Free Will

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Free will is a fun one to consider. I theorise that perhaps it's more like this, If you were given two choices then you observably take one and don't observe the other. However this does not suggest that the other choice was never taken, it just suggests you never observed it being taken.

which in turn means both choices are taken, since both (or All choices if you consider more options) are taken, then you can suggest there is no Free Will just Causality. However as an observer, you get to choose which outcome you observe thereby having choice (Free will).
 
Swivel, you clearly don't understand

Why do you even need to make an argument for your position if we have no free will? How did you come to this conclusion? How can you come to ANY conclusions if there is no possibility of coming to any but ONE conclusion, predetermined by your particular brain chemistry? What's the point of discussing anything at all? How could you even discuss anything? Don't you get that nothing you're saying makes any sense at all? IT'S LIKE A SOLIPSIST SAYING THAT THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THERE AREN'T MORE SOLIPSISTS!!!

It's internally inconsistent. Are you wilfully ignoring that, or can you honestly not tell? Or, would you like to refine your statements about there being "no free will at all", and only the "illusion" of free will"? In fact, how could you even have the "illusion of free will" if you can't know anything but what your particular brain chemistry determines you to know? How can you learn? DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT FREE WILL IS FUNDAMENTALLY CONNECTED TO OUR ABILITY TO CHANGE AT ALL?!?

Can't you see that even your further participation in this debate implies that we could somehow change our opinions? How can you not understand that your language implies that you do not believe what you say?
 
Read-Only said:
There is no "invisible force" with control - that's just more of your mumbo-jumbo that makes no sense at all.
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The invisible force is your theory, dude, not mine.

Can you explain why all human emotions are displayed the same way across all cultures? Why we all laugh at humor, display fear the same way, display sadness the same way?

And can you do it while sounding older than 14?
 
Jaster Mereel said:
Sorry. And sorry to swivel, too.

The questions are still out there, though.
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Sorry, but you are just as far off the mark as the other poster who doesn't believe in free will. Even on the very surface of it, your claims are nonsense.

As I've said before, you are free to make ANY choice(s) you wish. You are only limited in those choices by your personal resources and abilities.

To try to say otherwise is simply foolish at best and idiotic at worst. There's absolutely nothing to base you're silly claims upon!:bugeye:
 
Jaster Mereel said:
Can't you see that even your further participation in this debate implies that we could somehow change our opinions? How can you not understand that your language implies that you do not believe what you say?
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My goodness, are you really this dense? Really?

You can change your opinion on this subject because you can encounter people like ME, who are stimuli in your environment. Or I could change my opinion by encountering YOU, who is a stimuli in my environment.

When a lizard gets too hot, it starts moving around until it encounters cooler conditions. When it gets too cold, it moves around until it finds a warmer spot. Those changes in temperature are stimuli that alter its behavior. All of our posts are colliding with one another and creating responses in our brains. I guarantee you that you had NO CHOICE but to start attacking me, calling me an idiot, using all-caps, etc... because of what I said and who you were at the moment you read my words. You had no control over your actions, and they played out in the only way possible, by acting like a juvenile and assaulting someone who is smarter than you because you have a self esteem problem.

That's why I don't hate you for being an ignorant prick. It isn't because I CHOOSE not to hate you, I certainly would have back when I was your age, it's just that I am a different person now and am incapable of wasting emotional energy on internet simpletons.
 
Read-Only said:
Sorry, but you are just as far off the mark as the other poster who doesn't believe in free will. Even on the very surface of it, your claims are nonsense.

As I've said before, you are free to make ANY choice(s) you wish. You are only limited in those choices by your personal resources and abilities.

To try to say otherwise is simply foolish at best and idiotic at worst. There's absolutely nothing to base you're silly claims upon!:bugeye:
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Who the hell are you talking to? Now I'm confused.
 
swivel said:
My goodness, are you really this dense? Really?

You can change your opinion on this subject because you can encounter people like ME, who are stimuli in your environment. Or I could change my opinion by encountering YOU, who is a stimuli in my environment.

When a lizard gets too hot, it starts moving around until it encounters cooler conditions. When it gets too cold, it moves around until it finds a warmer spot. Those changes in temperature are stimuli that alter its behavior. All of our posts are colliding with one another and creating responses in our brains. I guarantee you that you had NO CHOICE but to start attacking me, calling me an idiot, using all-caps, etc... because of what I said and who you were at the moment you read my words. You had no control over your actions, and they played out in the only way possible, by acting like a juvenile and assaulting someone who is smarter than you because you have a self esteem problem.

That's why I don't hate you for being an ignorant prick. It isn't because I CHOOSE not to hate you, I certainly would have back when I was your age, it's just that I am a different person now and am incapable of wasting emotional energy on internet simpletons.
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Did I really come off as being pissed? Frustration is a better word for it, since I am fairly certain your position is utterly false.

The extent of my ad hominem statements was "you clearly don't understand". You called me dense, juvenile, assumed you were more intelligent (a claim that could easily be called into question considering neither of us has said anything obviously retarded and we've only exchanged a few posts), that I have a low self esteem (which would, of course, assume that you knew me; you don't), that I am ignorant (based upon what, exactly?), and that I am a simpleton (clearly not so considering the subject matter of our conversation; "simpletons" likely concern themselves more with food, sex, sleep, and automobiles and nothing else). Really, who was more hostile in this exchange? Weirdo.

Now to your statements about stimuli being the cause of action. I do not disagree, but I'd like to say that you've obviously divorced yourself from yourself. Obviously, when you pick up a sandwich and put it in your mouth, taste it, chew, and then swallow it down to fill your stomach you probably did it for one of three reasons: A) You were hungry, B) You enjoy sandwiches, or C) Both. The thing you've left out is the point after you've received this stimulus, when you actually act on it. Are you not conscious of this stimulus? Are you not aware of the actions you take to fulfil it? I think that you've gone through this whole argument assuming that freedom must be absolute; that you must invent a cause to act, that action must be totally arbitrary in order to be truly free. When you receive a stimulus, you still decide to act on it, and even if it's a habit you're acting through, you still decide to continue that habit. If you've never known someone to stop a habit cold turkey for no reason, then you can't obviously be that old (or you've been rather sheltered; in my short time I've known many).
 
swivel said:
My goodness, are you really this dense? Really?

You can change your opinion on this subject because you can encounter people like ME, who are stimuli in your environment. Or I could change my opinion by encountering YOU, who is a stimuli in my environment.

When a lizard gets too hot, it starts moving around until it encounters cooler conditions. When it gets too cold, it moves around until it finds a warmer spot. Those changes in temperature are stimuli that alter its behavior. All of our posts are colliding with one another and creating responses in our brains. I guarantee you that you had NO CHOICE but to start attacking me, calling me an idiot, using all-caps, etc... because of what I said and who you were at the moment you read my words. You had no control over your actions, and they played out in the only way possible, by acting like a juvenile and assaulting someone who is smarter than you because you have a self esteem problem.

That's why I don't hate you for being an ignorant prick. It isn't because I CHOOSE not to hate you, I certainly would have back when I was your age, it's just that I am a different person now and am incapable of wasting emotional energy on internet simpletons.
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Swivel, you really ARE a fruitcake! There's nothing at all to substantiate the foolish claims you continue to make. No one is locked-in to specific courses of action by their brain chemistry, your mystical "invisible forces" or any of your other balderdash. The nonsense you keep posting is little different that the result of a monkey randomly hammering away at a keyboard - just worthless gibberish!:bugeye:
 
Read-Only said:
Swivel, you really ARE a fruitcake! There's nothing at all to substantiate the foolish claims you continue to make. No one is locked-in to specific courses of action by their brain chemistry, your mystical "invisible forces" or any of your other balderdash. The nonsense you keep posting is little different that the result of a monkey randomly hammering away at a keyboard - just worthless gibberish!:bugeye:
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I see this conversation is devolving into name-calling. I should have caught on quicker, lol.
 
Read-Only said:
Sorry - strongly apologize. I had the nutcake Swivel in mind as I was typing that.

Again, sorry for causing confusion - it wasn't intended.
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That's cool. I just think it's... funny? All I did was use some caps and said he didn't understand, and he started exploding like a firecracker. Jeez.

Didn't think anyone took this crap so seriously.
 
Read-Only said:
Swivel, you really ARE a fruitcake! There's nothing at all to substantiate the foolish claims you continue to make. No one is locked-in to specific courses of action by their brain chemistry, your mystical "invisible forces" or any of your other balderdash. The nonsense you keep posting is little different that the result of a monkey randomly hammering away at a keyboard - just worthless gibberish!:bugeye:
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For the second time: I don't believe in invisible forces. YOU do. You can't have free will without them.

Start supporting your position with some facts, please.
 
swivel said:
For the second time: I don't believe in invisible forces. YOU do. You can't have free will without them.

Start supporting your position with some facts, please.
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I don't mean to sound officious here, but Free Will or Determinism is an interpretation based on the same information. I am, personally, a compatibilist (if I must be categorized). I think the disagreement stems from a misunderstanding in the language we are using.

And how did you ever come to the conclusion that free will requires invisible forces? If you'd done some reading on the debate (since it's a debate open in professional philosophy, although most fall in favor of free will) you'd find that there are plenty of physicalist interpretations of metaphysics which are perfectly compatible with free will. Of course, you'll no doubt say you don't care what philosophers say on the subject. I'd understand since I hate the bunch.

As I said, just because everything you do has a cause, doesn't mean your actions don't belong to you. You do have a concept of self, right?
 
swivel said:
The invisible force is your theory, dude, not mine.

Can you explain why all human emotions are displayed the same way across all cultures? Why we all laugh at humor, display fear the same way, display sadness the same way?

And can you do it while sounding older than 14?
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Once again you've just shot yourself directly in the foot. It was YOU - not me! - that introduced the stupidity of invisible forces! To quote you directly:

Swivel: "That is your argument for an invisible force that has complete control over the nero-chemical processes in our brains?"

And precisely what uneducated individual (other than yourself) would presuppose that the display of emotions is an indication of not having free will? That's just another of your absurd ideas.
 
swivel said:
Of course it is. There is no such thing as the "mind".

The brain is made up of many interconnected modules. Our thoughts and emotions arise from the firing of neurons. There is no immaterial "mind" or "spirit" pushing on these neurons or interacting with our material selves to grant us the ability to change what our brains are doing.
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Who said the mind is immaterial? The mind is made up of all those neurons firing. Would you say that a TV has no picture, but only has a bunch of tiny dots of varying colors? Or that a radio doesn't play music, it simply causes vibrations in response to radio waves? We call those little points of light the picture, we call the sound produced by the vibrations in the radio's speakers music. And we call the sum total of the neurons firing in our brain "the mind".
By PRETENDING that we have free will and assigning blame based on people's behaviors, we create a stimuli that alters those behaviors. That is: by telling people that if they kill someone, they will be treated as if they chose, by their own volition, to kill that person and will be held directly responsible, we are creating an environment which contains a powerful stimulus to NOT KILL.

Once we have been told that killing will result in our own deaths, the pattern of firings in our brains have been changed in a way that lessens the likelihood of us killing someone else.
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That pattern of firings in your brain is known as thought. Thought is the process by which our minds make decisions and exercise our free will. The fact that our thoughts are generated by neurons firing and not some magical genie doesn't change the fact that they are our thoughts and we make them freely. We can also choose not to think and just do what feels right. It's still a choice.
My own conclusions on this conundrum are these, then: Free will does not exist, but the illusion of free will provides grease for the gears of a civilized society. Free will can not possibly exist, but the illusion should probably be maintained outside of philosophical circles.
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Free will can and does exist, so long as you don't define it in magical terms. Our senses give off signals to our brain in response to variations in our environment. Then, our brain receives those signals and evaluates the situation using our knowledge, experience, and personality to determine the appropriate response to a given situation. Part of this process involve our conscious mind. That's the part that makes the ultimate decision. That's freewill.
 
Ya, no doubt free will is interesting.

Unfortunately this thread is far too high a quality with the opening post.
And will proceed with insults etc until proper discussion about the issue is finally achieved.
 
tnerb said:
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And will proceed with insults etc until proper discussion about the issue is finally achieved.
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No it won't.
If the incessant childishness isn't replaced by reasoned discussion, the thread will be closed.
 
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