34 replies to this topic

[38542788]

If you really like, I will copy and paste 10+ pages of sartre's works so you can fully comprehend how he thinks. Really, I will. All you've said is that if free will exists, causality can not.

I wouldn't mind if you did, it would be easier than trying to find the relevant passages myself. You're not quite right about what I'm claiming though; I'm saying that free will and determinism cannot exist together and that causality implies determinism. Sartre actually seems to agree with the first part:

either man is wholly determined (which is inadmissible, especially because a determined consciousness-IE, a consciousness externally motivated-becomes pure exteriority and ceases to be consciousness) or else man is wholly free

You can reconciled this by claiming that man is wholly free, I would do so by saying that consciousness is itself an illusion.

Okay, that's fine. Deterministic views look to the past to explain things, which is easy. Like the scenario with my girlfriend, we can look at the past and see what happened to cause these events, yes, but does it have any merit if we cannot do the same for the future? You can't prove it in the "here" and in the future. My argument as to why this is, Free will.

Human behavior can be predicted though, it's far less precise than predicting something like projectile motion, but it is in no way impossible.

Today, I stepped around a bug crawling on the side walk while walking to get some food. Past experiences would say before this action, that I would probably step on the creature. I didn't. Shouldn't the past have determined I was going to step on it? I thought about it, but I decided to let it continue on its path.

I have no idea what your point here is.

That's as bad as saying God exists whether or not we can observe it.

But we can observe the future partially, we just lack complete predictive power. For example, if I said "tomorrow the sun will rise from the east," I would hardly be regarded as a prophet by most people, any yet I have made an accurate observation about the future.If we lacked any knowledge of the future, that would also destroy causality (except in the most trivial of senses), because a completely unpredictable future would require that effects not correspond to a cause.

You're right, we don't know what others think, how they will act, etc because it can't be predicted because it hasn't happened yet. I argue that determinism is great for understanding why people act the way they do, after said actions have occurred, but I think it has little to no bearing on the future or present because of the fact that there is free will.

Why do you think? That is, why are you capable of thinking, and why do you think the thoughts that you think and not, for example, the thoughts that I think? I'm not being factious, there's a very simple answer here that you just don't seem to be getting.You are right about free will being incompatible with determinism, but you can't just arrive at one conclusion or another without reason.

I don't know that I agree with you on the value of food and water, and though I have not thought much about it, I will argue against it anyway. Can anything that is deemed a necessity as something that is valued? Or is it something that is simply necessary for life to continue, a need. I say that food and water has no intrinsic value, that a man or animal eating that food has no value either. For food to have intrinsic value, all life would have to have intrinsic value. It does not in my opinion. Life is an anomaly.

You obviously value food and water, that is why actions such as drinking and eating are pleasurable, and pleasure is an intrinsic good. The reason for the pleasure is due to evolutionary forces, but unlike you, I do not question how a particular value originated; pleasure is pleasure, it doesn't require free will or choice to be valuable.Besides living beings don't need intrinsic value for the food and water to be valuable, the creatures that wish to obtain food and water will value it (or rather, they will value the utility of eating and drinking).

In such a case, when a noise scares a man or animal, they are both "beings-in-the-world." Objects of said world, neither are conscious. Humans are not always conscious. Said noise will scare both parties, but in man it brings about consciousness. There is no choice in either case.But if man is conscious before a noise scares them, say I was thinking about something and I hear a door fly open and hit the wall, I can think about that. I have a choice to even turn around. If I hear the door open and I am conscious, it can occur to me that my girlfriend is coming over and I have no need to turn around. I choose not to do so, simply to say hello as she enters.

You've just stated that you're capable of thinking, that is not the same as free will, a being with free will have to be able to generate a thought (and therefore action or choice) that cannot be preempted.

Ha, I like the assumption you've made. Before reading any existentialist philosophers, I thought, very similar as I still do, that all life is simply an anomaly, that we simply don't matter to the universe, etc. I've never thought that human life must be valuable. It was not until I thought about free will that value came into the picture for me.

You're still not illustrating why you think free will exists though.

Human life, by my account, does lack value, much like all animal life, if free will does not exist. Humans have free will because we do. Everything I will say about free will you will simply call the illusion of free will. (Deterministic of me isn't it?) The very fact that I am conscious of myself right now is why I have free will. Consciousness brings about freedom of choice.

What do you mean by "humans have free will because we do"? That doesn't make any sense at all.I do happen to agree that true consciousness would imply free will, but then that leads to the question of why you would think consciousness is real and not illusory. I'm assuming that by consciousness you're talking about the process by which we perceive the world and manipulate previously obtained information in the form of thoughts. If that is what you mean, then what is special about human consciousness? Obviously it can't be the manner in which we perceive the world, other creatures have similar senses to varying degrees, so you must be claiming that the human mind somehow thinks in a different way. There's quite a few claims you can make here so I guess I'll wait for your response first.

[reddeath26]

Meh, you could say that I'm forcing irrelevant cultural values on them because, and I may be assuming this, you think their life has value in its own right. Perhaps it is subjective, but that's what Existentialist philosophy is all about, the subjective person living life. But really, when it comes to the values I'm talking about, I don't see it as a cultural thing. I understand how you could see it as such. I think you may be getting caught up on the word freedom, and that is what you're basing your conclusion upon. When it comes to the value of life, having freedom of speech and other things as such, doesn't really matter. Understanding that your consciousness is choice, that it has intrinsic value (and thus can attribute value to the choices you make), taking the responsibility of creating your own values and understanding that there is no one out there who can do it for you, is how you give your life meaning.Why does consciousness have intrinsic value? Well, a circular explanation would be that without intrinsic value, consciousness couldn't attribute value to other things, as well as the fact that consciousness is the only thing that separates us from animals, and I believe it to be a step forward in evolution. I don't think it has anything to do with freedom in the sense that you think I think it has.. People will always say "I like that" and attribute some value to it. (Without understanding that they've made a choice, ironically enough) This goes for people all over the world. Why you insist that it is only because I'm from the West is beyond me.And one final thing, I have no problem with saying that human life has no value. Do not get that confused with anything I've said here.

Firstly I should clarify what I mean when I say culture. I am using it in its Anthropological sense, whereby culture is essentially everything which is learned and shared amongst a group of people. Included in this is how to behave but importantly it also includes understanding of what everything means. Therefore from this point the belief that understanding your choice is of importance to a persons meaning, would very much be a cultural trait. (It is learned, shared by a group of people and explains what things mean). This has incidently led to some anthropologists identifying what is called a 'culture of choice'. Although I shall now reveal my bias in this conversation, as I put the highest value on culture itself. Indeed I hold that the human condition is that all people have a culture, this is also something which I consider to be a fundamental human right.Although I was thinking about this topic last night and I thought on one hand you could argue that 'free will' could simply be a cultural trait. If approached carefully this would neither be a negative or positive trait but rather a description of the role choice plays in our culture.

[38542788]

Why does consciousness have intrinsic value? Well, a circular explanation would be that without intrinsic value, consciousness couldn't attribute value to other things, as well as the fact that consciousness is the only thing that separates us from animals, and I believe it to be a step forward in evolution. I don't think it has anything to do with freedom in the sense that you think I think it has.. People will always say "I like that" and attribute some value to it. (Without understanding that they've made a choice, ironically enough) This goes for people all over the world. Why you insist that it is only because I'm from the West is beyond me.

It seems that you're saying that free will is the ability to perceive choice. Aside from the limit in this perception that reddeath already addressed, there's also the problem of whether the perception meshes with reality. If someone perceives several choices and makes one, it can only truly be called a choice if there is a non-zero probability that the other considered options were possible. As we agreed on before, the probability of past events are fixed at either 1 or 0, something either happened or it did not. If it were possible to know the future completely, the same thing would apply; all events would have their probability of occurring reduced to either 1 or 0. Of course, we do not know the future completely, but we do know that certain events (in fact, most events) are causal, so with information about the past and present, certain parts of the future can in effect, be observed. We can say that certain events will occur and others will not. You have not provided a reason why you think this process would not apply to human thought.

[Lucky_Lungs]

Ignoring the fact that we do not know, and never will know until it is too late, wether or not God exists, I feel that, to certain people in certain situations believing in God, or some form of entity or even just their own version of heaven can immensely improve their life.I feel obliged to point out that I do not personally believe in God. Therefore, I believe when you die, that is it. There is nothing else.Now, for certain people, this is fine. However, I believe that having a belief in God can make the grieving process a lot easier on a person, as they know their loved ones are somewhere safer and better than Earth.This can be true in other aspects of life. For instance, the commandments we are given to live by, the act of going to the church and socialising, and various other acts linked to this can help a lot of people through a lot of rubbish which life seems intent on throwing at them.Also, on the prospect of the Bible, I feel the stories contained in this can aid people who are lost to find a purpose again. These are more commonly known as 'Born-again Christians'.There are some cons to the belief in God, however. They impose restrictions on peoples lives which needn't be there, and, arguably, a belief in a greater being can brainwash people into acting against their will, such as the promise of twelve virgins if they kill western infidels.However, avoiding these aspects before I spark a much darker debate, I feel the pro's outweigh the con's, and that a belief in God can be exceptionally healthy in a human being.

[Yuto]

i dont believe in good and i think people can make their own "destiny" through their own choices, nothing pre written like u say, but as people are free to choose what they want to believe at or do i guess some decide to follow the path of religion

agreed, i think as you do and we are all entitled to our own opinions and i'm sure he would also agree(God) We choose our own destiny and we pave our own way..we are all destained for our own individuallity or individual greatness..but i will agree it's not hard to see, without some kind of love life seems harder to those who follow their own path and serve knowone but themselves. They want to be stronger than everyone and everything, with no one's help. Or at least thats my thoughts and opinion on this.

Edited by Hyperblade Zero, 18 April 2012 - 07:39 PM.

[Ragamuffin]

^ You and I seem to have a fairly similar way of looking at it.It makes no difference to me at all. The way I see it, "God' is an idea, and nothing more. Not real in a physical sense, but the idea of God has been around for so long, it's more "real" than any single person, given the impact.

[Chizzy]

id say it really doesnt change much.if he was real, it would just say that all that stuff we learned in science was just his tool for creating us (http://www.everystud...es/Godreal.html)but if he wasnt real, then its possible that someone wrote all those things long ago:for a secret code to predict the future,a way of life/code for livingBasic Instructions Before Leaving Earth (B.I.B.L.E.)a group of people making this up so that they can earn money or live like royalty above others,or (not trying to give credit to scientology, but im puting this in here for the sake of making an example)it was an aliens accident, he came to the planet and somehow caused everything or something (bad and worst possibility)the only way that it wouldnt effect people either way, is if people acted in kindness to eachother and followed the word of the bible (or whatever ur book is, the Tora, or the Q'uran),being a good human being, without sin, doing so just to make everyones life easier, and not to just be given the promise of eternal salvation in heaven.personally, i dont know if god or any god exists, nor do I disbelieve.anything is possible, he could exist, or its possible that he DID exist and has been dead for quite some time.im not sure, but It is enjoyable seeing a topic like this unfold in a kind and calm manner.