Free-Will

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mar00
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26 Jan 2012, 11:09 am

Mdyar wrote:

mar, what difference does it really make though. Your trajectory cannot practically, definitively and ultimately be gauged under determinism. What we experience as free will (however illusory it may seem in a context "outside" ourselves- we are at the end of those strings, dancing about at the pull on these. ) is the only thing that it is at all meaningful for the term to refer to; that is, what we experience as free will is free will.

Only a difference of truth! The subject has been a victim of delusional speculation; it's also an amazing example of how science can contribute to answering such 'spiritual' questions.

Mdyar
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26 Jan 2012, 11:23 am

The worm has free will.

ruveyn
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26 Jan 2012, 2:12 pm

Mdyar wrote:

The worm has free will.

How would you know? Are you a worm?

ruveyn

Sunshine7
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26 Jan 2012, 2:17 pm

Can I choose to not believe in free will?

Mdyar
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26 Jan 2012, 4:50 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Mdyar wrote:

The worm has free will.

How would you know?
ruveyn

As I've stated before, all our actions, conscious or otherwise, are tantamount to *instinct* as in following a program. Who's to say where the threshold lies between "instinct" and (free)will Is this distinction due to our options being nearly infinite as the only difference?

As I said before, it is free in only the way we experience this. Both make choices, both are merely brains.

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26 Jan 2012, 5:10 pm

Mdyar wrote:

As I said before, it is free in only the way we experience this. Both make choices, both are merely brains.

You know too much. Perhaps you are a worm.

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Sunshine7
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27 Jan 2012, 4:10 pm

Quote:

Who's to say where the threshold lies between "instinct" and (free)will

CNS-triggered instincts like jerking away from a hot stove and the startle reflex, and conscious thought in the frontal lobe, are already quite well-mapped by neuroscientists.

Even if it wasn't, yours is an appeal to ignorance anyway; if we cannot say where the threshold lies, then it must be non-existent.

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27 Jan 2012, 7:14 pm

Sunshine7 wrote:

Quote:

Who's to say where the threshold lies between "instinct" and (free)will

My contention is with the construct of "instinct" and *non-extinct* as even existent. Why is there or why should there be a real defined threshold/ boundary between the two?

Does conscious thought follow, based on the sense impressions of our experience, as stemming from an emotive generator of good or bad memory storage,( hence "values") that create Free Will?
It is all sense impressions in one way or another; why is there this concept of free will on this "conscious" end?

As said, either way there is a * choice generator* that will make a choice based on sensory input and the latter with greater (memory) retrieval. One has more range than the other.

Last edited by Mdyar on 03 Feb 2012, 1:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

jackmt
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27 Jan 2012, 8:44 pm

Free will is an illusion that allows me to congratulate myself for making better choices than you or causes me to kick myself if I don't. After all, we have the same options available, right? No. I only have a choice of something if I have the power and skills to take that option. But having them doesn't require that that option be taken. I will choose that which I perceive to be in my greatest interest from all the available options I correctly perceive to be available. That is the way we are all programmed.

Altruism, in the sense of sacrificing oneself for a stranger, is never a choice, but an unthinking instantaneous response to a stimulus. Otherwise it is just enlightened self-interest.

thedaywalker
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28 Jan 2012, 2:41 pm

there are some people right now researching if quantum physical effects in the brain may be present and if so if they could be viewed as being free will. i personaly do believe in free wil for in a fixed system that doesn't alow for free will perception is not acounted for. i am for i percieve and i am as free as i percieve myself to be.

donnie_darko
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28 Jan 2012, 9:01 pm

Sunshine7 wrote:

Can I choose to not believe in free will?

I don't think people can really choose their beliefs. If that was true, the saying 'i want to believe' wouldn't really make much sense would it?

donnie_darko
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28 Jan 2012, 9:03 pm

thedaywalker wrote:

I think we perceive our will as free, and even though I don't believe it truly is 'free' since i think the concept of free will itself doesn't really mean anything, that's good enough for me!

As for the quantum effects, you COULD say that was free will, but you could also just say the Universe has a random element. I guess God maybe does play dice after all.

Sunshine7
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30 Jan 2012, 12:06 pm

Quote:

Sunshine7 wrote:
Can I choose to not believe in free will?

I don't think people can really choose their beliefs. If that was true, the saying 'i want to believe' wouldn't really make much sense would it?

Reeaaaally think about it. (:

techstepgenr8tion
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30 Jan 2012, 3:25 pm

Saturn wrote:

I tend to the view that there is no free-will in the sense that everything that happens is a result of what has happened before. I don't see how it is possible for something to spontaneousely occur that is not part of this deterministic process. That is not to say that novel things cannot arise, only that we are incapable of any intervention in the process.

Let me see otherwise if you can.

I can't; that's pretty well air tight and in line with my own perception.

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01 Feb 2012, 8:43 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:

Saturn wrote:

I can't; that's pretty well air tight and in line with my own perception.

For myself, I think hard-determinism is a very radical claim. The problem of determinism certainly does provides us will pause to question free will, in the definitional sense but not necessarily as a concept. When you find that your own internal definition of free will does not work with determinism or indeterminism, the best place to start is not in surrender: rather I would suggest you take a look at the hundreds of definitions of free will take work just fine with determinism; each allowing certain degrees of freedom or less, depending on the factors it is working with. Either way, it at least persuades me, that the two concepts are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Embracing hard-determinism within the discipline of the study of free will means stating that all of those definitions do not work or cannot be made to work: hence why it is considered so radical.

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abacacus
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01 Feb 2012, 8:45 pm

I have serious issues believing that ANYTHING is predetermined.

I can choose to do pretty much whatever I want (within the law), that choice is not made for me.

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