What is free will?

@Logicus,

Cicerone and I believe in free will, the monkeys don't.

@Logicus,

No apologies needed. It's true that Wiki can at times say BS... But not in this case. The Darwinian model of decision making is the best model out there, in my opinion.

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@fresco,

Why do you keep bypassing my remarks ? All I am saying is that even before you report anything there must be SOMETHING you did experience to have something to report...please dont make it look like you didn't notice exactly where my remark was getting at...you damn well know what I asked of you...

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When people argue they can do so because both parties are wrong and can see the errors in their opponents' arguments. They wrongly believe that this means their own argument is correct.

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@Olivier5,

All I'm expressing about free will is about MY OBSERVATIONS, PERCEPTIONS, ACTIONS, AND BELIEFS. I don't know when and where anything I have done in my life was PREDETERMINED except for the limits set by my culture, race, ethnicity, education, family, friends, and my genes.

My genes as a human limits my senses to what they are. I wore eyeglasses from early in my life, and was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2008. I know my genes have limitations, and therefore what I'm able to experience on this planet.

My brain isn't the best in the world, but I've done pretty well in the world of economics, and my wife and I live pretty comfortable lives. I have many friends around the world that includes Africa, Bhutan, Singapore, England, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, Cuba, and all across the US, and that also includes a rocket scientist, Bob Brodsky. I'm not sure many on this planet can claim the same.

If my life was predetermined, I thank the IT IS.

But I still believe I had a great deal to do with what I did in my life through "free will."

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

But I still believe I had a great deal to do with what I did in my life through "free will."

That, and a little bit of chance too I guess. Not determinism, because the idea is self-contradictory. If determinism is true, then ideas have no value whatsoever, they are just neuronal noise, including the idea of determinism itself.

I've been lucky too. But as always in life it's a combination of luck and hard work, or inspiration and transpiration.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Sorry but I genuinely disagree that there was `something` prior to my observation. The word prior is ex post facto I.e. inductive for present purposes. If in doubt, consider the nebulous plethora of potential `somethings` that I did NOT report. My perceptual set is integral to the segmentation/observation of any `something`

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@tomr,

Quote:

I wish I could do better. Honestly being determined sucks!!!

Does it, really? You can decide to assume your freedom at any time. There is no empirical proof of anything we discussed, especially determinism. It's a theological or aesthetic question really, with no bearing on own lives whatsoever. Your current choice of seeing yourself as a puppet was a free choice, though perhaps an inconscient one, to avoid responsibility.

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@Olivier5,

I also agree that chance and luck had a lot to do with what I've been able to accomplish in my life. I had no goals in grade school unlike my siblings, and almost flunked out of high school. I enlisted into the USAF a couple of years after graduation from high school, and was assigned to work with nuclear weapons. I signed up for overseas duty while stationed at Travis AFB in California, hoping to get an assignment in Japan, but they sent me to Morocco for one year. However, all was not lost, because I was able to visit Madrid, Paris, and London during my one year stint in Morocco. Even visited Casablanca, Tangiers, and often to Marrakesh which was located about 36 miles south of our base.

That's when the travel bug bit my behind.

To make a long story short, I eventually earned my BS in Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting. Of the 30 years of my career, I worked 88% in management positions.

Yea, luck had a lot to do with my life. Even married a wonderful woman who was working as a Head Nurse at St Joseph's Hospital in San Francisco when I was still going to college. She graduated high school, nursing school, and college with honors. Our two sons also did well; oldest graduated summa cum laude, and our younger son cum laude.

Some say you make your own luck. Maybe.

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

I signed up for overseas duty while stationed at Travis AFB in California, hoping to get an assignment in Japan, but they sent me to Morocco for one year. However, all was not lost, because I was able to visit Madrid, Paris, and London during my one year stint in Morocco. Even visited Casablanca, Tangiers, and often to Marrakesh which was located about 36 miles south of our base.

That's when the travel bug bit my behind.

You wanted to travel before though, or you wouldn't have signed for overseas duty, and whatever fortune or destiny put on your way, you ended up traveling.

There's nothing wrong about accepting unexpected stuff with a smile and enjoying the ride. I am not a control freak, by far. I tend to not worry and don't plan ahead much. So even though I believe in free will, I don't exercise it as much as I should... :-)

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@fresco,

..it seams to suggest you magically did created yourself out of your own bootstraps existing before existing so you could exist...so through or from your suggestion, observing yourself existing, is the condition for you could create yourself n observe the world...can't you see the contradiction ? I've tried...

...if observing yourself can't be the first step for you, yourself, come to exist, how can your idea have any comprehensive support...and you know you wont convince me without a logical explanation in place right ?...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

I am taking a Heideggerian position that "myself" and "its world" co-evoke each other. "Creation"is a word used by naive realists when they imagine "things coming into being". My position is that "things" are brought forth by observers with which they are co-existent and co-extensive.

.....but we are going over old ground. The fact that we operate as though things were independent of observers is a relatively useful modus operandi reified by language. Just as Newtonian physics has been encompassed and superceded by less intuitive paradigms, I suggest everyday "realism" is similarly delimited.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

...I can hint you at what is wrong with your view...you have a time dependent causal paradigm that leads to an infinite regress and simultaneously intends to be the condition of what is to exist...of course getting out of the problem will confront you with a timeless Noumena and that's is annoying for you who have spend a whole life with this idea...I know you can't won't change your mind...but I imagine by now you must feel terrible....I know for a fact you are the most intelligent of the "observing" bunch out there...so you know exactly what is at stake.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

I am taking a Heideggerian position that "myself" and "its world" co-evoke each other. "Creation"is a word used by naive realists when they imagine "things coming into being". My position is that "things" are brought forth by observers with which they are co-existent and co-extensive.

.....but we are going over old ground. The fact that we operate as though things were independent of observers is a relatively useful modus operandi reified by language. Just as Newtonian physics has been encompassed and superceded by less intuitive paradigms, I suggest everyday "realism" is similarly delimited.

No Fresco no..."co-evoke each other" is exactly the same as going with naive realism..it means what you observe is exactly as is...there is nothing to negotiate or create...no time dependent correlation means no construct...things ARE ! You go straight to a Noumena !

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To clear things up, what are all of your definitions of free will?

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

...I can hint you at what is wrong with your view...you have a time dependent causal paradigm that leads to an infinite regress...

No Fil, because the past is over and the future is yet to come and the present has 'no' momentary existence due to its total impermanence... there literally is 'no time' for an infinite regress. Causes and conditions are needed for an effect but the causal link between cause and effect cannot be found. Nevertheless appearances appear so the lack of existence is not nonexistence it is ineffable.

Therefore no infinite regress and no prime mover.

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@igm,

Quote:

No Fil, because the past is over and the future is yet to come and the present has 'no' momentary existence due to its total impermanence...

Please re read what you yourself have written...going by your judgement nothing exists right now...saying it wont make it any more true.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Forget "noumena" and "phenomena". They beg the question of "the nature of reality".
As Maturana said...

Quote:

... an observer has no operational basis to make any statement or claim about objects, entities or relations as if they existed independently of what he or she does.

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@Olivier5,

That's true, but going to Morocco was my first visit to a foreign country. Morocco isn't close to being paradise, but it introduced me to another culture, their sites, and their foods and drinks. From there, it was pleasure all the way!

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@cicerone imposter,

Morocco is a great place, at least now. More and more French people are retiring there.

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What is free will?

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