Poll: Does free-will exist?
- Thread starter Sewblon
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How does precognition work if there is no predetermination? Can we actually change the course of things? There was a show I caught the second half of that was about animal communication with Jane Goodall. Towards the end of the show it went into human and animal precognitive abilities with several examples that were able to be tested. Sadly, I don't know what the name of it was. I *think* it was with Animal Planet. If so, it might be "When Animals Talk, We Should Listen". If it was the BBC it might be "Animal Minds". But I thought it was called "Psychic Animals". It might have been a section of the video.
Anyway, it showed that animals such as dogs could sense when their owner was returning even if the person changed their time or pattern and did so beyond the range that a dog's normal senses should reach. Likewise they had a parrot that would say what the owner was looking at in a remote location. Are we simply acting in concert on a level we have not discovered yet, thus making specific choices based off of unconscious information that allows others to predict our actions in advance?
(If someone knows which video that is btw, let me know. I've never caught it again and only remember a few sequences from it. I'd love to see the entire thing instead of just the second half.)
Anyway, it showed that animals such as dogs could sense when their owner was returning even if the person changed their time or pattern and did so beyond the range that a dog's normal senses should reach. Likewise they had a parrot that would say what the owner was looking at in a remote location. Are we simply acting in concert on a level we have not discovered yet, thus making specific choices based off of unconscious information that allows others to predict our actions in advance?
(If someone knows which video that is btw, let me know. I've never caught it again and only remember a few sequences from it. I'd love to see the entire thing instead of just the second half.)
You are confusing factors which potentially influence choices with those that determine them. If I see an attractive person nearby, I might have some primal urge to go jump on them. That drive is very real, but I don't necessarily act on it. I know that such things aren't socially acceptable, etc. However, it's not my knowledge of what is socially accpetable that determines what I'll do either. I can actively consider and choose between several value systems in the moment.Tallim said:
Even though this is practically an empty debate (since we are forced to act as though we have free will, whether we say we do or not), I believe that free will does exist. Determinism cannot explain our intuitive sensations of intelligent consciousness, freedom, responsibility, meaning, etc. A model in which humans are free agents with control over where to terminate their lines of thought, or even whether they originate entirely new inspirations/lines of thought, explains these with more consistency. A non-random choice is made in the moment by a free agent's exercise of his/her faculties, therefore the future is not pre-determined.
I cannot claim that I know this with certainty, just as a determinist cannot rightfully claim certainty with our lack of true freedom, because the evidence we currently have about the workings of the universe and the human mind is simply insufficient to do so. However, I believe free will is the more plausible theory, given the intuitive evidence. The fact that we all likely experience that same intuitive freedom, yet many in this discussion choose to ignore it is decent evidence of free will in itself, I think.
Hard to answer that without getting into a cyclic argument myself. Especially since it is Christmas morning.TWRule said:
Choosing between values systems as you put it is essentially the brain considering the best possible outcome for itself. Just because you don't know the underlying processes that go into those thoughts doesn't mean you actively chose what to do in that situation. Anything could influence that decision, mostly it's previous experience and knowledge. But it could be light levels, time of day, how much sleep you had.
I agree with you that this is a hollow debate however.
