your backhanded insult aside, I think one can make a case that, unless somewhere along the line, you resisted the natural flow of events, then no, you have done nothing more than any animal would have done.
Now, I highly doubt that someone can meet someone and get all the way to the point of marriage without having to make so sort of decision that can be constituted as having not gone against the natural flow of events.
For example, perhaps you met once and then you were required to put in some sort of effort to gain the fair ladies hand. Or maybe you rejected a different females attempt to come onto you.
What insult, backhand or fronthand was that?
It is my story about my marriage. So why should I discuss your revision? Suppose it happened exactly as I described it. All right? Now according to you , I would not be marrying of my own free will. Your reason is that. "free will, to me, only comes into play when we consciously decide to resist the natural flow of events". Now, still sticking to my story, and not your revision of it, is that what you would say? That I had not married of my own free will?
I ask you whether you believe p implies q, and you reply that it does not because p is false? That is simply a non-sequitur. I ask you whether given the way my marriage unfolded, I married of my own free will, and your reply is that my marriage did not (or could not) have unfolded that way.
A little logic really does go a long way. But it had to be tried.
where you insinuated that my opinion was absurd. That insult.
Well I can't rightly answer your story without having more details.
You can understand this right? I have seen you in many threads require as much
I am sorry you thought I only insinuated it. In fact, I think it is absurd. But I don't consider telling someone his opinion is absurd is an insult. I think a number of philosophical opinions are absurd, and I don't think it is an insult to tell someone that. What should I tell them?
Take my story exactly as I tell it. There are no more details. My marriage went exceedingly smoothly. It was, so far as I can understand that phrase, "the natural flow of events" (I wish you would take my word for it!). Now, I think it is absurd to argue that just because everything went smoothly, and neither she nor I decided to resist anything (why should we have?) that for that very reason, we did not marry each other of our own free will. Now, really, isn't that absurd? Honestly now.
did you ever, in your courtship, do something which could be constituted as having NOT taken the path of least resistance?
If yes, then I would say you demonstrated your free will.
If no, then I would say you have not.
Of course this does not rule out the possibility that you may have wanted to go with the natural flow of events. But if so, you have not really exemplified your free will as much as you have chosen not to resist.
Think of it this way:
If, let's say a cord, is pulling(forcing) you down and you don't resist and it pulls you down, would you say that you went down of your own free will or that you were forced down? I would say you were forced down. This doesn't mean you don't have free will just that in that instance you did not resist the natural flow of events and therefore did not "use" your free will.
Now assume you do resist and you break free of the cord.....I would say you have gone against the natural flow of events and not taken the path of least resistance, but have exuded your free will.
you should tell them you disagree. Unless you think you have some monopoly on methaphysical truth.
And while we're on the subject, maybe it's just me, but overall I think your approach to certain posts is quite condescending, dismissive, and overall insulting. Though hidden behind a certain guise of formality.
I come here to share my thoughts and receive feedback. I'm not formally trained in philosophy and I'm just living life and expressing my thoughts as a human being. After all, if I never put my thoughts out in the open not only can I not learn but potentially neither can anyone else. Put downs do not serve well in a place which is supposed to be for free thought and only serve to silence people. Heaven forbid someone try and have an original thought which does not conform with accepted notions. Not only that, but rarely do I post in a thread dealing with topics which have been "settled" with absolute certainty. So it would seem to me that professing something as absurd is just ignorant.
Overall I don't particular enjoy your approach to threads which are started but I do think you serve a purpose but I would request that maybe it be something you work on.
In regards to your questions concerning on topic matters, see my previous post for the answers. I think I hit most of those points.
I just think you need to detach yourself from this idea of a 'natural flow of events'. It's weak, philosophically speaking, and there are much better arguments for determinism present.
Your marriage was a result of all of the events leading up to the actual decision. On an identical world with identical circumstances, would you make the same decision every time? Or would you occasionally say no to the marriage?
If you say yes every time, then it isn't a choice, it is an unavoidable reaction to biology, physics, experience, and knowledge.
The question boils down to 'are we compelled to make every single choice we make'?
When I tell them that I think what they argued (or said) was absurd, I did tell them I disagreed, and also why I disagreed. I think, that is in this instance, your argument that not only when everything does smoothly, there is no free will, but that precisely because everything goes smoothly there is no free will, is simply absurd. There really is no other word for it. People do say absurd things, and they do it especially when they philosophize, as Cicero noted. But, as Cicero noted, you are not alone in spouting absurdities while philosophizing. It is a common thing. And there are good explanations for it too.
Perhaps you would like to explain why you think that just because things go smoothly, there is no free will. Can't easy decisions be made as well as difficult decisions? (It that is what lies behind your view). We have seen the position is absurd. But, as Cicero points out, that never seems to deter philosophers. And, in fact, I have always maintained that it is from the greatest philosophers that we have most to learn just because they make the greatest mistakes (some of which are absurdities) and we learn so much from pinning down the absurdity, and trying to find out why it was that such intelligent, and often talented people found themselves uttering blatant absurdities.
at the moment of choice you liked red so blue was not an option. if at the moment of choice you liked blue then red would not be an option. the choice only existed at one time. I don't believe this would constitute freewill. i believe this shows that the will decided and at the moment of decision the only option was the choice made.
i see it like this. a choice is presented. you chose what you like at the time. everything in your life is taken into account into what you liked and your brain reacts. if you chose what you dont like to try to be free your everything in your life lead to that choice the same as the other. music is a good example as its not as hard to trace back why you like a certain song or type of music. it almost always goes back to someone else liking something and you liking them. so you listen to what they listen too and the complex association machine called a brain does the rest. to me chosing what you like is not free or even a choice at all. closer would be asking something like if you had to eat poop or puke what would you choose. but it would still be picking for a reason and at the time of the choice there would be your choice and the others would not be options.
any other examples or reply's to further the discussion would be great.
also preferences changing is fine but only one can be held at a time so whatever you prefer at the time the decision is made is all that matters. do you think you randomly like red or blue or is it rationalized in your mind?
at the moment of choice you liked red so blue was not an option. if at the moment of choice you liked blue then red would not be an option. the choice only existed at one time. I don't believe this would constitute freewill. i believe this shows that the will decided and at the moment of decision the only option was the choice made.
i see it like this. a choice is presented. you chose what you like at the time. everything in your life is taken into account into what you liked and your brain reacts. if you chose what you dont like to try to be free your everything in your life lead to that choice the same as the other. music is a good example as its not as hard to trace back why you like a certain song or type of music. it almost always goes back to someone else liking something and you liking them. so you listen to what they listen too and the complex association machine called a brain does the rest. to me chosing what you like is not free or even a choice at all. closer would be asking something like if you had to eat poop or puke what would you choose. but it would still be picking for a reason and at the time of the choice there would be your choice and the others would not be options.
any other examples or reply's to further the discussion would be great.
also preferences changing is fine but only one can be held at a time so whatever you prefer at the time the decision is made is all that matters. do you think you randomly like red or blue or is it rationalized in your mind?
Leibniz believed that free choice in humans is brought about through the activity of the human intellect and the human will working in concert with one another. The intellect deliberates about alternatives and selects the one that it perceives to be the best of all things considered. The intellect then represents this alternative to the will as the one that is best to pursue. The will, which for Leibniz is a faculty characterized by "appetite for the good," then chooses that alternative which is represented to it as containing the most good.
Leibniz then believed there were two ways which one might exercise "control" over ones acts of will. First, one might be able to control what appears to ones self to be the best of all things considered. That is, one might control the process of deliberation. Second, one might be able to control the will's choosing that alternative which is presented to it by the intellect as representing the greatest good at that time.
Source: Leibniz on the Problem of Evil (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
I personally think it is somewhat difficult to maintain a vision of free will without some sort of espousal of either a soul or dualism or some transcendent self which is not subject to causal determinism.
Having said that, I think Leibniz had the right idea and I tend to agree with his latter alternative. I would say that the will is presented with choices by the intellect and yet maintains the ability to veto the intellect.
This is an interesting and excellent point. It reminds me of a hypothetical we discussed in my Minds and Machines class:
If a world were created as a complete mirror of our current world, that is to say, the physics are identical, and the version of yourself on that planet is in every every way similar to yourself (upbringing and so forth too), would that person be in the exact same position as your original self in 50 years?
It becomes difficult to articulate why there would be a difference, which would be at ends with the idea of free will that we all cherish.
Your marriage was a result of all of the events leading up to the actual decision. On an identical world with identical circumstances, would you make the same decision every time? Or would you occasionally say no to the marriage?
When I tell them that I think what they argued (or said) was absurd, I did tell them I disagreed, and also why I disagreed.
Perhaps you would like to explain why you think that just because things go smoothly, there is no free will. Can't easy decisions be made as well as difficult decisions? (It that is what lies behind your view). We have seen the position is absurd.
If you say something is absurd, you are saying that it is wrong. If you say you disagree with something, you are saying that you think it is wrong. So you've basically said that you think what he said is wrong (you disagree) because what he said is wrong (it's absurd).
Jake to Sam: "I heard you married Esmeralda because her father and brothers threatened to shoot you if you didn't,, is that so, Sam?"
Sam to Jake. "Not at all, Jake. In fact I married Esmeralda because I loved her. No one forced me to marry her. I married her of my own free will".
Jake. "You married her because you loved her? and you wanted to marry her. That shows you did not marry her of your own free will".
Who is right? Sam or Jake?
Do you think that since Sam married Esmeralda because he wanted to marry her, and he wanted to marry her because he loved her, that he did not marry her of his own free will? Why, for heaven's sakes? That would be to argue that Sam did not marry Esmeralda of his own free will for exactly why Sam would be said to marry Esmeralda of his own free will!
Jake: Why did you marry Es?
Sam: Because I chose to.
Jake: Why did you choose to?
Sam: Because I love her.
Jake: Did you choose to love her?
Sam: No, I just do
Jake: So then your choice to marry Es was based on love, which is out of your control?
Sam: Yes
Jake: If your choice to marry Es was based on something out of your control, how was your "choice" under your control?
Sam: erm...
The problem with describing free will is that it's very tough to do without bringing in choice. Making a choice is essentially the ability to use (or act upon) free will, so arguably your first sentence could read:
"An agent has free will on occasions when they use free will to act out one or more realisable alternatives."
Using the term "choice" when describing free will often leads to a tautology. One ends up giving the following account of free will:
"A person has free will when they have free will."
Another problem is that "realisable alternatives" is another concept that relies on the existence of free will (or at least randomness). Without free will there would only be one possible action to take, so assuming that there are multiple realisable alternatives basically assumes that free will exists. Thus is seems your statement can be broken down even further to:
"A person has free will when they use free will, because free will exists."
at the moment of choice you liked red so blue was not an option. if at the moment of choice you liked blue then red would not be an option. the choice only existed at one time. I don't believe this would constitute freewill. i believe this shows that the will decided and at the moment of decision the only option was the choice made.
i see it like this. a choice is presented. you chose what you like at the time. everything in your life is taken into account into what you liked and your brain reacts. if you chose what you dont like to try to be free your everything in your life lead to that choice the same as the other. music is a good example as its not as hard to trace back why you like a certain song or type of music. it almost always goes back to someone else liking something and you liking them. so you listen to what they listen too and the complex association machine called a brain does the rest. to me chosing what you like is not free or even a choice at all. closer would be asking something like if you had to eat poop or puke what would you choose. but it would still be picking for a reason and at the time of the choice there would be your choice and the others would not be options.
Your argument is invalid. Dogs and cats are both mammals but calling a cat "a mammal" is not the same as calling a cat "a dog".
Here's a counterexample. Newton's Laws are wrong but they are not absurd.
His statement was still fairly uninformative though. Saying something is absurd doesn't communicate anything more than one's position on a matter, which is pretty useless by itself in a discussion.
You make it sound as if love was a sufficient condition for his marriage but love did not guarantee his marriage. He could have just kept dating her if he chose to.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with a lot of the above. Simply because terms are related, that does not mean that they are reducible to one another. You chose (sorry for using the term, but bear with me) to translate this phrase, "An agent has free will on occasions when they make and enact a conscious choice from amongst realisable alternatives," in this manner: " A person has free will when they use free will, because free will exists." What if I preferred to paraphrase ughaibu's phrase thusly, "An individual may exercise free choice when physical possibilities provide an opportunity." Who's version stays truer to both the form and intent of the original? I'm not at all sure how "realisable alternatives" can be reduced to an assumption of free will, it would seem rather that the former is a condition for the possibility of the latter. Also, you disregarded qualifying terms like "occasions", and their nuance, to reduce "choice" to "free will." I don't think the two are reducible. In fact, it might be possible to generate a theory of free will with minimal reference to "choice".
