The Free Will Thread

Cad_sl said:

If we discover that we don't have free will, it was always determined that we would discover it, and so it shouldn't really be wonderful or interesting at all. It's just another day in a predetermined life. Boring.

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fatalism =/= determinism

It's not trying to sell itself to you. Your finding it boring is just a failure of vision. It's all beautiful Cad!

"Of course you have free will. The boss insists on it!" -Hitchens

Jive Turkey_sl said:

I find this argument so strange. Knowledge for knowledge's sake is more than enough reason

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Knowledge for its own sake is fine, but not practical in the least. There is no application for the existence or non-existence of free will. If you figure out tonight that it is all a lie and everything is predestined, you know what happens next? Nothing, you wake up and go to work because you have kids to feed and a mortgage to pay for.

You have the most boring existential crises.

chaos_sl said:

If you figure out tonight that it is all a lie and everything is predestined, you know what happens next?

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Fire worship.

The lack of an immediate instantaneous free will is not an analog to a perfectly boring, blase, and predictable determinism. You can know for a fact that over the life of a roulette machine, it will hit Red or Black very close to evenly. But you can not tell me what it will do next.

chaos_sl said:

Knowledge for its own sake is fine, but not practical in the least. There is no application for the existence or non-existence of free will. If you figure out tonight that it is all a lie and everything is predestined, you know what happens next? Nothing, you wake up and go to work because you have kids to feed and a mortgage to pay for.

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I have nothing to gain by knowing what the surface of pluto looks like, but it's still fascinating

Cad_sl said:

You were predestined to decide it doesn't matter and that you should go to work anyway! Your brainstate couldn't have decided any other way! OOOOoooOOO

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There is no destiny. That's not what determinism means.

Jive Turkey_sl said:

I have nothing to gain by knowing what the surface of pluto looks like, but it's still fascinating

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But it isn't practical. Things can be impractical and still be interesting.

chaos_sl said:

But it isn't practical. Things can be impractical and still be interesting.

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I guess I'm getting the impression that you also don't think it's worth exploring. Could be a false impression

First point, the idea we have free will is just so obviously false in our day to day experience I don't even understand how it can have this much debate. When we say free will we are claiming our will is free of influence. Any guy who has lived with a woman for any length of time and thinks our will is free of influence just leaves me wondering how is it even possible. And I have had this debate with others and the reply is always " oh that's just biology " . Exactly, biology is clearly and always influencing our will. We don't have free will.

Second point can we have just 'will'. I think so I define it as the ability to learn, to push ourselves beyond our normal boundaries, to review our past and alter our actions to produce a better long-term outcome.(the things we actually admire about others) People seem really hung up on it has to be that 100% genuine free will or it isn't good enough. It's nonsense, as long as we have the ability to learn and expect that in others our sense of right and wrong is fine. The ulp..'free will' doesn't exist don't hold anyone responsible for their actions crowd is just pants on head crazy.

You were that guy in Intro to Philosophy that thought he was incredibly insightful, weren't you.

pharmakos_sl said:

Limited
Free
Will

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Is that like the airplane wifi that's free to connect to google but you can't see anything else without paying?

Kind of an interesting (or maybe not) side observation. When someone asks you to name a city or a song or whatever and you kind of look up and think, what is the conscious experience of trying to recall things from memory? You just kind of stare into space and it maybe sort offeelslike your brain is doing something, but you're mostly just waiting. It's not like a mental filing folder you're thumbing through. It doesn't always happen that way; sometimes you have a first letter and you're mentally putting sounds after it. But other times it's very passive. Think of a 'tip of your tongue' type situation. You just block out external stimuli as much as possible and it often just comes to you. Interesting? No? fuck you

Been reading Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior by Leonard Mlodinow (has done some writing with Stephen Hawking, wrote The Drunkard's Walk which was pretty great)

Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior: Leonard Mlodinow: 9780307472250: Amazon.com: Books

and it's damned interesting the role of the subconscious. It's damned powerful and its influence often hidden.