Causality -- A resulting perpetual situation initiated by choice. If you choose to react based soley upon instinct your life will be determined soley on chemical and environmental reactions to the direct stimuli that is, in effect, both your cause and your choice. However, if you choose to reason through, using logical processes of the mind to make an educated guess as to the outcome of all possible reactions to the cause, you have choice.
Choice cannot exist without a cause, and a cause cannot help but to give you a choice. It is you who decides your predisposition to the aspects that you will live life -- one with choice or one by cause.
Perfect simple example:
You find out you have cancer. You are given two choices:
1) to go live in a hospis where you will be made comfortable until you die,
2) or to undergo surgery followed by radiation and chemo therapy treatments. You are given a 75% chance of survival, and a 10% chance the cancer will come back.
Effects of choice 1 would be that you are comfortable, but you will die.
Effects of choice 2 are that you could die. Your hair would likely fall out, you will be very uncomfortable for a period of time, you wil be weak, you will not be able to hold down solid foods for a period of time, along with other "side effects" of radiation, chemo, and surgury.
Your going to die anyway - so which would you choose?
If causality were the absolute, we would not be able to decide between these two, but because we have the ability to foresee what may happen due to past experiences and informed guesses we do have a choice. It's our reasoning abilities that would say "Well it may be painful, but I want to live so I want choice 2.." OFCOURSE there are some of us who may choose choice 1 because we do not want to get in the way of destiny, god, or whatever else you want to call causality in this scenario.
but is it really choice when the system already knows what you are going to choose? You may think you have a choice in the matter, but if the system already knows both what you are going to do and what it is going to do to stop it/counteract it, then how do you ever have a say-so in anything. Ex. Trinity tells Neo she will stay out of the Matrix. However, due to a squiddy tow bomb, she is charged with the choice of enter the matrix to save the lives of Neo and Morpheus, or stay and die. however, is this really a choice? i say no, due to the events after this "choice". Trinity HAD TO enter the matrix to give Neo any real choice in the doors. She was basically forced into entering the matrix, because of her love for Neo, and while you may say this is causality, i say it is purpose, and there is no real choice, as the Merovingian says.
Jedi
The system, a) does NOT know what you are going to choose (until moments before you choose it) and b) it only reacts to your choices by much of the same way we react in our everyday lives. Hence you choose to reply to my post or you choose to end it. You can ask the same question a thousand times and my answer will be the same:
Causality is a choice of response to given stimuli but by giving you a reason to react you are given a choice by how you are going to react. Choice is never taken away unless you strip youself of it by allowing yourself to be controlled by first instinct due to chemical and environmental interactions. There would be no choice without causality, there would be no causality (philisophically speaking) without choice.
Jedi
The only mention of Trinity entering the matrix BEFORE she entered was given only by Neo! Trinity entered the matrix before Neo got to the Architect - though Neo did not know this prior to his conversation with the Architect. The only other time her entering the matrix is mentioned is in Neo's dream (when he's sleeping next to her in the real world) and when he tell's the Oracle about his dream. The oracle did not say "You're dreaming about Trinity entering the Matrix, do you see her die?" Also, the architect says "Already I can see the chain reaction the chemical precursors that signal the onset of an emotion designed specifically to overwhelm logic and reason." Now, let me point out, the architect does not see the chemical reactions at all!! Only the results of them that are translated to Neo's digital self. So, please tell me how the machines are able to read these chemical precursors from within the matrix, when the body is disconnected from the matrix?
you think that Neo can see it, but somehow the Oracle cannot? "wuoldn't be much of an oracle if she didn't"...good question, although it is the same as the Oracle saying "I know you're not sleeping, we'll get to that..." she is not in the real world, she does not stand over him, knowing he is not sleeping...
No, she does not stand over him. But, much as the architect implies, she is no Oracle.
"Neo: The Oracle. Architect: Please. As I was saying, she mearly stumbled upon a solution from which 99% of the test subject would accept the programming as long as they were given a choice...."
That is just the name given to her because, up to this point, Neo, Morpheus, and everyone thought she was human.
The "Oracle" simply knew that Neo was not sleeping by reading the code given by his digital self. That is the same code that told her whether or not he was going to sit down, or take the candy. There would be no prediction in that.
Neo, on the otherhand, is a human embodyment that is implanted with machine technology. Combine this with the fact that his mind is ever expanding, and possibly unlocking portions of the brain that are not even used today (about 60% of the human brain lays dormant), and the fact that he, himself, is able to read the code within the Matrix, and he is intimate with the individual at hand, his dreams and subconcious took on the task of inturpreting the data stored by his brain and developing senses in much the manner many psychologist believe does happen in our everyday lives. He simply dreamed of a possibility for the future, that, had he been able to determine all the variables, he would have been able to control.
Originally posted by JediHDM
but is it really choice when the system already knows what you are going to choose? You may think you have a choice in the matter, but if the system already knows both what you are going to do and what it is going to do to stop it/counteract it, then how do you ever have a say-so in anything. Ex. Trinity tells Neo she will stay out of the Matrix. However, due to a squiddy tow bomb, she is charged with the choice of enter the matrix to save the lives of Neo and Morpheus, or stay and die. however, is this really a choice? i say no, due to the events after this "choice". Trinity HAD TO enter the matrix to give Neo any real choice in the doors. She was basically forced into entering the matrix, because of her love for Neo, and while you may say this is causality, i say it is purpose, and there is no real choice, as the Merovingian says.
so this means that everything begins with causality...?????!!!!!
Ahem. Choice and causality are – in a way – two different things. Cause and effect just happens. The Universe has a cause (Big Bang) without anyone choosing anything, so scientifically speaking – it ALL began with a cause. The effect is everything you see around you today. Your life began with a cause: Your conception. 😄
But then we have this intelligent species called homo sapiens, who has the capacity to think about his/her life and everything around him/her.
Causality can be totally independent of choice. A star doesn’t choose to, say, go supernova after so and so long. It just does. Laws of physics.
But choice cannot be independent of causality. There has to be an event, that requires of me, that I make a choice. THAT event had a cause, the event of me having to make a choice can be one of it’s effects. But I CAN choose NOT to make a choice.
There can, on the other hand, be no choice without causality. Every choice I make has effects. So choice is something intelligent species can do. Animals, without self-awareness do only choose within the parameters of their instincts.
Originally posted by The Omega
Ahem. Choice and causality are – in a way – two different things. Cause and effect just happens. The Universe has a cause (Big Bang) without anyone choosing anything, so scientifically speaking – it ALL began with a cause. The effect is everything you see around you today. Your life began with a cause: Your conception. 😄
But then we have this intelligent species called homo sapiens, who has the capacity to think about his/her life and everything around him/her.Causality can be totally independent of choice. A star doesn’t choose to, say, go supernova after so and so long. It just does. Laws of physics.
But choice cannot be independent of causality. There has to be an event, that requires of me, that I make a choice. THAT event had a cause, the event of me having to make a choice can be one of it’s effects. But I CAN choose NOT to make a choice.
There can, on the other hand, be no choice without causality. Every choice I make has effects. So choice is something intelligent species can do. Animals, without self-awareness do only choose within the parameters of their instincts.
Scientifically speaking, you are absolutely correct. But that is scientifically, and this issued, as tackled by the movies, are philosophically speaking - in which case they cannot co-exist. Philosophically speaking causality determins our choices as nothing but illusions presented to us as reality, and that, whatever choice we make is the only choice we COULD have made. So according to causality, my choice to reply to your post was predetermined and no matter what happened I could not have changed that, even though I had the choice of replying or not commenting. I do not think that I need to reitterated choice on a philosophical sense though, and it is my choice not to. 🙂
Meta> Philosophically speaking causality STILL precedes choice. Something happens, a cause, that forces me to MAKE a choice.
The REALLY interesting thing to me, is about whether or not I really do have choice. And I think that’s where you’re somehow going to.
For me to have true freedom to choose I MUST be able to see ALL the possible options. I must posses ALL knowledge and all information about the situation I’m in. I must be able to realise what emotions influence my choices, too. And analyses ALL consequences.
I do not think the choice is predetermined. Saying that “you made the ONLY choice you COULD” is fatalistic, and strips us completely of free will. Or rather – of our ability to wilfully make a choice. Because it borders on fate and metaphysics. I have no free will, I only BELIEVE I have free will. I’m just a hot-pot of instincts, emotions, psychology, and given a good computer it could predict ALL my choices (here we could start discussing the Oracle, because it is, essentially what she does IN the Matrix).
OF course there IS some truth to this: I am who I am, and based on past experience I will react – chose – in a certain way in a special situation.
Neo tells Morpehus in M1 that he doesn’t the like the thought of not being in control of his own life. But who else makes the choice but him?
Originally posted by The Omega
Meta> Philosophically speaking causality STILL precedes choice. Something happens, a cause, that forces me to MAKE a choice.The REALLY interesting thing to me, is about whether or not I really do have choice. And I think that’s where you’re somehow going to.
For me to have true freedom to choose I MUST be able to see ALL the possible options. I must posses ALL knowledge and all information about the situation I’m in. I must be able to realise what emotions influence my choices, too. And analyses ALL consequences.I do not think the choice is predetermined. Saying that “you made the ONLY choice you COULD” is fatalistic, and strips us completely of free will. Or rather – of our ability to wilfully make a choice. Because it borders on fate and metaphysics. I have no free will, I only BELIEVE I have free will. I’m just a hot-pot of instincts, emotions, psychology, and given a good computer it could predict ALL my choices (here we could start discussing the Oracle, because it is, essentially what she does IN the Matrix).
OF course there IS some truth to this: I am who I am, and based on past experience I will react – chose – in a certain way in a special situation.
Neo tells Morpehus in M1 that he doesn’t the like the thought of not being in control of his own life. But who else makes the choice but him?
Saying that, phillisophically speaking, causality precedes choise is misleading. When speaking philosophically, the two are separated to their purest forms. Cause does not always have to precede choice. And even though it does in some cases, does not justify causality because it does not eliminate choice.
Causality DOES strip you completely of free will. Be it God, a demon, Machines, or science, how ever you believe, causaility is just as you described it an more. Your instincts, in the theory of causality, are just tools to lead you to believe that you do have a choice. Thought and reasoning abilities follow the same pattern. Essentially we could be stripped of our brains by some higher power and still follow in a predetermined path. Science behind causality would reflect our chemical make up. Just as chemists can predict chemical reactions, how long they will last, and what various things will happen when they mix two or more chemicals, it can be reasoned that the same can be known about us if we understood and unlocked the entire human genome. By knowing our entire chemical make up with a massive super computer for comparisons to the parents chemical make up, it should be able to be predicted what schools will be attended, who you have intimate relationships with, and the things that your grand kids will do - according to causality.
Freewill, which I am a strong believer in, might I add, is based on the absence of cause preceeding choice, but rather following it. Lets face it, that's a pureist definition, but it is necessary to offset the pure definition of causality. Freewill assumes that you always know all of your possible options, if only at a subconcious level. You do not have to be conciously aware that you can/should react in a manner that leads to concequenses that you want in order to react in that manner. If' you've ever done something and you didn't understand why, but you felt it had to be done, is an example of this. This is where we could talk about Neo, and how he made choices that were presented in other fashions when he did not have all the information, or we could talk about the Oracle and how she wasn't telling Neo what was going on, but rather, only helping him to "Know thy self." You do not have to know the reasons and results of a choice to make it, you just have to be aware that there is a choice to be made, and this is where those who follow causality see a "flaw" and thus causality's theory was born.