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OfflineAlan Stone
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Registered: 11/23/02
Posts: 986
Loc: Ten feet up
Last seen: 18 years, 8 months
Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
    #2032557 - 10/22/03 01:34 PM (20 years, 5 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.


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

- Aristotle

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OfflineAlan Stone
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Registered: 11/23/02
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
    #2032583 - 10/22/03 01:43 PM (20 years, 5 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.


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

- Aristotle

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OfflinePhluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Alan Stone]
    #2032640 - 10/22/03 02:00 PM (20 years, 5 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.


--------------------
"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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OfflineStrumpling
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
    #2032689 - 10/22/03 02:10 PM (20 years, 5 months ago)

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

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


--------------------
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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OfflineAnnom
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Strumpling]
    #2032717 - 10/22/03 02:22 PM (20 years, 5 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: :wink: 

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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Annom]
    #2032743 - 10/22/03 02:33 PM (20 years, 5 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 03:45 PM (20 years, 5 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.  :smirk: 




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 iamhimheisme (10/22/03 05:05 PM)

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InvisibleZero7a1
Leaving YourWasteland

Registered: 10/23/02
Posts: 3,594
Loc: Passing Cloud
Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
    #2034863 - 10/23/03 01:02 AM (20 years, 5 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?...


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

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OfflinePhluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
    #2034887 - 10/23/03 01:10 AM (20 years, 5 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.



--------------------
"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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Offlinehongomon
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Registered: 04/14/02
Posts: 910
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
    #2034902 - 10/23/03 01:15 AM (20 years, 5 months ago)

To me it's a lot like discussing solipsism.

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InvisibleZero7a1
Leaving YourWasteland

Registered: 10/23/02
Posts: 3,594
Loc: Passing Cloud
Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
    #2034918 - 10/23/03 01:22 AM (20 years, 5 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 !


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

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OfflinePhluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
    #2034953 - 10/23/03 01:34 AM (20 years, 5 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.


--------------------
"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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OfflineFrog
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
    #2034961 - 10/23/03 01:37 AM (20 years, 5 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.


--------------------
The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.  -Teilard

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OfflineStrumpling
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
    #2034969 - 10/23/03 01:39 AM (20 years, 5 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


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

Edited by Strumpling (10/23/03 01:50 AM)

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InvisibleZero7a1
Leaving YourWasteland

Registered: 10/23/02
Posts: 3,594
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
    #2036867 - 10/23/03 04:29 PM (20 years, 5 months ago)

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


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

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InvisibleZero7a1
Leaving YourWasteland

Registered: 10/23/02
Posts: 3,594
Loc: Passing Cloud
Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Strumpling]
    #2036892 - 10/23/03 04:34 PM (20 years, 5 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....


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

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OfflinePhluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
    #2036920 - 10/23/03 04:39 PM (20 years, 5 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.


--------------------
"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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Anonymous

Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Zero7a1]
    #2037141 - 10/23/03 05:32 PM (20 years, 5 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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OfflinePhluck
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Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: ]
    #2037460 - 10/23/03 06:53 PM (20 years, 5 months ago)

Well put.


--------------------
"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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InvisibleZero7a1
Leaving YourWasteland

Registered: 10/23/02
Posts: 3,594
Loc: Passing Cloud
Re: Free will is bullshit. [Re: Phluck]
    #2037528 - 10/23/03 07:14 PM (20 years, 5 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?


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

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