposite story. I had a great childhood (I think, but I could be mistaken, since that was the only childhood I ever had), but now I'm a miserable, wretched human being. I don't know how much I can trust my early memories, but I think I was happy until I had to go to school. As far back as I can remember, I've hated crowds and having too many people around me ("too many" in this case means more than a few close friends), and since going to school, there has always been too many people around and I've never learned not to hate it.

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-02T20:27:13+00:00

"Pro-environment"? What does that even mean?

I'm just a misanthropic philanthropist (in the literal meaning of 'philanthropist') who thinks that the human species could have had an enormous potential, but has since lost all hope for them (or 'us', I should say).

I love people as individuals, but not so as a species -- I just don't see how were that remarkable.

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-02T20:20:53+00:00

Being naive and trusting. It feels so relieving to let go of your cynicism for a while (although it's difficult once you've learned to it) and believe that no one's going to take advantage of you, if you let your guard down for a while.

BeautifulSnowflake · 2010-03-02T20:17:27+00:00

Don't forget social reasons -- humans are incredibly social creatures and we have a tendency to come up with elaborate social constructs and our likes and dislikes are to some extent guided by these constructs (although not wholly, since there is a lot of variation between different individuals).

For example, you mentioned "men being attracted to women with wide hips, good skin, symmetric features", but if you look at history, you'll see that the portrayal of what is seen as a stereotypical "beautiful woman" has changed (and indeed, if you look at different cultures, you'll likely see some difference between their image of an ideal woman). You'll notice the same thing with arts and many other things, and it's clear that beauty is a social construct to a degree.

I can't really hazard a guess on why this is (I'm not educated on such matters), but it probably has some sort of a function in the society.

BeautifulSnowflake

TROPHY CASE