Free Will - the illusion

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I don't "hope" anything/k.
I endure.

Mate, matey.
Didn't you read the crib notes?
We have no choice in the matter, ergo, "hope" is moot.

I think of "free will" as being degrees of self awareness. I don't believe any sense of true, absolute free will is actually achievable, but I think one can exist in a freer state than others at various times.

If you're getting furious, and you mentally pinch yourself and control your decisions by understanding "I am angry and my anger causes self righteousness and black and white thinking," you are exercising a higher degree of freedom than an individual who cannot realize this and becomes driven entirely by their furious mental state.

Becoming the witness to your own behavior, like a sexual impulse for instance, doesn't change the reality of you experiencing the behavior, but it can be illuminating to "catch yourself" and go "Aha! This stimulus just caused this effect in me because X, Y, & Z."

It depends on your level of knowledge, but no one will ever step "outside the brain," and in that sense we're all slaves to our limited organic biology, you know...Lovecraft kind of stuff.

IMHO, us people who believe in luck [i.e., that at best, the majority of what happens in our lives is due to chance or where a ball happens to land on some cosmic roulette wheel] are in the majority. were it not so, there likely would be somewhat less of a chance of the advent of such things as lotteries. words such as "fate" and "destiny" would have different meanings. just my brain droppings for today.

Well, hope is a place-marker in the unknown where you try to skew probabilities of what's real for the sake of holding out sanity and mental health.

Trust me, the likelihood of what we're dealing with could be a lot darker. See what I posted in 'Thoughts on God'. I'd strongly *prefer* that human and animal suffering be a sign that either there's no creator or that any cosmic mind has no power over suffering and thus isn't accountable for it but, again, that's me hoping for a universe I personally can stomach.

So, you cottoned-on to my affinity with animal life?

Regarding: "hope".
My nihilistic component doesn't think much of it.
Seriously, I don't do the wishful thinking any longer.
The adage: "Hope for the best and prepare for the worst",
...has transmogrified into: "Prepare for the worst."
I'm a reductionist, as you know.

I'd rather accept what is real/actual and endure the moment the best I can.
On the can, reading the paper, preferably.
May the force be with me to endure!

Regarding: "sanity".
You don't have to be insane to be born here.
But it bloody well helps.

Regarding a creator:
Better hope there isn't one, true dat.
After the end of the universes, the bugger might try it on again. EEP!

Well, I can't confirm or deny but I'd think there are very few people who don't hedge their preferences on the unknown at least a bit and most who'd claim they don't just don't recognize the instances where they're doing it.


Well, what is clear is there's no point in believing something you know isn't true - that much makes sense.


Sanity's more for the people around you not looking over and say either "He looks weak - I think I can overpower him and take his stuff" or "He looks crazy - I think I can overpower him and take his stuff".

Pepe was right. This article is basically telling us that those who lack free will are those who think "it may be important for people to feel they are in control of their lives" (emphasis added), and that "the illusion of choice might only apply to choices that are made quickly and without too much thought". Well, if one really does make decisions based entirely upon instinct, "gut feelings", and without much real thought, then... yes, I agree that in those circumstances free will didn't have much to do with the decision made.

However, for those of us who care naught for how reality "makes us feel" (because we prefer the hard, honest truth), and who base decisions upon things other than instinct (you know, like facts and logic) this will not apply. This research has NOT demolished the concept of free will, not by a long shot!

I'm a 'non-denominational agnostic', as I like to put it. The simple truth of the matter is that no one on this Earth really knows if there is anything beyond what we like to call 'reality'. It's a mystery we just can't seem to solve.

Um... no. What these results tell me is that people will often LIE in order to appease their over-inflated sense of self-worth and importance. Did the (ahem) 'scientists' who conducted this (misguided, in my view) research ever get the subtle feeling that the people who were 'self-reporting' were not exactly being very honest? Gee, imagine that happening! No, instead they conclude that we don't have free will! Holy hell this is BAD!

<serious mode activated>
If one compartmentalises context, I do wonder if free will is possible.

It seems to me that our sub-conscious/unconscious emotional needs are the villains of the piece.
Emotional needs are, after all, the major reality warping component of our cerebral physiology under "normal" conditions.

Phew.
As Sheldon Lee Cooper would say regarding eligibility: "Tick".

BTW, I'm part of the Vulcan Confederacy.
My main address is: Unit 88/4 Reason St. Rationalville, Vulcan.
Earth is only my holiday address.

Pepe have a combination from rational thinking and humor, i like that. Wel, actually, the brain from Pepe create a combination from rational & humor My consciousness is just a passenger, in my view everybody is that

BTW, in a certain way i agree with Lintar and Fnord that Free Wil exists, Free Wil is swimming now somewhere in the ocean

0.5 second

Long time ago, about 40 years ago there was Benjamin Libet with his experiment. He did make a EEG from the brain activity. The experiment did show a 0.5 second between brain activity and the consious of the activity.



7 seconds

More recent there is a FMRI scanner, the same kinds of experiments show up to 7 seconds between brain activity and the moment that humans are aware something. The 7 seconds depends on the kind of calculation of the brain, difficult things need more time than simple way of processing.

i wonder how that factors into folks with alexithymia? who may not be aware of what they are feeling emotion-wise for several hours?

If there is no free will then everything we do is just a natural reaction. But I don’t think that is true of everything we do. For instance me writing this post right now is taking conscious thought, not just a series of chemical reactions.