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You Think You Have Free Will? Yeah, You Would.

By on September 14, 2013 in News 30

claude_shannon.mouse_in_maze.102630790.lgIndividual people believe that they have free will, and maybe more free will than others.

Via Understanding Human:

An article by Pronin & Kugler (2010) looks at our perceptions of free will, and the fact that we believe we have more free will than others. In their study, they found that people perceived their past and future behaviours as less predictable than the futures of their peers, and that there were more possible ways for their lives to go.

The assumption that they had more possible ways to go is not a result of realistic thinking, but rather it reflected their dreams and intentions, and for this reason, it was true for both college students and restaurant waiters. From a realistic point of view, college students have more possible ways to go compared to restaurant waiters, but they did not tend to think so. They did not claim to have more desirable futures, they only thought to have more possible ways to go.

… Read the rest

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Two Takes On ‘New Age’

By on May 14, 2013 in News 31

New age dolphin rainbow

Introduction

In 1928 a brilliant philosopher/logician from Vienna, Rudolf Carnap, published Der logische Aufbau der Welt, The Logical Structure of the World. Ten years before, Ludwig Wittgenstein had conceived his highly cryptic Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “the last philosophical book.” Carnap—and other exponents of the Vienna Circle—elaborated on Wittengstein’s message. Toward the conclusion of his mentioned work (183.Rationalism?) he inserted:

REFERENCES. Wittgenstein has clearly formulated the proud thesis of omnipotence of rational science as well as the humble insight relative to its importance for practical life: “For an answer that cannot be expressed, the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be put at all, then it can also be answered… (…)” Wittgenstein summarizes the import of his treatise in the following words: “What can be said at all, can be said clearly, and whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

That famous aphorism, which concludes the treatise, ought to have been interpreted as a confession of Gnostic humility, not as a “proud thesis of omnipotence of rational science.” All it takes is heeding all the implications of the opus.… Read the rest

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