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Comment by dumbo-octopus

2 years ago

Oh you have a comprehensive physical model of individual human behavior do you, in particular the decision making process of life-changing choices? I'd love to see the publication.

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dumbo-octopus

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__MatrixMan__  2 years ago

The future is still a function of the past, even if we lack that function's complete specification.

  • dumbo-octopus  2 years ago

    Yes, we can believe many things without any proof or justification. We call that religion, not "physics".

    Edit: this was in response to a prior edit of the parent that (correctly) explicitly stated their position was a personal belief, not some sort of universally acknowledged axiom as they have since edited it to seem.

  • constantcrying  2 years ago

    >The future is still a function of the past

    If you don't believe in conscious choice the whole debate is moot anyway.

    • brabel  2 years ago

      That's not the claim. The claim is that if you're born poor, your chances of being poor when you become an adult are much higher. Perhaps you know that and still think that because the kid who is born poor "chose" to stay poor, but I hope no one capable of having a discussion about this topic thinks like that.

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    • __MatrixMan__  2 years ago

      I wasn't trying to argue against free will or anything like that (I'm a compatibilist about that debate). I was just trying to point out that it's obvious that prior conditions are relevant. Prior decisions also. But free or not, there's nowhere to come from but the past.

      It's a weird thing to be pointing out, like... duh, but the context was a bunch of:

      > You have to balk when anyone says....

      and

      > You have to disbelieve anyone who says...

      And I was hoping to establish that we in this thread do in fact agree that causation works in one direction only. It would seem I failed.

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