Is free-will an illusion?

@dalehileman,

dalehileman wrote:

A2k doesn't let you delete a posting, you have leave something

What?
Ostensibly this a philosophy discussion board. . . .

1 Reply

@ughaibu,

A2k doesn't let you delete a posting, you have leave something

Quote:

What?

I'm not entirely sure. It might have to be two lines with words of at least 3 letters each with a break between, but something anyhow

Quote:

Ostensibly this a philosophy discussion board. . . .

Sorry if I wasn't perfectly clear

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Fundamentally there is free will for those who are not religious

Religion takes away any sense of freewill

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@north,

Are you sure you are not talking nonsense?
Generally speaking, those who are religious want to win people over to a belief in god by arguing that if there was no free will based in an immaterial soul produced by god, then people would be completely immoral, while on the other hand materialist counter this argument by claiming there is no such free will as the religious claim, and hence no need for a god to have produced it.

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For the Gnostic there was no need to write as law that was obvious

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@tomr,

tomr wrote:

By telling you a prediction, you can then by some function do something based on that information (as could a machine). Because that prediction is now required information to determine what your future actions will be, the "prediction" is no longer valid as it was not based on all the relevant information that would determine your future actions (Relevant Information = Relevant Infomation Before Prediction + Prediction).

In short, you can't make the ******* prediction, can you? Not even in principle. It is impossible. Therefore, there are no magical forces controlling our actions and we do not live in a determined world. Or, at least, we have no reason to believe that we live in a determined world and every reason to believe that we don't live in such a world, and that we do have free will. Why the hell do you think that your preferred view of how you'd like the world to be should carry more weight than how the world appears to be? And that is how the world appears to be to everyone, including you and all other free will deniers.

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@ughaibu,

Quote:

In short, you can't make the ******* prediction, can you? Not even in principle. It is impossible.

1) No, I can't at the moment make the prediction but that does not mean you should go around lying. Your thought experiments have been shown to be meaningless.

2) In principle, I could make the prediction once all the relevant information was known. Your previous argument was a joke. You couldn't have really believed you were showing a proof that freewill exists with that scenario. "Hey tell me your prediction and I'll do something different. Oh and by the way your prediction is now wrong." How stupid are you?

Quote:

Or, at least, we have no reason to believe that we live in a determined world and every reason to believe that we don't live in such a world, and that we do have free will.

Lets count the reasons we have to believe in free will:
1) The coin argument.
2)The above "tell me your prediction" scenario.
3)The scientific observation of realizable alternatives.
4)Because everyone else is doing it.

1), 2), and 3) have been shown to be without merit. All you have left is 4) which appears to be the main theme of your latest post.

Quote:

Why the hell do you think that your preferred view of how you'd like the world to be should carry more weight than how the world appears to be?And that is how the world appears to be to everyone, including you and all other free will deniers.

You think a machine could not be programmed to prefer determinism. A toaster with a processor and digital display. The question you should be asking is what possible benefit would I or anyone get out the knowledge of this comparison. I do not want to be a machine whos every action is pre-determined. I want to have magical powers of a choice not bound to anything but myself and to be of special significance. But I cannot honestly come to that conclusion without denying the vast majority of evidence of world around me.

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The most powerful illusions are always the hardest to see...

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@tomr,

tomr wrote:

Quote:
In short, you can't make the ******* prediction, can you? Not even in principle. It is impossible.
You couldn't have really believed you were showing a proof that freewill exists with that scenario. "Hey tell me your prediction and I'll do something different. Oh and by the way your prediction is now wrong."

I haven't shown that free will exists. What I have illustrated is that it is impossible to make the prediction, because you would need to include the condition that I will do other than what you predict. In short, you would have a self contradictory prediction. It really is this simple. No prediction is possible. I know that, you know that and everybody else knows that. You have exactly one remaining chance to offer a serious reason to believe that if you tell me that I will choose left, I cannot refuse your prediction and choose right.

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@ughaibu,

Quote:

What I have illustrated is that it is impossible to make the prediction, because you would need to include the condition that I will do other than what you predict. In short, you would have a self contradictory prediction. It really is this simple. No prediction is possible. I know that, you know that and everybody else knows that.

Okay you have found a single scenario in which a prediction made without all the relevant information may not really predict something.

Quote:

I haven't shown that free will exists.

Believe me. I know.

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@tomr,

Well I could give you a billion scenarios in which predictions fail so what ? That just means some predictions are bad predictions.
As far as I am concern he hasn't show anything relevant for the debate except a talent for juggling...

People do things because they have reasons to do them and not because they could go either way as choosing is precisely to measure carefully what course of action best serves our needs...thus speaking in freedom of choice is onto itself a linear contradiction, as for instance we don't really claim to chose to breath or to drink water but we simply do it out of very compelling reasons on which our best interest is always the rule to which we abide...so may I ask where is the freedom in there ? Even when we don' t act in our immediate best interest like when we give our life for someone or some important belief we still act in our long term best interest as the protection of our genes or our way of life or culture and society turn to be all more relevant ! Equally the choice isn't ours because we did it or simply because we were the final effective cause of it, we usually don' t claim that the wheels of ours cars chose to turn left or right simply because they were the last causal link of the turning itself, its nonsense... If anything choosing is a measure to avoid the freedom of randomness and its perilous effects in our life's, the triumph of order over disorder !

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@Fil Albuquerque,

PS - I don't think we invented order either...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Quote:

Well I could give you a billion scenarios in which predictions fail so what ? That just means some predictions are bad predictions.
As far as I am concern he hasn't show anything relevant for the debate except a talent for juggling...

That's a point too. There are countless scenario's just like Ughaibu's that lack the necessary information to make the right prediciton. But in addition, the procedure of his prediction scenario is equivalent to predicting the path a ball will take down a slide, but then before the ball can be released you have to alter something about the experiment to make the prediction wrong. Like putting a ramp at the end of the slide. You are purposefully changing the conditions under which the prediction was made. It is ridiculous.

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@ughaibu,

Quote:

Or, at least, we have no reason to believe that we live in a determined world

It may not be a "good" reason to everyone but cause and effect is persuasive

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btw what is right or truly superior cannot b determined so determinism is only to evil reference about objective absolute existence identity end in one freedom life

what is right by definition is constant free as right facts repeat their facts abstractly always so freedom out of right cannot b determined nor seen

and also what is truly superior by definition cannot b catched nor even known where nor how it happen to b in constant terms alone

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@Krumple,

Quote:

There are no infinite possibilities when it comes down to how someone will respond or act in a situation or moment of choice.

Krump I disagree inasmuch as there might be an infinite number of determinants with an overwhelmingly big number of possible responses all acting together in determining an outcome

….including the action of a casual remark by a friend to a remote ancestor at just the critical instant for its acceptance

Thus if you should happen to sneeze tomorrow at noon it might affect the decision of a future dictator in a result loosing a new germ that eventually destroys mankind

…unless an instant before the decision owing to a slight dizziness of a nearby onlooker that might not have occurred had his great-great grandfather not turned over in bed one Sunday morn when he was four years old, steps backward at just the critical instant in the dictator's ruminations, loosing a shallowly buried projectile aimed through the earlier random misstep of another passerby caused by……...

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what matter is never relative, only absolute matters this is why what really mean to b by using things existence knowledge have to lie, even the worse evil devil cant show his true face, while all what evil dream about is that
bc only by lies ones conscious can stand subjectively as absolute spaces ones

so what matter is absolute facts bc what exist is constant objective and constnat superior freedom out of it, it is the reason of what matter since superiority must then move as present resources to objective constant that end in forms of positive objects constancy

truth is first and last constant, so its existence is about objective positive facts from always being constant repetitive abstractions of true facts and about positive freedom ends as constant too

so no, there is no infinite reactions that is how one spiritual life is obvious now joinin all possibilities into one system abstraction repetitions from chaotic **** infinite wills and reactions freely alone

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@dalehileman,

dalehileman wrote:

Quote:
Or, at least, we have no reason to believe that we live in a determined world
It may not be a "good" reason to everyone but cause and effect is persuasive

But, even if "cause" had a clear and consistent meaning. . .

ughaibu wrote:

1) determinism is independent of notions of "cause", for at least the following reasons:
a) causes are explanatory and thus ontologically neutral, but determinism is a metaphysical thesis which entails ontological commitments
b) causality concerns pairs of events or states of interest which are local and are considered in isolation, but determinism concerns global states of the world in which no thing is isolated
c) causality generally requires ordered pairs such that the cause precedes, in time, the effect, but determinism requires a reversible world such that it is unimportant in which order time progresses
d) causal relations are not clearly or consistently defined, but the relations in a determined world are clearly defined, they are mathematical relations, not causal relations.

This means that if causality is taken as an ontological thesis, then there is no cause and effect in a determined world. The two notions, determinism and causality, are incompatible. So cause and effect it certainly not a good reason to suppose that we live in a determined world.

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Now we got to the point of open lies and deliberate misinforming people who aren't all to familiar with the problem by narrowing definitions to one specific perspective...this bloke got/must be one of those right wing American extremists that Europeans usually abhor...

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Is free-will an illusion?

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