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Posts by Obbe
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2018-01-25 at 11:28 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
Originally posted by Captain Falcon Why? A choice made from a QRNG is not a product of prior causal change, and are undetermined. It fits your definition exactly.
Because it's random. I don't understand how you could attribute your will or your sense of self to randomness. Imagine if all your actions, intentions beliefs and desires were generated randomly. If your "free will" was due to truly random events wouldn't you behave in an unpredictable and erratic way? You would scarcely seem to have a mind at all. You would live as if you were blown about by the wind. Actions, intentions, beliefs and desires can exist only in a system that is significantly constrained by patterns of behavior and the laws of stimulus-response. While I agree that the universe is not entirely deterministic, it is in every sense relevant to human behavior. -
2018-01-25 at 11:22 PM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
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2018-01-25 at 11:21 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
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2018-01-25 at 11:08 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
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2018-01-25 at 11:08 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
Originally posted by NARCassist i dunno if maybe i'm misunderstanding what you're getting at exactly coz you obviously high as fuck. but is the jist of it that no one is basically responsible for our thoughts? coz that would equal no one being responsible for their actions. in that case we shouldn't be having laws and punishments. i mean what do those judges think they're doing putting people in prison and even executing people for doing things that wasn't their fault? i mean, what a fucking diabolical liberty those sick fuckers are taking or what?
ya get me fam?
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What does it mean to take moral responsibility for an action? Consider the following:
1. A 4 year old kills a woman after playing with his father's gun, which had been left loaded and unsecure.
2. A 25 year old man raised by wonderful parents and never abused intentionally shot and killed a woman "for the fun of it."
3. A 25 year old man raised by wonderful parents and never abused intentionally shot and killed a woman "for the fun of it." A brain scan reveals a tumor the size of a golf ball in a region of his brain responsible for the control of emotion and behavioral impulses.
In each case a young woman died. Each death, the result of events arising in the mind of another human. But the degree of moral outrage you feel probably depends on the situation described in each case.
We consider the brain of killer 1 is not fully matured or ready for the responsibilities of personhood. Killer number 2 appears to be a psychopath. Killer number 3 involves the same psychopathic motive and behavior, but somehow the brain tumor seems to clear the killer of all responsibility for his crime. We cannot help but see him as a victim of his own biology.
Despite our attachment to the notion of freewill most of us know that disorders of the brain trump the best intentions of the mind. And the men and women on death row have some combination of bad genes, bad parents, bad environments and bad luck. Which of these were they responsible for? No person is responsible for his genes or upbringing, yet we have every reason to believe these factors determine his character. In fact, it seems immoral not to recognize how much luck is involved in morality itself.
Imagine if we discover a cure for evil. Imagine every relevant change in any individuals brain could be made cheaply, painlessly and safely. Imagine if the cure could be put into the food supply, like a vitamin… evil would become nothing more than a nutritional deficiency.
To say that someone freely chose to squander their life savings at a poker table is to say he had every opportunity to do otherwise and that nothing about what he did was inadvertent. He did not play poker by accident or while in the grip of a delusion. He played because he wanted to, intended to and decided to, over and over. Most of the time it makes sense to just ignore the deeper causes of desires and intentions, like genes, synatipic potentials etc. We do this because it's easier to organize our thoughts and actions. Why did I drink water instead of beer? Because I desired water. Why did I desire water? I don't know, but generally I don't bother asking. Knowing that I want water is all I ever need to know to function in this world. Whatever the reason I prefered one option over the other. Is there freedom in this? None whatsoever. Would I magically reclaim my freedom if I suddenly decided to spite my desire and drink beer instead of water? No, because the roots of such an intention would be as obscure as the desire itself. -
2018-01-25 at 11:06 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
Originally posted by Captain Falcon What is this free will that you think is an incoherent idea? What does that mean?
Free will is the illusion that our choices are not the product of causal chains, but are significantly free or undetermined. People generally feel like they are the conscious source of all their thoughts and actions, they feel like they could have acted differently than they did in the past, and that feeling is called free will. -
2018-01-25 at 11:05 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
Originally posted by mmQ So obbe, do you think we should be held accountable for our actions?
I don't think society accepting that individuals lack free will would really change much about how society deals with criminals. Whether or not we have free will is a topic I find interesting but it's not really that important, we are still living the same life doing the same things either way. If someone is a psychopathic murderer, they should probably be separated from the rest of the population.
But I do think this realization could help society. Once we understand the root causes of behaviors we find criminal or immoral that understanding could be used to help us to create a better society moving forward. -
2018-01-25 at 10:50 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
Originally posted by Captain Falcon Your entire argument is built off having no definition and asserting, with no evidence or reasoning, that the problem of free will is something no intellectual discussion of free will has ever revolved around i.e. a magic idea of being magic.
No it is not. Free will is an incoherent idea, period. People generally feel like they are the conscious source of all their thoughts and actions, they feel like they could have acted differently than they did in the past, and that feeling is called free will. Free will is the illusion that our choices are not the product of causal chains, but are significantly free or undetermined.
You are not talking about free will. You are talking about freedom to exert your will. Different topics, you're just re-labeling yours as free will. -
2018-01-25 at 9:39 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
Originally posted by Captain Falcon Yeah, I'm not doing this any more with you. Every time you get stumped by an argument and don't have something to steal a response from, rather than re-evaluating where your point starts, you just repeat the same thing over and over. I'm not aútistic enough to do this ad infinitum with you.
That's fine, we actually seem to agree about how this all works except you just define free will in a stupid way that doesn't acknowledge the problem of free will. -
2018-01-25 at 7:17 PM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?This thread wasn't really about rainbows.
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2018-01-25 at 1:48 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
Originally posted by Captain Falcon Of course it is.
No it is not, people generally feel like they are the conscious source of all their thoughts and actions. They feel like they could have acted differently than they did in the past. That feeling is called free will.
You are not talking about free will. You are talking about freedom to exert your will. Different topics, you're just re-labeling yours as free will.
I don't know why you continue to bring up agency. Agency is distinct from the concept of free will, the philosophical doctrine that our choices are not the product of causal chains, but are significantly free or undetermined. Human agency entails the claim that humans do in fact make decisions and enact them on the world. How humans come to make decisions, by free choice or other processes, is another issue. -
2018-01-25 at 2:20 AM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
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2018-01-24 at 11:32 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
Originally posted by Captain Falcon That's exactly what people mean when they say they have free will because someone can both agree that things are predetermined but still believe they have agency. The freedom to exert your will is exactly what they mean, not the freedom to will what they will.
That is not what people mean when they say they have free will. People generally feel like they are the conscious source of all their thoughts and actions. They feel like they could have acted differently than they did in the past. That feeling is called free will.
You are not talking about free will. You are talking about freedom to exert your will. Different topics, you're just re-labeling yours as free will.
I don't know why you continue to bring up agency. -
2018-01-24 at 11:04 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
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2018-01-24 at 10:58 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
To put it even more simply: when we talk about "free will", we are talking about "freedom of will"
Wrong. Those are different topics. When people claim they have free will, they claim to be the conscious source of their thoughts and actions. They believe they could have acted differently than they did in the past. -
2018-01-24 at 10:55 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
Originally posted by Captain Falcon The typical conception of free will is not a one-ended system outside of causality, it is one where you can have agency despite predetermination.
That is not what people mean when they say they have free will. People generally feel like they are the conscious source of all their thoughts and actions. They feel like they could have acted differently than they did in the past. That feeling is called free will.
You are not talking about free will. You are talking about freedom to exert your will. Different topics, you're just re-labeling yours as free will.
I never mentioned anything about agency, I don't know why you keep brining it up. -
2018-01-24 at 8:54 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
Originally posted by Captain Falcon Now you have to attack why it is not valid to say that someone has free will if they are able to fulfill their motive or predisposition without constraint or compulsion by another agent.
We've been over this. That is not what people mean when they say they have free will. People generally feel like they are the conscious source of all their thoughts and actions. They feel like they could have acted differently than they did in the past. That feeling is called free will. The problem is that you and I both know that a person is not the conscious source of their thoughts and actions. They could not have acted differently than they did in the past.
You are not talking about free will. You are talking about freedom to exert your will. Different topics, you're just re-labeling yours as free will. -
2018-01-24 at 7:21 PM UTC in How do you flirt with women?Pull her hair.
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2018-01-24 at 7:19 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
Originally posted by Captain Falcon You "keep" being retarded and not understanding the contention of compatibilism, which is that we are in fact a meat computer but that doesn't prevent us from taking responsibility for our actions/have agency. I say "keep" because I've already addressed this at least a dozen times. I can't really do anything if you refuse to grasp basic English.
I'll use the simplest possible words to put this as a syllogism:
1. If you want to do something and
2. Someone else's wants don't stop you from doing something or make you do something then
3. You are free
Right except that just ignores the problem of free will, that people feel like the conscious source of their thoughts desires and actions, and changes the topic from "free will" to "the freedom to do what you will." -
2018-01-24 at 7:06 PM UTC in Policeman beheaded and son has heart/skin removed while alive
Originally posted by Captain Falcon People generally would agree that they are a product of some combination of their genetics and their environment/upbringing but still contend that they have agency.
Even if a person considers themself to "have agency", they still are not the conscious source of their thoughts and actions. They could not have had acted differently than they did in the past. Therefore they do not have the free will that they feel they do.
