Thread: Free will is completely irrelevant

Exactly!

We live in a mathematically calulable universe is all. Has nothing to do with free will


Sivason had something. If we can determin what we do not want. And determin what we do want. Is that not a relevant use of free will?

I mean.. I could very well choose to sit here. Do nothing.
I could choose to explore the city and expand my choices dramatically.

What I choose for is relevant. What I want at this point is wolly and truthfully irrelevant. Because I do not know what is outside, so I do not know at this point whether I want any of the millions of possibilities. I can only make a (by comparison with reality) completely unnacurate prediction of what awaits in the outside world. And base my wants on a fiction.

Yes what you choose is relevant, but (if prediction is possible, and I don't claim to know for sure that it is) that choice is still pretermined.

But I don't understand what you mean by your last paragraph. Maybe it's because I am sleepy so I apoligize but I'm going to bed

important piece of the last thingy is that prediction is not possible. you can only Judge by the information you have at hand. Atleast, I think so.

I see, but if you have all the information at hand you should be able to make a 100% accurate description, right?

Yes. But try gathering all the information and memorize it.

It does matter if you have free will or not, because it is possible to lose your free will. Free will obviously exists because there are drugs that will take it away and make you act in all sort of strange ways, which can have many bad side effects.

As for all the predetermined stuff, if free will existed then everything would be predetermined. Free will is all about making choices and these choices are based off who you are. Meaning if someone knew everything about you, they should be able to predict what you would do. On the other hand, if it was impossible to ever predict what a person would do, then what would that mean? That they are making random choices not based on their past experiences, personality and other factors like that? If you are making random choices then you don't really have free will, you are not choosing anything, you receive some random thought and then do it.

If free will does exist, and I believe it does, then your choices should be predictable because you are making the choice.

Think about it like this, if there is a thousand clones of you that are exactly like you with all the same experiences and they are all placed in exact situations, they should all act the same. They should all act like you and make the choice based off who they are. If you did that and they all picked random choices then free will wouldn't exist and any choice you made would be meaningless.

A thought:

Look at the illusion below, play with it. See the arrows going left, hold it. Then, look at the arrows going right and do whatever you want.



Now, At any particular moment, what has predetermined you to see the arrows going in the direction that you did? Neither side has any importance. You're just playing, changing perspective, observing them, playing. Nothing in your past (that I know), is affecting your choice.

Life is the same way. One event can be seen through multiple, infinite, perspectives. You can choose which perspective you see. You can alternate between them. In 10 minutes, I can play through 3 different perspectives of my present moment, and feel deep awe for each. And what has predetermined me from seeing any of these perspective at any specific moment? And then, I can choose which perspective I hold, and when I change. It's a game, in a way, a game with Life.

To say that I have 100% freewill is simplistic. To say I have 0% is also simplistic. Edit: Not that anyone before me has shown a simplistic approach to the argument, the discussion was very interesting

If I respond to you two, Alric and Occipitalred, I'll just be repeating what I already said. You can call me rude but I think it's more rude to just ignore you. So with all due respect, please read the previous page

I feel like scientifically testing how free will could be relevant. If its exists at all.

As a cruel scientist that we are let's take a rat and put it in a cage.

In it it has 2 exits.

One leads back to the same cage. And is sprinkled by pieces of cheese. And never runs out.
One leads to a cage with 100 female rats and an infinite amount of quality cheese.

Which one is the rat most likely to take? How many times will he do it?

I think the rat will be perfectly happy given his ability to make choices but remain completely oblivious that there's a world of possibilities in another route. All he needs to do is exercise a little bit of free will.

It gets even more cruel when you safeguard the other exit with a tiny shock. The rat is even less likely to ever take the route. But if he soldiers through the shock makes it to rat heaven.

Thank you for responding Ginsan, I don't think it was rude.

I did read every single post, and thought it was appropriate to post what I posted, except, thinking back to it, maybe it was my final statement "To say that I have 100% freewill is simplistic. To say I have 0% is also simplistic." that seemed to make it sound as if I missed the divert and high quality conversation that had taken place. Sorry for that.

Edit: Oh, or maybe you were just saying that you had nothing to add to the conversation, you said everything that you had to say before. Silly me.

Originally Posted by sivason

No matter what anyone says, the other side of the arguement will be "we are all robots, souls are BS, neurons are in what ever postion they are in, quarks, blah blah, science...) So, arguement about IF free will is a thing is pointless, when the other side is going to claim we are biological robots.

What can we discuss that is even worth the time?

Yes, this.

Originally Posted by sivason

Originally Posted by Ginsan

sir sivason, don't you think it's more logical that everything is the result of certain physical principles?

Nope, not for a second.

And this.

If two parties do not agree on the fundamental worldviews (or do not acknowledge understanding of them), it's basically impossible to hold a useful philosophical discussion. All differences in rhetoric, argument, examples, terms, semantics, nuance, connotation, all come down to the basic underlying worldview in the end.

I do not accept the premise that life is robotic fizzing towers of chemicals, because to me the inevitable conclusion is that life does not matter and serves no point. The fact that there is universal value ascribed to life to me is sufficient proof that it is a fundamental aspect of reality & truth. Arguments that the value we place on life is "simply a quirky byproduct of an evolutionary compulsion for survival" hold no sway with me because in the end, it all comes down to pointlessness. There is no *point* to continue living if in fact the sum-total of our selves is just that we are only strangely shaped chemical soup.

I also think that consciousness and meta-reflection are counter-examples to pure materialism, but again I think that flows from the fundamental first principle that life matters and that there is more to truth than the merely physical.

(What is "physical", by the way? atoms? quarks? strings? sub-strings? Doesn't that bother the materialists? That as soon as delicate enough instruments are constructed that we *always* discover yet another more fundamental building block? Have you ever read the "Midnight at the Well of Souls" series? What if all "matter" and "physical laws" in fact existed solely because some super computer/being "wills" it to exist?)

Science is cool and all, but it is and always will be limited to "what?" and "how?" (and it does a pretty poor job of those, see the above "what is physical"), and never "why?"

Originally Posted by FryingMan

I do not accept the premise that life is robotic fizzing towers of chemicals

How do you reconcile your dissent with the fact that it is observed to be the case?

Originally Posted by Denziloe

How do you reconcile your dissent with the fact that it is observed to be the case?

Your "fact" is simple assertion. "Scientific observation" is simply an extension of the physical senses. Using sensors that are incapable of measuring certain phenomena is a poor argument for their non-existence. It's like looking for your glasses under the streetlight even through you dropped them in your doorway "because the light's better here."

edit: And, BTW, this is an excellent example of what sivason initially stated, and I agreed with:

If you have a fundamental worldview based on the belief that there is nothing beyond the "physical" (whatever that is!), there basically is no profitable conversation to be had with someone who has the fundamental worldview based on the belief that there are phenomena beyond the physical. You're making an assertion basically of your worldview. It is incompatible with mine. That's really probably all that can be said about it.

Originally Posted by Alric

Think about it like this, if there is a thousand clones of you that are exactly like you with all the same experiences and they are all placed in exact situations, they should all act the same. They should all act like you and make the choice based off who they are. If you did that and they all picked random choices then free will wouldn't exist and any choice you made would be meaningless.

I disagree. Your example is interesting, but I believe you may have the outcomes reversed. Free will implies that some force deeper within is able to make decisions to the best of their ability. If you were to clone someone and expect those clones to act exactly the same, you are disproving free will. You are essentially showing that choices are the human brain's way of coping with obstacles based on past experiences, chemical processes etc. you take away that extra something that makes us, us. However, if you were to clone someone and the clones acted differently... This I believe would show the existence of free will. It would defy what a clone should be. Or they're defective.

Originally Posted by PlanesWalker

I disagree. Your example is interesting, but I believe you may have the outcomes reversed. Free will implies that some force deeper within is able to make decisions to the best of their ability. If you were to clone someone and expect those clones to act exactly the same, you are disproving free will. You are essentially showing that choices are the human brain's way of coping with obstacles based on past experiences, chemical processes etc. you take away that extra something that makes us, us. However, if you were to clone someone and the clones acted differently... This I believe would show the existence of free will. It would defy what a clone should be. Or they're defective.

Planeswalker, I wouuld take into account the environment has on the electrochemical soup that we call a brain. Mirror neurons effectively mimic this environment. A clone born in even a slightly different timeframe could have drastically different environmental factors that changes the chemical makeup of our body. Assuming that Genetics and Predisposed folding of Proteins act as the blueprint for one's personality. You could get an exact copy but You would have to have been born in exactly the same environment and get the same kind of nurture for it be even physically possible to be an EXACT copy of an Original.. Otherwise, minute changes in the brain caused by at the least mirror neurons will make for a different chemical makeup fairly quickly. Just adding to the depth of the question here.

Free will in purely biological terms may be irrelevant. But I think that if some kind of free will exists as a ghost in the machine-style sort of thing then there remains a ghost that is able to direct physical changes. Maybe to the ghost it does not matter what happens to the machine and to the machine it does matter what happens to the ghost because the ghost is affecting the machine. but the ghost is only temporarily. I feel like talking about free will on this thread basically boils down to talking about the amounts of free will that exists or rather does not exist. Free will in this case matters to the extent to what amounts of free will the ghost has on the machine and vice versa... Including the environmental factors. Because the two are basically co-dependant. The ghost is rather detached, since it is somehow able to be free'd from much of the biological constrains. Maybe it's possible if it exists in a superposition of states. obviously affected by biology but not limited to it. A quantum particle is able to exist in both places at the same time i.e. without the constraints of silly physical laws like the speed of light. These puny laws don't stop a particle from coming into existence and literally making physical changes instantly, theoratically from across the entire span of the universe. And even from the vacinity of other dimensions. So perhaps in another dimension completely detached from reality here there is a twin particle completely free of physical laws from this reality. In this hypothetical situation the twin particle is affected by biology in this world, it is not completely free of it. But there is no way of knowing what effects the physical laws on his world, free from chemical soups like our brain can do for us. Well there is, but we certainly aren't there yet.

So quickly this thread has become so full of crap that before pointing out all the nonsense I would probably pull out every single hair on my head. And I have a really full head of hair.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Your "fact" is simple assertion. "Scientific observation" is simply an extension of the physical senses. Using sensors that are incapable of measuring certain phenomena is a poor argument for their non-existence. It's like looking for your glasses under the streetlight even through you dropped them in your doorway "because the light's better here."

edit: And, BTW, this is an excellent example of what sivason initially stated, and I agreed with:

If you have a fundamental worldview based on the belief that there is nothing beyond the "physical" (whatever that is!), there basically is no profitable conversation to be had with someone who has the fundamental worldview based on the belief that there are phenomena beyond the physical. You're making an assertion basically of your worldview. It is incompatible with mine. That's really probably all that can be said about it.

You didn't actually try to answer the question. You made it about me, but the question was about you. All aspects of life arise because of physical processes. This isn't a "simple assertion", it's a statement about observations. How do you explain these observations?

Originally Posted by Denziloe

You didn't actually try to answer the question. You made it about me, but the question was about you. All aspects of life arise because of physical processes. This isn't a "simple assertion", it's a statement about observations. How do you explain these observations?

You repeat your worldview assertion again. You did not ask a question, you asked how I can reconcile my worldview with the fact that you have a different worldview. And I pointed out that that cannot be done because we do not have a common basis for discussion. It's different than say a discussion about mathematics because the foundation, the set of axioms upon which all is built, are well-defined and can be seen and agreed on by all beforehand.

You can make a statement that "some aspects of life arise from physical processes and can be measured with physical instruments" and I'd agree with it. But not all. Mind, consciousness, love, etc., defy physical explanation. Heck, what we term physical matter itself very likely may not even have a "physical" basis at all if you go down small enough, and is there any indication that the scale of building blocks has a limit? The only limit is in our ability to measure it with current instruments.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Mind, consciousness, love, etc., defy physical explanation.

They don't defy anything. It just can not be explained yet. That doesn't mean it can never be explained.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Heck, what we term physical matter itself very likely may not even have a "physical" basis at all if you go down small enough

That's just not true and no scientist has ever said that.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

and is there any indication that the scale of building blocks has a limit? The only limit is in our ability to measure it with current instruments.

YES THERE IS. You should look it up, the planck length is there shortest known possible length. This is not 100% true, and NOTHING is 100% true, but it is agreed upon by the vast majority of scientists.

You shouldn't make these claims if you haven't spent any time actually trying to prove or disprove them.

I made no such claims, I raised a question. I made an observation that as instruments improve, there doesn't appear to be any fundamental building block, we continually discover new ones, and new theories arise to explain the possibly smaller building blocks, and so on. To me it suggests "reasonable doubt."

They don't defy anything. It just can not be explained yet. That doesn't mean it can never be explained.

You continue to show sivason's original comment as correct. It all comes down to the fundamental belief that all reality is based only on what we currently term the physical, and so even when you don't have an explanation for them, you believe that there is one! Just as I believe there isn't. And "explanation" still only ventures into theory, e.g., love: many claim it is only chemical. Anyway, round and round, I think I'll return to the dreaming side of the site....

I hope you really do return to the dreaming side and stay there.

Ginsan is like a kid that can't win

lol