It’s still secondary, our testing consists of us observing phenomena, writing something down, and then seeing if the phenomena is consistent with our observation/written-down formula.
Because it’s secondary, there is room for mistakes (as can easily be observed in the long history of science), and it will forever remain a schema/model rather than the actual-thing itself.
I’m not even trying to bash science here, it has accomplished incredible things and in many ways remains the best thing we have. But to draw far-reaching conclusions from what we have observed is a practice with increasing likelihood of errors, because there is a chain of: observation → ‘laws’ → testing → refinement of ‘laws’ → an attempt to use imaginative logic to predict the happenings of the actual world
I’m really interested in what she just said about free will, “when we think we’re making a choice we’re actually just attempting to calculate what will come next”
Very interesting, that is something I spend an inordinate amount of time doing
It’s always now, this calculating a future business is attempting to access a future that doesn’t exist now
Richard (2000): There is nobody ‘steering the ship’ here … free will is a myth: the situation and the circumstances dictate, each moment again, the optimum course of action. What usually happens is that ‘I’ step in – albeit a split-second later – and arrogate authorship by claiming the organic decision-making process for being ‘my’ own decision. There is nobody in charge of the universe. Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 10
I’d only change one little thing:
“The situation and circumstances dictate, each moment again, the optimuma course of action.”
One is never free from making sub-optimal decisions and consequential errors.
Indeed. The brain, even one free of a ‘self’ is still a finite instrument subject to nutrition, rest, the innate capabilities of that individual brain (genetic structures- clearly some brains are smarter than others), the maximum capability of a perfect human brain (the theoretical perfect brain is still a brain), accumulated ageing damage, oxygen levels, and of course the information available.
An objectively “optimal” decision is a long shot.
Still, it’s going to be miles ahead of a brain subject to blind nature’s instinctual ‘self’.
Sure. Warren Buffett sans instinctual self might make better trading decisions than Warren Buffett with instinctual self. Naturally, this does not mean that Rick sans instinctual self would be capable of making better trading decisions than Warren Buffett with instinctual self.