On freewill and choice.

@ughaibu,

ughaibu wrote:

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsjNNPVAQYw

let´s ad some cheese music to your home made pizza !...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WZZjXgJ4W8

This last one was brilliant... Congrats are in place really !!!

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

ughaibu wrote:

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsjNNPVAQYw

let´s ad some cheese music to your home made pizza !...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WZZjXgJ4W8

This last one was brilliant... Congrats are in place really !!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQDYH0KexvI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGmXb1xenrQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7p3zH3OWCg

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Fated to be !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmdGbUzv4SM

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Check this one...a blast !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWOzUzJd6wM

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this is a great thread, i actually read it all. the thing that made the biggest impression on me is kennethamy's view that there is no such thing as 'will'. (sorry kenneth if that isnt technically what you said, but i know what you meant i think.)

will is actually not a faculty but a form of desire-will, wish, desire are all various grades of the same thing i believe, which would be an attraction to something. it isnt something that we choose and it isnt something that we are. i will forever be indebted for this concept, it makes things a lot easier.

i think sometimes the parts of the mind or the self (if there is in fact a difference) are divided into too many pieces. for instance, even if you want to say intent ... to intend to...is a faculty, it isnt. it is nothing more than a thought, an idea.

so if you wish to pursue the idea of free will in that sense, then no there isnt any free will because we cannot choose what we desire or are attracted to, because these things are either expressions of our physical needs (i.e. water, food) or compulsions that have been stick on us from outside ourselves (advertising for example) or habits and addictions, also probably more origins that i cant think of right now.

we can choose which desires we try to satisfy and the means to do so...if that is the question, then we are certainly limited by our experience, our knowledge, our intelligence, as to what we would choose. but i still think we could be presented with choices and choose one or the other.

for instance, i have a desire for sweets-i know they are especially bad for me in particular-but i also know that a certain amount will not be a problem or that i can counteract the difficulty they give me in various ways,etc. so i may sometimes choose to avoid them and sometimes choose to indulge.

which leaves me now knowing if that is the conclusion or not...it seems to me at this moment that we have some level of choices and are partly (in fact often greatly) limited. i would say that is relevant to the OP...?

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@salima,

salima wrote:

this is a great thread, i actually read it all. the thing that made the biggest impression on me is kennethamy's view that there is no such thing as 'will'.

Probably because he's constantly reifying things to the point of absurdity. Right, I don't have a "will" in the same way that I have "lungs" or a "liver" but I have a will, and a conscience, and a sense of duty, and lots of other things that aren't "real".

1 Reply

Sorry, would you mind defining "faculty?" I'd like to reply, but I'm not entirely sure what you mean without a clear (or at least somewhat clarified) concept of "faculty." I'm not trying to split hairs or anything, but "faculty" is a term that sounds familiar, though I have no clear understanding of it. Thanks in advance for any help!

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@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper wrote:

salima wrote:
this is a great thread, i actually read it all. the thing that made the biggest impression on me is kennethamy's view that there is no such thing as 'will'.

Probably because he's constantly reifying things to the point of absurdity. Right, I don't have a "will" in the same way that I have "lungs" or a "liver" but I have a will, and a conscience, and a sense of duty, and lots of other things that aren't "real".

Of course we say things like, "Sam has a strong will" but when we do, we are not talking about some entity that Sam has, but rather about how Sam behaves. To think that over and above describing Sam's behavior, and his tendency to behave in certain ways, to talk about Sam's will as some metaphysical entity that can be free or not, is to engage in reification. It is analogous to the way the ancient Greeks reified the kind of behavior and feeling we call "love" into a divine person they called "Eros" (the god of love). I did not say that the will is not "real". I just said it isn't an entity. The will is real enough. It is a way of describing actual and potential behavior. Just as to say that when I appeal to my conscience, what I am doing is to appeal to certain intuitions I have about right and wrong. There is nothing unreal about that. But that need not mean that there is some internal entity within me which we call a "conscience". It would be to think that way which would be reification.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

but there is no such thing as the concept most people have...it is a mistake in definitions actually.

as regards the conscience, that isnt a little angel sitting on our shoulder telling us when we are about to or have made a moral mistake of course.

so it would be better phrased to debate whether or not human beings are free to choose or only under the delusion that they are choosing. in fact, as it applies to obsessive/compulsive disorder, i wonder if the person believes he is choosing to behave that way?

1 Reply

@salima,

salima wrote:

but there is no such thing as the concept most people have...it is a mistake in definitions actually.

as regards the conscience, that isnt a little angel sitting on our shoulder telling us when we are about to or have made a moral mistake of course.

so it would be better phrased to debate whether or not human beings are free to choose or only under the delusion that they are choosing. in fact, as it applies to obsessive/compulsive disorder, i wonder if the person believes he is choosing to behave that way?

People who have OCD may be under the illusion that they are making a choice (although, in fact, generally they are not, but feel under compulsion). But is it being suggested that we are all really obsessive compulsives, only we do not feel we are under compulsion? I think that is a bizarre suggestion, without an iota of evidence for it. It would be like suggesting that although we believe there is some counterfeit money which we might accept as real money, that in fact, all money is really counterfeit, and there is no real money at all.

1 Reply

@salima,

salima wrote:

for instance, i have a desire for sweets-i know they are especially bad for me in particular-but i also know that a certain amount will not be a problem or that i can counteract the difficulty they give me in various ways,etc. so i may sometimes choose to avoid them and sometimes choose to indulge.

This is an example of no free will. if you choose not to eat the candy it is only because you desire to be healthy more than you desire candy in this instance. If a time machine existed i believe that if you kept going back in time and watching yourself not pick the candy you would find that no matter how many times you went back you would always not take the candy. if you went back and changed something you may take the candy but it would not be the same choice.

everything is done for desire. literally nothing has ever been done, thought or said that was not intended to fill some desire or another. we desire so many things at the same time that its hard to see sometimes. in your example you desire the candy but you desire health more. realistically its most likly you desire being attractive and dont want to eat the candy all the time to avoid getting fat and losing your teeth.
freewill is a concept and as such is tautological.

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

People who have OCD may be under the illusion that they are making a choice (although, in fact, generally they are not, but feel under compulsion). But is it being suggested that we are all really obsessive compulsives, only we do not feel we are under compulsion? I think that is a bizarre suggestion, without an iota of evidence for it. It would be like suggesting that although we believe there is some counterfeit money which we might accept as real money, that in fact, all money is really counterfeit, and there is no real money at all.

all action is done of desire> desire is a compulsion= all action is done of compulsion. every single thing bar none being done of compulsion seams like some proof to me.

someone offers you candy. you love candy so you are compelled to accept but you also like being healthy or looking good for the girls so your compelled to refuse.the decisions could only be different if the level of desire was different.

One of the biggest desires is to belong. this leads to almost all action that occurs in our lives. i would suggest a good understanding of auto-response for anyone trying to ponder freewill.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

physical laws are not made they are discovered.

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@Doubt doubt,

Doubt doubt wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

People who have OCD may be under the illusion that they are making a choice (although, in fact, generally they are not, but feel under compulsion). But is it being suggested that we are all really obsessive compulsives, only we do not feel we are under compulsion? I think that is a bizarre suggestion, without an iota of evidence for it. It would be like suggesting that although we believe there is some counterfeit money which we might accept as real money, that in fact, all money is really counterfeit, and there is no real money at all.

all action is done of desire> desire is a compulsion= all action is done of compulsion. every single thing bar none being done of compulsion seams like some proof to me.

someone offers you candy. you love candy so you are compelled to accept but you also like being healthy or looking good for the girls so your compelled to refuse.the decisions could only be different if the level of desire was different.

One of the biggest desires is to belong. this leads to almost all action that occurs in our lives. i would suggest a good understanding of auto-response for anyone trying to ponder freewill.

But it is simply not true that because I love candy that when I am offered candy I am compelled to accept it. If I am a diabetic, I may love candy to distraction, but since I know that candy will make me dreadfully ill, I do not accept it. And there are many things I like to do that I do not do because I know that I should not do them. What makes you think that people are always compelled to do whatever they desire? Not only is desire not a sufficient condition of action, it is not even a necessary condition of action, since people sometimes do things they do not desire to do. I may, out of obligation, visit my sick aunt in hospital even though it is the very last thing I desire to do. In fact I hate doing it. So wherever did you get the idea that desire is either a sufficient condition for action or a necessary condition for action? Such a theory is daily refuted by the facts of human behavior.

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@ughaibu,

ughaibu wrote:

Fil Albuquerque wrote:
In close observation that idea is self contradictory...
...Will requires cause to be willed, therefore causal chains, necessarily the word "free" behind it must get out of the picture...
Rubbish! And I am sick of explaining this. Cause and effect does not conflict with free will, cause and effect does not imply determinism. Mathematical randomness conflicts with determinism but not with cause and effect, intentional randomness conflicts with free will. This is not difficult to get, think about it!

nothing in the physical world is random, its just not understood. mathematical randomness i would bet could be understood as not random also but either way mathematics is a game and only coincidentally relates to the physical world sometimes. math is 100% abstract. numbers dont exist. there is no such thing as a hundred there is only a hundred of something. all that exists is one. 100 + 100 is meaningless untill you say what something there are 200 of. mathematical randomness has nothing at all to offer a free will discussion. what can be done with numbers on paper will always be reification when applied to the physical world.

1 Reply

@Doubt doubt,

Doubt doubt wrote:

ughaibu wrote:

Fil Albuquerque wrote:
In close observation that idea is self contradictory...
...
nothing in the physical world is random, its just not understood. paper will always be reification when applied to the physical world.

And could you say how you know that, while you are about it?

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

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!

im saying all that matters is the choice would always be made the same way. everything can only happen one way which is the way it happens.

put it this way:

i have a time machine and you are with me. we see bill and mike. bill asks mike to pick a number and mike picks five.

i know that if we went back in time and watched bill ask mike to pick a number mike would always pick five. no matter how many times we go back mike always picks five unless we change something.

for me a will could only be free if mike picked a different number sometimes. I can not see that as possible without something in mikes brain being different from one redo to the next. this leads me to believe that we have the appearance of free will but that in fact we only compute what we experience and react based on what we think and what the ability of our brain gives us.

mike thinks he is using free will when he picks five over and over but he is not. he is drawing the five from his experience in some way. he may have to work at five or his address is five but he said five for a reason. this would be easy to understand if you had a knowledge of critical thinking, economics and psychology. there are very reliable ways to phrase questions or arrange a situation to get the outcome you want.

i also do not believe that anything is random and that there is no such thing as chaos. things only appear random and chaotic when you do not understand what is occurring. If you need examples of things people used to viewed as random that are now understood and predictable you dont have to look far and there are boatloads with more and more being added all the time.
some people think rolling dice is random but i know that the results follow the laws of physics and the way you throw the dice determines how they will land. i know that if they were throws in the same exact way under the same conditions they would always land they same. there is no magic effect that makes dice random and so they are not random but only appear as random to those that do not understand whats happening.

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@Doubt doubt,

Doubt doubt wrote:

i know that if we went back in time and watched bill ask mike to pick a number mike would always pick five. no matter how many times we go back mike always picks five unless we change something.

First of all, you can't possibly know that. That's an untestable hypothesis. Second of all, the only reason why you believe such a thing is that you mistakenly believe that separate physical events have some sort of necessary connection between them. This is also based on something that is untestable. We can never detect that some event must occur. We can only detect that it does occur.

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@Doubt doubt,

Doubt doubt wrote:

i have a time machine and you are with me. we see bill and mike. bill asks mike to pick a number and mike picks five.

i know that if we went back in time and watched bill ask mike to pick a number mike would always pick five. no matter how many times we go back mike always picks five unless we change something.

for me a will could only be free if mike picked a different number sometimes. I can not see that as possible without something in mikes brain being different from one redo to the next. this leads me to believe that we have the appearance of free will but that in fact we only compute what we experience and react based on what we think and what the ability of our brain gives us.

mike thinks he is using free will when he picks five over and over but he is not. he is drawing the five from his experience in some way. he may have to work at five or his address is five but he said five for a reason. this would be easy to understand if you had a knowledge of critical thinking, economics and psychology. there are very reliable ways to phrase questions or arrange a situation to get the outcome you want.

But according to your thought experiment, Mike isn't making the same choice over and over. He only makes the choice once; you are the one traveling back and forth in time. When you watch a movie you've already seen before, do you expect it to end differently each time?

Besides, in what way does his having a reason for the number he chooses compromise the freedom of his will?

Doubt doubt wrote:

i also do not believe that anything is random and that there is no such thing as chaos. things only appear random and chaotic when you do not understand what is occurring. If you need examples of things people used to viewed as random that are now understood and predictable you dont have to look far and there are boatloads with more and more being added all the time.
some people think rolling dice is random but i know that the results follow the laws of physics and the way you throw the dice determines how they will land. i know that if they were throws in the same exact way under the same conditions they would always land they same. there is no magic effect that makes dice random and so they are not random but only appear as random to those that do not understand whats happening.

But for the very reason that things appear to be random only when they are not properly understood, so one cannot disprove the possibility of randomness, only specific claims of randomness. Regardless, randomness has nothing to do with free will. Randomness does not exclude causality, and an absolutely random world would be indistinguishable from a completely determined one.

The question of rolling dice and probability isn't that dice might magically produce entirely random results, so much as the results cannot be predicted given a single throw. It is only upon repeated throws that patterns emerge, and the disclosure of the relevant conditions that determine how a roll will end within a given sequence in a given set of circumstance. All things being equal, a single roll of the dice is unpredictable.

1 Reply

The right information, lots of drama, and the wrong conclusions...who said to you survival competition war and even "pain" are not valid reasons for a pleasent complete existence? And just what other purpose would you expect to have from our Reality besides the life we have, with all its circunstance? Have you another model in mind? Are you up to design alternative Universes? What??? Eden? Geeee no thanks!...

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