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2018-01-23 at 1:54 AM UTC
Originally posted by Open Your Mind The popular conception of free will rests on a few assumptions.
I'm not asking you the assumptions that it rests on, I'm asking you what it is because I know you'll simply open another rabbit hole where you dodge every attempt to question each individual point you make. I'm asking you what free will is.
But I'll bite, just so I can make you talk in circles again.One assumption is that each of us could have behaved differently than we did in the past.
What do you mean by "could have" behaved differently? In compatibilism this means that an agent is unconstrained by any outside agent (not circumstance). This is a perfectly coherent structure to establish this premise.Another is that we are the conscious source of most of our thoughts and actions.
Sounds like a straw man to me: nowhere in the "classical" definition of free will can you find any conception of some sort of uncaused generation of will.Our wills are not our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes which we are unaware of and over which we exert no control. Free will cannot be made conceptually coherent. Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.
Again, you have failed to grasp the central contention of compatibilism, which can be summed up something like "man can do what he will but cannot will what he wills".
Your only response to this seems to be that nothing is responsible for anything, at which point the logical question is: can we attribute responsibility for anything to anything?
My answer is of course: everything has proximal, intermediate and ultimate causes. Every event's proximal cause, or direct cause, can be said to be responsible for its successive event, by definition. Thus whatever constitutes your conception of "self" is responsible for whatever emerges from it. And when it is unconstrained by another agent, it is free.
QED.The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire! -
2018-01-23 at 2:11 AM UTC
Originally posted by Captain Falcon My answer is of course: everything has proximal, intermediate and ultimate causes. Every event's proximal cause, or direct cause, can be said to be responsible for its successive event, by definition. Thus whatever constitutes your conception of "self" is responsible for whatever emerges from it. And when it is unconstrained by another agent, it is free.
Here you are basically agreeing with me. Everything that you think or do is caused by something you are unaware of and have no control over. Whatever you think of as your self is not really different than a ball rolling down a hill. It does only what it can do and nothing else. You want to call that free will, but when people feel that they are doing something out of their own free will, they don't mean they feel like a ball rolling down a hill. -
2018-01-23 at 2:36 AM UTC
Originally posted by Open Your Mind Here you are basically agreeing with me. Everything that you think or do is caused by something you are unaware of and have no control over. Whatever you think of as your self is not really different than a ball rolling down a hill. It does only what it can do and nothing else. You want to call that free will, but when people feel that they are doing something out of their own free will, they don't mean they feel like a ball rolling down a hill.
Again, the only thing you're demonstrating is that you don't understand compatibilism: we can both agree that what you do or think ultimately comes from some unknown source outside of our control. But that's still what we do or think. That's just tautologically true. And if our will, however that may arise, is not subject to constraints by outside agents then it is free. Now rather than begging the question and stating your conclusion about free will as part of your premise, how about you answer the simple question which is, what would it take for one's will to be free?
If you say "free will is impossible" then I'm going to certify you as mentally retarded because it's basically a non-sequitur, and I've already given a perfectly consistent definition of it, an alternative to which you fail to provide. -
2018-01-23 at 2:51 AM UTC
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2018-01-23 at 3:02 AM UTC
Originally posted by Captain Falcon And if our will, however that may arise, is not subject to constraints by outside agents then it is free.
It is no more free than a ball rolling down a hill. The ball, like your will, cannot suddenly stop or change direction unless something else cause it to. There is no freedom in that.
You already agree with me that we are like that ball. We cannot change our directions. But most people feel like they can. Most people feel like they are the conscious source of their own actions and thoughts. As if the ball were rolling, bouncing and changing direction all by it's own intention. That is what a person means when they talk about their free will. Nobody describes freedom as being incapable of doing anything except the only things they must do. -
2018-01-23 at 3:10 AM UTC
Originally posted by Open Your Mind It is no more free than a ball rolling down a hill.
If the ball has agency and moves under its own motive then what is to say it's not free? There's nothing logically invalid about that idea. The only thing under debate is whether those premises are true, not whether they are valid. -
2018-01-23 at 3:23 AM UTC
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2018-01-23 at 3:24 AM UTC
Originally posted by Captain Falcon If the ball has agency and moves under its own motive then what is to say it's not free?
Even if the ball "had agency", you and I both know that spherical lump of plastic is incapable of doing anything without something else causing it to do something, and that any appearance of motive or intention is really just an illusion. Even if the ball had a brain and consciousness and could think like a human, those thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes which we are unaware of and over which we exert no control. Free will cannot be made conceptually coherent. Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them. -
2018-01-23 at 3:27 AM UTCHow about we all agree on a basic sentence for what we can accept free will to mean? If we can establish that, we can move this along.
My suggestion per my understanding, my personal defining term, would be that free will for all intents and purposes is one's ability at any given time to choose a particular action, decision, or thought, out of the the x number of potential actions, decisions, or thoughts that are available to us as set and bounded by our mental and physical capacities.
What's yours? Don't need to go into analogies or examples, just tell me your personal definition of what you feel free will to mean.
Thank you!
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2018-01-23 at 3:37 AM UTC
Originally posted by HTS No such thing as free will, everything that has ever happened has been as a direct result of the starting conditions of the universe. Nobody is free. There is no escape. I am only making this post because I was going to make this post.
yes, we all have free will and you shouldnt had made this post but you did it anyway. becos you free willed.
we all have free will, what we dont have is the ability to will freely. -
2018-01-23 at 3:44 AM UTC
Originally posted by Open Your Mind Even if the ball "had agency", you and I both know that spherical lump of plastic is incapable of doing anything without something else causing it to do something
Then you're merely disputing the premise that the ball has agency (specifically whether or not that premise is true, not valid). As such the structure of the argument remains valid.and that any appearance of motive or intention is really just an illusion. Even if the ball had a brain and consciousness and could think like a human, those thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes which we are unaware of and over which we exert no control. Free will cannot be made conceptually coherent. Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.
I've already addressed this. If you just want to babble and act like I haven't already shut down this exact same argument dozens of times already, then go right ahead. It just makes you look like a moron (deservedly so). Our will can be predetermined but that doesn't factor into our idea of what makes it free. -
2018-01-23 at 4:13 AM UTC
Originally posted by Captain Falcon Then you're merely disputing the premise that the ball has agency (specifically whether or not that premise is true, not valid). As such the structure of the argument remains valid.
I've already addressed this. If you just want to babble and act like I haven't already shut down this exact same argument dozens of times already, then go right ahead. It just makes you look like a moron (deservedly so). Our will can be predetermined but that doesn't factor into our idea of what makes it free.
That last paragraph sums up perfectly what I think I've tried to convey but just not as eloquently for lack of a better term.
Our choices are determined by everything leading up to the instant we make them, but we have absolutely no knowledge of that cause and effect that results in whatever we choose at any given time, making our choice freely made as we understand freedom to mean. Only after we make any free will decision can we as humans look back and review the 100% complete criteria that ultimately determined why it is we chose what we chose.
Does that sound accurate? -
2018-01-23 at 4:33 AM UTCIn my opinion, predetermination is simply irrelevant to what makes a choice free or not. You don't need to be some kind of decision making engine outside of causality to be free. Do you want to do something? Is someone else stopping you from doing it or forcing you to do otherwise? That's a free choice. The argument that your predisposition to making a particular choice came from somewhere outside of yourself therefore it's not your choice is just retarded and there is no connecting thread there unless you just want to make the semantic argument that nothing is responsible for anything.
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2018-01-23 at 4:42 AM UTCHey that too sounds exactly like what I'm trying to say. Our will is free due to our ever and ongoing lack of knowledge of the determining factors that ultimately lead us to to whatever choices we make.
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2018-01-23 at 6:16 AM UTC
Originally posted by mmQ Hey that too sounds exactly like what I'm trying to say. Our will is free due to our ever and ongoing lack of knowledge of the determining factors that ultimately lead us to to whatever choices we make.
So your will isn't free, you're just a passanger in your body who is too stupid to appreciate why you're actually doing the things you're doing. 👏The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire! -
2018-01-23 at 6:34 AM UTC
Originally posted by mmQ How about we all agree on a basic sentence for what we can accept free will to mean? If we can establish that, we can move this along.
My suggestion per my understanding, my personal defining term, would be that free will for all intents and purposes is one's ability at any given time to choose a particular action, decision, or thought, out of the the x number of potential actions, decisions, or thoughts that are available to us as set and bounded by our mental and physical capacities.
What's yours? Don't need to go into analogies or examples, just tell me your personal definition of what you feel free will to mean.
Thank you!
Free: lacking constraints
Will: the ability of a mind to select a decision that serves as the impetus for action.
Free will: the ability for the mind to select a decision that serves as the impetus for action, without constraints. -
2018-01-23 at 6:35 AM UTC
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2018-01-23 at 7:19 AM UTC
Originally posted by HTS So your will isn't free, you're just a passanger in your body who is too stupid to appreciate why you're actually doing the things you're doing. 👏
Nah. I'm driving my vehicle wherever I got dang feel like and if I want to turn left I'll fucking turn left whenever I want because that's what I feel like doing. I ain't giving any fucks about how the right turn I took 2900 miles ago plays some role in why I feel like taking a left here. Ain't nobody got time fo dat; I'm cruisin baby.
My ride, my choice. If I don't choose where I'm goin, the shit ain't gonna drive itself. -
2018-01-23 at 7:52 AM UTC
Originally posted by Captain Falcon Predetermination is not mutually exclusive from free will.
It is without assuming a soul or similar - if your cognition is just chemical interactions bound by the laws of physics, nothing you do is as a result of free will because your will is predetermined. Without assuming a soul which exists separately from the mechanistic physical world, no.
I won't deny we have the illusion of free will, but it is just that. An illusion. A comforting one. A mercy, frankly.The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire! -
2018-01-23 at 11:19 AM UTCAlright. Fuck this. I changed my mind, and by that I mean I, uhh, am of no choice of my own, switching my position on the matter, apparently because my fingers are typing this and I guess I never had a choice to begin with.
So, I don't have free will, and I never did. I understand it now, that I am just a human-vehicle that exists solely from circumstance, and whose only purpose is to transport the human-driver inside me who already knows exactly where he needs to go without a second thought, and represents the near entire cancellation of anything I've believed to be the unique and individual components of my life and my choices. In the acknowledgement that I have no free will, I accept and understand that I'm merely existing without any unique or self-gratifying presence , rather instead I am am a vessel whose any worth is to carry out that of which has been predetermined. Truth be told I don't even need to refer to myself as I, but will refer to mmQ's embodiment and role in existence as Vehicle-me, or V-me, and I the narrator of this post am Driver-me, or D-me.
Firstly, Vehicle-me understands that though his natural instinct makes him feel like he's coming up with this post, and wants to, because he's feeling the thoughts and process run through his head. The reality is that nothing vehicle-me wants to do is anything more than predetermined desires from the predetermined will that I, Driver-me, represent. V-me is likely confused about what this means and why he's even thinking these things and writing them down. Truth be told, he never had a choice and certainly realizes that this is happening whether he likes or not.
Unfortunately, V-me still has to feel like he's making all the decisions despite now coming to realize that he in fact has never truly made one singular decision in his entire life and he never will.
V-me now understands that although nothing he says, thinks, or does should be held against him or in any way be attributed to him since he isn't actually author of their creation, but only their production. Unfortunately, whichever laws are in existence will always still trump his lack of culpability, which of course means the potential for incarceration, something he is certainly already familiar with.
V-me also understands that the things he considered in life to be his personal accomplishments and failures are no longer defined as such since an opposing outcome was never possible to begin with. Any credit or blame associated to him or felt by him is completely meaningless.
V-me also understands that any and all attributes associated with him will remain applicable though they are ultimately decided by Driver-me and in no way influenced by V-me.
V-me no longer need s to concern himself with the questioning of why he experiences certain feelings or emotions, as they are all permanent fixtures within him and he couldn't choose to feel differently if he wanted to. He understands that anything he has ever cared about was of no choice of his own, and that caring at all about anything should no longer even be considered as a genuine bond or relationship, given that he never truly had a personal choice in the matter.
Finally, a reminder that that, of course, there was no decision made by V-me to create, type, or post this summation, and any readers up to this point may yourselves consider it's application to not only his future self but yours as well. The little humor is that my suggestions to you mean nothing. If you're meant to adopt the absence of free will philosophy, it will happen.
V-me will now go forward with the understanding that everything he's ever been involved in in any way shape or form was in no way under his control, and understands that he has no longer has what was once considered any personal skills, talents, abilities, or anything attributed to self-accomplishment. Knowing that you never have and cannot ever make your own frew willed decision unfortunately renders all former accomplishment as nothing more than the fulfillment of what it is already guaranteed.
Remember. Since there's no will, there's no way.
