Free Will: What others have thought about it in the past...

The evolution of thought around free will:

God: You think therefore you have sinned.

Plato: I think I can imagine what is.

Renes Descartes: I think therefore I am.

Hobbes: I think we're better off together.

Adam Smith: We are better off together.

Charles Darwin: I think I selected you because you think.

Elvis: I think I love you.

Mick Jagger: I think I can't get no satisfaction.

Pink Floyd: I think it's just one more brick in the wall.

Richard Nixon: I think I am not a crook.

Daniel Dennett: I think I think therefore I think.

Sam Harris: I think therefore I am not really thinking.

Christopher Hitchens: I think therefore I need no god.

Richard Dawkins: I think because it gives me more descendants.

Donald Trump: I think I'm a very smart person

Scott Adams: I don't think, I just do. I have no free will... so I can be an a$$hole. It's not my fault! I can't help myself.

Comments

Grand Vacations or Burning Man on Mars. It could happen.

Precursors No, it will happen. At least if the aliens don't get here first. But we'll talk about that in another blog post. What I want to talk about today is the mistaken idea that progress will end. There's a neat book by John Brockman , actually a series of books that I call 'blog fodder.' The one that drove me to write about Grand Vacations is: " This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories that are Blocking Progress ." John has put together several books of this type where he asks scientists, economists and others to write something provocative on his chosen topic. These books are great fun to scan. Many of the articles are great fun, many are just crazy, some are so bad they aren't even wrong (as Wolfgang Pauli would say.) The article that started my train of thought that has led to this blog post was: "Economic Growth." Cesar Hidalgo , an Associate Professor at MIT claims the idea of economic growth must die. He makes two arg...

Capitalism is not inherently bad, unethical or immoral. Limited Liability Companies? They are the engines that pollute the world.

What is wrong with capitalism? I blame Limited Liability Corporations . Let’s be clear: Corporations are not human beings. Corporations have no conscience. Corporations are immoral, doing whatever it takes to survive. Capitalism tried to harvest that greed to benefit all mankind. Most would say it's been successful; however, without regulations, Corporations will do anything to improve their profits. They will lie, cheat and steal. Corporations will force their costs on anyone they can, refuse to clean up their messes and kill people if it means they will make more profits. They have no other incentive without regulations. As Limited Liability Corporations the owners have no fear of retribution from the state, except to lose their investment. It’s a perfect storm of corruption. Capitalism is designed to harness this immoral greed and attempt to benefit mankind. And it works surprisingly well. The number of people in abject poverty has fallen absolutely in the last few decades. [ UR...

It's been fixed! There is no longer an insane narrowing of the 280 Freeway in Santa Clara County.

UPDATE: BREAKING NEWS (8/15/21): They painted the final lines and messed it up again at Pagemill road (going down to three lanes and taking one as a dedicated exit and barely fixed the entry of the diamond lane... so it's still a little bit screwed up at one place... backups will not be eliminated entirely. DOH! It seems the California Department of Transportation has taken my suggestions made four years ago and decided to repave the 280 freeway so that there are four continuous lanes for the entire trip between San Francisco and San Jose. My last report on this crazy backup causing 'improvement' was here: https://www.wiigf.com/2016/11/a-proposal-to-fix-unnecessary-freeway.html. I pointed out that there was space to stop the backups and increase the traffic flow and was flabbergasted as to why they had designed the freeway to impede traffic flow. Now they've gone back and repaved it and fixed it. I have no need to repaint the lines anymore as the DOT has done it thems...

What's it good for?

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