Home | Community | Message Board

MRCA Tyroler Gluckspilze
This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.


Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: OlympusMyco.com Olympus Myco Bulk Substrate   Kraken Kratom Kratom Capsules for Sale   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Mushroom-Hut Mono Tub Substrate   North Spore Cultivation Supplies

Jump to first unread post Pages: < Back | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Next >  [ show all ]
OfflineCaptainKurt
Stranger


Registered: 04/30/15
Posts: 160
Last seen: 8 years, 10 months
Re: Free Will [Re: SeaShrooms]
    #21664547 - 05/11/15 09:16 AM (9 years, 9 days ago)

Is addiction an absence of freewill?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinequazerjunkie420
goofball
 User Gallery


Registered: 03/18/15
Posts: 137
Last seen: 8 years, 9 months
Re: Free Will [Re: CaptainKurt]
    #21664608 - 05/11/15 09:50 AM (9 years, 9 days ago)

You can choose to overcome your addiction. ...cant you?...if you have objectively determined that those are the actions you want to take....maybe you choose to not care about your addiction. ...

Wether you remain addicted or not is up to you...isnt it?... lol....

That bob dylan quote expressed so much that I couldnt even begin to put into words....that dudes a genius.

Its like with death.....its fate....this form of you will end. You will die....however you want to word that.....whatever the process is....it will happen. You ultimately cannot escape that.....but....you dont have to wait for everything you dont controll to controll how it manifests.....we can always kill ourselves right now.... you have to die sometime....you can choose how.....

Determinism states that everything has sufficient cause....even how humans act....and realy....the definition of freewill renders the constraints of necessity that our psyches present not considerable....so maybe determinism is very valid.....and freewill still exist....its just that freewill isnt as strong a force as we want it to be...


--------------------
Aaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahaha...*desperately trys to breath*...aahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...*starts coughing*.....chlllegm...haaaaawk....*swishes spit*

Edited by quazerjunkie420 (05/11/15 09:59 AM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleDividedQuantumM
Outer Head
Male User Gallery

Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,885
Re: Free Will [Re: quazerjunkie420]
    #21664727 - 05/11/15 10:44 AM (9 years, 9 days ago)

Quote:

quazerjunkie420 said:
....so maybe determinism is very valid.....and freewill still exist....its just that freewill isnt as strong a force as we want it to be...




Just wanted to chime back in, and say that this is an excellent way of restating my main point from earlier in the thread.  Determinism is approximately true, but there's got to be room for a conscious will to be a factor some of the time.  We're not totally robotic.  Like I said, reality is much more complex than it being appropriate to lump things accurately into either-or categories.  There is a wide spectrum of different possibilities we can find ourselves in, so it is inappropriate to say it's always one thing or the other, when it can be both-and, neither-nor etc.


--------------------
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinequazerjunkie420
goofball
 User Gallery


Registered: 03/18/15
Posts: 137
Last seen: 8 years, 9 months
Re: Free Will [Re: quazerjunkie420] * 1
    #21664839 - 05/11/15 11:17 AM (9 years, 9 days ago)

Note about my last post:....im ignorant of alot of things....so maybe my interpritation of what we experiance is in its infancy.....o well....

So there could be alot im missing....

About evidence..

Evidence doesnt necessarily prove anything...its just grounds for a belief...and just because theres no evidence to support something doesnt mean it isnt whats real....right?

Put your statistical anomalies in a pipe and smoke em you silly goof lol

They dont help to define what is anymore then when people highlight concepts using hypothetical situations. ...

Its evidence...its not definitive.

Your post is evidence.....Your choice to see determinism as potentially definitive is an example of you deciding based on objective reason..you used your discretion...and act a certain way because of that choice.  That is freewill. ...is it not?..

I forgot who this post is aimed at. Im so high right now.


--------------------
Aaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahaha...*desperately trys to breath*...aahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...*starts coughing*.....chlllegm...haaaaawk....*swishes spit*

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineBlueCoyote
Beyond
Male User Gallery

Registered: 05/07/04
Posts: 6,697
Loc: Between
Last seen: 3 years, 4 months
Re: Free Will [Re: blackdust]
    #21665213 - 05/11/15 12:42 PM (9 years, 9 days ago)

I am sorry, too many walls of text here....
All what I can say is, if you don't know what to choose, at least know what not to...
:shrug:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisibleonce in a lifetime
sun child
 User Gallery


Registered: 02/12/15
Posts: 1,807
Re: Free Will [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #21665462 - 05/11/15 01:50 PM (9 years, 9 days ago)

^ BlueCoyote, Yeah I hear ya.  Simplicity is generally best. 2 hours ago I was in a tree, loving it, the thought passed my mind,

'One is bound until one is free, and then one is free.'

Just a random thought really.

Quote:

quazerjunkie420
Take credit....give blame....WHOOP WHOOP.......uuuggghhhhh....*facepalm*...




Enjoy your posts a lot, QJ :-)

Yeah this is a funny thing to me too.  Quite a while back I realized that if you take responsibility, then it's actually a huge relief, because you're no longer worried about blame on anyone. . . There was an Hindu acharya who took this to the extreme. . I have found that's not necessary at all; one can get liberated a little easier than that, but the principle is the same.

Quote:

That bob dylan quote expressed so much that I couldnt even begin to put into words....that dudes a genius.




:sun: According to Emerson and others, everyone is a genius, or has a genius.  I've come to see that's more true.  Fascinating thing when you really get at it - indeed those who are simple by nature without ever including a trace of complexity, are often among the best examples of good mental health.  Some of us have to get back to simplicity after having thought it was all complicated. :smile:

A nice quote from Tantra Buddhism,


'So close you can't see it

So deep you can't fathom it

So simple you can't believe it

So good you can't accept it'

from the Shangpa translated by McLeod.


In Japanese there's a word for the type of person who is very simple, but sort of elevated spiritually, and it's very common among many villages. . I don't remember the name for it, but A.W. talks about it in his autobiography.


--------------------
Innocent, Oldfield & Hegerland          Julia Delaney, Bothy Band                                        Rasta Girl, Sister Carol                    Genesis, Jorma K
I Wish You Peace, Lawrence Laughing                                                                                                                    Do Your Thing, Moondog                     
large  . . music garden . .  very
all peace                    them hi
Starhouse - main
Time Traveler's Guide

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRennHuhn
Stranger

Registered: 03/12/15
Posts: 75
Last seen: 4 years, 8 days
Re: Free Will [Re: blackdust] * 1
    #21671049 - 05/12/15 05:42 PM (9 years, 8 days ago)

For us as humans there only is free will, there is no way to experience our own lack of free will, to do that we would need to understand something more complex than ourselves and if we could do that we would no longer be ourselves. But someone else. Consciousness cant work without a free will, it maybe an illusion. But If we can experience an illusion there is something that experiences, and when there is something that experiences it means there is an I, a consciousness.

"Free will" arises out of a network of neurons. But that does not mean that free will does not exist.

The only thing that counts to us is our own experience and as long as we experience there is an I that can experience. If this I arises out of logic, so what? I think therefore I am. Free will is not something that is diametric to the materialistic world view or logic. Our universe has rules and forces and so on, why shouldn't there be an inherent force of will?

Edited by RennHuhn (05/12/15 05:46 PM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinesecondorder
Amanda Hug'n'kiss
Male User Gallery


Registered: 04/05/15
Posts: 532
Loc: Queensland, Australia
Last seen: 1 year, 30 days
Re: Free Will [Re: RennHuhn]
    #21672574 - 05/12/15 10:59 PM (9 years, 8 days ago)

Quote:

For us as humans there only is free will, there is no way to experience our own lack of free will, to do that we would need to understand something more complex than ourselves and if we could do that we would no longer be ourselves. But someone else. Consciousness cant work without a free will, it maybe an illusion. But If we can experience an illusion there is something that experiences, and when there is something that experiences it means there is an I, a consciousness.

"Free will" arises out of a network of neurons. But that does not mean that free will does not exist.

The only thing that counts to us is our own experience and as long as we experience there is an I that can experience. If this I arises out of logic, so what? I think therefore I am. Free will is not something that is diametric to the materialistic world view or logic. Our universe has rules and forces and so on, why shouldn't there be an inherent force of will?




I think you are talking about a different 'free will' than some of the other people here. Free will is not synonymous with consciousness. When you say "Consciousness cannot work without free will" I am fairly certain that you are talking about something entirely different when using the phrase "free will".

Take for example the phenomenon of Anesthetic awareness. Sometimes during surgery, a patient will 'wake up' from their anesthetic. They are able to feel everything going on in the surgery, yet they are not able to do anything about it. They cannot flex any of their muscles voluntarily. They cannot open their eyes, twitch their fingers etc. There is no way for them to signal to the surgeons that they are conscious of the entire procedure. If consciousness cannot work without free will, then in what sense does a person under anesthetic awareness have 'free will'?

The type of free will I was referring to, is such that a free agent 'could have done otherwise. Next time you perform an action 'freely,' think about whether you could have done otherwise. If the same you with the same memories and the same genetics and the same intentions and the same biases etc. If the exact same 'you' were put in the exact same situation, could you have done otherwise?

Your answer to this question will determine what you mean when you say 'free will.'

I think that much of the discussion on free will in this thread has led to confusing interactions with one another due mainly to the fact that 'free will' is difficult to define. Everybody assumes they know what the term means, but then during a discussion it becomes quite apparent that many different people are talking about different things. And explaining exactly what you mean by the phrase is really quite difficult.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRennHuhn
Stranger

Registered: 03/12/15
Posts: 75
Last seen: 4 years, 8 days
Re: Free Will [Re: secondorder]
    #21673263 - 05/13/15 03:48 AM (9 years, 7 days ago)

I believe free will is the ability to control your thoughts and decide. If this decision can be acted upon is irrelevant.
I think controling your own thought is necessary to be conscious and necessary to actually be. I dont think you candevide the human psyche in different realms or create a difference between free will and consciousness.

There is some evidence that free will us like an illusion that justifies our actions, where our free will takes a backseat. For example when our brain makes decisions its only after our brain decided that we become conscious about our decision. Or there where experiments during brain operations where people where forced to move their body through neuron manipulation, but afterwards they all told that they did it out of their own free will...

Concerning your question, I allways try to act on my best knowledge, and most of the time I dont think I could have acted different but some times there is the situation where I think that I acted more or less random not even on a whim. Where I just decided on something without knowing anything about it. And these decisions could have gone both ways.

But this question is irrelevant to my point, my point was that the question if we have free will is not answerable from a human perspective.

Edited by RennHuhn (05/13/15 05:06 AM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinesecondorder
Amanda Hug'n'kiss
Male User Gallery


Registered: 04/05/15
Posts: 532
Loc: Queensland, Australia
Last seen: 1 year, 30 days
Re: Free Will [Re: RennHuhn]
    #21673477 - 05/13/15 06:05 AM (9 years, 7 days ago)

Quote:

I think controling your own thought is necessary to be conscious and necessary to actually be.




What do you mean by controlling your own thought? Control in what sense?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRennHuhn
Stranger

Registered: 03/12/15
Posts: 75
Last seen: 4 years, 8 days
Re: Free Will [Re: secondorder]
    #21673688 - 05/13/15 07:52 AM (9 years, 7 days ago)

Steering your thought, deciding what you want to think and so on, deciding which thoughts you want ro follow. Its hard to describe. Having second thoughts, all the actions that you do daily in your mind. This what most people call free will.You need this to be you.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinesecondorder
Amanda Hug'n'kiss
Male User Gallery


Registered: 04/05/15
Posts: 532
Loc: Queensland, Australia
Last seen: 1 year, 30 days
Re: Free Will [Re: RennHuhn]
    #21674174 - 05/13/15 10:50 AM (9 years, 7 days ago)

How could you decide what thought to think prior to thinking it? Even decisions themselves are thoughts.

I'm assuming your response will be something like: "Well secondorder, I can think about whatever I want. Right now I'm going to think about elephants, see I just decided what I wanted to think about, and then thought of it. I controlled what I was thinking about."

To this I point out that your decision to think about elephants just popped into your head. Why didn't you decide to think about paint or computers, or famous sculptures etc? Because elephants just popped into your head. The idea 'elephants' just popped into your head, and then the decision to actively think about elephants also popped into your head. You can't choose thoughts before they appear in your consciousness. They just appear in your consciousness.

Please, for the next 10 seconds, think something, anything. Think about something, or think about not thinking at all etc. Just think about something and notice the nature of your consciousness as you are performing this task.
What did you think about? Now ask yourself, why did you think about that thing, and not something else? You were free to think about absolutely anything. Why is it that you thought about what you thought about? Because it just popped into your head. 'You' had no control over what popped into your head prior to it popping into your head.

I'm trying my best to articulate the ontological nature of thought, and it's fairly difficult to do so. In order to understand what I am saying for yourself, and not simply entertaining the ideas that I am throwing out there, just pay close attention to your consciousness. Ask yourself questions, like "Why am I thinking what i am thinking?" And then when you answer that question keep asking "Why?" and you should eventually know what I'm talking about.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRennHuhn
Stranger

Registered: 03/12/15
Posts: 75
Last seen: 4 years, 8 days
Re: Free Will [Re: secondorder]
    #21674268 - 05/13/15 11:18 AM (9 years, 7 days ago)

I get just fine what you want to say. But the point is that asking why leads to nothing. Just nothing, I say it again in again a slightly different explanation: You cant experience your own not free will. You cant understand that what gives rise to you by looking inside of you, because you would need to be outside of yourself.

Asking the question of free will is like asking what was before the big bang, a nice question and still ultimately unanswerable. And thus I trust myself as it is the only thing that is self evident.

Edited by RennHuhn (05/13/15 11:20 AM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleDividedQuantumM
Outer Head
Male User Gallery

Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,885
Re: Free Will [Re: secondorder]
    #21674309 - 05/13/15 11:30 AM (9 years, 7 days ago)

"I have spoken as if our attention were wholly determined by neural conditions.  I believe that the array of things we can attend to is so determined.  No object can catch our attention except by the neural machinery.  But the amount of the attention which an object receives after it has caught our attention is another question.  It often takes effort to keep mind upon it.  We feel that we can make more or less of the effort as we choose.  If this feeling be not deceptive, if our effort be a spiritual force, and an indeterminate one, then of course it contributes coequally with the cerebral conditions to the result.  Though it introduce no new idea, it will deepen and prolong the stay in consciousness of innumerable ideas which else would fade more quickly away."  --William James


--------------------
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineJ.T
Condensed to a singularity
Male User Gallery


Registered: 04/13/07
Posts: 451
Loc: New Zealand Flag
Last seen: 6 years, 4 months
Re: Free Will [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21677826 - 05/14/15 06:28 AM (9 years, 6 days ago)

Well let's say there is free will, how can we empirically test it? We can't.
So lets say there isn't free will, well again, how can we empirically test it? We can't either.

So lets argue that there is free will, great, we can do what ever (depending on our environment) to create a winning outcome, or choose not.

If there isn't free will, then it doesn't matter as we have no control of it, and are just doing what we're doing, it is irrelevant as we don't know any better.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinesecondorder
Amanda Hug'n'kiss
Male User Gallery


Registered: 04/05/15
Posts: 532
Loc: Queensland, Australia
Last seen: 1 year, 30 days
Re: Free Will [Re: RennHuhn]
    #21688962 - 05/17/15 12:27 AM (9 years, 3 days ago)

Quote:

You cant experience your own not free will.




Actually you can, some Eastern philosophies and religions have been doing so through meditation for hundreds of years.

Quote:

You cant understand that what gives rise to you by looking inside of you, because you would need to be outside of yourself.




This, I agree with. I think this quote is relevant:

"Nothing about a brain, when surveyed as a physical system, suggests that it is a locus of experience. Were we not already brimming with consciousness ourselves, we would find no evidence for it in the universe—nor would we have any notion of the many experiential states that it gives rise to. The only proof that it is like something to be you at this moment is the fact (obvious only to you) that it is like something to be you."

- Sam Harris


We don't know what the next thought is that will pop into our head. We don't know what will give rise to the next thought that pops into our head. Our consciousness is a passive observation of what goes on in our mind. So yes, I agree with you here.

I must ask, just for my own understanding of your views: If, under laboratory conditions, a scientist could demonstrate that they know what you are going to do, before you know what you are going to do, would that change your view on free will?
Let me explain further for clarity's sake: This would mean that before you are even aware that you have made a decision to do a particular thing, a scientist already knew what you were going to do. Would an experiment that demonstrates this phenomenon change your mind on the issue of free will?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinesecondorder
Amanda Hug'n'kiss
Male User Gallery


Registered: 04/05/15
Posts: 532
Loc: Queensland, Australia
Last seen: 1 year, 30 days
Re: Free Will [Re: J.T]
    #21688975 - 05/17/15 12:32 AM (9 years, 3 days ago)

Quote:

Well let's say there is free will, how can we empirically test it? We can't.
So lets say there isn't free will, well again, how can we empirically test it? We can't either.




I disagree, see above.

Unless you are talking about something completely different when you use the phrase 'free will,' then isn't it fairly straight forward how to test for the lack of free will? If a scientist could predict which decisions you were about to make before you were even aware of having made a decision, wouldn't this disprove free will?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRennHuhn
Stranger

Registered: 03/12/15
Posts: 75
Last seen: 4 years, 8 days
Re: Free Will [Re: secondorder]
    #21689481 - 05/17/15 06:07 AM (9 years, 3 days ago)

There where experiments with a quite good rate of success that predicted decisions, but these experiments are not a proof that free will does not exist because who says that I didnt decide?. Maybe ideas and hunches are not created conscious but my position is that it is not important as we experience our own consciousness as having free will. Thats whats important. I am not only the I that experiences I am also my subconsciousness.

My position is not that there is or there isnt a free will from a "scientific" standpoint but that there is no way to change my experience. And thus this question is irrelevant. Free will is something that is inherent to our being, there cant be a human without free will.

Besides that as long as true randomness exists all attempts at claiming scientific truth about free will is doomed to fail. To come to some kind of conclusion you would need two peefect copies of the same brain behaving exactly the same in an exactly the same environment with insufficient data for the brain to make decisions. But even then experience reigns supreme and I wouldnt change.

Could you give me some hints where I can read about experiencing your own not free will?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinesecondorder
Amanda Hug'n'kiss
Male User Gallery


Registered: 04/05/15
Posts: 532
Loc: Queensland, Australia
Last seen: 1 year, 30 days
Re: Free Will [Re: RennHuhn]
    #21689626 - 05/17/15 07:39 AM (9 years, 3 days ago)

Quote:

Maybe ideas and hunches are not created conscious but my position is that it is not important as we experience our own consciousness as having free will. Thats whats important. I am not only the I that experiences I am also my subconsciousness.




Then you are just using the phrase differently than I am, in which case we agree on the issue, any further disagreement is just semantic. I am okay with defining 'you' as more than just your conscious, but also your subconscious etc.

Quote:

Besides that as long as true randomness exists all attempts at claiming scientific truth about free will is doomed to fail. To come to some kind of conclusion you would need two peefect copies of the same brain behaving exactly the same in an exactly the same environment with insufficient data for the brain to make decisions. But even then experience reigns supreme and I wouldnt change.




Just because there is randomness doesn't mean there is free will. It only challenges hard determinism, which I am fine with, I am not necessarily a hard determinist. If our decisions are the result of randomness, I don't see how that gives us more control or freedom...

Quote:

Free will is something that is inherent to our being, there cant be a human without free will.
Could you give me some hints where I can read about experiencing your own not free will?




Meditation that aims for ego-less experiences e.g. vipassana. If you experience egolessness, then you experience a dissolving of the very thing that supposedly makes 'free' decisions. Without experiencing an ego, (which is an illusion anyway) how could you experience any free will? Experiencing this through meditation takes a long time for most people, which is why multiple year meditation retreats are fairly common. Or, of course, you could experience the same phenomenon much more reliably with a decent dose of your good ol' friend psilocybin :wink:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRennHuhn
Stranger

Registered: 03/12/15
Posts: 75
Last seen: 4 years, 8 days
Re: Free Will [Re: secondorder]
    #21691056 - 05/17/15 03:43 PM (9 years, 3 days ago)

Dissolving your ego is not experiencing yourself.

A deterministic worldview is necessary to claim that free will does not exist. With true randomess who can prove that my random decisions that are not in any way predetermined are not in fact my decisions made out of not my own free will?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: < Back | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Next >  [ show all ]

Shop: OlympusMyco.com Olympus Myco Bulk Substrate   Kraken Kratom Kratom Capsules for Sale   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Mushroom-Hut Mono Tub Substrate   North Spore Cultivation Supplies


Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* Im Back!!! and still convinced free will is an illusion ;)
( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 all )
ZenGecko 16,245 148 04/22/07 10:22 PM
by PhanTomCat
* Big Questions (comments on free will)
( 1 2 3 all )
Attackgecko 4,894 49 04/22/07 10:23 PM
by Phred
* Free will is bullshit.
( 1 2 3 4 ... 19 20 )
Phluck 35,335 380 01/16/07 04:57 PM
by Brugman
* free will and insanity
( 1 2 3 all )
NiamhNyx 5,497 51 02/02/04 07:52 AM
by kaiowas
* Singularity, Free Will, Infinite Dimensions...
( 1 2 all )
Joshua 6,396 30 04/12/02 03:47 PM
by skaMariaPastora
* Free will!
( 1 2 all )
Gomp 1,570 27 03/20/05 09:50 AM
by Gomp
* Patent granted on Free Energy Device!
( 1 2 all )
Anonymous 3,137 20 04/17/02 08:24 PM
by Anonymous
* Free Will, Redemption, and Judgement
( 1 2 3 all )
DoctorJ 4,338 57 03/25/05 08:19 AM
by Delusion_of_Self

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Middleman, DividedQuantum
3,845 topic views. 0 members, 7 guests and 11 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2024 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.024 seconds spending 0.006 seconds on 14 queries.