Do you agree with Spinoza's view on free-choice or free will?
When we let a stone freefall, it has to fall.
There is no choice for it other than falling.
It has no any other chance but to fall.
Can human beings likened to that stone that has to fall?
Think about the bigbang if it's the truth that explains the beginning of the universe,
The circumstances that cause the universe to inflate, Everything that follows can be ''known'' beforehand if all the parameters could be calculated.
Quote from: SoldierofFortune on May 26, 2020, 05:08:00 PM
Think about the bigbang if it's the truth that explains the beginning of the universe,
The circumstances that cause the universe to inflate, Everything that follows can be ''known'' beforehand if all the parameters could be calculated.
I could accept that for argument's sake if all the parameters could be calculated. However, the word "If" makes such a condition entirely speculative, which is a pretty weak claim for what appears to be the first premise of an argument. I know of no proof that all parameters can be calculated, let alone even known.
I choose to ignore arguments about free will.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on May 26, 2020, 06:49:27 PM
I choose to ignore arguments about free will.
Very wise.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on May 26, 2020, 06:49:27 PMI choose to ignore arguments about free will.
Do you, though? :P
Free will is obtainable providing their are no other living creatures or people or plants or weather that may impede your “free willâ€. Free will may be obtainable, free want...not so much.
All living people (including yourself), all nature too, impede free will. People should ask ... Why am I enslaved to my inner demons? Will it feel good in the long run? (rhetorical questions). Arguing from physics, instead of psychology is pushing a rope.
Soldieroffortune ... are you trying to desert your best interests? Why not just blame Covid? You can do anything you want, even if it hurts yourself or others, that is easy ;-( Choosing to do what helps yourself or others, that is the hard choice! I don't find this any easier than you do.
I think we have provisional control of what we can do, but not more than that.
On the face of it Free Will seems something innate to our nature because we have a feeling of agency in our decisions and actions, but do we really? After further introspection, the stuff we're made of follows an ordered pattern - natural laws - so isn't our minds, our brains, following the same pattern? And what do we really mean by 'Free will'? If you mean just our ability to make decisions unhindered given the provisional constraints, then sure, but if you mean we somehow are able to go against that ordered pattern, then no, I don't think so.
Quote from: Sal1981 on May 27, 2020, 10:01:34 AM
I think we have provisional control of what we can do, but not more than that.
On the face of it Free Will seems something innate to our nature because we have a feeling of agency in our decisions and actions, but do we really? After further introspection, the stuff we're made of follows an ordered pattern - natural laws - so isn't our minds, our brains, following the same pattern? And what do we really mean by 'Free will'? If you mean just our ability to make decisions unhindered given the provisional constraints, then sure, but if you mean we somehow are able to go against that ordered pattern, then no, I don't think so.
Correct. Free will as wishing tree? No. Free will as independent of your own personality? No.
Exactly how one calculates QM directly to determine what you want for breakfast, is beyond anyone. It is much easier to consult my stomach.
Depends on how you define your terms.
Seeing as we can't possibly understand 100% why we choose and react the way we do, not to mention how we are limited in our options, not 'truly'. But for all intent and purposes; yes, we have 'free will'. Or at least the illusion of such.
And in a word in which your perception forms your reality, is that not enough?
Quote from: Mr.Obvious on May 28, 2020, 03:07:02 PMBut for all intent and purposes; yes, we have 'free will'. Or at least the illusion of such.
The distinction between illusion and the genuine thing is a huge and important distinction, though! For example, I am going to go have a sandwich. Maybe that's what I decided, maybe not. But I didn't decide to be hungry, or to crave deli meat, or to have deli meat on hand, to culturally like sandwiches with deli meat, etc.
My question is this: at what point in this the surprisingly lengthy process of biology (plant/animal domestication, hunger, etc) and history (inventing sandwiches, electricity, refrigeration, plastics, etc) does free will enter the picture? The natural world millions if not billions of years ago presumably didn't have it. But we presumably have it now. At what point in our shared lineage did our ancestors develop free will? Homo sapiens? Homo erectus? Great apes? Apes? Mammals? Animals in general? Where's that dividing line where some strange critters broke with otherwise ageless and universal determinism?
Early Greek philosophy ... atoms developed "swerve". They didn't imagine forces at work, other than will. Thales said nature was full of gods. If atoms don't have free will, and given materialistic reductionism, then neither do you. But that makes for reductionist morality. If I kill you, I had no choice in the matter ;-) In modern times we attempt to escape responsibility via quantum mechanics. Reality is semi-random. So if I kill you, that was an event with a certain probability, maybe 1% of happening. You were simply unlucky ;-))
We don't have free will. We do have a range of choices we have to choose from; and that range is different for each set of choices. For example, we don't have free will over our breathing. We have to breath--don't have a choice. If we try to stop breathing, we will pass out and resume breathing. But we can usually chose to hold our breath for a little--or not; take shallow breaths, or longer breaths,...well, you get the idea. But we have to breath. Much of our body actions are like that--some control but not much. When I have to take a dump, I have to take a dump. Not much choice in that.
We have to make choices--we have no choice; even not making a choice is a choice. I chose to go outside. Front or back. Drive or walk. etc. We can chose and those choices have consequences; some known and some not. But chose we must. I am free to make some of those choices and some not. I can walk in the mall; but not when it is closed unless I chose to break in. In a way, it seems we have many free choices to make; but not as many as we'd like to think. So, because we have to chose, then the choices we make are important. We sometimes think because we can make choices we are free to do so. I think the 'free to do so' is much illusion. We do what we can and that's about it.
Quote from: Hydra009 on May 28, 2020, 04:30:17 PM
The distinction between illusion and the genuine thing is a huge and important distinction, though! For example, I am going to go have a sandwich. Maybe that's what I decided, maybe not. But I didn't decide to be hungry, or to crave deli meat, or to have deli meat on hand, to culturally like sandwiches with deli meat, etc.
My question is this: at what point in this the surprisingly lengthy process of biology (plant/animal domestication, hunger, etc) and history (inventing sandwiches, electricity, refrigeration, plastics, etc) does free will enter the picture? The natural world millions if not billions of years ago presumably didn't have it. But we presumably have it now. At what point in our shared lineage did our ancestors develop free will? Homo sapiens? Homo erectus? Great apes? Apes? Mammals? Animals in general? Where's that dividing line where some strange critters broke with otherwise ageless and universal determinism?
I can only speak for myself, but seeing as I don't believe in it in a 'true' sense, I don't think it was there milions of years ago. Because going even deeper than 'not deciding to be hungry' or not deciding to 'culturally like deli meat' etc. : you also don't choose what chemical reactions in your body happen at what time. What synapses get fired and make contact and grow. But in the 'illusionary' sense, it wouls seem we have more than millions of years ago. But I doubt it would seem that way to a dinosaur. And to an amoeba that can't even think, even less so.
That's because this illusionary free will is always in the eye of the beholder. And that eye is formed, (grown and limited) indeed on one hand by the effects of the outside world on it as well as the internal mechanisms beyond it's control, but on the other by it's own actions and the effect they have on that outside and inside world beyond its grasp of full comprehension.
But at its basis it will always be chemistry and physics.
Jesus I'm full of it. Heading my amature-philosophical ass up to bed.
night y'all.
Quote from: Mr.Obvious on May 28, 2020, 07:04:01 PM
I can only speak for myself, but seeing as I don't believe in it in a 'true' sense, I don't think it was there milions of years ago. Because going even deeper than 'not deciding to be hungry' or not deciding to 'culturally like deli meat' etc. : you also don't choose what chemical reactions in your body happen at what time. What synapses get fired and make contact and grow. But in the 'illusionary' sense, it wouls seem we have more than millions of years ago. But I doubt it would seem that way to a dinosaur. And to an amoeba that can't even think, even less so.
That's because this illusionary free will is always in the eye of the beholder. And that eye is formed, (grown and limited) indeed on one hand by the effects of the outside world on it as well as the internal mechanisms beyond it's control, but on the other by it's own actions and the effect they have on that outside and inside world beyond its grasp of full comprehension.
But at its basis it will always be chemistry and physics.
Jesus I'm full of it. Heading my amature-philosophical ass up to bed.
night y'all.
Chemistry and physics--I like that. Most people don't just understand how much chemistry controls what we do and how we do it and what we think about it all. We are really just a bag of chemicals and the mixture of those chemicals determine to a large extend how we feel and think. Doctors have only scratched the surface of all of that. Change one chemical or the amount of a chemical and you change the way we think and feel.
Quote from: Mike Cl on May 28, 2020, 08:34:09 PM
Chemistry and physics--I like that. Most people don't just understand how much chemistry controls what we do and how we do it and what we think about it all. We are really just a bag of chemicals and the mixture of those chemicals determine to a large extend how we feel and think. Doctors have only scratched the surface of all of that. Change one chemical or the amount of a chemical and you change the way we think and feel.
Is this why many recreational drugs are illegal? We don't want you blaming your deterministic choice to modify your brain chemistry for why you robbed a bank?
In psychology, you usually get to blame your bad behavior on your parents, particularly your mother.
In sociology, you usually get to blame your bad behavior on the fact that society isn't a utopia.
But the bottom line is ... either none of my behavior is bad, or if it is bad, it isn't my fault. This isn't civilization, it is the creed of sociopathy.
Quote from: Mike Cl on May 28, 2020, 08:34:09 PM
Chemistry and physics--I like that. Most people don't just understand how much chemistry controls what we do and how we do it and what we think about it all.
Ikr? One day I was super angry the whole day. Turns out I was very dehydrated and wasn't aware of it. A liter of water later, I'm back to my normal half-rage. What gets me is how my anger seemed genuine and deliberate at the time, but it wasn't - I didn't choose to be angry, it just happened to me because I was physically unwell. Matter over mind.
Quote from: Baruch on May 28, 2020, 08:36:02 PM
But the bottom line is ... either none of my behavior is bad, or if it is bad, it isn't my fault. This isn't civilization, it is the creed of sociopathy.
The physical objects I interact with daily are mostly space but it doesn't help me navigate a room to think that way. On a neurologic level, not only is the ability to makes free choices an illusion, the idea there is even as a consistent "self" that makes choices is an illusion, but that knowledge doesn't help navigate society. Our brains have evolved to create an illusion that I'm commander of my thoughts riding around in a body that I control and so is everyone else. Based on that illusion we build societies. This illusion doesn't hold up on a neurological or psychological level but it's a useful fiction. There are all kinds of things that aren't actually true but everything works better when people believe it to be so, e.g. money has intrinsic value.
Quote from: GSOgymrat on May 29, 2020, 08:10:26 AM
The physical objects I interact with daily are mostly space but it doesn't help me navigate a room to think that way. On a neurologic level, not only is the ability to makes free choices an illusion, the idea there is even as a consistent "self" that makes choices is an illusion, but that knowledge doesn't help navigate society. Our brains have evolved to create an illusion that I'm commander of my thoughts riding around in a body that I control and so is everyone else. Based on that illusion we build societies. This illusion doesn't hold up on a neurological or psychological level but it's a useful fiction. There are all kinds of things that aren't actually true but everything works better when people believe it to be so, e.g. money has intrinsic value.
YES! Now go shave your head and join a monastery, Grasshopper ;-) The Buddha awaits (or Advaita Vedanta Hinduism).