The illusion of free will

[barcelonic]

Thanks MR - I'm sure you enjoyed filling my request

Admittedly i left my booksmarts at home today, but from that it seems as though physicists still believe that if i drop my cup it will hit the floor precisely because it was dropped. They may well think that the cup hitting the floor 'fixes' the act of me dropping it, but that doesn't change their understanding of cause fixing effect.

What am i missing?

 

[Undefined]

The key word in all this is "display", which has never been denied.
it is indeed way more developed. As is our consciousness itself.
But at its core it is a (probabilistically) determined process (per the assumption on which this is based) with the complexity hidden from us, and our consciousness only being aware of what it considers significant influences.
So again, nothing here disputes the concept of freewill as illusory, other than if you define it such that it's reality is judged solely by its appearance.

I understand what you are pointing out, and as far as that goes, I am in agreement. No problem. But my original exercise was expressly designed breaking away from all those sorts of 'turtles all the way down' (if I may use that charming imagery without offending anyone here ) arguemnets when human imagination and free will, and the power which these afford us humans to become independently motivated when that imagination/free will comes onto the scene, as already explained.

If we can create unconstrained permutations of imaginary games, with commensurately unconstrained permutations of associated-by-you imaginary rules. And if we can play an unconstrained number of such games, and THEN even CHANGE the rules 'just for the hell of it', without any predetermined reasoning or cause other than a boredom or adventurous 'suck it and see' approach to whatever you are imagining for your own self-generated 'world construct' gaming exercises, then you have left all that 'predetermined by turtles all the way down' way behind and so far behind that it is your world construct' that is the reality you are operating in for the duration of those imaginary games/rules.

Like I said, one's brain chemistry/faculties can facilitate or hinder your creation of world constructs of the real objective reality to which we are all subject, and also all those imaginary world constructs you have complete control over from go to whoa as to its construction, modification and 'ordering/running' according to whatever YOUR imaginary set(s) of rules you 'wantonly apply' from time to time to 'shake things up' in those imaginary world constructs. Your bain-mind SUPPORTS all the free will and non-free will activities/cogitations and imaginings, but there is a limit to what the barain-mind can DICTATE to YOU as an insubstantial 'world construct' patterning observer and effector of how that construct develops and how it may be changed by your imagination so much that it becomes totally removed from the logical/extant reality. The two classes/levels of 'reality' are qualitatively different; in that the common objective reality is what it is AS FOUND (no matter how one may rail against its "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" etc ); whereas the imagined reality(s) are virtually infinite in spatio-temporal scope and processing variety, limited only by one's imagination which also supports free will to so imagine and not control it.


Sorry, Sarkus, everyone; I have run out of time for posting for a while, but I will visit and read-only from time to time to see how this very interesting thread and the very interesting and varied participants/contributions develop. Thanks for the great conversation, everyone. Cheers!

 

[Magical Realist]

Thanks MR - I'm sure you enjoyed filling my request

Admittedly i left my booksmarts at home today, but from that it seems as though physicists still believe that if i drop my cup it will hit the floor precisely because it was dropped. They may well think that the cup hitting the floor 'fixes' the act of me dropping it, but that doesn't change their understanding of cause fixing effect.

What am i missing?

I think that from a purely physics pov, in which past, present, and future are viewed as simultaneous to each other, unidirectional causation really is a sort of illusion created by the limitations of our senses. It would be like observing you drop your cup on a film. which to all appearances SEEMS to cause it to hit the floor. But in reality that is just an illusion created by the successive motion of the frames of film in front of the projector light. Now ofcourse every physicist operates within the vernacular of everyday life. It is practical for them to live as if one event causes another in a unidirectional sense and to speak about events in this sense. But held to the principles of their physicist training and education, I don't think they could back this assumption up. At least not if they are assuming a block model of time, of which Einstein says that the distinction between past, present, and future is really an illusion.

"We must not forget that space-time is a space in the mathematical sense of the word. Quite clearly it cannot be space in the sense of something which endures through time. This is sometimes half-forgotten in popular expositions of relativity. It is sometimes said, for example, that a light signal is propagated from one part of space-time to another. What should be said is that the light signal lies (tenselessly) along a line between these two regions of space-time. Moritz Schlick has expressed this point well when he says: "One may not, for example, say that a point traverses its world-line; or that the three-dimensional section which represents the momentary state of the actual present, wanders along the time-axis through the four-dimensional world. For a wandering of this kind would have to take place in time; and time is already represented within the model and cannot be introduced again from outside." And if there can be no change in space-time, neither can there be any staying the same. As Schlick points out, it is an error to claim that the Minkowski world is static: it neither changes nor stays the same. Changes and stayings the same can both of course be represented within the world picture, for example a changing velocity by a curved line and a constant velocity by a straight line.

The tenseless way of talking which is appropriate to the four-dimensional space-time world seems to suggest to some people that some sort of fatalism must be true, and that the future is already somehow "laid up." This, however, is a confusion, for the "is" in "is already laid up" is a tensed one and suggests that the future exists now, which is absurd. The event of the future, like those of the past, certainly exist, in the sense in which this verb is used tenselessly, but of course they do not exist now. Nor does the four-dimensional picture imply determinism. It is quite neutral between determinism and indeterminism. The issue between determinism and indeterminism can be put quite easily in the language of space-time. lt is as follows: From a complete knowledge of a certain three-dimensional (spacelike) slice of space-time together with a knowledge of the laws of nature, could the properties of later (and indeed earlier) slices of space-time be deduced? For present purposes let us be agnostic as to the answer to this question."--J.J.C.Smart (Problems of Space and Time, pp.12-13)

 

[barcelonic]

Einstein says that the distinction between past, present, and future is really an illusion.

I'm sure you know this already but just to be clear this isn't what I am talking about. I am saying that the acts of dropping the cup and the cup hitting the floor are both causally linked, irrespective of which precedes the other.
Certainly this is true when it comes to physics' understanding of time, but this doesn't say much about cause and effect.

 

[wellwisher]

I define free will as the ability to make choices without any emotional or subjective cost. If I have an apple and an orange on the table, if you prefer one over the other, you do not have free will. This is because if you pick the opposite of your first choice, it has an emotional cost, so it is not a free choice. One will gravitate in one direction. One will still have will power, that allows you to push your comfort zone, but there will be a cost. Free will is learned by practicing, so when confronted by choice, there is no emotional cost; moderation leads to free will.

I can't use free will to defy the laws of gravity, since there will be a cost; crash landing. I can use will power to jump off the bridge, but will suffer the cost of a giant welt on my back, butt, or legs.

Say I build a bridge, across the Shawnees River, at the Pine Tree Point. This bridge will not just appear randomly based on natural laws and statistics. It was deterministic, since we decided we needed a bridge, and that specific spot was the best place to put it for practical reasons. But since the construction will require resources to build, it is not based on free will, but it was based on will power.

Free will tends to be connected to subjective choices, which can be reprogrammed to lower their costs to zero. Objective choices obey the laws of science and often have potential costs which differ in each direction. We can't change these without occurring a cost since perpetual motion is not allowed.

 

[Yazata]

Your initial "choice" of posting on the forum was determined by your pre-existing brain-state that was curious about the forum.

That and sensory inputs about the situation (the individual's computer, the words on its screen, etc.) In other words, some of what led up to the decision to post was internal to the individual making the choice (his/her interest in posting, interpretation of what was read etc.) and some of it was external (what the other person had written, the fact that the computer was working, etc.)

It's as much innate for you at that moment as your need for sleep. It doesn't prove a thing.

The 'nate' in 'innate' comes from 'natal', doesn't it? That word means 'birth'. I don't want to say that all of our choices were already determined for us before our births.

But yeah, I think that I agree with you in saying that our decision processes are causal in nature, so long as we recognize that some of those causes influence us from outside, and as long as we don't try to spin causality into fatalism.

I don't think that most believers in free-will (I'm one, I guess) will have much problem agreeing that if we duplicated a situation precisely, including not only the exact external situation that the actor finds him/herself in, but also the actor's own desires, fears, memories, knowledge, assessments and so on, that the actor would probably make the same choice again. Agreeing to that doesn't seem to violate most people's intuition of what 'free-will' means.

So the free-will intuition needn't imply some kind of absolute immunity from causality.

What does violate our idea of free-will is the much more fatalistic extension of the idea, the stronger assertion that everything we do was already predetermined even before we were born. The problem there seems to be that the importance of the actor's internal cognitive decision process is now being dismissed and the actor re-imagined as if he/she was merely a puppet.

In other words, what's creating problem for the free-will intuition isn't causality so much as it's fatalism.

So I'm kind of inclined to speculate that the difficulty isn't so much whether we are causal beings or not (I tend to identify our minds with our brain-processes and am probably more of a reductionist than many here), but rather, how far the causal chains that precede our actions extend and how completely they predetermine our choices and actions.

As I've already argued, for short temporal distances, I think that causal determinism is quite strong. If we perfectly reproduce a situation, down to the actor's own brain-states, he or she will probably behave the same way. But for longer temporal distances, I speculate that the one-to-one correlation between preexisting states and subsequent events becomes more and more fuzzy and stochastic, fading eventually into randomness. So even if we described the physical state of the universe at some point far in the distant past with all of the exactness physically possible, we probably still wouldn't be able to predict what particular humans are doing right here, right now. If we reproduced the universe's state back at the big-bang or whatever, even with all of the precision that's physically possible, in my opinion it's highly unlikely that the universe would evolve the same way a second time that it did the first.

If the more distant past hasn't already predetermined everything, that means that causal beings like ourselves might not be puppets at all. We might have to kind of play it by ear, ad-libbing (however causal that process is) in response to events as they occur around us, in real time. And the need for us to make those kind of choices and decisions, and our ability make them, seems to be precisely what many of us think of as free-will.

So I'm a compatibilist, I guess.

 

[barcelonic]

The illusion of free will threatens the concept of identity. I don't take credit for what my muscles do, and yet it is my brain that is doing it. It is nobody else's brain. Neither, though, can i take credit for the fact I don't take credit, ad infinitum.

When you reduce every single action of our bodies to forces beyond our control you realise that there is no 'I'. 'I' is simply whatever actions the brain determines it needs to take the credit or responsibility for, in order to keep the attached body motivated, and thus eating & sleeping & washing etc...

Guilt is necessary, fear is necessary, pride is necessary. Therefore, the sense of self is necessary.
(And what's more - it is necessary for all animals that have it.)

 

[Waiter_2001]

Will relates to the future, which should never be looked to anyways!

 

[Magical Realist]

The illusion of free will threatens the concept of identity. I don't take credit for what my muscles do, and yet it is my brain that is doing it. It is nobody else's brain. Neither, though, can i take credit for the fact I don't take credit, ad infinitum.

When you reduce every single action of our bodies to forces beyond our control you realise that there is no 'I'. 'I' is simply whatever actions the brain determines it needs to take the credit or responsibility for, in order to keep the attached body motivated, and thus eating & sleeping & washing etc...

Guilt is necessary, fear is necessary, pride is necessary. Therefore, the sense of self is necessary.
(And what's more - it is necessary for all animals that have it.)

Implicit in the concept of free will is the causal agency of the will itself. I can't conceive of my life or anyone's life without assuming this. We DO have a causal effect upon our actions. Sometimes more than others. These words we type here are assumed to be articulated by ourselves expressing thoughts we are thinking. An Olympic gold medal winner has thru perseverance and effort trained for that moment most their lives. We praise that as an outstanding demonstration of willpower and character. A soldier carries his wounded companion to safety in the heat of battle. We honor this as the act of bravery and sacrifice it is. You say this an illusion. That all of these acts are just trivial firings across intraneural synaptic gaps. Maybe so. But I'd rather have the illusion than the reality. I can't imagine a life where I have absolutely no causal effect on myself or on the world. What would be the point in living?

 

[kx000]

Your will is reality. It's what you will do.

 

[barcelonic]

Implicit in the concept of free will is the causal agency of the will itself. I can't conceive of my life or anyone's life without assuming this. We DO have a causal effect upon our actions. Sometimes more than others. These words we type here are assumed to be articulated by ourselves expressing thoughts we are thinking. An Olympic gold medal winner has thru perseverance and effort trained for that moment most their lives. We praise that as an outstanding demonstration of willpower and character. A soldier carries his wounded companion to safety in the heat of battle. We honor this as the act of bravery and sacrifice it is. You say this an illusion. That all of these acts are just trivial firings across intraneural synaptic gaps. Maybe so. But I'd rather have the illusion than the reality. I can't imagine a life where I have absolutely no causal effect on myself or on the world. What would be the point in living?

MR i'm sorry but the last question you asked is all-revealing. It suggests quite plainly that you are not looking for the truth but with something you can feel comfortable with.

I shall still address the rest though, because all i need to say is that if free will is an illusion all of what you just mentioned woulld seem exactly like that. What i mean is that if you imagine a handgun for a moment...

When you say, for example, "An Olympic gold medal winner has thru perseverance and effort trained for that moment most their lives." you are implying that the Olympic medallist is the brain which moves the hand to fire the gun. But what if you could only see a part of the gun - you might just as easily assume that the firing pin is 'doing' the action, but of course if we can see more we would realise that it is itself just another ball in the abacus and not the very first one.
If we could only see the barrel then we might assume that the barrel is independently spitting out bullets - but again we know this isn't true because we can see more than just the barrel.

Well, by the time we are able to see the 'whole' picture we can accept one of two possibilities and are led almost always to one of them:
Either we STILL are yet to see the whole picture, or now it is the brain which moves the hand which pulls the trigger which hammers the pin which spits a bullet through the barrel.

Now we are just as sure here that the brain is responsible as we were when we thought the barrel or the firing pin was responsible. But, just like before, we still have and will always have that other possibility. We may still be yet to see the whole picture.
I maintain here that the brain is not the first player on the scene, and there is another bullet and barrel and firing pin and more hiding out of sight.

You seem as sure as you are perhaps because you clearly have prerequisites on the truth you'd like to find. Might i ask if you are a religious believer, too? I ask only because it is an extremely common point made by believers when discussing matters of faith. You will never, ever hear a scientist describing what he or she believes in science by saying 'I just can't accept as truth because it is too horrid'; 'I can't believe that because what would be the point of life were it true"
These have absolutely no validity when it comes to finding out the truth. I think deep down you do know this - there is only one truth and whether it is pretty or not is out of our hands - the only thing in our hands is whether or not we would like to know what it is.

 

[Magical Realist]

MR i'm sorry but the last question you asked is all-revealing. It suggests quite plainly that you are not looking for the truth but with something you can feel comfortable with.

No, I don't use comfort as a criteria for deciding truth. I use explanatory power. And given that our experience doesn't even make sense without assuming persons perform their own actions and think their own thoughts and speak their own words, I go with that one instead of the one that says only brains act.

I shall still address the rest though, because all i need to say is that if free will is an illusion all of what you just mentioned woulld seem exactly like that.

Sorry, but causal agency isn't an illusion. You have yet to establish why it is when all our experience shows it to be not only real but the whole basis of a rational and sane interpretation of our lives. Consciousness is real, and our consciousness of our own internal states is real too. You have absolutely no evidence for it being an illusion.

When you say, for example, "An Olympic gold medal winner has thru perseverance and effort trained for that moment most their lives." you are implying that the Olympic medallist is the brain which moves the hand to fire the gun.

No..I am implying the gold medal winner is a person who causes their own actions and goals and decisions. The brain is simply the interface between mental intent and physical action.

But what if you could only see a part of the gun - you might just as easily assume that the firing pin is 'doing' the action, but of course if we can see more we would realise that it is itself just another ball in the abacus and not the very first one.
If we could only see the barrel then we might assume that the barrel is independently spitting out bullets - but again we know this isn't true because we can see more than just the barrel. Well, by the time we are able to see the 'whole' picture we can accept one of two possibilities and are led almost always to one of them:
Either we STILL are yet to see the whole picture, or now it is the brain which moves the hand which pulls the trigger which hammers the pin which spits a bullet through the barrel.

We have direct evidence of the brain being altered in its activity by the deliberate thoughts and intents of the person themselves. http://www.livescience.com/3553-brain-willpower-spot.html I don't really understand the point of your metaphor. Are you saying the brain is both the activity and the actor. The thoughts and the thinker? The effect and the cause?

Now we are just as sure here that the brain is responsible as we were when we thought the barrel or the firing pin was responsible. But, just like before, we still have and will always have that other possibility. We may still be yet to see the whole picture.
I maintain here that the brain is not the first player on the scene, and there is another bullet and barrel and firing pin and more hiding out of sight.

Do you have some evidence for the existence of this hidden set of causes?

You seem as sure as you are perhaps because you clearly have prerequisites on the truth you'd like to find.

Yes, I choose the explanations that most simply and adequately explain the facts of my experience. It's Occam's razor. Are we causal agents in the world as all our experience shows? Or is this all an elaborate hoax perpetrated by the brain itself for no reason whatsoever? I'm going with the explanation that explains the most with the least amount of assumptions.

Might i ask if you are a religious believer, too? I ask only because it is an extremely common point made by believers when discussing matters of faith. You will never, ever hear a scientist describing what he or she believes in science by saying 'I just can't accept as truth because it is too horrid'; 'I can't believe that because what would be the point of life were it true"

I don't know many people, even scientists, who think they can't do anything. Do you?

These have absolutely no validity when it comes to finding out the truth. I think deep down you do know this - there is only one truth and whether it is pretty or not is out of our hands - the only thing in our hands is whether or not we would like to know what it is.

It no doubt makes you feel strong and courageous that you can handle such a counterintuitive truth. It distinguishes you from the pathetic masses that believe based on their own experience and feelings doesn't it? And yet that very feeling, of being the stoic believer of this most depressing of truths, assumes you are a deciding agent of your own ideas and beliefs. You are to be given moral credit for your belief, believing it against all evidence to the contrary. That seems a little pious to me, as if truth were something that was earned thru willpower and denial of all the comforts that falsehoods provide. I don't decide what is truth this way. I base it on what explains my experience well and what pragmatically works in my daily life. "Washington crossed the Delaware." End of story.

 

[Yazata]

MR i'm sorry but the last question you asked is all-revealing. It suggests quite plainly that you are not looking for the truth but with something you can feel comfortable with.

I thought that you were a self-professed 'nihilist'.

So why are you talking about "truth", as if such a thing not only exists, but is an important value in its own right?

 

[Yazata]

Implicit in the concept of free will is the causal agency of the will itself.

I agree. The question then becomes: what is 'the will' and how should it be conceived? Or what amounts to the same thing: what is one's 'self'? What is it that's the active agent in human action?

I can't conceive of my life or anyone's life without assuming this.

I suspect that human beings all come from the factory with an innate and instinctive 'theory of mind' already installed. We naturally ascribe purposes and intentions to others' actions. We ascribe emotional states to other people. We think of them as conscious.

And even more subtly, I think that we naturally make sense of ourselves in the same way.

We DO have a causal effect upon our actions.

I'm not entirely convinced that when we investigate things in terms of neuroscience and brain-physiology, that our innate psychological concepts will always correspond one-to-one with items named in the ontological inventories of those sciences. In other words, intentions, memories, and even our selves, aren't physical things in their own right. It's more likely that they arise, in effect, as labels for some of the functions that physical things (our brain cells and their structures) perform.

But yeah, I agree that if we use the word 'we' to refer to the physiological process that's running in our brains, that's clearly what's causing our actions.

These words we type here are assumed to be articulated by ourselves expressing thoughts we are thinking. An Olympic gold medal winner has thru perseverance and effort trained for that moment most their lives. We praise that as an outstanding demonstration of willpower and character. A soldier carries his wounded companion to safety in the heat of battle. We honor this as the act of bravery and sacrifice it is.

Right. It's pretty clear that human morality, values and praise-and-blame attach to people at that level. Our own reactions to other people function on that level too. When we intuit and subsequently think about our own psychologies and psychological states, that's the conceptual vocabulary we use.

You say this an illusion. That all of these acts are just trivial firings across intraneural synaptic gaps. Maybe so. But I'd rather have the illusion than the reality. I can't imagine a life where I have absolutely no causal effect on myself or on the world. What would be the point in living?

I don't think that it's an illusion exactly. It might only become an illusion if we try to think about it in an inappropriate way, when we try to interpret each of the terms of our innate psychologistic language as naming distinct ontological beings, distinct kinds of stuff.

The little icons that Windows puts on our computer's screen aren't illusions. But it would be an illusion to rip apart our computers, tossing aside all the chips and stuff, in hope of finding the Start button alongside the other components in there.

 

[Sarkus]

I agree. The question then becomes: what is 'the will' and how should it be conceived? Or what amounts to the same thing: what is one's 'self'? What is it that's the active agent in human action?

The question would also be whether the active agent is itself caused (by activity we are aware or unaware of, at the micro or macro-levels), which would be my position, or whether it is somehow outside of that.
That we perceive our "self" to be the agent would be the case either way... but only one option seems to fit what we know of the way the universe operates at the micro-level as well.

I'm not entirely convinced that when we investigate things in terms of neuroscience and brain-physiology, that our innate psychological concepts will always correspond one-to-one with items named in the ontological inventories of those sciences. In other words, intentions, memories, and even our selves, aren't physical things in their own right. It's more likely that they arise, in effect, as labels for some of the functions that physical things (our brain cells and their structures) perform.

But yeah, I agree that if we use the word 'we' to refer to the physiological process that's running in our brains, that's clearly what's causing our actions.

I would say that it's clearly what we perceive is causing our actions... and if you look back at the causes, we can only go as far back as our own consciousness for it to make any sense. We are simply not able to be aware, on a moment by moment basis, of what causes our consciousness to do what it does.
Now either it is caused to do what it does but we are not consciously aware of the causes and thus are only aware of our consciousness being the instigator of an action, or the consciousness is indeed somehow an instigator of an action. And by instigator I do mean that it causes without itself being caused.

Right. It's pretty clear that human morality, values and praise-and-blame attach to people at that level. Our own reactions to other people function on that level too. When we intuit and subsequently think about our own psychologies and psychological states, that's the conceptual vocabulary we use.

Agreed. Regardless of whether we view freewill as illusory or not, the words we use for anything that seems to stem from our consciousness - such as morality, ethics, responsibility etc - all remain intact, and their meaning remains intact, and operate in exactly the same way.
I'm not always sure that people who argue against the illusory free-will fully appreciate that this would be the case, thinking that "free-will is illusion" somehow means we would suddenly be able to act as though we are not caught within the illusion. To do so would be to act entirely on a subconscious level, to become a class of p-zombie.
It is nigh on impossible to stop perceiving optical illusions the way we do, so how could we possibly do so for an all-encompassing illusion such as freewill?

I don't think that it's an illusion exactly. It might only become an illusion if we try to think about it in an inappropriate way, when we try to interpret each of the terms of our innate psychologistic language as naming distinct ontological beings, distinct kinds of stuff.

The little icons that Windows puts on our computer's screen aren't illusions. But it would be an illusion to rip apart our computers, tossing aside all the chips and stuff, in hope of finding the Start button alongside the other components in there.

I wouldn't say an "inappropriate way". It is when we try to understand what is behind what we perceive, and see that the qualities not only do not exist at micro-levels (which would be true of all emergent properties, if one adheres to emergentism for example) but are actually counter to the very nature of what goes on at those micro-levels.
We could say that every picture we see on a screen is an "illusion" of sorts - as you say there is no actual Start button etc - but these are fully explainable from the physics, electronics etc, and the nature of what we perceive does not go counter to the nature of physics, electronics.
But with freewill, the workings are not understood (as to how it arises), but if we assume that one moment causes the next, and that the universe is (probabilistically) deterministic, then the nature of what we perceive (uncaused agent of choice, being our consciousness) is not compatible with the assumptions.

At least that's how I would see it as being "illusory".

 

[barcelonic]

I thought that you were a self-professed 'nihilist'.

So why are you talking about "truth", as if such a thing not only exists, but is an important value in its own right?

Of course truth exists. If i throw a ball into the air it is true that it will fall down again. If i clap my hands it is true that it will produce a sound.

There is truth and there is Socratic truth, and what you are talking about is neither. I don't believe there is any objective meaning to life. But truth most certainly exists and i've not said otherwise.
But... if you want to get to the nitty gritty of it there is also the truth which is absolute, and which we can never possibly know. We don't have a lexicon to deal with this concept because it's entirely unnecessary.
This is you bringing this up though, just to be clear, as I haven't mentioned anything to do with this distinction until right now.

"Important value in its own right" - err, no thats not even close to what i was talking about. MR was trying to make a point and included that classic part about 'who'd want to live in such a world...' etc..
I am stating that it is an indication of his thinking process that he is disinclined to accept a truth he finds unpleasant. A very common mistake people make when raising points because it undermines the rest of
what they say. If MR hadn't have said that I wouldn't have been prompted to mention it.

It is kind of like if a psychopath tells another psychopath that he is a psychopath - does that make him less of a psychopath because the person who happened to point it out was also one? No.
If a pot calls a kettle black and the pot is also black it doesn't change how black the kettle is.
So Yaz even if your post was relevant, do you honestly think that would make my point to MR any less valid?

I've written plenty in here to disagree with so even if your understanding of my beliefs was correct I don't see why you'd highlight whatever you may perceive as inconsistent anyway? Is this personal, or do you believe the
question i put to MR was somehow undermined by me being a nihilist?

I also wrote a lot in my nihilism thread and, I believe, explained myself quite well. So tbh there's little excuse for misunderstanding me on that because you were an active part of that thread.

Seriously, what does the nature of truth have to do with objective meaning & morality?

 

[Sarkus]

If i clap my hands it is true that it will produce a sound.

Tell that to someone in a vacuum.

 

[cluelusshusbund]

I can't imagine a life where I have absolutely no causal effect on myself or on the world.

Hay 'ol buddy... here we are... still discussin this same issue after 15 + years

Interestin pont you made above.!!!

Over 40 years ago when i began to realize that free will was an illusion... it was excitin puttin the pieces of the puzzel together... an one day when i was bored at work an lettin my mind wonder... the last piece of the puzzel fell into place... an my heart started to race as i realized ther is Zero free-will... which clobbered my whole world view... an it was a bit scary (dissipated over the nest few weeks) but more interestin than ever.!!!

I then started goin to the library lookin for info. but it wasnt very helpful cause i really didnt know what to look for... but when i got access to the internet i found out i wasnt the only one who had figered it out... lol.!!!

But i am what you describe above... an even worse (lol)... i dont thank ther is an "I"... much less an "I" that isnt part of a causal chain... that influences me in such a way that causes the choises i make to be free... in other words... if ther was such an "I"... it woud just be anuther influence causin me to make the choices i make... an an influenced choice... no mater whare the influence comes from... is not a free choice.!!!

What would be the point in living?

Hard to say if the effect of realizin free will is an illusion is more positive than negetive (its prolly a very individual thang)... but sinse i realize that free will is an illusion i feel as if i have the best of both worlds... such as... i still have the emotion of love... i look forward to tomorrow... i still have pride in accomplishments... my level of regret... shame... guilt... etc. is low... an the notion of hate is very low... i dont fear bein dead... an even tho im very qurious... im content wit not knowin such thangs as--how the universe came to be.!!!

Even if the universe is totally deterministic (an i dont know of any evidence that ponts to the contrary)... in concluson--to answr you'r queston... i dont know what tomorrow will brang so i look forward to its surprises... which requires what i enjoy doin... which is keep on livin

 

[Magical Realist]

Hay 'ol buddy... here we are... still discussin this same issue after 15 + years

Hey Timmy! 15 years is it? Time flies.

Interestin pont you made above.!!!

Over 40 years ago when i began to realize that free will was an illusion... it was excitin puttin the pieces of the puzzel together... an one day when i was bored at work an lettin my mind wonder... the last piece of the puzzel fell into place... an my heart started to race as i realized ther is Zero free-will... which clobbered my whole world view... an it was a bit scary (dissipated over the nest few weeks) but more interestin than ever.!!!

I then started goin to the library lookin for info. but it wasnt very helpful cause i really didnt know what to look for... but when i got access to the internet i found out i wasnt the only one who had figered it out... lol.!!!

But i am what you describe above... an even worse (lol)... i dont thank ther is an "I"... much less an "I" that isnt part of a causal chain... that influences me in such a way that causes the choises i make to be free... in other words... if ther was such an "I"... it woud just be anuther influence causin me to make the choices i make... an an influenced choice... no mater whare the influence comes from... is not a free choice.!!!

I don't know what line of logic led you to conclude that the exertion of willpower by our minds is an illusion, but it must have been much more convincing than what has been presented here so far. So when you do something like decide to go the store, and then actually do it, you are saying what, that you had no choice but go to the store, that you didn't really cause yourself to go to the store with your decision, or a bit of both? And if it wasn't your decision to go the store that caused you to go, what else could it have been? Our actions seem to me to have reasons that we have arrived at thru our own thinking and believing. There is, iow, a logic in our actions when we take into consideration our intentions, forethought, and planning--a logic that perfectly explains why certain actions occurred as they did. What does your theory offer as the new reasons for human behavior if there is no "I" deciding or wanting or anticipating at all? Surely you must have better ways to explain human actions than the common sense way of ascribing motive and purpose to the human self.

Hard to say if the effect of realizin free will is an illusion is more positive than negetive (its prolly a very individual thang)... but sinse i realize that free will is an illusion i feel as if i have the best of both worlds... such as... i still have the emotion of love... i look forward to tomorrow... i still have pride in accomplishments... my level of regret... shame... guilt... etc. is low... an the notion of hate is very low... i dont fear bein dead... an even tho im very qurious... im content wit not knowin such thangs as--how the universe came to be.!!!

So you recognize your will is an illusion, but pretend it is real in your daily life because of the positive effects of this illusion (assuming ofcourse you're choosing to believe and to accept these ideas of your own freewill that is.)? That seems abit cognitively dissonant to me. If I believed my will was an illusion and my self was a nonexistent fiction I wouldn't view my life in the same way at all. I'd be constantly discouraged with the realization that I'm trapped in an delusion of freewill, involuntarily going thru the motions of acting and speaking like it was real when it wasn't real at all. I'd also have no basis for making ethical judgements about myself or others, who are all just passive victims to their own hidden brain processes. Finally life would have no value to me because the "I" doesn't even exist and neither do any "yous" for that matter. What a depressing universe that would be, humans reduced to automatons thoughtlessly acting out of their own internal programming and having no parts to play in this vast cosmic play. That is not a scenario I am at all disposed towards accepting. I choose not to accept it, and so continue to live my life in the happy awareness that what I do DOES matter and IS decided by me.

Even if the universe is totally deterministic (an i dont know of any evidence that ponts to the contrary)... in concluson--to answr you'r queston... i dont know what tomorrow will brang so i look forward to its surprises... which requires what i enjoy doin... which is keep on livin

I congratulate you on your openness to the unknown. I try to live like that too. But I refuse to disempower myself and my own thinking as mere ephemeral aftereffects of molecular reactions. Freedom is too precious a thing to me to kiss goodbye to.

 

[cluelusshusbund]

MR
Hey Timmy! 15 years is it? Time flies.

Give or take a year... back in the webtv groops when i was "twoboots" an you was "JP"

So when you do something like decide to go the store, and then actually do it, you are saying what, that you had no choice but go to the store,that you didn't really cause yourself to go to the store with your decision, or a bit of both? And if it wasn't your decision to go the store that caused you to go, what else could it have been?

Our actions seem to me to have reasons that we have arrived at thru our own thinking and believing.
There is, iow, a logic in our actions when we take into consideration our intentions, forethought, and planning--a logic that perfectly explains why certain actions occurred as they did.

What does your theory offer as the new reasons for human behavior if there is no "I" deciding or wanting or anticipating at all? Surely you must have better ways to explain human actions than the common sense way of ascribing motive and purpose to the human self.

The logic you'r talkin about is cause an effect... an cause an effect is why i went to the store.!!!
I see no evidence that the chain of cause an effect can be broken in such a way that woud allow choice to be free.!!!

I dont have a belief in an "I" which is somehow separate from the causal chain... or a belief that the mind is anythang more than biological an/or somehow separate from the rest of our biological body... ie... "willpower"... like everthang else is just more links in the causal chain... an due to cause an effect.. ther was nuthin free about the choice to go to the store.!!!

Hard to say if the effect of realizin free will is an illusion is more positive than negetive (its prolly a very individual thang)... but sinse i realize that free will is an illusion i feel as if i have the best of both worlds... such as... i still have the emotion of love... i look forward to tomorrow... i still have pride in accomplishments... my level of regret... shame... guilt... etc. is low... an the notion of hate is very low... i dont fear bein dead... an even tho im very qurious... im content wit not knowin such thangs as--how the universe came to be.!!!

So you recognize your will is an illusion, but pretend it is real in your daily life because of the positive effects of this illusion (assuming ofcourse you're choosing to believe and to accept these ideas of your own freewill that is.)? That seems abit cognitively dissonant to me. If I believed my will was an illusion and my self was a nonexistent fiction I wouldn't view my life in the same way at all.

The effects (as i stated above) of my realizin that free will is an illusion is a natural flow/takes no special effort/pretending... an it does affect my view of life... in that i feel more content/relaxed.!!!

I'd be constantly discouraged with the realization that I'm trapped in an delusion of freewill, involuntarily going thru the motions of acting and speaking like it was real when it wasn't real at all. I'd also have no basis for making ethical judgements about myself or others, who are all just passive victims to their own hidden brain processes. Finally life would have no value to me because the "I" doesn't even exist and neither do any "yous" for that matter. What a depressing universe that would be, humans reduced to automatons thoughtlessly acting out of their own internal programming and having no role to parts to play in this vast cosmic play. That is not a scenario I am at all disposed towards accepting. I choose not to accept it, and so continue to live my life in the happy awareness that what I do DOES matter and IS decided by me.

Mayb you woud feel that way an mayb you woudnt... who knows... but i see myself as no more than a biological calculator evolved to the pont of havin a sinse of consciousness (LOL)... an yet i go thru life as if i have free will... which includes empathy... love an acceptin responsibility for my actions... an that no one deserves punishment.!!!

I congratulate you on your openness to the unknown. I try to live like that too. But I refuse to disempower myself and my own thinking as mere ephemeral aftereffects of molecular reactions. Freedom is too precious a thing to me to kiss goodbye to.

"ephemeral aftereffects of molecular reactions"... you say that as if its a bad thang