What if there's more to our conciousness and will than physical properties. I'm not necessarily saying soul, per se, but maybe something similar. Where would that fall into this?
I should note that I don't believe in the traditional idea of a soul.. I'm just curious and find this discussion to be fascinating.
There doesn't need to be more to it than physical properties. Not until we fully understand everything about every aspect and function involved in neurochemistry. Which we don't, by an absurdly wide margin.
If I ate whatever was at hand when hungry and shat on the floor whenever I felt the urge, you'd have an argument. But, uh, no.
But evolution's programmed you differently. Your mistake is not seeing how you're hard-wired to do all this stuff.
I"m hardwired to pick between the two different flavours of tea I've got in the cupboard? Pasta or roast veggies for dinner?
We're not saying you're "hardwired" to prefer one flavour over another, nor that you were "destined" or "predetermined" to choose that flavour. We're saying that whatever flavour you pick, given the technology and sufficient understanding of how the brain works, we could go back and show how ongoing electrochemical processes in your body led to your choosing that particular flavour.
People need to stop characterizing our position as one that believes in destiny and other such nonsense.
All well and good, but it's how it comes across simply because it sounds like you are saying the situation is infinitely repeatable given the same circumstances and stimuli. If there is no difference between 2 tea bags sitting side by side, would I pick up the right, or the left? If I was faced with the same situation with the same chemical component in my body with the same environmental stimuli, would I pick the same side repeatedly?
In other words, you are denying that the scientific method is valid. Are you sure you want to make that claim?
What if there's more to our conciousness and will than physical properties. I'm not necessarily saying soul, per se, but maybe something similar. Where would that fall into this?
Well that's just silly. "Something more." Like what, exactly?
All well and good, but it's how it comes across simply because it sounds like you are saying the situation is infinitely repeatable given the same circumstances and stimuli. If there is no difference between 2 tea bags sitting side by side, would I pick up the right, or the left? If I was faced with the same situation with the same chemical component in my body with the same environmental stimuli, would I pick the same side repeatedly?
In other words, you are denying that the scientific method is valid. Are you sure you want to make that claim?
We're not talking about something that is governed by the Laws of Thermodynamics here, we're talking about two metaphilosophical theories that don't currently conform with any set of rules because we don't really know the rules to begin with. All we have to stand on atm is what we choose to think is correct.
I posed questions, rather then making an outright claim. I've already said what I believe, as my part in this debate I feel it's my duty to question the oppositions position to support mine : b
There isn't more to our conciousness than physical properties that we can ever become aware of but we haven't exactly nailed down physical properties as of yet or even proven that there is an end in sight. Yes, your "effects come from causes" principle is hard to argue with in science, but the in between and the all around that we haven't filled is compelling enough to avoid philosophically painting the universe with the colors we're limited to. You say, "you can only paint with the colors you got" and I ask "well how many are there and what are they?"
And I point to the apes we came from who couldn't even define what color is to themselves and I tell you if we're capable of being aware of our horizons and expanding them by our wills and not the intervention of unknowable chance then there's something in that, and there's something more to come. The apes were given a thumb and we are the descendents of the ones who chose to pick up the brush with that, whatever neural cocktail made that result. So maybe choice can be a choice if it comes from a false choice, false because it came from chance.
I'm getting insanely philosophical here so I'll try to distill it. I could accept determinism if existence was a box, set borders and set properties. But I don't believe that. Existence is endless property with infinite variance. So there!
Your mistake lies in deliberate oversimplification - in fact, the only way your argument survives is if you characterise my actions in a highly specific and deliberate way. As soon as I point out that I regularly put off fulfilling biological needs until its convenient, that i exercise a great deal of choice in what and how much I eat, etc etc, its all falls apart. If I ate whatever was at hand when hungry and shat on the floor whenever I felt the urge, you'd have an argument. But, uh, no.
You put off eating for a reason. Even if you're just sitting there being lazy, there's a reason; conditioning, barometric pressure, depression, whatever. Everything you do can be explained by a cause, a motivation, usually without even resorting to microcosmic physical determinism. Usually you'd put off eating because you're busy. That's not an exercise of free will, bending the laws of causality, it's simply a response to the stimuli of your environment.
More importantly, you put off eating because you want something else more than you want to eat. Why do you want that something else? There are many explanations that are easier than "I violate causality," and they make more sense.
The issue is not whether you have a choice. Clearly you can eat or not eat. The issue is why you choose one or the other. There is always a reason, easily visible or not, connected to biology or environment or circumstance. What else is there to motivate you? Whatever self or personality exists between your ears is composed of those reasons, is driven by those reasons, and nothing else. What else would there be? The only answer would be some sort of magical soul that acts outside of causality, and even that doesn't make any sense because it still makes you want to eat (or put off eating so that you can mow the lawn) and thus still conforms to those perfectly physical, deterministic causes.
I am curious as to what your definition of free will would be. What is free will free from?
What if there's more to our conciousness and will than physical properties. I'm not necessarily saying soul, per se, but maybe something similar. Where would that fall into this?
Sounds like the homunculus fallacy.
Also, if you hadn't limed that yourself LiveWire, I would have.
Also, "you don't have free will" doens't mean you don't have a will. It just means your will is being controlled by the laws of causality.
Addressing a statement like the topic above is difficult because it simultaneously is both correct and incorrect. It's correct when taken 100% literally - there is no such thing as free will, but it's wrong because it springs from the illusion of the self - you think there's a separate 'you' to begin with. As long as you think you exist as a jumble of thoughts inside a bag of skin you will be wrong on this and countless other areas. Then in your point of view you either have free will so you can resist the 'other' or you're a robot. This is a symptom of the ego. It's very problematic to address an issue such as this in a debate format because it deals with fundamental truths and fundamental truths are, by their very nature, non-conceptual. They just ARE. Like the space between stars. At best you can only point toward it.
Now lets look at the concept of free will. This illusion stems from selective identification to your voluntary actions. You think you are what you decide to do. There's a problem however. You can decide to jump up and down. But how do you decide to decide? Voluntary action is just one causal step removed from involuntary. People use this as evidence of no free will but they are still stuck in illusion. Lets keep going. What if you were to identify just as strongly with your involuntary actions? They are just as much you because if your heart didn't beat and your food didn't digest there wouldn't be anymore you in the mundane sense just as surely as if your thoughts and memories were to vanish. But you can't do this as long as you're still "playing the game", that is - perpetual thought identification because of an unconscious fear of death. So I don't expect anyone on a debate board to go all the way here and now. Once you realize that you are the beating of your heart it only keeps going. Because then you'd also know that when you saw that candy bar and got hungry that you also were the candy bar because now you are a craving that wouldn't have existed if the candy bar wasn't there. Once you go all the way you discover something - that you are not a thing at all but a process. And a process does not need something like free will because it is one and exists between the causes and effects. Free will implies a split consciousness. Dualistic consciousness struggles against itself. If they went in perfect tandem it wouldn't be split. This struggle causes pain or 'sin'. Only an insane being creates pain for itself. So the concept of free will is the delusion of an insane mind.
so if i had true free will, whatever the hell that is, what does that grant me?
what can i do differently? how is my life changed? how am i affected?
That's why I don't think it makes any sense. It's also why I had some trepidation about starting this thread. I brought this up to some of my nonreligious friends, and the reaction was something like OMGWTF HOW CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT and my sentiment has always been summed up as "meh". The one benefit I imagine my realization has brought me is that I'm a lot more laid back and forgiving about everything.
What if there's more to our conciousness and will than physical properties. I'm not necessarily saying soul, per se, but maybe something similar. Where would that fall into this?
Sounds like the homunculus fallacy.
Woah. I just looked that up on wikipedia and it was pretty interesting. I didn't intend to bring any sort of argument to the discussion.. I was merely just curious to see what some of you guys had to say about where the idea of a soul comes into play with this whole free will thing. Think of me entirely as a spectator in this discussion since I fear it's far out of my league as far as throwing my thoughts and opinions in the fray.
It's a nice debate, because it's all theoretical and personal on a level that most debates can't match, sometimes not even religion.
See, my response would be to Ketherial is that nothing would have changed, since (to my perspective) free will already exists, you've been exercising it all along and wouldn't know the difference. I agree that external stimuli and chemical reactions in play a big part in your choices, but they aren't the be all and end all. At the same time, talk of a soul makes me cringe, I simply think that we have an independant mind, our mind, that is not seperate from us, allowing us to logically weigh nearly every situation and come to choice that is personal to us. It's a combination of these things that give us our will rather then either of them being the absolute factor.
I don't rule out instinct and some hardcoded behaviour, that would be irrational I think. I also drop the word "free" because I think it's a connotation that the other side of the debate is an encompassing jail on our humanity, which isn't something I see other humans freely supporting : b
Pedantic as hell, I'm out though, I'm just recycling points and hardly adding anything. Thanks for making my night here at work travel faster ; )
What if there's more to our conciousness and will than physical properties. I'm not necessarily saying soul, per se, but maybe something similar. Where would that fall into this?
Sounds like the homunculus fallacy.
Also, if you hadn't limed that yourself LiveWire, I would have.
Also, "you don't have free will" doens't mean you don't have a will. It just means your will is being controlled by the laws of causality.
So, your argument is essentially "because we cannot choose to do what is impossible, free will does not exist"? So, because I cannot violate the laws of the physical universe in which I exist, I'm not a self-motivated actor?
What is the thing that has the illusion of control, though? And what would it mean to escape this illusion?
Funnily enough, this sort of links up with the arguments people have about the matrix. You can't prove we don't all live in the matrix, but unless this insight actually means something for the conduct of our lives or thought, it's meaningless. In the film, Keanu Reeves was able to get out of the matrix and see it from the outside, and that's what made it possible for stuff to happen... although then in the sequels it all stopped making sense. But similarly, we live inside the "illusion" that we make decisions and that things happen because of those decisions. Perhaps these decisions happen within the context of a deterministic universe in which the decisions are fixed before they occur, but since this can't be proved and since it's not possible to actually show how they're fixed or predict what they will be, then regardless of what we believe the context or cause of the illusion of choice to be, we'll keep on experiencing the illusion of making choices, exactly as if it weren't an illusion.
Well, I suppose if there's no free will, then pretty much everything is, in essence, random.
If that's the case, should we be holding individuals in higher regard? Their place in the world has been randomized. If they were randomly programmed at birth to be ________ (smarter, stronger, higher work ethic, etc.), therefore what work have they done on their own part? It was all genetics, brainchemistry and upbringing. Oh but wait, let's take upbringing out of there because the parents were pre-programmed to be good parents, from good genetic stock. etc. etc.
If you don't subscribe to programming and just happenstance, then they are just lucky bastards and are not worthy of our praise. They've experienced a random world much like us, but got luckier than us.
So if you don't believe in free-will, or don't "play along", then you really have no Heros, no one to look up to. Because, really, what have they done? They're either a product of randomness, or a product of their genes/brainchemistry, and have done nothing of "their own free will".
This mentality doesn't surprise me in today's society. This means that everyone is equal, we all have random attributes, and bump into each other like particles. Therefore I can blame any shortcomings on my part on faulty genetics, brainchemistry, and random experiences. It's the ultimate blame shift, in my opinion.
I'm not saying one person vs. another deserves to be "luckier", I'm saying that if someone is smarter than us, it's because they have been luckier. To turn around and put that person on a pedestal is silly. You may as well put a lottery winner on a pedestal.
Heroes or outstanding individuals in a world without free-will shouldn't be congratulated or rewarded. All they're doing is fulfilling their genetic disposition or the randomness of the universe.
You reward people to encourage them to benefit the whole.
The pedestal thing is, however, just as stupid with brains as with looks. I've argued before that it's stupid that people get angry at people for being naturally hawt, but they applaud the naturally smart.
Smart people are more interesting to talk with and hawt people are more interesting to look at. There's no reason to apply praise to that except to get them to improve it with efforts.
I generally come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter if we have Free Will or not. We would do exactly the same things either way, and for exactly the same reasons. Therefore it matters little either way except to stroke somebody's ego.
I generally come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter if we have Free Will or not. We would do exactly the same things either way, and for exactly the same reasons. Therefore it matters little either way except to stroke somebody's ego.
I don't know, it can offer solace in a bad situation provided you look at it the right way. The usual comfort would be that whatever's happened has happened, and so the question facing you is what do you do next? Well, you still have to feel like you've made a decision, so go ahead and make a good one.
If I ate whatever was at hand when hungry and shat on the floor whenever I felt the urge, you'd have an argument. But, uh, no.
But evolution's programmed you differently. Your mistake is not seeing how you're hard-wired to do all this stuff.
I"m hardwired to pick between the two different flavours of tea I've got in the cupboard? Pasta or roast veggies for dinner?
We're not saying you're "hardwired" to prefer one flavour over another, nor that you were "destined" or "predetermined" to choose that flavour. We're saying that whatever flavour you pick, given the technology and sufficient understanding of how the brain works, we could go back and show how ongoing electrochemical processes in your body led to your choosing that particular flavour.
People need to stop characterizing our position as one that believes in destiny and other such nonsense.
Then you should stop talking about predestination in terms of hindsight the ability to create an equation describing the past from the position of the present does not imply predestination or a lack of 'real' choice. It means you've managed to document one possible universe. And good for you, because that's complicated, but your equation will never have predictive powers, and the point where I start cussing at people is where people start insisting that it does.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
the ability to create an equation describing the past from the position of the present does not imply predestination or a lack of 'real' choice.
Pretty much--I'm a compatibilist myself. The world is, in all relevant respects, deterministic. Regardless, we have 'free will' insofar as such a thing makes sense.
Consider it this way: suppose you offer me a choice between a delicious slice of chocolate cake and a knife to the face. You can predict ahead of time that I'll choose the cake. Does that mean that I am somehow lacking an essential component of decision-making? No--it just means that you're able to judge that I (like most people) would choose cake over death.
Unless of course you chose the knife to the face in an attempt to make an unlikely decision - either way it's a product of circumstance. But all of this is moot since there's simply no way to actually know what you'll eventually choose, which would require the ability to factor in absolutely every single variable involved in the equation that is your decision to be; thus, it's free will as far as I'm concerned. If a tree falls and absolutely no one is around to hear it, does it make a noise? Similarly, if you've no free will, but absolutely no one has the capacity to omnisciently perceive an outcome anyway, is it predestination?
It makes sense to me. So if you're going to disagree with it, at least have the sense to tell me why it doesn't make sense to you. Or else what's the purpose? I'm supposed to roll over and say, "Yeah, I see your point."?
To find out whether free will exists, one needs to define exactly what "free will" is. Wikipedia defines it as "whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions". It then goes on in to talk about determinism, compatablism, phsyics, genetics and a whole horde of other things.
From my perspective, I believe that the fact I made this post is "free will". I decided to do it. And yes, there are millions of synapses, neural networks, past experience, you name it, has ultimately led to my decision to do so.
If I was barred from the forums, I'd not be able to post this message, no matter how much I wanted to. I'd still have free will, just not the tools to make my decision come to fruition.
If somebody in my household told me not to do it, it is still my decision as to whether I do it or not (and this goes back to past experience/synapses/neurons/memory, etc etc).
That, to me, is free will.
The only case for non existence of free will is if there is a 2nd entity outside of our perception pulling the strings (e.g, a God, or some such entity that is free of our mortal dimension...); and given that in my opinion that is highly unlikely, I think free will exists. It's our ability to make a choice and do something. To be, or not to be. But what was the question?
It makes sense to me. So if you're going to disagree with it, at least have the sense to tell me why it doesn't make sense to you. Or else what's the purpose? I'm supposed to roll over and say, "Yeah, I see your point."?
For the tree to fall and not make a noise it would have to create some sort of rift in the time-space continuum, which I call a Fry-Hole, so as not to vibrate air molecules. For free will not to exist doesn't require any sidestepping of the laws of physics.
Then how do you not see the parallel? Sound exists, as does cause and effect. But if you can't accurately perceive an effect because you can't account for all the variables of the cause, even though such variables most assuredly exist in any rational universe abiding by the laws of physics, how can you say there's predestination? Who predestined it? Who can predict it?
Then how do you not see the parallel? Sound exists, as does cause and effect. But if you can't accurately perceive an effect because you can't account for all the variables of the cause, even though such variables most assuredly exist in any rational universe abiding by the laws of physics, how can you say there's predestination? Who predestined it? Who can predict it?
Agreed... the reason I believe that there is no predestination is that, as you point out, there's a 2nd entity involved (which is very unlikely), but more importantly, it would void any reason to life at all. If everything is predestined I guess we're all along for the ride for no fucking reason whatsoever. I suppose one could argue that even being along for the ride was a kind of lesson, but I really call BS on that one.
What's more incredible?
1) Big bang occurs, Earth is formed. Nice position. Live evolves. Takes a fuckload of years. Woo, we're here.
2) A being that "happened" to be around before the big bang (perhaps it clapped his hands?) decided Earth was his playground and let's have some fun.
If I ate whatever was at hand when hungry and shat on the floor whenever I felt the urge, you'd have an argument. But, uh, no.
But evolution's programmed you differently. Your mistake is not seeing how you're hard-wired to do all this stuff.
I"m hardwired to pick between the two different flavours of tea I've got in the cupboard? Pasta or roast veggies for dinner?
We're not saying you're "hardwired" to prefer one flavour over another, nor that you were "destined" or "predetermined" to choose that flavour. We're saying that whatever flavour you pick, given the technology and sufficient understanding of how the brain works, we could go back and show how ongoing electrochemical processes in your body led to your choosing that particular flavour.
People need to stop characterizing our position as one that believes in destiny and other such nonsense.
Then you should stop talking about predestination in terms of hindsight the ability to create an equation describing the past from the position of the present does not imply predestination or a lack of 'real' choice. It means you've managed to document one possible universe. And good for you, because that's complicated, but your equation will never have predictive powers, and the point where I start cussing at people is where people start insisting that it does.
Why wouldn't it? Do you somehow have the ability to force your neurons and brain chemistry to stop obeying the laws of physics?
If I ate whatever was at hand when hungry and shat on the floor whenever I felt the urge, you'd have an argument. But, uh, no.
But evolution's programmed you differently. Your mistake is not seeing how you're hard-wired to do all this stuff.
I"m hardwired to pick between the two different flavours of tea I've got in the cupboard? Pasta or roast veggies for dinner?
We're not saying you're "hardwired" to prefer one flavour over another, nor that you were "destined" or "predetermined" to choose that flavour. We're saying that whatever flavour you pick, given the technology and sufficient understanding of how the brain works, we could go back and show how ongoing electrochemical processes in your body led to your choosing that particular flavour.
People need to stop characterizing our position as one that believes in destiny and other such nonsense.
Then you should stop talking about predestination in terms of hindsight the ability to create an equation describing the past from the position of the present does not imply predestination or a lack of 'real' choice. It means you've managed to document one possible universe. And good for you, because that's complicated, but your equation will never have predictive powers, and the point where I start cussing at people is where people start insisting that it does.
But surely you would need to find an alternative universe to disprove this? Surely you're the one making the claim needing to be validated that another outcome of that event was possible - since all the evidence we have at present suggests that only the one outcome has occured and therefore could. Why is one moment in time any different from any other point in another dimension as far as them being co-ordinates?
Unless someone can make a case that our brain isn't responsible for our conciousness and that our environment has nothing to do with how we act, as well as show that at that point we aren't just acting randomly, free will doesn't exist or make sense.
Um, can you make the case for any of those things? Nobody can make the case against them because at our current level of knowledge, we still have fuck all actual evidence to support those statements either way, they are pure conjecture based on some educated guessing at the moment. That aside, I agree with Jeffe you are also choosing a moronic definition of free will so it suits your argument; but since nobody can prove any of this either way, cry havoc and let loose the dogs of semantics.
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There doesn't need to be more to it than physical properties. Not until we fully understand everything about every aspect and function involved in neurochemistry. Which we don't, by an absurdly wide margin.
In other words, you are denying that the scientific method is valid. Are you sure you want to make that claim?
We're not talking about something that is governed by the Laws of Thermodynamics here, we're talking about two metaphilosophical theories that don't currently conform with any set of rules because we don't really know the rules to begin with. All we have to stand on atm is what we choose to think is correct.
I posed questions, rather then making an outright claim. I've already said what I believe, as my part in this debate I feel it's my duty to question the oppositions position to support mine : b
And I point to the apes we came from who couldn't even define what color is to themselves and I tell you if we're capable of being aware of our horizons and expanding them by our wills and not the intervention of unknowable chance then there's something in that, and there's something more to come. The apes were given a thumb and we are the descendents of the ones who chose to pick up the brush with that, whatever neural cocktail made that result. So maybe choice can be a choice if it comes from a false choice, false because it came from chance.
I'm getting insanely philosophical here so I'll try to distill it. I could accept determinism if existence was a box, set borders and set properties. But I don't believe that. Existence is endless property with infinite variance. So there!
I heard black and white are not colors.
Yeah, I'm self-liming.
Because I'm right.
You put off eating for a reason. Even if you're just sitting there being lazy, there's a reason; conditioning, barometric pressure, depression, whatever. Everything you do can be explained by a cause, a motivation, usually without even resorting to microcosmic physical determinism. Usually you'd put off eating because you're busy. That's not an exercise of free will, bending the laws of causality, it's simply a response to the stimuli of your environment.
More importantly, you put off eating because you want something else more than you want to eat. Why do you want that something else? There are many explanations that are easier than "I violate causality," and they make more sense.
The issue is not whether you have a choice. Clearly you can eat or not eat. The issue is why you choose one or the other. There is always a reason, easily visible or not, connected to biology or environment or circumstance. What else is there to motivate you? Whatever self or personality exists between your ears is composed of those reasons, is driven by those reasons, and nothing else. What else would there be? The only answer would be some sort of magical soul that acts outside of causality, and even that doesn't make any sense because it still makes you want to eat (or put off eating so that you can mow the lawn) and thus still conforms to those perfectly physical, deterministic causes.
I am curious as to what your definition of free will would be. What is free will free from?
Also, if you hadn't limed that yourself LiveWire, I would have.
Also, "you don't have free will" doens't mean you don't have a will. It just means your will is being controlled by the laws of causality.
Now lets look at the concept of free will. This illusion stems from selective identification to your voluntary actions. You think you are what you decide to do. There's a problem however. You can decide to jump up and down. But how do you decide to decide? Voluntary action is just one causal step removed from involuntary. People use this as evidence of no free will but they are still stuck in illusion. Lets keep going. What if you were to identify just as strongly with your involuntary actions? They are just as much you because if your heart didn't beat and your food didn't digest there wouldn't be anymore you in the mundane sense just as surely as if your thoughts and memories were to vanish. But you can't do this as long as you're still "playing the game", that is - perpetual thought identification because of an unconscious fear of death. So I don't expect anyone on a debate board to go all the way here and now. Once you realize that you are the beating of your heart it only keeps going. Because then you'd also know that when you saw that candy bar and got hungry that you also were the candy bar because now you are a craving that wouldn't have existed if the candy bar wasn't there. Once you go all the way you discover something - that you are not a thing at all but a process. And a process does not need something like free will because it is one and exists between the causes and effects. Free will implies a split consciousness. Dualistic consciousness struggles against itself. If they went in perfect tandem it wouldn't be split. This struggle causes pain or 'sin'. Only an insane being creates pain for itself. So the concept of free will is the delusion of an insane mind.
The issue of the "illusory self" is a pretty good one to raise when discussing free will though.
You take that back!
what can i do differently? how is my life changed? how am i affected?
It makes you responsible for everything.
EVERYTHING.
That's why I don't think it makes any sense. It's also why I had some trepidation about starting this thread. I brought this up to some of my nonreligious friends, and the reaction was something like OMGWTF HOW CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT and my sentiment has always been summed up as "meh". The one benefit I imagine my realization has brought me is that I'm a lot more laid back and forgiving about everything.
Woah. I just looked that up on wikipedia and it was pretty interesting. I didn't intend to bring any sort of argument to the discussion.. I was merely just curious to see what some of you guys had to say about where the idea of a soul comes into play with this whole free will thing. Think of me entirely as a spectator in this discussion since I fear it's far out of my league as far as throwing my thoughts and opinions in the fray.
I love philosophy!
But at the same time, fairly laid back as well
It's a nice debate, because it's all theoretical and personal on a level that most debates can't match, sometimes not even religion.
See, my response would be to Ketherial is that nothing would have changed, since (to my perspective) free will already exists, you've been exercising it all along and wouldn't know the difference. I agree that external stimuli and chemical reactions in play a big part in your choices, but they aren't the be all and end all. At the same time, talk of a soul makes me cringe, I simply think that we have an independant mind, our mind, that is not seperate from us, allowing us to logically weigh nearly every situation and come to choice that is personal to us. It's a combination of these things that give us our will rather then either of them being the absolute factor.
I don't rule out instinct and some hardcoded behaviour, that would be irrational I think. I also drop the word "free" because I think it's a connotation that the other side of the debate is an encompassing jail on our humanity, which isn't something I see other humans freely supporting : b
Pedantic as hell, I'm out though, I'm just recycling points and hardly adding anything. Thanks for making my night here at work travel faster ; )
So, your argument is essentially "because we cannot choose to do what is impossible, free will does not exist"? So, because I cannot violate the laws of the physical universe in which I exist, I'm not a self-motivated actor?
What is the thing that has the illusion of control, though? And what would it mean to escape this illusion?
Funnily enough, this sort of links up with the arguments people have about the matrix. You can't prove we don't all live in the matrix, but unless this insight actually means something for the conduct of our lives or thought, it's meaningless. In the film, Keanu Reeves was able to get out of the matrix and see it from the outside, and that's what made it possible for stuff to happen... although then in the sequels it all stopped making sense. But similarly, we live inside the "illusion" that we make decisions and that things happen because of those decisions. Perhaps these decisions happen within the context of a deterministic universe in which the decisions are fixed before they occur, but since this can't be proved and since it's not possible to actually show how they're fixed or predict what they will be, then regardless of what we believe the context or cause of the illusion of choice to be, we'll keep on experiencing the illusion of making choices, exactly as if it weren't an illusion.
Seriously, I don't see any real problem with the lack of a free will. The illusion of such is just that damn good.
If that's the case, should we be holding individuals in higher regard? Their place in the world has been randomized. If they were randomly programmed at birth to be ________ (smarter, stronger, higher work ethic, etc.), therefore what work have they done on their own part? It was all genetics, brainchemistry and upbringing. Oh but wait, let's take upbringing out of there because the parents were pre-programmed to be good parents, from good genetic stock. etc. etc.
If you don't subscribe to programming and just happenstance, then they are just lucky bastards and are not worthy of our praise. They've experienced a random world much like us, but got luckier than us.
So if you don't believe in free-will, or don't "play along", then you really have no Heros, no one to look up to. Because, really, what have they done? They're either a product of randomness, or a product of their genes/brainchemistry, and have done nothing of "their own free will".
This mentality doesn't surprise me in today's society. This means that everyone is equal, we all have random attributes, and bump into each other like particles. Therefore I can blame any shortcomings on my part on faulty genetics, brainchemistry, and random experiences. It's the ultimate blame shift, in my opinion.
Of course people get lucky.
Most of on this forum are smarter than average, even if only a bit.
Do any of us DESERVE to have been born smarter than average? Fuck no.
We just lucked out.
Hopefully, though, the encouragement we get from people will get is to not squander our luck.
Our qualities are random, but history shows the advantages of encouraging behaviors in those randomly lucky folks.
It's like with evolution. The mutation is essentially random, but there's a pretty non-random process that can make the most of it.
Heroes or outstanding individuals in a world without free-will shouldn't be congratulated or rewarded. All they're doing is fulfilling their genetic disposition or the randomness of the universe.
The pedestal thing is, however, just as stupid with brains as with looks. I've argued before that it's stupid that people get angry at people for being naturally hawt, but they applaud the naturally smart.
Smart people are more interesting to talk with and hawt people are more interesting to look at. There's no reason to apply praise to that except to get them to improve it with efforts.
Then you should stop talking about predestination in terms of hindsight
Pretty much--I'm a compatibilist myself. The world is, in all relevant respects, deterministic. Regardless, we have 'free will' insofar as such a thing makes sense.
Consider it this way: suppose you offer me a choice between a delicious slice of chocolate cake and a knife to the face. You can predict ahead of time that I'll choose the cake. Does that mean that I am somehow lacking an essential component of decision-making? No--it just means that you're able to judge that I (like most people) would choose cake over death.
From my perspective, I believe that the fact I made this post is "free will". I decided to do it. And yes, there are millions of synapses, neural networks, past experience, you name it, has ultimately led to my decision to do so.
If I was barred from the forums, I'd not be able to post this message, no matter how much I wanted to. I'd still have free will, just not the tools to make my decision come to fruition.
If somebody in my household told me not to do it, it is still my decision as to whether I do it or not (and this goes back to past experience/synapses/neurons/memory, etc etc).
That, to me, is free will.
The only case for non existence of free will is if there is a 2nd entity outside of our perception pulling the strings (e.g, a God, or some such entity that is free of our mortal dimension...); and given that in my opinion that is highly unlikely, I think free will exists. It's our ability to make a choice and do something. To be, or not to be. But what was the question?
For the tree to fall and not make a noise it would have to create some sort of rift in the time-space continuum, which I call a Fry-Hole, so as not to vibrate air molecules. For free will not to exist doesn't require any sidestepping of the laws of physics.
Agreed... the reason I believe that there is no predestination is that, as you point out, there's a 2nd entity involved (which is very unlikely), but more importantly, it would void any reason to life at all. If everything is predestined I guess we're all along for the ride for no fucking reason whatsoever. I suppose one could argue that even being along for the ride was a kind of lesson, but I really call BS on that one.
What's more incredible?
1) Big bang occurs, Earth is formed. Nice position. Live evolves. Takes a fuckload of years. Woo, we're here.
2) A being that "happened" to be around before the big bang (perhaps it clapped his hands?) decided Earth was his playground and let's have some fun.
Hmmmm....
Why wouldn't it? Do you somehow have the ability to force your neurons and brain chemistry to stop obeying the laws of physics?
But surely you would need to find an alternative universe to disprove this? Surely you're the one making the claim needing to be validated that another outcome of that event was possible - since all the evidence we have at present suggests that only the one outcome has occured and therefore could. Why is one moment in time any different from any other point in another dimension as far as them being co-ordinates?
Um, can you make the case for any of those things? Nobody can make the case against them because at our current level of knowledge, we still have fuck all actual evidence to support those statements either way, they are pure conjecture based on some educated guessing at the moment. That aside, I agree with Jeffe you are also choosing a moronic definition of free will so it suits your argument; but since nobody can prove any of this either way, cry havoc and let loose the dogs of semantics.