Scientific contradictions

But we're still choosing aren't we?

Yes, you merely can't choose to choose. Choice is a necessary part of human life, as lying in bed all day doing fuck all is still a choice. It's merely that your choices are necessarily part of this determined stream.

So what if I didn't answer the question?

You can't not answer the question. Even if you didn't tell me, a city would've come to mind by my mere prompt.

- An expanding universe and a model that shows us we should be contracting. According to a physical model of the Universe, we should be contracting not expanding. But yet here we are, expanding. The mathematics simply don't work.

Which "physical model" is that? Can you name it? To my knowledge a complete, accepted universal model doesn't exist yet. The Big Bang theory is the leading cosmological model, and it does in fact account for expansion despite being incomplete.

- Life from non-life. According to evolution, life arose from a "hot mix of chemical goop". But there's no evidence for it and the process cannot be recreated in a lab. As a means of damage control, scientists then claimed that life came from somewhere else in the galaxy. But that still leaves the question as to how that strain of life came to be. Is there just a never ending cycle of strains of life that come from another planet?

That's abiogenesis, not evolution. The theory of evolution is completely unrelated to the origins of life, seeing how it only works when there are already living things present. The Miller–Urey experiment proved that all the basic molecules of life, amino acids, nucleotides and lipids all form naturally under conditions simulating early earth. There is no standard model for how life came to be, the assumption is that since all the materials required for life were present and are highly interactive with eachother, given enough time they could form membranes, proteins and DNA, but that is an assumption, not an assertion.

- Consciousness and free will, a contradiction to evolution. How are you to act upon instinct, survive, and reproduce if you're not being told you have to? Scientists claim that consciousness is explainable through biological processes, and that its purpose is to give humans the illusion that we operate under free will. But there's still no purpose in evolving towards free will if our biology dictates us to act the way they want us to act and not the way we act through free will. And if consciousness is simply an illusion, who is this illusion being relayed to? Another consciousness?

I don't think you understand the goal of evolution, or rather the lack of one. All that matters to evolution is reproduction, since quite simply the only creatures alive today are ones whose parents were able to reproduce. That's all natural selection is. Everything beyond that is secondary.

Also I don't know about you, but I personally don't have the ability to exercise my free will to not feel hunger, arousal or emotions. If I choose not to eat for too long, my body is sure as hell going to try it's best to convince me to eat. My body gets thirsty, horny, too hot, too cold, happy, sad, angry and I have no concious control over these things. How is this not my biology dictating my behavior?  I also did not know science denies the existence of consciousness. This whole point is null on two fronts.

- The four fundamental forces. There's no reason why or how the fundamental forces exist, and in fact we can only measure their effect, but the particles that should make up these forces don't seem to exist. We invent names like the Graviton to make it seem like they exist, but they have as little evidence for them as dark matter.

What exactly is contradictory here? I mean none of the others were really contradictions either, but this is just simply "we know this thing happens we just don't know the cause of it." Your not seriously going to tell me you think gravity isn't real just because we don't know why there is gravity yet.

- An expanding universe and a model that shows us we should be contracting. According to a physical model of the Universe, we should be contracting not expanding. But yet here we are, expanding. The mathematics simply don't work.

Which model of the universe says we should be contracting?

- Life from non-life. According to evolution, life arose from a "hot mix of chemical goop". But there's no evidence for it and the process cannot be recreated in a lab. As a means of damage control, scientists then claimed that life came from somewhere else in the galaxy. But that still leaves the question as to how that strain of life came to be. Is there just a never ending cycle of strains of life that come from another planet?

See: Miller-Urey Experiment. Evolution has nothing to do with abiogenesis, though.

- Consciousness and free will, a contradiction to evolution. How are you to act upon instinct, survive, and reproduce if you're not being told you have to? Scientists claim that consciousness is explainable through biological processes, and that its purpose is to give humans the illusion that we operate under free will. But there's still no purpose in evolving towards free will if our biology dictates us to act the way they want us to act and not the way we act through free will. And if consciousness is simply an illusion, who is this illusion being relayed to? Another consciousness?

Consciousness as in a moral instinct, or consciousness as in awareness?

- The four fundamental forces. There's no reason why or how the fundamental forces exist, and in fact we can only measure their effect, but the particles that should make up these forces don't seem to exist. We invent names like the Graviton to make it seem like they exist, but they have as little evidence for them as dark matter.

This is some heavy quantum mechanics shit that nobody on here is qualified to discuss, but I'll start by saying that three of the four forces do in fact have corresponding particles, whereas gravity doesn't because it's instead a property of spacetime rather than the an interaction between subatomic particles. There is currently research being done to find a relationship between quantum mechanics and general relativity, but that's ongoing without conclusive answers so far.

what a retarded ass way to view free will.

Not really. Compatibilists often use a definition for "free will" which isn't qualitatively different from "autonomy". The only metaphysically meaningful definition of free will that really exists is the ability to act completely without circumstantial restraint, necessity or fate, which is demonstrably false.

restricted free will is still free will. not being god doesn't make us unable to alter our world.

restricted free will is still free will. not being god doesn't make us unable to alter our world.

Again, that's not metaphysically significant.

I never said people can't make choices.

what a retarded ass way to view free will.

Not really. Compatibilists often use a definition for "free will" which isn't qualitatively different from "autonomy". The only metaphysically meaningful definition of free will that really exists is the ability to act completely without circumstantial restraint, necessity or fate, which is demonstrably false.

restricted free will is still free will. not being god doesn't make us unable to alter our world.

Missing the point.

Godspeed, Meta

restricted free will is still free will. not being god doesn't make us unable to alter our world.

Again, that's not metaphysically significant.

I never said people can't make choices.

isn't the ability to choose free will?

what a retarded ass way to view free will.

Not really. Compatibilists often use a definition for "free will" which isn't qualitatively different from "autonomy". The only metaphysically meaningful definition of free will that really exists is the ability to act completely without circumstantial restraint, necessity or fate, which is demonstrably false.

restricted free will is still free will. not being god doesn't make us unable to alter our world.

Missing the point.

apparently

what a retarded ass way to view free will.

Not really. Compatibilists often use a definition for "free will" which isn't qualitatively different from "autonomy". The only metaphysically meaningful definition of free will that really exists is the ability to act completely without circumstantial restraint, necessity or fate, which is demonstrably false.

restricted free will is still free will. not being god doesn't make us unable to alter our world.

Missing the point.

apparently

Sorry for the brevity; would respond in full detail but apparently the code for my program doesn't want me to; I love you

isn't the ability to choose free will?

Some compatibilists would say so, but I don't think that's a very significant definition. Free will, properly defined, is the ability to choose without constraint. This is fundamentally undermined when you realise you aren't in control of your capacity to choose.

Think of it like this: you can choose to act on your will, but you can't choose your will. The choices you make, and the autonomy you exercise, will always be part of this determined stream.

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isn't the ability to choose free will?

you can choose to act on your will, but you can't choose your will.

ah, i know what you're saying now. still, i don't like that line of thought. it's kinda depressing.

Pretty sure everyone's definition of free will here is actually that of autonomy, and Meta is using the metaphysical definition (the correct one).

isn't the ability to choose free will?

Some compatibilists would say so, but I don't think that's a very significant definition. Free will, properly defined, is the ability to choose without constraint. This is fundamentally undermined when you realise you aren't in control of your capacity to choose.

Think of it like this: you can choose to act on your will, but you can't choose your will. The choices you make, and the autonomy you exercise, will always be part of this determined stream.

So, what you're saying is, because we don't have infinite choices and are bound by the actions of others, as well as space and time, we aren't free since some things are just out of our control?

That's a different argument than I expected, and I can agree with that.

- An expanding universe and a model that shows us we should be contracting. According to a physical model of the Universe, we should be contracting not expanding. But yet here we are, expanding. The mathematics simply don't work.

Which model of the universe says we should be contracting?

- Life from non-life. According to evolution, life arose from a "hot mix of chemical goop". But there's no evidence for it and the process cannot be recreated in a lab. As a means of damage control, scientists then claimed that life came from somewhere else in the galaxy. But that still leaves the question as to how that strain of life came to be. Is there just a never ending cycle of strains of life that come from another planet?

See: Miller-Urey Experiment. Evolution has nothing to do with abiogenesis, though.

- Consciousness and free will, a contradiction to evolution. How are you to act upon instinct, survive, and reproduce if you're not being told you have to? Scientists claim that consciousness is explainable through biological processes, and that its purpose is to give humans the illusion that we operate under free will. But there's still no purpose in evolving towards free will if our biology dictates us to act the way they want us to act and not the way we act through free will. And if consciousness is simply an illusion, who is this illusion being relayed to? Another consciousness?

Consciousness as in a moral instinct, or consciousness as in awareness?

- The four fundamental forces. There's no reason why or how the fundamental forces exist, and in fact we can only measure their effect, but the particles that should make up these forces don't seem to exist. We invent names like the Graviton to make it seem like they exist, but they have as little evidence for them as dark matter.

This is some heavy quantum mechanics shit that nobody on here is qualified to discuss, but I'll start by saying that three of the four forces do in fact have corresponding particles, whereas gravity doesn't because it's instead a property of spacetime rather than the an interaction between subatomic particles. There is currently research being done to find a relationship between quantum mechanics and general relativity, but that's ongoing without conclusive answers so far.

No one understands quantum gravity. For him to ask for gravitons and act like the fact we can't show them to exist is a contradiction just shows that he's being a turd.

isn't the ability to choose free will?

Some compatibilists would say so, but I don't think that's a very significant definition. Free will, properly defined, is the ability to choose without constraint. This is fundamentally undermined when you realise you aren't in control of your capacity to choose.

Think of it like this: you can choose to act on your will, but you can't choose your will. The choices you make, and the autonomy you exercise, will always be part of this determined stream.

So, what you're saying is, because we don't have infinite choices and are bound by the actions of others, as well as space and time, we aren't free since some things are just out of our control?

That's a different argument than I expected, and I can agree with that.

pretty much. Free choice(between certain unconsciously determined choices), not free will.

Life from non-life. According to evolution, life arose from a "hot mix of chemical goop". But there's no evidence for it and the process cannot be recreated in a lab. As a means of damage control, scientists then claimed that life came from somewhere else in the galaxy. But that still leaves the question as to how that strain of life came to be. Is there just a never ending cycle of strains of life that come from another planet?

I recently read about this.

You can actually recreate organic molecules like protein and amino acids in a lab. The problem occurred when scientists couldn't recreate them under conditions seen on the surface of a primordial earth.

However, there is no 'damage control', science simply knows what it doesn't know yet, the claim about life from other worlds is an unproven hypothesis.

Current theory going around is that simple life first formed within deep sea hydrothermal vents, which can provide the materials and energy to produce organic molecules and their processes.

You can actually recreate organic molecules like protein and amino acids in a lab. The problem occurred when scientists couldn't recreate them under conditions seen on the surface of a primordial earth.

Actually the Miller-Urey experiment was designed to simulate the hypothesized conditions on early earth, and later repetitions of the experiment had even higher yields after altering it to fit the updated versions of the hypothesis. The only problem is that the real conditions of early earth are unknown, so we just can't say for certain that the conditions used in the experiment were accurate.