Is free-will an illusion?

I guess we agree to disagree then...how else would you have any impulse any motivation towards any action at all ? In my opinion you as anyone else must have a core of beliefs no matter how simple without which you wouldn't care to think or feel anything...the first thing you do in the morning when you wake up is believing you are alive and get to find reasons, because you believe there are reasons to be found, to get out of bed ! Equally you seam to believe there are reasons to pursue inquiry, you just did said so...anyways take it as you want...

one is never alive if he is seekin reasons to b, life is positive reasons realities

which prove how reasons are only out of negative beings and about wrong facts and for destructions justifications

what everyone seem to ignore while it is the essential fact, is that only positive exist or what exist is positively real existin
then if only point is positively existin among a lot of negative else points, this point only is real alone and if it succeed to free itself from all the rest then this point could b the only whole existence right fact evolvin always as if nothing else is there

It appears we do disagree…and I have already listed my reasons for saying what I did.




If you want to have the opinion that everyone must have a “core of beliefs”…and if you want to think that when I get up in the morning I “believe” I am alive…that is your prerogative. I suspect not everyone has a “core of beliefs”…and I think using the word “believe” to explain what I think when I get up in the morning is gratuitous…but as I said, it is your prerogative to think that.



Same goes for this.




I did not say I believe there are reasons to pursue inquiry. I prefer not to be misquoted or to have what I say characterized. You ought really to consider quoting what I write…and then commenting on that...just as I am doing here in reply to you.

For all of what as been claimed you either present an absolute proof or any of this claims can be best described as a belief or a set of personnel assumptions !
Enough said...

dalehileman wrote:
it seems absurd to assign free will as a possession only of the humanoid

That I had inferred which Tomr had implied as suggested by Ugh #……309 above; assuming of course that Tomr qualifies as such, assuming I hand't misunderstood

dalehileman wrote:
The more carefully controlled the conditions of an experiment the more consistent its result, seems to make the idea of free will vanishingly small

Causes and effect. The more consistent the causes the more uniform the effect

dalehileman wrote:
Free will or not, most experimentation seems to support determinism

Because the more carefully controlled the experiment the greater likelihood of the same result

……..the single exception being likelihood of scroll bar in a2k window

it is amazin how words are deformed to b used only to serve the sentence will as dead words that never existed

believin is the opposite of assumin or speculatin

believin is always about objective superiority, what is never of u so about else existence superiority that u believe bc u cant reach to b real through nor with

it is always about smthg definitive ended being right always so always about smthg having an absolute caracter

while assumptions by definitions or even speculations are relative facts which is why they involve always the oneself freedom right to do so

even if everything is killed such as words they still exist since u r usin them

usin what u kill say all about u and how u r

As has been stated many times, there is no notion of "cause", in either science or philosophy, that isn't either vague or ambiguous. In short, other than as terms used in explanations, "cause" and "effect" have no clear meaning, and as terms used in explanations they carry no ontological implications. Further, determinism is a quite different claim from "cause and effect", so, if there's any reason to suppose that cause and effect might be incompatible with free will, that case needs to be made.After the experiment is concluded, will the experimenters be expected to repeat the dialogue that they had on the previous occasion? To go to the same restaurant, order the same food and drink, lift their forks to their mouths in exactly similarly timed movements?
Experiments that aim to produce the same result will, if successful, produce the same result. But we can equally conduct experiments the aim of which is to demonstrate that results needn't be the same. If we can do this consistently, as we can, then the second order result is the same. So, we can demonstrate free will, experimentally.

Of course it's just sheer intuition, I can't defend it in the usu philosophic/scientific terms but it seems obvious to me on the face of it that there's an impasse. Why, one asks, should brain activity be any different from that of a PC

Perhaps you misunderstand my speculations. Of course we can't perform such an experiment since there are just too many variables. During their work however with a more limited set of determinants they do observe that by more carefully controlling the pertinent causes they can more often achieve the more nearly identical result

An experiment consists of a defined procedure that will either produce a defined result or it will produce any result other than that which was defined. The very nature of experiments entails that which you claim to conclude from them. So, your conclusion begs the question.
Again, if we run an experiment by which we attempt to confirm that results do not need to be repeated, even given experimentally identical conditions, we can perform that experiment. And as we can consistently perform that experiment, then etc.
Further to which, our experience of life is that we have free will and that we don't live in a determined world. In short, the reality of free will has far greater plausibility that does the thesis of determinism. On top of which, whether or not we have free will is not the issue of free will. Denial of free will is supposedly a solution to that issue. The default status is that we have free will.

I wonder Ugh if you might reword that in language more nearly suitable to the Average Clod (me)

That's certainly what we'd like to think and indeed we almost have to adopt the idea but that doesn't make it fact. I note behavior largely determined by circumstance

Religion, government, custom

Again however, for what it's worth (not a lot hereabout) is that the evident impasse, free-will v determinism, will be resolved by demonstrating it's merely a semantic issue

Again I can't defend that, it's Intuition

intuition is the opposite of freedom and determinism facts

intuition is absolutely about subjective perspective while freedom and determinism exist by definition without being perceived and are exclusively objective facts

which prove that u r a liar that use words in any order of deformations only to get ur sentence across

what is free is by definition independant absolutely so cant b intuitive as internal sense vector

wat is determined also is by definition finished so always completely out of ends the cant b related to its perspective in any way of means

This is what I have found, so far, regarding 'Knowledge' and 'free-will/choice';

What is knowledge?
(Short version)

~~~ The new, critically updated, all inclusive, final definition of 'Knowledge';
"'Knowledge' is 'that which is perceived'!"
All inclusive!

That which is perceived by the unique individual Perspective is 'knowledge'.
All we can 'know' is what we perceive, Now! and Now! and Now!!!

'Ignorance' is that which is NOT perceived, at any particular moment, by any particular unique Perspective!


'Free-will/choice';
(Even shorter version!)

"To have 'free-will' is to have the ability to 'do otherwise'.
In the complete history of the Universe, no being has ever 'done otherwise', no moment has ever been 'otherwise'!"

Ok, a longer version;

Free-will?


~~~ 'Free-will/choice' exists as a *thought*, a 'belief', a 'feeling'. Thats all. But it exists! Everything exists!
The notion of 'free-will/choice' is unsupportable both from a scientific or philosophical perspective.
Yet it exists in/as 'ego/thought'.
'Thoughts' come in various flavors; memory, anticipatory/expective, imagination, ...
That which exists as 'thought', exists! (as 'thought')
Everything exists!

Benjamin Libet's famous experiment certainly pounded another nail in the 'free-will/choice' coffin! Demonstrating the the brain initiated the action "prior" to the 'choice' being made, 100% of the time!

'Free-will/choice' depends on some moment of existence being 'otherwise'! Never, never in the existence of existence has (or can be) any moment ever been 'otherwise'! Ever! What is, is, and that's all that is or ever can be!
What is, (already) is!

Every moment of existence exists Now!

"The Laws of Nature are not rules controlling the metamorphosis of what is, into what will be. They are descriptions of patterns that exist, all at once... " - Genius; the Life and Science of Richard Feynman
All 'eternity' at once; Now!!

There is only one moment (Planck moment; 10^-43/sec; "almost" one billion trillion trillion trillionths of a second!!!) of the entirety of existence/Reality/the Universe!
All existence, ever, is one, literally, 'timeless' moment!
Now!

"The Planck length is about 10^-20 of the diameter of a proton, and thus is an extremely small length. It is much smaller than the smallest length values ever measured or probed, which are about 10-5 of a proton diameter."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length

1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = one thousand trillion trillionths the diameter of a proton!!
The 'size' of one percept, one unique Perspective, One Soul!, that synchronously exist for one Planck moment!

A 'moment' is a unit of perception, a percept!

"Reality is a synchrony of moments!"

Another point.
To completely define something, the context in which it is perceived must be included in the description.
Ultimately, the COMPLETE context of anything is the entire Universe! (at any moment!) So, to actually 'change' something from what is, to what you find more comfortable (the usual basis of 'desires' and the 'thoughts' of 'will' and 'free-will/choice'), you would have to alter the entire Universe (think Butterfly Effect)!
What an egoic/godlike ability! And just for your own comfort! You might have to ignorantly wipe out 17 galaxies and 486 civilizations so you can 'create' that new chair...
Get the drift?
Thank GOD! that it is impossible for us to 'change' anything!!!
(Any more than a telescope can have 'creative powers' over what it is pointed at!)

Religiously speaking;
The 'belief' in 'free-will/choice' is the number one and all 'sin' of 'pride/vanity'!
Believing that we can 'change' the Universe, that which 'Is', for what usually amounts to 'personal comfort', is quite the ego masturbation!!

But it isn't a semantic issue. If it is the case that we live in a determined world, then there is a fact now about whether I will conclude this post with a full stop or with a question mark. In other words, there is no alternative that is realisable. Not only do I think that this isn't the case, I have demonstrated that it is not the case by observation. Further, I have given a simple argument which establishes that it cannot be rationally held to be the case. On top of which, there is no reason to think that it is the case, other than psychological reasons on the lines of "wouldn't it be nice if the world were determined, then we would feel assured that we can explain everything".
Think about it; in ancient Greece, when determinism is first recorded as being publicly mooted, the interactions between people were immediate and physical. Determinism as a consequence of atomism had an initial plausibility, but it no longer has even an initial plausibility. I can say things to you directly and be almost certain that you'll get my meaning, but I can also transmit the same meaning by writing on paper, sending a telegram, telephoning, posting on the internet, etc, in short, it is not the means of transmission which determines the meaning. On the other hand, if I express the same thing in japanese, I doubt that you'll get the meaning, in fact, I expect that very few readers will get the meaning and I have no clear idea of what they will get. So, the claim that we live in a determined world is highly implausible and the world is as it is, regardless of how much one might want it to be different.

This claim is false. The so-called "action potential" is observed even when subjects do not make the movement, so it definitely is not the initiation of the action.

Ughaibu continually says that he has "by observation" shown that he has realizable alternatives. He says that he demonstated he could have ended the quoted post with either a question mark or a period. Has he demonstrated this? Has he shown that he could have ended the above post with either a period or a question mark at the time he wrote it? I am calling him out on this. He has repeated lied that he has observed this. Because you only get one chance at writing a specific paragraph in time, to say you have observed that the second case is possible is just simply a lie.

I am calling for a vote here. Is Ughaibu lying when he says he has observed the second case (a period or a question mark) was actually observed?

I think what he is mistakenly confusing is the realizing between two existing (in the world) alternatives and the speculation that he could indeed choose the other way which of course he cannot prove...but what ultimately seams amusing behind the pseudo formal flavor of his posts is the simplicity in which he sorts a millenarian problem, go figure that ego...

...he never for once addresses the problem of determinism as essential to claim property of will and through it free will, that is, that there is someone who is responsible for willing, the causal nexus connecting will with a person...this issue is not made up by me just to stalk him around with silly questions several philosophers have repeatedly referred to this problem, free will or not the matter of willing requires a deterministic set, and is precisely in there that the conjunction of "free" and "will" doesn't match, not a jot...

We don't usually go around saying that randomly we are stroke by this or that will, speaking in default assumptions most of us actually claim to be the authors of such willing process, we say we are the CAUSE of the willing, and thus we mean that we determine what we will...the question that arises quite obviously is why determinism is good for all the material objects in this world and not good for the causes of willing which are behind the subject also itself a material being ?
Free will adepts are therefore stroke with 2 different problems, either they deny determinism and with it the claim for authorship of willing or they accept it with its full consequences...again either way they loose.

...taking the fallacy a step further would be all to fun if we refer to cars as willing to crash because in this world there are cars who did crash and cars who didn't...the fact that alternatives exist in this world is not proof of anything regarding freedom of will...there is simply no way of fully recreating the same conditions in order to prove a subject could do otherwise.

Something that has always unsettled me with such debated is the lack of experimental confirmation, and void of such experimentation, there is no scientific meaning. To allow the universe to go about its natural way of continuing its existence for a long period of time is the only way to compute the highly complicated everyday, ordinary classical chaos, and still that data can only tell us a very limited scope of understanding of the order of the disorder. For example, if a dice is thrown and bounces off enough walls, the small irregularities of those walls will ensure that any initial prediction of its path will fail, no matter how carefully that initial model is done. Considering that every molecule in a gas or liquid is a lot like that dice, yes, even if it started out quantum entangled, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that there is an awful lot of intractable unpredictability in the universe at large. So, if the universe is experimentally unpredictable in a way that cannot be circumvented then how can theories that imply predestination ever make meaningful experimental predictions? In the absence of such predictions, interpretations of theories that lead to the block (that is, predestined) universes become not science, but abstract philosophy. Myself writing this, I find it quite ironic because I've examined special relativity closely enough to know that it seems unavoidably to imply just that: that we live in a block universe of predestined outcomes. It's the only way to ensure that diverse frame views do not end up contradicting causality. The problem comes in when you try to test that simple implication with scientific methods by setting up some sort of an observable experiment.

PS...for those who still didn't get it is worthless to come with the argument that cars don't think because even cars that are driven by an artificial intelligence program and have to take decisions in the road must fully respect the programing and the events on the road such that their decision is always fully conditioned and determined, and still there are cars who did crash and cars who didn't.