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OfflineMJF
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Free will poll.
    #4695645 - 09/22/05 02:47 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Do you believe we have free will?
You may choose only one
Would the illusion of free will be just as good as free will?
You may choose only one


Votes accepted from (09/22/05 02:47 PM) to (No end specified)
You must vote before you can view the results of this poll


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OfflineAnnom
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: MJF]
    #4695668 - 09/22/05 02:53 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)


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InvisibleRavus
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: MJF]
    #4695677 - 09/22/05 02:55 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

No and yes.

The second one is an interesting question, but seeing as the illusion of free will was developed by natural selection, it evidently serves some purpose, and therefore the illusion is just as good as a hypothetical real thing (which I can't see existing in any scientific universe).


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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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OfflineAnnom
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: Ravus]
    #4695751 - 09/22/05 03:14 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

No and yes for me too, but I don't agree with you that it serves a direct purpose because it was developed by natural selection. It can also be a byproduct; a result of our complex brain. Why do we need to be conscious? Why do we need to experience free will? I don't know. I've never heard a good theory on the direct benefit of (fake) free will.

Is consciousness and the experience of free will just a byproduct of evolution, or is it a direct result of evolution. Could we develop a robot that is exactly the same as a human, but has no consciousness and free will? Or will this robot automatically have free will and consciousness because it is a byproduct, or do we need to create free will and consciousness in a robot to make it behave/think/etc exactly like a human?

I'm sure I could have typed this without being aware of it or experiencing that I chose to type this.

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InvisibleLazyGnome
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: Annom]
    #4695758 - 09/22/05 03:16 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

no and no


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Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pcleas. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by ilstef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

"Everything that we know and understand comes down to perception, and by altering this perception we shake everything we know. All that you and I can know and understand is what we can see smell hear think touch and so on, and when something like mushrooms or salvia alters this steady perception, it can break reality permanently." - Dihnekis

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OfflineMJF
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: LazyGnome]
    #4695807 - 09/22/05 03:26 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

no and yes for me.

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OfflineMJF
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: MJF]
    #4695941 - 09/22/05 03:56 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

i'm sort of suprised by the results.

it looks like someone was unsure whether or not they believe in it...cuz they didn't vote....

if you are unsure isn't that the same as not believing?

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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: MJF]
    #4696084 - 09/22/05 04:23 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

I would like to say that I have free will, but at this point I'm not sure what exactly it is. I certainly don't know of anyone who says that we act completely independently of our environment and experiences, so obviously there must be a certain degree of determinism. In fact, I can't think of any decision one makes which is completely independent of other determining factors, and even if that were the case, it would not be free will -- it would be indeterminism(randomness). It is this fact which led David Hume to conclude that free will actually required a certain degree of determinism.

The closest explanation of free will I can think of is that for any given situation, our experiences and environment leave us with a limited number of options to choose from, of which we may freely choose one. There are many situations where I can't really say that my experiences and environment biased me to make the decision I did, because I frequently make decisions by flipping a coing. But again, that just goes back to the indeterminism thing. In such situations, my decision is influenced by the random chance of the coin landing heads or tails.

Then there are dilemnas in our life, in which part of us wants to do one thing while another part wants to do the other. Sometimes these are moral dilemnas, in which our conscience tells us one thing but our desires tell us another. But do we choose our morals? Most of our ideas of right and wrong are learned from our family or from society. But for many of us, certain morals and ideas are arrived at through contemplation or intuition rather than through socialization. The mere fact that we have morals is testament to the power and complexity of the human mind in being able to suppress our primal instincts for some percieved greater good. For most animals, there shouldn't be such a thing as a moral dilemna in the first place.

Perhaps that is it. Perhaps what we call free will is merely a characteristic of our highly evolved brains of unimaginable complexity. At a certain level of complexity, the line between self-conscious independent action and programmed responses becomes indistinguishable.


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Offlinepsychomime
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: Annom]
    #4696535 - 09/22/05 05:48 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Annom said:
I've never heard a good theory on the direct benefit of (fake) free will.





well how about this then. the illusion of free will is neccessary to take action in a timely manner. Ones choice is predetermined by genetics, instinct, social conditioning, brain chemistry, past experience and a myriad of other causes. however, when making a choice, one seldom has the time to question the causes of their action. The action must be taken in the heat of the moment. a belief that your action is free allows you to make a choice quickly instead of getting stuck in processing the why's. this has obvious survival benefits (life or death decisions are often split second choices) hence the evolution of the illusion of free will.

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InvisibleAsante
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: MJF]
    #4696565 - 09/22/05 05:53 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

no free will, and yes, bogus free will is just as good. :thumbup:

Some people have no choice but to believe in free will, though.


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Omnicyclion.org
higher knowledge starts here

Edited by Asante (09/22/05 05:54 PM)

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InvisibleShroomismM
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: Asante]
    #4696580 - 09/22/05 05:57 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

^ the opposite of what he said

:grin:

lol


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InvisibleAsante
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: Shroomism]
    #4696631 - 09/22/05 06:08 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Forgive him Holy Father, and may he once be brought into the Light of Divine knowledge and see the wicked errors of his heresy. Forgive him his ignorance: He knows not of what he speaks :evil:

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InvisibleShroomismM
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: Asante]
    #4696638 - 09/22/05 06:09 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

wait... why don't I have free will?

so I couldn't just go do whatever I wanted to do.. right now? Because I wanted to do it?


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InvisibleAsante
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: Shroomism]
    #4696653 - 09/22/05 06:13 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

The universe is fixed like breakfast heroin.

I believe in perfect predestination without a single deviation. If you roll the dice we don't know that we will throw a 3 and a 5. If you look at the exact trajectories of the dice however the 3 and the 5 are inevitable. The entire universe is like that, including our flights of fancy. At least, thats my theoscientific conviction.

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InvisibleShroomismM
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: Asante]
    #4696670 - 09/22/05 06:17 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

I'm a believer in free will within the constraints of the universal constants.
We create reality. Or at least.. I do. If I wanted to I could go live on the street and be a smack junkie. Or I could become a successful musician. Or both. There's no universal forces making me do those things.. and if I wanted to NOT do those things, I can do that too. Although I am subject to the laws of the universe, always.. and I will surrender my free will to the divine will in my best interests.


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InvisibleAsante
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: Shroomism]
    #4696688 - 09/22/05 06:21 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Ah, the bondage of freedom :smile:

How can your free will break free from cause and effect? Considering the fact we're smack in the middle of time one coulds argue that every cause (free will) is an effect of that which came before. How are we not dice or colliding molecules?


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Omnicyclion.org
higher knowledge starts here

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OfflineAnnom
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: Shroomism]
    #4696692 - 09/22/05 06:23 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

You don't have free will because every action is truly random or an effect of something. There is no place between true random and cause and effect for free will. The universe is a big combination of true random events and cause and effect events, on the microlevel. I'm not saying that this is the universal ultimate truth, but it is the best I can get with logic reasoning based on experimentally tested theories. The rest is all fantasy for me, which can be very fun, but is not a result of rational thinking.

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InvisibleAsante
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: Annom]
    #4696708 - 09/22/05 06:27 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Isn't "true random" a copout for "we haven't got the slightest clue as to how to predict what it does next"? And isn't that a predictable parameter of "True Randomness"?

Dude, it's 2:30! Still up? :wink:


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Omnicyclion.org
higher knowledge starts here

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InvisibleShroomismM
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: Annom]
    #4696710 - 09/22/05 06:28 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Yes, but I can be the cause, and the effect. If I choose to play that role.


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InvisibleAsante
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Re: Free will poll. [Re: Shroomism]
    #4696721 - 09/22/05 06:29 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Every cause is the effect of the causes before it. How late is it there? ^_^


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