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Post by long on Nov 7, 2007 19:46:45 GMT -5
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Post by long on Nov 8, 2007 3:17:03 GMT -5
My apologies, I did not mean to paint an entirely deterministic picture, I merely hoped to suggest that a man is influenced in so many indeterminate ways that it seems impossible to me to ever completely parse out the cause (particularly the root cause) of his behavior - even the man himself can never be aware of the full chain of events which has produced his thought or action. Free will? I have a will that leads me along my path in life.. whether or not this will is 'free', I suppose I can only suggest that hopefully this is irrelevant. The future through which my will shall guide me is unknowable to me, but I know that my will shall play a (fundamentally limited) part in constructing this future. Again, even the nature of my will in the present moment is impossible to grasp completely; there are some who are much more in touch with their will than others. Further, the will is at all times inextricably bound up with, and shaped by, a man's environment. The important thing: prediction of the nature of my will in the future is certainly impossible - it will be indeterminably influenced by people and events that will be beyond my control. I hope that made some sense to somebody, perhaps it seems I side-stepped the question completely... I don't really like the question of free will. When I wonder about morality, it's not something I linger on. Certainly a person is more responsible than anyone else for his actions, but I believe assigning complete, 100% responsibility is going a bit too far. Here's a nifty aphorism from Schopenhaur: “A man can do as he will, but not will as he will”
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Post by long on Nov 8, 2007 4:56:38 GMT -5
I would say that a man makes decisions through his will whether or not his will is 'free'. Whether or not all history is determined, man can never have a complete awareness of the nature of the future. He will make decisions (choose between options) within the constraints of the environment presented him.
If there is free will, then the person must take responsibility for their actions because they decided to take that action.
A choice is made, whether this choice is 'free' is somewhat meaningless; the actor is responsible either way.
If there is 'partial responsibility' I think of it in the sense of 'shared responsibility' with the environment and the rest of mankind (to varying degrees); the principal actor is almost, if not, always the most responsible naturally. A will cannot exist in a vacuum.
Questions of guilt, sin, moral responsibility and its relation to legal culpability, are of course much larger questions..
I used to see the distinction between 'free will' and the pre-determined will, now I think the separation is largely illusory. It is impossible to separate a will from its environment (which will always influence it) and even a determined will makes choices within its environment.
What do you think of free will?
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Post by long on Nov 10, 2007 1:32:36 GMT -5
I can't believe I'm letting you suck me into a discussion of free will... this topic gives me a headache.
I used to think just as you do, so I can relate to all the points that you're making. I can't really say how it is I came to see things differently, perhaps it will become clear to me as I discuss with you. I will try my best to be coherent but of course this subject is extremely subtle and abstract, a lot of what I write will be wild speculation and philisophical BS, so don't take it too seriously- my views on the topic are not a matter of conviction.
I'm posting this now cause I have to get off this comp, I'll edit it and finish later tonight if I can
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Post by long on Nov 10, 2007 4:41:59 GMT -5
" When I refer to will I refer to it as:
the faculty of conscious and especially of deliberate action; the power of control the mind has over its own actions" I agree with this definition and it is how I've meant to use it so far in my posts. I believe that the following terms could be used interchangeably within the context of this discussion: self (I like this best, so maybe I'll start using it in place of will), ego, I, mind, soul. " He either has a choice or he doesn't. By saying that a choice is made, it means that there was the option to make an alternative one. Therefore in this scenario free will is exists because he freely chose his course of action.
If his choice was pre-determined, then that implies that there was no choice in the first place." - This is the real heart of the problem of course and I used to agree with you here completely. I think that it is the most intuitive way to think of it. However.. you may never agree with me, but I will say that choices can certainly be made in the absence of any type of 'free' will; yes, choices can be made when things are entirely determined. Choice is simply the selection between options. If an actor is capable of more than one type of action and responds to the environment by selecting one action over another this is choice regardless of whether the actor is 'free' in its choice or perhaps restrained completely by some selection law. Consider a simple computer program that can respond to 5 possible inputs with 5 respective outputs. This program is capable of 'choice' between outputs, but its choice is fixed by the input (environment). If the program did not exist, no choice would be made. If the environment (input) did not exist, no choice could be made; if the input is different, different choice. So environment and actor here are both necessary for choice, but there is choice. Since we are also discussing responsibility: is the program responsible for the choice? I would say yes, because the choice would not occur without it. The environment is also responsible to some extent clearly and I believe that you could say that the creator of the program is responsible for determining the laws of the choice. This is my simple analogy for the 'determined' self. Let us imagine that I have no 'free will' whatsoever. My actions are determined entirely by the interaction between my physical body and the environment, past and present. I am a machine, but one of extraordinary complexity. The 'inputs' are the sum of all of the effects that the environment has had on me throughout my lifetime (every person I've interacted with, everything I've read, heard, watched on TV, eaten, breathed, touched, etc, etc, ad infinitum). These inputs have not only shaped ('determined') my actions, but also they have shaped the very nature of my self (I learn and change). In this way, even though I am determined I am very different from the fixed computer program because my self is always in flux (in a very real way there is no fixed self). Of course I do not feel that I am determined because I am not aware of the full nature of the 'rules' that guide my actions; these 'rules' would be inordinately complex because of the complexity of the environment, my past experiences - furthermore, they're always changing as I learn from the environment. My conscious thoughts would be, in some way, a small glimpse into the nature of the interaction between my self and the environment which is leading to the creation of my actions. I rambled there, but I hope that made some sense; I can do better if it doesn't. Alright, so in the same way as the computer program, I believe that I, as an actor, would be responsible for my actions even if my actions were completely determined by the interaction between my 'unfree' self and the environment. If I did not exist no choices would be made, none of my actions would occur. The laws that guide my actions are entirely contained within my physical self and constitute my self so how can you say that I am not responsible. I would go further and say that the environment that has shaped my actions shares responsibility with me for my actions. In this way, all of the people that I have interacted with in my life share some small piece of the responsibility for both my 'self' (as they truly do change me and create what I am) and my actions; the actor of course has the prime responsibility. I believe as you begin to think of yourself in this way you can begin to get in touch with notions akin to some of the religious thought that suggests a unity of mankind, and perhaps all existence. I fully recognize that you may be unhappy labeling as 'choice' what I have described. It is natural to think of choice existing on a higher level, perhaps you could call it a metaphysical one. This choice is separate from the environment and not 'determined' by it. 'Free will'. The soul. The 'determined' choice doesn't seem like choice at all in comparison. But what would this freedom really mean though? What does it look like? How can you differentiate it? It seems that you have to say that a 'free will' is able to make decisions that are completely separated from and uninfluenced by the environment. Given the total environment, both past and present, of a self, this self is able to do one thing or its opposite, or any number of other things. In a very real way this is suggesting a complete break in the chain of cause and effect; when all causes in total prior to an action do not create the necessity of any particular action. "Free will" implies the 'causeless cause'. This a very profound notion, and to me one that borders on absurdity and quite possibly meaninglessness. We imagine a person with 'free will' exhibiting this freedom for his entire existence. But if an actor were to exist in complete freedom from his environment for his whole existence, his actions never having any cause outside of his self, what is it that drives his choices at all? Again, it seems to me that this creates an absurdity. Even in our intuitions about a 'free self' we assume that the self is influenced by the environment... Once we do admit this at all though, we have taken complete freedom away from the self and introduced the seed of 'determinism'. This is a huge, rambling chunk of nonsense, and nobody is going to want to read any more at this pt, so I'll leave it at this for now though I feel like I have so much more to say. Short points: - I do not agree with you that if we believe in a 'determined' existence life is not worth living. I think it changes nothing. I used to agree with you. - I believe that shared responsibility is very easy to imagine and I'm surprised that you can't. One quick, and poor, example: If your girlfriend cooks you dinner and you eat it, whom is responsible for your eating? This is in response to: Again I think that each individual, is responsible for his own actions as long as there was a choice present.
If we are talking about consequences of many people's actions then each person is responsible for their own part.
I don't see how person A can be held accountable for the actions of person B if it was B who made the decision What a bunch of BS. ;D
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Post by long on Nov 10, 2007 5:09:14 GMT -5
Thanks Take your time, I'd like to take a break from thinking for a while myself. I'd love to hear the thoughts of anyone else who managed to read all that mess.
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Post by long on Nov 11, 2007 19:41:15 GMT -5
Nice post Zoff, I'll try to find the time to bang out a worthy response while I'm at work tonight. Thought I'd try making one thing clear for myself if you happen to read this before I can get more down.
- You don't think that it's an impossible absurdity that all human behavior is deterministic right? You treat it like it's a possibility, just wanted to make sure you didn't think there was something in experience we could clearly point to that would rule it out.
- oh, and you could develop what you think is 'meaningful' in life if you feel like posting before me.
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Post by ...austhai/... on Nov 12, 2007 0:28:31 GMT -5
s***. I don't have any morals, so I can't participate.
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Post by long on Nov 12, 2007 3:27:00 GMT -5
^ This goes right along with your 'life is meaningless without free will' notion Sounds like free will's the only thing you got going for you I'm going to get to that post if work will give me a break for 10 min... and I can find a good cup of coffee. Then again, maybe I'm feeling a little too fragile to be questioning the very nature of my own existence tonight... not sure you'll be able to handle the mind-blowing repercussions either.. ^^ the amoral often have the best arguments.. i'm not going to have the stamina to go against Zoff all alone in here.. someone else post!
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Post by long on Nov 12, 2007 3:45:21 GMT -5
Don't worry, I think I'll be able to handle any repercussions. I don't think my view of life can get much bleaker I've been there baby, I've been there. Don't worry, long's going to make it all better.
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Post by long on Nov 14, 2007 3:00:15 GMT -5
I was really hoping someone else would respond to Zoff so I wouldn't have to.. this stuff hurts my head. But since I simply cannot allow Zoff to doubt, even for a second, the 'meaningfulness' of life, it is my duty to soldier on. I'd rather be posting more pics of Reon Kadena... - I've decided that if it seems to you that 'free will' is essential for all of your notions of meaning and morality we better try and see if we can agree that life would be worth living even without it. I don't think there's any chance of you coming to my point of you if it means losing all meaning... plus I'd just feel bad if I actually convinced you of something and left you in a nihilist lurch. Nihilism's not a happy place at all - so when you mentioned that you're 'view of life couldn't get much bleaker', cheer up! it could be much bleaker. ;D Your words are in blue! I do however think that it is possible to define one criteria which (in my opinion) is necessary for our lives to have meaning to us; which is that we must be able to influence it's events. If we are merely observers of our own 'lives' then we are no more living our lives than we are living the life of a distant star we observe through a telescope.
Determined existence makes pretty much everything irrelevant. Good, evil, morals, actions, pretty much everything ceases to have any meaning because no one is in control of anything they do and everything that ever has or ever will happen was laid out at the inception of the universe.
As such there is no reason to do anything. One may as well sit down and await death because if one did so then that would simply have been the fate laid out for oneself at the start of the universe.
In such a universe we may exist, but we do not live.
^ That's some pretty depressing stuff.. should I just stop writing this post right now? I'm going to go curl up in a ball... I had those same thoughts once upon a time, and unfortunately I wasn't shielded from them by any faith, in 'free will' or otherwise, it was a dark and confusing time... but thankfully it's all complete rubbish! If I can convince you of just one thing, let it be that. This is why I made the point of asking you to elaborate on what's 'meaningful' in life (not the 'meaning of life' mind you!).. you've more or less come up with 'free will'. Do you really mean it? - Here I'll list just a handful of things off the top of my head that I would think most people could consider 'meaningful' - happiness, love, joy, friends, family, relationship with the divine, the pursuit of truth, artistic expression/creation, blah blah, stuff like that.. And since you went further to suggest that without 'free will' we might as well just sit down and die, I think I'll remind you that beyond what is 'meaningful' there's a bunch of stuff that just makes life pretty nice and 'worth living', stuff like: pleasure, warm weather, competition, sweet lovin', beauty, music, good stories, tasty food, humor, drugs, there's a million things! You already knew all that stuff of course, but I'm reminding you since I'm pretty certain you don't need 'free will' for any of that stuff. You agree that some of that stuff is good enough to live for right, even if everything is fated and all dice cast since the beginning of time? How would 'free will' make the enjoyment or 'meaning' of any of those fine things any more salient? I really don't think it matters one way or the other. If we are merely observers of our own 'lives' then we are no more living our lives than we are living the life of a distant star we observe through a telescope. - Without 'free will' we are still 'living our lives' more than that of a distant star, or any other person that's not us, because we are confined to experiencing our own emotions, our own thoughts, and our own path. If I had to sum up as concisely as possible what I think makes life meaningful it would be: emotions; positive emotions are what make us feel like we are 'living our lives' and 'life's worth living'. I think you will agree that even the completely determined person has emotions; in my mind, whether or not he has 'free will' doesn't really have much bearing on the emotional content of his life (especially because he can never truly know if he has 'free will' or not). Let me put it another way, I think that a life completely free of emotion would be 'meaningless' and 'not worth living' even if I was absolutely positively sure I had 'free will'. - To me the main thing that the notion of 'free will' is good for is, as you've suggested, moral judgment and assignations of 'metaphysical responsibility'. I don't think these things are vital parts of what makes life meaningful. Further, I think that we can have beliefs in morality, good and evil, etc. without relying on these concepts in the way that 'free will enables'. Judging other people morally really isn't that nice of a thing to do anyway, I think Jesus said something about that... Enough for now. Yup, I ignored all your thoughts on choice and responsibility, but I don't concede anything!
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Post by long on Nov 17, 2007 5:43:34 GMT -5
Alright, I'm ready for another go, and still disappointed no one else will comment, as clearly others have read. If you want to just say it's all sophomoric pseudo-intellectual wanking I won't be offended in the least. Whatever it is, it's interesting to me. My comments are in green.I would still say that free will has definite relevance to all those things as without it, everything becomes fake. Sentience itself becomes an illusion, we only think what we do because fate has determined it. We merely follow our programming like the computer in your example. To me sentience simply means consciousness and feeling. Even if our lives are completely determined we still have complete capacity to feel and be conscious of everything in the world, these capacities are not diminished in the slightest by denying free will. And again it's worth noting, since you agree it's possible you've lived your whole life without 'free will' (unbeknownst to you of course) I think you can easily see how a determined life can have feeling and the perception of 'meaning'. Which brings us back the question, how does a determined existence actually differ from a 'free will' existence in practice, is the experience any different? No is the only answer I can come up with. If the experience is no different how is it any more or less worth living in practice (outside of philosophical speculation)?If we assume there is no free will here are some examples. Love: if fate controls our thoughts, then we have effectively been ordered to love someone. If I were to use some brainwashing machine to program a girl to love me, would she really love me or would I be tricking her? Friendship is in much the same boat. Love is still a beautiful experience even if I feel like it is outside my control. In fact the one time I've been in love I certainly did feel like it was outside my control, like there was nothing I could do but to love the person, other emotions are this way as well if you investigate them closely. Many people think of fated love as a beautiful notion.Artistic expression: Is a mountain artistic? It may look nice but I do not think it is artistic. It is simply the result of natural processes. Without free will, thought becomes a natural process much like the movement of tectonic plates, and in my opinion no more artistic. I see what you're saying but this seems unimportant to me. Mountains can clearly be beautiful and provoke strong positive emotions, this is what is great about art to me. I can enjoy looking at natural beauty just as much as beauty that is created by an intelligence. On the subject of intelligence, clearly it can exist in the absence of 'free will' (as you've admitted it's possible that all is determined). The fact that art is created by an intelligence separates it from mountains.Pursuit of truth/competition: Why pursue anything? If the truth is going to be found it will be found, if not it wont. Striving for anything becomes pointless because the outcome is already decided. With or without your hard work the result will be the same. We can't even argue that with that kind of attitude nothing will ever be accomplished, because that would imply that events can be changed through choice. Events can be changed through choice. Hard work does make a difference. These are undeniable facts of existence. I think you agree. I would say that actors can 'choose' to work hard or not even if everything is determined. Again, as you admit that a determined world is possible, you must further admit that it is completely undeniable that you make choices in your experience. To me, choice clearly exists in a very real sense even if behind the scenes there is an infinitely complex machinery involving interactions between everything in the universe that determines our thoughts and actions in ways we'll never know. This comes back to my initial arguments about choice in a determined world (which I'm not going to develop right now but I will later). Choice exists, though on a 'metaphysical' level it may not. Joy/happiness: Again, without being in control of your thoughts, you are simply being forced to be happy. Is forced happiness real? Yes. It's the experience and feeling of happiness that makes it good. Not the metaphysical cause.I do agree that things can certainly be pleasant. But merely being pleasurable or nice doesn't (in my opinion) give something meaning. Meaning in a different sense than you're thinking of perhaps. A pleasant life of happiness is 'worth living'. It has meaning in the sense that happiness can be seen as preferable to non-existence. I suppose that some of those things may, if experienced in enough abundance make existing a worthwhile experience, but I don't think it's life as we know it. Perhaps it's not life as is commonly understood, but belief in fate, or a god that sees all time: past, present, future; or even that time is an illusion (making free will meaningless), is certainly not unheard of.Part of the definition of life, is the ability to adapt to changes in the environment through internal changes. Sure, but internal changes exist even within a determined world. Thought exists, experience and consciousness exist. Everything you know exists. Again, you can't tell the difference.If all existence is predetermined, then the cause of everything shifts to the first moment of time. Even if action A appears to cause action B, we can no longer assume that this is the case. If I push a rock, does it move because I pushed it or because it was fated to move at the same time as my hand was? Yes an enormous chain (or an incredibly complex web of chains) would connect all events in cause and effect, but this would change nothing about the cause of the rock moving. Your hand still causes the rock to move. The question is simply did some supernatural 'free will' allow you to break the chain of cause and effect to move your hand to move the rock, when all events preceding this action would not have caused this event by physical laws alone. As I said before 'free will' must be seen as a gap in the chain of cause and effect. I don't think you can believe in 'free will' without positing a supernatural power. The quantum (random) physics explanation is not persuasive at all to me. The random nature of physical events cannot be used to explain purposeful action as far as I can see, if there is purpose the quantum level events are not random. If they're not random then this implies a supernatural intelligence. Similarly, any adaptation within an organism can no longer be assumed to be due to it's environment no matter how causal it may seem. Simple example. I hold my hand above a candle flame, it hurts and I move my hand again. Action>stimulus>reaction, a clear chain of events. In a determined universe I am fated to move my hand above the flame, my brain is fated to produce a sensation of pain and I am then fated to move my hand again. event-event-event. I'm afraid I really don't follow the logic here. In a purely physical world there is still cause-effect (action/reaction) relationships. What you call event-event-event still seems like action-reaction(action in its own right)-reaction(action in its own right)The difference here is that there is no reaction or purpose to anything here. There are simply three unrelated events that occur in linear sequence with no cause or purpose to any of them. I no longer adapt, instead the state of the universe simply changes. The pain becomes irrelevant. It is simply something I experience because fate dictated it to be so. Your body certainly adapts, physically. Perhaps the pain is fated (everything is fated in a determined world), but this does not change the experience of pain one iota. The experience stays the same.In fact, does the concept of the self still have meaning in this case? I don't think, I am merely programmed to have preset thoughts at preset times. I don't act, the universe moves me according to it's fate. Yes, perhaps we'd have to alter somewhat the concept of self. This would be in tune with quite a bit of religious thought.In this scenario I am no more alive than the pc I write this on. You are more alive in the simple sense that you have consciousness and emotional experience.Without life, thought, 'personal' actions, or even any causality, reality as we know it breaks down and everything becomes farcical. Thought still exists, life clearly still exists, people still exist so 'personal' actions still exist.Personally I'd prefer to be emotionless, but that's a separate issue. Please elaborate here. As I've said, I believe emotion is what makes life worth living. Without emotion 'meaning' is impossible. I will say that meaning is simply a reflection of positive emotion.What is the point of emotion if it is causeless? Without meaningful cause, it ceases to have meaning itself, because it is experienced in a vacuum with no context to interpret it by. Is it worth experiencing purely for the sake of experiencing? I will say yes, it is. Would I be happy if all my existence was simply reading great literature, listening to beautiful music, or watching the best movies (that is to say, my actions have no effect; passive existence)? It would be different, but I think I would enjoy it. Without emotion though these experiences would be entirely worthless.I'm curious how you can believe in the concepts good, evil and morals in a determined universe. I think I'll need to develop a persuasive argument on choice and responsibility, or at least convince you of the good that is possible even without 'free will', before I can be persuasive about morality.As I see it, good and evil require morality. Morality requires sentience and free will. Therefore if we lose free will and sentience we have to lose good and evil too. We don't lose sentience at all. Enough for now. Yup, I ignored all your thoughts on choice and responsibility, but I don't concede anything! I should be quiet now, I've forgotten where I was heading with all of this. Somehow I've managed to drift off into life, the universe and everything. I would apologise, but it's not my fault. It was destiny ;D In all seriousness, my arguments may not and probably don't conform to classical arguments on these topics. Maybe they don't even make much sense if thought about more thoroughly, but I've never really read up on any of this so you'll have to forgive my ignorance. I'm just following my own train of thought, which as you've probably noticed by now, is rather disorganised. Your thoughts made perfect sense to me. As I said, before I would have agreed with them completely. Don't worry, I'm making this up as I go along as well. These thoughts are not my convictions at all. Before I certainly would have been very upset by the thought that human beings were not 'free will' actors. I got my undergrad degree in Neuroscience, a field which by its nature studies the physical correlates of thought, emotion, consciousness, purposeful action.. a fascinating field, but one that certainly moves you toward uncomfortable conclusions about your very nature. I will say that I had to stop thinking about the possibility of determinism because at the time the implications seemed too hard to deal with. This thread is the first time I've thought seriously about it since undergrad and I initially found it quite surprising that the thought of determinism didn't bother me at all. I won't say that I've come to a strong decision about the subject, but the fact that it is no longer a troublesome topic is quite nice. In short, I'm making this up as I go along.
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Post by miaim on Nov 17, 2007 21:06:36 GMT -5
Alright, I'm ready for another go, and still disappointed no one else will comment, as clearly others have read. If you want to just say it's all sophomoric pseudo-intellectual wanking I won't be offended in the least. Whatever it is, it's interesting to me. well, since you insist: it's all sophomoric pseudo-intellectual wanking... our ability to indulge free will or make choices are defined by our circumstances - so having choices in itself is a blessing....because, under different circumstances, one may not have the same range of choices.... the fundamental problem of this thread and why it's all sophomoric pseudo-intellectual wanking is the inability to grasp that free will and destiny are not mutually exclusive.... but destiny defines the available margin to exercise free will (or choices)..... so, nothing but the fact that neither of you appear to have more pressing issues to worry about is a blessing, or a curse, depending on one's POV, of course.... peace
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Post by long on Nov 17, 2007 21:09:02 GMT -5
^ You didn't disagree with anything I've said so far.
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Post by miaim on Nov 17, 2007 21:31:19 GMT -5
i didn't say i disagreed: merely pointing out you could of summed it up in 3 sentences, instead of two pages.... which is where the "sophomoric pseudo-intellectual wanking" comes in: the volume of writing and amount of time it took to explain such a simple concept.....tho in your defense, it could be pointed out most philosophy post-graduate students and tenured professors would take even longer (say, book-length) to get to the point....except they're paid to waffle on, and on, and on, and on, and then some.... ;D peace
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