36 replies to this topic

[LizasLilProtege]

So basically what you're saying is that our illusion of free will, as it were, is more of a nature vs. nurture argument, am I right? I'm nto sure if I agree with this 100%, but I think there's probably some degree of truth in there, as many things in our childhoods will shape who we become. Also, have you noticed that you tend to take on similar interests that you'd probably never have discovered if it weren't for the influence of your friends? It's more of the same thing, I think. It works on a subconcious level.There was a similar topic to this not that long ago... http://www.dgemu.com...howtopic=416817

[Ragamuffin]

We all think we have free will. We all CHOOSE to have strawberry ice cream instead of vanilla; we all CHOOSE to vote for one president over another; we all CHOOSE to commit infidelity... or do we?Many say that our "choices" are just an accumulation of outside influences, which are OUTSIDE YOUR CONTROL, and genes, which are also uncontrollable. And we know that this is true to some extent. We prefer a strawberry flavor over vanilla because it is in our genes and we have developed a taste for strawberries because we were fed a lot of strawberry milk when we were young. Which means, ultimately, we are not in control of our actions, we have no free will. This is a scary topic, for ME at least. I posted this because i wanted some outside discussions

Not a very good example, given that our taste buds tend to change every seven years or so, and the fact that if you eat something enough times you'll eventually like/tolerate it.Anyways, I see the whole "but genes made me (do something)" as sort of a cop-out. Both my parents were alcoholics, which makes me more susceptible to becoming one myself, yet as much as I drink I control myself, or just don't drink at all. Some people are inherently violent, yet the courts don't let a murderer or rapist off just because certain areas of their brains operate at higher/lower levels, that'd pretty much open up a legal Pandora's Box if we started accepting that as a legitimate defense, not to mention that'd pretty much be saying that we're not responsible for our actions.

[Standit]

mm the whole concept of free will is a bit dicey but ultimately i think it all comes down to us your fate is your own and you make what you want of itif you wanna be great at lifechoose to stop suckingif you wanna be ****then choose to suckthe choice is always going to be ours i guess is my point.

[38542788]

Not a very good example, given that our taste buds tend to change every seven years or so, and the fact that if you eat something enough times you'll eventually like/tolerate it.Anyways, I see the whole "but genes made me (do something)" as sort of a cop-out. Both my parents were alcoholics, which makes me more susceptible to becoming one myself, yet as much as I drink I control myself, or just don't drink at all. Some people are inherently violent, yet the courts don't let a murderer or rapist off just because certain areas of their brains operate at higher/lower levels, that'd pretty much open up a legal Pandora's Box if we started accepting that as a legitimate defense, not to mention that'd pretty much be saying that we're not responsible for our actions.

No, lack of free will doesn't have to be that obvious, it just means that dualism is false and everyone's thought processes (and therefore their actions) are causal. For example, in your alcoholism example, you may be able to control how much you drink, but unless you introduce some sort of soul or homunculus into the argument, there's an infinite regress because you don't choose to choose to control how much you drink, there's a lack of meta-control over our thoughts. As for assigning blame, it can be argued that the existence of free would actually preclude a just punishment; free will is something unobservable, it isn't particularly fair to judge a person when you can't tell their motivations, on the other hand, if actions are deterministic, we have a common standard, punishments can even be seen as a form of rehabilitation in that they can be tailored to prevent or encourage certain behavior.

[Ragamuffin]

What you didn't say was that if people started using free-will and "I couldn't control myself" as a defense then everyone who wanted to get away with a crime would be doing it. We're free to do as we want, sure, it's just easier/harder for certain people to do certain things. I'm violent by nature, but that doesn't mean I get into alot of fights, but it does mean that it's harder for me to resist the urge to break somebody's face when they irritate me, but certainly not impossible. And if I were to be put on trial, me saying "well gee your honor that's just how I am" really wouldn't (and shouldn't) cut it.

[38542788]

What you didn't say was that if people started using free-will and "I couldn't control myself" as a defense then everyone who wanted to get away with a crime would be doing it. We're free to do as we want, sure, it's just easier/harder for certain people to do certain things. I'm violent by nature, but that doesn't mean I get into alot of fights, but it does mean that it's harder for me to resist the urge to break somebody's face when they irritate me, but certainly not impossible. And if I were to be put on trial, me saying "well gee your honor that's just how I am" really wouldn't (and shouldn't) cut it.

If you don't see the sentence as being punitive, then there's no problem. It's quite possible that in one situation a murderer couldn't control himself, that's why he's put in prison; he's in an environment where he can no longer kill people, despite his own inclinations. This also serves as deterrence if you believe that his character (or nature, or inclination, or whatever you want to call it) can be changed by negative reinforcement. In fact, this makes more sense than free will because in that case, everyone is capable of making equally valid moral judgments. Why would murder even be wrong in that case? If I decide that murder is wrong and you decide that it's right, how do we resolve this difference? If instead, we remove this concept of will and just judge actions, there's no moral question at all. We put murderers in jail because we are inclined to do so, just as they are inclined to murder, there's nothing inherently right or wrong about either action, they are merely what has to occur given how the individual human components of a society are.You have been awarded bonus GPs for this post. reddeath26

Edited by reddeath26, 02 October 2009 - 09:42 PM.

[38542788]

I seriously disagree with this statement(s). I remember a quote (but not the person who said it off the top of my head): "When you sacrifice a little freedom for safety, you are neither free nor safe." Something along those lines.It is technically possible for EVERYONE to get along and function as a society without giving up civil liberties or free will. The application of it seems to fail, but people have the ability to cooperate without the force of an overseer.

Would you say that your freedoms are infringed upon by laws which restrict your range of action? For example, laws stating that you will face imprisonment or execution for committing murder.

As for the free will discussion... I do not believe that your genes determine your actions. They CAN determine the likelihood of you choosing certain actions over others, but ultimately, the person is in contoll of themself. Almost the same arguement can be said for the "nurtutre" part. I (personall story) was raised Catholic. For 14 years i went to Mass, church functions, etc. I then saw some things about the faith that i didn't agree with, so i left. Now, all my family was catholic at the time: every single person. Whenever we got together, i was always influenced to return to the catholic faith, but i didn't. My schools i attended were Catholic. Most of my friends were catholic. Even though i had been around Catholicism all of my life, and my whole environment pretty much trying to ram it down my throat, i never went back to the catholic faith. Free will.

What exactly is your conception of free will? How exactly would the world be different if people lacked free will?Is it possible to somehow compromise this free will? For example, if you were drugged with hallucinogens in such a manner as to make you accept Catholic doctrine again, would your acceptance be under your own free will, or will it be under duress?

Edited by 38542788, 15 October 2009 - 05:31 AM.

[38542788]

A) Yes, my freedoms are infringed upon the laws to which i subjegate myself, and they do restrict my actions.(the next part is purely metaphorical, not to be taken as my RL actions or thought process) Using your own example: yes, i do have the will to go and commit a murder, and while i may not neccessarily have the option to go free affterwards, i still have the free will to do it. I assume that you are referenceing my quote? "When sacrificing freedom for sadety, you are neither free nor safe"? I do believe it. The Law determines what it ok for you to do, and how you are to be punished if you ifringe upon it. As fa as safety, we have given so much of our lives into the hands of the government and others: banks controll our money, our houses, cars, etc. If you want to go and take all the money from the bank, they won't let you. Bring a gun and try to force them, maybe they wil let you now. There are some places where you are not allowed to go, such as the white house, and they will stop you or kill you so that you are not allowed to enter.

That was not the point of your previous post. You are obviously gaining something by applying to a certain set of laws, that was the idea of a social contract that was stated earlier, you were apparently advocating some form of anarchism, which doesn't really mesh with what you're saying here, since you obviously live under the jurisdiction of a government of some sort.

B) I describe free will as "the ability to decide and act for oneself".

Right, and I'm saying that such a thing doesn't exist because the human consciousness, much like other animal consciousness, is only presented the illusion of choice, our mental state is not something we have any sort of control over (not that that idea even makes any sense since we would then need control over our meta-consciousnesses and so on). You would obviously say that a rat for example, has no free will; and if improve upon the brain up to the level of a human such a thing as free will would still not exist. What you think is obviously dependent on your brain, and what happens in their is based on genetics, neuro-chemistry, and previous experiences, the drug that I proposed in my last post was only one very obvious factor, but the point is at no time is your thoughts somehow controlled by you, they're all causal events, each thought is preceded by another thought, which is preceded by another, they're mechanical events that must occur in a certain way.In order to have any sort of free will, you would have to propose some sort of non-physical object, like a soul, that somehow directs your actions irregardless of what's going on in your brain.

And the world would be loads different without free will. Essentially, and ironically, it would be like a giant, worldwide, communist state. The regular people, like me, as i hold no elected office, would be told to do something by those above us, on the political ladder, and they would be told what to do by those above them, ect. And we would do it. Eat what they tell us for breakfast, how to dress, how to sit, when to stand, how fast to run... It just goes on.

Would those people above you have free will? I was proposing what you thought a world without any free will would look like, what causes the leaders to do what they do, and what causes the rest to follow?This actually relates to my point about causality very well, you say that in this scenario the normal people do not have free will because their actions are dictated from above, that is, the leaders are the cause of their action. In the real world, our brains are the cause of our actions, but our brains are also mechanical objects that act in a certain way due to certain inputs, there is not one input, like the leader you suggests, there may be many, for example, bad experiences with religion making a person quite church, or a drug making a person behave in a certain way, but the thoughts that direct the brain don't come from "you" in any real sense of the word, because your thoughts are "you", if you can't control your thoughts, you can't control yourself, and you have no free will.

As for the compromising free will part, OF COURSE IT IS POSSIBLE O COMPROMISE FREE WILL. Almost every situation has some factor that can compromise free will. In your own example: The halucinogenic drug. That situation would actually depend on the drug, how powerful it was, how it affected me, my environment, ect because you are altering my state of mind. So, without all that information, i would have to say my acceptance would be under duress.

Right, and my point is that causality means that nothing has a will, our lack of knowledge about a certain thing doesn't mean that there is some sort of outside force driving it, I don't know why you think the way you do (I don't even know why I think the way I do), but I do know that it's because of events in that past that lead any thoughts you may be having at present of in the future.

[38542788]

A) The whole part of that post WAS about what i was talking about. I don't know how you made THAT connection... And yes, i do gain something by subjectgating myself to the rules of the government. I never said that nothing was gained, just that freedom nor safety were. And i put a small disclaimer in my paragraph, saying that all this was metaphorical, and did not reflect on my RL actions.

But security is one of the most obvious things you gain. I mean just compare the US with Somalia for example.

B)First off, our minds as humans are significantly different from animals, its one of the things that seperates us from them. And how is choice an illusion? I could have chosen not to respond to this topic, or ever come back here, but i did. So please elaborate a bit more on the whole illusion part.

No, the fact that you responded was due to a confluence of factors that to a particular point in time at which you made your post. The "you" at that moment didn't suddenly decide to respond, rather you had to respond because of the situation you were in. The illusion is present in the fact that you have no concrete knowledge of the future and you have no control over your own thought process. For example, if I asked you what the the outcome of a coin flip that I'm about to do is, you would honestly have to say that you don't know, but the events that led to that flip are fixed, because cause and effect cannot be violated, with enough information it's possible to determine the outcome of the flip before it's performed. Your thoughts are analogous to the coin flip, you have no knowledge of your own future actions so you assume that you make "decisions" as certain events occur, but this is not the case, the decision making process that you go through and the thoughts that you have are all deterministic, with enough knowledge you can predict the future behavior of person perfectly.

I have some level of controll over my thoughts. I can choose to think about rabbits, or work, etc. So i'm not sure what your point was THERE... And a non-physical object cannot alter the physical world, as your example is a soul, i will use that. My soul cannot stop bullets, or move objects, or type for me. So that part was a little confusing as well.

You don't "choose" to think of those things though, events occur according to cause and effect, if we rewind a particular day, your thoughts on that particular day will be exactly the same no matter how many times we go over it. The soul point was to illustrate the consequences of dualism, you seem to be rejecting it so you do agree that your thoughts are determined by your brain, yes? You brain operates according to physical laws, if we have enough information we can than determine the behavior of your brain as we can any other physical system. This shouldn't be that hard to understand.

C) The leaders are told what to do by they're leaders and so forth, until you reach the top, where they are told what to do by either tradition or a "higher power" aka religious doctrine. (maybe?) And of course you can controll those things. At least to some degree. I've already covered thoughts, so i won't go over that again...

I was trying to illustrate why your idea of lack of "free will" was overly simplistic, you say that people lack free will when their actions are dictated by one source, some sort of leader, I'm saying that they lack free will even when their thoughts are dictated by many sources, the sum of which is hard to even define.

D) So basically your saying that "just because we don't understand how something works, it doesn't mean that something else is working it?" Did i get that right? I'm not sure how that relates to your point, but ok... Events in your past, environment, etc. DO contribute to how you think and act, but ultimately, unless your state of mind is compromised, the decisions you make are because YOU made them. That's the only explanation for drug addicts who quit. Suicidal people who don't commit suicide. Criminals to go straight. Etc.

This common conception of personhood is itself an illusion. What do you mean when you say that "you" made a choice? You do agree that physical systems are dictated by physical laws yes? For example, if I throw a ball the path it takes can be accounted for by the laws of physics and the information available to us, like local gravity, wind resistance, and original velocity. But all events in the world are physical events, even the progression of human thoughts, if that's the case, just because we lack the ability to perfecting modal human thought doesn't mean that it isn't subject to the same types of laws a projectile is.

Edited by 38542788, 17 October 2009 - 09:29 PM.

[38542788]

A) Really? Do you realize that the government can come into your home for no real reason, and take you away without telling you why, and you can't do anything to stop them? Did you know that you cannot SUE the government, making it, quite literally, immune to wrongdoing? The government can decide what it wants to do, and if you don't follow, they will charge you. What if you don't agree with some ridiculous law? Too bad, because you gave up some of your freedom to FEEL secure, when being secure is not reality.

"Safer" is something that we can quantify, for example, I can say with some confidence that the chance of the government taking me away for no reason is less than the chance of something equally horrible happening to me in rural Afghanistan for example. If you believe that you are "safer" if the US government does not exist (and therefore the police, firemen, and various public services does not exist), than you're insane.

EX: The government only ensures bank accounts up to a million dollars, so if you lose more than that in a fraud, you aren't going to get the rest, even though it is YOUR money.

Hmm, yes, the money that I have lost from fraud is insured by the government up to a particular limit, anything beyond that is lost, obviously I shouldn't live under this arrangement and instead lose all my money due to the aforementioned fraud, that would be much better. By the way, the insurance limit is 100k per account, currently boosted to 250k because of the banking collapse last year.

B) Are you saying that i was forced to respond to the post? I beg to differ. But by not replying, i would not be able to tell you that i did not respond, so your arguement is rigged. Kinda like that "If the tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Just by being there to observe, you break the challenge.EX: I was just downstairs, and I was hungry. All the factors pointed to me getting something to eat, but i did not. I don't know why, but i made the concious decision not to eat anything, and go back upstairs. How does that not prove that I have controll over my actions? Your right about the "no knowledge of the future" part, I tecnically don't know if i will ever be able to eat again. That may have been my last chance, as far as i know, but i still chose to not eat anthing, even though all the factors pointed towards eating. My thoughts are analogous to the coin flip, but they are not entirely equivalent. I am not aware of EVERYTHING that influences the coin flip: weight, air currents, magnetic pull, force of my hand, etc.I can't accuratly predict such things. I am pretty sure that i CAN predict what will happen when i make a choice. I have some knowledge of my actions in the future, which is why i act the way i do. I want to do this, this, and this in the future, so i need to do that, that, and that now.

Why do you do what you do? Do you think it's because of the thoughts that occur in your brain or do you think that it's due to "free will"?I have stated why I think the two are mutually exclusive, that is, you can't say that you do things because your thoughts cause your actions, while still saying that you have free will.If you think that it is possible to say that your actions are controlled by your mind and that you have free will I'd like for you to explain what you think free will is.

[Ragamuffin]

Sorry, kinda late on this.

If you don't see the sentence as being punitive, then there's no problem.

I'm pretty sure being locked up in a metal box for 30 years is going to be seen as a punishment by just about everybody.

It's quite possible that in one situation a murderer couldn't control himself, that's why he's put in prison; he's in an environment where he can no longer kill people, despite his own inclinations.

Per person, more murders happen in prison than on the street.

This also serves as deterrence if you believe that his character (or nature, or inclination, or whatever you want to call it) can be changed by negative reinforcement. In fact, this makes more sense than free will because in that case, everyone is capable of making equally valid moral judgments. Why would murder even be wrong in that case? If I decide that murder is wrong and you decide that it's right, how do we resolve this difference? If instead, we remove this concept of will and just judge actions, there's no moral question at all. We put murderers in jail because we are inclined to do so, just as they are inclined to murder, there's nothing inherently right or wrong about either action, they are merely what has to occur given how the individual human components of a society are.

Free thinking != free will. I see what you mean, but that really isn't what I'd personally define free will as. What is your definition of it, just so I know exactly where you stand?

[38542788]

I'm pretty sure being locked up in a metal box for 30 years is going to be seen as a punishment by just about everybody.http://www.dgemu.com/forums/style_images/1/folder_editor_images/rte-resize-down.gif

I'm not describing what actually occurs I'm pointing out the natural extension of a framework that rejects free will while still assigning criminal sentences. The actual legal system in many parts of the world is retributive.

Per person, more murders happen in prison than on the street.

Prisons also tend to contain people who are on average more violent/murderous than the general population, perhaps there is a correlation between the two? Ideally being locked up would prevent someone from killing another person, the fact that actual prison systems fail to do this isn't really an indictment of such intent.

Free thinking != free will. I see what you mean, but that really isn't what I'd personally define free will as. What is your definition of it, just so I know exactly where you stand?

I think that free will would require some sort of soul or other dualistic concept, if people have free will they need to have something guiding their actions that completely undetectable, not just in practice (for example, if we can read minds it would be pretty easy to tell what someone is going to do), it doesn't matter that we can't read minds, so long as you accept that the person's thoughts determine their actions, we can in theory take away that person's free will by examining his thoughts. So there has to be something driving human action that is completely undetectable both in theory and in practice for there to be free will.

A) Alright then, please quantify safety. Quantify, as in MPH quantifies speed. Degrees quantifies heat levels.

You do know that you don't need some sort of intrinsic value to have a useful unit of measure right? For example, if something costs more than something else, I can say that it's "worth more", even though money obviously doesn't carry some sort of intrinsic value. In the same way we can easily agree to a unit for measurement of safety, for example, life expectancy, infant mortality, or number of violent deaths/population.

And i didn't say that we would be "safer" if we didn't submit to the government, only that we do give up some freedom and safety when we do. Please don't accuse me of saying things that i never did.

You said "I seriously disagree with this statement", I assumed that that meant that you disagreed with the concept of the social contract (which is what you quoted), in which a person subscribes to the local laws in order to gain certain benefits, such as increased security and protection of certain freedoms.

B) I've already told you what my definition of free will is. Please read my earlier posts before you respond like that. ---"I describe free will as "the ability to decide and act for oneself"."--- I think that the thoughts CONTRIBUTE to what you do, but AGAIN I SAY that ULTIMATELY its is your decision. I have already answered this, so if you can't find something else to point out, don't post.

This makes no sense at all.What causes a person to do something if not their thoughts? How do you even make a decision without the decision going through your mind? The brain controls everything a person can be said to "do", please give an example of something you "did" that was of your own free will and yet was not caused by your mind.If you can't name that, then what other things contribute to what you do that would constitute free will? (You did say that thoughts contribute to the decision making process, what other component also contributes to create free will? You seemed to have accepted that thoughts aren't it, so what exactly goes into human decisions that mean that we have free will and, a cat, for example, doesn't?You can't just say that we have will as a distinct quality, you seem to be saying that other animals lack free will, so there must be something we have that other animals don't which you can point out to me.

Edited by 38542788, 20 October 2009 - 09:58 PM.