Free Will

[Fort Fun Indiana]

If your choices are made unconsciously was your decision freely made?

No. Because you are still implying agency.


Your question is:

"If a decision was made without agency, was it made with agency?"

No.

 

[Blues Man]

'First cause" -- People have asked if our existence is limited to what we can verbalise? What would be a first cause? What would it look like?

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman coined the metaphor of The Invisible Soccer Ball in his 1993 book The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question? Lederman used the metaphor to explain how particle physicists examine a problem.

Most people who believe in the first cause call it god.

The one thing that is the cause of itself and that is the only cause of everything else

The funny thing about this is that most people who believe in god also believe they have free will but if the god they believe in is the first cause of everything then that god is the cause of all they will ever do and think

 

[Blues Man]

No. Because you are still implying agency.


Your question is:

"If a decision was made without agency, was it made with agency?"

No.

If a decision is made without agency is that free will?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

If a decision is made without agency is that free will?

Not in the sense we have come to think of it no.

 

[dblack]

If that were the case, we really can't discuss anything.

I disagree. If people are using different definitions, they're talking about different things. And they're just talking past each other. Or fighting over who's definition is "correct".

 

[Blues Man]

I disagree. If people are using different definitions, they're talking about different things. And they're just talking past each other. Or fighting over who's definition is "correct".

Which is exactly what a lot of people do here and everywhere else for that matter

 

[dblack]

Which is exactly what a lot of people do here and everywhere else for that matter

Ayup.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

I disagree. If people are using different definitions, they're talking about different things. And they're just talking past each other. Or fighting over who's definition is "correct".

If. Yes.

There can be and are different definitions of things. Different definitions of the same exact thing.

With free will, I believe people are confused over what it means, and unaware of how to find/see the research that exists out there. Then there is , what does the research point to? How to apply it in a theory or conversation. But we can do our best.

You: Until we agree on a coherent definition, we can't really discuss it.

Dante: If that were the case, we really can't discuss anything.

 

[Libby von H]

Just the other day:
Free Will genetics discussed in the tv series Bodies. "Free will does not exist. It's an illusion, and a pleasant one."

"It depends on the millions of factors and forces that have already happened to you that you're blissfully unaware of. Your prior relationship to alcohol. Your parents relationship to alcohol. Genetically, the taste buds on your tongue. The specific makeup responsiveness that makes this wine taste just sumptuous to you, right now, in this moment. The temperature of the room, the mood you're in, the person you drink it with. -- My point is - Free will does not exist. It's an illusion, and a pleasant one."

some site: [ The Inevitable Fragility Of Time Loops ]

I believe the case could be made that we do not adequately describe what we mean by free will. Any changes in the list above could result in another choice or experience.

But none of that is true or even appears true without prior will to have it be true.
You assume the whole thing! You don't know that temperature of the room isn't an effect

 

[dblack]

If. Yes.

There can be and are different definitions of things. Different definitions of the same exact thing.

With free will, I believe people are confused over what it means, and unaware of how to find/see the research that exists out there. Then there is , what does the research point to? How to apply it in a theory or conversation. But we can do our best.

You: Until we agree on a coherent definition, we can't really discuss it.

Dante: If that were the case, we really can't discuss anything.

You're missing the point. I guess. Or just being argumentative for the hell of it.

Anyway, if someone asks me if free will exists, the first thing I'm going to ask them is "what do you mean by free will?". "What is your definition?" Most definitions I hear, aren't really coherent when you look at them. They're self-contradictory, or don't mean much at all.

How do you define free will?

 

[Libby von H]

Most people who believe in the first cause call it god.

The one thing that is the cause of itself and that is the only cause of everything else

The funny thing about this is that most people who believe in god also believe they have free will but if the god they believe in is the first cause of everything then that god is the cause of all they will ever do and think

CLARIFICATION

THe first cause MUST BE God because God is nothing if not the First Cause.
Who created the First Cause? See, irrational to say that.

Your conclusion is RANK STUPID unless God Himself is not free but that destroys your assumption. IF God is not free and all He made isnot free then we can have NO conception of free ,. It would be the conceiving of what has no being even in God.
Try to conceive a fish that is not a fish.,

YOu remind me of folks who drink too much, pass gas,and tell the fat divorcee at the Bar : Hey,what is the being of non-being?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

THe first cause MUST BE God because God is nothing if not the First Cause.

Or not.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

You're missing the point.

That's just it.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

But none of that is true or even appears true without prior will to have it be true.
You assume the whole thing! You don't know that temperature of the room isn't an effect

I believe the temp of the room is listed in things that would effect...choice

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

You're missing the point. I guess. Or just being argumentative for the hell of it.

Anyway, if someone asks me if free will exists, the first thing I'm going to ask them is "what do you mean by free will?". "What is your definition?" Most definitions I hear, aren't really coherent when you look at them. They're self-contradictory, or don't mean much at all.

How do you define free will?

Free will? For me, a definition would start with agreeing one is talking about a choice made without outside influence. Now ask me what outside influence is.

Yet here we are, without any agreed upon (as of yet), coherent definitions and we are discussing things. Maybe it was the point Dante made, that is the place where you got lost. But what caused you to get lost? Fate? Outside influences?

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

But none of that is true or even appears true without prior will to have it be true.

can you rephrase that?

 

[dblack]

Free will? For me, a definition would start with agreeing one is talking about a choice made without outside influence. Now ask me what outside influence is.

Ok. What's outside influence? Is it other people coercing you? Or is it the sum total of everything that's ever happened?

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Ok. What's outside influence? Is it other people coercing you? Or is it the sum total of everything that's ever happened?

Not the sum total, but everything that's ever happened. I believe that is what the writer was speaking about, those they get, I believe, a bit off track as the words were to be used in a script for a -- uhm, movie/tv series.

Put everything on the table. But then look at it as how the brain functions. Or: It's like lottery odds -- the chances all affected by any individual number appearing or not. I'm trying to think of a good example. I will post it.

 

[dblack]

Not the sum total, but everything that's ever happened.

I'm not sure what distinction you're drawing there, but ok.

Put everything on the table. But then look at it as how the brain functions. Or: It's like lottery odds -- the chances all affected by any individual number appearing or not. I'm trying to think of a good example. I will post it.

An example might help. I don't think I'm getting it.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

I'm not sure what distinction you're drawing there, but ok.

An example might help. I don't think I'm getting it.

see post #118 "I will post it"