If human will was free from the control of its environment, then I don't see why we would need to delegate responsibility.
I didn't say human will is unaffected by the body's environment. My environment definitely affects my will to some extent (just as my will can affect my environment). Even a non-deterministic mind is influenced by nature.
The essence of personal responsibility is not punishment and reward. Forget about corrective action for a moment. Responsibility in this context refers to the root cause of an action. I believe that responsibility for what you do, in most cases, is shared between 1) your environment and 2) your own free will. My previous post points out that a consequence of dismissing free will is dismissal of anyone's personal responsibility for their behavior.
It seems that you are confusing determinism with fatalism.
Yikes. How did you read fatalism from my post? I don't think either you or I believe in fatalism, so moving on...
A man could make a decision that was not truly free (i.e. random).
Props to you for seeing that actions are not necessarily predestined. Nice work also in attempting to confuse the issue further. Randomness does nothing to make a decision more your own. The man you speak of didn't make a decision. His environment made up his mind for him.
I haven't found any evidence to suggest that I need anything more than a body and mediating stimuli to make decisions.
I'm not talking about "decisions" the way you're talking about them. Your body can react to stimuli, but that's not independent decision making. No matter how unpredictable your actions may be, randomness cannot provide the metaphysical truth of independent agency. In other words, you cannot alter the course of your own thoughts and actions unless you have free will. One thought can lead to another that will influence the probability of another and so forth, but you must have a supernatural component to be able to say that change can come from within.
And please don't say that we can't detect the mind, so we should treat everything as not having free will and therefore we can do as we please.
Was Dr. Frankenstein guilty of his monster's sins? It all depends on whether his creation truly had the ability to choose.
It is scientifically impossible to determine whether an organism can take any credit for its own actions. A comprehensive model of that organism would need to be run through a simulation that had complete knowledge of the exact state of the creature. Assuming perfect knowledge of science, infinite computing power and exaustive comparison of the simulation to the real organism, free will could be detected.
Back to reality -- as a being with free will, I have a responsibility to decide for myself which creatures can claim responsibility for their actions. In my previous post, I didn't say that an animal can't have free will. It's my humble opinion that they don't. Each of us, assuming we're not complete puppets of our environment, must decide for ourselves which beings have a conscious mind and treat them accordingly. Of course, if you believe we all are absolute products of our environment, then don't sweat it. The decisions are all made for you!
Do people have free will?
True, it can be argued that people do not have free will. If that's your belief, you only think it because your environment caused you to. And if you think logically, there's an entire domino effect of beliefs that must follow:
You believe your body is a complex system of energy and particles that behave according to natural laws. All of those natural laws are nothing more than formulas that dictate a particle's response to the inputs. Everything you think/do (output) is completely controlled by your environment (input). Therefore, in your proposed experiment, the person's awareness of the experiment is inconsequential. Assuming their enviroment really could be completely controlled from the moment of their conception, their state of awareness was controlled by the environment all along. And if their environment causes them to become aware of what's going on, what does that matter? No "decision" took place or ever will take place. The person is a robot and the environment is holding the controller.
Now the fact that you even mentioned becoming aware of the experiment is encouraging to me. Humans place a lot of importance on this. Why? Because most of us believe that we can make choices that aren't dictated by our environment, that somehow we can truly change ourselves. This is impossible with a wholly naturalistic view of the universe. It's necessary to believe that we can change ourselves, because it's true. We can. If we couldn't, there would be no reason for us to think we can.
Well, first of all, if you don't believe in free will then there's no use worrying about this because it's impossible for you to change yourself. Your environment is at the wheel and you're just along for the ride. Luckily, I'm a part of your environment so you'll forgive me if I steer you in a different direction for a moment.
See this cousin post for a good explanation of the mind. Do you believe that you are responsible for making your own choices (as opposed to your environment having made all choices for you)? If not, that's OK. I really can't blame you since you're just being 100% reactionary. But if you do believe in personal responsibility -- the mind is our only valid explanation.
It's only an ethical problem if scientists create something that has free will. That is, something that can make decisions using a "mind" as well as a brain. If someone succeeded in doing that, then they would have to treat the life as a person, not an animal. The mind (by definition) cannot be explained by science, and I doubt we will ever be able to create that, no matter how perfectly a brain could be developed or free thought mimicked.
Of course, some people believe that animals deserve the same treatment as humans, but that's another topic.
Arranging words on a page where each line ends abruptly and then the words begin on the next line is a horribly confusing, outdated idea. Our children would make much better sense out of our sentences if we wrote them all in spirals over a pretty background of outer space.
Hey, you have a point there. BSG is my favorite show. Period. But the incessant dreams of Balthazar of his blondie Cylon buddy just bug me. I think the writers are getting too far into it. Plus (I expect some people will disagree with me on this one) I don't think #6 is that hot. She's just an average blonde with average acting talent.
I know it may sound lame, but the new BSG series really is more of a "reimagining" than a "remake." Which of the following would you prefer: 1.) A totally new series that claims to be original but uses tired themes and plots found in other shows OR 2.) A fresh show that openly takes a previous classic in new directions?
"Will we just keep rehashing the old (but classig and very good) series, or will new ideas and new series be able to develop?"
If you ask me, BSG is the best of both worlds. IMHO, it's not even close to a rehash of the original series. There's alot of the original elements, but so much more. They're using innovation and fresh ideas to expand the story.
"It could stand to reason that water in this universe is as rare outside of those planets as naturally occurring plutonium is here"
I'm a big fan of the show, especially this episode we're talking about. But as much as I'd like to agree with your explanation, I don't think we're supposed to infer that BSG is in a different universe from ours. One of my favorites aspects of BSG is how "Earth" is a mythical planet they long to find. In my mind, that made everything even more interesting. Yes, it's another culture and another part of our universe (our galaxy even?), but these people are OUT THERE. Far out man:-)
The wiki link is in the submission for just that reason. But if you really don't wanna look into it, just read the sentence in the story: "The series, a 're-imagining' of the original 1978 TV series by the same name, made history as the highest-rated original Sci Fi Channel program ever."
Give it a chance tonight or check out the torrent later -- you might like it.
As the poster of this story, I feel bad that the wiki got messed with. People that flame wikis... I don't get it. They're such a great source of info.
On the bright side, I think the net effect of exposing a wiki page to so many people will inevitably be positive. I trust there's enough slashdotters to correct the crap and improve the content quite a bit. Really, the whole wiki concept is a bet that more people will try to help than screw the system.
Yes, you can pick up on the second season without watching the first. As a huge fan (I submitted this story) it pains me to recommend doing this, but yes you can. Check out the wikipedia link I put in the story. There's a summary of the plot that I feel is good enough to get you into the series without feeling lost. The wiki calls some of it "spoilers", but they're just detailed plot summaries.
Catch up on the first season whenever you get the chance, though. There's some amazing action and drama there that shouldn't be missed.
Haha, I hope you didn't take offense. I submitted this story, and yes, I label myself as a slashdotter. But to be completely honest, this Friday just happens to be one of the few Fridays where I DID have plans to go out!! Can you fully grasp my dilemma? I'm a serious BG fan, so I gave consideration to staying in anyway. Thank goodness for BitTorrent!!
You're right about Starbuck not being true to her (his) original character. But Starbuck in the new series is one of my favorite characters. That's why they're calling this series a "re-imagining", because they're expanding and going places the original was never meant to. I love it.
You have some great points. I also love the realism of the attack ships (raptors) as they fly. So many shows make ships in space behave as if they're flying through an atmosphere. In BG, you can actually see the tiny jets fire on the body of the ship that make the angle of the ship change independently of the direction of motion.
The article says about as much as the summary. It would be nice to know how the 3D aquisition is done!
I used to work at the computer vision research lab at Notre Dame, and we had a pretty cool device that was used to capture 3-D frontal images of anything (we used it for faces). IIRC, it scanned a horizontal laser line down across the subject and measured reflected light using two sensors, triangulating to compute 3D information. I wonder if this camera uses the same concept? Some drawbacks of the afore-mentioned technique are that you can only capture a terrain-style 3D map of one side of an object, and subjects that open their eyes cause holes in the terrain where the reflected light was scattered by the wet surface. To get a 360 degree capture requires multiple scans and software to merge the resulting models.
Some kids today have never even heard the original versions of their favorite songs. But when I found out that some "artists" don't know where their own songs come from, that's scary. Here's one example:
In 2002, a popular rap artist, Mario, remade Biz Markie's 1989 hit "Just a Friend". Mario's remake was fairly popular -- I heard it on the radio and I saw the music video on TV. According to a 2002 television interview with Mario that I saw, the guy had no idea that Biz Markie's hit song was actually a remake of Freddie Scott's 1968 hit "You Got What I Need"! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
If you really are saying a prayer for the families affected by this atrocious act, consider saying a prayer for the people that support this evil. You may not be able to sweet talk terrorists into being nice, but they arguably need our prayers more than anyone. I know it's much easier to hate, but that's what separates us from them.
If you are so inclined, also say a prayer for the ones that committed this atrocity. Those that support this sort of evil may need our prayers the most.
Slashdot Mirror
If human will was free from the control of its environment, then I don't see why we would need to delegate responsibility.
I didn't say human will is unaffected by the body's environment. My environment definitely affects my will to some extent (just as my will can affect my environment). Even a non-deterministic mind is influenced by nature.
The essence of personal responsibility is not punishment and reward. Forget about corrective action for a moment. Responsibility in this context refers to the root cause of an action. I believe that responsibility for what you do, in most cases, is shared between 1) your environment and 2) your own free will. My previous post points out that a consequence of dismissing free will is dismissal of anyone's personal responsibility for their behavior.
It seems that you are confusing determinism with fatalism.
Yikes. How did you read fatalism from my post? I don't think either you or I believe in fatalism, so moving on...
A man could make a decision that was not truly free (i.e. random).
Props to you for seeing that actions are not necessarily predestined. Nice work also in attempting to confuse the issue further. Randomness does nothing to make a decision more your own. The man you speak of didn't make a decision. His environment made up his mind for him.
I haven't found any evidence to suggest that I need anything more than a body and mediating stimuli to make decisions.
I'm not talking about "decisions" the way you're talking about them. Your body can react to stimuli, but that's not independent decision making. No matter how unpredictable your actions may be, randomness cannot provide the metaphysical truth of independent agency. In other words, you cannot alter the course of your own thoughts and actions unless you have free will. One thought can lead to another that will influence the probability of another and so forth, but you must have a supernatural component to be able to say that change can come from within.
And please don't say that we can't detect the mind, so we should treat everything as not having free will and therefore we can do as we please.
Was Dr. Frankenstein guilty of his monster's sins? It all depends on whether his creation truly had the ability to choose.
It is scientifically impossible to determine whether an organism can take any credit for its own actions. A comprehensive model of that organism would need to be run through a simulation that had complete knowledge of the exact state of the creature. Assuming perfect knowledge of science, infinite computing power and exaustive comparison of the simulation to the real organism, free will could be detected.
Back to reality -- as a being with free will, I have a responsibility to decide for myself which creatures can claim responsibility for their actions. In my previous post, I didn't say that an animal can't have free will. It's my humble opinion that they don't. Each of us, assuming we're not complete puppets of our environment, must decide for ourselves which beings have a conscious mind and treat them accordingly. Of course, if you believe we all are absolute products of our environment, then don't sweat it. The decisions are all made for you!
Do people have free will?
True, it can be argued that people do not have free will. If that's your belief, you only think it because your environment caused you to. And if you think logically, there's an entire domino effect of beliefs that must follow:
You believe your body is a complex system of energy and particles that behave according to natural laws. All of those natural laws are nothing more than formulas that dictate a particle's response to the inputs. Everything you think/do (output) is completely controlled by your environment (input). Therefore, in your proposed experiment, the person's awareness of the experiment is inconsequential. Assuming their enviroment really could be completely controlled from the moment of their conception, their state of awareness was controlled by the environment all along. And if their environment causes them to become aware of what's going on, what does that matter? No "decision" took place or ever will take place. The person is a robot and the environment is holding the controller.
Now the fact that you even mentioned becoming aware of the experiment is encouraging to me. Humans place a lot of importance on this. Why? Because most of us believe that we can make choices that aren't dictated by our environment, that somehow we can truly change ourselves. This is impossible with a wholly naturalistic view of the universe. It's necessary to believe that we can change ourselves, because it's true. We can. If we couldn't, there would be no reason for us to think we can.
Glad you asked. There's a very good explanation of the mind in this cousin post.
Well, first of all, if you don't believe in free will then there's no use worrying about this because it's impossible for you to change yourself. Your environment is at the wheel and you're just along for the ride. Luckily, I'm a part of your environment so you'll forgive me if I steer you in a different direction for a moment.
See this cousin post for a good explanation of the mind. Do you believe that you are responsible for making your own choices (as opposed to your environment having made all choices for you)? If not, that's OK. I really can't blame you since you're just being 100% reactionary. But if you do believe in personal responsibility -- the mind is our only valid explanation.
It's only an ethical problem if scientists create something that has free will. That is, something that can make decisions using a "mind" as well as a brain. If someone succeeded in doing that, then they would have to treat the life as a person, not an animal. The mind (by definition) cannot be explained by science, and I doubt we will ever be able to create that, no matter how perfectly a brain could be developed or free thought mimicked.
Of course, some people believe that animals deserve the same treatment as humans, but that's another topic.
Player 1: Do you have any...Tauren?
Player 2: Go fish.
firm Linux believers look long and hard for their drivers.
long. hard. firm. that article has a great summary. If only we had some booze...
FTFA: "the move is not to get a slice of any one's action, nor was not about trying limit the use of the name Linux"
Aha! So they are trying to limit the use of the name.
Arranging words on a page where each line ends abruptly and then the words begin on the next line is a horribly confusing, outdated idea. Our children would make much better sense out of our sentences if we wrote them all in spirals over a pretty background of outer space.
on how he's hosting the page on his PSP.
Feel free to mention what the melting plastic smells like.
Hey, you have a point there. BSG is my favorite show. Period. But the incessant dreams of Balthazar of his blondie Cylon buddy just bug me. I think the writers are getting too far into it. Plus (I expect some people will disagree with me on this one) I don't think #6 is that hot. She's just an average blonde with average acting talent.
I know it may sound lame, but the new BSG series really is more of a "reimagining" than a "remake."
Which of the following would you prefer:
1.) A totally new series that claims to be original but uses tired themes and plots found in other shows OR
2.) A fresh show that openly takes a previous classic in new directions?
"Will we just keep rehashing the old (but classig and very good) series, or will new ideas and new series be able to develop?"
If you ask me, BSG is the best of both worlds. IMHO, it's not even close to a rehash of the original series. There's alot of the original elements, but so much more. They're using innovation and fresh ideas to expand the story.
"It could stand to reason that water in this universe is as rare outside of those planets as naturally occurring plutonium is here"
:-)
I'm a big fan of the show, especially this episode we're talking about. But as much as I'd like to agree with your explanation, I don't think we're supposed to infer that BSG is in a different universe from ours. One of my favorites aspects of BSG is how "Earth" is a mythical planet they long to find. In my mind, that made everything even more interesting. Yes, it's another culture and another part of our universe (our galaxy even?), but these people are OUT THERE. Far out man
"What is Batlestar Galactica?
The wiki link is in the submission for just that reason. But if you really don't wanna look into it, just read the sentence in the story: "The series, a 're-imagining' of the original 1978 TV series by the same name, made history as the highest-rated original Sci Fi Channel program ever."
Give it a chance tonight or check out the torrent later -- you might like it.
As the poster of this story, I feel bad that the wiki got messed with. People that flame wikis... I don't get it. They're such a great source of info.
On the bright side, I think the net effect of exposing a wiki page to so many people will inevitably be positive. I trust there's enough slashdotters to correct the crap and improve the content quite a bit. Really, the whole wiki concept is a bet that more people will try to help than screw the system.
That's an excellent question.
Yes, you can pick up on the second season without watching the first. As a huge fan (I submitted this story) it pains me to recommend doing this, but yes you can. Check out the wikipedia link I put in the story. There's a summary of the plot that I feel is good enough to get you into the series without feeling lost. The wiki calls some of it "spoilers", but they're just detailed plot summaries.
Catch up on the first season whenever you get the chance, though. There's some amazing action and drama there that shouldn't be missed.
Haha, I hope you didn't take offense. I submitted this story, and yes, I label myself as a slashdotter. But to be completely honest, this Friday just happens to be one of the few Fridays where I DID have plans to go out!! Can you fully grasp my dilemma? I'm a serious BG fan, so I gave consideration to staying in anyway. Thank goodness for BitTorrent!!
You're right about Starbuck not being true to her (his) original character. But Starbuck in the new series is one of my favorite characters. That's why they're calling this series a "re-imagining", because they're expanding and going places the original was never meant to. I love it.
You have some great points. I also love the realism of the attack ships (raptors) as they fly. So many shows make ships in space behave as if they're flying through an atmosphere. In BG, you can actually see the tiny jets fire on the body of the ship that make the angle of the ship change independently of the direction of motion.
The article says about as much as the summary. It would be nice to know how the 3D aquisition is done!
I used to work at the computer vision research lab at Notre Dame, and we had a pretty cool device that was used to capture 3-D frontal images of anything (we used it for faces). IIRC, it scanned a horizontal laser line down across the subject and measured reflected light using two sensors, triangulating to compute 3D information. I wonder if this camera uses the same concept? Some drawbacks of the afore-mentioned technique are that you can only capture a terrain-style 3D map of one side of an object, and subjects that open their eyes cause holes in the terrain where the reflected light was scattered by the wet surface. To get a 360 degree capture requires multiple scans and software to merge the resulting models.
Some kids today have never even heard the original versions of their favorite songs. But when I found out that some "artists" don't know where their own songs come from, that's scary. Here's one example:
In 2002, a popular rap artist, Mario, remade Biz Markie's 1989 hit "Just a Friend". Mario's remake was fairly popular -- I heard it on the radio and I saw the music video on TV. According to a 2002 television interview with Mario that I saw, the guy had no idea that Biz Markie's hit song was actually a remake of Freddie Scott's 1968 hit "You Got What I Need"! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
If you really are saying a prayer for the families affected by this atrocious act, consider saying a prayer for the people that support this evil. You may not be able to sweet talk terrorists into being nice, but they arguably need our prayers more than anyone. I know it's much easier to hate, but that's what separates us from them.
If you are so inclined, also say a prayer for the ones that committed this atrocity. Those that support this sort of evil may need our prayers the most.