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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
 Posted - 12/13/2006 : 07:06:47 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Original_Intent
Irregardless of the origins, ... (snipped for brevity)
The origins are very important. If "will" is merely an emergent property of chemical reactions, then those chemical reactions are governed by the same physical laws as every other piece of matter and energy in the entire universe.
If those laws do not allow for "random" actions, then one can argue that "free will" at least at an atomic level does not exist.
"Free will", like consciousness or "will", may only be an emergent property of the complex chemical reactions in our brain.
Therefore, "free will" does exist as a concept and we operate under it. We make choices and change our minds, etc.
But, in reality, there is no such thing. It is just application of the laws, and they are predetermined. But since the future is unknowable (even if it is set), we can say that for complex creatures such as humans choice and free will do exist. We cannot function under any other terms.
This is all, of course, IMHO. I think this is logical; however, if we discover that the laws do not operate as such, then I will have no problem changing my mind LOL.
So I agree and disagree. I really wasn't trying to argue, but I did want to know where you thought "will" came from.
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by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 12/13/2006 : 09:23:48 [Permalink]
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Free will. No free will. I don't care. I will live my life as though I have choices because, as far as I can see, I have no choice in the matter…
That is my pinhead analysis of the free will question as it pertains to any practical application of a solution from the perspective of how this individual will conduct his life.
I'll let you guys decide if I have free will. But it won't change a thing…
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Original_Intent
SFN Regular
USA
609 Posts |
Posted - 12/13/2006 : 12:13:15 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by pleco
quote:
Originally posted by Original_Intent
Irregardless of the origins, ... (snipped for brevity)
The origins are very important. If "will" is merely an emergent property of chemical reactions, then those chemical reactions are governed by the same physical laws as every other piece of matter and energy in the entire universe.
If those laws do not allow for "random" actions, then one can argue that "free will" at least at an atomic level does not exist.
"Free will", like consciousness or "will", may only be an emergent property of the complex chemical reactions in our brain.
Therefore, "free will" does exist as a concept and we operate under it. We make choices and change our minds, etc.
But, in reality, there is no such thing. It is just application of the laws, and they are predetermined. But since the future is unknowable (even if it is set), we can say that for complex creatures such as humans choice and free will do exist. We cannot function under any other terms.
This is all, of course, IMHO. I think this is logical; however, if we discover that the laws do not operate as such, then I will have no problem changing my mind LOL.
So I agree and disagree. I really wasn't trying to argue, but I did want to know where you thought "will" came from.
I am not sure how will comes about, chemicals or a divine spark.... For the purpose of the application, it dosen't matter.
Further, even if it is nothing but complex chemical reactions, I can still choose how I will act in most situations, irregardless of my bodies chemical desires.
Peace
Joe
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Original_Intent
SFN Regular
USA
609 Posts |
Posted - 12/13/2006 : 12:16:21 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Kil
Free will. No free will. I don't care. I will live my life as though I have choices because, as far as I can see, I have no choice in the matter…
That is my pinhead analysis of the free will question as it pertains to any practical application of a solution from the perspective of how this individual will conduct his life.
I'll let you guys decide if I have free will. But it won't change a thing…
LOL... Amen
Unless of course we are wrong, and we are not actually living our lives, but just walking around thinking we are. And are we really thinking, and if we ........
AGH....
Peace
Joe |
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perrodetokio
Skeptic Friend
275 Posts |
Posted - 12/19/2006 : 12:59:11 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Neurosis
If something is funny you will laugh, if something is sad you will cry.
Not everyone finds the samething funny, and not everyones finds the samething sad. Not even in groups of people with the same cultural background.
Neuroscience is great and everything, but we don't know (at least yet) exactly how the brain works.
Also, maybe I'm mistaken (please correct me if so) but freewill corresponds to the choices we make, not the emotions we feel. No one can say "if there's such a thing as freewill I could choose not feeling sad".
Salud! |
"Yes I have a belief in a creator/God but do not know that he exists." Bill Scott
"They are still mosquitoes! They did not turn into whales or lizards or anything else. They are still mosquitoes!..." Bill Scott
"We should have millions of missing links or transition fossils showing a fish turning into a philosopher..." Bill Scott |
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perrodetokio
Skeptic Friend
275 Posts |
Posted - 12/19/2006 : 13:03:18 [Permalink]
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errr... ahumm...
sorry'bout that!
I posted a reply before I finished reading all 3 pages in this thread and it seems people had already addressed that issue.
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"Yes I have a belief in a creator/God but do not know that he exists." Bill Scott
"They are still mosquitoes! They did not turn into whales or lizards or anything else. They are still mosquitoes!..." Bill Scott
"We should have millions of missing links or transition fossils showing a fish turning into a philosopher..." Bill Scott |
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Neurosis
SFN Regular
USA
675 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2006 : 14:14:11 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Kil
Free will. No free will. I don't care. I will live my life as though I have choices because, as far as I can see, I have no choice in the matter…
That is my pinhead analysis of the free will question as it pertains to any practical application of a solution from the perspective of how this individual will conduct his life.
I'll let you guys decide if I have free will. But it won't change a thing…
This is actually what I said a few posts back. The reality of laws that govern our decisions (present or otherwise) are not of any consequence to the decision making bodies. Even a computer does not care what its programming is within the programming line. It is unnecessary to the completion of the program. |
Facts! Pssh, you can prove anything even remotely true with facts.
- Homer Simpson
[God] is an infinite nothing from nowhere with less power over our universe than the secretary of agriculture.
- Prof. Frink
Lisa: Yes, but wouldn't you rather know the truth than to delude yourself for happiness?
Marge: Well... um.... [goes outside to jump on tampoline with Homer.] |
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Neurosis
SFN Regular
USA
675 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2006 : 14:19:00 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Original_Intent
quote:
Originally posted by pleco
quote:
Originally posted by Original_Intent
Irregardless of the origins, ... (snipped for brevity)
The origins are very important. If "will" is merely an emergent property of chemical reactions, then those chemical reactions are governed by the same physical laws as every other piece of matter and energy in the entire universe.
If those laws do not allow for "random" actions, then one can argue that "free will" at least at an atomic level does not exist.
"Free will", like consciousness or "will", may only be an emergent property of the complex chemical reactions in our brain.
Therefore, "free will" does exist as a concept and we operate under it. We make choices and change our minds, etc.
But, in reality, there is no such thing. It is just application of the laws, and they are predetermined. But since the future is unknowable (even if it is set), we can say that for complex creatures such as humans choice and free will do exist. We cannot function under any other terms.
This is all, of course, IMHO. I think this is logical; however, if we discover that the laws do not operate as such, then I will have no problem changing my mind LOL.
So I agree and disagree. I really wasn't trying to argue, but I did want to know where you thought "will" came from.
I am not sure how will comes about, chemicals or a divine spark.... For the purpose of the application, it dosen't matter.
Further, even if it is nothing but complex chemical reactions, I can still choose how I will act in most situations, irregardless of my bodies chemical desires.
Peace
Joe
Pleco concisely expressed my sentiments (as thought I had already several times). It does matter in this discussion (not so much anywhere else).
You still seem to missing the point. If you are only chemical reactions (the natural explaination for which we have evidence (even if it is limited)) then you are only your chemical reactions. ALL desires are chemical and you must obey the winning chemical combination. When there is competing over this, you feel as though you made a decision. If there is no God (and even if there is, which was my argument), there is no free will and even the idea of will is an illusion. |
Facts! Pssh, you can prove anything even remotely true with facts.
- Homer Simpson
[God] is an infinite nothing from nowhere with less power over our universe than the secretary of agriculture.
- Prof. Frink
Lisa: Yes, but wouldn't you rather know the truth than to delude yourself for happiness?
Marge: Well... um.... [goes outside to jump on tampoline with Homer.] |
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Neurosis
SFN Regular
USA
675 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2006 : 14:38:47 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by perrodetokio
quote:
Originally posted by Neurosis
If something is funny you will laugh, if something is sad you will cry.
Not everyone finds the samething funny, and not everyones finds the samething sad. Not even in groups of people with the same cultural background.
This is irrelevent.
quote:
Neuroscience is great and everything, but we don't know (at least yet) exactly how the brain works.
We know how nothing works completely and never will. We do know alot more than you apparently realize. Neuroscience, as interesting to me as it is, does not seem to put a buzz in the American people on a whole. But if one were to look into just slightly they would be surprised. The point is, we do know alot and have not found any evidence of anything other than emmergent chemical properties for all neuropathology (obviously, this term includes normal functions and outputs as well as the stigmatic psychoses). Also, we have no evidence that the universe does not operate under laws. I am not sure such a universe could exist anyway. But that is another topic.
quote:
Also, maybe I'm mistaken (please correct me if so) but freewill corresponds to the choices we make, not the emotions we feel. No one can say "if there's such a thing as freewill I could choose not feeling sad".
Salud!
You are mistaken. The choices we make are both based on emotions (depending on how emotion is defined all could be) and chemical presences, absences, and etc. Therefore, unless something else is outside of the brain tissue making the "decisions" then it does not matter how you define it, that is an emmergent brain function created by chemical reactions. The question is Can a thought (intangible, chemical emmergent) effect, physically, the brain chemistry? or Is there something else outside of the brain chemical matrix (which I have already laid out an argument as to why this does not even matter because of the infinite regress)? |
Facts! Pssh, you can prove anything even remotely true with facts.
- Homer Simpson
[God] is an infinite nothing from nowhere with less power over our universe than the secretary of agriculture.
- Prof. Frink
Lisa: Yes, but wouldn't you rather know the truth than to delude yourself for happiness?
Marge: Well... um.... [goes outside to jump on tampoline with Homer.] |
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skeptic griggsy
Skeptic Friend
USA
77 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2007 : 09:59:27 [Permalink]
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| I was feeling ill at ease with the world. That cause caused me to seek therapy and medecine that changed my cause of paranoia and extreme shyness. That is, determinism helps us be free! What we have is causal free will- soft determinism/compatabilism.Contra-causal free will leaves us at the mercy of random forces.Causal free will or self-control implies responsability.It takes yeoman efforts and perhaps medecine to overcome the causes of drug abuse and alchoholism. It is not the all or nothing fallacy, but cumulative small choices to do so.. Now the topic is since God is not the Supreme Robot, nor would we be robots were we more in imago Dei, having free will but not inclined to do wrong.Theists special plead in stating God and Heaven are so different.Theodicy is just the making palatable the irresponsability of God for not putting us in a safe place as good parents would have done. Soteriology is the making palatable ritual cannabalism and vampirism and human sacrifice for the divine protection rackett.Theology tries to use a series of guesses for a series of mysteries for a pseudo-explanation. Christology tries to make a savior-god out of a miracle worker, a dime a dozen in those times. My threads pose as challenges to theists as basic atheology. |
Fr. Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. Logic is the bane of theists.Religion is mythinformation. Reason saves, not a dead Galilean fanatic. |
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skeptic griggsy
Skeptic Friend
USA
77 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2008 : 11:19:17 [Permalink]
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 I am trying to get theists to be consistent in applying free will and no inclination to do evil in Heaven to the same on Earth. They ever special plead to deny the applicability. No rational being would permit such unrequited evil as exists.None would want worship and judge us. It is a one-way street for God, if He is omnipotent and omnibenevolent!The wanted consistency is not "the hobgoblins of little minds."
"God, if he decided to create other beings with free will ' As David Ramsay Steele notes in "Atheism Explained : from Folly to Philosophy, ' would create them in his own image with the guarantee against their ever committing evil. The theist who says God has free willl, cannot claim that a guarantee against their ever committing evil is metaphysically incompatible,and therefore will find it hard to deny that God could have created humans with a guarantee against their ever committing evil."
 We naturalists turn their vaunted defense of free will back upon them! If Pike is so right, then there could be no such Heaven! The free will and soul-making theodicies are just more rationalizations for a neglectful god!
And to add Hell to the mix is to make the problem of evil even worse.No rational being would make such a place and would forgive without any kind of animal sacrifice and cannibalistic meal: the divine protection racket is just more from the mean-spirited men of yore!
Reason saves, not a long-dead Galilean!
For a truly more abundant life than that fanatical cult leader could ever deliver , read Robert Price's "The Reason-Driven Life" and Albert Ellis's "The Myth of Self-Esteem."
So, theists prefer to rationalize than to admit their gross inconsistency!
Double depression ie ever so depressing1 Your neurotic but happy depressive.
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Fr. Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. Logic is the bane of theists.Religion is mythinformation. Reason saves, not a dead Galilean fanatic. |
| Edited by - skeptic griggsy on 09/14/2008 11:40:06 |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2008 : 13:10:16 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Neurosis
Pleco concisely expressed my sentiments (as thought I had already several times). It does matter in this discussion (not so much anywhere else).
You still seem to missing the point. If you are only chemical reactions (the natural explaination for which we have evidence (even if it is limited)) then you are only your chemical reactions. ALL desires are chemical and you must obey the winning chemical combination. When there is competing over this, you feel as though you made a decision. If there is no God (and even if there is, which was my argument), there is no free will and even the idea of will is an illusion.
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How would the existence of God change that? The way I see it, we have only two options. Either our decisions arrive through a (semi)-conscious decision making process, which weighs the pros and cons of a choice or a feeling. If chemicals do this job, the winning chemical will prevail, if there is another (non-material?) process, the winning argument will prevail. The essential is the same in both cases. And in both cases, making a choice would be a deterministic process. Not free will how it is commonly understood.
The other option is that we do not make a decision based on arguments or feelings. But than that decision would be completely random, in which case the decision would be inherently random. And also not free will.
I don't see how any decision or action could fall under the nominative "free will" in any sense. I think it is an inherently useless (and perhaps idiotic) term. It usually is not rigorously defined, and if it is it amounts to either determinism or randomness. There is no in-between. Am I missing something here? |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
| Edited by - tomk80 on 09/14/2008 13:12:03 |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2008 : 15:11:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Neurosis
When one examines such cases as split brain patients blind in one eye, we see that when exposed to a sign that reads "Leave the room." Although they cannot see it physically or even process it consciously, for that is literally impossable, they leave the room anyway! Leave the room! Then they make up an excuse to explain why they left the room and once they have, that becomes their experience. It cannot be proven to them that the sign made them do it. Just as the alien abductees cannot believe that what they "felt" wasn't real.
Another good example is anosognosia, patients that deny injury and paralysis. They cannot consciously percieve injury because the emotion associated with being injured is not delivered to thier conciousness. It can not be rationaly explained to them (especially in extreme cases) that they are injured because that is not their experience, sometimes they will even imagine they are moving their paralzed arm when they are not. Of course, to them it is as real as reality.
Blind sight is another good example. These are people who cannot see anything or consciously recognize their environment. However, part of them, the occipital lobe, can see it. They can never communicate with this part consciously, but when asked to guess where the light is. What feels like a guess to them is always correct (within reasonable accuracy). The brain knows where it is and when we guess about anything it is not a guess. Something that is just out of reach of consciousness tells us what to do.
Also, some stroke patients cannot percieve one side of their field of vision when the fusiform gyrus is damaged. This is called unilateral neglect and is similar to what is happening in the anosognosia patients. Somatosensroy is disrupted. It is literally impossible to see anything over on one side even though the eyes work fine. They "see" it but not on a conscious level. In fact, some patients have been observed to repeatedly reach into a mirror over and over again trying to get a pencil that was on the left of them (mirror on the right). Even though they understand what a mirror is, they still cannot recognize that there is a whole other world just to their left, even with the mirror and even with the doctor sitting there asking why they are reaching into the mirror.
There are tons of other example in medical textbooks everywhere. There are things we are conscious of and we have control over, but there is so much more, even things we could be in control of but aren't at the moment, going on it our heads. For instance, when a math solution or a problem is solve spontaneously in your head, that is because another part of you was working it without you knowing it.
If I ask you to move your finger at random, the part of your brain that prepares the finger to move first activates, then the part of you that decides which one lights up, meaning you have decided before you consciously decided. The reverse of this is deciding to move your pinky. If you decide to move a finger, rather than just any finger at a prompt then it can go the other way.
I am not talking about biological imperatives. I am talking about something bigger. I am talking about how the brain works on a smaller level to generate an emmergent property that is in many ways an illusion. Each cell "makes" its own decision based on a chemical presence or absence. Without complicating the whole discussion, I simply mean that what we think we are i.e. one person who makes decisions and ecetera is not what we are. Most of our decisions are made "for us" by another part of us out of reach of conscious awareness.
As for the philisophiocal theory I laid out. I simply mean that we are natural and of nature, as is everything else, nature has rules, the rules may even have rules, and mini rules may be in place. It doesn't matter. Something (rule) determined how something else (chemical interaction) happened. Everything has rules. Therefore, everything (including us) has followed these rules for as long as anything existed and thus the outcome was not variable and can never be, but only in the grand scheme of things. I am not sure anything can be gained from this realization. I do not mean to postulate a way of living or claim that people are not "responsible" for thier actions or anything. I simply mean in reality everything is and was governed and invariable. But as far as our purposes can ever reach it does not matter. We must view most things in relation to our tiny space of history and in that perspective deal with those things.
[Edited to add:]
Sorry, I forgot to address this statement:
"Even the one desicion or another gives us the freedom to choose those actions. Heredity/genetics can predipose us to a choice, but the freedom to choos is still ours."
The freedom of choice is ours to make. True enough. But how we make the decision is not dependent on what we think we are. As the above example of the split brain patients illustrates, we make decisions deep within us and then sort of make up reasons that are really emotionally driven by the limbic cortex and not the frontal cortex. It has its place that good old PFC, but really much more of who we are is programmed by emotional experience and attachment than any reason could undo or even deal with. We are our feelings more than our thoughts. BTW our genetic predispositions are part of "us". Even the biological imperitaves are part of "us". We lean one way or another at birth but based on emotional experiences with those predisposed actions we may completely override them. There are some experiments with rats, bells, and shocking deices you should check out it you get the chance. As the PFC is an extremely late developement evolutionarily, what else would we expect beside most of the control being in the hands of those other cortexes?
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I'd have to say that everything I have read leads me to concur with Neurosis.
I find Ramachandran's studies absolutely fascinating. |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
| Edited by - astropin on 09/14/2008 15:20:09 |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2008 : 15:50:56 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by skeptic griggsy
 Theists like Nelson Pike find that if we had free will and could do no wrong on Earth, we would be robots; that applies, without special pleading , also to Heaven .To maintain that matters are different in Heaaven is to special plead. John Hick [ argues with the all or nothing fallacy and a straw man , that we atheists demand paradise,but it is such as he who do and we demand such on Earth if in Heaven. Theists special plead, trying to have it both ways .Theodicy is just one rationalization after another!
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Well, it sure seems like we would have no choice but to be happy in Heaven - just like we would have no choice but to be miserable in Hell. |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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skeptic griggsy
Skeptic Friend
USA
77 Posts |
Posted - 06/28/2009 : 08:19:43 [Permalink]
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Nay, theists cannot be consistent, for then they would have to admit defeat.
Oh, they can resort to the unknown defense theory that He has reasons beyond our capacity to fathom. I find that to be an argument from ignorance .Perhaps, but we cannot know that, some would say. I find that that argument mocks our moral sense. We know that the Holocaust was evil and the founding of Israel - a good - cannot overcome that evil but only confounds it, for the Palestinians payed the price and the Israelis who die from terrorism pay the price. Yea, good can come out of evil, but in this case at what cost! So here there can be no sufficient unknown reason for evil.
Theodicy is a series of rationalizations for His indifference towards us!
To balance unrequited evil with Heaven is like my giving one a million dollars for my breaking all her arms and legs. Theists find it necessary to have Heaven to balance those evils but that reveals a blind spot about their God.
There is such much of such evils that we naturalists find no omni-max God, yet on the whole we find life wonderful! " Life is its own validation and reward and purpose." We need no theodicy but such advice as Robert Price gives in "The Reason-Driven Life " and Albert Ellis in " The Myth of Self- Esteem."
We choose from opposing determinants in line with what Neurosis states.
There is the problem for some theists who state that from all eternity ,He knows what we will do in detail: how then can we be free in any manner?
So, we not only here can discuss the problem of Heaven and that of evil period but also free will and can He know the future and yet we have free will?
I present here the problem of Heaven as the logical argument that does indeed work whilst William Rowe presents the evidential problem from evil.
Again as Davis Ramsay Steele in ' Atheism Explained: from Folly to Philosophy," notes that if in Heaven, one can be free and yet be gauranteed not to do wrong, then the same should be here. This is no " hobgoblin of foolish consistency."
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Fr. Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. Logic is the bane of theists.Religion is mythinformation. Reason saves, not a dead Galilean fanatic. |
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the definitive disproof of the free will argu
