About Free Will.

reply to post by lellomackin


Your imagination is limited or expanded by your capacity to embrace possibilities and probabilities!
Even a 'sub-Saharan African boy' can have this expanded imagination...the pathway to the 'Voynich manuscript' is a little down the 'choices' line...trying to ridiculously maintain that I am suggesting anything else is peurile.

There are people in the world who react reflexively to conscious and unconscious stimuli...this isn't a real good example of how FREE WILL operates.

"Making a decision 'ALLOWS'' you to explore possibilities..."

Who ALLOWS you to make that decision to be able to ALLOW you to explore possibilities?

"Everyone that has come before you has closed possibilities for you because of their decisions."

Essentially what you have said here, is, everyone else is responsible for the predicament you are in now...that...sounds like a distinctly psychiatric train of thought!

There is NO line, before you! There is a line behind you...once the choices have been made from the nodal point, at which you stand...NOW...everything before you is UNCOLLAPSED possibility and probability...

Without dissembling individual psychosis', brain chemistry is and can be affected by choices to ingest the wrong medications (drugs), not having a proper diet...others simply have unbalanced or haywire brain chemistry because of inherited habits.

The maintenance of a notion that demonstrates that FREE WILL - INDEED - does exist, claiming it does not exist, is paramount to lying to yourself, and demonstrates the very process I have described several times already. 

The maintenance of a notion requires FREE WILL. The maintenance of a notion that banishes FREE WILL, demonstrates the REALITY of FREE WILL!...and its subsequent collapsed and collapsing possibilities and probabilities.


"The maintenance of a notion requires KNOWLEDGE."
So...imagination is learned...is it?

Akushla
:

Originally posted by akushla99
reply to post by 1littlewolf

 

I see exactly what you are saying...

You are vouchsaving ALL decisions and choices of 'learning' (...and the answer to my question as to why and how this process comes about has not been answered in any satisfactory way!), that get you to the nodal point of NOW, where [in your universe] all of a sudden, you are faced with a situation you had no control over, up to that point?!...and that you spontaneously react to every situation without prior knowledge of anything...but, that sometimes 'stuff' must be 'learned' to get you to nodal points where you could 'decode a Voynich manuscript'...

IT DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE...

You are offering, as proof, a hypothetical example (which cannot be proven...and consequently is correct - correct, indeed as I have stated, according to the process I have already described), and asked me to disprove it...

If you read carefully over what I have written, you will find that what I have written encompasses, includes, and encloses anything that has been said in these threads about FREE WILL. The process does not distinguish between whether you believe it or not...in fact, it is inherent in its process.

The negation of FREE WILL...uses the process of FREE WILL to do so...

Akushla
:

You are vouchsaving ALL decisions and choices of 'learning' (...and the answer to my question as to why and how this process comes about has not been answered in any satisfactory way!)

Sorry if I missed your question, but I'm not quite sure what you mean here.

I have read over what you have said. But it doesn't seem in any way to answer what I said about thought processes. I said

Thought is a brain process which merely reacts to the situation it finds itself in based on the genetic predisposition of its owner and experiences that owner had in the past which have caused the neural pathways to be linked in a certain way.

Think about what learning is, be it learning about physics or whatever, or learning about situations that arise in life and the consequences of acting in certain way when faced with those situations. Essentially you are just creating new neural pathways in the brain or validating old ones. This combined with how your brain is (as determined by genetics), creates what you call thought.

Thought is essentially the brain's reaction to a given situation and this reaction is determined by genetic predisposition and the neural pathways created through a lifetime of experience. It is essentially a meat computer. A computer which given a certain input will react in a certain way based on its hardware (genetics) and its software (learnings through experience). It is not a 'spontaneous reaction' as you mentioned. It is merely a reaction. For this is all the brain does. It receives input and reacts to it.

Now being meat, it does obviously not behave like a normal computer. You may sit there and ponder for a while, bringing up memories of prior circumstances and their outcomes, or you may simply react instinctively without any thoughts ever being conscious. In the former instance this is what you may mistake as free will. But ultimately it will make a choice. And this choice is dependent upon its hardware and software - it is a predetermined choice based solely on the input it has received and how that input is processed.

When I use the word 'choice' to argue for the lack of free will i mean predetermined choice.

Two more things.

I do not see why you have an issue arguing against a hypothetical situation as any situation which has not happened to you directly is effectively hypothetical. If we were unable to incorporate the information received through hypothetical situations into our thought process we would be doomed to forever make every mistake possible until we experienced it ourselves. Just because my hypothetical involves a little time-bending metaphysics (which is necessary for a debate such as this) does not make it any less valid. As you have stated that the concept I have stated is correct, I will be scratching it up as a 'win' on my behalf.

And also I had never heard of the Voynich Manuscript. This seems incredibly cool - cheers for the share.

1littlewolf

Oh boy, I am beginning to see what a previous poster that you have corresponded with said. We may just have to agree to disagree.

Originally posted by akushla99
reply to post by lellomackin

 

Your imagination is limited or expanded by your capacity to embrace possibilities and probabilities!
Even a 'sub-Saharan African boy' can have this expanded imagination...the pathway to the 'Voynich manuscript' is a little down the 'choices' line...trying to ridiculously maintain that I am suggesting anything else is peurile.

Puerile (check your spelling) is a possibility. How does a child embrace possibilities?? Do they magically appear?? You embrace them because you have LEARNED to embrace them. I don't know how many times we have to use the word learn before it sinks in.

There are people in the world who react reflexively to conscious and unconscious stimuli...this isn't a real good example of how FREE WILL operates.

What??? Free will is selective based on intelligence now?? You are saying it is reflexive?? Why can it not be learned?? You burned your hand on a stove and now you know not to. So, your initial reaction to when you burned your hand on the stove was what?? A mistake?? Lack of reflex?? Lack of learning?? When you learn not to burn your hand on the stove, is it now reflex??

"Making a decision 'ALLOWS'' you to explore possibilities..."

Who ALLOWS you to make that decision to be able to ALLOW you to explore possibilities?

No one ALLOWS you to make that decision. It is part of a complex, and highly individual, brain process. I know we haven't broached this subject, and I don't know if you are comfortable doing so, but what are your religious views or views on a higher power being part of this equation? What are your thoughts on animals?? Do they have free will??

"Everyone that has come before you has closed possibilities for you because of their decisions."

Essentially what you have said here, is, everyone else is responsible for the predicament you are in now...that...sounds like a distinctly psychiatric train of thought!

No, what I have said is, for example; Kennedy was shot, Kennedy may have led us down a time line that is no longer accessible because of his death. That is one example. Tesla died. What would have happened if he had lived 10 more years?? That time line has collapsed. The time line where the knowledge that would have been gained in that time line where those things did not happen have collapsed. You can not levitate because Tesla didn't live ten more years than he did. I'm being overly dramatic, but I hope you get the point.

And yes, everyone IS responsible for the "predicament" you are in. The "predicament" may be a great one. You may be in a "predicament" where you had loving parents that showed you how to care and nurture, you may have had friends that would listen to your complaints and steer you on the right path. Are you saying that your free will would some how go against that kind of love and compassion??

There is NO line, before you! There is a line behind you...once the choices have been made from the nodal point, at which you stand...NOW...everything before you is UNCOLLAPSED possibility and probability...

Okay, prove me wrong. Do something that is so outside anyone's conceivable time line that it will garner world wide attention. You can't do it instantaneously because it would require you to LEARN new skills and then implement them.

It is a curve based on LEARNING, not free will.

Without dissembling individual psychosis', brain chemistry is and can be affected by choices to ingest the wrong medications (drugs), not having a proper diet...others simply have unbalanced or haywire brain chemistry because of inherited habits.

So, inherited habits or brain chemistry over ride free will??

The maintenance of a notion that demonstrates that FREE WILL - INDEED - does exist, claiming it does not exist, is paramount to lying to yourself, and demonstrates the very process I have described several times already. 

The maintenance of a notion requires FREE WILL. The maintenance of a notion that banishes FREE WILL, demonstrates the REALITY of FREE WILL!...and its subsequent collapsed and collapsing possibilities and probabilities.


"The maintenance of a notion requires KNOWLEDGE."
So...imagination is learned...is it?

Yess!!! Hoooray, you did it!!! Imagination IS LEARNED. Yes, it is, THINK about it!!!!

reply to post by lellomackin


 "Puerile (check your spelling) is a possibility."

Firstly, before you mistakenly get the impression that you are somehow teaching me something...don't...
Secondly, interesting that you bring up an even more transparent game.
I tell you what...you check the spelling for me...and get back to me about that...

...would ya pet?!

"How does a child embrace possibilities??"

Once again, since you have completely misunderstood what I have plainly written...

The possibilities and probabilities always exist, fanned out, like some massive ocean of 'what could happen'...
Given the right circumstances, and UNIT being open to what is possible and probable...only imagination (the 'what if') - which, is something lower order animals demonstrate, is needed to embrace a possibility...the movement towards this possibility or another requires a choice...this choice is made by someone...this someone, from birth, learnt (inquiry/what if, is learning)...you do not necessarily need to learn how to learn! Learning is inherent in brain structure (as you have said it, so it is), yet, it is only by imagining and therefore exercising the creation of these new neural pathways that (and the illustration I have given you portrays exactly what I have said happens in Reality, happening within the brain structure - i.e. possibilities and probabilities opening up choices for information to travel to and from) the possibility of a goal is established.

"What??? Free will is selective based on intelligence now?? You are saying it is reflexive?? Why can it not be learned?? You burned your hand on a stove and now you know not to. So, your initial reaction to when you burned your hand on the stove was what?? A mistake?? Lack of reflex?? Lack of learning?? When you learn not to burn your hand on the stove, is it now reflex??"

Err...no you said I said that...and then used what you said I said to prove something I didn't say, but you did??


"No one ALLOWS you to make that decision. It is part of a complex, and highly individual, brain process. I know we haven't broached this subject, and I don't know if you are comfortable doing so, but what are your religious views or views on a higher power being part of this equation? What are your thoughts on animals?? Do they have free will??"

ALLOWS...was your word, which I used, subsequent to a quote in which you used it...?!

"Everyone that has come before you has closed possibilities for you because of their decisions." 

"No, what I have said is, for example; Kennedy was shot, Kennedy may have led us down a time line that is no longer accessible because of his death. That is one example. Tesla died. What would have happened if he had lived 10 more years?? That time line has collapsed. The time line where the knowledge that would have been gained in that time line where those things did not happen have collapsed. You can not levitate because Tesla didn't live ten more years than he did. I'm being overly dramatic, but I hope you get the point."

Well, now this is a different kettle of fish...but, it illustrates the complex way in which all of our decisions and choices can affect other people...but, we must have the volition to care about the consequences of what we choose...RESPONSIBILITY...brought about through the FREE WILL to choose, according to possible and probable outcomes (which all exist in an uncollapsed state, fanning out before you, awaiting your CHOICE).

"And yes, everyone IS responsible for the "predicament" you are in. The "predicament" may be a great one. You may be in a "predicament" where you had loving parents that showed you how to care and nurture, you may have had friends that would listen to your complaints and steer you on the right path. Are you saying that your free will would some how go against that kind of love and compassion??"

So...if everyone else is responsible for the predicament you are in...who is responsible for the predicament everybody else is in??

"Okay, prove me wrong. Do something that is so outside anyone's conceivable time line that it will garner world wide attention. You can't do it instantaneously because it would require you to LEARN new skills and then implement them."

I understand that it is quite easy to stand in front of a group of about 100 people with an AK47 slung over my shoulder, and pull the trigger...I am of the PRETTY FIRM opinion that this requires no learning...this would send every individual involved...INSTANTLY...onto a completely new timeline...it will, as a sideline, garner (I humbly say) worldwide attention...for all the wrong reasons.

Learning is not necessarily an acquired skill...learning can be had by making mistakes, juxtaposing odd items/events, listening to someone reading you a book etc etc etc...

Akushla
:

Originally posted by 1littlewolf
reply to post by smithjustinb

 

I'd love to believe in freewill. But logic tells me no. Every thought you have and action you decide upon has been determined by the circumstances in which you find yourself in

That's my main argument against "free will." The concept of "free will" implies that we do as we wish. Much too often in life our decisions are not what we want but what we must do. To me, that is not "free will."