Free will is bullshit. - Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology

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Phluck
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Free will is bullshit.
#2025307 - 10/20/03 10:30 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

At any given time, you have millions of options. You could stand up right now, run around the room three times, while yodeling. Or maybe you could strangle yourself with the mouse cord. Or you could try eating a diskette.

Will you make these choices? Probably not.

When you're faced with an imminant decision, "do you want to go to the party or not?", you'll make a choice there based on how you feel about parties, how you feel about the people at the party, and how you feel at the moment. If we could press a rewind button on life, go back in time, and repeat that moment with every minute variable identical, would your decision ever vary? If it would, why?

--------------------
"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us

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TODAY
Battletoad

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Posts: 10,218
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2025321 - 10/20/03 10:34 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

nobody will ever know. i think about that stuff all the time though too. like, what would have happened if i chose the other path. i can't think of a good example right now but i have the feeling in mind.

--------------------

ca'rouse (k-rouz)
intr.v.
To engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking.

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manna_man
High onlife.....andcrack

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2025337 - 10/20/03 10:38 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Right, the choices we make are related to how we were influenced in the past. Our environment shapes our behaviour, and thus the decisions we make. Even if you were to strangle yourself by whatever means, there would have to existed some outside force that compells you to do so. If we were to live our past exactly the same way, there would be no difference in our decisions. However,if you were to alter the past in the slightest way, it could have drastic influences in the future.

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This post is protected under copyrite law.All above content is strictly the property of ?manna_man.Any infringement of copyright property is strictly prohibited.Any violators will be stretched, shot, and then vaporized into a state of anti-matter, where they will cease to exist.

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Seuss
Error: divide byzero

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: TODAY]
#2025347 - 10/20/03 10:40 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

> If we could press a rewind button on life, go back in time, and repeat that moment with every minute variable identical, would your decision ever vary?

I have often wondered if the universe isn't a set of simultanious equations. There would be infinite possiblities, but only one solution... which happens to be the one that everybody is living. If we were to try and rewind the tape going back in time, the equations would still be the same, thus the outcome couldn't change.

--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.

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sirreal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2025356 - 10/20/03 10:43 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Phluck said:
At any given time, you have millions of options. You could stand up right now, run around the room three times, while yodeling. Or maybe you could strangle yourself with the mouse cord. Or you could try eating a diskette.

Will you make these choices?

You talked me into it! I am running around the room with the mouse cord around my neck as I type. I am yodeling also.

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I may not always tell the truth, but atleast I'm honest
-----------

I see what everyone is saying. It is so hard to form an opinion when you see both sides so clearly!

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Alan Stone
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2025371 - 10/20/03 10:47 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Phluck said:
If we could press a rewind button on life, go back in time, and repeat that moment with every minute variable identical, would your decision ever vary? If it would, why?

You obviously never make rash decisions. I'm a chaotic mind, sometimes I do stuff without a reason. However, we do have free will, the conditioning factors you speak of just limit the likelyhood of the choice.
If there's two slices of pizza left for me and a buddy, at times I'll take the bigger piece, other times the smaller piece, and if repeated the choice would be entirely random. If I had to repeat the same choice with identical conditions a hundred times, there would be no pattern.

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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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TODAY
Battletoad

Registered: 09/25/03
Posts: 10,218
Loc: Metropolis City, USA

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: sirreal]
#2025376 - 10/20/03 10:48 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

and a diskette in your mouth.

--------------------

ca'rouse (k-rouz)
intr.v.
To engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking.

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sirreal
devoid

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2025380 - 10/20/03 10:50 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Alan Stone said:
Quote:

Phluck said:
I'm a chaotic mind, sometimes I do stuff without a reason. However, we do have free will, the conditioning factors you speak of just limit the likelyhood of the choice.
If there's two slices of pizza left for me and a buddy, at times I'll take the bigger piece, other times the smaller piece, and if repeated the choice would be entirely random.

Sometimes

--------------------
I may not always tell the truth, but atleast I'm honest
-----------

I see what everyone is saying. It is so hard to form an opinion when you see both sides so clearly!

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sirreal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: TODAY]
#2025390 - 10/20/03 10:52 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

TODAY said:
and a diskette in your mouth.

I cannot yodel and eat a diskette at the same time. Sorry. :tongue:

--------------------
I may not always tell the truth, but atleast I'm honest
-----------

I see what everyone is saying. It is so hard to form an opinion when you see both sides so clearly!

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Phluck
Carpal Tunnel

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2025391 - 10/20/03 10:53 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"I'm a chaotic mind, sometimes I do stuff without a reason."

Without a _concious_ reason, or without any reason?
Just because you don't understand why you're doing something doesn't mean that your actions were, in fact, random. If they were random, is randomness free will?

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: TODAY]
#2025400 - 10/20/03 10:54 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"nobody will ever know."

What I'm saying is, the very idea of free will makes no sense. It is an illusion that our minds create.

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manna_man
High onlife.....andcrack

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Seuss]
#2025404 - 10/20/03 10:54 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"If we were to try and rewind the tape going back in time, the equations would still be the same, thus the outcome couldn't change."

wouldnt this contradict the universal law of cause and effect? Change the cause of something, you will ultimately change the effect, no?
If our life could be compared to the mathematical calculation of 1 + 2 = 3, with one plus two being the cause and the sum 3, being the effect. Change the 1 or 2 and you will undoubtedly have a different answer. I don't see how altering one variable cannot have an affecr on the outcome. To think so defies simple logic.

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sirreal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2025441 - 10/20/03 11:11 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Alan Stone said:

If there's two slices of pizza left for me and a buddy, at times I'll take the bigger piece, other times the smaller piece, and if repeated the choice would be entirely random. If I had to repeat the same choice with identical conditions a hundred times, there would be no pattern.

I guess it depends on who bought the pizza.

--------------------
I may not always tell the truth, but atleast I'm honest
-----------

I see what everyone is saying. It is so hard to form an opinion when you see both sides so clearly!

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bandaid
clever title

Registered: 05/14/03
Posts: 340

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: manna_man]
#2025454 - 10/20/03 11:16 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I dont consider it bullshit, I dont really agree with the idea either that we'll never know, I agree with that I DONT know if I'll ever know, I do agree with that I dont know now in my present mentality, I DO know that I feel and "think", but take that last sentence with a grain of the salt.. the "I" part, I do not know what "I" is, and I dont know like so many other ppl that what we consider "consciouseness" gives you free will, you may be aware of your environment but that doesnt mean you controle it, and it gets very messy when you consider exactly what IS controle, you can controle that rock in your environment, you can smash it/paint it/move it, but what about it dissapearing? or turning into an orange

like so many other conversations about god and free will, I find them interesting but most of the time I find them useless

ppl just go in circles with different philosophical arguments and it never ends :shake:

, atleast it makes "good" conversation :grin:

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manna_man
High onlife.....andcrack

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: bandaid]
#2025466 - 10/20/03 11:20 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"ppl just go in circles with different philosophical arguments and it never ends , atleast it makes "good" conversation"

haha, welcome to philosophy, where the arguments only create more arguments and there is never a definite solution.

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Alan Stone
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2025467 - 10/20/03 11:20 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Phluck said:
Without a _concious_ reason, or without any reason?
Just because you don't understand why you're doing something doesn't mean that your actions were, in fact, random. If they were random, is randomness free will?

Without any reason. It's called a brainfart. If you claim every idea you have has a reason, I ask you how inventions could possibly be made. I ask you how art could be made. I ask you how imagination is possible.
If choice can be random, it is free from determinism, free from cause. Not all choices are random, but if at least one choice is random, free will exists. Something doesn't have to exist all the time to be real. Think of dinosaurs, stars we see in the skies that have exploded a long time ago, etc.

--------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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sirreal
devoid

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: bandaid]
#2025477 - 10/20/03 11:23 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

--------------------
I may not always tell the truth, but atleast I'm honest
-----------

I see what everyone is saying. It is so hard to form an opinion when you see both sides so clearly!

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Annom
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2025557 - 10/20/03 11:42 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I agree with Phluck. IMO free will doesn't exist, but it's amazing how we feel that it does exist.

I believe that the universe is a closed deterministic system in which everything can, ultimately, be explained by purely physical causation. All particles have a position, direction, speed, mass, etc. If two particles interact, nothing random will happen, so the position, direction, speed, mass, etc can be calculated(if we know all physical laws) and are just a function of time. In this way we could make a pretty good universe simulator, but it won't be possible to make a perfect universe prediction computer because this computer can never compute all particles in the universe because the computer itself exists and it can never predict his own predictions.

I'm still thinking about this all....

Edit: ^^^ all spelling errors are an effect of the interaction between particles in the universe.

Edited by Annom (10/20/03 11:47 AM)

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2025566 - 10/20/03 11:43 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

> If we could press a rewind button on life, go back in time, and repeat that moment with every minute variable identical, would your decision ever vary?

Let's see, I go to a coke machine and I see the choices... Very rapidly I narrow the choices down to Dr. Pepper or Coca Cola. (I review the commercials I have seen on TV in my mind, but alas they are of no help at all in my decision) I imagine the taste of Dr. Pepper, and then of Coca Cola. I consider this for a moment. I realize that both possible choices are caffinated, and I try to remember which has more caffiene. I consider the carbonation levels of the two sodas and realize that both choices are fairly heavily carbonated. I approxomate the degree of pain which should be experienced by my taste buds due to the high level of carbonation. I consider revising my earlier decision to include additional choices, but then quickly reject the idea. I consider the financial impact of purchasing a soda, and weigh the financial consequences with my percieved level of thirst. I compare the price of the soda with the ammount of money in my pocket, and find it to be under 1% of my total available resources. I decide this to be acceptable under the circumstances and resume the selection process. I consider whether my purchase will hurt the environment in any way, or assist any groups with policies I disagree with. I look around for water fountains. Seeing none, I close my eyes and put two quarters in the machine....and press the grape button.

Do I have free will? Fuckin' A I do.

--------------------
LF - Striking down with great vengeance, and furious anger, those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers! (since 2003)

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fireworks_god
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2025607 - 10/20/03 11:57 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Phluck said:
When you're faced with an imminant decision, "do you want to go to the party or not?", you'll make a choice there based on how you feel about parties, how you feel about the people at the party, and how you feel at the moment. If we could press a rewind button on life, go back in time, and repeat that moment with every minute variable identical, would your decision ever vary? If it would, why?

Quote:

manna_man said:
Right, the choices we make are related to how we were influenced in the past. Our environment shapes our behaviour, and thus the decisions we make. Even if you were to strangle yourself by whatever means, there would have to existed some outside force that compells you to do so. If we were to live our past exactly the same way, there would be no difference in our decisions. However,if you were to alter the past in the slightest way, it could have drastic influences in the future.

Free will isn't about how many options you are faced with and which ones you actually decide to follow. Free will is something that grants us the power to choose whatever options we wish to choose. When I choose to turn my head this way, I exercised free will in doing so. The fact that I also had millions of other options that I did not choose does not make the concept of free will bullshit.

The choices we make right here and right now ARE influenced by how we were influenced in the past. We develop set patterns of behaviour and judgement and they can basically make our decisions for us. Does this proof that free will doesn't exist? Noooooooooooope. We might decide to follow patterns, to not make conscious decisions when faced with something, but that doesn't say anything about free will, just that we don't make a conscious decision.

If we took our life at the end and rewinded it, I am positively sure that everything would be positively the same, because life would be played out just as it had already happened. Rewinding something doesn't change what happens when you push play once again.

If we were able to rewind life, however, and stay conscious of the fact that we were given a second chance... I am DEFINITE that things would change. If you were given the ability to consciously relive your entire life, I am definite that you would make choices differently. As you would remain conscious of what happened as a result of your prior choices, you would avoid the negative stuff. There would be no point in reliving it, because you have already learned your lesson before...

So, to summarize, there actually IS a difference between limited options available and things influencing your decisons, and free will. :grin:

Peace.

--------------------

If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you
:heartpump:

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: fireworks_god]
#2025639 - 10/20/03 12:04 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

but mankind is not perfect... If you flipped a quarter 1000 times and logged the heads/tails results, then "rewinded life" the results the second time would be different because you would never be able to flip them exctly the same way again.

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fireworks_god
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2025665 - 10/20/03 12:12 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Lightningfractal said:
but mankind is not perfect... If you flipped a quarter 1000 times and logged the heads/tails results, then "rewinded life" the results the second time would be different because you would never be able to flip them exctly the same way again.

But, as Pluck stated, NONE of the variables would change. If nothing ever changed, then of course it would turn out exactly the same. If you have a movie, and you rewind it, does the exact same thing happen in the movie every time? Of course.

This doesn't say anything about free will, of course. The only way that anything would change if some of the variables changed. Like if we were conscious that life was being replayed and that we were aware of everything we ever did in the previous life.

How many people here have seen the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray?
Peace.

--------------------

If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you
:heartpump:

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DoctorJ
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2025695 - 10/20/03 12:19 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Free will is bullshit

Although you are free to make such a statement, I would consider itr a waste of the free will you have been given. What purpose does it serve to come to this conclusion?

Quote:

What I'm saying is, the very idea of free will makes no sense.

why must everything make sense? It has long been a belief of mine that determinism is something science invented in order to make the universe easier to understand and control. Taking that variable out of the eqution makes everything work out nicely on paper, in the same way that taking greed out of the equation makes communism work out so nicely on paper.

Quit trying to understand everything in absolutes, man. Free will is not a universal rule, it is a sphere of influence. The same can be said of determinism. Why are you trying to set universal rules in a universe that wont stand still? thats just silly.

--------------------
peace, pot, and microdot!

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sirreal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2025730 - 10/20/03 12:27 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Who chose to piss in the sink just now?

Me, or the drunk person next to me? :lol:

--------------------
I may not always tell the truth, but atleast I'm honest
-----------

I see what everyone is saying. It is so hard to form an opinion when you see both sides so clearly!

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: fireworks_god]
#2025756 - 10/20/03 12:34 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

So basically the question has changed from "Is free-will real?" to "Is life like a movie or not?" And I suggest that if life is indeed like a movie, and therefore if you could rewind it the same things would happen when you press play again, then the future must be just an unviewed portion of the movie of life, and therefore life's course is unalterable. Well, if life's course is unalterable, then what need is there for activism, or trying to change anything at all. Girlfriends should also just fall into your lap, jobs should seek YOU even if you do nothing to look for one. Money should just simply appear in your wallet, if that was what the movie was about. In fact, none of us need do anything at all, ever, and life will be the same.

Or else there IS free-will, what we do does matter, we CAN change what will be, and it is up to us. I believe the second notion. I also believe that because this second notion is true, that life is NOT pre-destined, like a movie, then if it could be re-winded, the posibility of different results would also be assured. Why? Why does life even exist at all? Life itself is irrational, and it's existance illogical. Free-will is being god-like, that we can decide for ourselves at any time, regardless of circumstances and oftentimes IN SPITE OF THEM. That is the meaning of my coke machine analogy above. Our decisions need not jive with circumstances, in fact, our decisions CREATE out circumstances, instead.

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fireworks_god
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2025844 - 10/20/03 12:58 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Lightningfractal said:
So basically the question has changed from "Is free-will real?" to "Is life like a movie or not?" And I suggest that if life is indeed like a movie, and therefore if you could rewind it the same things would happen when you press play again, then the future must be just an unviewed portion of the movie of life, and therefore life's course is unalterable. Well, if life's course is unalterable, then what need is there for activism, or trying to change anything at all. Girlfriends should also just fall into your lap, jobs should seek YOU even if you do nothing to look for one. Money should just simply appear in your wallet, if that was what the movie was about. In fact, none of us need do anything at all, ever, and life will be the same.

You are incredibly missing what it is that I said.

Did I say that life was unalterable? Fuck no! What I said is that if, at the end of your life, everything that happened in your life was rewound, NO VARIABLES CHANGING (as Pluck said), then of course life would play out exactly the same, as NOTHING HAS CHANGED, and that this, of course, said nothing for or agansit free will. (remember, NOTHING HAS CHANGED)

Quote:

I also believe that because this second notion is true, that life is NOT pre-destined, like a movie, then if it could be re-winded, the posibility of different results would also be assured.

Nope. If we took what happened today, rewound it, and then hit play, it would happen exactly the same. If you hit rewind, nothing is changing. What has already happened is only being replayed.

And, of course, this has nothing to do with free will. When they do an instant replay in a football game, does something have the possibility of happening differently? Nope.

Now, back to the debate of free will. It is only attachments to what happened in the past that allow the past to make decisions for us. While what happened in the past brought us where we are, it in no way has to influence our decisions now. In NO way.
Peace.

--------------------

If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you
:heartpump:

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Annom
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2025856 - 10/20/03 01:00 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

> "'Well, if life's course is unalterable, then what need is there for activism, or trying to change anything at all. Girlfriends should also just fall into your lap, jobs should seek YOU even if you do nothing to look for one. Money should just simply appear in your wallet, if that was what the movie was about. In fact, none of us need do anything at all, ever, and life will be the same."

No, your conclusion is wrong. If we don't do anything at all, life won't be the same! And we are not able to do nothing because we have no free will. That's the funny part about this. (And if we start doing nothing at all, it is not because of our free will, but because the script of the movie:)

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#2025882 - 10/20/03 01:08 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

But life is NOT a movie, and cannot BE rewound, and if there is no free-will, and no matter what happens, "it was because of the script" then who exactly is running the show? Who wrote the script?

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fireworks_god
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#2025893 - 10/20/03 01:20 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Okay, I have been doing some thinking, had a person throw in some thoughts that got me thinking from a different perspective (if ya'll don't realize how much perspective effects everything, it really does)...

Free will IS an illusion, I now think. Sure, when you are living your life, free will exists to us. We can move our arm this way and we thought the thought that moved the arm, and there you go, free will.

However, we arrived in this moment where we use our free will due to every action that has happened in history. It makes me think back to Chaos theory, the butterfly's wings creating the windstorm...

The Big Bang. Particles flew this way, that way. The way that they flew ended up creating the world that we live in now, as it is. Everything happened the way it happened because it had to happen that way.

Even if one lives in a higher state of consciousness, and makes decisions without influence from whatever happened in the past, those decisions are still occuring because it had to happen that way....
Peace.

--------------------

If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you
:heartpump:

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Annom
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2025930 - 10/20/03 01:34 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I believe that the universe is a closed deterministic system in which everything can, ultimately, be explained by purely physical causation. You believe in free will, and we both like to discuss it. I only said that your proof of "why no free will" wasn't correct.

> But life is NOT a movie, and cannot BE rewound, and if there is no free-will, and no matter what happens, "it was because of the script" then who exactly is running the show? Who wrote the script?

Agreed, life is not a movie and it cannot be rewound. I am not only talking about life, but about the whole universe. Does a dog have a free will? And a fly? A single-celled organisms? Who wrote their script if they have no free will? Who is running their show? If earth evaporates, the whole universe is still there, without a free will, but the show keeps playing. We are just part of that show, like a dog, a fly, a stone, etc.

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Strumpling
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2025943 - 10/20/03 01:39 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I'm with you, Phluck :smile:

I think free-will is an illusion brought on by our thoughts evolving through time.....

We're basically numbers running through a formula, IMO.. Its just the playing out (completion?) of a process that is part of a larger process and so on..

The closer to the present we are, the more it feels like we can mess with "destiny" or whatever you'd like to call it........ the present seems so much more flexible than the past and the future but it is all already set in stone - since we can't fully "sense" the past or the future.

Another way to look at it, though, is that we do have free will and that's our job! Terence Mckenna once said we're all authors of this giant story called History, and that if you'd like to be a main character you can simply write yourself in and then live out the roll you prepared for yourself (at your own free will? one could certainly argue against that I suppose: "you were MEANT to picture things like that so you'd have the illusion of freedom"), or if you don't want to be very spotlighted in this story of History we are writing, then you could just write yourself in as an "extra."

I'm still not 100% sure either way, are YOU?! :wink:

--------------------
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Annom
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: fireworks_god]
#2025970 - 10/20/03 01:57 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

> (if ya'll don't realize how much perspective effects everything, it really does)...
Yep, it does :cool:

I agree with most you said in you last post.

Interesting links:
http://www.determinism.com/05042002.shtml
http://www.determinism.com/

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Annom
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#2025991 - 10/20/03 02:03 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

What is your/the definition of free will? :confused:

I would say: to act free of all causes, but not randomly.

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#2026000 - 10/20/03 02:07 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I believe that dogs have enough intellect to have free will. observing dogs, it appears that they have full choice in how long they remain to sniff one particular piece of shit before deciding to move on to enjoy the next one. As for flies, they would appear to be more automated, at best they make no "complex" decisions, but perhaps rely almost entirely on a sort of pre-programming we like to call "instinct", or maybe they simply exist within the spirit of intelligence, which animates them soul-less. Perhaps this is how germs go about their days as well.

I have a theory, that life on this planet exists on three basic orders. The lowest being soul-less creatures, void of any identity. these would include germs, viruses, and perhaps insects. The second middle order consists of creatures with concepts of self, and therefore identities, or "souls". These being the mammals, and other various creatures with higher brain function. The top order consisting only of human beings, with the distinction from the second order being a limited ability to create new that which did not exist before. Pocketwatches, computers, and also ideas and conceps. Because of this added burden, and our inability to be responsible with such power, we as humans have also destroyed or polluted the existance of many other creatures, as well as our own.

We also sit around and arrogantly ponder life's great mysteries on computer bulletin boards, while we feast on the bodies of murdered animals, and drink from cups filled through the rape and destruction of nature by the corporations which feed and clothe us. This, I believe, is why the answers to life's great mysteries continue to ever-elude us.

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2026122 - 10/20/03 02:46 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Alan Stone said:
Quote:

Phluck said:
Without a _concious_ reason, or without any reason?
Just because you don't understand why you're doing something doesn't mean that your actions were, in fact, random. If they were random, is randomness free will?

Without any reason. It's called a brainfart. If you claim every idea you have has a reason, I ask you how inventions could possibly be made. I ask you how art could be made. I ask you how imagination is possible.
If choice can be random, it is free from determinism, free from cause. Not all choices are random, but if at least one choice is random, free will exists. Something doesn't have to exist all the time to be real. Think of dinosaurs, stars we see in the skies that have exploded a long time ago, etc.

inventions are made as a result of people trying to get around problems they encounter. how often does an inventor just come up with an idea completely at random? its not like inventions or the ideas behind them just come out of nowhere. the initial idea is caused by a need/desire for something that would make life easier/more enjoyable. that idea is then refined using things like physics, mathmatics, research, etc. into something possible. finally, once it has become more concrete, the refined idea is physically created as this invention.

art is a form of expression. again, it doesnt just come out of nowhere. just because someone creates a peice of art that others wouldnt have thought of doesnt mean that its not due to the rest of the artists life or the result of how theyre feeling when they create the work. art is conceived like anything else and is based on the desire to convey some emotion, idea, or concept.

imagination is dramatically impacted by one's mood. despite a seemingly infinite set of possibilities of what someone could imagine, the possibilities you actually think of are going to be dominated and somewhat restricted by mood, environment, past experiences and other factors.

my point is that creating something original by no means implies a random choice or free will. everyone is capable of something original. no two people have lived the same lives, thats impossible. that would require two people to be in the same place at the same time every second of every day. everyone experiences life in a unique way when you get down to it. as a result of a unique perspective, original ideas are created. every decision we make is in result of other decisions we've made in the past, the results of those previous decisions, and current state of mind (which is a result of previous decisions we've made and other people's decisions that have effected us).

im not saying that everyone will come up with a unique idea because of their unique experience of life, only that unique ideas are a result of unique experiences. common ideas are a result of the order that accompanies chaos. for example, listen to an audience' applause, it goes from almost completely chaotic to almost completely synchronus and back to chaotic. same is true with ideas/emotions. despite everyone coming to these ideas/emotions individually, sometimes people come to the same idea/emotion simultaneously.

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bandaid
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2026143 - 10/20/03 02:52 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Lightningfractal said:
I believe that dogs have enough intellect to have free will. observing dogs, it appears that they have full choice in how long they remain to sniff one particular piece of shit before deciding to move on to enjoy the next one.

plz explain how this appears to you

Quote:

The second middle order consists of creatures with concepts of self, and therefore identities, or "souls". These being the mammals, and other various creatures with higher brain function.

The only mammals on this planet from the science shows Ive seen that have a concept of self is the chimpanzee and ofcourse us, where did you hear something different?.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2026163 - 10/20/03 03:02 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

A lot of people have trouble understanding that they have a subconcious.

I have a friend who told me that he didn't like a certain kind of beer. It was a fairly normal lager, not too distinguisable from Budweiser or something like that. I told him that the reason he didn't like it was probably because of some subconcious association, and not because of the taste. Maybe even because it came in a green instead of brown bottle. He insisted that he didn't like it one bit, and even seemed pretty ticked off that I thought he wouldn't fully understand his reasoning.

So, I poured him a glass, and told him that it was the beer he'd bought for himself, a brand he enjoyed. He took a sip, and said it tasted great.

Everyone's mind has tons going on in it, and we're only aware of a tiny fraction of our thoughts.

For every decision we make even seemingly random ones, there are millions of factors taking place. When you reach "randomly" for the button the coke machine there are dozens of factors that could determine where your hand lands. Your balance, your height, etc...

If every factor were recreated, from the temperature, to your mood, to what you'd eaten that day, to the slightest breeze, then you would certainly make the same choice twice.

The clairify why I say free will makes no sense;

My computer sometimes behaves irrationally. It will crash, windows will pop up for no apparent reason, you know the kind of thing I'm talking about.

How is this different from our own irrational actions? The only other possiblilty I can imagine is that we occasionally do things that are "random".

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: bandaid]
#2026177 - 10/20/03 03:08 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"The only mammals on this planet from the science shows Ive seen that have a concept of self is the chimpanzee and ofcourse us, where did you hear something different?."

A 'sense of self' is not something we can measure. We are able to test some animals, with say, a mirror, but not recognizing oneself in the mirror does not necessarily mean that an animal lacks a sense of self.

We have no idea what a dog's sense of self is.

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silversoul7
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2026187 - 10/20/03 03:11 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Why try to convince us there's no free will? If there's no such thing, then you'll never convince anyone, because we're predestined to either believe in it or not believe in it.

--------------------

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: bandaid]
#2026197 - 10/20/03 03:15 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lightningfractal said:
I believe that dogs have enough intellect to have free will. observing dogs, it appears that they have full choice in how long they remain to sniff one particular piece of shit before deciding to move on to enjoy the next one.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

plz explain how this appears to you

I have seen a dog turn around to get a second sniff of something because he appeared to change his mind about how nifty neat-o it smelled. This indicates at least some basic decision making.

Also, it's quite obvious that the dog is having a good time. Does a fly have a good time? Does a germ like rock and roll? Having a good time goes right along with free will. Have you ever seen a dog smile?

Quote:

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The second middle order consists of creatures with concepts of self, and therefore identities, or "souls". These being the mammals, and other various creatures with higher brain function.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The only mammals on this planet from the science shows Ive seen that have a concept of self is the chimpanzee and ofcourse us, where did you hear something different?.

As I said before this is my THEORY, and is unproven and non-specific. I don't even believe I have it completely correct, but I think I'm on to something.. I believe it is a basic outline of what is. I'm not sure which creatures have souls and which ones don't, or if a mosquito is evil. Or if cockroaches are great mathmeticians. I'm just suggesting my theory of the different general classes of existance.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2026232 - 10/20/03 03:30 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Why try to convince us there's no free will? If there's no such thing, then you'll never convince anyone, because we're predestined to either believe in it or not believe in it.

Brilliant!

Determinist want control. That is their motivation. To reduce the infinite to something mundanely logical.

--------------------
peace, pot, and microdot!

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: DoctorJ]
#2026319 - 10/20/03 03:50 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Determinist want control. That is their motivation. To reduce the infinite to something mundanely logical.

through scientific reasoning i've been intrigued by determinism, it has nothing to do with wants. are you afraid of thinking about it? its quite a scary thought actually.

what i find to be a taxing question is.... what if it can be proven, somehow in the future?

IF determinism was proven to be a fact of nature, what would that impact have on humanity as a whole? everything we do comes down to "decision" making, our egos are built off of past "decisions".... this theory has the potential to destroy every ego on earth. YOU are NOT really you at all... you are in the entire sense of the word... nothing ....

its hard for me to comprehend such an event, but it would truly be earth shattering.

so i ask everyone here... if determinism was true...(please don't deny this fact).... what would you do with your life?

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silversoul7
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2026337 - 10/20/03 03:56 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

so i ask everyone here... if determinism was true...(please don't deny this fact).... what would you do with your life?

--------------------

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire

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DoctorJ
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2026342 - 10/20/03 03:57 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

testify!

--------------------
peace, pot, and microdot!

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2026346 - 10/20/03 03:59 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Free will or not, opinions change all the time. It's not like you're made to believe certain things, we don't have the ability to predict the future, because there is no possible way to determine every variable in the universe.

Motivation and influences are all factors in doing things. Some people might say, "why not stop punishing criminals, if they have no free will?". By the risk of punishment is a factor which reduces the possibility of someone comitting a crime.

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2026358 - 10/20/03 04:03 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I would act as if it weren't true, because it wouldn't matter either way. If every decision in my life has already been made, then I'll do the same things either way, since I don't have a choice in the matter.

what about your daily decisions you make everyday... how would you respond to everything? every moment of your life will be you wrestling with the fact that you are TRYING to make a decision, yet can't. "decisions" make up entirely who we are.

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silversoul7
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2026366 - 10/20/03 04:06 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

If I have no choice in the matter, then obviously I'm going to make those decisions anyway.

--------------------

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2026375 - 10/20/03 04:09 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

If I have no choice in the matter, then obviously I'm going to make those decisions anyway.

... i'm trying ...

think about who you are right now.
that entire person would be destroyed upon this realization.

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2026377 - 10/20/03 04:09 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"I would act as if it weren't true, because it wouldn't matter either way."

Believing in determinism is a factor that will influence how you act.

Some people seem to think that if they don't have free will, they will act the same way in a situation, DESPITE a difference in factors. If you change any factor, your actions will vary. Every little thing you learn.

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2026381 - 10/20/03 04:11 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I'd still like to see someone address this:

Quote:

Phluck said:
The clairify why I say free will makes no sense;

My computer sometimes behaves irrationally. It will crash, windows will pop up for no apparent reason, you know the kind of thing I'm talking about.

How is this different from our own irrational actions? The only other possiblilty I can imagine is that we occasionally do things that are "random".

I have yet to see a decent attempt to define free will.

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silversoul7
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2026391 - 10/20/03 04:13 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

think about who you are right now.
that entire person would be destroyed upon this realization.

You're assuming that I define myself by my decisions. I don't. I define myself simply by my existence.

--------------------

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2026400 - 10/20/03 04:15 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

you wake up everyday only acknowledging that you have a conscious awareness(no ego) and nothing more?

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silversoul7
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2026402 - 10/20/03 04:16 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Pretty much.

--------------------

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2026406 - 10/20/03 04:17 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

maybe in your idealism, but i think you are lying :smile:

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Seuss
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2026437 - 10/20/03 04:23 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

> I define myself simply by my existence.

:thumbup:

--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.

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Annom
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2026443 - 10/20/03 04:24 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

> so i ask everyone here... if determinism was true...(please don't deny this fact).... what would you do with your life?

I do believe in determinism and I do live like it's true. It is quite a scary thought. I believe that I could have been a radical muslim or terrorist if I grew up in the "correct" environment.

> Determinist want control. That is their motivation. To reduce the infinite to something mundanely logical.

That can be your opinion, but I don't think that has anything to do with determinism. What control do you mean? I don't think determinism does reduce the infinite to something mundanely logical. That is what religions try to do.

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#2026464 - 10/20/03 04:28 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"I do believe in determinism and I do live like it's true. It is quite a scary thought. I believe that I could have been an radical muslim or terrorist if I grew up in the "correct" environment. "

That's actually a pretty good point. We do know for sure that being raised in a certain environment will increase the likelyhood of you adopting those values. If learned factors influence your decisions, how are they free?

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Annom
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#2026502 - 10/20/03 04:48 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

> "My computer sometimes behaves irrationally. It will crash, windows will pop up for no apparent reason, you know the kind of thing I'm talking about.
How is this different from our own irrational actions? The only other possiblilty I can imagine is that we occasionally do things that are "random"."

Those things are random because we don't know what causes them, but I don't think true randomness exists. Even your "random" computer crash is caused by something(could even be something very small, quantum mechanics??). But I'm not sure about randomness....

"I do not see a need to go beyond conventional logic or mathematics. I only see a problem with developing a better theory."

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2026524 - 10/20/03 04:55 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

every condition and event in the universe is completely determined by previous conditions. it's cause and effect. this is how energy\matter behaves. it is not random, it is not chaotic. it is orderly and follows certain rules. in this way, it is essentially predetermined.

why should the chemical and electrical events inside of our skulls be any exception?

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Annom
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2026556 - 10/20/03 05:10 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

> "every condition and event in the universe is completely determined by previous conditions. it's cause and effect. this is how energy\matter behaves. it is not random, it is not chaotic. it is orderly and follows certain rules. in this way, it is essentially predetermined.

why should the chemical and electrical events inside of our skulls be any exception?"

:thumbup:

well spoken! That's exactly what I think.

"The true dynamical randomness is obtained as a natural fundamental property of deterministic quantum systems. It provides quantum chaos passing to the classical dynamical chaos under the ordinary semiclassical transition, which extends the correspondence principle to chaotic systems. In return one should accept the modified form of quantum formalism (presented by the Schroedinger equation) which, however, does not contradict the ordinary form and the main postulates of quantum mechanics. It introduces the principle of the fundamental dynamic multivaluedness (redundance) extending the quantum paradigm to complex dynamical behaviour. Moreover, a causal solution to the well-known problems of the foundation of quantum mechanics, those of quantum indeterminacy and wave reduction, is also found using the same method. The concept of the fundamental dynamic uncertainty thus established is universal in character and provides a unified scheme of the complete description of arbitrary complex system of any origin (physics/9806002). This scheme incorporates, in particular, universal definitions of complexity, (non)integrability, and general solution, as well as the physically complete notion of probability. One obtains thus a self-consistent hierarchic picture of the world characterised by a (high) non-zero complexity and containing the intrinsic causal randomness, where the causally extended quantum mechanics can be consistently interpreted as several lowest levels of complexity. "

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2026567 - 10/20/03 05:14 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I have placed before myself a red pill and a blue pill. I have chosen to eat one of them. I can choose to eat either pill. (sound familiar?) I know in my heart that I can choose freely to eat either one. Once I have chosen one that does not mean that I was pre-destined to choose that one, because I easily could have chosen the other one.

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Strumpling
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2026665 - 10/20/03 06:40 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"Why try to convince us there's no free will? If there's no such thing, then you'll never convince anyone, because we're predestined to either believe in it or not believe in it."

Who says he wasn't predestined to convince you otherwise? :wink:

lol I'm not going to try any convincing, but I just had to share that thought.

--------------------
Insert an "I think" mentally in front of eveything I say that seems sketchy, because I certainly don't KNOW much. Also; feel free to yell at me.
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SuperD
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Strumpling]
#2026830 - 10/20/03 07:25 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

--------------------
I'd like you to meet my local drug dealer

Bruce Campbell for a day! said: Go misidentify a mushroom please.

I'm a psilovibin' psilocybeing :vibin:

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Deiymiyan
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2026861 - 10/20/03 07:37 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"But life is NOT a movie, and cannot BE rewound, and if there is no free-will, and no matter what happens, "it was because of the script" then who exactly is running the show? Who wrote the script? "
-----------------------

That is a very legit set of questions.

Personally, it interests me more to ask rather: "Why was the script written in the manner that it has come to unfold?"

Consider, for a moment - and this is going to ba a tangent to the discussion ... If everything we see is a reflection of something larger that is out there, then I would like to include this as well:

Take the following and then try to imagine the concept...

The interaction of a lightwave upon a reflective surface. When a diagram is drawn, in physics, to show the interaction, we notice a few things like angle [ i ] equals angle [ r ] and that the intensity does not decrease when the reflective surface is real good. Now, add another reflective surface and begin to bounce the rays. In order to draw it, you use imaginary rays, or virtual rays to complete the diagram.

But you can't see the virtual, or imaginary rays. You only see the result in reality.

So... Getting back to "reality as being a reflection" analogy. So, if what you see is really a reflection, it must have a virtual or imaginary counter, or compliment.

Now.. You can see yourself. Well, Duh !!!!.. How obvious was that for me to say... But then, continuing with the analogy, you have a virtual or imaginary compliment that associates with you as well.

We notice how we make friends with one another.. Why, even on these Boards, we are all friends partaking in discussion.

Now, if interaction occurs in reality, we have the knowlegde that it happens [observation yields in the knowledge], and imagination is more important than knowledge [Einstein].. Then imaginary is a greater aspect of the reality.. An extension.

I have not said anything new.

So if it is possible to interact among ourselves, and we are connected to the imaginary... As real friends, it makes sense that the compliment is then:

IMAGINARY FRIENDS.

Where, therefore, imaginary friends... are real.

:eyemouth:

[ // Can-O-Laughs cracked open... ] :lol:

[ // Followed by Dead Silence... ] :lipsrsealed:

..."Wait wait wait!!!! De-Nile ain't just a river in Egypt, you know !!!"...

:eek:

Just think about it for a second now... or a while longer.. If we can interact like this, then it stands to reason, going along with the analogy, that imaginary friends interact as well.

So.. Now.... Going back to the voices in your head...

And also... Who are the ones who interact with imaginary friends most often...?

Yes !

... Children ...

:shocked:

--------------------

Dei Gratia de integro,

Veni Vidi Vici:

In Nomine Domini..

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2027160 - 10/20/03 09:25 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"I have placed before myself a red pill and a blue pill. I have chosen to eat one of them. I can choose to eat either pill. (sound familiar?) I know in my heart that I can choose freely to eat either one. Once I have chosen one that does not mean that I was pre-destined to choose that one, because I easily could have chosen the other one. "

You could have, but you didn't. If a factor had been changed, you could have chosen the other pill, either that or your choice is random... if such a thing even exists.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2027177 - 10/20/03 09:30 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Annom said:
Those things are random because we don't know what causes them, but I don't think true randomness exists. Even your "random" computer crash is caused by something(could even be something very small, quantum mechanics??). But I'm not sure about randomness....

Indeed. Computers are not random at all, but they are such a complex system with so many functions happening at once, that bugs can seem random and mysterious, much like our minds and actions.

Quote:

mushmaster said:
every condition and event in the universe is completely determined by previous conditions. it's cause and effect. this is how energy\matter behaves. it is not random, it is not chaotic. it is orderly and follows certain rules. in this way, it is essentially predetermined.

why should the chemical and electrical events inside of our skulls be any exception?

Well put.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2027796 - 10/21/03 01:52 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

this thread has unrolled nicely :smile:

--------------------
Insert an "I think" mentally in front of eveything I say that seems sketchy, because I certainly don't KNOW much. Also; feel free to yell at me.
In addition: SHPONGLE

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2028028 - 10/21/03 06:32 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

We have an IMAGINATION. This is the source of free will. To imagine is to create imagery and ideas which did not exist prior. Therefore to imagine is to bring into this world something which did not formerly exist. If this is possible, then this argument:

Quote:

every condition and event in the universe is completely determined by previous conditions. it's cause and effect. this is how energy\matter behaves. it is not random, it is not chaotic. it is orderly and follows certain rules. in this way, it is essentially predetermined.

why should the chemical and electrical events inside of our skulls be any exception?

is out the window.

Finally, I might add that THE EXISTANCE OF LIFE ITSELF is perhaps the BEST argument against predestiny. Do you believe for one minute that that the cause and effect of speeding electrons and such has resulted in the totally organized condition of Earth? Plants, animals, trees? Further, the totally mind boggling diversity of animals: four legs, two legs, no legs, brown, orange, speckled, spotted. Plants: poison, intoxicating, delicious, carnivorous. A whole crew of insects, fish, mountains oceans etc.etc..

ALL THIS, because certain molecular particles bounced the right way? That's a whole lot of fucking bouncing correctly. Instead, it is because the thing we call life exists above cause and effect. Life is alive. Life changes things. Life makes happen that which would not have happened before. Life has....well life has life.

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Annom
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2028078 - 10/21/03 06:57 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

> We have an IMAGINATION. This is the source of free will. To imagine is to create imagery and ideas which did not exist prior. Therefore to imagine is to bring into this world something which did not formerly exist. If this is possible, then this argument: "...." is out the window.

The sun converts hydrogen into helium. The sun can bring something into its environment which did not formerly exist. After the big bang the same thing happened, does this mean that the universe had a free will, billion years ago?

No, it's just a physical reaction; nuclear fusion. Same thing(not nuclear fusion, but a physical reaction) occurs in your brain when you imagine a not existing thing.

> Finally, I might add that THE EXISTANCE OF LIFE ITSELF is perhaps the BEST argument against predestiny. Do you believe for one minute that that the cause and effect of speeding electrons and such has resulted in the totally organized condition of Earth? Plants, animals, trees? Further, the totally mind boggling diversity of animals: four legs, two legs, no legs, brown, orange, speckled, spotted. Plants: poison, intoxicating, delicious, carnivorous. A whole crew of insects, fish, mountains oceans etc.etc..

Very good point. Amazing isn't it? And I believe in it, for more than one minute. Life is beautiful.....! If you don't believe in this you should believe in a god(but isn't it even more weird that god did all this?). It has nothing to do with free will, because single-celled organisms had no free will and they existed before we could have a free will.

Edited by Annom (10/21/03 06:59 AM)

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poke smot!
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#2028095 - 10/21/03 07:08 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I didn't read the meat of this thread but, relating to some of the first few posts:

If you make decisions based on past events, then how does change work? Example, Joe Blow usually gets picked on and never sticks up for himself. Because he does this, people are gonna keep bothering him because he doesn't do anything about it. Those people are acting on what they have seen in the past, because they know what to expect.

But Joe on the other hand, he can go for a while acting like this and getting shit self-esteem, but say he were to change that around (since people DO this and it is almost natural in "growing up" for someone like Joe), he needs that creative impulse to do something different in the situation.

For example, instead when someone says something really nasty to Joe, and they have it coming, Joe turns around with a fist in flight, meeting his enemy's face very hard, very fast. First, Joe didn't react how he would normally... So is his free will the decision to make that change in his life? Or was the decision a result of Joe's self-esteem getting to the point where Joe couldn't take his old lifestyle anymore?

Of course Joe's enemy will change. They will no longer talk shit on Joe because they know what to expect now. But back to the question, was it Joe's free will that caused him to change?

--------------------

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#2028101 - 10/21/03 07:12 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Agreed. This thread has expanded into many areas other than "free will". However, the subject of "free-will" seems to be a lot more complex to examine than I had originally imagined it would be, calling into the equasion many other questions as well. To fathom the nature of life questions the origin of life.

personally I believe in a higher unfathomable intelligence who hooked up this whole "Earth" thing for all of us. It was this being's free-will that was excersized in creating this world, and it is our free-will which enables us to fuck it up, pollute rivers, mow down forests to make law books which outlaw certain plants etc. etc.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: poke smot!]
#2028123 - 10/21/03 07:25 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Poke, basically there's one crowd here saying that Joe had to make his decision to react with his fist based on the positions of the atoms and electrons in his brain (theory 1), and there's a crowd here saying that Joe has a gift of free-will to decide what he should do (theory 2).

Interesting to point out that if there exists an omnipotent intelligence, this intelligence would be able to predict the exact course of all future events based on theory 1. Further, if life is a divine test to determine worthiness for paradise or torment, theory 1 would make the entire test un-nescessary, because the omnipotent being would already know the paths that will be chosen by his creations. Therefore theory 2 fits better with the idea of an omnipotent intelligence.

However, one cannot ignore that the idea of the omnipotent intelligence providing us with "revelations" about future events would SEEM to favor theory 1.

Edited by Lightningfractal (10/21/03 07:27 AM)

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2028126 - 10/21/03 07:28 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I believe in determinism and free-will. I think everything is part of a causal chain of events which continue infinitely into the past and future with no first cause.

I think a free act is any decision made by any sort of mind, so technically your computer has free-will.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2028607 - 10/21/03 11:07 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"Therefore to imagine is to bring into this world something which did not formerly exist."

No it is not, imagination is the combination of chemicals and energy in a way that hadn't existed before. Nothing new has really been created.

"ALL THIS, because certain molecular particles bounced the right way? That's a whole lot of fucking bouncing correctly."

Know what a fractal is?

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2028617 - 10/21/03 11:11 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"Poke, basically there's one crowd here saying that Joe had to make his decision to react with his fist based on the positions of the atoms and electrons in his brain (theory 1), and there's a crowd here saying that Joe has a gift of free-will to decide what he should do (theory 2). "

Joe decided what to do. Joe is the position of the atoms and electrons in his brain.

Joe is a machine.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2028657 - 10/21/03 11:23 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Choices are made through and elaborate system in the brain.

VS.

Choices are made.

==========

Joe: Free will is an illusion, choices are made through elaborate systems in the brain.

Bob: No, free will is real, we make our own choices.

Joe: That's what I'm saying, we make our own choices through an elaborate system in our brain.

Bob: No, we make them ourselves.

Joe: You mean they're random?

Bob: No, we've made them based on free will.

Joe: So if they're not random, and they're not based on an elaborate system, what then?

Bob: Free will, obviously. Not everything has to make sense, you know.

Joe: I make my choices by ass pill banana eyeball.

Bob: What?

Joe: Not everything has to make sense, you know.

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Annom
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2028705 - 10/21/03 11:34 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Joe: So if they're not random, and they're not based on an elaborate system, what then?

:thumbup:

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2028859 - 10/21/03 12:17 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Know what a fractal is?

Main Entry: frac?tal
Pronunciation: 'frak-t&l
Function: noun
Etymology: French fractale, from Latin fractus broken, uneven (past participle of frangere to break) + French -ale -al (noun suffix)
Date: 1975
: any of various extremely irregular curves or shapes for which any suitably chosen part is similar in shape to a given larger or smaller part when magnified or reduced to the same size
- fractal adjective

All I know about "fractal" is that it is a type of LSD (which is why it is in my screenname.), and the definition above. Perhaps you can enlighten me further?

Quote:

Joe: So if they're not random, and they're not based on an elaborate system, what then?

They are based upon the smooth unbroken flow of life, which is undefinable, or perhaps definable as "pure energy in constant motion".

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2028914 - 10/21/03 12:39 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Joe: I make my choices by ass pill banana eyeball. :wink:

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2028990 - 10/21/03 01:05 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

There are definitely a lot of determinants acting on us. I think I'm a "soft-determinist", meaning I still allow for the possibility of free will.

Assuming a basically deterministic world, consider the difference between adopting these two positions: A) deterministic, or B) free will. How would the determinants change if a person leaned more to A? More to B? How about for a larger group of people?

Even as a soft-determinist, I see value in assuming a high level of free will, even if all it really does is create a better set of determinants.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2029405 - 10/21/03 03:25 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

When you look at a rendering of a fractal (a picture of which, you can see on some sheets of LSD), you see an ordered and intricate pattern. While it may seem random and chaotic, it also follows strict rules, and can be perfectly caluclated. Much like life on earth, while evolution occurred through natural selection, it is also following a natural, fractal like pattern.

"They are based upon the smooth unbroken flow of life, which is undefinable, or perhaps definable as "pure energy in constant motion". "

Okay, is the smooth "unbroken flow of life" random, or is it perfectly ordered?

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2029454 - 10/21/03 03:37 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

i don't believe in randomness. every condition is caused by the conditions before it. the way by which condition A becomes condition B follows certain rules.

condition A will result in condition B. one present condition, one future condition. there is no way that condition A can result in either condition B, or in C, or in D. this would be true randomness.

a specific preceding condition will always result in only one specific resulting condition.

you will not get different output from the same input.

this is what order means.

even if this were not true... and there was some sort of magical way in which randomness were injected into the equation, that still would not score any points for free will.

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Alan Stone
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2029462 - 10/21/03 03:39 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Phluck said:
No it is not, imagination is the combination of chemicals and energy in a way that hadn't existed before. Nothing new has really been created.

This is opinion, and science is the exact opposite of opinion. There's no way in hell science will ever be able to reduce every one of our thoughts to an interaction of chemicals. There is also no obvious reason why reflecting on your day at work would be caused by a chain of chemical reactions.

--------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2029484 - 10/21/03 03:44 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"This is opinion, and science is the exact opposite of opinion."

It's a theory, which is right in the spirit of science.

"There's no way in hell science will ever be able to reduce every one of our thoughts to an interaction of chemicals."

Well, not unless we had some kind of super-computer.

"There is also no obvious reason why reflecting on your day at work would be caused by a chain of chemical reactions."

Got a better idea? Magic?

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2029495 - 10/21/03 03:47 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"even if this were not true... and there was some sort of magical way in which randomness were injected into the equation, that still would not score any points for free will. "

:thumbup:

The only possibilities that have been brought up at all are total order, or randomness. Neither of these is free will.

When someone has disagreed with either of those, they say that the third possibility is "free will". When asked to define it, they mention things like "god", or "nature's flow of energy", but they fail to explain what they mean by these things.

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Alan Stone
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2029546 - 10/21/03 04:03 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Phluck said:
It's a theory, which is right in the spirit of science.

True, but accepting it as the truth and saying another person is wrong because of the unproven speculation you choose to believe, is far from scientific.

Quote:

Phluck said:
"There is also no obvious reason why reflecting on your day at work would be caused by a chain of chemical reactions."
Got a better idea? Magic?

So simple it hurts me to say this: the acceptance of the mind as a separate entity. The only thing that matters here is THAT we think, and WHAT we think, not WHY we think. When it comes down to WHY we think, every stance is theory that can never be proven.

(Edited for elaboration)

--------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2029594 - 10/21/03 04:23 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

There's no way in hell science will ever be able to reduce every one of our thoughts to an interaction of chemicals. There is also no obvious reason why reflecting on your day at work would be caused by a chain of chemical reactions.

what do you think consciousness is caused by?

i believe it to be the result of chemical and electrical events inside of my skull.

this is an notion quite consistant with empirical observation.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2029596 - 10/21/03 04:23 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"The only thing that matters here is THAT we think, and WHAT we think, not WHY we think."

Actually, I'm pretty sure this whole debate is about HOW we think.

"When it comes down to WHY we think, every stance is theory that can never be proven."

How do you know it can never be proven? That is without a doubt, an opinion that is being stated as fact.

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Zero7a1
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2029597 - 10/21/03 04:23 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

maybe there exists the polar extremes. Perfect in order and chaos, and disorder in order and chaos. So you have like a mirror image of each opposite.... You are in the middle path, the path of acceptance, the path that is neither a path of free will, or a path of dis order, but a path of harmony. The universe and all things as they are, i guess this is in my opinion, seem to flow with relative ease.. as in it is not up to us to control them. We do have control over some things... and others we do not. Sometimes we have a choice on some matters... sometimes we do not. Is perfection an illusion or is it in the eye of the beholder? What is truely perfect... what is truely chaotic... it seems that we cant find the answer to that... we just assume that those are opposites which we cant grasp. So could you say that if you mix the two together you get a little bit of an idea of where we are at? How would you know if you didnt have free will or not... if you didnt have the choice to understand... but then again we still think that we can... but it seems that our options are very limited to what we know. This may be a question we will never know, only because of the innumerable ammount of possibilities. Maybe then your answer comes to having faith in what you believe. I dont know :rolleyes:

--------------------
What?

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2029602 - 10/21/03 04:26 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

what it really boils down to is that if consciousness is borne of the material events inside your head, there can be no such thing as free will.

if free will exists, than consciousness must arise from something supernatural, unbound by the laws that govern the material universe.

personally, i am not impressed by superstition and mythology...

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2029605 - 10/21/03 04:27 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"So simple it hurts me to say this: the acceptance of the mind as a separate entity. "

Okay, let's assume the mind is a separate entity.

Is that entity random, or does it follow an intricate system? If neither of these, what then?

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Alan Stone
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2029623 - 10/21/03 04:32 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Phluck said:
"When it comes down to WHY we think, every stance is theory that can never be proven."

How do you know it can never be proven? That is without a doubt, an opinion that is being stated as fact.

Because pulling the 'why' card implies a purpose in the subject. Any question related to purpose can only be answered subjectively. Science doesn't ask the 'why' question, it asks the 'how' question. It describes the trajectory of the disc, not why people throw discs anyway. It's a tool for conquering the natural world and bending it to what we want to do, not a tool for determining the goal in the viewed.

--------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2029631 - 10/21/03 04:36 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

you are missing the point.

the fact is that the material world is ordered, its future conditions and events pre-determined by existing ones.

you cannot get a different output from the same input.

if consciousness arises solely from events taking place in the material world, then your thoughts and actions, however random they may seem, are as pre-determined as the movement of the stars.

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Alan Stone
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2029632 - 10/21/03 04:36 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

mushmaster said:
There's no way in hell science will ever be able to reduce every one of our thoughts to an interaction of chemicals. There is also no obvious reason why reflecting on your day at work would be caused by a chain of chemical reactions.

(snip)

this is an notion quite consistant with empirical observation.

In case you haven't noticed, Descartes never solved the bridge problem. The bridge between 'you' and 'the world' never got defined, the trustworthiness of the senses just became an axioma.

--------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2029635 - 10/21/03 04:38 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

where do you think consciousness comes from?

is it the result of events in the physical world? is it the result of the chemical and electrical signals in your brain?

or does it come... from elsewhere?

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Zero7a1
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2029645 - 10/21/03 04:40 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

maybe this is reducing the situation to low. How do we know that only our brain opposed to the soul are the soul contributions to conciousness. For instance some think that there is mind body and spirit. Here we seem to put the mind with our body, and the spirit being on the opposing side. What if our brain develops as a sort of reciever of the information between our soul which is trasmitter. SO therefore there is a nexus which is the mind, or conciousness. The culmination between what a part of us takes in, and a part which we give out. Which thus gives a solid thought. Between the body and spirit, which we call the mind, or conciousness.

Its hard to see the whole thing only looking at two angles... we are indeed a three dimensional universe... not a two dimensional polarized one.

Just because science cant prove it, doesnt mean that its not there. I think science shares a bond in understanding. But i do not think of it as the soul source for knowledge. There are too many things to ignore, and to label and put them in binary categories. If you take a look in front of you, life is not so. Hold a rock in your hand, and feel it.

"the holy trinity"

--------------------
What?

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2029649 - 10/21/03 04:41 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

i believe that consciouness arises entirely from the chemical and electrical events in our brains.

from this, i must conclude that free will is only as illusion.

...unless i've missed some critical aspect about consciouness, which is a possibilty i won't yet eliminate... free will certainly does feel quite real.

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2029661 - 10/21/03 04:43 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I think that's just it. Free will is a feeling, not something that actually occurs.

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Alan Stone
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2029672 - 10/21/03 04:46 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

mushmaster said:
you are missing the point.

the fact is that the material world is ordered, its future conditions and events pre-determined by existing ones.

you cannot get a different output from the same input.

You bar the mind itself as a form of input. One processes everything before one makes a decision. This is an extra factor in the equation. Choices don't come directly from impulses, impulses are processed first, and then the choice follows.
This is a change that occured in behaviorism since its birth, whereas it used to be reaction as a direct consequence to the stimulus, it is now Stimulus - Subject - Reaction.
Different output can come from the same input, as the input consists of different factors, which are weighed seperately by the individual.

--------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2029673 - 10/21/03 04:46 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"Science doesn't ask the 'why' question, it asks the 'how' question. It describes the trajectory of the disc, not why people throw discs anyway. It's a tool for conquering the natural world and bending it to what we want to do, not a tool for determining the goal in the viewed."

Science is not limited to asking certain questions. Science most certainly asks why we would choose to throw the disk, just because it doesn't have a solid answer, doesn't mean there isn't one.

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
#2029675 - 10/21/03 04:46 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

ok.... there's where we get into the whole "soul" debate...

i'll just state up front that i'm not a believer.

i think that consciousness is borne of the material world, and that science will one day (soon) prove this.

if it is borne of something... supernatural... then this is very curious... because whatever supernatural force this is, it must have the ability to manipulate matter\energy in the material world...

if something which is not part of the material world can exert force over something that is, this should be enough to suggest to anyone a breach in the laws of conservation of mass and energy.

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2029689 - 10/21/03 04:49 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

ditch the psychology and get down to the microscopic...

i'm talking matter and energy. i'm talking about matter and energy producing conciousness....

matter and energy follow completely non-random patterns. they are essentially predetermined.

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2029690 - 10/21/03 04:49 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"Different output can come from the same input, as the input consists of different factors, which are weighed seperately by the individual."

The mind itself is a factor, this is what I've been saying all along. If ALL factors are the same, then the output will always be the same.

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2029705 - 10/21/03 04:53 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

all matter\energy in the universe (and i do believe that this includes all there is...) follows a specific and ordered pattern of behavior. it is not random, nor chaotic... it is predetermined...

i do not see why the matter and energy inside of our skulls (which is where i believe conciousness comes from) should be any exception to this.

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Alan Stone
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2029742 - 10/21/03 05:00 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"Science is not limited to asking certain questions. Science most certainly asks why we would choose to throw the disk, just because it doesn't have a solid answer, doesn't mean there isn't one."

To be true to the postulates of objectivism and determinism, the scope of science IS limited. Science cannot answer a question like: "If a tree falls without anyone nearby, does it make a sound?" or "Is it wrong to kill a person?". Why can't it? Because the essence of sound is not defined by science. Only vibrations are. Sound itself can't be reproduced by any tool we make, only our brains can create sound.Because judgement of interhuman relations cannot be quanticised or objectively researched.
The question "Why do humans throw discs?" isn't exactly a question that's open to empirical research. You'd have to ask people why they throw them, and if you do believe in things like the unconscious and the choice to lie, this kind of research would be by no means objective.
There are other fields of human research for these questions. They're called metaphysics, ethics, philosophy, theology, etc.

--------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2029744 - 10/21/03 05:00 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

this whole thing suggests to me some of the themes in taoist\buddhist thought about non-action and about the nature of time.

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Zero7a1
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2029748 - 10/21/03 05:01 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

so... you dont believe in souls. I dont know, thats all im gonna say about that. I really question free will sometimes too. Even if there were a thing such as a supernatural power, and they knew, controlled, connected to everything .Wouldnt we then be a simple extension of that. And still have no free will, because the creator choose for us to be here and live this life. To me the idea of not having free will doesnt have to restrict itself to there being a simple material universe. The case could be argued the same on either side. Maybe we just have the illusion of free choice as a means for escaping and or alluding a bleak existence. Maybe it keeps our species from dying off, and therefore we are not as intelligent as we seem to think we are.

"if something which is not part of the material world can exert force over something that is, this should be enough to suggest to anyone a breach in the laws of conservation of mass and energy. "

how is that so? All the energy is there... just because we cant quantify it doesnt mean that the existance of outside forces is not applicable. our understanding is limited by what we know and what we can formulate with the information that we have, along with our reason to judge and understand those factors. Because we cant see the connection between those forces doesnt mean they are not there... but then again just because we can speculate doesnt mean they are. IM drawn back to my limited position of understanding and information... i just dont have the the capability to understand. Maybe its not possible, maybe it is, but i guess you can only find that out for yourself.

--------------------
What?

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Alan Stone
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
#2029802 - 10/21/03 05:17 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"all matter\energy in the universe (and i do believe that this includes all there is...) follows a specific and ordered pattern of behavior. it is not random, nor chaotic... it is predetermined...

i do not see why the matter and energy inside of our skulls (which is where i believe conciousness comes from) should be any exception to this."

They aren't. You never heard me talking of a soul that wasn't itself made of energy.

Can we as a human race say we know all the forms of energy there are? Can we honestly say we have a grasp on how something as unlikely as consciousness (not only unlikely, but it occurs in every human, and there's roughly six billion of us!)is even possible? Can we perceive all dimensions perhaps? If your answer to these questions is no, which I suspect, then you'll probably agree with me that most of what is said on the nature of consciousness is speculation. I've just expressed my view on the matter, so far.

--------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

Edited by Alan Stone (10/21/03 05:21 PM)

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2029821 - 10/21/03 05:21 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

How do you know conciousness is unlikely?

We don't understand everything, nor are we claiming we do.

Things are either perfectly ordered, or they are random. They cannot be inbetween, because once one tiny factor is randomized, then it has an effect on every other particle in the universe.

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2029959 - 10/21/03 05:59 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

ok... so free will is inconsistant with what we currently know about the universe...

barring some sort of supernatural energy force, it cannot exist.

an orderly universe cannot give rise to free will.

if it does exist, it is the result of some kind of intelligent energy in the universe.

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2029976 - 10/21/03 06:05 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Even with this supernatural energy source, I'm not sure exactly what free will is supposed to be.

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2030286 - 10/21/03 07:26 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

The only possibilities that have been brought up at all are total order, or randomness. Neither of these is free will.

When someone has disagreed with either of those, they say that the third possibility is "free will". When asked to define it, they mention things like "god", or "nature's flow of energy", but they fail to explain what they mean by these things.

Ok. Free-will would then be an ability to manipulate matter with your mind. I'm not talking about "bending spoons with your mind", but if the mind consists and operates through chemicals and atoms and such, I suggest that free-will creates the order of these chemicals, and causes and directs their courses. So, what IS this thing? What IS this spark of omnipotence over one's own mind? To know WHAT IT IS, would be to know what GOD is, what LIFE itself IS, and as far as I know this knowledge is beyond the current scope of human understanding and comprehension. Just because we cannot fathom it however, does not mean that it doesn't exist. Furthermore, if the mind is just a group of chemicals, then we should be able to assemble a human being in a laboratory from basic chemicals off of a shelf, and he/she should spontaneously come alive and start breathing on his/her own. What type of music would this person like? We also should be able to create a "virtual brain" by mapping a human brain and substituting electronic synapses in a computer for the real ones in the model brain. Would this computer then become self aware? Would it have free-will? I say No! Why? Because life is NOT just a set of chemicals properly arranged, there IS something else. The universe need not be either random, or totally ordered. When a cue ball on a pool table hits an object ball, the reaction can be predicted by the direction, speed, angle, spin, and point of contact. This is not random, but is not total order either, because the shot might miss. It is through careful aim, and a well executed shot that the ball will sink. There will be a PURPOSE to the interaction of that cue ball and that object ball. So perhaps is the nature of the universe. perhaps a "big bang" was like the break on a pool table, lacking total order, and yet not totally random. The purpose being just to spread out matter into the universe. Then perhaps a more specific re-organization of matter took place in the formation of the Earth and the life which exists on it. Earth ball in the corner pocket! And perhaps we now have the same order of control over matter, only just the matter which exists in our own minds, not external matter. There then is not total order, nor randomness, but matter is like clay which we can mold with the power of our free will. In such respect we are then gods, just not as powerful as the god(s) which created the universe and the Earth. And we also cannot fathom what life IS. If we could, we could then create it by sheer will of mind, and that is not our place in the universe to do so. In other words, God kept a secret or two for him/her/itself, for whatever reason he/she/it did so.

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Shroomism
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2030474 - 10/21/03 08:11 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Free will is freedom to do and think as you choose, under the number one law of the universe, free will. Just because you are more likely to choose one thing over another based on previous experience, does not mean that you are bound to that decision, or that it is set in stone. You have the free will to bind yourself to past experience, or not. You have the free will to do whatever you want. When you start using your free will to interfere with other sovereign beings free will, that's a whole other can 'o worms.

--------------------

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2030536 - 10/21/03 08:31 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Ok. Free-will would then be an ability to manipulate matter with your mind. I'm not talking about "bending spoons with your mind", but if the mind consists and operates through chemicals and atoms and such, I suggest that free-will creates the order of these chemicals, and causes and directs their courses.

i would say that consciousness does not create the movement, the movement creates consciousness, and the movement is created by previous movement.

if consciousness creates the movement, what is creating consciousness?

and if consciousness is creating the movement, instead of caused by it, why can consciousness alone move chemicals inside your brain, but not bend a spoon, blow out a candle, or even shift a speck of dust?

does it somehow only affect the events inside of our skulls?

and why would it, even if it could?... if it exists independently of these events, it seems odd that we'd have brains in our heads at all, especially ones as complex as they are...

Furthermore, if the mind is just a group of chemicals, then we should be able to assemble a human being in a laboratory from basic chemicals off of a shelf, and he/she should spontaneously come alive and start breathing on his/her own. What type of music would this person like? We also should be able to create a "virtual brain" by mapping a human brain and substituting electronic synapses in a computer for the real ones in the model brain. Would this computer then become self aware? Would it have free-will? I say No! Why? Because life is NOT just a set of chemicals properly arranged, there IS something else.

just because something is too complicated for us to build doesn't mean that it isn't made of regular ol' matter. we cannot create a living cell, nor so much as a strand of DNA. there are many things which we cannot create at this time... but our level of technology has no implications over the "material-ness" of the things we might seek to create...

we can't build a brain, much less a whole human being... so what? there are alot of things we cannot build.

When a cue ball on a pool table hits an object ball, the reaction can be predicted by the direction, speed, angle, spin, and point of contact. This is not random, but is not total order either, because the shot might miss.

correct.

It is through careful aim, and a well executed shot that the ball will sink. There will be a PURPOSE to the interaction of that cue ball and that object ball.

let's follow the chain of events in reverse.

ball sinks in hole
ball is travels over the table surface, obeying specific rules of physics
ball is struck by cue, again, totally in order with the laws of physics
muscle contractions push cue
nerve impulses cause muscles to contract
nerve impules originate in brain
conscious decision, and intelligent action, caused by chemical and electrical events in brain, initiate nerve impulse to contract muscle
... and the chain continues, all the way back to the beginning of time...

you see? if we assume that consciousness is caused solely by material conditions, this entire progression of events can be traced all the way back...

if you're a believer in some sort of higher intelligence, then i suppose that free will is a possibility.

i am just conjecturing that in the absence of such a higher power, free will cannot exist.

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2030661 - 10/21/03 08:56 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

also...

if consciousness is not caused by the chemicals in our brains, it's awfully strange that changing the chemistry via drugs can so drastically alter consciousness...

hmm...

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2030894 - 10/21/03 09:47 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

i would say that consciousness does not create the movement, the movement creates consciousness, and the movement is created by previous movement.

if consciousness creates the movement, what is creating consciousness?

You could also ask "If the movement crates the conciousness, what is causing the movement?

Quote:

and if consciousness is creating the movement, instead of caused by it, why can consciousness alone move chemicals inside your brain, but not bend a spoon, blow out a candle, or even shift a speck of dust?

Maybe it can in certain circumstances. However, for practical purposes, the reason would most likely seem to be that our conciousness is MEANT to move matter within our brains, because in our brains is where conciousness exists.

Quote:

just because something is too complicated for us to build doesn't mean that it isn't made of regular ol' matter. we cannot create a living cell, nor so much as a strand of DNA. there are many things which we cannot create at this time... but our level of technology has no implications over the "material-ness" of the things we might seek to create...

we can't build a brain, much less a whole human being... so what? there are alot of things we cannot build.

But IF science WERE to manufacture a human being, do you believe it would spontaneously come alive?

Quote:

if you're a believer in some sort of higher intelligence, then i suppose that free will is a possibility.

i am just conjecturing that in the absence of such a higher power, free will cannot exist.

That is correct. I believe that without a higher intelligence free will could not exist. And I do believe that both exist. Also I believe that intelligence itself would seem to equal free will. After all, what is intelligence if it isnt the ability to think and act in ways unique to oneself (free will)? Or, if our every thought and decision is determined by the positions and movements of atoms and chemicals, what sort of intelligence do we really have? That would make us imbeciles entirely subject to the movement of chemicals.

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Strumpling
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2030941 - 10/21/03 09:57 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

argh I just wrote like several pages of stuff but its way too unorganized..

I think my main point was that the illusion of free-will comes from evolution itself... I think this is what evolution is about - isolating probabilities from possibilities in order to "make it so." We [mankind], having isolated more probabilities from possibilities for general "activity" or "experience" than any other species on this planet, feel very very free because we observe so much possibility and activity through our conscious awareness (as is part of our job as a part of evolution), we see so much other activity going on that is almost completely irrelevant and possibly even harmful for our individual paths, it distracts us from our unconscious mind and from our main course that we sometimes don't even recognize we're a part of systems which are tightly woven into the fabric of "the everything."

In my opinion, thinking that we have "free will," thinking that we can go against the grain of the universe and take charge for ourselves, is very absurd..... Do people really believe we have somehow escaped the cosmic order of things?

hmm and having said that, allow me to head back to an earlier statement of mine, just so I can acknowledge my own contradiction: "I'm not going to try any convincing"

oh yeah, Strumpling?

--------------------
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Edited by Strumpling (10/21/03 10:08 PM)

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2030955 - 10/21/03 10:00 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

You could also ask "If the movement crates the conciousness, what is causing the movement?

preceding movement, caused by preceding movement, caused by preceding movement, ad infinitum.

Maybe it can in certain circumstances. However, for practical purposes, the reason would most likely seem to be that our conciousness is MEANT to move matter within our brains, because in our brains is where conciousness exists.

so why does it move it around in our heads? it realy shouldn't need to... at least it shouldn't need to move it as much as it does.

why is the brain so complex?

i'd really like to get opinions on this matter from people in medicice and physics. i think a neuroscientist might have some good input.

But IF science WERE to manufacture a human being, do you believe it would spontaneously come alive?

you cannot do that, for reasons that render even hypothetical guesswork fruitless.

i will say this: i think it will someday be possible to create intelliegent computers that exhibit what seems to be "free will". perhaps then the question will be answered for sure...

That would make us imbeciles entirely subject to the movement of chemicals.

basically, yes.

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2030958 - 10/21/03 10:01 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

also...

if consciousness is not caused by the chemicals in our brains, it's awfully strange that changing the chemistry via drugs can so drastically alter consciousness...

hmm...

Very interesting point, and one which should definately be considered. However, your point does not prove that the conciousness is being created by the chemicals. I suggest that the conciousness is moving these chemicals into an order which matches the conciousness. In other words, the conciousness is keeping these chemicals syncronised with itself. Therefore disorganizing these chemicals could cause corrosponding injury to the conciousness.

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silversoul7
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2030974 - 10/21/03 10:03 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

The problem with your idea of determinism is that it assumes that one's experiences and personality will inevitably lead them to one conclusion when making a decision. Yet this seems to assume that all decisions are easy. Often the person making a decision is truely confused as to what they should do, and they choose a decision at random.

--------------------

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2030976 - 10/21/03 10:03 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2030986 - 10/21/03 10:05 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

i'm not talking psychology. it's far more fundamental than that. i mean the actual, physical events inside the brain.

if these events are what give rise to awareness, intelligence, and consciousness, then it logically follows that these things are as predestined in their qualities as the movement of the matter\energy itself.

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2031008 - 10/21/03 10:14 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

preceding movement, caused by preceding movement, caused by preceding movement, ad infinitum.

Yet it is the nature of things to come to rest. So what caused the first movement?

Quote:

i will say this: i think it will someday be possible to create intelliegent computers that exhibit what seems to be "free will". perhaps then the question will be answered for sure...

Perhaps someday it will also be possible to modify the brain such as in that movie "the matrix" I think that the way the brain and conciousness was designed is similar to a computer and it's hard drive in this respect: The computer goes through it's functions using it's ram and processor, and then enscribes the results onto it's hard drive. While the conciousness goes through it's functions, and then re-organizes chemicals in the brain to give us a memory, a definition of self, experience etc. etc.(and a zillion other things which comprise the human condition.)

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2031024 - 10/21/03 10:19 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Yet it is the nature of things to come to rest.

no it is not. matter\energy is conserved.

So what caused the first movement?

for the entire existence of the universe, it has been this way, with a set amount of matter\energy existing.

i cannot tell you about before that because there was no before that. it did not exist. there was no something, and there was no nothing.

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2031073 - 10/21/03 10:33 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Very interesting point, and one which should definately be considered. However, your point does not prove that the conciousness is being created by the chemicals. I suggest that the conciousness is moving these chemicals into an order which matches the conciousness. In other words, the conciousness is keeping these chemicals syncronised with itself. Therefore disorganizing these chemicals could cause corrosponding injury to the conciousness.

well now i think we've reached a contradiction... is the quality and characteristics of consciousness dependant on chemical and electrical events in the brain or its it not?

The conciousness is dependant upon chemical and electrical events in the brain, because they are an effect of the conciousness.

These chemicals and electrical events are arranged by your conciousness much in the same way that over time a pair of jeans stretches to fit your body, or a ring you wear for years makes a dent in your finger. Your brain has become organized by your conciousness. Your conciousness has made the chemicals in your brain fit it like a glove. The chemicals and electrical events are like an ever changing mirror image to your conciousness, shaped BY the conciousness. To alter these chemicals dramatically could then cause injury to your conciousness, like a square peg into a round hole. But that doesn't mean that your conciousness is controlled by these chemicals, it only means that your conciousness is dependant upon the environment that it has created for itself.

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2031079 - 10/21/03 10:37 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Yet it is the nature of things to come to rest.

no it is not. matter\energy is conserved.

you are correct. i must be tired. "An object in motion will tend to stay in motion."

But I still wonder where did motion begin?

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2031102 - 10/21/03 10:47 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

it's been here forever.

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Strumpling
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2031123 - 10/21/03 10:52 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

hehe I love that "Its been here forever."

I find myself questioning both sides of this.. "How could it have been here 'forever!'" but on the other hand I feel "How could it have NOT been here 'forever?!'"

--------------------
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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2031146 - 10/21/03 10:58 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"Often the person making a decision is truely confused as to what they should do, and they choose a decision at random."

I don't think it's actually made at random. The person may feel that each possibility is equal, but there are factors which would change your decision. It's hard to say exactly what they are.

Think of the machine that chooses the lottery balls, the balls fly to the top seemingly at random, but if you were to rewind time to a few minutes before the ball popped up, and everything in the universe was laid out identically, then the same ball would be chosen. The factors that influence this are too numerous and complex to be within our control, but they are there none the less.

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2031171 - 10/21/03 11:05 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

very good way of understanding it. if we hit the rewind button... if we could go back and recreate the exact set of circumstances in the universe that existed 10 minutes ago, would the next ten minutes pass in exactly the same way as they just did?

i would say that yes, they would, even those events particular to human beings...

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silversoul7
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2031178 - 10/21/03 11:06 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

But how do you know that for sure?

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Strumpling]
#2031183 - 10/21/03 11:08 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"I find myself questioning both sides of this.. "How could it have been here 'forever!'" but on the other hand I feel "How could it have NOT been here 'forever?!'"
"

Does forever exist? What is time?
Time for a different thread :P

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2031186 - 10/21/03 11:10 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

If that's not for sure, then maybe there is randomness. Which is not free will, either.

Personally, I'm with mushmaster on this one, I don't think there is randomness, although I'm not 100% closed to the possibility.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2031200 - 10/21/03 11:13 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

If free will is not randomness and it is not order, then what is it?

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2031211 - 10/21/03 11:17 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I can't think of anything else.

Somebody said "the flowing energy of the universe, which is not definable", of course that means just as much as "asdgasbxczberasd, which is not definable".

You could add, "or something else" to the end of any question just to cover all the bases, but you're not actually providing another possibility.

1 + 1 = 2, or something else.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2031214 - 10/21/03 11:20 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

If free will is not randomness and it is not order, then what is it?

It is a mystery, but it is.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2031234 - 10/21/03 11:29 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

What reason do you have for believing that it is neither of these possibilities?

Why assume that it is something we cannot possibly imagine when there are some pretty good explanations being provided?

I know that the human mind naturally assumes that it has some other level of control, above and beyond that of the universe, but just having that feeling, I think, is part of how our mind operates and performs it's day to day tasks.

There is a minute possibility that it is something else, I can't possibly imagine what that would be, but since nobody has been able to come up with any kind of other explanation, I don't see why anyone would assume that a third possibility is more likely. Perhaps you could enlighten me.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2031245 - 10/21/03 11:34 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"If free will is not randomness and it is not order, then what is it?"

See you're slipping it into this question like you're sure it exists :wink:

Regardless, I'd like to address the word "random."

From what I understand, if something is random that means it is unable to be predicted. Unfortunately my dictionary doesn't give enough information to tell me if this means "unable to be predicted EVER!" or "unable to be predicted AT THAT SPECIFIC LOCATION IN SPACE-TIME."

If its the first one, then I don't believe that's even possible - I think everything is predictable, just sometimes not predictable at the time it occurs, or the first time it occurs.... one would simply have to learn HOW to predict things that seem "random" in order to "de-randomize" the occurance/event/whatever..

Like 500 years ago the weather was completely random according to mankind. We do know now, though, that it all is governed by physical law - the weather is predictable with enough data - The weather has been de-randomized due to us obtaining a deeper understanding of the processes involved in "weather." We don't have enough data-gathering devices and processing power to actually predict the weather accurately yet, but we understand that it is indeed possible to tell which days (which minutes, even?) it will rain in Los Angeles (or your particular piece of land, even?) next month or even next year; its just not possible from our current location in time-space.... So it remains "random" for now but keeps getting more and more predictable as we spend more energy on finding order in chaos.

I think wherever something seems random, its just because we haven't figured it out yet.. On top of this, I think we will always find more and more seemingly "random" activity to try and derandomize. Due to the fractal nature of the universe, there's always room for refinement.

Hmm that being said, there is a "random" element to almost everything now that I think about it, because we don't know everything 100% therefore don't know ANYTHING 100%, which makes things slightly unpredictable (from flight schedules to the exact amount of caffine in that cup of coffee), yet slightly predictable at the same time ("Our flight is late [which we didn't predict] but won't be much longer, and this coffee should have plenty of caffine in it for me.")

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2031250 - 10/21/03 11:38 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

You are assuming that life is the sum of the chemicals which make up our physical bodies. There is also a soul, or astral body which exists in the same space as the physical form. This is well documented by those who have has out of body experiences. I, myself being one of these people. It was probably the most frightening experience of my entire life. I will make a new thread about it tomorrow. Tonight I'm too tired. Goodnight brothers.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2031266 - 10/21/03 11:43 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

well-documented?

Lets see some reasearch links please?

"There is also a soul, or astral body which exists in the same space as the physical form."

Can you back up this claim please?

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Strumpling]
#2031285 - 10/21/03 11:48 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I'd just like to point out that the ancients WERE able to predict the weather, just not with quite the accuracy of the instruments we have today. They could tell by the cricket chirps, the clouds in the sky, the direction of the wind, etc. People today don't give the ancients nearly enough credit.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2031297 - 10/21/03 11:53 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"There is also a soul, or astral body which exists in the same space as the physical form. This is well documented by those who have has out of body experiences."

An experience is not evidence. People believe and feel a lot of very "real" things, some people even feel and believe things that contradict the feelings and beliefs of others.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2031305 - 10/21/03 11:56 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"People today don't give the ancients nearly enough credit."

This dodges my point... There was much more "randomness" involved in the weather back then than there is now, due to further studies and advances.

ha of course "the ancients" were fuckin brilliant, just as smart as us, but they didn't have the collaborative abilities we do today, and extra years of data-gathering to worm through.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2031310 - 10/21/03 11:58 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

same input, into the same machine, same output. i don't believe that randomness exists.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2031359 - 10/22/03 12:39 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

So in theory, "Everything" is predictable?

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Seuss]
#2031425 - 10/22/03 01:18 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Hey, all. I'm new. I tried to post a "newbie" thread, but it weren't happening tonight, according to the internet gods.

I perused your threads, posts, etc. I was directed here by a "pot head". I'm not a pot head. Pot makes me paranoid. Do you guys even call it "pot" any more?

Anyways, you all are so phuckin' entertaining, and so I thought I would at least say "hi" here, and start posting in comment to some of the posts I read, later.

Seriously, I've been looking for a forum where my mind can be entertained. Little did I know that I would find that entertainment on a site like this.

Smiles now, hugs later, when I get to know y'all.

--------------------
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Frog]
#2031493 - 10/22/03 01:56 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Hello there.

I like your signature.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Strumpling]
#2031497 - 10/22/03 01:59 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"So in theory, "Everything" is predictable? "

Well, not really. It would be impossible to calculate all of reality without being able to somehow model it separate of itself. ie. a computer simulation, or on paper...

Sorry if that isn't very clear, I'm hardly awake.

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Annom
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Strumpling]
#2031563 - 10/22/03 02:45 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

> So in theory, "Everything" is predictable?

In theory yes, but it will never be possible to predict everything. To predict everything you need a super computer that exists in an other dimension and has no influence in our universe. A super computer in our universe has influence in our universe and it will never be able to predict its own predictions. All information about all matter and energy(position, velocity, mass, etc.) in our universe should be stored in a super computer(which exists of matter). All information about all matter and energy can never be stored in matter and energy(unless we use winzip, but I'm not sure about that).

i'm not talking psychology. it's far more fundamental than that. i mean the actual, physical events inside the brain.

ditch the psychology and get down to the microscopic...

Important point in this discussion. It requires very abstract thinking to understand this.

> From what I understand, if something is random that means it is unable to be predicted.

True randomness is something that is not caused by something. True randomness doesn't exist in classical physics. But in quantum physics, as far as I know, true randomness does exist. Some say that there are hidden variables in quantum physics(they don't believe in this true randomness), but the quantum theory states that true randomness does exist. The strange thing is that while true randomness exists in quantum physics, classical physics is still non-random(I don't get it, this is really weird shit :smile:

). Quantum physics is impossible to understand for me, and I think for most of us. But they have some interesting theories about randomness and determinism..... Do a google search on quantum, randomness, determinsm, etc if you want some :eek:

http://dogma.free.fr/txt/JB-Determinism.pdf

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2031647 - 10/22/03 04:44 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

> same input, into the same machine, same output. i don't
> believe that randomness exists

I like to think that too, but I'm not quite sure.

Pre 20th century physics is neat and deterministic, but this was before the discovery of quantum mechanics. If you were to believe in quantum physics (like most physicists do), then there is at least a randomness in that we can't ever determine anything outside of probabilities. This still gives essentially deterministic systems though, they just appear random to us for all practical purposes.

Wether there exists true randomness, or even what true randomness actually is, is so far an unsolved question in physics.

I'm not sure this has any bearing on free will though. The way I see it, is that if you can show that there are some things that are non-deterministic, then you could argue that there is "something" that affects these random outcomes, and that something is the source of our free will.

However, we have absolutely no proof that there is "somthing", a soul or whatever you want to call it, that exists outside our physical world which can affect our physical reality. In my opinion, any such "something" is just pure speculation, and anecdotal evidence like "my friend saw a ghost, so there is a spirit world and a soul" is just not very interesting.

To sum up; free will would be kinda cool, but I don't think that's how things work. We're just survival containers for our genes that have evolved far enough to be aware of our world and ourselves. The world is just a "movie" unfolding before our eyes, so you might as well kick back and relax.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2031913 - 10/22/03 08:43 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"I like your signature. "

TY, Phluck. BTW: Our names have something in common!

(Okay, I'll stop trampling the thread with inconsequentials.)

--------------------
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2031969 - 10/22/03 09:05 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

hi there frog, welcome! *passes joint to frog*

I don't have any links about astral body or souls. I read some books a long time ago where people described their experiences. I don't think it matters anyway, because it can and will be argued that these people's experiences could have been illusionary. More importantly is that the universe DOES follow an order, but this is not the same order that our conciousness now percieves. Just as the "super computer" could not predict it's own predictions, neither can we percieve the vibe of the universe, because we exist as a part of it.

Quote:

To sum up; free will would be kinda cool, but I don't think that's how things work. We're just survival containers for our genes that have evolved far enough to be aware of our world and ourselves. The world is just a "movie" unfolding before our eyes, so you might as well kick back and relax.

Like I stated in one of my earlier posts, if we all were to "kick back and relax" none of us would have jobs, money, girlfriends, or anything else we want. We would all become bums. Of course, the occasional one of us would be struck in the head with a briefcase of money falling from the sky, but that would not be the norm at all.

If I was meant to go to work today, I'll find myself there, therefore I'll stay in bed.

Or a doctor might say "It was God's will that this person was to die, therefore my accidentally injecting him with 500 mg of valium is not really to blame here."

Or " Your honor, it was my pre-determined destiny to rape and kill those children, I am not responsible for it, because it was MEANT to happen."

Do you see why this whole idea of predestiny is hogwash now?

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2032041 - 10/22/03 09:32 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

yes. so far no one has been able to prove the existence of true randomness, or show how even if it did exist, it would give rise to free will.

i'll restate something i said in an earlier thead.

of the three:

1. fundamental order in the universe
2. Materialism
3. Free Will

at least one cannot be true\exist.

a rejection of #3 seems more rationally grounded to me than a rejection of 1 or 2, so that's that's the one i'm thinking is false.

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2032074 - 10/22/03 09:48 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

it's a different kind of "kick back in relax".. it is 'non-action'... acting without acting.

deep down, you've got no more control over the activities of your brain than you do over the activities of your heart or digestive system.

... unless of course, there is such a thing as a soul, or higher intelligence, or what have you... a notion i personally do not find to be believable.

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2032079 - 10/22/03 09:50 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

> Do you see why this whole idea of predestiny is hogwash now?

First of all, destiny is a laden word. It implies meaning, and when I say that I don't think we have free will, I'm not saying that there is any specific meaning in what happens.

Secondly, because bad stuff happens or people do bad things, there must be free will? That sounds like the essence of christianity. There must be free will so that people can choose not to sin. Trying to explain things by starting out with a need that arises out of thin air (like the bible) is generally a bad way to explain or understand anything.

And yes, the legal system, like religion, also requires there to be free will to make any sense. That's still not proof of a free will though.

I know it may be an unpleasant thought that we have no power over our lives, but based on what we observe in nature and logical construction of rules based on those observations, for us to have free will there must be something extraordinary with our brains. Something that's not observed anywhere else in nature. If you want it to be true that we have free will, then you can construct things like little elves in our heads, or souls or whatever, but if you want to be logical about it, you choose the explanation that requires the least amount of conjecture.

I'm not saying that we know everything, and that we understand nature perfectly, but given our present understanding of it (one which happens to work out very well for us, and which can explain a great deal of what we observe), the conclusion that we have no free will is easily the most obvious one. It doesn't require you to dream up magic particles that no one has ever observed, or an almighty deity that refuses to reveal itself.

But if anybody can present a good argument as to why we have free will (besides 'it has to be that way, because it just has to'), then I'm open for anything.

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2032221 - 10/22/03 10:46 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

if free will does not exist that by no means implies that murderers, rapists, or other criminals should not be punished for their actions. determinism is defined as "The philosophical doctrine that every state of affairs, including every human event, act, and decision is the inevitable consequence of antecedent states of affairs." so acts of violence or other criminal acts, while they may be a result of some sort of strife experienced in life, still require punishment/consequences. to me this seems very similar to the nature/nurture debate. wether our actions are a result of our own free will or the environment we've experienced throughout life. it also seems to me that there are various levels of determinism. extreme determinists break it down to chemistry and physics while to others its a matter of psychology. i suppose thats just a matter of how far you look into it though. thinking about this shit gives me a headache because there are so many things that could really go either way and that simply depend on point of view. this discussion could continue on for years and never be 'solved', although that just seems to be the nature of philosophy.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2032262 - 10/22/03 10:57 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"If I was meant to go to work today, I'll find myself there, therefore I'll stay in bed."

That's obviously not how it works. Whatever you do, or decide to do is controlled by the chemistry in your brain. You are only "meant" to do what you do.

If you stay in bed all day, then you will stay in bed all day.

You can't say, I'll just do X instead of Y because Z will happen either way. There is no "either way", there is only what you do. Your decisions are still a factor in what happens next, even if they are also the result of previous happenings.

"Or " Your honor, it was my pre-determined destiny to rape and kill those children, I am not responsible for it, because it was MEANT to happen."

Do you see why this whole idea of predestiny is hogwash now? "

That's not actually a logical argument against determinism. That's just your own displeasure at the idea that a criminal doesn't actually have control over his actions. Also, that would be a complete bullshit excuse in court.

Criminals still make decisions in their own minds, and by influencing their decision, that can be changed. Of course, they were going to be changed for sure...

With determinism, all of the factors that lead up to a crime are the same. Someone might just be born a jerk, and then they were raised by shitty parents who broke laws are hurt others all the time, and then one day the guy gets really pissed off while he happens to have a knife in his hand and he stabs somebody. Sending to jail sets and example, it punishes him, and is meant to rehabilitate him.

How about a two year old who draws all over the walls even after being told not to, that's a little easier to accept as an act that was out of control.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#2032418 - 10/22/03 11:49 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I've seen some people who ask for proof for my/our beliefs:

First of all, this is Philosophy... Second:

To proof something we need, in general, axioms(A self-evident principle or one that is accepted as true without proof as the basis for argument; a postulate). We can proof a thesis with these axioms and earlier proven theses. An example of an axiom is that 2 parallel lines will never cross. With this axiom we can proof other things(can't name one right know). But with mathematics it is possible to proof that 2 parallel lines do cross a few times. According that mathematics the axiom is incorrect, but in normal mathematics it is a useful and "correct" axiom.

To proof determinism we also need axioms. I'm happy someone already wrote these axioms because it's pretty hard to write them myself :smile:

. Here are the axioms of determinism, if these axioms are "correct"(or you believe in them) the whole determinism can be proven:

AXIOMS

The processes of the scientific method are the most reliable and acceptable methods for discovering and clarifying the truths of man's existence. Established religions deal with the same issues regarding true human nature and the ideal life as we do but tend to eschew scientific methodology, relying instead on myths, visions, folklore, ?miracles? etc. They are best regarded as primitive psychologies.

Everything in nature is caused; this is the definition of Total Determinism.

All of humanity?s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are caused (forced) by one or more determinants. (The concept of ?free will? is so elusive it can?t even be defined, except to mean without cause, chaotic.)

Beliefs, especially those which are emotionally loaded, are powerful determinants of thoughts, feelings and behaviors. ?We are what we believe.?

Man's need for the acceptance and love of his fellows is a powerful determinant of his thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

The pursuit of happiness, as stated in The Declaration of Independence, is the ?purpose? of life.

There is no mind independent of the body nor body independent of the mind; there is only an integrated organism. This concept is known as the Psychosomatic Principle.

All humans are born innocent, and are gentle in nature. Thus, we reject all notions that children are born vicious or in "Sin".

source: http://www.determinism.com/axioms.shtml

If you believe in these axioms, determinism can be proven. If you don't, nobody can proof determinism. :smirk:

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#2032499 - 10/22/03 12:13 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Some of those don't necessarily have anything to do with determinism.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2032529 - 10/22/03 12:23 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

mmm... agreed...

I was thinking about the "how to proof it" question and then I thought about "what is proof" and then I found those axioms and then I..... :smile:

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2032557 - 10/22/03 12:34 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

mushmaster said:
yes. so far no one has been able to prove the existence of true randomness, or show how even if it did exist, it would give rise to free will.

No one's been able to prove the energy waves that hit my eyes from my computer screen have an influence on whether I choose to believe you or not. Can you prove that there is a direct causal chain between my reading this thread and the change of my opinion on free will - on an energy level ?

Quote:

mushmaster said:
of the three:

1. fundamental order in the universe
2. Materialism
3. Free Will

at least one cannot be true\exist.

That's just the same as saying of the three:

1. the existance of the soul
2. dualism
3. determinism

At least one cannot be true\exist. Catch my drift? The two first are tied together, while the third at least implies a contradiction with the two first. An easy choice to make if only one can be false.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2032583 - 10/22/03 12:43 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

'determinism is defined as "The philosophical doctrine that every state of affairs, including every human event, act, and decision is the inevitable consequence of antecedent states of affairs." '

If that's your definition, determinism and free will can go together. You make your choice based on your own judgement, weighing the factors by yourself. Nevertheless, your choice is influenced, determined, call it what you will, by the situation at the time the choice has to be made.

You'd have to be a radical determinist to claim free will can't exist.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#2032640 - 10/22/03 01:00 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

People make their own decisions... but they will always come to the same conclusion.

I can turn on a calculator, and ask it to add 5 + 5. The calculator is doing the calculation itself, but it is not free to come to any conclusion other than 10.

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Strumpling
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#2032689 - 10/22/03 01:10 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"In theory yes, but it will never be possible to predict everything."

So there IS randomness then? Random = unable to be predicted

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Strumpling]
#2032717 - 10/22/03 01:22 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

True randomness = not caused by anything.

If random = unable to predict, randomness does exist. Everything you say is random. Nobody can predict it! So please stop talking so random :tongue:

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#2032743 - 10/22/03 01:33 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

yes, a random event is not determined by a cause. i don't believe that truly random events exist.

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#2033020 - 10/22/03 02:45 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Annom said:
Beliefs, especially those which are emotionally loaded, are powerful determinants of thoughts, feelings and behaviors. ?We are what we believe.?

belief is a somewhat vague and deceptive term. one's beliefs can play a part in one's thoughts, feelings and behaviors, but at the same time ones beliefs are determined by one's thoughts, feelings, and life experience. therefore i find it inaccurate, restrictive and misleading to say 'we are what we believe' and i feel that we are a product of many additional factors. in addition to that, beliefs are ever changing and are derivative of the experiences, feelings and thoughts we've had at a given point in our lives.

Quote:

Annom said:
Man's need for the acceptance and love of his fellows is a powerful determinant of his thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

To some degree this is true. on a general level, many people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by this need for acceptance. however, again this is a sub set of causes for a persons thoughts, feelings and behaviors. social interaction itself, whether a person is concerned with acceptance or not, is a factor in a persons thoughts, feelings and behaviors. a person is just as likely to be influenced by a group that he/she does not seek acceptance from or even has little contact with.

Quote:

Annom said:
If you believe in these axioms, determinism can be proven. If you don't, nobody can proof determinism.

i dont believe in all of them but i still believe in determinism. cause and effect has been mentioned earlier and i think that is the primary reasoning behind my belief in determinism. who we are is the effect of everyone and everything we interact with. from family, friends, acquaintances or those who we dont even know to the music we listen to, movies we watch, games we play to where we live and the weather, each causes us to be who we are. every single conversation we've had in our lives, however meaningless or insignificant, has had an effect on who we are. i dont see determinism as all my "choices" perviously planned out for me, but rather the idea that what i do is caused by who i am. 'free will' is not bullshit or an illusion, its just mislabeled and not what its generally interpreted as. 'free will' is the seemingly active process of decision making, which is really the mind applying a combination of some of the abilities it posesses. these abilities include memory, memory recall, and perception (probably others, but i cant think of them right now). this process often seems to be carried out consciously when in reality the subconscious has allready come to a decision and the concsious is simply making sense of it. for example, when i write a paper or am involved in a discussion about something i have a fairly good knowledge of, i can write/talk on and on without fully realizing what ive written/said until i read/think it over. its almost as if im writing/speaking from my subconscious and, while speaking, in part listening with my concious. i dont know if anyone else knows what im talking about, but i dont think im alone in having this experience. the fact that i dont consciously decide or choose the actions i take or the thoughts i think doesnt mean that these are not my decisions, just that so much more is taken into account during the process than my conscious is aware of. at the same time, just because i make these decisions doesnt imply that this is done as a result of free will.

Edited by Anonymous (10/22/03 04:05 PM)

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2034863 - 10/23/03 12:02 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

What if we never thought of the idea of free will? Had no real concept of time... Would free have any significance? Does it make important now to know if we have free will or not? Does it really hamper our ability for "enlightement" or whatever reason you decide to be your goal?

Why do you ask that question, do we have free will? What does it keep us from?

If we had the free will to understand free will, would that mean we had free will?

Do you think you possess as what you think of free will to understand it? Cause it seems there is no definate answer, only peoples opion. Those opinions are based on beliefs about different truths. Which one is right? Can they both be right?...

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
#2034887 - 10/23/03 12:10 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"Does it really hamper our ability for "enlightement" or whatever reason you decide to be your goal? Why do you ask that question, do we have free will? What does it keep us from?"

Since when is the purpose of philosophy simply to seek out enlightenment? That sounds like more of a spiritual endeavor to me. Personally, I enjoy thinking about the nature of conciousness and the universe. I don't see how asking this question is different from the multitudes of other philosophical questions asked in this forum.

"Cause it seems there is no definate answer, only peoples opion."

I've only seen two possible positions offered, A) Our decisions are made through an elaborate and ordered system, B) our decisions are made randomly. People keep saying that no, the answer is C) Free will, without even offering the vaguest definition.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2034902 - 10/23/03 12:15 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

To me it's a lot like discussing solipsism.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2034918 - 10/23/03 12:22 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

What do you gain by asking questions you will never answer? When all there is, is just possibilities. When someone comes up with an idea, what keeps you from seeing that one? What makes you understand the things you do now, because of the other things you have been taught? To me it seems that what we know is rather deterministic, and so therefor how would you have free will if everything you have been taught is based on something deterministic. Isnt it faulty to assume that you understand something you havent experienced before or learned before? I think thats making a leap in thought. you assume you can find the answer with what you know, and what you know is from all the stuff you have already learned. See how that doesnt seem like free will? Free will would obviously seem to be ability to do something that you have not done before if you look at it in that context.

i dont know if you will understand that or not... or think of it how im trying to think of it... but i guess i will see wont !

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
#2034953 - 10/23/03 12:34 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I don't understand what "free will" is, because nobody seems to.

They all believe they do, but they don't even have anything that looks remotely like a definition.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
#2034961 - 10/23/03 12:37 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

>Lighteningfractal: hi there frog, welcome! *passes joint to frog*<

Thanks, Lightening, but no can do. (Paranoia strikes, remember?)

If I repeat something someone already said, don?t shoot me. First, I?m not the piano player, and second, it?s only my opinion. (Besides, I?m coming in late here, and I haven?t read ALL the posts yet.)

Sometimes ?free will? exists, but most times our choices are limited by the occurrence of previous events, caused by others? choices, made under their assumption of ?free will?, when in reality, their choices were narrowed based on prior events formed by yet another?s exercise of ?free will?.

Also, the ability to exercise ?free will? will probably be hampered by random acts and occurrences, or the ?unexpected?.

And if we truly had ?free will?, we wouldn?t be able to operate in this world. There would be total chaos.

No, I don?t think free will exists much at all. Not if my choices are limited.

I would have to say, based on my own mental meanderings, that free will exists as to the choices with which we are left after others have exercised their free will.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
#2034969 - 10/23/03 12:39 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"What if we never thought of the idea of free will? Had no real concept of time... Would free have any significance? Does it make important now to know if we have free will or not? Does it really hamper our ability for "enlightement" or whatever reason you decide to be your goal?"

Ahh yes this is great right here :smile:

- What if? See that's the problem! As soon as the question is brought up, it cannot go away, and people don't seem to like answering "I DON'T FUCKING KNOW! LET'S MOVE ON!" especially when there's SO much TIME to kill!

Before anybody wondered about free-will or similar topics (which.. we don't know if there ever WAS a time when people didn't wonder about these things.. we don't know if my DOG wonders about these things.), and especially wondered OUT LOUD to OTHERS, there was no "problem" to be solved relating to the subject, there was no SUBJECT!

I feel this is why ancients seemed so peaceful and brilliant - they seem way more enlightened than modern man simply because life and life's issues weren't so segmented through language (and now technology). Each piece of each problem somebody comes up with, nowadays, can be separated, labeled, and then questioned and disected themSELVES.. this creates much more "real-estate" for enlightenment to brighten, kind of like adding words or paragraphs in the middle of existing sentences or pages in a book as it is read, then the next person who reads the book adds MORE stuff in-between YOURS..

Before extensive language came along, it seems that it would have been harder to verify (or at least attempt to verify) various imagined "answers" to any kind of problem or random life-question somebody would experience.

As language gets more detailed (languages of math, science, and spirit), it becomes easier and easier to verify (or at least attempt to verify) various imagined "answers" to any kind of problem or random life-question somebody experiences.

KNOWING THIS, I think makes these questions even COOLER because we STILL haven't been able to figure out some very very basic things even through years of scientific, mathematical, and spiritual "advancement." hmm have we advanced spiritually? maybe not..

Its like every aspect of one's life that science can get a grasp on, we see all over the place reflected in products and marketing and blah blah blah.. So when we hear a question that science hasn't yet tackled, I think some of us sit in awe wondering what we're doing (personally, or as a species, or even as a planet), why haven't we answered that question and have instead produced "queer eye for the straight guy?" Wondering what one is doing can lead to wondering why, where, how...

I think the advantage of thinking about these types of questions is that it requires REAL THOUGHT, which is rare these days.

I better end it here, as I'm quite off-topic

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Edited by Strumpling (10/23/03 12:50 AM)

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2036867 - 10/23/03 03:29 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

SO you are saying free is bullshit and you dont even know what it is?

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Strumpling]
#2036892 - 10/23/03 03:34 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

YOu are right, there is a huge problem with the whole casual acceptance. But i dont think its necessarily the place you are going to (the answer to that question) which makes you think, but the journey that you go through while getting there. What do you really want to learn? Do you want to learn how to break down and decipher what people say... do you want to know the different possibilities at which one could arrive at a certain point? I agree with you, real thought is very important... but even more importantly i have realized, and once i have reached that state of being able to think about things and not pass them off, but let them take me to a greater appreciation for the diversity of things, then i can begin to think... well what am i going to do with the things i have learned? What is the point of going where i am going with things i am learning? I think that gives you a sense of purpose....

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
#2036920 - 10/23/03 03:39 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"SO you are saying free is bullshit and you dont even know what it is? "

I'm saying, nobody knows what it is, especially those who believe in it.

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
#2037141 - 10/23/03 04:32 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Zero7a1 said:
SO you are saying free is bullshit and you dont even know what it is?

i think what he meant was that while he knows the definition of 'free will' he finds that to be bullshit and that in life there is an experience that seems to be this 'free will' but in actuality it is something else that no one can define.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2037460 - 10/23/03 05:53 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Well put.

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Zero7a1
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2037528 - 10/23/03 06:14 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

im still intrigued as to why you would ask this question.

dictionary.com's definition of free will

"The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or divine will. "

The only way it seems to find answers is by asking more questions, and more questions, and more questions, as if our constant persuit for a pure answer is just a relentless futile game for some ultimate truth. Maybe there is no ultimate truth but just understanding the thing that unites all things.

so does determinism give rise to fate?

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
#2037557 - 10/23/03 06:24 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

determinism@dictionary.com

"The philosophical doctrine that every state of affairs, including every human event, act, and decision is the inevitable consequence of antecedent states of affairs."

by that definition and how i think of it (not that my opinion is paricularly important or valid, its just my opinion) determinism doesnt involve fate in any way. in a way, fate is the opposite of determinism. in determinism all things are the result of previous things, whereas fate is all things being previously determined by what will happen in the future.

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Zero7a1
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2037610 - 10/23/03 06:43 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

do you have the free will to live your life as you choose? Have you been fated to this day? Does determinism mean that you cant make any choices. They are just actions? Can you lie to yourself that no matter what you have free will, and choose to do something you want to do and complete it. What are the restraints on not having free will? What can i not do because i dont have it?

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
#2037691 - 10/23/03 07:05 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

from one of my previous posts in this thread:

i dont see determinism as all my "choices" perviously planned out for me, but rather the idea that what i do is caused by who i am. 'free will' is not bullshit or an illusion, its just mislabeled and not what its generally interpreted as. 'free will' is the seemingly active process of decision making, which is really the mind applying a combination of some of the abilities it posesses. these abilities include memory, memory recall, and perception (probably others, but i cant think of them right now). this process often seems to be carried out consciously when in reality the subconscious has allready come to a decision and the concsious is simply making sense of it. for example, when i write a paper or am involved in a discussion about something i have a fairly good knowledge of, i can write/talk on and on without fully realizing what ive written/said until i read/think it over. its almost as if im writing/speaking from my subconscious and, while speaking, in part listening with my concious. i dont know if anyone else knows what im talking about, but i dont think im alone in having this experience. the fact that i dont consciously decide or choose the actions i take or the thoughts i think doesnt mean that these are not my decisions, just that so much more is taken into account during the process than my conscious is aware of. at the same time, just because i make these decisions doesnt imply that this is done as a result of free will.

so to answer your questions more directly:

i think i live the way my subconscious chooses, which is a result of my experiences throughout life. i dont believe in fate, so no i havent been fated to this day. i feel determinism simply means that choices arent made consciously and are made largely as a result of previous life experience. of course you can lie to yourself and say that you have free will and it will make little difference. i feel that the absence of free will in no way restricts your ability to do anything except to be someone you arent.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
#2037698 - 10/23/03 07:08 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"do you have the free will to live your life as you choose?"

You will live life based on the choices you make. But the choices you make are based on all kinds of factors. You don't just make them for no reason.

"Does determinism mean that you cant make any choices."

No, you make choices all the time.

"What can i not do because i dont have it?"

Everything you don't do.

Edited by Phluck (10/23/03 07:08 PM)

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2038253 - 10/23/03 09:14 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

>Strumpling: As soon as the question is brought up, it cannot go away, and people don't seem to like answering "I DON'T FUCKING KNOW! LET'S MOVE ON!" especially when there's SO much TIME to kill!

Yes! Or, does it even matter? I like thinking about things like this, and I like reading people?s creative thoughts on it, but I swear, not once today did I think about whether my choices were free or not.

>Strumpling: As language gets more detailed (languages of math, science, and spirit), it becomes easier and easier to verify (or at least attempt to verify) various imagined "answers" to any kind of problem or random life-question somebody experiences.

My understanding is that we are moving away from language and toward ?symbols?. That one day, ?words? will be gone and images in their place.

>Zero: so does determinism give rise to fate?

Probably. If something is meant to happen, isn?t it fate? I believe some things are meant to happen, and I believe in random acts and occurrences, but when there is a choice to be made, when there is that true opportunity to exercise free will, our choices are influenced by how we were raised, the books we read, our experiences

>iamhim: by that definition and how i think of it (not that my opinion is paricularly important or valid, its just my opinion) determinism doesnt involve fate in any way. in a way, fate is the opposite of determinism. in determinism all things are the result of previous things, whereas fate is all things being previously determined by what will happen in the future..

Oh?

>Zero: do you have the free will to live your life as you choose? Have you been fated to this day? Does determinism mean that you cant make any choices. They are just actions? Can you lie to yourself that no matter what you have free will, and choose to do something you want to do and complete it. What are the restraints on not having free will? What can i not do because i dont have it?

Well, I would have to say, ?No, no, no, no, yes, and no.? Free will may be limited, but if we believe we have no free will whatsoever, might as well go sit under a bridge somewhere. You guys would probably light up, but a glass of wine would do for me.

"Honey, I'm home!"

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Frog]
#2038434 - 10/23/03 10:06 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Frog said:
>iamhim: by that definition and how i think of it (not that my opinion is paricularly important or valid, its just my opinion) determinism doesnt involve fate in any way. in a way, fate is the opposite of determinism. in determinism all things are the result of previous things, whereas fate is all things being previously determined by what will happen in the future..

Oh?

is that an oh of agreement/understanding or sarcasm/disagreement?

to further explain my understanding of fate, i'll use the story of oedipus:

at the beginning of the story it is said that his fate is to murder his father and marry his mother. now, upon hearing this his parents, king and queen of thebes, decide to kill him and leave the infant in the wilderness to die. a shepherd finds the boy and gives him to someone else who raises him. eventually he heard he was adopted and so visited various oracles to find out. none of them confirmed his adoption, but told him he would kill his father and marry his mother. in hopes of avoiding this, oedipus decides to leave town. as he traveled he ends up getting in a fight with a stranger and killing him, this man (unknown to him) was his father. later on oedipus solved the riddle of the sphinx and was made king of thebes and eventually married the queen, his mother.

so each action that was made as a result of this prediction actually caused it to be fulfilled. so when something is your fate anything you do, whether you ignore it and continue on as always or try to avoid it, always results in this prediction becoming true and fate is therefore inescapable.

i dont understand why people feel so disturbed at the idea of having no free will. its not like your day to day life would change at all in finding this out. your life would still be just as unpredictable as before, and you'd still have ups and downs. a lack of free will is nothing to fear, and if in fact we have no free will things like "you might as well do blah" have no application.
life with the idea of free will = life without free will = life
therefore if you fear life without free will you may as well fear life with it and just life in general :smirk:

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2038670 - 10/23/03 11:17 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

So this boils down to... it doesnt really matter if we have free will or not? heh heh :laugh:

. I would be happy with that "answer", cause if it doesnt matter, "Who Cares!" . :tongue2:

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
#2038775 - 10/23/03 11:51 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

i really dont think it does matter, but it is still interesting to talk about

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Frog
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2038967 - 10/24/03 01:20 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

>iamhim: by that definition and how i think of it (not that my opinion is paricularly important or valid, its just my opinion) determinism doesnt involve fate in any way. in a way, fate is the opposite of determinism. in determinism all things are the result of previous things, whereas fate is all things being previously determined by what will happen in the future..

>Me: Oh?

>iamhim: is that an oh of agreement/understanding or sarcasm/disagreement?

That was an "oh" of "oops", you just contradicted something I had been thinking, and I didn't bother to expound on it, and now I wish I had, cuz I no longer remember what I was thining at the time I said "Oh..."

And no, I didn't just take a bong rip.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Frog]
#2039089 - 10/24/03 02:40 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"My understanding is that we are moving away from language and toward ?symbols?. That one day, ?words? will be gone and images in their place."

indeed! :smile:

Terence Mckenna always spoke of an arising "visual language" that would eventually overcome conventional communication.

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Edited by Strumpling (10/24/03 02:41 AM)

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Strumpling]
#2039154 - 10/24/03 03:31 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Will I need a visor? Seriously though, When direct neral i/o implants are reality I have no doubt that a sybolic language will arise.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Strumpling]
#2039254 - 10/24/03 04:57 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"My understanding is that we are moving away from language and toward ?symbols?. That one day, ?words? will be gone and images in their place."

Letters are symbols.

Edited by Phluck (10/24/03 04:57 AM)

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2040279 - 10/24/03 03:12 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

>Phluck: Letters are symbols.

Yes, that is true.

But I was driving today, thinking about free will, and my choices, and I realize I was limiting my discussion on free will to the "immediate". You guys are talking about determinism and fate, too, and that's the bigger picture, isn't it?

I had to think about the bigger picture, and I was thinking about how I believe in "signs". For instance, I believe that God or the Universe or Spirits put people and situations in my path for me to discover, and I can choose to follow that path, that may lead me to my fate, or I can choose not to, and thereby by not choosing that path, I've chosen a different fate.

If that is true, that one has put signs in front of me from which to choose, thereby taking me down a path I'm meant to go down and fulfill whatever destiny while I'm here, then it would appear that I don't have free will.

However, I had the choice to choose to see the sign and accept it as a sort of "sign post" toward my future, and my fate.

See?

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You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here, & whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back. -Deteriorata

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Frog]
#2040318 - 10/24/03 03:23 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

fate is the idea that there is an inevitable outcome. therefore, by making these decisions in an attempt to avoid the path as you see it, you are actually traveling down the real path. fate is something you cannot change. knowm sayn?

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2040480 - 10/24/03 04:17 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

alright... i was thinking about it, and this makes sense to me (somehow):

you have the ability to make decisions and go the way you choose... but at the same time, you've got no control over the matter.

you've got free will, but at the same time, you really don't... it depends on what "you" is.

sorry if this doesn't make sense... it's sortof hard for me to express. it's an intuitive thing...

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2040606 - 10/24/03 04:52 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

>Iamhim: fate is the idea that there is an inevitable outcome. therefore, by making these decisions in an attempt to avoid the path as you see it, you are actually traveling down the real path. fate is something you cannot change. knowm sayn?

Yeah, and don't you hate that? But, I still think that we are here to fulfill our destiny. There can only be one destiny. If you don't take the path you should have taken, then you won't have fulfilled your destiny, will you have? You can choose not to take that path. That's free will.

> Mushmaster: Is there a difference between fate and destiny? By destiny, I'm thinking what our purpose if for being here.

>you have the ability to make decisions and go the way you choose... but at the same time, you've got no control over that matter.

> you've got free will, but at the same time, you really don't... it depends on what "you" is.

Makes sense, sort of. What we choose is based on who we are. What we've learned. Our experiences. Who we are may predicate whether we fulfill our destiny.

And this may sort of tie into reincarnation. If we don't learn what we're here to learn, and to subsequently fulfill our destiny, we will be coming back to try, try again.

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You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here, & whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back. -Deteriorata

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2040625 - 10/24/03 04:56 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

How's about this:

You're free to do what you desire, but you're not free to choose what your desires are.

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2040637 - 10/24/03 05:00 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

it's like....

you're the one that decides what you do... of course.

but you've got no control over it.

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Frog
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2040643 - 10/24/03 05:01 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

>Phluck: You're free to do what you desire, but you're not free to choose what your desires are.

Well, that makes more sense than saying we have no free will.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2040665 - 10/24/03 05:06 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

mushmaster said:
alright... i was thinking about it, and this makes sense to me (somehow):

you have the ability to make decisions and go the way you choose... but at the same time, you've got no control over the matter.

you've got free will, but at the same time, you really don't... it depends on what "you" is.

in a way, thats what ive been trying to say

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Frog]
#2040678 - 10/24/03 05:10 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"Well, that makes more sense than saying we have no free will. "

No, it's the same thing. We will still always make the same choice if all the variables are identical.

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Frog
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2040957 - 10/24/03 07:44 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

"No, it's the same thing. We will still always make the same choice if all the variables are identical."

Okay, yeah, now it makes sense.

Well, since we all appear to be in agreement, what do we do now???

Since I was late, we could start over...

--------------------
You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here, & whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back. -Deteriorata

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Frog]
#2064648 - 11/02/03 09:10 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

*bump* Since the free will debate is hot again...

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Annom
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Re: [Re: Phluck]
#2105683 - 11/14/03 09:08 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

Anyone read "Consciousness Explained - Daniel C. Dennett"?

Is it worth my time?

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raytrace
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Re: [Re: Annom]
#2105733 - 11/14/03 09:23 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

Judging from the over-ambitious title, should be crap.

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Annom
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Re: [Re: raytrace]
#2105750 - 11/14/03 09:27 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

Consciousness Explained
Daniel C. Dennett
Penguin 1991
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A book review by Danny Yee - ? 1993 http://dannyreviews.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some of my friends, when shown this book, made immediate objections to the title. (And this without even looking inside the covers!) When questioned it became clear that they they found the title objectionable because they didn't think that consciousness was something that was explainable. I always find it interesting (and rather worrying) when people reject things without even considering them, but in this case they are in company with some fairly prominent philosophers, who also want to declare large areas to be outside human epistemological access without (as far as I can see) giving any real reasons. Dennett doesn't think like this at all: while he agrees that consciousness is a pretty complex and amazing thing, he refuses to accept that there is anything uneliminably "mysterious" about it, and Consciousness Explained is his best attempt at an explanation.
Dennett starts off with a discussion of how hallucinations are possible that introduces both his subject and the approach he is going to use. He then describes the metaphysical framework he is working within, basically a common-sense materialist worldview without recourse either to behaviourist blindness or dualist miracle substances. He also states what it is that he is actually trying to explain -- what he feels he needs to achieve in order to have provided an explanation of consciousness.

Rather than ignoring people's testimony as to their own emotions, feelings, and "mental states" (the behaviourist approach) or granting them privileged access to these things, Dennett introduces what he calls heterophenomenology. In the heterophenomenological approach, what people say about their internal subjective experiences is allowable as evidence, but as evidence of how things feel to them, not as direct evidence of "things as they actually are". Peoples' feelings about their own consciousness have to be explained, but they don't have any kind of mysterious "special access".

The core of his theory of consciousness is the "multiple drafts" model. In the multiple drafts model consciousness is not a unitary process but rather a distributed one (just as a novel in preparation may exist in multiple drafts at any one time and is only afterwards "finalised"). Sequential timing of events breaks down at small (millisecond) time scales within the brain, and the events that make up consciousness cannot be ordered. In short there is no central place in the brain/mind where everything is presented and decisions are made (the fallacy of the "Cartesian Theatre"). The evidence for this view of consciousness is a whole series of results from experiments in cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

The rest of the book is devoted to discussing the consequences of this view of consciousness for several well known thought experiments and problems in the philosophy of mind (zombies, inverted spectra). It includes a rousing rejection of the whole concept of qualia, a chapter which I found particularly enjoyable. Unlike many philosophers Dennett keeps his feet firmly on the ground at all times, and doesn't get himself stuck in hermeneutic wrangling over obscure details. His thinking is solidly based on experimental results from neuroscience, cognitive psychology and evolutionary biology.

It seems clear to me that Dennett's theory of consciousness must be basically correct. Not only does it appear to explain a large number of otherwise mysterious phenomena, but the alternatives seem to be either completely confused or lacking in explanatory power. Whether the details of his theory prove correct or not, I believe he has made it clear that it is possible to try and explain consciousness without resorting to obfuscation -- that there is no metaphysical mystery about consciousness, even if many of its features still remain to be fully elucidated.

Consciousness Explained, as well breaking new ground towards an explanation of consciousness, is also a very good introduction to the philosophy of mind. It is a book that will make you think about your everyday experience of the world and the nature of self and identity. Dennett has clearly gone to a lot of trouble to make his work approachable to a popular audience, and I feel it deserves a wider readership than it is likely to get. Go out and read this book now!

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Re: [Re: Annom]
#2105836 - 11/14/03 09:44 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

Sounds interesting, I should check it out.

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raytrace
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Re: [Re: Annom]
#2105860 - 11/14/03 09:49 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

Some of my friends, when shown this book, made immediate objections to the title.
Hey, sounds like me!

1. The brain is the most complex thing in the universe as far as we know up until now. We are at the very beginning in starting to understand it.

2. Consciousness cannot be proved to exist. It is something that only you can acknowledge it for yourself. Any sort of explanation is doomed to never be proven.

If he writes under the title "Consciousness Explained", then you have a big fat round shit. "Consciousness Under Investigation" would sound a lot more honest.

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Phluck
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Re: [Re: raytrace]
#2105888 - 11/14/03 09:53 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

"If he writes under the title "Consciousness Explained", then you have a big fat round shit. "Consciousness Under Investigation" would sound a lot more honest"

You should have read his post about the book. The author seems to be talking about a theory about the way conciousness works, despite the misleading title, it doesn't seem that he claims to understand exactly what conciousness is.

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raytrace
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Re: [Re: Phluck]
#2105970 - 11/14/03 10:14 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

Einstein would never title a book "Universe Explained". Smells bad.

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Phluck
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Re: [Re: raytrace]
#2106002 - 11/14/03 10:22 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

Really, who cares about the title. Judge the book by its contents.

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raytrace
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Re: [Re: Phluck]
#2106072 - 11/14/03 10:37 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

Are you saying you would never judge the book "2012: The End of the World" by its title?

Of course this seems like an interesting book, and of course one should not judge a book by the title only. In fact, this book has long been in the list of books I want to read. However, the author obviously seeks attention with a provocative, misleading title. That is not a good quality for a scientist.

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Annom
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Re: [Re: Phluck]
#2106082 - 11/14/03 10:39 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

what Phluck said....

The book is laying in front of me. The first chapter is about hallucionations :smile:

. I've read some reviews and I think I'll give it a try.

"Daniel C. Dennett, the author of Freedom Evolves (Viking Penguin, 2003) and Darwin's Dangerous Idea (Simon &Schuster, 1995), is University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University."

I'll tell you whether I like it or not.....

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Re: [Re: Annom]
#2106098 - 11/14/03 10:42 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

> However, the author obviously seeks attention with a provocative, misleading title. That is not a good quality for a scientist.

Agreed!

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Re: [Re: raytrace]
#2106113 - 11/14/03 10:47 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

The author starts the book with telling he knows he made mistakes in his theory and he hopes they are big because people have more to discuss and that's what he wants.....

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Re: [Re: raytrace]
#2107940 - 11/14/03 09:18 PM (8 years, 6 months ago)

I'm reading freedom evolves, though i'm trying to reserve my final opinion till i'm done, so far atleast in regards to the kind of freewill most people want, and most people say they have, he has helped convince me it doesn't exist. He has also helped convince me that indeterminism, or an element of randomness is not enough for freewill, which i was not quite sure of before starting to read the book. Anyways i like the book, but i think its going to end with him saying that the kind of freedom we want doesn't exist, but we should all take comfort in the fact that evolution or whatever keeps making us better and better avoiders or something. I'm half way through it and it looks like he is already starting to apologize for how it is going to end. Fuck that, tell it like it is, and let people deal with it, dont apologize. But hey i like i said i'm only half done so i'll reserve my final judgements till i am done. But maybe by then i'll be beyond all judgements, and opinions and just be... aw wouldn't that be nice... damn thats an opinon, grrr another backwards step. Oh and please don't start a free will arguement with me here. I've already posted pretty much everything i have to say in the "big questions(comments on free will) thread, and i really don't wanna have to repeat it all here, so if you wanna discuss that please go to the thread i mentioned and i'll be happy to there.
Sincerely,
That which is, and has no choice but to be

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Re: [Re: ZenGecko]
#2134590 - 11/25/03 08:57 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

I've been reading something else about free will. This article says that there is no conflict between Fate and Free Will because they are not "independent" concepts, but rather "dependent" concepts. During a conversation between Shri Chandrashekhara Bharati Mahaswami and a Disciple, Mahaswami explains that fate is "...nothing extraneous to yourself, but only the sum total of the results of your past actions." Free will is "...what you exercise when you act now."

"Fate is past karma; free-will is present karma. Both are really one, that is, karma, though they may differ in the matter of time. There can be no conflict when they are really one."

So fate is the result of the exercise of free will in the past. Free will is what we currently exercise today. Of course, based on past exercise of free will, our choices today may be limited.

http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/articles/The_Riddle_of_Fate_and_Free.htm

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You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here, & whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back. -Deteriorata

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Re: [Re: Frog]
#2136846 - 11/26/03 03:45 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

yes fait, is simply what is going to happen, but free will implies that you could have took a different action regardless of the sum total of events that led up to that moment of "choice", but if you made a "choice" with out regards to a cause that would be a randomn choice, and you cant will randomness, so it cant be choice based in freewill. If something caused your choice then it wasn't really a choice because the only way you could have done something different is if it was a different sum of circumstances that caused you to take a different action this time. So the idea of choice is just a conceptial illusion, there is only what happens and what doesn't happend, we all do what we do, and will do what we are going to do and thats it, thats fait, and thats all there is, no free will, because there is no real choice, and no real freedom except randomness.
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Diploid
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2139937 - 11/27/03 08:18 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

and repeat that moment with every minute variable identical, would your decision ever vary? If it would, why?

It could. It turns out that at the scale of atomic particles, true randomness occurs. Sub-atomic particle interactions are NOT deterministic; those interactions are all a spread of probabilities. So, it's essentially impossible to repeat a timeline in perfect detail because all you know are probabilities, not certainties.

This is distinct from a computer, for example, which IS deterministic and given the same starting conditions and input will always do the same thing.

So, there's no such thing as fate.

-Diploid

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Wanna hear something depressing? One out of four Shroomerites wants to lock me in a government cage for using a substance they don't like.

Hard to believe, right? Read it for yourself:

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Diploid]
#2140010 - 11/27/03 09:22 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

"It turns out that at the scale of atomic particles, true randomness occurs."

Might. You're talking theoretical physics here. Plus, that "true randomness" may just be determined by factors in other dimensions.

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Diploid
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2140022 - 11/27/03 09:27 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

"The only mammals on this planet from the science shows Ive seen that have a concept of self is the chimpanzee and ofcourse us, where did you hear something different?."

Experimental evidence suggests that dolphins and orangutans (maybe others I'm not aware of) are also self-aware.

-Diploid

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Anonymous]
#2140042 - 11/27/03 09:35 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

A little off-topic but still somewhat germane:

Quote:

IF determinism was proven to be a fact of nature, what would that impact have on humanity as a whole? everything we do comes down to "decision" making, our egos are built off of past "decisions".... this theory has the potential to destroy every ego on earth. YOU are NOT really you at all... you are in the entire sense of the word... nothing ....

On a recent mushroom trip (the only bad trip I've ever had), I was in the throws of a near-level 5 trip and breathing nitrous oxide while pondering some very deep concepts in the branch of mathematics called Set Theory. As I considered various self-referential sets and other weird ideas, I came to the same idea you state above. I became terrified. LOL I have never been so scared in my life. Fortunately, a couple of hours later, the feeling passed. [sigh]

-Diploid

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Diploid
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2140094 - 11/27/03 09:52 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Might. You're talking theoretical physics here.

All science apart from mathematics is theoretical. Through experiments and observations, the theories are refined and converge on perfect truth without ever actually reaching it. This doesn't invalidate the science. The Atomic Theory incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Quote:

Plus, that "true randomness" may just be determined by factors in other dimensions.

Maybe, but the available evidence disagrees with you.

-Diploid

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Annom
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Diploid]
#2140123 - 11/27/03 10:03 AM (8 years, 6 months ago)

Are you saying that quantum mechanics proofs that the universe is non-deterministic?

Edited by Annom (11/27/03 10:36 AM)

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Diploid
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#2140459 - 11/27/03 01:53 PM (8 years, 6 months ago)

Proof no. Pursuasive evidence yes.

-Diploid

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Droz
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Re: [Re: Phluck]
#2140471 - 11/27/03 02:07 PM (8 years, 6 months ago)

I have free will.

Edit: I had free will.

Edit: ::Laughs::

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Edited by Droz (11/27/03 02:08 PM)

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Diploid]
#2140917 - 11/27/03 06:43 PM (8 years, 6 months ago)

"All science apart from mathematics is theoretical. Through experiments and observations, the theories are refined and converge on perfect truth without ever actually reaching it."

Yeah, but for the more detailed aspects of quantum physics and string theory and whatnot, there's no way to conduct any experiments. It's all theory.

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Frog
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Re:Zen Gecko [Re: ZenGecko]
#2140926 - 11/27/03 06:50 PM (8 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

yes fait, is simply what is going to happen

Well, what is going to happen based on choices made up to that time, based on free will. Fate can also be changed, based on changing our paths in life, which we have the free will to do.

Quote:

but free will implies that you could have took a different action regardless of the sum total of events that led up to that moment of "choice"

I don't believe that this could be true. We have free will to make the choices that are open to us now, but some choices will be closed off to us based on prior choices that were made.

Quote:

but if you made a "choice" with out regards to a cause that would be a randomn choice, and you cant will randomness, so it cant be choice based in freewill.

No, I don't believe this could be true, either. You can choose to do anything you want, as long as that option is open to you. As long as you haven't closed it off based on having made a prior choice. Of course, anyone can choose to do any random act. Just because you have a lot of choices open to you, and you make a choice based on those choices that are open, doesn?t mean they are random. Those are your choices. The choices that are foreclosed to you are closed because of prior choices.

Quote:

If something caused your choice then it wasn't really a choice because the only way you could have done something different is if it was a different sum of circumstances that caused you to take a different action this time.

But the only way to have a different set of circumstances is to have made different choices previously. I was almost going to say, ??the only way to have a different set of circumstances is to have lived a different life?. Remember, we have lived previously lives. Choices were already made in those lives. We can?t go back and undo those choices. But we always have the free will to change the path we are on that emanates from those previous ?life? choices.

Quote:

So the idea of choice is just a conceptial illusion, there is only what happens and what doesn't happend, we all do what we do, and will do what we are going to do and thats it, thats fait, and thats all there is, no free will, because there is no real choice, and no real freedom except randomness.

I?m sorry, but again, I have to disagree. It is not an illusion. Yes, there is what happens, and what we do, but it is all about free will, and how fate culminates from our free will. Our free will to opt for one of the many choices available at any given time drives us to our fate.

--------------------
You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here, & whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back. -Deteriorata

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ZenGecko
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Re:Zen Gecko [Re: Frog]
#2154197 - 12/03/03 04:23 AM (8 years, 5 months ago)

ok i'll respond to each part of this seperately....

1. The very defintion of "fate" is that which WILL happen. You cant change what WILL happen, you can think you may have changed what might have happened, or what you thought was going to happen, but you can never know, but thats all you can do, and thats also nonsense. its a delusion. Also these choices you speak of...What caused them? if they didn't have a cause, then they were random, and if they were random they were not based in free will, because you simply cannot will randomness, at best you can increase the probability of something, but with out absolute control you can't have absolute freedom, or free will.

2. Your right that at any given time we only have a limited set of APPEARENT "choices". But these "choices" are not real except in our own head. they are what we think we could have done, but really we had to do whatever we did. we only had the illusion that in the moment of our choice we could have made a different choice. If we would have made another choice then something would have caused that choice, or it would have been a randomn choice, and once again you cannot will randomness, thus no free will. Everybody seems to believe that there is something between determinism, and indeterminism(which only means there is an element of randomness injected) But not one person can put forth a way for this mystical facilitator of free will to come into being. Its like saying there is something, between nothing, and something, it makes no sense, it is either something or nothing, there isnt anythng inbetween those two concepts, atleast nothing hat can be described meaningfully. But anyways you said that some choices are closed off, so lets deal with that statement... Limited freedom of choice, or any limited freedom is nonsense. Its a conception that we use to deal with the world around us, its a very sloppy term. It is in fact an oxymoron, you simply cannot have limited freedom, the two terms exlude each other. if its limited its not free, if its free its completely free and with out limits, this would even carry forth to the laws of physics. If the laws of physics limit what we can and cant do then that is proof that free will doesn't exist also, because limited freedom is a completely illogical concept. if we really had true free will, and not that nonsensical limited freedom or free will, we would have to have the ability to flat out break the laws of physics.

3. Actually just refer back to #2. Limited choices mean limited freedom of choice, limited freedom isn't really freedom at all, thus no real freedom of choice, only the illusion of choice.

4. Past lives? ok i'm going to go with you on this based on the fact that everything we are has existed since the begining of time, if time even exists, and that what we are has been a part of many other somethings throughout time, so in a sense we have many past lives, but even if i take the past lives stuff at face value, still you've created a situation in which there is limited choice based on all the circumstances that lead up to THIS choice, thus once again limited freedom, thus no true freedom. This is another thing that people keep trying to say exists, limited freedom, but once again, no one can explain how something can not be completely free yet still be free. The arguement that this can somehow be so, is a completely blind faith based arguement. Honestly i cant discredit it, there is nothing to discredit, no reason, no logic. You can't prove faith wrong, as long as the person still has the faith. You either have faith that is how it is or you dont, there is no inbetween, just like there is nothing between randomness and determinism, or freedom and lack of freedom, free will or no free will, and finally there is nothing between something and nothing. I had to say nothing twice there because language fails us, we have yet to be able to concieve of this something that exists between nothing and something, many of us seem to believe that it exists yet no one can offer credible evidence for it, or even a logical reason for believing it, unless your logical reason for believing it is this..." i believe what i believe because all my illusions have led me to have faith that it is the right thing to believe in" Thats a pretty crappy reason. I have no problem with faith, but rational faith atleast in my mind is far better then blind faith. i can say, look i know this isn't proven but most of the evidence or atleast what i feel is the best evidence suggests that this is the way things are, so thats how i believe they are. In my mind thats much better then saying, well i believe what i believe, uh because it sounds good, and i'm not sure i like the alternative. But dont fret, either way your doing exactly what you must do in that moment, because you have no free will, everything you do is simply the inevitable reaction to some other action, or even the lack of action. Even the lack of something can be a cause, thus generating an effect, take boredom for example, the lack of something interesting to do causes the effect of boredom, that effect will inturn cause another action or inaction which will inturn simultainously be both another cause and effect in itself.

5. Once again limited choice implies limited freedom, thus no true fredom. If we really could have made one of those other choices, why didnt we? well the answer is because nothing caused us to, if we would have made another choice with out a cause it would have been a randomn choice. Ok so maybe you'll argue that you made the choice you wanted to, but something however subtle had to cause to to want to make one choice verses another thus that choice was the effect of a cause. without that cause that too would have been something randomn. So in order to have made another choice the cicumstances would have needed to be different. Now its possible that due to quantum effects if you rewound time and let every event play out again leading up to that moment of "choice" that things would have come out completely different thus causing a different choice, but randomn quantum effects are randomn, can't will randomness. Ok so maybe quantum events aren't really randomn, they just appear to be, well then we live in a completely deterministic universe that is evolving towards one predestined outcome, again allowing no room for our free will. There is nothing between these two possibilities, i defy anyone to put forth a logical way in which for something to exist between them. And no God wont work, because if god intervines then god is the ultimate cause, thus no free will, we are just doing what god makes us do, and god cant make us have free will, once again thats completely illogical if we had free will we could choose not to let god make us have free will.

In conclusion, i understand that this is your belief, and you are entiltled to it just as i am entilted to mine, but you've failed to put forth any real evidence for your belief. I find the quote at the end of your post utterly ironic, because you are in fact supporting a position based solely on blind faith, and/or illusion. The evidence that the world really very different, and not at all like we percieve it to be is overwhelming in the field of physics, yet so many deny it without rational cause. But i suppose that a lie is as good as true as long as its believed to be true, i would just rather face the truth though, how ever uncomfortable and counter intuitive it seems in relation to the illusional world we live in. This reality we percieve is all in our heads, its not the way it actually is. Its only half the story at best. Everything exists as waves of probability, and all possibilities are realized, but we only realize one of them in a given moment, the rest occur in a virtual sense, but they are no less real, they are just unprecieved, and/or they occur in other universes. the are only unreal in the sense that they aren't real to us, but they are actually equally real. It is us that seems to actually create our own reality by percieving reality. Perhaps if we do have free will it is only because all possible outcomes will be realized, so every possible choice will be made, either in an actual different universe or in a virtual but no less real sense. But really if thats the case thats some pretty shitty freewill, because all we can do is hope that we are the lucky onces that get to realize the good probabilities, while wishing all that bad luck on our counter parts on other worlds. Ofcourse even then we run up againt the problem of limited freedom again. if there is only a finite number of possible choices that can be realized at a given moment (and the math suggests that is the case) then once again we are faced with limited freedom of choice at any given moment of time, thus limited freedom, thus no true freedom, thus no true freedom of will/free will.
Sincerely,
That which is, and has no choice but to be

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fireworks_god
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Re:Zen Gecko [Re: ZenGecko]
#2154205 - 12/03/03 04:42 AM (8 years, 5 months ago)

*stabs thread in chest with silver stakes in a futile effort to kill it once and for all*

*doesn't read Zen Gecko's post because the big blocks of text are just too big to digest all at once, wishes he would space things*
:grin:

Peace.

--------------------

If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you
:heartpump:

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Lightningfractal
I survived itall, includingthe internet!

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Re:Zen Gecko [Re: fireworks_god]
#2154965 - 12/03/03 11:01 AM (8 years, 5 months ago)

I have seen this thread re-appear time and time again. I have ignored it about 150 times. This time I decided to post in it.

Why?

I think it is because of free-will.

That is all.

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Blackbeard
Methinks Stedeca 'na Sail

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Re:Zen Gecko [Re: fireworks_god]
#2155021 - 12/03/03 11:13 AM (8 years, 5 months ago)

Consider this:

Between classes I walk across a college campus toward a bank of doors. In front of me are fifty or sixty people: as the first three students reach the bank of approximately twenty open (unlocked) doors and open them I see all the following students begin to file into these three doors ( now held open). Rather than open a door themselves they file like cattle to the three open doors?

Free will is dependant upon consciousness--and that is difficult to achieve.

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sirreal
devoid

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Re:Zen Gecko [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2155035 - 12/03/03 11:16 AM (8 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Lightningfractal said:
I have seen this thread re-appear time and time again. I have ignored it about 150 times. This time I decided to post in it.

Why?

I think it is because of free-will.

That is all.

Wrong.

It was seeing it so much that made you post. :lol:

And you thought you were free!

--------------------
I may not always tell the truth, but atleast I'm honest
-----------

I see what everyone is saying. It is so hard to form an opinion when you see both sides so clearly!

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Lallafa
p_g monocle

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2155118 - 12/03/03 11:29 AM (8 years, 5 months ago)

--------------------
my tax dollars going to more hits of acid for charles manson

Edited by Lallafa (12/04/03 11:15 AM)

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ZenGecko
enthusiast

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lallafa]
#2157391 - 12/04/03 02:38 AM (8 years, 5 months ago)

still no convincing counter arguements
Sincerely,
That which is, and has no choice but to be

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ZenGecko]
#2165696 - 12/06/03 11:58 PM (8 years, 5 months ago)

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Frog
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2346976 - 02/17/04 04:35 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Bumping up because of free will v. determinism discussion going on in new thread. And because Lighteningfractal wanted it to die. :lol:

--------------------
You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here, & whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back. -Deteriorata

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Zero7a1
Leaving YourWasteland

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Frog]
#2347025 - 02/17/04 04:51 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Was this archived?

--------------------
What?

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trendal
point of inflection

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
#2347035 - 02/17/04 04:54 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Not if you're posting in it :wink:

--------------------
You're here because you know something.
What you know you can't explain,
But you feel it;
You've felt it your entire life.
That there's something wrong with the world.
You don't know what it is, but it's there....
Like a splinter in your mind...
Driving you mad.

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silversoul7
Chill the FuckOut!

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2347128 - 02/17/04 05:20 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

--------------------

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire

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teen
Yeee Haaww

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2347280 - 02/17/04 06:01 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

My view on free will comes down the the Newtonian law

"Every action has an equal an opposite reaction"

If you understand what that means, then you'll realise free will is an illusion.

--------------------
Don't give me that load of bunk~!

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trendal
point of inflection

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Posts: 18,897
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: teen]
#2347471 - 02/17/04 07:03 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Don't forget that Newton was wrong.

Or, more accurately: Newton was only approximately correct. :wink:

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Frog
Student of theUniverse, Life

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: silversoul7]
#2347504 - 02/17/04 07:18 PM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

silversoul7 said:

ROFL!!!

--------------------
You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here, & whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back. -Deteriorata

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teen
Yeee Haaww

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2348422 - 02/18/04 12:07 AM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Don't forget that Newton was wrong.

Or, more accurately: Newton was only approximately correct

he was wrong about the laws of motion?

--------------------
Don't give me that load of bunk~!

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The_Visionaire
Torch

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: teen]
#2348652 - 02/18/04 01:43 AM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Only approximately wrong. The real message of quantum mechanics is not indeterminism and uncertainty. It is wholeness. In a newtonian universe the whole could be regarded as a constellation of the spacial positions of the parts in space. This is impossible in quantum mechanics as the quantum numbers determining the wavefunction affecting the whole depend on a lot more; quantified nmbers such as p,l and s (I am not getting into this now).

But I agree with you that every thing that happens, happens causally. I wrote in another tread here (mathematics, logic, emotion and the universe) why I still think there is free will.

Physics is by no way complete. I think a not-so-far discovery would relate to consciousness and that consiousness is not something that is contained in our heads, consciousness pervade the universe. We as an integral part of the universe are not cogs in a chess game following the will of the grand unmoved mover, or the mechanics of a horrible machine out of controll. We ARE the universe.

If we speak of free will as something that is supposed to be happenig quite apart from anything else, it has no meaning. But more subtle 'layers' may affect the more unrefined in a seemingly acausal way. My more sublte thought may affect the movement of my hand as an example (I am not talking about a reflex here). If we only think in 3-D it is really hard to see why and where the signal travelling to the hand came from. (I suspect that these primal expressions of will has their origin in the domains of the brain subject to quantum laws.)

Similarly a profound and subtle insight might affect my entire thought system. Why did this happen? Is realization a mechanical process? My own experiences with insight is that it comes in a flash. Later I can use words to express it, but the insight itself arrives suddenly, which indicates that it is beyond time, which again indicates that it is 'above' matter as we think of it.

--------------------
There are no differences between men and gods,
one blends softly causal into the other.
-Frank Herbert, Dune.

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Frog
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: The_Visionaire]
#2353464 - 02/19/04 01:16 AM (8 years, 3 months ago)

>>But I agree with you that every thing that happens, happens causally. I wrote in another tread here (mathematics, logic, emotion and the universe) why I still think there is free will.

Why do you think there is still "free will"?

--------------------
You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here, & whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back. -Deteriorata

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The_Visionaire
Torch

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Frog]
#2353661 - 02/19/04 03:37 AM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Well, I think that while a given level is causal, the overall effect of the totality of levels, each one qualitatively different from the others, can never be fully taken into account (and by the way there are an infinity of levels). Thus complete determinism can not be conceived of, yet each level is determined by algoritms pertaining to this specific level.

The classical guidance law of the particles is in quantum mechanics modified by a quantum potential. This quantum potential has quantitatively different properties than a classical potential. It is non-local, that is, it affects the whole of the universe INSTANTLY (faster than light signaling). When generalized to a field theory there will emerge a super quantum potential that affects the quantum potential in similar manner that the quantum potential affects the general classical laws of motion.

There is no reason to think that this process ends here. One may postulate an infinity of such levels, each level has the ability to affect others in subtle manner although the guidance laws inherent in each level is determined.

These thoughts are developed by the late quantum physicists David Bohm, not only physicist, but a uniqe philosopher.
I would recommend his book "Unfolding meaning" as a starter, where a map of reality is created in a non-mathematical easy-to-grasp way.

BOHM SHAKE, SHAKE, THE ROOM :cool:

--------------------
There are no differences between men and gods,
one blends softly causal into the other.
-Frank Herbert, Dune.

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SkorpivoMusterion
Livin in theTwilight Zone...

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Posts: 9,879
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: The_Visionaire]
#2353799 - 02/19/04 05:49 AM (8 years, 3 months ago)

I think playing a brand new RPG video game can demonstrate free will.

--------------------

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The_Visionaire
Torch

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
#2353871 - 02/19/04 06:32 AM (8 years, 3 months ago)

Naa.. those games tends to disfavor evil players. I want to be evil, but it doesn`t really pay off :devil:

But then again, that evil doesn`t pay off in the long run may be a fair model of reality too.

--------------------
There are no differences between men and gods,
one blends softly causal into the other.
-Frank Herbert, Dune.

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Lightningfractal
I survived itall, includingthe internet!

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
#2518804 - 04/02/04 10:49 AM (8 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

I think playing a brand new RPG video game can demonstrate free will.

Arg! I love video games! :thumbup:

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Lightningfractal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
#2903173 - 07/18/04 04:51 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Arrrrrg! THere's that damned thread again!!!!

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kaiowas
mndfrayze'speppet urme

Registered: 07/14/03
Posts: 5,483
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#2903184 - 07/18/04 04:53 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

haha I was thinking about this thread earlier today. i think it would be very cool to read over it, as I think I will

"there's no blood coming out of this stone"

HAHAHAHAHAHAH :lol:

--------------------
Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.---senior doobie

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Lightningfractal
I survived itall, includingthe internet!

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: kaiowas]
#2903190 - 07/18/04 04:55 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

read it again, for the very first time...lol

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2903222 - 07/18/04 05:03 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

YES WE HAVE FREE WILL.

wtf? :confused:

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Lightningfractal
I survived itall, includingthe internet!

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2903496 - 07/18/04 06:34 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

I had the free-will to bump this thread after months of inactivity. There was no quantum mechanics that pre-determined me to do it on this particular day..

..hence free will.

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ZenGecko
enthusiast

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: The_Visionaire]
#2904646 - 07/19/04 05:34 AM (7 years, 10 months ago)

The universe may have free will if it is a conscience entity, and we too by default if we are a part of this collective conscience. But we are a very small part so the overwhelming will of the system. Our will... will always be ignored in favor of the will of the system as a whole (circumstances) unless our will is in line with the will of the system at the moment of an action, so in our everyday lives we still have no free will in a practical sense, we cant use it...so what good is it? I expanded greatly on this thinking in the other huge free will post if you wanna dicuss it further, this thread can die now for all i care :wink:

Oh also keep in mind that im in fact arguing also that the notions of choice and freedom are themselves illusions, so saying look i just made a choice is no proof at all for free atleast not in a logical practical sense. Now go to the other thread, if u must :wink:

Sincerely,
That which is, and has no choice but to be.

Post Extras:

Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ZenGecko]
#2905375 - 07/19/04 11:23 AM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Our will... will always be ignored in favor of the will of the system as a whole (circumstances) unless our will is in line with the will of the system at the moment of an action

and where is this line drawn?

it goes deeper than what you anti-free willers even know. you think you were just thrown up in this bitch with no say? think again. we're here to make our own choices in the situations we find ourselves in. the life YOU chose offers the best situations for your spiritual growth, no matter what choices you make. and the choices you make determine your future as well. the past does indeed determine your future, but i dont see how the hell people can lay up here and say they had no prior choice in their past so their future has no free will because their past surroundings made them who they are today, BULLSHIT. you always have had a choice since day 1. and always will. regardless of what you went through.

Post Extras:

trendal
point of inflection

Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 18,897
Loc: Ontario, Canada

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2905417 - 07/19/04 11:44 AM (7 years, 10 months ago)

It's easy: cause-and-effect. The choices you make are not instantaneous...they are the result of that string of events through the past.

If someone can show me just one case where cause-and-effect does not apply in this universe...then maybe I can accept the concept of free-will.

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BlueCoyote
Beyond

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2905490 - 07/19/04 12:19 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Just randomly stop, before you do something and then do exactly the opposite.
Voila...
(I think this has been said before)

--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not

And death shall have no dominion............................................................."Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

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trendal
point of inflection

Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 18,897
Loc: Ontario, Canada

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BlueCoyote]
#2905513 - 07/19/04 12:32 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

That still obeys cause-and-effect :wink:

If I did do that (randomly stop and do the opposite), then I would have done so because you asked me to. That isn't free-will...

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Swami
Eggshell Walker

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2905565 - 07/19/04 12:56 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

*Swami lowers lights and stares with piercing dark eyes*

*Swami dangles a spiral on a chain and swings it back and forth slowly*

You are getting sleepy...sleepy. Your will is my will; my will is your will.

YOU WILL SEND ME BUD!

YOU HAVE NO WILL OF YOUR OWN, BUT THAT OF SWAMI!

YOU WILL SEND ME SHROOMS!

YOU HAVE NO WILL OF YOUR OWN, BUT THAT OF SWAMI!

YOU WILL SEND ME LSD!

YOU HAVE NO WILL OF YOUR OWN, BUT THAT OF SWAMI!

YOU WILL SEND ME NEKKED PICTURES OF YOUR GIRLFRIEND!

When I snap my fingers you will forget all of this. One...two...three...

*SNAP*

--------------------

The proof is in the pudding.

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Evolving
Resident Cynic

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2905903 - 07/19/04 03:01 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

trendal said:
It's easy: cause-and-effect. The choices you make are not instantaneous...they are the result of that string of events through the past.

If someone can show me just one case where cause-and-effect does not apply in this universe...then maybe I can accept the concept of free-will.

Ah, what caused the universe to come into being (I mean before the big bang or whatever theory you may subscribe to)? What caused the laws of the universe?

--------------------
To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.' Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence. Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains. Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.

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trendal
point of inflection

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Evolving]
#2905932 - 07/19/04 03:09 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Ah, what caused the universe to come into being (I mean before the big bang or whatever theory you may subscribe to)? What caused the laws of the universe?

These are things we are still working on...but they are also things which require an "existence" outside of our universe. I am not concerned with that, here...I am concerned with things which exist/occur within our universe.

I have not come accross anything which exists inside this universe that does not obey cause and effect.

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Swami
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2905948 - 07/19/04 03:15 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

I have not come accross anything which exists inside this universe that does not obey cause and effect.

Seems you have not met my girlfriend...

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trendal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Swami]
#2905980 - 07/19/04 03:22 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Complexity does not equal freedom :wink:

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Evolving
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2906000 - 07/19/04 03:29 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

trendal said:
These are things we are still working on...but they are also things which require an "existence" outside of our universe. I am not concerned with that, here...I am concerned with things which exist/occur within our universe.

But we don't know and so can not say with intellectual honesty that what did not have a cause (the ultimate cause) may in some way be related to free will. Your faith in cause and effect as a universal explanation is just that, faith (don't get me wrong, it works for a great number of observable physical phenomena). No one has yet proven that a person's choices result exclusively from cause and effect and can therefore be calculated. It seems to me to be an expression of faith as much as the Rapture is among certain groups of Christians.

Quote:

I have not come accross anything which exists inside this universe that does not obey cause and effect.

I will sometimes make up songs or musical tunes, can you tell me what the causes are which are involved in the process? Do you even have a viable theory backed by evidence and are you able to reproduce outcomes?

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BlueCoyote
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2906063 - 07/19/04 03:50 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Ehr, I mean for you to proove, that you have right now the right to decide that you could equaly do the opposite than the intended.
Find a system by yourself :smile:

Perhaps the every second decision or the third ?
Perhaps a cause wich is not inflicted with the decision ?
Ot just run your randomgenerator in your mind :smile:

(Thats your freedom)

What I will say is, I think, just the consciousness about to know that we could make the opposite decision right now, makes us free willing :smile:

The free will is by yourself, not by me for you :laugh:

Just simple :grin:

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trendal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Evolving]
#2906066 - 07/19/04 03:54 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

I think ("think" being the key term, of course) that any attempt to apply the concept of cause-and-effect to anything which exists "outside" of our universe will end in failure. Cause and effect seems to be directly related to entropy and the temporal dimension...in that a cause always preceeds an effect along the temporal dimension. Cause and effect also seems to (along with our "movement" through time itself) be dependant on the increase in entropy our universe experiences more or less constantly. Since time is a part of our universe (and, I think, so is entropy) it is useless to apply the principles of it to anything which exists outside of our universe (and thus outside the temporal dimension itself). Cause and effect makes no sense without Time.

Ok, that being said: if free-will DOES exist (I haven't ruled out the possibility...) then I think it must mean that at least some part of our consciousness exists "outside" or "independant" from our universe. For if it existed only as a part of our universe, it should follow cause and effect like everything else does (I think).

will sometimes make up songs or musical tunes, can you tell me what the causes are which are involved in the process?

Can you explain to me the detailed processes (chain-of-events) which resulted in the formation of the Milky Way, our Sun, and then the Earth? If you can't...does that mean no explanation exists at all?

The string of events which occur preceeding a "choice" made by a human mind is probably one of the more complex systems to explore, I think. The complexity is such that, at present time, our technology is not powerful enough to map the chain of events in a meaningful way.

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trendal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BlueCoyote]
#2906071 - 07/19/04 03:56 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

I have never, to my knowledge, made a "choice" in this life which did not have a specified and real set of "causes".

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Phred
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2906175 - 07/19/04 04:29 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

trendal writes:

Ok, that being said: if free-will DOES exist (I haven't ruled out the possibility...) then I think it must mean that at least some part of our consciousness exists "outside" or "independant" from our universe. For if it existed only as a part of our universe, it should follow cause and effect like everything else does (I think).

Logical thinking. I came to the same conclusion. Consciousness (the fountainhead of volitional behavior) acts within the observable universe, but need not be entirely of the observable universe.

pinky

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2906477 - 07/19/04 06:20 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

you dont get it.

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trendal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2906483 - 07/19/04 06:23 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

What if I said you don't get it? :smirk:

Try explaining it to me, if you think I don't "get it"...

(and please realize that I don't tend to hold "beliefs" in any of this...this is all theory to me so if you say something that can update my theory I will be very happy!)

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Sev
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2906719 - 07/19/04 08:04 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

trendal said:
It's easy: cause-and-effect. The choices you make are not instantaneous...they are the result of that string of events through the past.

If someone can show me just one case where cause-and-effect does not apply in this universe...then maybe I can accept the concept of free-will.

How about quantum tunneling effects? One moment, figuratively, you're walking north, and then all of a sudden, you're walking south, 100 meters north of where you were...

--------------------
"Do we want the stars? We can have them. Can we borrow cups of fire from the sun? We can and must and light the world." --"On the Shoulders of Giants", Ray Bradbury

All of my posts are full of fiction and blatant lies.

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trendal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Sev]
#2906735 - 07/19/04 08:12 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Quantum tunneling occurs when you confine a particle to a given volume of space...the smaller the volume the higher the possibility that the particle will "tunnel" its way out of the space.

Direct cause: the confinment of the particle into a volume of space. If the particle wasn't confined in some way, it would have nowhere to "tunnel to" :wink:

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Frog
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2907292 - 07/19/04 11:51 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Holy fuck. This is the first thread I read when I first joined this forum back last October. :grin:

Y'all can believe what you want to believe, but the right answer is "free choice". There are many options open to us, due to cause and effect, and we will most likely choose the option we choose based on our life's experiences.

I am a lawyer. Did I have free will to choose that profession? I don't think that is completely correct. I think I was born with a brain that is prediposed to thinking the way a lawyer needs to think. I have relatives that were lawyers. I also think I was designed by the Universe to be in the profession.

But I don't think that just because I was predisposed to being a lawyer that that was the only career I could have pursued. I was a waitress when I was younger. I could have ignored my calling and stayed a waitress for the rest of my life.

I CHOSE to be a lawyer. But it wasn't free will, and it wasn't predetermined.

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You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here, & whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back. -Deteriorata

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trendal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Frog]
#2907303 - 07/19/04 11:55 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

I CHOSE to be a lawyer. But it wasn't free will, and it wasn't predetermined.

:thumbup:

That is kind of what I'm getting at here: cause-and-effect means that for every "choice" we make there is a direct cause for the choice that is made...and to think that this cause is entirely internal to our consciousness is to try and separate ourselves from the rest of nature: which I don't think is possible.

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Floydian
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2907313 - 07/19/04 11:59 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Frog I agree. I think the my main problem with some of the people who are determinist here is that they take it one step further and say because "free will" doesnt exist than choice doesnt exist either. I know i'll probably get busted for double posting this but I wrote this in response to ZenGecko's arguements in the other Free Will thread.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
So all this prompted me to look up the word "freedom"/ "free" and "will" so i could have a more precise idea of what exactly we are talking about here. Of course there are several entries in my dictionary under these words, but i think these are most relevant to this arguement:

Free/Freedom
1. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.

2. the power to make ones own choices or decisions without constraint from within or without; autonomy

Will
1. the faculty of conscious and particularly of deliberate action; the power of control the mind has over its own actions
2. power of choosing one's own actions

Now with that in mind, my interperetation of the definition of "free will" is the ability to choose one's own actions without interference/constraint from within or without.

Now after looking at it this way, the idea of free will is actually pretty easily dismissed. Because the human mind is irrevocably attatched to a physical world that will always exert some level of interference or constraint on ones choices (side thought: even if you experience ego loss or the apparent disolving of attatchment to the physical world under the influence of psychedelics you're still attatched to the physical world but maybe that's what makes the experience so amazing is that we get a little closer to actually attaining free will).

So i think i agree that "free will" doesnt exist. BUT I feel that just because "free will" doesnt exist doesnt mean that choice does not exist or that it is simply an illusion. We still have the ability to choose, it's just impossible to do so in a vacuum, so to speak. Meaning it's impossible to make a decision without some external or internal factor playing some role in the decision or choice.

So in my eyes the non-existance of FREE will does not eliminate the WILL or choice. We still have the will to choose amoung the options presented to us in any given circumstance. When i choose which path i will take at a fork in the road, it is still ME making the decision, the choice is not made until ME, MYSELF AND I says I will take the left path or whatever. Sure it's not a "free" choice because countless variables will influence my decision. For example, I might have sensed danger from the right path for one reason or another and since i dont want to be harmed I choose the left path. But the choice still exists and I, ME yes ME made that choice.

I guess a short and sweet way to sum up my perspective is we are not free but we are also not slaves. We do not rule our destiny but our destiny also does not rule us.

And i think that is where most people (as well as me personally) are disagreeing with you Gecko. You seem to take it that one step further and say that choice doesn't exist and that we are helpless and have absolutely no influence over our own decisions whatsoever. I'm not completely sure if this is actually your perspective though, but this was the impression i got while reading through the thread.

Anyway i find this perspective to be quite satisfying and me wonders how it will sit with others. let me know.

Gotta love the dictionary for clearing up arguements like this.

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deafpanda
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Floydian]
#2907589 - 07/20/04 03:45 AM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Will itself is weird though. I mean, if every movement is caused by a specific physical "brain-state", then if we have free will, we must change this physical "brain-state" with our non-physical mental state in order to move. Which is hard to understand.

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2908520 - 07/20/04 11:53 AM (7 years, 10 months ago)

First comes the choice, then comes the act. From the act comes the cause, and then the effect.

Cause and effect have nothing to do with free will except for after-the-fact.

By the way this is the most unnecessarily-long thread I've ever had the non-pleasure of reading.

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trendal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
#2908548 - 07/20/04 11:59 AM (7 years, 10 months ago)

By the way this is the most unnecessarily-long thread I've ever had the non-pleasure of reading.

No one is sticking your face in the screen, Max. If you don't like it then don't read it :wink:

As for cause and effect: where does the choice come from? Are there not a string of events (cause-and-effect chain) which leads up to the choice (and then includes the choice itself as the cause of the eventual action)?

I don't understand how some of you keep saying that a choice happens out of the blue...with no prerequisite causes of any sort...

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BlueCoyote
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2908615 - 07/20/04 12:23 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

trendal said:
I have never, to my knowledge, made a "choice" in this life which did not have a specified and real set of "causes".

Who killed my answer on this and why ?

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Though lovers be lost love shall not

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2908657 - 07/20/04 12:33 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Our choices comes from previous "effects," so our choices are limited. If you are arguing that we don't have absolute free will then you are correct. Too many people think in black and white. Yes we have free will but not absolute free will.

And I was joking about the length of this thread. What I meant was this issue is not half as complicated as any philosopher makes it out to be. It's really quite simple and doesn't require a thread this long of arguing to reach a conclusion.

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BlueCoyote
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2908726 - 07/20/04 12:58 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

No 'will' could be totally 'bound' to effects, causes or prognoses. There's everytime a certain uncertainity within, which also makes it 'free', not totally determined.
(another point of view)

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trendal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BlueCoyote]
#2908872 - 07/20/04 01:36 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Well I'm not arguing the existence of "free will" at the moment...as I said earlier in the thread I think that it could exist, but only provided that some part of our conscousness is "separate" from the Universe. What I was trying to get at is that every choice has a cause and without the above premise (that some part of consciousness is separate from the "rest of existence") I think this DOES exclude the concept of "free-will" (which I definte as the ability to make a choice not dependant on any causal chain).

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BlueCoyote
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2909008 - 07/20/04 02:04 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

So, break the causal chain, which anyway can not ever be complete ! :smile:

So you will get the free choice.
I really think it's simple: The part of the brain, which you would postulate 'seperate of the universe' is the lack of information which our brain could not be aware of.
Poor brain if it would be so determined from all inforamtions, feeding it to 'causes'.
I don't say, choices happen out of the blue (even if one can make them happen out of it), but out of the lack of satisfaing informational determination causes. The brain has to 'improvise'.
As I am relatively new to these boards I will just say to the topic : no, I don't think so... (and I left out all the theological stuff)

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trendal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BlueCoyote]
#2909341 - 07/20/04 03:28 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Making a decision because of a lack of "satisfaing informational determination" still has a cause - in this case the cause for making a decision without using any outside information is the very lack of that information in the first place.

Trying to argue away cause-and-effect has never seemed to work: there are no known examples of things happening without a cause.

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BlueCoyote
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2909460 - 07/20/04 04:19 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

Hehe, making a decision on the cause of the lack of information...
:grin:

What about, making a decision on the cause of no cause ?

That ends in language-games... you have not convinced me

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trendal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BlueCoyote]
#2909469 - 07/20/04 04:24 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

you have not convinced me

Nor have you "convinced" me :wink:

So we'll have to agree to disagree on this one!

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BlueCoyote
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2909542 - 07/20/04 04:53 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

agreed

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Phred
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2909740 - 07/20/04 05:54 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

trendal writes:

What I was trying to get at is that every choice has a cause and without the above premise (that some part of consciousness is separate from the "rest of existence") I think this DOES exclude the concept of "free-will" (which I definte as the ability to make a choice not dependant on any causal chain).

Volitional actions (free will) do not defy the rule of cause and effect.

For example, you can perform several actions with an orange. You can bite it, throw it, drop it, squeeze it till it bursts, etc. The effect (the orange sails through the air) -- has a cause (your decision to throw it).

pinky

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trendal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phred]
#2909754 - 07/20/04 05:56 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

trenadl writes:

the concept of "free-will" (which I definte as the ability to make a choice not dependant on any causal chain)

And I'll throw in the webster.com definition:

Main Entry: free will
Function: noun
1 : voluntary choice or decision <I do this of my own free will>
2 : freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention

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Phred
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2909998 - 07/20/04 06:56 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

And again, note that it is you making the choice. The action is not without prior cause, you are the cause.

This is why in discussions about "free will", I prefer to use the word "volition". Volition has a much narrower definition, and fits precisely what is being discussed. A huge percentage of these "free will" threads is taken up by linguistic gymnastics rather than addressing the issue at hand -- do we act as we do because we cannot do otherwise?

pinky

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trendal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phred]
#2910011 - 07/20/04 07:01 PM (7 years, 10 months ago)

The action is not without prior cause, you are the cause.

That's what I've been getting at all along :smile:

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ZenGecko
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#2911155 - 07/21/04 12:44 AM (7 years, 10 months ago)

floyd and trendal seem to get it..mostly.

If an action is randomn or spontaneous u cant exercise your will/volition whatever u choose to call it. U might say u chose to initiate a randomn action, but you intitiating that event is just the effect of a prior cause. you cant will a spontaneous even to occur either so no will or volition involved there either. The only other way things happen is thru causes...or like i've said MAGIC, but then if you wanna prove the existance of free will u have to prove that Magic exists first.

Saying i dont believe we have a free choice but we still get to choose is the same as saying we do what we have to given the circumstances, just erase choice out of there, because in that context it is not accurate, the nature of choice is freedom, but both are illusions/misconceptions.

My arguement against free will centers on this mode of existance, the whole/one/system/god whatever u wanna call it might have free will and us to as aspects of it if we are indeed aspects of it, because that would me we are it in effect. but on this everyday level of experience wether we have it or not, it isnt accessable, we do things because we are caused to do them, we do them randomnly maybe, but even randomn events have initial causes, or we do them spontaneously, but even spontaneous events generally have a cause, its just unseen, or unexpected.

So u need some other way for an event to occur...and all that leaves is magic or something equivelent. You cant have limited freedom, partial freedom, and saying your choice/volition whatever u wanna call it is restricted is the same as saying you have limited freedom, those are oxymorons, the respective definitions of the words make them incompatable. They simply dont exist except as conceptions, flawed incorrect conceptions. Choice isnt real, there is only what u do given the circumstances, freedom cant be limited or it isnt free, if u accept the standard definition of the word free. The word choice has freedom implied in it, if it didnt u might as well say "action" instead of "choice".

These are all terms we use to describe how things SEEM to be, because often we arent aware of causes, or even effects...thoughts/actions just seem to happen...but even if that is the case, that these actions are randomn or spontaneous still isnt free will, because u cant exercise will or volition over when they occur, or what effect they'll have, so they arent conscience choices...because conscence choice doesnt exist, not in this mode of reality that we percieve daily. Free will may exist, magically or someway some where, but for all practical intents and purposes we cant use it in this life. You can be consience but not free, consience just means awareness, thinking, it does mean your thoughts dont have causes or effects, or your actions, it simply means that to some degree you are aware of yourself and what is happening around you. It is required for free will, but it doesnt require free will in itself.

Its so simple just consiencely choose to agree with me for no reason, with out any cause, do it in a non randomn non spontaneous manner and you will have proven my arguement completely wrong and this thread can die. Not one single person here, or anywhere will ever meet this challenge i bet my life on it...and all my money (if i had any)

Ofcourse just saying...hey i did it!!! isnt good enough, you gotta explain how you did it with out being caused to do it, or having it be a randomn or spontaneous event. You have to do it, yet not be the cause of it, nor can anything else cause it, and u have to have done it in a conscience manner. This challenge has been issued repeatedly by me and others and no one has risen to it..they just continue to say "i know i have free will because i make choices all the time" or some other nonsense but no one just does the one thing that could lay this all to rest and if they are right should be such a simple thing and just meet that challenge.

there are 3 positions that have been stated over and over again in this thread. That of free will is BS(atleast in this mode of existance in our everday lives) free will is real, we have it..bla bla bla, and we dont have free will but can still make choices, or the other version of basically the same position, we have limited freedom/will/volition..basically they want there to be some middle ground, well there is none, limited freedom isnt freedom, limited choice isnt choice, its just action. so many of you see the logic, understand it...and then ignore it, others of you just completely ignore it in favor of how u want things to be, then finally the rest see it, understand it, and the implications and accept it as truth, or atleast the truth of this level of existance.

Sincerely,
That which is, and has NO CHOICE BUT TO BE.

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cybrbeast
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2939863 - 07/29/04 08:45 AM (7 years, 9 months ago)

I don't know if this has been said before. If so, kudos to the one.
But IMO there is a free will, and I used to be the most sceptical person on earth. But last night I learned that free will is choosing your path through the quantum uncertanties. Because every uncertainty will happen in a parrelel universe. So why not in your universe. You just have to believe you can control your own destiny. Last night I believed this and miracles did happen.
I don't know if I'm right or wrong but I assure you that if you live your life this way, good things will come to you. And it doesn't matter if you had a good life because you figured out a way to control quantum effects or to control your own mind. It's all the same -> pure bliss.

Interstate 60 is a really good movie about free will or not. Please watch it.

Last night I saw my best friend cry in the 11th dimension...

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ZenGecko
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: cybrbeast]
#2950996 - 08/01/04 02:55 AM (7 years, 9 months ago)

the whole idea that we have free will in the sense that all possibilities are realized in the multi verse or all virtual possibilities (the unrealized) are equivenlent mathmatically to the realized ones is intresting...but for all practical purposes u in this reality dont get to use your free will because you are just either randomnly assigned a possible path or you take the path that the circumstances of your universe dictate...so while a you somewhere got to go a different path, that path is the only path that You could have taken, just as your path was the only one u could have taken given all the cirumstances...remember u need conscience will in order to have true free will also, so randomness is not enough for free will, you cant will the out come of a randomn event. and the intialization of a randomn event has a cause..you, but you causing that is just the effect of a prior cause. That only leaves a spontaneous action, but again u cant exert your will here either...u cant make a spontaneous event occur at a designated time, nor predict the outcome, that is the nature of such and event. So again for all practical purposes in this level of existance we are yet again screwed out of any usable free will.

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BlueCoyote
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ZenGecko]
#2951221 - 08/01/04 07:51 AM (7 years, 9 months ago)

Just the fact, that there are more than one possibilities to choose, makes my will free. There my be 1000 causes for each choise, but the choice I decide is free.

Is there any will behind the will at all ?

That's so plain easily said, random is the cause, youself are the cause, nothingness is the cause, will is the cause, freedom is the cause...

Cause by itself doesn't make my will unfree.

For some advocats there might not seem to be any free will. In reality this looks totally different.

I don't get it.

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Edited by BlueCoyote (08/01/04 08:03 AM)

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Shroomism
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BlueCoyote]
#2951404 - 08/01/04 09:40 AM (7 years, 9 months ago)

Free will is an absolute universal right, sometimes impeccability calls on the self to surrender free will to divine will in faith and trust.

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vampirism
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2951843 - 08/01/04 11:43 AM (7 years, 9 months ago)

didnt read the first 14 pages.. so sorry if this has been said:

Free will exists, but only in the present. The only way you could possibly disprove it is by being at the end of all life, and looking at a timeline of what HAPPENED. The problem with that is that there are parallel universes and such b/c of quantum uncertainty. Youd be looking at a timeline of what happened, not what had to happen. Did it have to happen that way? Well yes, in your Universe.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: vampirism]
#2953891 - 08/01/04 08:36 PM (7 years, 9 months ago)

Blue... half my arguement here is that those choices are not real, that they are themselves illusions because u cant actually every do any of them unless cirumstances allow it, but cirumstances only allow for one possibility at any given moment, or else you could split your self in two and take the left path and the right path...and u cant do that..u only get 1 action and no choice in which it is, u must always perform the action that cirumstance dictate at that moment, those other seemingly possible choices arent actually possible and arent actually choices, and i have out lined why this is so in my arguements through out this thread.

Shroom...your just making a flat out statement here, no arguement and no support for your statement just an opinion, which your welcome to express but it is not a counter arguement.

Morrow... Even in the multi verse each individual is only able to perform the action that the circumstances allow at that moment, and only that action, in another universe your other self may have done something else but that other thing was the only thing they could do at that moment, just as what u did was the only thing u could do at that moment...that is some shitty freedom...it isnt even actual freedom.

All these arguements have already been addressed earlier in the thread..

more people ignoring the logic, and who dont understand the meanings of thw words they are using in their arguements.

You wanna prove that practical usable free will exists in this everyday life...simply meet the challenge issued earlier, agree with me that in this mode of every day existance we have no practical free will, do it with out any reason, any cause, and do it in a non randomn non spontaneous way and u win...and none of you can do it. its that simple.

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Anonymous

There's always the fourth choice... [Re: ZenGecko]
#2954015 - 08/01/04 09:10 PM (7 years, 9 months ago)

You've got the "free will is bullshit" camp. You've got the "everyone has free will" camp. Then there's select few in the "not everyone exercises his/her free will" section.

What about the "who cares?" of the world? I don't mean that in a flippant way. What I mean is, how is knowing the "truth" of it going to change your course of action? How is it going to change your life?

If you fall into the free will is bullshit line of thinking, then maybe you're using it as an excuse. For whatever ails ya.

Why not just live your life as though the real answer doesn't matter, and PRETEND that free choice does exist? That way, at the end of your life, you might just have less to blame God/Destiny/Happenstance/Bob for. If you lived as though you were responsible for everything that happened in your life, and then it turns out that you actually WEREN'T (ie free will turns out to be bullshit), then you can say to yourself "oh well. I was MEANT to believe that and live my life accordingly."

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2956001 - 08/02/04 10:29 AM (7 years, 9 months ago)

I totally agree with phluck. there?s no such thing as free will.
everyone interested in this subject should check out this movie..."Waking Life" it explains how our thoughts and feelings are ultimately matter and energy in our brains. matter and energy that are obviously governed by laws -chemical, physical, biological laws-
and since brain action precedes any thought or "decision" where is the free will?

philosopher Baruch Spinoza said something like this "there?s no such thing as freedom, for every choice we make has a cause, that in turn has another cause and it goes that way until the infinte."
this reasoning is well sustained by universal law that every action has a reaction. So choices could be seen as reactions of a previous action.

Simon de la Place also thought that if there was a mind powerful enough to know the state of every atom and force in the universe at a particular moment, it could predict anything as random as the shape of the clouds. because even that WOULD HAVE A CAUSE.

remember what the french dude tells neo in the matrix reloaded about causality: we can do nothing about it just relax and flow with it.

it is also the perspective of modern neuropsychology that free will is an ilusion (check out this book: Mapping the mind by Rita Carter, page 334)

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2956063 - 08/02/04 10:46 AM (7 years, 9 months ago)

I have wrestled with this issue for many long hours myself.. and the humor of it is, if there is no free will, and we live in a deterministic world, then my inner debate about whether there is free will is simply resultant of a particular arrangement of all of the matter and energy in the universe for the duration of my thought process.

It's hard to argue against determinism, but if we live as if we do not have free will, we are likely to fall into nihilism.. although this of course asserts that we have free will to control whether or not we live as if we believe ourselves to have free will.

This is viciously circular.. I'll get back to everyone when I know for sure whether or not free will exists. (haha)

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ZenGecko]
#2956237 - 08/02/04 11:40 AM (7 years, 9 months ago)

Help

I am really sorry, but I am not able to follow these circle-thoughts.
It's a back-circle to think, 'because a choice was made, and there is only one choice possible at one moment, this choice was kind of predetermined'.
I know we had all these arguments allready, still they are not totally 'waterproof' :wink:

Not chemicals nor 'cause' make my decisions predeterminated, because my brain is a quantum-machine on which a free spirit has settled down (from out of context-world).

So please excuse, I can't follow this line.
One of us is illusioning himself :smile:

I have to educate me further, in between I believe otherways... :heart:

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2957018 - 08/02/04 02:40 PM (7 years, 9 months ago)

This is sort of the philosophical equivalent of the scientific "Relativity vs. Quantum Mechanics" debate.. one is easily predictable, follows a set path and order, makes the cosmos easily mathematically represented.. the other is inexplicable, subjective, and random. (Not that I know much about higher level physics.. just a surface comparison.)

Maybe we need, then, some sort of philosophical parallel to the ten dimensional superstring theory which purports to unite relativity and quantum theory.. but I don't think the determinists are very willing to accept any free will, nor the libertarians willing to accept any determinism..

Debating about this, inwardly and socially alike, is about as fruitful as repeatedly running face first into a brick wall. But it's pretty fun nevertheless.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#2957454 - 08/02/04 04:42 PM (7 years, 9 months ago)

I think you were born in Lotus land dude!

:crymeariver:

See~ Rush Rocks Free Will Rules!

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ZenGecko
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BlueCoyote]
#2977653 - 08/08/04 06:31 AM (7 years, 9 months ago)

blue your statement.... "It's a back-circle to think, 'because a choice was made, and there is only one choice possible at one moment, this choice was kind of predetermined'" assumes that the concept of choice is valid, and much of my arguement is in direct opposition to that assumption. I say you perform an action, u make no choice. It may seem like you could have done something else, but you couldnt..the circumstances made you do what you did...you made no choice, you only had the illusion of choice. What you did was do excactly what you had to do.

For a choice you would need to perform a conscience action with no cause, yet not be randomn nor spontaneous....those are the only 3 way things ever occur. The intialization of a randomn event is an effect of a cause, the outcome of that event cant be willed..so no choice there. A spontaneous event actually generally has a cause though it may be hidden but lets pretend it has no cause..well you cant decide to be spontaneous or it isnt actually spontaneous...so no conscience will there either..so no choice, no free will, no volition. And if something causes you to do something, well hell you were caused you didnt choose...you just did what the circumstances caused you to do.

You need a 4th option for choice to be real, something akin to magic, or the hand of god, but even then you can argue that god gave you free will so god made you do whatever you did with it, since choice/action you performed was just and effect of the cause which was god giving you free will....so that leaves magic. So all you have to do to prove choice exists is prove magic exists.

And still the simple truth is that no one has yet met the challenge of doing something consciencely but with no cause. That would prove choice is real...but no one can do it. At best they may be able to do something without a cause but then its just a randomn or spontaneous action, the kind of action you cant will, or choose the outcome of.. or when it even occurs. Your whole idea of choice is false...it doesnt exist except as something we dreamed up..something delusional.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ZenGecko]
#3449746 - 12/05/04 10:25 AM (7 years, 5 months ago)

God I love this thread...

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Alan Stone
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ZenGecko]
#3450548 - 12/05/04 02:09 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

It may seem like you could have done something else, but you couldnt..the circumstances made you do what you did...you made no choice, you only had the illusion of choice. What you did was do excactly what you had to do.

The circumstances influence what you do, but they don't dictate what you have to do. Of course you have a choice. At every moment you have a choice to make.
"Exactly what you had to do" implies destiny or duty. There's no reason whatsoever to assume that reality is scripted. As for duty, there are a lot of irresponsible people out there.

Quote:

For a choice you would need to perform a conscience action with no cause

Not true. If you make a choice, YOU are that cause since you decide to do something. An action without a cause would be a physically impossible feat.

Quote:

..., yet not be randomn nor spontaneous....

Random and spontaneous are synonyms in this sentence, so those aren't two seperate requirements for choice. If they aren't meant to be, you're being unreasonably vague.

Quote:

Those are the only 3 way things ever occur. The intialization of a randomn event is an effect of a cause, the outcome of that event cant be willed..so no choice there

A random event would be one without cause. If you mean random as in, randomly selected, you're right. However, one can't apply the laws of physics to the workings of the human mind as one would apply them to scientifically explainable occurences. The reason is that we're the most conscious entity on the planet, at least to my knowledge. A tree can't choose, because it's determined by outside factors and because it lacks consciousness. However, humans have the ability to choose the best action from among several options. The judge in that process is the individual themselves, not some chemical reaction alone.

Quote:

. A spontaneous event actually generally has a cause though it may be hidden but lets pretend it has no cause..well you cant decide to be spontaneous or it isnt actually spontaneous...so no conscience will there either..

Apples and oranges, buddy. You can't compare quarks materialising out of a vacuum (spontaneous event that doesn't seem to have a cause) to choosing as an individual to be spontaneous. Where's the link between them?

Quote:

so no choice, no free will, no volition. And if something causes you to do something, well hell you were caused you didnt choose...you just did what the circumstances caused you to do.

Rationalising choices by saying they were pre-ordained doesn't make them pre-ordained. If you're heading towards a traffic junction at 90 mph and the lights turn red when you're just a few yards from it, you can choose to hit the brakes or not (if you realise what's happening, of course). You might feel circumstances force you to keep going, but that's an assessment you personally make.

One question to you (and other non-believers in free will): if all our ideas and choices are pre-destined, where do concepts like free choice come from? What caused them?

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AreoZephin
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
#3483579 - 12/11/04 07:34 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

I'm lazy right now and don't feel like reading all of the 30 pages.

You're saying freewill is bullshit. If so, then everything would have to be predetermined, which, in my opinion and others is false.

If there's a being who can look into the future and tell us about it by giving the knowledge to a human, doesn't mean it's pre determined and the actions are predetermined. That's saying that the being programed us into doing everything and we have no choice, no free will. Which that is bullshit.

If a being can look into the future and tell us about it, and if it wanted to change our actions which it supposedly "programed" us into, then that would make it imperfect and would defeat the purpose of free will by saying that it knows what we will do. Which, it doesn't have to because we have free will to make those actions.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AreoZephin]
#3483601 - 12/11/04 07:41 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

free will(y)

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Gomp]
#3484019 - 12/11/04 08:37 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

I still don't understand what free will is supposed to be.

I haven't seen a single definition I can make heads or tails of.

If free will is "the ability to make choices for ourselves", how do we make our choices? Why?

What is "the ability to make choices for ourselves"?

I also don't understand how the fact that some theories based on quantum mechanics speak of multiple universes relates to our ability to make choices.

What am I missing?

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AreoZephin
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#3484110 - 12/11/04 08:51 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Phluck said:
I still don't understand what free will is supposed to be.

I haven't seen a single definition I can make heads or tails of.

If free will is "the ability to make choices for ourselves", how do we make our choices? Why?

What is "the ability to make choices for ourselves"?

I also don't understand how the fact that some theories based on quantum mechanics speak of multiple universes relates to our ability to make choices.

What am I missing?

We make our choices based on what we need to conjure and because of what we feel is right or wrong or needed etc.

And that's a theory, just like any theory and philosophy. Just like free will being bullshit is a theory, and non pre destination is a theory because either of them can not be proven until science can with physical evidence which is why talking about it is fun yet excruciatingly dropped eventually until it is brought up again because science can not prove it.

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Edited by AreoZephin (12/11/04 08:52 PM)

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AreoZephin]
#3484172 - 12/11/04 09:02 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

We make our choices based on what we need to conjure and because of what we feel is right or wrong or needed etc.

How is what we feel is right or wrong determined? What do you mean by conjure?

I still don't get it.

"Tawrhdf exists."

"What's Tawrhdf?"

"It's a magic thing."

"A magic thing that does what?"

"It's the thing that exudes the magic of Tawrhdf."

"Sounds like bullshit."

"That's just your theory."

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AreoZephin
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#3484227 - 12/11/04 09:14 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

If you turned on a stove to fry some french fries and you took the pan off, and you just decided to stick your hand on the hot surface to fry your hand in excruciating pain. Did you determine it or did a higher power? Seems like you would have. Of course, many people wouldn't because it would hurt no? And there's obviously reasons behind why anyone would want or not want to do that. So if there's reasons then why would not there be free will?

Conjure: To influence or effect.

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AreoZephin]
#3485962 - 12/12/04 10:48 AM (7 years, 5 months ago)

Did you determine it or did a higher power? Seems like you would have.

I'm not saying a higher power is involved, I do believe that our minds go through the decision making process, however, read my FIRST post in this entire thread. That explains what I'm talking about.

If our choices are goverened by the chemistry in our brains and the laws of physics, then do we really have a choice?

If I roll a snowball down a hill, it may seem to be choosing a path to take at random, but it's really being jostled and pushed around by the laws of physics.

Even if there is a random factor to our decisions, is that really an ability to choose?

I don't doubt that our desires dictate our choices, but we can't choose the strength or nature of our desires. We just follow them. I *could* skip lunch today, that's my choice... but I'll only actually make that choice if my desire to make some point about free will outweighs my desire to eat. Which it doesn't, and it's lunchtime.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#3486006 - 12/12/04 10:59 AM (7 years, 5 months ago)

There are computers programmed to be *random* number generators. Push a button and a random number will pop up. You could spend your entire life clicking that button and believe that each number is random, but in actuality it is not. A very long mathematical formula is causing these *random* numbers. A mathematical formula that can be derived. As Phluck said, our brains are an assortment of chemical reactions and electrical impulses, all of which belong to a very complex formula. Could we ever derive its equation? Probably not.

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: looner2]
#3486097 - 12/12/04 11:21 AM (7 years, 5 months ago)

As Phluck said, our brains are an assortment of chemical reactions and electrical impulses, all of which belong to a very complex formula. Could we ever derive its equation? Probably not.

I wouldn't be too quick to underestimate our understanding of the brain, we're moving in leaps and bounds:

http://www.napa.ufl.edu/2004news/braindish.htm

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AreoZephin
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#3487166 - 12/12/04 04:09 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

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The Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so.

Edited by AreoZephin (12/12/04 04:12 PM)

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AreoZephin]
#3487354 - 12/12/04 04:59 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

So if the brain goes through the decision making process, if, our choices are goverened by the chemeistry in our brains and the laws of physics. Then how do you explain nightmares and dreams when you are asleep?

Huh? I don't see how the fact that we dream means that our minds aren't controlled by the laws of physics?

Where's the contradiction there?

If a car runs on gasoline, then how come the doors open and close?

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#3487371 - 12/12/04 05:01 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

Also, we do lots of things in our dreams based on choices, we aren't aware of the thought processes that create the strange things in dreams, but that doesn't mean they aren't happening.

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AreoZephin
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#3487523 - 12/12/04 05:40 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

So no matter what choice we make isn't a choice where we have control? Or that our choices are not in our control. Well if that's the case I guess someone pulling a gun and unloading their brains was a choice that wasn't in their control, chemically?

Hmm. It sounds twisted to me. Of course your brain patterns are going to calculate what you do before you do it, given the nervous system. You also feel what is right and wrong in life by learning from seeing and hearing. You don't make a choice learning it, you have no choice but to see it. Then you have a choice to give an out come of it, by producing the right chemical equation in your brain. That's how I see it.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AreoZephin]
#3487736 - 12/12/04 06:39 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

So no matter what choice we make isn't a choice where we have control? Or that our choices are not in our control. Well if that's the case I guess someone pulling a gun and unloading their brains was a choice that wasn't in their control, chemically?

Hmm. It sounds twisted to me.

Of course it does. The feeling that we have free will is part of the mechanism that our brain uses to make choices. We may think about something for a while, and come to a certain decision based on what we think about, but the thought process is likely a long series of chemical reactions.

Then you have a choice to give an out come of it, by producing the right chemical equation in your brain.

Kind of like a calculator has a choice to give a certain answer? If not, how is it different?

Edited by Phluck (12/12/04 06:39 PM)

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AreoZephin
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#3487896 - 12/12/04 07:18 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

Philemon 1:14 - but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own free will.

What it's saying is that things shouldn't be a sudden impulse, and if it was things would not be thought through without means of analyzing and comparison. That's why we have all these things in the world today. And because of analyzing and comparison would give us free will to choose between whatever the options were, even make things. For example, if it was true that we had no control over their decisions no one would disagree.

Quote:

Kind of like a calculator has a choice to give a certain answer? If not, how is it different?

What if the calculator malfunctioned. The brain decides to give two answers in to which both is logical and can not choose an answer.

So if we make different chemical equations and that gives an outcome with one answer between any decisions, there's no free will. Yet, I can go back and change my answer if I want, because I still have control over it. Right?

No matter what when a decision is made it's made, but it can be changed if it's given to be changed.

To me the best way to say it is saying that your mind has a sub mind in which the sub mind has control over the mind. But the mind has control over the sub mind also.

I hope that makes sense.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AreoZephin]
#3487981 - 12/12/04 07:32 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

To me the best way to say it is saying that your mind has a sub mind in which the sub mind has control over the mind. But the mind has control over the sub mind also.

How does the sub mind make decisions?

The fact that decision can change, and that people can take different stances has nothing to do with free will.

If the calculator is broken, then it's still following the laws of physics perfectly. It could be broken in such a way that it gives consistantly wrong answers, or perhaps there a loose connection that gives one answer when it's in place, and a different one when its not.

The chemicals in our brains constantly shift around and change. Of course we'll make different choices under different conditions. I mean, are you saying that you explanation for how free will works is that there's just another part of the brain that handles it? That's not really an explanation.

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AreoZephin
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#3488026 - 12/12/04 07:44 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

I mean if you do something and you are going to make a decision the sub mind will also give a decision, your conscious.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AreoZephin]
#3488056 - 12/12/04 07:50 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

I don't understand.

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AreoZephin
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#3488079 - 12/12/04 07:54 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

If you get a glass of coke and you choose yes, you also think of no at the same time. If you want to shoot a bird with a beebee gun for practice and you also think of "No it's wrong". That's free will until you make your complete decision, after the decision is made there's no more meaning for free will.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AreoZephin]
#3488183 - 12/12/04 08:09 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

I think the only time we won't be in control of being free to make those calculation in our brains are when those calculations are put in there by something else.

I believe we have a soul, and we are free to choose which way to follow.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AreoZephin]
#3488189 - 12/12/04 08:10 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

That's just the ability to make choices though. I don't disbelieve that we make choices, but in the end we do choose one thing over another.

What's the reason for that?

Like the rock rolling down the hill, at the top, there are many possibilities as to where it will roll, yet it only ends up following one path. This happens, following all the laws of physics.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#3488260 - 12/12/04 08:22 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

The reason would be that it is made based on what the person feels is right or wrong, what he or she learned throughout their life or learned from themselves.

And sometimes we choose faith because that's all there is to choose.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AreoZephin]
#3488513 - 12/12/04 09:07 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

You said yourself though, that we don't choose what we learn throughout our lives.

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AreoZephin
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#3488730 - 12/12/04 09:53 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

If you stick your hand on a stove you don't have a choice but to learn not to do it again or that it's hot.

If you have a book of science and a book of history you can choose which to learn.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AreoZephin]
#3489396 - 12/13/04 12:44 AM (7 years, 5 months ago)

Yeah... but WHY do you make the choice you do?

You're just going in circles here.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#3489452 - 12/13/04 01:08 AM (7 years, 5 months ago)

Alright I'll try again to understand it after reading the first post. (One of my keys don't work to quote now, I need a new keyboard.) I'll sit here and look it this over and over.
------
At any given time, you have millions of options. You could stand up right now, run around the room three times, while yodeling. Or maybe you could strangle yourself with the mouse cord. Or you could try eating a diskette.

Will you make these choices? Probably not.

When you're faced with an imminant decision, "do you want to go to the party or not?", you'll make a choice there based on how you feel about parties, how you feel about the people at the party, and how you feel at the moment. If we could press a rewind button on life, go back in time, and repeat that moment with every minute variable identical, would your decision ever vary? If it would, why?
--------

Alright.

"I suppose that the concept of free will is very closely connected to the concept of moral responsibility. Acting with free will, on such views is just to satisfy the metaphysical requirement on being responsible for one's action.

Philosophers who distinguish freedom of action and freedom of will do so because our success in carrying out our ends depends in part on factors wholly beyond our control."

"If there is such a thing as free will, it has many dimensions. In what follows, I will sketch the freedom-conferring characteristics that have attracted most of the attention. The reader is warned, however, that while many philosophers emphasize a single such characteristic, perhaps in response to the views of their immediate audience, it is probable that most would recognize the significance of many of the other features discussed here."

Link: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AreoZephin]
#3490278 - 12/13/04 07:48 AM (7 years, 5 months ago)

I was inspired to write a poem :laugh:

('free' in latin is 'solvo', 'will' is 'volo', so 'solvolo' means 'free will' in rouge latin :grin:

,
not sure why I wanted it in latin though :smirk:

)

Misosolvolo and Philosolvolo

Misosolvolo:
The mind, I tell you, is not free,
Think about it, I challenge thee!
The truly uniqe does not come as a dove,
to whom queens and kings will bow.

For surely; the god that sent the birdlike thought,
did not send it just for naught?
If even gods do follow a certain path,
then go and plot them in your math!

Philosolvolo:
Friend, I hear you, and your reasoning sounds true,
but when life has past and the annual account is due,
do you tell yourself, in light of deed,
that you could nothing do, but smoke your weed?

Misosolvolo:
Spare me from poetic ravings and talks of the great Manitou,
nature follow certain laws, and the pawn is really you!
You are after all inside your head, clothed by your weary flesh,
there is no way to escape earthling; you're entangled in the mesh.

Philosolvolo:
Life does not follow the irongrasp of a linear equation;
then you would leave and arrive at the same old station!
Such a journey seems dead and almost like a thing,
Rather take a closer look at singing birds in spring.

You have surely heard the alchemists; stone can turn to gold,
and the inner reality is certainly full of mysteries untold!
This is were the magic works, the boundaries my friend!
Whomever choose his boundaries will sail freely in the end.

--------------------
There are no differences between men and gods,
one blends softly causal into the other.
-Frank Herbert, Dune.

Edited by The_Visionaire (12/13/04 09:19 AM)

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AreoZephin]
#3491143 - 12/13/04 11:40 AM (7 years, 5 months ago)

That site still doesn't actually explain how we make choices, it goes over some things that have been thought about free will.

If you were posting this article to back up your own opinion, I have a feeling you haven't thoughouly studied it.

Did you notice when it said: "On the ultimate level of evaluation, free will is indeed incoherent."

Finally, there are those who believe freedom of will consists in a distinctively personal form of causality, commonly referred to as "agent causation." The agent himself causes his choice or action, and this is not to be reductively analyzed as an event within the agent causing the choice. (Compare our ready restatement of "the rock broke the window" into the more precise "the rock's being in momentum M at the point of contact with the window caused the window's subsequent shattering.") This view is given clear articulation by Thomas Reid:

I grant, then, that an effect uncaused is a contradiction, and that an event uncaused is an absurdity. The question that remains is whether a volition, undetermined by motives, is an event uncaused. This I deny. The cause of the volition is the man that willed it. (Letter to James Gregory, in 1967, 88)

Roderick Chisholm advocated this view of free will in numerous writings (e.g., 1982 and 1976). And recently it has been developed in different forms by Randolph Clarke (1993, 1996) and O'Connor (2000). Nowadays, many philosophers view this account as of doubtful coherence (e.g., Dennett 1984). For some, this very idea of causation by a substance just as such is perplexing (Ginet 1997). Others see it as difficult to reconcile with the causal role of reasons in explaining choices. (Clarke and O'Connor devote considerable effort to addressing this concern.) And yet others hold that, coherent or not, it is inconsistent with seeing human beings as part of the natural world of cause and effect (Pereboom 2001).

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#3493761 - 12/13/04 06:35 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

Oh, no, I meant I understand where you're coming from now. I still seem to disagree though because I believe the conscious is in front of the brain and is more powerful than the brain. And because of the conscious is why our brain is able to make the seemingly non controllable decision because of an equation, the conscious being behind the equation before there ever was an equation. To me, it would seem uncontrollable after you made the decision because you sometimes don't have the option to go back and change it.

You make the choice you do because of what you've done in your life, etc and what not. Except still, you have a conscious that's not part of an equation at all, it's just there, it's not one with the brain but the brain is a physical tool for it. I think that's why sometimes people feel convicted, when they make a decision and it was wrong, yet they feel that it was wrong because of a part other than the brain that is beyond understanding that somehow can be part of another reality if it isn't already. Another word if not for conscious, being that of your spirit/soul.

But if I am understood and I don't understand myself at what I'm trying to get at, then if freewill is false, I wouldn't care because I still have options to choose from. And if there are options, maybe the options itself are free willed.

--------------------
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vampirism
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#3493781 - 12/13/04 06:38 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

i'm sorry but im cant read 17 pages now, nor do i have the desire to.

Was this point brought up? :
There is no concept of will at ALL without a retrospective view. IE, if you consider history and future to be one within your brain ( ala Hopi ), then free will exists. If you force time and creation into a linear timeline, then it does not ( at least not logically ).

How is there concept of will without concept of time? I claim there is not

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AreoZephin]
#3503119 - 12/15/04 10:07 AM (7 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

And because of the conscious is why our brain is able to make the seemingly non controllable decision because of an equation, the conscious being behind the equation before there ever was an equation.

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Phluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#3503443 - 12/15/04 11:21 AM (7 years, 5 months ago)

Hehe, that's great.

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AreoZephin
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#3506647 - 12/15/04 09:12 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

If you're saying that there can not be a conscious before the brain existing than you might as well be saying that we can't be existing in this physical reality because nothing existed in the first place here, then this reality is definitely a miracle.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AreoZephin]
#3506705 - 12/15/04 09:25 PM (7 years, 5 months ago)

for everybody wants to know about free will i have posted it before but will again.

part 1
dream-scape said:
There is always a choice. Even if you feel you have no choice, there is always a choice. If there were really no choices, then it would be so clear that there would be no need for this discussion. And the word "choice" would really have no place in language and probably not exist. Likewise, if there really were free choices, it would be so clear there would be no need for this discussion.

To me, it seems pretty clear that there can be no choice free from existence of everything. In our interdependent world, how can a choice alone be free from anything else (i.e. how can will, alone, be free)?

It also seems equally clear that there is no lack of choice, i.e. no hand commanding you to move here, then there. If there was not choice at all, there would be no need for consideration of what to do in situations. Contemplation of what to do demonstrates that there are indeed several choices you could take.

Right now I have several choices. I choose to sit here and type this. Just because I chose this over other things, does not mean the choice to do those other things does not exist. Of coarse it does. But those choices also do not exist free of my roles and experiences. Of coarse they do not. Every experience I have had up to this point will have some kind of impact on the choice I make, and that choice and impact on the next. But the choice still exists, whether you personally feel it does or not.

This we might call "conditioned free will". Free in the sense that you have choices you can make; conditioned in the sense that those choices do not exist free from the relational, interdependent nature of everything.

And now I choose to stop typing. I could just as easily choose to stay and keep typing or reading the forums.

part 2

Ah free will, one of my favorite topics.

I agree with everything you said, but I would take it a step further. At the exact instant of "choice", there are an unimaginable number of variables influencing us (room temperature, appetite, level of alertness, etc). There are countless factors that go into a "decision" that we are not even aware of. The "choice" that we make is simply a product of these pre-existing factors. Given one set of circumstances, only one outcome is possible. So, if we are deciding on whether to eat a banana or an orange, stand up or sit down, continue to type or stop typing, there is only one decision that can be made based on all of the individual factors at that instant. Each unique cause, has a unique effect. Any one instant in the universe is simply the product of the instant that preceeded it.

The illusion of choice however is very strong and easy to fall victim to. You have to understand dream-scape, each instant of "contemplating" you do, is simply the product of factors that you aren't even aware of, the product of the previous instant of "contemplation".

hope you enjoyed it

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#6454345 - 01/12/07 11:53 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Holy shit this thread is cool! :grin:

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AlteredAgain
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Lightningfractal]
#6454999 - 01/13/07 08:31 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Part of what we think of as free will emerges from the raw complexity of the interactions that take place in our lives. I draw a lot of my own inspiration from the Sufis and they make it quite clear that man does not live in free will but he has grow into a state of free will by practice, that most of your actions are mechanical.

Free will is something that you learn by encountering the world and emerging into free will rather than something that you just get.

Mark Pesce

:earth:

--------------------
"I don't do drugs. I am drugs. Take me, I am the drug; take me, I am hallucinogenic." Dali

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LunarEclipse
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: AlteredAgain]
#6455098 - 01/13/07 09:31 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Free Willie was a great movie, very inspirational and even brought tears when Willie was finally set Free.

Mark Pesce? Does he have a brother Joe? :tongue:

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Don't worry be happy.

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BuddahKillah
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: LunarEclipse]
#6455477 - 01/13/07 11:55 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Just because every day for the last 10 years I got up went to work came home and drank a 12 pack does not mean I HAVE to do that. I have the power to not drink that 12 pack and it is MY choice. We DO have the power to choose and change how we live our lives.

We are the creators of our reality and the way we choose to live it. Just because a child was born into poverty and taught that live is hard,and its a struggle,and e will never amount to anything. That does not mean thats whats going to happen. It is his CHOICE. We all have the power within us to choose how we live our lives.

Without the belief in free will comes and sad and depressing lifestyle. You choose how you want to live your life. You choose not to believe in free will, and if thats what you choose... that is what your reality will be.

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Annom
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BuddahKillah]
#6455533 - 01/13/07 12:15 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

Without the belief in free will comes and sad and depressing lifestyle.

Not at all. I don't believe in free will and I'm pretty damn happy living my life.

Can you enjoy a good movie? I can view life as a 3D, 5 sensorial output movie and it even gives me the feeling that I control it. It's a pretty nice and intense experience. Not at all sad and depressing.

Some people might find it sad and depressing and that probably is one reason to believe in free will.

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BuddahKillah
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#6455603 - 01/13/07 12:33 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Well, if you are already happy with your life... then you can be happy with believing their is no free will. For people who are unsatisfied with their life Free-Will is a light at the end of the tunnel. They want to believe that they can turn around their circumstances and make their life more enjoyable. Are you saying they can't do this? and if they do... it was not their choice?

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trendal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BuddahKillah]
#6456189 - 01/13/07 03:59 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Can they turn their life around? It's all theoretical until they actually do something - or not. If they end up doing it, it was something they were always going to do.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#6456292 - 01/13/07 04:38 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

trendal said:
It's all theoretical until they actually do something .

If they end up doing it, it was something they were always going to do.

That makes no sense.

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Silversoul
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#6456294 - 01/13/07 04:39 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

trendal said:
If they end up doing it, it was something they were always going to do.

How do you know?

It seems to me that discussing free will tends to lead to the same problems as discussing God. It's hard to define and it's not falsifiable. Personally, I find myself in the compatibilist category. I think that free will vs. determinism is a false dichotomy, and that free will is in fact a function of determinism.

--------------------

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Silversoul]
#6456550 - 01/13/07 06:39 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

How can an infinite universe ever be pre-determined?

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Silversoul
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BuddahKillah]
#6456576 - 01/13/07 06:55 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Who says the universe is infinite?

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Silversoul]
#6456692 - 01/13/07 07:44 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Even if we live in a finite and "Necessity Connected" Universe it still contained within an infinite space. It has waves flowing into that come from infinity and they can never be pre-determined. This explains the uncertainty of the Quantum Theory. We can never know where each successive In-Wave will meet at its Wave-Center, so we can never exactly know the future motion and position of the particle.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#6456699 - 01/13/07 07:51 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Are our thoughts pre-determined?

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trendal
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BuddahKillah]
#6457810 - 01/14/07 06:39 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Yes.

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BuddahKillah
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#6457871 - 01/14/07 07:13 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Again, how can an infinite universe ever be pre-determined?

Take a pack of playing cards and place the Ace of Hearts face down on the top of the pack.
You are both necessarily connected to the Ace of Hearts (as you are to all matter in the universe) and you have pre-determined knowledge of the exact card, so you can be certain that if you turn the card over it will be the Ace of Hearts. So you see that while you have complete knowledge of the system then there is no chance involved - the system is both necessarily connected and pre-determined.

Now place this pack of cards in front of someone else who has no knowledge of the fact that the Ace of Hearts is the top card. So while they are still necessarily connected to the top card (Ace of Hearts) they do not have pre-determined knowledge of this card, so if you ask them to tell you which card is on top of the pack they only have a one in fifty two chance of guessing correctly. So you see how chance exists when we do not have pre-determined knowledge (even though we are still necessarily connected).

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BuddahKillah]
#6457903 - 01/14/07 07:32 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Again, how can an infinite universe ever be pre-determined?

You are resting on the assumption that our Universe is infinitely large. You can't know that, just as I can't know that it's not.

All current scientific understanding of our Universe says that it is finite in size.

Now place this pack of cards in front of someone else who has no knowledge of the fact that the Ace of Hearts is the top card. So while they are still necessarily connected to the top card (Ace of Hearts) they do not have pre-determined knowledge of this card, so if I ask them to tell me which card is on top of the pack they only have a one in fifty two chance of guessing correctly. So you see how chance exists when we do not have pre-determined knowledge (even though we are still necessarily connected).

And your point...? The appearance of chance can still exist with a pre-determined timeline.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#6458083 - 01/14/07 08:57 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

The appearance of chance can still exist with a pre-determined timeline.

Very true. If you repeatedly throw a dice in exactly the same way in exactly the same environment, it will come to rest in exactly the same way every time. If this is true, it means that it is pre-determined how the dice would come to rest. We can't predict it (in theory we can) and that's why we use chance to say something about how likely different outcomes are.

Only on the very small quantum scale, particles don't follow pre-determined paths and there seems to exist true randomness. This is a good argument against true determinism, but I don't see how this could make more for free-will to exist.

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#6458312 - 01/14/07 10:18 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

trendal said:

You are resting on the assumption that our Universe is infinitely large. You can't know that, just as I can't know that it's not.

All current scientific understanding of our Universe says that it is finitet in size.

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new2grow
Dust

Registered: 05/14/06
Posts: 947
Loc: Atlanta, GA
Last seen: 8 months, 18 days

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BuddahKillah]
#6458516 - 01/14/07 11:20 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

honestly i dont give a shit anymore. Im too concerned with getting some action this weekend, and no longer will i give a damn about our place here, or how large or small all this is.

If is infinate, great thats awesome, and would make more sense to me. Why would it stop, nothing wants to stop being cool, right?

ifs its finate, well thats alright too. It is a small world then, but much larger than i would ever need.

--------------------
"You think that was cheesey? Well this is where it gets Gouda."

"And He said, 'I give this herb as your meat."

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trendal
point of inflection

Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 18,897
Loc: Ontario, Canada

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BuddahKillah]
#6458925 - 01/14/07 01:27 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Where did I say that you could know the future? Do you exist outside of time?

Not knowing the future does not discredit any notion of a pre-determined future.

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BuddahKillah
U WANTFITE!?!?!?!?!?!

Registered: 10/15/04
Posts: 1,724

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#6459103 - 01/14/07 02:24 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

What I was trying to get across is the fact that the Universe itself can not know its own future... according to the Quantum Theory.

It is very important to appreciate the difference between a Necessarily Connected Universe, which ours is, and a Deterministic Universe which requires knowledge of the 'initial conditions' from which things, being necessarily connected, can then be determined.

We exist in a finite and 'Necessarily Connected' Universe (due to the Properties of Space as a continuously connected wave medium), whereas Space itself must be Infinite (One thing existing is necessarily Infinite and Eternal). Thus our finite universe continually has waves flowing into it that have come from Infinity, and can never be pre-determined (an infinite system cannot be predetermined).

A question : Do you believe in morality? If so, how can you believe in morality and not free-will? Their is a huge flaw in this kind of logic.

Edited by BuddahKillah (01/14/07 02:35 PM)

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CerebralFlower
whats left?

Registered: 02/09/04
Posts: 1,326
Loc: only the truth is left
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BuddahKillah]
#6459319 - 01/14/07 03:48 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

I would change it to "free will is a RARE thing"

--------------------
God says dance with your heart
And shake free of you desire

Where theres a will theres always a way
When you get confused listen to the music play

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Jackenobi
Hermes

Registered: 05/06/06
Posts: 1,355
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
#6460513 - 01/14/07 08:58 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

Phluck said:
At any given time, you have millions of options. You could stand up right now, run around the room three times, while yodeling. Or maybe you could strangle yourself with the mouse cord. Or you could try eating a diskette.

Will you make these choices? Probably not.

When you're faced with an imminant decision, "do you want to go to the party or not?", you'll make a choice there based on how you feel about parties, how you feel about the people at the party, and how you feel at the moment. If we could press a rewind button on life, go back in time, and repeat that moment with every minute variable identical, would your decision ever vary? If it would, why?

my free will manifests itself in triviality, perhaps that is how it is free.

--------------------
read books

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BuddahKillah
U WANTFITE!?!?!?!?!?!

Registered: 10/15/04
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: CerebralFlower]
#6461247 - 01/15/07 04:30 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Of course, we only have "limited free-will". We can't defy gravity and take off flying any time we feel like it, but within the constraints of necessary connection there are still many possible futures. We can choose to read this, or we can decide to stop reading it. Both are possible futures that obey the laws of physics and the necessary connections between things.

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trendal
point of inflection

Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 18,897
Loc: Ontario, Canada

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#6461314 - 01/15/07 05:25 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

I love how arrogant we humans are :smirk:

To think that the future isn't set, that we have control over how it plays out, is certainly arrogant. If time is a dimension the past and future have to be set*, and it is only to a being caught in time that the future appears as unset.

*all of time would be set, from any perspective outside of time

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BuddahKillah
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#6461389 - 01/15/07 06:19 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Are you trying to say I'm arrogant because of my belief in free will?

I think thats a pretty arrogant statement itself.

1. How can an infinite system be pre-determined?

2. Do you believe in morality?

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trendal
point of inflection

Registered: 04/17/01
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Loc: Ontario, Canada

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BuddahKillah]
#6461522 - 01/15/07 07:45 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Are you trying to say I'm arrogant because of my belief in free will?

Did I reply to you? I said "we humans".

1. How can an infinite system be pre-determined?

You still need to show me some proof that the Universe is infinite in any way.

2. Do you believe in morality?

Humans invented morality, in that sense yes I believe in it.

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BuddahKillah
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#6462861 - 01/15/07 03:13 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Did I reply to you? I said "we humans".

Nice dodge. You implied that anyone who believes in free will is arrogant. Since I believe in free will you are implying that I am arrogant.

You still need to show me some proof that the Universe is infinite in any way.

For the third time :

Even if we live in a finite and "Necessity Connected" Universe it still contained within an infinite space. It has waves flowing into that come from infinity and they can never be pre-determined. This explains the uncertainty of the Quantum Theory. We can never know where each successive In-Wave will meet at its Wave-Center, so we can never exactly know the future motion and position of the particle.

Humans invented morality, in that sense yes I believe in it.

Morality can not exist if the Universe is pre-determined.

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trendal
point of inflection

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Loc: Ontario, Canada

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BuddahKillah]
#6462899 - 01/15/07 03:21 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Nice dodge. You implied that anyone who believes in free will is arrogant. Since I believe in free will you are implying that I am arrogant.

What part of "we" didn't you understand? I include myself in "we"

ven if we live in a finite and "Necessity Connected" Universe it still contained within an infinite space. It has waves flowing into that come from infinity and they can never be pre-determined. This explains the uncertainty of the Quantum Theory. We can never know where each successive In-Wave will meet at its Wave-Center, so we can never exactly know the future motion and position of the particle.

What are these "waves" you speak of? What are they made out of?

Do you even understand quantum theory?

We can certainly know either the position or velocity of a particle. The Uncertainty Principle only says that we cannot know both to a high degree simultaneously.

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BuddahKillah
U WANTFITE!?!?!?!?!?!

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#6463220 - 01/15/07 04:39 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

What part of "we" didn't you understand? I include myself in "we"

So you do believe in free will then?

What are these "waves" you speak of? What are they made out of?

Do you even understand quantum theory?

We can certainly know either the position or velocity of a particle. The Uncertainty Principle only says that we cannot know both to a high degree simultaneously.

We can never know where each successive In-Wave will meet at its Wave-Center, so we can never exactly know both the future motion (momentum) and position of the ‘Particle’

Read that very carefully.

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Maitereya
bohemian

Registered: 03/24/06
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Last seen: 3 years, 10 months

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: BuddahKillah]
#6463289 - 01/15/07 04:58 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

man this shit doesnt matter, be who you are and do what you want.

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Silversoul
Holon

Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 22,562
Loc: Mostly harmless

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#6463646 - 01/15/07 06:31 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Ok, here's the deal: If you put me in a certain point in time, knowing what I knew at the time, and feeling what I felt at the time, I would probably make the same decision all over again. So what? I chose to do what I felt like at the time. A choice determined by my circumstances is still a choice. The only way it wouldn't be a choice would be if someone coerced me into doing it. The fact that we make a certain choice under certain circumstances doesn't make it any less a choice. Again, free will is a function of determinism.

--------------------

Edited by Silversoul (01/16/07 09:58 AM)

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Annom
※※※※※※

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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Silversoul]
#6464940 - 01/16/07 04:56 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

That is a decent definition of free will and coherent with determinism, but this definition doesn't correspond with the free will feeling (most) people have. This definition gives computers free will. A computer makes a choice determined by its (internal or external)input, this choice is always the same for the same input.

Humans are more complex and have more input, but with your definition of free will, you have to agree that computers do have free will, don't you?

That would make free will so general and misleading that we can better call it "pre-determined choice" or something like that.

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Silversoul
Holon

Registered: 01/01/05
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#6465531 - 01/16/07 10:07 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Well, I personally also happen to think there is a certain amount of indeterminism in the universe, as seen in quantum physics. So there is a certain amount of randomness to our circumstances and how we react to it. In fact, isn't evolution based on creating creating order out of randomness(as in random mutations)? I think free will works in a similar way. We're presented with a myriad of choices, and our brain, influenced by our circumstances, narrows those choices down.

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trendal
point of inflection

Registered: 04/17/01
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Loc: Ontario, Canada

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Silversoul]
#6465570 - 01/16/07 10:17 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Quantum mechanics does NOT say that anything is truly random...that is one interpretation, but it isn't what the science itself indicates.

Quantum theory states simply that you can't know various properties of a particle simultaneously.

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Silversoul
Holon

Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 22,562
Loc: Mostly harmless

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: trendal]
#6465576 - 01/16/07 10:19 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

I realize that, but I'm going to take a leap of faith here and go with the Copenhagen interpretation.

--------------------

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trendal
point of inflection

Registered: 04/17/01
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Loc: Ontario, Canada

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Silversoul]
#6465590 - 01/16/07 10:21 AM (5 years, 4 months ago)

As long as you realize that it's only an interpretation...not theory in any sense of the word. :wink:

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Brugman
antisobrietarian

Registered: 05/16/01
Posts: 15,879
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
#6466706 - 01/16/07 03:57 PM (5 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

Annom said:
I agree with Phluck. IMO free will doesn't exist, but it's amazing how we feel that it does exist.

I believe that the universe is a closed deterministic system in which everything can, ultimately, be explained by purely physical causation. All particles have a position, direction, speed, mass, etc. If two particles interact, nothing random will happen, so the position, direction, speed, mass, etc can be calculated(if we know all physical laws) and are just a function of time. In this way we could make a pretty good universe simulator, but it won't be possible to make a perfect universe prediction computer because this computer can never compute all particles in the universe because the computer itself exists and it can never predict his own predictions.

I'm still thinking about this all....

Edit: ^^^ all spelling errors are an effect of the interaction between particles in the universe.

Free Radicals...? Quantum Physics...?

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