Free Will

[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?

We all here started with Blues Man:
Is free will an illusion? There are arguments to support this claim.

Well into the thread in a back and forth with Dante, You commented to Dante: Ok. What's outside influence? Is it other people coercing you? Or is it the sum total of everything that's ever happened?

I believe we've all lost our way here, as with most threads there is no monitor or guidelines to keep a discussion focused. So I'll start out with this:

One distinction being made by people concerns looking at the subconscious as separate from the conscious: The apple/banana choice discussion (like here in this thread). Then there are exposures to stimuli from the time humans are born, and what we are learning about genetics.

...and what people are claiming based on...

Popular science magazines and blogs are out there and inform many people, but do these magazines and blogs accurately describe, or fully understand the medical/scientific studies and journals they're referencing, which bring the recent scientific questions and understandings to the greater world.

 

[dblack]

We all here started with Blues Man:
Is free will an illusion? There are arguments to support this claim.

Well into the thread in a back and forth with Dante, You commented to Dante: Ok. What's outside influence? Is it other people coercing you? Or is it the sum total of everything that's ever happened?

I believe we've all lost our way here, as with most threads there is no monitor or guidelines to keep a discussion focused. So I'll start out with this:

One distinction being made by people concerns looking at the subconscious as separate from the conscious: The apple/banana choice discussion (like here in this thread). Then there are exposures to stimuli from the time humans are born, and what we are learning about genetics.

...and what people are claiming based on...

Popular science magazines and blogs are out there and inform many people, but do these magazines and blogs accurately describe, or fully understand the medical/scientific studies and journals they're referencing, which bring the recent scientific questions and understandings to the greater world.

Uh... ok. Not sure what you're getting at.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Uh... ok. Not sure what you're getting at.

I realize that. I'm working on explaining it and showing what it is people are influenced by and speaking about when discussing free will, and the brain science of today.

apologies, but I also write for my own future references when replying seriously to people here or elsewhere.

 

[Blues Man]

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?

Typical religious wacko bullshit.

I refuse to put a name to the unknown. I refuse to imbue the unknown with a human personality and I am nowhere near arrogant enough to assume that the beings, power or whatever you want to call it that might have created the universe cares about the petty problems of us mere mortals or that I can appeal directly to this power so it can intervene in my life to make it better

And for all we know the first cause ceased to exist after it shat out the universe.

 

[zaangalewa]

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

Error in reasoning: God is the cause for the first cause - the creator. But because a first cause has no cause - otherwise it would be no first cause - was no cause before the first cause. We say normally "God made everything out of nothing" when we refer to this phenomenon. The reason is: No one understands why something is existing at all. Why is not only nothing? This would make much more sense. But in this case nothing would be "here" (including no here) and no one would be able to think about.

 

[zaangalewa]

Typical religious wacko bullshit. ...

Typical atheistic "argument" of a superman who thinks he is god on his own and who is so arrogant to think he has in principle for everything an explanation and a solution.

By the way Blues Man : The longest time in history "scientists" like you criticized Christians because we always said creation has a begin.

 

[dblack]

Typical atheistic "argument" of a superman who thinks he is god on his own and who is so arrogant to think he has in principle for everything an explanation and a solution.

There's nothing "typical" about this ridiculous conception of an atheist. Other than being typically used as a strawman by insecure Christians.

 

[zaangalewa]

There's nothing "typical" about this ridiculous conception of an atheist.

?

Other than being typically used as a strawman by insecure Christians.

?

By the way: Did you know that God had sent a unicorn to overbridge the transcendent world with the created world here? This will amuse you because it will show to you that we are all idiots.

A source about the unicorn in the Christian history : Was das Einhorn mit Weihnachten zu tun hat | Sonntagsblatt - 360 Grad evangelisch

 

[MarathonMike]

Perhaps God does not intervene in the daily affairs of us all and finds it more interesting what we do with "Free Will". If I were God, that's what I would do, not dibble and dabble in this, that and the other.

 

[Leo123]

Is free will an illusion?

There are arguments to support this claim.

For example Test subjects while monitored by FMRI have shown that people actually make a decision subconsciously with no awareness the choice has been made then the conscious brain just supports the subconscious decision and tells us that we consciously chose a banana instead of an apple for example, when the opposite is true.

There are a lot of ethical and sociological implications to this.

I think it would make an interesting discussion.

I read that making a decision is actually the process of manifesting multiple solutions that we have actually chosen to match the overall scenario. Perhaps those manifestations come from what you call the subconscious receiving data from all the senses and organizing certain responses from which to quickly choose from in a highly charged conscious state.

 

[Libby von H]

But the actual choice was made before the conscious mind was even aware it was made then the conscious mind makes up a story to tell you that YOU decided to pick the banana so your choice is an illusion.

And what if you are like me and like apples AND bananas equally.

Your closing statement marks you as LAZY. This is a super-famous question in philosophy called Buridan's Ass and solved now for 700 years

. A donkey finds himself halfway between two equally big and delicious piles of hay. Because he lacks a reason to choose one over the other, he cannot decide which one to eat, and so starves to death.

I SAY, ALWAYS EXAMINE YOUR PREMISES,yours in this case is indefensible

No matter how artfully we arrange the situation, a donkey will not hesitate very long, if at all, and will soon choose one of the piles of hay. He doesn’t care which, and he certainly won’t starve. However, even if we conducted thousands of experiments like this, and no donkey ever starved, we would still not have proved the existence of free will, because the reason no donkey ever starves in front of two equally attractive piles of hay may simply be that those piles aren’t really equally attractive. Perhaps in real life there aren’t any situations where the weighted reasons for a choice are equal.

 

[Blues Man]

Your closing statement marks you as LAZY. This is a super-famous question in philosophy called Buridan's Ass and solved now for 700 years

. A donkey finds himself halfway between two equally big and delicious piles of hay. Because he lacks a reason to choose one over the other, he cannot decide which one to eat, and so starves to death.

I SAY, ALWAYS EXAMINE YOUR PREMISES,yours in this case is indefensible

No matter how artfully we arrange the situation, a donkey will not hesitate very long, if at all, and will soon choose one of the piles of hay. He doesn’t care which, and he certainly won’t starve. However, even if we conducted thousands of experiments like this, and no donkey ever starved, we would still not have proved the existence of free will, because the reason no donkey ever starves in front of two equally attractive piles of hay may simply be that those piles aren’t really equally attractive. Perhaps in real life there aren’t any situations where the weighted reasons for a choice are equal.

You seem to forget that I give no weight to the jabbering of people who lie and make moral stances then abandon them the next day.

Work on your own weak character before you impugn the character of others.