Does Evolution Have An Objective?

Huh? How would it do that? I'm not aware that you can rewind and replay reality, but given the same initial conditions you'd get the same outcome, just as you would with billiard balls.

Your "choice" cannot change the outcome. From Message 72:

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We did really make that choice, determinism just means that we would make the same choice every time we reran the universe.

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Quit playin'...Don't you realize that you are using the word "choice", and possibly even the word "determinism", differently than everyone who is arguing with you in this thread? How do you know?

Maybe this is just a semantic argument, but I think we're looking at this in different ways. The outcome isn't independent of your choice if your choice is predetermined. The outcome is the result of your choice, the point is just that your choice is the result of other factors.You never answered my question earlier. If the choice is not predetermined, how is this in any way more simialr to what we mean when we say 'choice'. Something not dependent on its causes is essentially random, isn't it? I don't know if quantum mechanics change our understanding of this, but in classical physics - yes, that's exactly what would happen. Chaotic systems will behave in exactly the same way from identical starting conditions. The reason we have to treat them as random is because they're incredibly sensitive to the initial starting conditions, and we can't understand them in enough detail to be able to predict what will happen. It's like the example of hitting a billiard ball around on a frictionless table. If we know the angle and force or the hit, we can predict pretty well its path after the first few bounces, but pretty quickly the imprecision in our initial measurement multiplies to the point where we're unable to predict in advance the path of the ball. I remember reading an example from Henri Poincare, who calculated that, by the 20th rebound or so, the gravitational pull from distant objects has to be taken into account to get an accurate figure, but I can't find the source for this now.Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.

Your choice makes the outcome what it is! It's not irrelevant, and it's certainly not independent. Why and how do you think it is? I don't believe that to be the case, although there does seem to be some confusion over the different meanings of the word. Perhaps if you could answer my question of message 65 it would help: By what mechanism do you suppose we make choices, if you reject the notion of deterministic things making choices?What? It's just normal physics. What do you think Brownian motion is?

No shit! I get it, but that's not what people are talking about here when they are using the word "choice", and that the above is what is the illusion of choice. No, its free will. Its up to us what the outcome is, that's what poeple mean by "choice". Its not random, but you can't predict the choice from the condition. That's what makes it an actual choice instead of an illusion. Brownian Motion is a stoichastic process and that means that they will *not* behave in exactly the same way from identical starting condition.

This seems to have become a question of chasing round in circles. Let's see if we can move things on by starting from a different place. Here you can find the complete neural network for C. elegans, all 302 neurons and their connections are known. C. elegans is capable of learning behaviour and responding to its environment. It will engage in behaviours such as foraging for food, predator escape and searching for mates.In my view, it is making choices between these behaviours.Do you agree, or disagree?

Its irrelevant and "nonexistant" if what you are referring to as choice cannot change the outcome. That's why poeple are calling it an illusion of choice. I don't think the mechanism has really been identified as such. Your mind determines the outcome in a way that if you reran the universe, it could make a different outcome. A stoichastic process that would result in different outcomes if you reran it.

Initial conditions can not be duplicated. The nature of reality on a quantum level means the atoms and sub atomic particles are never in the same place. On a macro level the effects are negligiable.
So in a FULLY deterministic universe it seems the billiard balls hit in the corner pocket if hit in the same spot will always fall. So if one makes a choice to shoot the ball It will fall. You, the chooser are the instrument by which the universe DETERMINES the outcome. So in that sense a choice is made.Does that even make any sense? On the other hand, given the universe is not fully deterministic, since weird random crap can according to physics happen on a quantum scale, such as quantum tunneling and radioactive decay. It seems to me the universe unfolds according to every interaction to include our choices.

Your choice absolutely can change the outcome. You cannot remove the choice element from working out the outcome. Mind is entirely determined by our brains, our brains are entirely physical. Physical things are, to the very best of our knowledge, stochastic or deterministic. It would seem very unlikely that stochastic processes actually do anything to influence high level brain behaviour, but okay, let's suppose it does. Now you have some quantum wotsit randomly deciding between choice A and choice B - how is that more meaningful described as a choice? Okay. It's a complete sidetrack so I'll leave it.

Not in a completely deterministic universe... that's what it means to be completely deterministic. Sure, but since the choice element can't actually change the outcome then it just looks like a choice even though it really isn't one. We know its not random how choices are decided, but I'm not sure about this dichotomy you've set up.A conscious mid does seem to be an exception to it. Well wait... am I right? Or not? What do you think Brownian Motion is?

No, it's not. The outcome is only the outcome that it is because of your choice. Your choice made the outcome what it is, it changed the universe from the point of view of what came before, and what happened after. I don't see the relevance of whether its deterministic or not, the choice is being made by the chooser, there's nothing illusory about it. So you have no alternative suggestion, you just think there must be one? I can't say I see any reason to believe that to be true. What we know about how brains operate does appear to suggest they are complicated but deterministic. As I understand Brownian Motion is the motion of a larger particle caused by it being buffeted by collisions with many smaller particles (typically invisible to the viewer). It is a chaotic process, because it is very sensitive to initial conditions, but it deterministic because each collision operates according to normal, deterministic, physical principles. It will appear random to a viewer but it is not actually random.

No, in a completely deterministic universe, it would be the conditions leading up to the point where you think that you are making a choice that unconsciously determine the outcome.If it was only because of your choice, then if you reran it you could choose something different. But becase you cannot choose something different in a completely deterministic universe, then your "choice" didn't really have any effect on the outcome at all. And that's why its not really a choice. From that point of view, it does look like a choice, but that is an illusion because it didn't acutally change anything because the outcome was already determined by the conditions leading up to the "choice".The chooser actually had no say at all in what the outcome was going to be. If they did, when you rerun it, the outcome could be different. But that would make it no longer completely deterministic. Realizing that a conscious mind making actual choices is an exception to the stoichastic/deterministic dichotomy for physical processes doesn't mean that I have to understand exactly what kind of process it is. If I had to, I would simply describ it as that: a conscious mind making a choice. That is the alternative. Perhaps, and that would add an illusory component to decision making. Okay, that's not what I leaned.

Not at all, it would be the internal state of your brain that determines your actions. So you can't predict the response without knowledge of the internal state. It's a choice because it's your brain making the decision, there's no causal train between the conditions and the outcome that doesn't involve you - the chooser. I really don't see how that follows. A choice was made. That choice determined outcomes, that hypothetical reruns would yield the same choice doesn't make it not a choice. It was. But the conditions critically involved the chooser themselves which is why it remains a choice, and not an illusion of choice. Yes, they did. A different chooser could well have chosen differently. That sounds like mystic woo to me, to be honest, or worse, it sounds like dualism. What reason can you give me to believe that this is the case?

No, I know, that's what I meant. It would be the condition of the internal state of your brain that determines the outcome, its not because of your choice.When we're really making conscious decisions, they're not simply a result of the conditions leading up to it, we're changing the conditions of the internal state of our brain ourselves and determining what the outcome is going to be. If you reran it, we could make the outcome something different. That's what it means to actually have a choice. That the outcome cannot be something different is exactly what makes it not a choice. According to your own private definition of "choice" that nobody else in this thread is using. A different chooser is irrelevant. The chooser didn't have a say because there was only one option that could happen. The universe isn't completely deterministic and the choices we make are not random. What else could it be?

Huh? The internal state is you. You are making the choice, it's doesn't make any sense to say that the internal state of your brain is determining the outcome but not you. Similarly "we're changing the conditions of the internal state of our brain ourselves" is just a meaningless string of words. Can you please give an argument in support of this idea instead of merely repeating it? I talked about nematodes in message 81, do you agree that C. elegans chooses? But the result critically depended on the choice that the chooser made. Without the chooser, or with a different chooser, things would happen differently. Well, we could accept the results of our inquiries, and assume that choice operates entirely through known principles until we actually get a compelling reason to change that view. An emotional attachment to it working differently is not such a compelling reason.Edited by Mr Jack, : No reason given.Edited by Mr Jack, : No reason given.