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Predestination / Free Will
    #4336543 -

Lately I've been giving a good bit of thought/weight to the idea that all of our actions are determined by the sum of our past expieriences and that free will is just an illusion.  I don't really have a position on the issue, I've just been milling it over in my head.

Anyways, I'd love a little discussion on the topic by the minds in S&P.

This is probably rehash, so I apologize in advance to you types that dislike that kind of thing. :laugh:

:heart:

- Digs

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: Digs]
    #4336593 -

perhaps there is some truth in both

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: Digs]
    #4336663 -

So your choice to post this was an illusion? Are you being controlled by someone?

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: Digs]
    #4336677 -

maybe, just maybe, both are just ideas.

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: moog]
    #4336707 -

moog said:
So your choice to post this was an illusion? Are you being controlled by someone?


Well that's the question, am I being totally controlled by the culmination of all my expieriences or not :smile:

I'd like to think it's a little of both, like there's a certian framework that's set but details are up in the air.  I can't really work out how that could be possible, howerver.

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: Digs]
    #4336760 -

:sigh:

fine, ignore the fact that concepts are worthless in the face of reality.

i'll tackle your question the long way :

Quote:
Lately I've been giving a good bit of thought/weight to the idea that all of our actions are determined by the sum of our past expieriences and that free will is just an illusion.




All conscious action will be supported by something you have in your mind. You can't do anything unpurposefully, because otherwise you wouldn't do it. But who chooses purpose? Well, you. Purpose is entirely subjective. But who are you then?

You're supposedly in possession of a physical brain constructed by DNA. It processes input from your sensory organs and houses some other uses. You are born into a world and experience things, which all just go into your brain, which happens to control your body.

However, your brain and experiences are unique in their specific configuration. You exist and will make choices that no one else will, and all of those choices will be supported by some part of you ( you are not quite one conscious entity, there is some interesting stuff going on with personalities in your brain ). Where is free will? In the fact of your existence.


From a subjective point of view free will must exist because subjectively ( and at least partly objectively ) the past does not exist. As you develop yourself your memories will change, but your memories are representative of your experiences. The sum of your past experiences is thus entirely irrelevant because you are changing them constantly.

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: Digs]
    #4337120 -

These are questions that I have been asking meself lately too.

Could Hitler have NOT been the murdering prick that he was????

Did Jeffery Dahmer have any control over his impulses???
Could he have NOT killed those people???

Was there a different path they could have taken????


:strokebeard:

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: niteowl]
    #4337124 -

obviously since the past is over, no.

the past and future are nonexistent from a realistic point of view

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: vampirism]
    #4337142 -

So Hitler was destined to be a murdering prick?

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: niteowl]
    #4337178 -

does it matter? From our perspective, yes. But destiny is a concept damnit.

There does NOT exist any sort of theoretical progression in the Universe- theory is just a way to put patterns into words. This reminds me of people marvelling at the golden ratio- no the Universe doesn't follow math, but we can describe it using math.

How are you going to put into words something that is impossible to experience or see?

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: niteowl]
    #4337275 -

niteowl said:
So Hitler was destined to be a murdering prick?

Hmmm... I think, even Hitler had a choice. He missed it somewhere on his path.


--------------------
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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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: Digs]
    #4337489 -

The Biblical truth concerning free will/predestination:

Man only can act according to his own nature, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it" (Jer. 17:9). "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Gen 8:21). "The heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil" (Eccl. 8:11). "The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live" (Ecc. 9:3).

Man's will is only "free" to act according to the underlying principles that guide it, this is biblically known as the "heart". Fallen man's will is in bondage, yet he is blind to that bondage. Jesus spoke to the Jews "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, We be Abraham?s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?". They had no clue that they were slaves to a corrupt heart, they had no understanding of it at all. "Out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these things come from within, and defile the man" (Mk. 7:21-23).

"Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil" (Jer. 13:23). This verse is illustrating the impossibility of a fallen heart to change itself. Man is described as being "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph 2:1, Eph 2:5, Col 2:13) Despite this dire condition God has ordained that He will save a people for Himself and "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh." (Eze 36:26) (Heb 8:10)

The entire work of heart replacement is by the will of God, "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth..." (Jas 1:18), "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (Joh 1:13)

On the subject of predestination, the scripture affirms all things are ordained. "Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:" (Isa 46:10) "And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." (Acts 13:48) Christ was delivered up according to determinate counsel "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:" (Acts 2:23)

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: Digs]
    #4337522 -

We all have a choice. If you tell me do A or do B I can always do C. What if I didn't think of C at the time...didn't feel I had a good choice...tough shit.


--------------------
"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: fivepointer]
    #4337536 -

But what the hell does the scripture know? Our science, mathematics and overall understanding of the universe is much better now than 2,000 years ago, so any educated modern human being would be better to talk about free will than Jesus or his apostles millenia ago.

I don't believe in free will, as we are just the sum total of the universe. Whether we follow mathematical equations like clockwork or are influenced by random quantum chaos, either way our physical brains continue to shoot electrons through based on causality and giving us the illusion of free will- but truely we have no more free will than some soil or a star. We are all made of the same matter, all composed of simply subatomic particles, and nowhere from these does free will rise.

I don't actually implement this into my life though, as it won't get you anywhere.


--------------------
So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: Ravus]
    #4337544 -

I notice you keep confusing theory and reality.

Nothing follows math, math is an invention like language.

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: Ravus]
    #4337564 -

I agree that scripture is indeed garbage, but does your predestination leave you in a position to not take responsibilities for your actions? This is a deep philosophical matter, which is, and could be influecing your life. This is not just another issue...but a core matter to all humans. If it does not please explain


--------------------
"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #4337583 -

Reality doesn't follow moral necessity though. Does free will stop and think, "Wait a minute, reality can't be simply electrons in the human neural pathways, otherwise philosophically they can claim there's no responsibility and therefore no justice!"?

Think of humans. Our ancestors were once primitive bacteria. Do these have free will? Most people would concede that no, they do not. Yet as natural selection acted on these bacteria and they evolved into higher lifeforms, higher lifeforms organized a central nervous system which eventually became a brain. Recently, the human brain developed self-consciousness. So did free will arise out of nothing? Or, more likely, is free will simply another process of the brain, just like the reproduction of the bacteria?

On a macroscopic scale, it's all cause and effect. I don't believe free will can be external, but is rather simply a cog being drawn along in a deterministic system, simply another area of the brain responding to its environment and not external to it.


--------------------
So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: Ravus]
    #4337596 -

That was a good, well thought, well written response...but does this world view leave you unresponsible for your actions.


--------------------
"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: Ravus]
    #4337603 -

what about the fact that we aren't quite sure of exactly how or what happens with evolution?

Besides which, can you give me any evidence that bacteria do not have free will? Free will is an idea, just the same as predetermination and quantum theory. Self awareness has been demonstrated in chimpanzees, it's not just a human thing.


At the most basic level you have consciousness, not subatomic particles. Hm. This reminds me of the article Skorp linked before which specifically described consciousness as open space. Ok, fuck what I was saying I need to think about this now.

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Re: Predestination / Free Will [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #4337611 -

That depends. Does a revelation suddenly change our basic functionings? In terms of the functioning of our brains, we've followed causality to develop a sense of responsibility, and by that bare fact alone responsibility is crucial to human nature.

The question is really, does it make a difference? Our actions are the same whether we take responsibility for them or not. Our judgements are the same whether the criminal was truely responsible, because reality doesn't depend on human moral concepts. Knowing this, I'd say we're all responsible for our behavior, because that is how we are built. External to us, it's too complex to comprehend, so we will follow our basic human functionings, and that includes responsibility.


--------------------
So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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