Is Free Will Possible?
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You mean the evidence I presented in the form of logic posted by zala-taichou?Serenegoose said:
There is nothing we will ever do that isn't motivated by a mixture of our genes, environment, upbringing, conditioning, instincts, and current requirements (eg. Thirst). Everything we do has a cause, every choice we make has a cause, and all these causes are ultimately out of our control.
Determinism and Anti-Determinism ("free will") are both logically impossible. The century old debate about it, basically is like two children classifying time and space into "cause" and "effect", and then fighting over "who came first" - without realizing, that not only can neither be "first", but more importantly that what is assigned a "cause" and what is assigned an "effect" is just a matter of context (viewpoint).
The key to understand this, is to realize the following: The only sensible purpose of the concept "causality", is to bring events into an order. Nothing else. It's just a (misleading) model to explain in which time-order events are connected - everything else, including the assocation of "cause" with "power/domination" is just propaganda.
If this too didn't result in a "click" in your head, then here are some hints:
1. You're too focussed on master-slave games - on defining who owns and controls whom. Perhaps you may get further in your thoughts, if you'd forget about those domination games, and instead just try to understand how things are connected - how stuff works.
2. You're not an impulse-driven insect, so why do you model yourself as an insect in your thoughts?
3. If you were given the ability to consider every infobit you want, before making a decision, would you call that "free"? Okay, now what if you'd do this automatically anyways - would that make any difference? If you automatically do whatever you want, do you then still do whatever you want?
The key to understand this, is to realize the following: The only sensible purpose of the concept "causality", is to bring events into an order. Nothing else. It's just a (misleading) model to explain in which time-order events are connected - everything else, including the assocation of "cause" with "power/domination" is just propaganda.
If this too didn't result in a "click" in your head, then here are some hints:
1. You're too focussed on master-slave games - on defining who owns and controls whom. Perhaps you may get further in your thoughts, if you'd forget about those domination games, and instead just try to understand how things are connected - how stuff works.
2. You're not an impulse-driven insect, so why do you model yourself as an insect in your thoughts?
3. If you were given the ability to consider every infobit you want, before making a decision, would you call that "free"? Okay, now what if you'd do this automatically anyways - would that make any difference? If you automatically do whatever you want, do you then still do whatever you want?
I think you are defining free will as the ability to make decisions as though there were ever any choice in the matter. But if you look at free will as the desire to do things and think things, then that can and does co-exist with deterministic theory. So basically, according to determinstic theory, there is no choice, but there is free will.
That depends on how one defines "choice".
If we mean "choice" as in "You can consider the available info, and then do what you'd like based on that info", then choice exists.
But if we define "choice" as some impossibility... that at a certain time two different things could have happened, then there is no choice. This is impossible, because it would mean that the past does not matter. But if the past would not matter, you wouldn't have ANY information (actually, you wouldn't even exist), and therefore couldn't efficiently decide (so, you'd actually be totally "unfree").
Stuff did happen, you did get certain info - thats why you can now act according to that info. This does not mean that someone else (who?!?) is acting in place of you. It just means that right now you feel as you do feel, you know what you do know, you want what you do want, and this matters - it's what you call "I".
If we mean "choice" as in "You can consider the available info, and then do what you'd like based on that info", then choice exists.
But if we define "choice" as some impossibility... that at a certain time two different things could have happened, then there is no choice. This is impossible, because it would mean that the past does not matter. But if the past would not matter, you wouldn't have ANY information (actually, you wouldn't even exist), and therefore couldn't efficiently decide (so, you'd actually be totally "unfree").
Stuff did happen, you did get certain info - thats why you can now act according to that info. This does not mean that someone else (who?!?) is acting in place of you. It just means that right now you feel as you do feel, you know what you do know, you want what you do want, and this matters - it's what you call "I".
Can't get enough of the running tapir avatar
OT: We're as free as we possibly could be, shaped by internal and external stimuli but never completely determined (due to the chaotic nature of the universe).
OT: We're as free as we possibly could be, shaped by internal and external stimuli but never completely determined (due to the chaotic nature of the universe).
Influence and outright control are two different things; as long as we have the ability to make a choice, we ultimately possess free will. Someone could influence me all day, outright and/or subliminally, to do something, but in the end I could resist all of the influence and not do it because I still retain the option.
We have and always will have free will! I made my own mind up to smoke, to drink, to go work, to cross the road etc.
not on this site! well, not if you dont want to be hated. for example, i dont like bioshock. good setting, crap gameplay. now all the fanboys will come rushing to its aid about how im wrong about my opinion. how my free will is wrong. of course we have have it, just that if you use it to be free, a lot of people will hate you for it
There are two little problems with that:Cuddly Razor said:
1. No one has ever seen those "particles". Until today, they are just a model, and scientists are fighting to keep a straight face at calling them particles, when all those supposed "points" move AND look like liquids.
2. With your reductionist approach, you're creating a mind/body gap and simultaneusly imply that both are the same - a contradiction. If those "particles" are not the same as "thoughts, emotions, etc", then you'd provide no evidence why those "particles" would command (dominate) those thoughts, feelings etc. But if you'd argue that those "particles" and those "thoughts, emotions" are the same thing, then there would be no difference between saying "your thoughts, emotions etc define the particles" and "the particles define the thoughts, emotions" - because both would be different models for the same thing. Surely you agree that for any appeal to truth, two models may not come to conflicting conclusions about the very same things, yes?