Would the World be the Same if History Restarted?

General Discussion
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Would that be the sequence of it, though? The alternative is that we started out stronger, and then lost some of our strength in a tradeoff with our developing intelligence, as I think @Teleros was suggesting. I don’t know which is true, having not looked into human evolution very thoroughly so far. Just clarifying the alternative scenarios.

Well, the implicit intent (although I do wish people who brought this up more often made this explicit, instead) of course is, would it work out the same if we disregarded determinism. Perhaps we start again with Earth with the same overall characteristics, but we shuffle all the molecules a bit to avoid determinism confounding our thought experiment. You get a more interesting question that way, I think. (Well… kind of. I am always very excited to discuss determinism, as well. But I do like the question of the tape of life, as well (although this question may be more cultural and less biological, the way it was originally phrased).)

I would be much less qualified to comment on the cultural/historical interpretation of this question than on the biological/evolutionary one, but @woollysmash’s post has the ring of probable truth, to me.

Well, I could imagine something like that could describe something between employment and slavery, or something. But then, I am left wing.

Many would argue against this, I think, but there are indeed hints that it may be. I don’t remember which exact species it was, but there are primates ((non-human) apes, I think) that go on raids of other groups in a way that is more warlike than basic territorial conflicts other species have, although I don’t remember the details. Probably David Attenborough was talking about it.

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Oh god i can see your arguments but my ability to formulate my self on english isn’t good enough to follow up. Especially when i need to write it down :frowning:
Though i enjoyed the argument i will stop here sorry if i sounded stupid.

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@Teleros Keep in mind that a tiny quantum fluctuation, especially of an electron popping out of the electron field (research this if you don’t know how particles actually came into being) happened to hit a particular molecule in a particular neuron. It is quite likely that the action potential was sparked this way, leading to a firing neuron, which in turn leads to 20 other firing neurons, etc, etc.

@Phagocytosis That seems highly unreasonable that we lost a trait to gain another. Evolution doesn’t do tradeoffs, most of the time. It just does optimization. If less strength were (somehow) optimal, then sure, that could have happened. But I can’t see a situation where being weaker does you more good unless there is some kind of intelligent design. Life only gets better for the situation it’s in. It doesn’t go backwards without backwards being a good thing.

Also, one of the biggest reasons humans developed intelligence and raptors, for example, did not, is because humans are mammals. That means that we have several traits and “cultural” (as far as you can apply that term to true animals is concerned) identities that reptiles lack. For example, the most important one that I can think of is that mammals are incredibly caring for their young, as each one requires a relatively high investment of energy. Only one, sometimes two or three, and very, very rarely more, babies are born at once, so the mother (or father) devotes a tremendous amount of time to caring for that young. If you are familiar with population biology, then you should know that mammals are K-selected organisms, whereas reptiles lean moreso to the r-selected side than mammals do. They basically pop out larger amounts of babies in order to make it statistically impossible for them to all die out.

Mammals care for their young, which means that they also impose upon their young ways to live. Reptiles don’t do that so much. In fact, mammals are unique in their care for the young. The child will often stay with the parents for years, sometimes decades, before leaving for their own life. What this means is that more “culture” is imposed upon the young, so they gather more non-instinctual intelligence, meaning that actual knowledge can build up over the centuries. On the other hand, other organisms typically leave their young to themselves after birth, and they rely on quality rather than quantity to survive.

@Phagocytosis By the way, I think that primate group you are thinking of is baboons. If I’m correct, they are highly territorial, and the Alpha males will often go on conquests for more mates, if I’m not mistaken.

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I would argue that there is merit in being intolerant of intolerance and breaches of human (and animal) rights, even in the face of sovereignty of other nations. Just because something is done by a nation that believes that thing is right/just/moral, does not mean it is acceptable. This is particularly clear if you follow a set of absolute morals, but even someone like me who does not might hold these opinions because given such a person’s moral code, it may still be possible to come to objective and consistent ‘judgments’ (for lack of a better word) of morality/rightness/desirability.

However, who’s to say France, too, would not have eventually grown to oppose slavery without outside help? Of course, it’s possible that it wouldn’t have, but just because in actual history Britain beat them to it does not mean that it wasn’t going to get there on its own. It may indeed be a natural aspect of cultural development to abolish slavery. I don’t know if it is—again, not all that qualified to comment on cultural issues—just putting it out there as a possibility.

That’s hard to say, honestly, lacking any control. However, I must give you points for arguing utilitarianism.

That strikes me as a bit ironic, since patriotism to me seems like something that could reinforce wars rather than oppose it. It’s perhaps one of the worst reasons for war, as well, to me. I can’t help but roll my eyes at patriotism in most cases where I encounter it.

Other than that, I like the quote as well. However, I will say that I think war should be a last resort, or one of the last resorts anyway. Similarly, I’m not too sure about the following:

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I can certainly see such a thing happening… my point is that neurones require a certain threshold to be crossed, and I’m not sure that a single electron could do it alone. I mean hey, if you’ve evidence for it I’d be interested to see it anyway, but ATM I remain unconvinced given what I know of neurones.

Darwin’s finches might disagree there :stuck_out_tongue: .

Stop and think about it for a minute in the context of sea animals moving permanently onto land (then back again, eg whales and maybe, eventually, hippos). Or indeed of four-legged human ancestor species becoming two-legged - there’s a clear trade-off there between stability and having two limbs free.

It’s easy to imagine why it’s optimal - food vs energy demands. If you have ~2,000 calories to live on per day, then it’s a very big deal if you have a 400cal/day brain AND either (for the sake of argument) 500cal/day or 1,000cal/day musculature.

In such a scenario, then if brains > brawn… well you get the idea. Cut down on the muscle to make it easier to survive, and out-breed the big muscular guys next door when they start starving.

You can imagine something like this developing alongside greater intelligence amongst raptors though.

Sure, I just don’t think you need “international law” to do it. Imagine a 19th Century United Nations - Britain tries to outlaw the slave trade, but the USA vetoes it to avoid upsetting its southern states. Instead, Britain just said “screw it, no more slavery”, and promptly bullied everyone it can into following suit.
Now imagine the situation today, but without a nice Western country like the USA acting as global policeman. China & Russia - as the Syrian civil war shows - clearly don’t give two figs about human rights if they interfere at all with their national interests. You only get a nice international order when you have nice, powerful nations on top able to keep the unpleasant ones in line.

For a good example of international co-operation, try the very informal alliance of English-speaking nations. The UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada in particular get on famously and co-operate a heck of a lot, especially in matters of espionage (there’s even a no-spying agreement between them, which is extraordinary). But then, those countries all have very similar core values.

The political cultures are very different between the Anglosphere and, well, everyone else :stuck_out_tongue: . To not put too fine a point on it, when someone says “Western values” etc they mean “British (political) values” typically, because that’s where those values originated. Britain exported those values to its empire, and its prodigal son, the USA, then imposed them on the rubble called Western Europe following WW2.

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Well… I should refrain from jumping to conclusions, but my first reaction is that this sounds an awful lot like wishful thinking getting in the way of proper science. Anything that makes humans special this way on the level of laws of nature I am extremely skeptical about. I suppose it’s possible that there is some kind of top-down feedback on quantum mechanics that evolution can act upon, or something… but it seems far-fetched, to me. At any rate, I hope it’s not true—I like the concept of determinism, not so much free will. However, I am open-minded enough to not deny any actual proof that comes up.

Unfortunately, until I eventually get to studying quantum mechanics, I probably will be unable to really look into such claims. Until such a time, feel free to take any thoughts I may have on the subject with a grain of salt.

Unless there is some other trait that synergizes well with intelligence that we have not yet seen come up (to the extent that it still exists or left evidence of its prior existence) in our planet’s evolutionary history :slight_smile:

Glad to hear that, and I agree wholeheartedly.

Although that’s a good thing to remember generally, and is true in almost all cases, I will again reference this concept of “fitness over time” that I mentioned before.

I would say, “if they are not observed to happen under circumstances where they should be, GR must be wrong”. That’s just in the interest of precision; I imagine that’s how you meant it to begin with.

Well (I can’t believe I’m about to say this), the rules of the discussion were never stated to need to rely solely on science and to forbid speculation, or anything along those lines. Sure, it’s fair to point out when something is not scientific, and to base your interpretation of (the validity of) said something on that basis, but I’d say it’s also fair to just speculate if that’s what any given participant in this discussion wants to do.

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Yup :slight_smile: .

Filler line for word limit :stuck_out_tongue: .

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That sounds fascinating. Did you develop this into a story or some such? If so, is it available anywhere?

Of course, such “free will” would still be unlikely (although this unlikelihood may have occurred in the context of your sci-fi, I imagine) to really result in the kind of free will that people mean when they use the term, as it would have to occur with every decision, and in a clever way if it is to avoid causing in deleterious (if creative) choices being made by individuals. And then, what would drive this “clever way”, if not some other intelligence driving all this (in which case, is it really still free will rather than being controlled like a marionette?)?

Right. At this point, it becomes a bit of a quantitative issue that is beyond the scope of my knowledge to unravel :smiley:

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Nope, though I keep planning on writing about the setting :stuck_out_tongue: . It’s kind of a minor point though - I’d rather write a story in the setting with lots of explosions :smiley: .

It’s not the sort of thing that is even intended to happen regularly - think of it as more like a butterfly-effect-generator. In a setting with insanely powerful computers (ie, the kind which can accurately work out what you’ll have for breakfast this time next year), if nothing else it helps keep people sane, because they really do have free will, and the computers can never be certain their calculations & predictions won’t run afoul of random chance.

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You are quite right, I expect. I should have been more precise. What I meant is that we destroy our planet sufficiently to render it unlivable for ourselves—even that, by the way, I think is a bit of a stretch (which is not to suggest that we should not be careful, because even less extreme problems we could cause are probably worth preventing)—as an example of one way in which we may be thrown from our current position of power on Earth, which we otherwise hold quite stably, which was my actual argument, which I was trying to be a bit conservative about.

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@Phagocytosis The reason I put “free will” in quotation marks is because it’s not actually free will.

I will be back to add to this soon.

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Well, I’m unlikely to have the time to really investigate it anytime soon, but I’ll make a point out of paying special attention when I inevitably take that course again (this time at master level), and let you know about it at that point, should I remember to. That will be many months from now, though. Alternatively, I’m sure you could find more about it yourself if you search for that phrase, “fitness over time”.

Exactly. That’s another good reason to doubt such reports, although of course they should be judged ultimately on their own merits.

You certainly did not sound stupid to me. Thanks for participating as much as you did.

Well, “quite likely” are the key words, here. I’m not too sure about that. I took a course in neurobiology recently, and typically more than a single molecule is involved in generating an action potential. I guess there are possibilities, but most of the ones I can think of influence an action potential quite a bit later on. Even assuming it is possible, it seems to be more than a coincidence, and some intelligence would have to be behind the ‘randomness’ (it wouldn’t actually be random anymore at that point) of quantum fluctuations. If that’s some outer intelligence, then it seems like it wouldn’t be our free will making the decision. And if it’s done by “us” in the sense of our brains, then how isn’t deterministic going down from that level?

All in all, it just seems rather fantastic and unlikely, to me. But again, what do I know? I know very little about quantum mechanics, unfortunately.

Well, this is where considerations of epistasis come in, again. Perhaps each individual trait is beneficial, but they interact in such a way that it’s detrimental to have both.

However, what I was really thinking is that intelligence requires several structures (e.g., a large brain, other phenotypic traits that allow the intelligence to be used so as to be beneficial in the first place) that require some amount of energy to develop that might thus need to be taken away from other traits, e.g. muscle tone, thus making us be less strong. In that sense, tradeoffs are quite possible.

Optimization is fine, but it doesn’t happen in a vacuum/in isolation. Between limited resources and complicated interactions of traits, it’s possible that we lost some features in order to gain our intelligence. If the net result was still beneficial (which it may well have been given that we are smarter, weaker, and more successful than other primates), evolution would favor it.

In fact, my above argument is kind of illustrated by you here in the sense of certain traits being necessary for other traits to develop effectively/beneficially (epistasis).

Also, I would say statistically unlikely, rather than impossible. But yes, generally speaking, that’s a valid point, I think. Although I do also wonder whether the caring preceded the intelligence rather than coming about as a result of the need for nurturing the more energy-intensive young that intelligence effected.

Very well possible. I don’t remember and would have to look it up, but I’m spending way too much time on this topic already. For today, I’m just going through until I’ve fully caught up, and then I’m moving on to something else. I may come back later, though, and check on this.

Suppose an electron could influence a molecule such that it changes its behavior (slightly tall claim, but not too much so, imo), it would still have to be a very central molecule if it is to cause an action potential. Actually, I’d say it’s more likely that it causes a synaptic signal (release of neurotransmitters from the axon terminal), which might trigger a pathway that leads to vesicular fusion and neurotransmitter release and all that. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, I forget the details of the mechanisms involved (and again, I can’t be bothered to check at this time). All in all, I think if possible at all, it would have to be a very particular interaction that is unlikely to occur randomly to the extreme. If it’s non-random, I refer back to my earlier problems with this scenario.

(Sorry I keep making new posts by mistake; it’s all so much work!)

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Glad to see that this has for the most part been a healthy and clean discussion, just to remind folks that these topics can easily get out of hand if you let them, so please keep it friendly, or you know I’ll have to start swinging the ban hammer around :slight_smile:

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@Geoffers747, thank you for your friendly reminder. I will do my best to do my part in keeping it clean.

Well, I think it is indeed possible that in some cases, military force might be the only effective solution. I guess I’m not entirely pacifistic, but I’m up there; I’d like to explore many other avenues, first, just because wars, as solutions to suffering go, actually cause a lot of suffering in and of themselves. For that reason, I like the UN, at least in principle.

I always have a hard time estimating exactly how much something will work in terms of economics, politics, culture, etc., as it often comes down to many precise, perhaps quantitative, considerations. I have the same problem with left-wing versus right-wing interpretations of desirable economic regulations (or lack thereof). Both sides seem to say their plans will work out well, and the plans of the other side won’t. So, I tend to leave such considerations out of the picture for myself and just decide (and vote) based on personal preference (which side I think is preferable, assuming both work), which usually lands me more toward the left because I don’t like large gaps between rich and poor. If I ever end up studying economics, I may eventually be able to forego this simplification and come to a more informed opinion, but not for the time being.

We have a similar situation, here. I don’t know how effective UN policy will be relative to the alternative (simplified a bit as “the alternative”, but you get the point) of waging war, so I support the inherently preferable option first. Once I look into sociology, anthropology, politics, history, etc. (most of which are probably higher in the list than economics, although actually that one might also be relevant here), I may again be able to look at a larger subset of the whole picture, at which point I will reevaluate.

Well, explosions interest me significantly less than does determinism versus free will, as well as quantum mechanics. However, even as a minor backdrop, your idea sounds sufficiently interesting to me that I would like to read this if you ever do get it in a state where it is ready for the public. Good luck!

Oh, I now remember the other question I intended to raise. The reason people nowadays still believe in free will, if you ask me, is that practically, it’s hard to tell the difference between existence and non-existence of free will. We make conscious choices autonomously, either way, and it feels like free will even if it isn’t. Given this practical irrelevance of ‘actual’ free will, I wonder how your form of it would feature in the story? Is there time travel where suddenly someone makes a different decision even in the absence of any influencing by the time traveler(s)?

However, this question is now less important, because you already more or less answered it: the supercomputers that rely on determinism for their predictions. Cool.

Looking forward to it.

Yay! I’m up to date!

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I think the UN would be a lot more effective without all the tin-pot dictators and such in it, and though I’m sure they’d whine at being excluded, I’m not sure I really care what the Saudis think about much when they’re oppressing their own people so much.

Agreed.

Honestly, I must say it’s a minor element, more background material. I just like saying “what if X?” and then running with it, and I’ve always been into sci-fi military stuff anyway. It’d be nice to talk about it more in general, but it seems just a bit off-topic to start a discussion here about it :smiley: .

I did write a short story based in the setting though. which I put up on the Yogscast forums:

http://forums.yogscast.com/showthread.php?113276-Route-North-442-116

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Well,

[quote=“Geoffers747, post:56, topic:6352”]
Like @SteveAdamo said, we generally give general discussion a wide berth and let conversation go wherever it dictates there
[/quote]:slight_smile:

I’ll look at your short story a bit later, as I’ve done too much reading and writing already for a bit.

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Wow, Phago, you’ve been busy! Looks like I have some of my own catching up to do!

Also, Teleros, I would like to look at your story at some point as well, if it is what I think it is.

Lastly, I just want everyone to know that I am an American High School Junior, so my arguments may not have as much weight as all of you University guys’ arguments may have, but I tend to think of myself as a relatively capable debater besides that. However, please pardon my ignorance if I happen to make mistakes on any of these topics.

Alright, now to get back to discussing:

So far, I’m picking up a few different themes of discourse here -

  1. The biological intelligence theme (would evolution allow X? Is there free will?)
  2. The anthropocentric socio-economic theme (would war/diplomacy/cultures still exist?)
  3. The sci-losophy theme (deterministic vs. quantum fluctuation?)
  4. The sci-fi novel theme (check out my short story!)

Theme 1:
Regarding the point of “free will” in the mind, I was simply stating that there was some evidence to support it. That’s not necessarily my position, though. However, I personally deem it entirely possible that such quantum fluctuation could conceivably cause a macro-level change. I’m no expert on quantum mechanics, but I consider myself knowledgeable on the topic relative to 90% of the population, so my explanation has at least the weight of a proton behind it ( :stuck_out_tongue: ).

Anyway, a very small change, such as the creation of an electron out of the electron field, or the duplication of baryons in the nucleus of an atom, or a quantum fluctuation in the gluon field, or any such minute change, could conceivably alter the course of an atom, thus causing it to bond with another, thus causing a particular molecule to be present and active at a given point in time and space, etc, etc, until you eventually have an action potential in a neuron that alters your decision-making.

The converse of that is that your decisions are based on a combination of two or more things: past experiences and emotional state, and potentially others as well, such as consciously-made calculations, self-image, etc. As a result, your emotional state could vary widely and alter your decision-making, and your own personality might cause you to react differently to that emotional state as well. Your environment could play a role. Any number of minute variables could alter your decision-making process, and that is why I, personally, find it unbelievable to think that free will is entirely free. There has to be some foundation of math and chemistry that alters your decision-making. Of course, the final result could be modified by yourself, but in the end, it is all probably just a chemical decision in your brain. It’s just the illusion of free will that allows you to feel as if you have free will. Just because your conscious mind registers a decision as your own doesn’t mean that the subconscious mind and physical brain didn’t force your conscious mind into making that decision.

I want free will to exist. I really do. I just happen to also find it unbelievable that it is free will based solely on your “spirit”; there has to be some basis in the math, quantum fluctuation, and chemistry of your brain.

Theme 2:
I have a counter-question; would the dominant human societies of the Earth still be centered around holistic ideals (accruing wealth, fame, etc), such as capitalism is? That is, fundamentally, a question of human nature, and one that I am probably not adequately equipped to answer, but I will do my best anyway.

Ever since the advent of life on Earth, there has been competition between organisms, communities, populations, and even entire species, genuses, and families of organisms to survive. I personally believe that competition is an integral part of existence, especially considering how it tends to improve existing processes. So yes, assuming that humans are the only superintelligent species at a point on a given timeline, and that they did, indeed, develop agriculture, civilization, and so forth, there would be the same pillars of human existence that there are today - war, economy, city-based life, every-increasing technology, and so on and so forth. However, that’s a pretty big assumption, given the combination of quantum fluctuation and the butterfly effect that encompass our universe.

Theme 3:
As I’ve said before, the combination of quantum fluctuation and the butterfly effect would probably have a huge effect on the course of our universe’s history, so it is my opinion that things would not be exactly the same if time rewound itself and the “RNG” of the universe, so to speak, were also not the same.

Theme 4:
I always like a good sci-fi novel, especially sci-fi military, so please, I urge you to continue.

I now pass the argument on to whoever wishes to retort.

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Link’s at the bottom of my last post :slight_smile: .

Yeah I guess it’s possible, but the trouble with human brains is that they fire only when enough neurotransmitters are used - just one won’t cut it. In general, the fewer things that you need to change to get a result, the better - eg the DNA in an egg or sperm cell is ideal, because from that you get a whole new person. In both cases though, there’s also the issue of “aiming” - the event has to occur at the right time and in the right place.

Ditto. I suppose the best way of thinking of it is “I don’t know if it does or not, so I’ll act like it does”, especially as the alternative is usually depressed “I can’t change anything” nonsense :stuck_out_tongue: .

Free market capitalism is perhaps best understood as an Anglo/Dutch idea culturally - most cultures have been by nature protectionist, corporatist, etc. In terms of your personal wealth, those systems tend to be better if you can get to the top (because you’ll stay there), which actually makes them more in keeping with human nature (just less good as economic policies).

Pretty much every human culture gives more “stuff” to those at the top of the pile though, and I don’t see that changing without fundamentally altering human nature. They may prioritise things differently (eg religious unity vs freedom of religion), but that’s about as different as you’ll get.

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Post in progress.

@ManOfRet, thank you for identifying the themes in the discussion.

Ignorance would be the last word I’d use. I wish I had been as knowledgeable when I was in high school… unfortunately, I was a lazy bum at the time.

Well, there is such a thing as the “quantal unit” in this regard: the neurotransmitters are released in vesicles with a given number inside, so if you can get a single vesicle to release, you may be quite a ways already. In fact, iirc, that is often indeed sufficient.

That’s just a bit of advocacy of the devil, mind you. Like I said before, it all seems rather unlikely to me, and very much like wishful thinking (most people seem to really want free will to exist (as @ManOfRet said in his (I’m gonna use masculine pronouns based on the “Man” part of the name) last post)). I don’t know, I really don’t like the notion of free will. I’d much rather have complete determinism and just the illusion of free will. But this seems to be the impopular opinion.

Well, that would rely on a misunderstanding of determinism (or more precisely, a lack of free will), though, wouldn’t it? Just because you have only the illusion of free will rather than actual free will, that doesn’t mean you can’t change anything. You still are one of the ‘cogs’ in the big machine; even if that cog can only turn a certain way, it still changes the system at large. Or is that why you called it “nonsense”?

By the way, I once hosted a forum discussion about determinism vs. free will, a number of years ago (link), when I was but a boy barely in my twenties. Just in case anyone is interested in more reading. Unfortunately, most people seemed to think determinism and free will were compatible, which probably means I was unable to clarify the definitions I intended the discussion to go by sufficiently in my original post.

Just in case you’re interested, the plural is “genera”.

The Dutch are involved? Darn it, now I can no longer hide behind the excuse of not being British as a defense of not knowing much about all this :stuck_out_tongue:

I understand the principle of the butterfly effect/chaos theory, and how that sort of thing can give rise to very different outcomes given even slight changes to initial conditions (or given a stochastic element, even a minor one, such as quantum mechanics might be). However, my question is how often things are really believed to function according to the butterfly effect. I know that certain systems, like meteorologic systems and the economy as the most frequently cited examples, function along these lines, but do they also operate on the levels of the fundamental laws of the universe very much?

In other words, is it more than just an idea, and will it indeed come into play to give rise to a different tape of life or tape of society?

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Exactly. A similar thing has come up in various cases - the idea of a “divine plan” plus “free will”:

“We don’t know what the divine plan is. Therefore, intervening here is wrong (eg to save a life), because we’d be interfering in it.”

The worst kind of logic of course, assuming that your free will and ability TO intervene isn’t taken into consideration in said plan. So, even if you don’t have free will, it’s stupid to go around depressed because “it’s all been determined in advance and you can’t do any good” and so on.

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