Belief in free will is equivalent to believing in Santa Claus

a reply to: andy06shake

because we don't have the tools to address the real questions.....as of yet......but we are heading in the right direction.

How much scientific development do you need we need to prove for sure that we experience life?

And again the ironic thing is, you are claiming that we can get closer to answering these questions when you've already stated it's impossible to know anything for sure.

a reply to: andy06shake

Buddy that's like saying "Lets talk about the Bible but not religion".

It's not, bible and religion are two directly correlated things while the two free will I have mentioned have completely different definitions.

Again I did my best to explain the two free wills without trying to ignore anything. But I will do this again.

1. It appears we can have a will and act accordingly. I feel like I have a will and even though it's an illusion, it feels real. So it looks like we can act on our will.

2. This is a completely different meaning of free will. This free will states that you can't have a will completely free from influence. By influence I mean anything that exists from a quantum to the physical level.

When it comes to determinism vs in determinism, I have already said that I do not know. I was clear in stating this, and I've also agreed we might never know with certainty.

a reply to: Andy1144

"How much scientific development do you need we need to prove for sure that we experience life?"

How long is a piece of string?

Like i said we only have the capacity to interporate 5% of the universe that surrounds us.

We have as of yet only encountered what we know to be life inside our own world. We don't even know what life constitutes regarding the rest of the universe.

So in answer to your question i would say longer, much, much, longer sometime around the time we become a type 3 or 4 civilization before we establish a definitive answer.

The world is ironic Andy1144, what do you think the universe is?

a reply to: Andy1144

Cant be different types of freewill, we ether have it or we don't.

But that's just my opinion and rather Boolean by nature.

Time will tell i imagine.....lots and lots of time.

Maybe once we managed to grow up and see the bigger picture because as of yet we simply cannot see the forest for the trees.

a reply to: andy06shake

How long is a piece of string?

I'm not sure what you mean.

Like i said we only have the capacity to interpenetrate 5% of the universe that surrounds us.

How do you know? If we can't know anything for sure then why claim we know 5% of it? You seem to be making more certain claims then I am. (ironically) lol

a reply to: andy06shake

Cant be different type of freewill, we ether have it or we don't.

You can mean different things by free will. This fact makes them both compatible. Free will doesn't only mean one thing.

And you are absolutely free to believe that...

However I would caution that the more you push this theory, the more people will use it to justify negative impulse and action.

"I killed a guy but free will doesn't exist so it wasn't my fault!" Or better yet "My impulses made me do it! I have no control over them!". Though true, we have full control over whether or not we give into those impulses. This is a slippery slope which could enable many sociopaths and psychopaths to openly give in to their implulses.

Free will absolutely exists. Many, like the OP simply refuse to use it.

a reply to: Andy1144

Now you are making the argument circular, which by the way it is by it's very nature.

We cant know anything for sure but we can use science to offer up our best guess based on the information we have available at the time.

Im not saying it will always work or prevail but its the best tool we have available in our mental arsenal for the job thus far.

Double post

a reply to: Andy1144

Quantum stuff is not subject to Newtonian laws including cause and effect. My philosophy is that even if we are influenced by a lot we can still choose to do the opposite.

Insanity is a key. Ditch your brain, who needs it.

That mutated ascension cap taking residence high above your heart, that woven woven messy knotted lump, is worthless when you die. But you worship its memories. And it brings your oscillations back to the + core for recycling

a reply to: Gh0stwalker

But there are reasons why a person kills.

Even if those reasons might not make sense to us or our inner programs, it makes sense on some level.

A genetic issue (a brain tumor) could have aided such behavior, or maybe a combination of a series of events and genetic changes (emotional and psychological trauma effects the brain development physically). That's not to say that people should not go without consequence. People should be discouraged from doing terrible acts and if we accept that the problem in a persons behavior arises from a combination of things, then maybe we can get to the source and prevent it from ever happening. It's about preventing symptoms from ever arising so we don't have to treat them in the first place.

Admitting that we don't have free will doesn't mean everyone gets an out of jail card for free. It means the opposite actually in the sense that we will start taking respnsibility (paradoxically) and change our environment so that our environment produces less toxic behavior.

Negativity begets negativity. One is not stronger than the mob. We all make up a body. There are weeds, crops, fruits, reward and punishing systems, we are like plants and the more you water us depending on our genetic makeup, the bigger we grow, it's all a big machine.

Not sure about quantum stuff though.

a reply to: Andy1144

what a shallow argument for a deep concept

a reply to: Gh0stwalker

I've said this too many times, if you'll read at least some of my posts and even in my OP I said that you have the freedom to do what you desire. You're just too dense to objectively analyze what I said and instead accuse me of nonsense.

a reply to: andy06shake

The problem is you don't know what I mean by free will.

originally posted by: darkbake
a reply to: Andy1144

Quantum stuff is not subject to Newtonian laws including cause and effect. My philosophy is that even if we are influenced by a lot we can still choose to do the opposite.

We can still choose to do the opposite because we're influenced to have brains that think logically. If not then we wouldn't be free to make such a choice.

a reply to: Synchronicity11

Free will can mean more than one thing, don't pretend like there is only one absolute definition for it.

Most people in this thread don't even know what I mean by free will.

a reply to: Andy1144

Spell it out for me then, in case i missed the point, in the simplest of terms, so i can understand what you mean.

You see freewill is exactly that, any modification to the construct would seem to imply constraint.

a reply to: andy06shake

It is impossible to make a conscious willful decision without it being influenced by something.

This is the freedom I claim we lack. And this claim has nothing to do with causality, it would still be the same regardless.

As for the free will to have the ability act on desires, yes we do have that freedom. Paradoxically we have no choice but to. This is the other free will. So they both have different meaning.

a reply to: Kashai

My feeling is - survival is normal and natural. A bigger question emerges (for me): isn't this world beautiful? And when we are raised normally and spared the "developmental entropy" of early trauma and the psychodynamical complexities it creates - isn't this world, as it seems, the essence of what we mean by "heaven"? Pure blissfulness?

This is so important, especially when we remember that the "now" is largely misrepresentative of "what is really real". For instance, consciousness at every moment is an ecological phenomenon. Every person is a unique culture in space-time of relationships at different points of time that have given each person a 'unique point of view'. Right?

But this is also a problem - not an insurmountable one - but a problem nonetheless because it messes with our brains 'predictive system' i.e. that we naturally superimpose our expectations (or "predictions") upon other peoples signals-cues in conformity with our past experiences. This means we are all very much existing in a state of uncertainty - indeterminism - with regard to whats true and real.

As said - this can, and it is my hope, WILL, become overcome - but it takes education and an understanding that every human being has a unique potential to complexify their mind-brains - and so are fully able, if they develop essential affect-regulation skills (through meta-cognition, or mindfulness) - to understand reality with the subtlety that is required to know it deeply and truly.

So, is survival evil if living means some level of immorality? I don't think any Human who engages in evil is sane - or understanding reality in a way that corresponds to the actual unvarnished truth of things (i.e. ecological interconnectedness). Said another way, in Trumps America, if someone with fascistic beliefs was trying to kill me, and I defended myself by killing him - is that wrong? No. It's harsh - its an act of evil - but its a 'necessary evil' inasmuch as my survival means keeping alive a way of being that promotes truth.

Even more importantly: my knowledge of trauma and its effects on consciousness and the matter of our bodies affords me an understanding of what would be needed - of myself - if I were to ever kill someone, inasmuch as killing is a fundamentally traumatizing action - and so requires a great deal of mindfulness, and awareness to recognize the wound - a wound, in all likelihood, that will never go away i.e. as a sense impression and the negative affects it provokes.

In short - evil - or entropy - lets loose all sorts of "demons" within your mind. Thus, if you're going to forced into engaging in it i.e. as a matter of physical survival - than you're going to need to realize what sort of 'holes' it will create within you i.e. you will need to be bring a compassionate awareness to what is occurring, why you did it, so that the evil doesn't metastasize into other areas of your being.