Free will

[stinkingfish]

For a few years now I have been thinking about the concept of free will. Original we think of free will as simply the freedom to make choices. We used to say humans have free will over animals because animals are hard wired by instinct to make their choices. We "decide" to go against our first instincts. Society creates laws and accepts social rules to produce a stable amount of control. The ancients called this "God's" will or rules. But I believe choices are just a instincts that had learned more from it's environment. We learned what is acceptable and what isn't. The consequence of going against what is acceptable is worse the satisfaction derived from are instincts so we repressed them. We go with the outcome that will lead to greatest positive stimuli. We go though this thousand of times, reiterating that we are doing all and all is the best choice. We remember our past experience and go with positive results, and avoid negative stimuli. Each past decision or choice, no matter how small ends up mapping out how we approach bigger decisions. We learn social norms since we are infants, going through the same situations millions of times, to the point that we have it hardwired in our brain. Society in returns controls how we process our choices.


So my question is how do we have free will, if the way we evaluate our choices is preplanned?

[Chupacabra.]

our choices aren't pre planned.

[stinkingfish]

our choices aren't pre planned.

If your given a choice between a apple or a orange to eat. Your going to pick the one that, you believe taste the best and give you the most pleasurable experience. The amount of pleasure given is decided by taste. What is taste but the chemical reaction between the taste buds stimuli and your brain. Your preference has already been decided by DNA.

[Skateselect]

interesting point, the way you worded it makes it hard to make an argument against. i guess all i can say is that i believe that past experiences and choices can influence future decisions, but don't directly decide them. i mean, based on your idea, if somebody was going to commit suicide, they wouldnt choose to jump because they know there will be more positive stimuli achieved by living, because the suicide will cause none, perhaps a few, if theyre the "itll make others lives better" type, but still, the amount of positive external stimuli gotten by living would outnumber them because of the amount of time the person could live to get these positive stimuli. but people still commit suicide

[Chupacabra.]

actually I'd probably choose the one that is healthier so, you lose.

[adude113]

If your given a choice between a apple or a orange to eat. Your going to pick the one that, you believe taste the best and give you the most pleasurable experience. The amount of pleasure given is decided by taste. What is taste but the chemical reaction between the taste buds stimuli and your brain. Your preference has already been decided by DNA.
Yes. Past events and experiences, DNA, environment, etc. determines the "choice" that you "make." It's nice to believe we have free will, but idk if we do. I don't believe we have complete control.

I used to be hard determinist, but maybe you could say that our free will is pre-determined, or that our choices are our own, even though their are factors that determine what choice we make. It kinda feels better to think of it that way rather than us not having any free will and everything being pre-determined, but I'm leaning towards the latter.

actually I'd probably choose the one that is healthier so, you lose.
You would "choose" the healthier one because of the way you were brought up, experiences that made you want to eat healthier foods, etc.


Really, I think that humans are special because of our awareness of the "choices we make" rather than just following instinct (well that's one reason, anyway), but I still kinda think all of our actions and everything that happens to us is pre-determined.

[stinkingfish]

interesting point, the way you worded it makes it hard to make an argument against. i guess all i can say is that i believe that past experiences and choices can influence future decisions, but don't directly decide them. i mean, based on your idea, if somebody was going to commit suicide, they wouldnt choose to jump because they know there will be more positive stimuli achieved by living, because the suicide will cause none, perhaps a few, if theyre the "itll make others lives better" type, but still, the amount of positive external stimuli gotten by living would outnumber them because of the amount of time the person could live to get these positive stimuli. but people still commit suicide

Suicide is a weird issue. I believe the complete opposite approach would be the result for suicide. The Negative experience of a person life could a drive a person to suicide as a solution to end the negative stimuli. It's a compromise No positive stimuli would come from it but no negative stimuli would come out from it.

actually I'd probably choose the one that is healthier so, you lose.

chupacabra you are still just compromising, in one hand their is th choice of eating what you find tastier, and in the other hand their is the choice of picking what you find is healthier. In one way you find pleasure in the experience, but you pick the pleasure you find of believing you are healthy. The pleasure of being healthy was simply taught by society as favorable. EDIT: nvm Adude already covered what I said better.

[Skateselect]

Suicide is a weird issue. I believe the complete opposite approach would be the result for suicide. The Negative experience of a person life could a drive a person to suicide as a solution to end the negative stimuli. It's a compromise No positive stimuli would come from it but no negative stimuli would come out from it.
yeah i see what your saying. suicide really goes against basically every natural human nature and instinct, cause when you get down to it, the most bare bones instinct is to survive. that said, it was the only thing i could think of to go against your idea of positive stimuli governing choices. throwing negative stimuli into the mix adds some complexity, like it adds more indecision to choices, more free will, maybe?

[Chupacabra.]

Looks like im in a pickle...
i can see clearly now that the rain is gone.

[salvemaster]

I don't know if we necessarily 'decide' to go against our instincts. I mean, when you think about it, we are all still abiding by the same basic, instinctual laws of nature, just on a different scale of thought. Which is somewhat like you stated about choices being essentially an evolved form of instinctual reflexes.

By preplanned, however, you could mean two things. You could be referring to destiny or the inevitability of social influences.

Destiny is kind of cheesy to me, because just the thought of it makes me so unmotivated. Like, no matter what i do, it's the only thing i can do, yaknow? I can't stand the idea that there's only one way things can play out; so it doesn't matter what you do, because it's essentially already been done for you, by you. So if destiny is real, then free will i guess is completely out of the question.

As for social influences, i suppose failure in societal life is sorta like death in the jungle life. In the jungle, it's all just about necessity, instincts, survival. You do what you do everyday to stay alive.

And i can't help but correlate that to the importance we put on society today. Go to college, get a job, get married, settle down. You do what you do everyday so you can fit in with everyone else; survival is second rate, taken care of.

That's deff got to be the most obvious case of free will repression. Our choices are contoured, like you said, based on what society deems acceptable, and those choices are ensured because obeying societal law is rewarded, humans love rewards.

I guess that much is just human nature. We do what ensures positive stimuli in ourselves and others. As for preplanned? Not at all. We will always have the ability to go agaisnt what is common. Influenced? Sure, society will influence our choices.

But fuck, if you know that something is right, then nothing, not even a life sentence in the shittiest prison in the world, should stop you from achieving it. And that's free will, something that laws can never ban.

edit) fuck i thought i was first post haha. i guess that took me longer than i thought

[Skateselect]

^haha yeah. id all but shut the thread down with my suicide argument lol

[stinkingfish]

Really, I think that humans are special because of our awareness of the "choices we make" rather than just following instinct (well that's one reason, anyway), but I still kinda think all of our actions and everything that happens to us is pre-determined.

The awareness of our consequences of choice, does helps predetermine the choice we make. Our level of awareness is so high, that we can manipulate and control the choices of others. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not completely sure.

[salvemaster]

Now that i'm more clued in to the conversation i can actually post based on other peoples' haha. Ok, so what your saying is that our decisions are preplanned based on science? The stats? So regarding the apple-orange thing, i would eat one over the other because, essentially, it is written in my DNA.

So what if i recognize which one i want to eat and choose the other? Then you could state that it is written in my DNA to question what is written in my DNA. Then, following that thread, you would eventually end up with the hypothesis that 'genetics are destiny.'

Idk about genetics, exactly, just cause i'm not a bio-chemist, but your point is valid, all our decisions are made based on our personality, so there can really only BE one way things can play out.

[stinkingfish]

I don't know if we necessarily 'decide' to go against our instincts. I mean, when you think about it, we are all still abiding by the same basic, instinctual laws of nature, just on a different scale of thought. Which is somewhat like you stated about choices being essentially an evolved form of instinctual reflexes.

By preplanned, however, you could mean two things. You could be referring to destiny or the inevitability of social influences.

Destiny is kind of cheesy to me, because just the thought of it makes me so unmotivated. Like, no matter what i do, it's the only thing i can do, yaknow? I can't stand the idea that there's only one way things can play out; so it doesn't matter what you do, because it's essentially already been done for you, by you. So if destiny is real, then free will i guess is completely out of the question.

As for social influences, i suppose failure in societal life is sorta like death in the jungle life. In the jungle, it's all just about necessity, instincts, survival. You do what you do everyday to stay alive.

And i can't help but correlate that to the importance we put on society today. Go to college, get a job, get married, settle down. You do what you do everyday so you can fit in with everyone else; survival is second rate, taken care of.

That's deff got to be the most obvious case of free will repression. Our choices are contoured, like you said, based on what society deems acceptable, and those choices are ensured because obeying societal law is rewarded, humans love rewards.

I guess that much is just human nature. We do what ensures positive stimuli in ourselves and others. As for preplanned? Not at all. We will always have the ability to go agaisnt what is common. Influenced? Sure, society will influence our choices.

But fuck, if you know that something is right, then nothing, not even a life sentence in the shittiest prison in the world, should stop you from achieving it. And that's free will, something that laws can never ban.

edit) fuck i thought i was first post haha. i guess that took me longer than i thought

I guess I'm trying to approach both. If you ever feel like resisting against the societal norm you were simply destined to for it. You have found resistance to be the most favorable outcome, In turn they created your resitance, by producing the negative Resistance. kinda of like If I told someone they couldn't do something, and they do out of spite of what I said. It becomes a self fulfilled prophecy.

Society then just finds a way to control your resistance by either death or separation(jail).

[Skateselect]

ive taken biology and chemistry, so i could basically be considered an expert on that. if you wanted to follow the dna idea, you could argue that any hope of free will was gone the first time a primate reacted to something. their lives became predetermined, and their genes were passed down endlessly.

also, it is really impossible to argue against destiny and predetermination, because you can say "well what if i did BLANK instead of BLANK?"
it could be argued that that, and anything else, was already predetermined

[stinkingfish]

Now that i'm more clued in to the conversation i can actually post based on other peoples' haha. Ok, so what your saying is that our decisions are preplanned based on science? The stats? So regarding the apple-orange thing, i would eat one over the other because, essentially, it is written in my DNA.

So what if i recognize which one i want to eat and choose the other? Then you could state that it is written in my DNA to question what is written in my DNA. Then, following that thread, you would eventually end up with the hypothesis that 'genetics are destiny.'

Idk about genetics, exactly, just cause i'm not a bio-chemist, but your point is valid, all our decisions are made based on our personality, so there can really only BE one way things can play out.

yeah exactly, what I'm trying to get at. As a counter argument to myself I will use the idea from the book dice man.

I dice man a person figures out he has no free will, in order to change his destiny he needs an unbiased determing factor, luck to decide his choices. Like a roll of a die.

If we allowed luck to control our decision than we in turn decided by our own free will to go against what was predetermined to happen.

[nbdpete]

For a few years now I have been thinking about the concept of free will. Original we think of free will as simply the freedom to make choices. We used to say humans have free will over animals because animals are hard wired by instinct to make their choices. We "decide" to go against our first instincts. Society creates laws and accepts social rules to produce a stable amount of control. The ancients called this "God's" will or rules. But I believe choices are just a instincts that had learned more from it's environment. We learned what is acceptable and what isn't. The consequence of going against what is acceptable is worse the satisfaction derived from are instincts so we repressed them. We go with the outcome that will lead to greatest positive stimuli. We go though this thousand of times, reiterating that we are doing all and all is the best choice. We remember our past experience and go with positive results, and avoid negative stimuli. Each past decision or choice, no matter how small ends up mapping out how we approach bigger decisions. We learn social norms since we are infants, going through the same situations millions of times, to the point that we have it hardwired in our brain. Society in returns controls how we process our choices.


So my question is how do we have free will, if the way we evaluate our choices is preplanned?

Good point, in short I'd like to add that once ppl have grown up, the possibility of negative feeling rules out decisions eg. asking a girl out. Your more likely to talk yourself out of it than convince yourself it will be alright. Even if it is alright (which is always the case) your feelings try to intervene. I guess humans are instinctually wired to choose the path of least negative feeling because in ancient times if we did something and took a risk we'd probably end up dead.

[Skateselect]

^you could still argue that whatever the dice showed was predetermined. its an impossible argument against predetermination, like i said before

[salvemaster]

^ That is where my major hatred for legal confinement come from. You can be doing what you know is right and needs to be done, but the system doesn't give a shit, they only care if you broke a law. This is like the conversation we were having in another thread.

That's why if i am ever arrested in this country for doing something i believe to be morally right, i'm not sacrificing my life to prison. Fuck it, its not so much the actual time in jail, it's the fact that they can even put me in jail for any amount of time in the first place. I'd like swim to paris or something.

And i know this is gonna sound cheesy, but in the movie Forrest Gump, there was this thematic conflict going on indirectly between two forces in Forrest's life. One was Jenny, who believed that everything is happening for a reason and that fate will take care of you. And the other was his mom, who believed that we make our own choices and suffer our own consequences.

In the end, i forget the line exactly, but he basically says that maybe both were right. Idk how legit that is, but i think there is a point there.

edit) once again, a little late on my post. this was response to stinkfish's post about approaching both.

[salvemaster]

^you could still argue that whatever the dice showed was predetermined. its an impossible argument against predetermination, like i said before

Yeah, exactly, in which case you can't really say it doesn't exist because there's more hypothetical evidence (paradox) backing it up. Then again, we can't just go and believe everything that we can't disprove (unlike john lennon once said).

But i guess you could argue with equal futility that there is a separate factor reasoning behind our actions, like a second mind or something, whose preferences are wholly separate from any predetermined genetic pattern.

edit) fuck haha, i'm double posting like a motherbitch now, i keep getting behind. this is a fuck of a good thread, dude, ima be up all night on this one.

[stinkingfish]

^you could still argue that whatever the dice showed was predetermined. its an impossible argument against predetermination, like i said before

do you mean that the dice isn't random, becuase it's simply following the laws of physics?


And i know this is gonna sound cheesy, but in the movie Forrest Gump, there was this thematic conflict going on indirectly between two forces in Forrest's life. One was Jenny, who believed that everything is happening for a reason and that fate will take care of you. And the other was his mom, who believed that we make our own choices and suffer our own consequences.

In the end, i forget the line exactly, but he basically says that maybe both were right. Idk how legit that is, but i think there is a point there.

edit) once again, a little late on my post. this was response to stinkfish's post about approaching both.

yeah, Forrest Gump is a amazing movie, the one thing I remember specifically of th movie is feather circling back to Gump. the feather starts out with him waiting for the bus, and he meets Jenny out of circumstance, but in the end he gets the feather again, and as fate seemed to mold him to decide to find jenny without circumstance.

edit: this is a good thread.

[Skateselect]

do you mean that the dice isn't random, becuase it's simply following the laws of physics?
no, i meant that people could argue that whatever the dice showed was meant to happen. you were meant to roll the dice, and you were meant to get whatever number you got. you can argue predetermination on anything, because theres nothing to argue against it successfully.

i might want to clarify. i dont believe in complete predetermination, and i like to think that we have at least some free will. im just showing how its impossible to argue against predetermination.

[salvemaster]

^ You actually could say that the dice will roll the way it does because of physics, and so in that sense, the second the dice leaves your hand, the number it lands on is arguably predetermined. Think about it, when it leaves your hand, everything else that happens will happen because of how you threw.

If a wind blew or something and altered the course of the dice, then that was going to happen anyways because there wouldn't have been anything to change that, so the question is, what made you throw the dice at that moment in time?

Was it destiny? Was it genetic preference? Or was it free will?

[Skateselect]

^it had been predetermined for you to throw the dice then and there. see? i can say that about anything.

[salvemaster]

^it had been predetermined for you to throw the dice then and there. see? i can say that about anything.

So then WHY is the question. WHY was it predetermined? Why would a thing like the roll of a dice matter enough for there to be a predetermined outcome?

[Skateselect]

you ever heard of the butterfly effect? maybe the big bang (or [insert how you believe the universe began]) started off a series of events that cant be stopped

[salvemaster]

you ever heard of the butterfly effect? maybe the big bang (or [insert how you believe the universe began]) started off a series of events that cant be stopped

That shit fucks my mind up too much. That wouldn't we the butterfly effect, that'd be like the ant effect:

An ant climbs an ant hill and falls and dies which circuitously causes massive global meltdown during inter-stellar nuclear war three thousand years later.

And you think about it, that would be a fraction of the scale it would have to be for the big bang (or whatever creative force) to have predetermined everything that has happened in the universe so far.

[Skateselect]

yeah. its weird to think that, if a bird didnt fly into a window one day in china or somewhere, i might not have been born

[drowning_fish]

Feel like a slight dick doing this, but I wrote quite a bit and got the last post on the page, so...

Have you guys read 'Notes from the Underground'? by Dostoevsky? One of my favorite stories of all time. I still need to re-read it. It's not that long, either, like 80-100 pages or something.

But there's a part in it where he argues for free-will. He talks about human beings choosing sometimes what may be completely against any sort of rationality or logic, just because it lets them feel that freedom. There's an example in real life. When you gamble, and everything'll be going fine, you're up a couple hundred bucks you know? and all of a sudden you'll just bet the worst sucker bet there is, and no one knows why, even you. It happens, I don't even know why, but Dostoevsky would've said it's because we need to assert our free will over anything.

I mean if we had no free will I don't think we'd have any art or anything. cause it's useless. What our body needs is food exercise and sleep - those 3 are enough to keep us busy for the rest of our lives, but we do sit down and THINK sometimes and what you ate for breakfast and your mom's X chromosome and whatever chemicals are flowing through your veins aren't going to change that. I can draw sometimes for hours at a stretch, and I'll feel hungry as fuck and that's my natural impulse, that is, to get food - everything points to that - logic, animalistic instinct - and yet I'll sit and decide 'you know what, this drawing ain't that bad... I wonder what it'll look like if I draw a line like THIS' (*draw a big fucking slash right through everything, ruin the whole thing*) 'or what about..' (*rip it in half, throw it in the toilet, piss on it, punch yourself until you start bleeding, cause there is no watercolor or gauche or oil pastel or whatever the fuck, there's no paint that actually simulates BLOOD, and somehow you need that red, you need that blood cause this drawing is going to be the best drawing of all time and fuck it if no one gets to see it, cause now it's going down the drain. this art's for you, for me, forever, for the fishes

[salvemaster]

yeah. its weird to think that, if a bird didnt fly into a window one day in china or somewhere, i might not have been born

Danny, you are the inevitable product of a robin's ill-fated attempt to enter a small, corner grocery shop via window in a town called Yuan-Xin, China, 1993.

edit) i'm too fucking tired to do this, i'm going to bed

[Skateselect]

hahahaha

[stinkingfish]

But there's a part in it where he argues for free-will. He talks about human beings choosing sometimes what may be completely against any sort of rationality or logic, just because it lets them feel that freedom. There's an example in real life. When you gamble, and everything'll be going fine, you're up a couple hundred bucks you know? and all of a sudden you'll just bet the worst sucker bet there is, and no one knows why, even you. It happens, I don't even know why, but Dostoevsky would've said it's because we need to assert our free will over anything.

the point of the roll of the die was to seperate to lose rationality the feel the freedom by "losing your freedom of choice". Your choice is the ultimately the outcome of luck.

you ever heard of the butterfly effect? maybe the big bang (or [insert how you believe the universe began]) started off a series of events that cant be stopped

My theory was based of the unpredictability of the die as a metaphor. Yeah I was predetermined to throw it, but was I predetermined to follow something that was not predetermined?

realistically you could use something more random like quantum mechanics which some casino and banks use to create real random numbers. quantum mechanics saying that their is multiple universe for every possible outcome. even more that every particle is going through each universe, And without an observer of the particle their is a probability that the particle could be anywhere.

[Iskatehard]

I wouldn't say we completely have free will.. Because it seems more real in some situations than others.

I mean.. In some situations, instincts play stronger roles than they would in others. And while some people here seem to think we overlook instincts in decisions, I have to argue we don't. We constantly take them into consideration without even realizing it. I mean, you choose to eat and drink and rest, right? You probably would consider those actions as an act of free will what with deciding what to eat or what to drink or when and were to rest and shit.. But the fact is instinct the the main driving factor behind it all.

I also could say we don't have complete free will at all times and support saying so with the statistics mention in this thread. Statistics can be called empty and worthless or valuable, and personally, I'd to a degree agree with both claims.

I mean.. Statistics will never tell you anything with any certainty.. Just because somebody is one race for example, doesn't mean they'll constantly do what statistics regarding their race suggests.

BUTTTT! There obviously is patterns, if you will, in human behavior. While I might not call these instincts, I would say they're somewhat natural after growing up in modern day society. Statistics are somewhat reliable, which means there are strong elements of certain forms of logic or reasoning in humans of today.. And those strong elements themselves greatly affect the possibility of free will, I'd say.

And I don't know if this will make sense.. But sometimes it seems impossible to really tell what exactly somebody might do in any specific situation.. But we can safely assume we think we know what said person WILL NOT do.

Our choices aren't independent, if you will. They're constantly governed by our current emotions as well as preferences.. And you know that is true because I know anybody can think of a friend and recall a situation where you witnessed them in a decision making situation, and could tell what they were going to do before they actually did it. This sense of predictability I believe partly argues the concept of free will. It's sort of like.. When we are posed with a decision, our choices aren't completely infinite like it might seem, but we really only have so many options.. Simply because we will not think of some possible choices because our preference and emotions will cause us to look over it.



In all.. We do have a sense of free will.. But it's not constant in all situations, and we likely overlook instincts because they're so "natural" they go unnoticed. We're not of absolute freedom in decisions because of our behavior and certain limitations imposed by our bodies and environment.

[salvemaster]

Once again, i'm gonna bring a movie into this one. So i was watching 'the matrix'...

And there's this part where the oracle asks neo if he wants a candy. The oracle knows what neo is going to choose, so neo says that it's not a choice at all. Then the oracle said something that i can relate to my other movie allusion from forest gump.

She said 'we're not here to make the choice, it's already been made, we're here to understand why we made it.'

I know it's kinda fucked to take your philosophical advice from a sci-fi movie, but i think there is a point there. Maybe we can't control our destiny, but maybe we can understand it.

[Skateselect]

^ironically i was just thinking about this. and, like the quote says, im pretty sure i know why.

and the oracle offers neo a cookie, fyi

[salvemaster]

^ Fuck you this was the second one where they were on the bench, it was most definitely candy. You're prolly thinking of the first one where he knocks the vase over after she tells him not to worry about the vase, and she's all 'the question is, would you have knocked it over if i hadn't said anything.'

Getcha shit straight, bitch

edit) btw i was just kidding with the whole fuck you bitch thing

[Skateselect]

too late im already emotionally scarred. but the oracle has some good quotes in those movies

[Iskatehard]

Hahaha, I don't know why that made me laugh as hard as it did. "No man, I think it went like this" "Fuck you bitch" XD

More and more I have a hard time understanding why I don't like the Matrix. It's got some solid ideas to it, I think.. But I just don't dig it

[salvemaster]

Just wanted to bring this thread up again, just cause i really like it.

I've been giving more and more thought to fate and i keep coming back to this idea that we were talking about.

Maybe fate is just a big ass coincident. Like, it's not that everything happens for a reason, but that there is a reason that everyhting happens, yaknow?

Just like we were talking about earlier, about the whole butterfly effect. Maybe the big bang or whatever was sorta like the first domino, and everything else that has happened over the course of eternity is just a matter of cause and effect, eventually leading back to the bang itself.

So it's not that there is a divine plan for everything but that everything can only happen one way because of the inneveitability of consequentialism. So when you make a 'choice,' it's not that your choice has already been made for a spiritual reason, but because already determined forces in the universe have caused you to make it.

Bu then from there i guess you could put spiritual significance on the whole thing. Whatever, nothing's black and white.

[Iskatehard]

Interesting theory in your post. I forget what it's called, but I remember hearing/reading about it. It makes a lot of sense, and sounds logical to me.. But then, it seems like the theory begins to fall apart in certain places.

Like.. A lot of times people will say that if this theory is really true.. Then like.. We're not completely responsible for our actions. Like, if I went out and killed somebody right now.. It wouldn't just be a product of me alone.. Me killing would also be thanks to millions of decisions that have been made in the past and shit. And I can't help what I do, because what I do is already sort of decided by the decisions of those before me..

Not sure if that made sense, but hopefully you get what I mean. But don't get me wrong, I personally don't believe that this theory removes personal responsibility or anything.. But that's just me speaking personally based on my morals and shit. But I guess if you looked at the theory without preference and totally unbiased, it sort of would make sense to say that nobody is completely responsible for what they do, and that their actions and behavior is a product of humanity as a whole.. And they sort of couldn't help it...

Maybe fate is just a big ass coincident. Like, it's not that everything happens for a reason, but that there is a reason that everyhting happens, yaknow?


I don't know if I'm taking this statement wrong or not. Like, I think if something happens for a reason, the 'reason' becomes made and noticed AFTER something happens. But like, if there is a reason for something happening, it's more of a reaction, if you will. So that reason would be BEFORE something happens..

I dunno if that makes sense, it was sort of hard to explain what I was thinking. If it doesn't, I can try again.

But concerning that.. I think everything does happen for a reason (said "reason" becoming known AFTER initial act has happen)... But I don't think it's an act of some divine force or anything.. I just think it is an act of nature, if you will. Simply because when something happens, that which is around it changes and such.. So, nature will always create a "reason" for something after it has been done.

Sorry if that doesn't make sense either. This post has been a bitch to write >.>'. If it doesn't, I'll try to explain better or something.

[salvemaster]

This whole idea just sort of makes me wonder why humans have developed reason in the first place, because if either or both ideas of fate are true, then reason is really just a useless concept emitted by the illusion of choice. And if choice is just an illusion, then you have to wonder about what it is to really 'understand' something, as all understanding is is the utilization of observation in the act of choice.

This kinda brings me back to the oracle point that maybe we have reason not to make the choice, but to understand it.

It's pretty crazy to picture all the shit that has happened over the coarse of human history, and to know that it was all done out of the illusion of choice. Haha, like, what would the world be like if we all stopped trying to make decisions, and started trying to realize the importance of the decisions themselves?

Idk, i'm tired, sorry if i'm not making sense. I get what you're saying about reason being misconstrued as reaction though, interesting point, like reason is implying something different, maybe meaningful? While reaction is the literal reason something happens.

I like that, i think i believe both theories in a way. I believe that it's all just consequence, after all, how could it not be? But i also believe that there has to be some sort of karma or yin yang something going around, otherwise, wouldn't the whole butterfly theory create total chaos in the universe? I think that's why they call it the chaos theory too, haha. Sorry for the long post.

[Ezio]

Omniscience vs. Human Free will. A Paradox.

Omniscience: Perfect knowledge of past and future events.
Free will: Freedom to choose between alternatives without external coercion.
Paradox: Statements or events that have contradictory and inconsistent properties.

Proposal:

Christianity cannot claim that God is omniscient and also claim that humans have free will. The claims form a paradox, a falsehood.

Reasoning:

If God is omniscient then even before we are born God will have complete knowledge of every decision we are going to make.

Any apparent choice we make regarding the acceptance or denial of Jesus as a savior is predetermined. This must be true to satisfy the assertion that God is omniscient. Effectively we have no choice in the matter. What we think is free will is an illusion. Our choices have been coerced since we exist and act according to the will of God.

Alternatively if human free will is valid, meaning that the outcome of our decisions is not pre-determined or coerced, then God cannot be omniscient, since he would not know in advance our decisions.

Question:

If God knows the decision of every individual, before they are born, regarding the acceptance or denial of Jesus as a savior, then why does he create one set of individuals destined for heaven and another set destined for eternal damnation? This seems unjust, perverse and particularly evil.

Conclusions:

If God is omniscient then humans do not have free will (see argument above) and the apparent arbitrary choice of God to condemn many individuals to eternal damnation is evil. I.e. God does not possess the property of omni benevolence and is therefore not worth our attention.

If humans have true free will then God cannot be omniscient (see argument above). If he is not omniscient then he also cannot be omnipotent since knowledge of the future is a prerequisite for total action. Without these abilities God can no longer be deemed a god – i.e. God does not exist.

If humans do not have free will then the choice of whether to choose Jesus as a savior or not makes total nonsense of Christianity since the choice is pre-determined and we are merely puppets at the hands of a discriminatory puppeteer.

.

[adude113]

^Compatibilism
Compatibilism, as championed by the ancient Greek Stoics (http://www.skateboard-city.com/wiki/Stoics), Hobbes (http://www.skateboard-city.com/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes), Hume (http://www.skateboard-city.com/wiki/David_Hume) and many contemporary philosophers, is a theory that argues that free will (http://www.skateboard-city.com/wiki/Free_will) and determinism (http://www.skateboard-city.com/wiki/Determinism) exist and are in fact compatible.[3] (http://www.skateboard-city.com/messageboard/#cite_note-2) Determinists argue that all acts that take place are predetermined by prior causes, including human actions. If a free action is defined as one that is not predetermined by prior causes, then determinism, which claims that human actions are predetermined, rules out the possibility of free actions.
A compatibilist, or soft determinist, in contrast, will define a free act in a way that does not hinge on the presence or absence of prior causes. For example, one could define a free act as one that involves no compulsion by another person. Since the physical universe and the laws of nature are not persons, actions which are caused by the laws of nature, would still be free acts, and therefore it is wrong to conclude that universal determinism would mean we are never free.
For example, you could choose to continue reading or to stop reading this article; while a compatibilist determinist would not deny that whatever choice you make will have been predetermined since the beginning of time, they will argue that this choice that you make is an example of free will because no one is forcing you to make whatever choice you make. In contrast, someone could be holding a gun to your head and telling you that unless you read the article, he/she will kill you; to a compatibilist, that is an example of a lack of free will. (The compatibilist account sometimes includes internal compulsions such as kleptomania (http://www.skateboard-city.com/wiki/Kleptomania) or addiction (http://www.skateboard-city.com/wiki/Addiction).)
Further, according to Hume, free will should not be understood as an absolute ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances. Rather, it is a hypothetical ability to have chosen differently if one had been differently psychologically disposed by some different beliefs or desires. That is, when one says that one could either continue to read this page or to delete it, one doesn't really mean that both choices are compatible with the complete state of the world right now, but rather that if one had desired to delete it one would have, even though as a matter of fact one actually desires to continue reading it, and therefore that is what will actually happen.
Hume also maintains that free acts are not uncaused (or self-caused as Kant (http://www.skateboard-city.com/wiki/Immanuel_Kant) argued) but rather caused by our choices as determined by our beliefs, desires, and by our characters. While a decision-making process exists in Hume's determinism, this process is governed by a causal chain of events. For example, one may make the decision to support a charity, but that decision is determined by the conditions that existed prior to the decision being made.
Critics of compatibilism often focus on the definition of free will: they agree that the compatibilists are showing something to be compatible with determinism, but they think that something cannot properly be called free will. Incompatibilists are happy to accept that lack of coercion is a necessary criterion for free will (a coerced act is not free), but doubt that is sufficient (an un-coerced act is free). They believe "free will" refers to genuine (e.g. absolute, ultimate) alternate possibilities for beliefs, desires or actions, rather than merely counterfactual (http://www.skateboard-city.com/wiki/Counterfactual_conditional) ones. In the absence of such possibilities, the belief that free will confers responsibility is held to be false.
However, a compatibilist may respond with the argument mentioned above stating that non-determinism is also incompatible with free will, so the Libertarian is no better off. The compatibilist may also argue on conceptual grounds that "free will" has nothing to do with ultimate causes on a grand metaphysical scale, but instead only refers to an apparent fact of human psychology (i.e., that conscious mental states seem to play an active role in determining the choices that are made).
Compatibilists often continue and argue that determinism is not just compatible with free will, but actually necessary for it. If one's actions aren't determined by one's beliefs, desires, and character, then it seems that they aren't one's real actions.

[edit (http://www.skateboard-city.com/w/index.php?title=Compatibilism_and_incompatibilism&action=edit&section=2)] Compatibilism

wiki lol, but answers your thing.

[Ezio]

um

if determinism is true then we don't have any responsibility over anything that we do, really. and if freedom requires responsibility, aren't we...not free? lol, meaning that compatibilism, according to your post, is "wrong"?

[salvemaster]

^ I think the whole 'compaitbilism' concept is really just revolving around the idea that, in developing reason and higher levels of consciousness and self awareness, humans have voided natural determinism.

I would view natural determinism as the fact that everything that has happened over the course of eternity has been cause by something else, and because of that, it couldn't have happened any other way, yaknow?

But i think compatibilism is arguing that living creature's ability to choose and affect their environment separates them from natural cause and effect. That every event throughout the history of time has been predetermined because the laws of physics work only one way and with only one possible outcome.

But it also assumes that every event led up to the birth of life, but that life was not controlled by mere physics and shit, so that living, reasoning organisms have free will in that their actions are not a sole result of nature.

Idk if i buy that, i guess it would make sense though since no form of physics could go from affecting natural events to affecting the thoughts and actions of a species, right?

[Fudopi]

If your given a choice between a apple or a orange to eat. Your going to pick the one that, you believe taste the best and give you the most pleasurable experience. The amount of pleasure given is decided by taste. What is taste but the chemical reaction between the taste buds stimuli and your brain. Your preference has already been decided by DNA.

I wouldn't always do that tho... animals ALWAYS choose what seems best.

If one day I decide "ya know, apples normally taste better but I haven't had an orange in awhile" that's just free will. Nothing is stopping me, and I could do that at any time. So it's not pre determined at all. We have preferences, but we don't stick to them a lot of the time.

[adude113]

But there's something that's making you choose the orange today. Like it's not for no reason. The fact that you haven't had an apple in a while and you're in the mood for an orange are making you choose the orange. And since you usually eat apples, that's why you like oranges better. And you're in the mood for an orange because something triggered in your brain that made you crave the taste or something, and that happened because you were faced with the choice and your brain knew that you haven't had an orange in a while.

And everything there can be traced back to something else, so basically, everything that happened was going to happen anyway. Thus, it was predetermined. And that's what I believe.


And for the record, everyone who read my compatibilism quote post, I'm actually leaning more towards hard determinism. So we don't have control over what we do.

[salvemaster]

^ About the determinism thing, why do you think we have reason if we aren't really using it, since reason is only reason when we apply it to choice?

So adude, do you mean spiritual determinism in that science and genetics and physics can be altered by God to carry out his will of fate? Or do you mean that everything will happen one way do to basic natural law of consequence? They're essentially the same, yet so paradoxical.

I mean, in stating that everything is predetermined by God, you're stating that nothing has an individual purpose, only a purpose to God. Like, why is this happening if there's only one way it can happen, what's the point of this level of consciousness if we're not really using it?

And as for the apple orange thing, you could argue that free will is separate from science and physics, that somewhere amongst the chemical reactions and shit, there is a soul that belongs to all living creatures that cannot be interpreted by natural law, only used to interpret natural law.

I'm pretty sure that's what vitalism is about, that free will is separate from direct physical influence, not in a religious sense, but in the sense that we have the ability to act against instinct (the natural law of reason?).

[adude113]

I do not mean spiritual determinism. I mean more like basic natural law of consequence. It's not necessarily predetermined by anything, and we do "use" the level of consciousness, but everything we think, observe, do, etc. is predetermined. So I guess like we're aware of what we do, but we don't really control it. Like even when we practice self-control and stuff, we feel it and are aware of what we're doing and it feels like we're controlling what we do (I guess like our conscious both acts out and observes what's already predetermined), but it's just what happens because of previous events or whatever. And those happened because of previous events, and it goes back to the beginning, and it starts somewhere I guess, but the chains of events kinda means that everything that ever happened and will ever happened is predetermined (though not necesarily by God or anyone).

I guess another way of saying part of it would be that there is no such thing as random. Though I guess that could maybe be another thread.

[stinkingfish]

I guess another way of saying part of it would be that there is no such thing as random.

I was thinking about that. What is random? most things in our society deemed as random is just algorithm to form a pseudo random number. random cannot be something not bounded by physics like rolling a dice, because rolling a dice is just the consequence of all the physical atoms of the universes reacting to the energy of rolling the die, which in turn was predetermined by physics. So what is outside of our constant universe, an alternative universe. where something does not happen. Where the butterfly effect forks off and creates it's own separate reality from our own. with this I bring in the double slit experiment.

YouTube - Dr Quantum - Double Slit Experiment (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc)

it found that unobserved particles would be shot straight out of a hole, will randomly not go straight and will by a small probability not go the predicted path. It's unpredetermined, and in a sense defeats the notion of a powerful "god" planning every motion.

with that a wikiqoute

Experience in the micro world of sub-atomic particles forces us to reconceptualize some of our most commonplace ideas.

One of the most striking consequences of the new science is that it is not in agreement with the belief of Laplace that an omniscient entity, knowing the initial positions and velocities of all particles in the universe at one time, could predict their positions at any future time. (To paraphrase Laplace's idea, the positions and velocities of all things at any given time depend absolutely on their previous positions and velocities and the absolute laws that govern physical interactions.) Laplace believed that such particles would follow the laws of motion discovered by Newton, but twentieth century physics made it clear that the motions of sub-atomic particles and even some small atoms cannot be predicted by using the laws of Newtonian physics.[12] For instance, most of the orbits for electrons moving around atomic nuclei that are permitted by Newtonian physics are excluded by the new physics. And it is not even clear what the "movement" of a particle such as a photon may be when it is not clear that it "goes through" either one slit or the other, but it is clear that the probability of its arrival at various points on the target screen is a function of its wavelength and of the distance between the slits. Whereas Laplace would expect an omniscient mind to be able to predict with absolute confidence the arrival of a photon at some specific point on the target screen, it turns out that the particle may arrive at one of a great number of points, but that the percentage of particles that arrive at each of such points is determined by the laws of the new physics.

[salvemaster]

^ Woah. That's really sick. But is that really disproving Laplace, or interfering with it?

Like, the belief of Laplace is obviously what we were talking about in that every physical (perhaps even mental) action is the direct result of some sort of Newtonian natural law of consequence, and that if every sizable force around an event was know, then the outcome could be calculated with quantum precision, right?

So in stating that randomness is a valid concept, i don't think that's wholly disproving Laplace's theory, but maybe it's disrupting it. Like, everything can be calculated by an omniscient mind (even though that's relatively impossible), everything except for the location of the arrival of the particle in the double slit experiment.

That's sorta what i was thinking about with living organisms' reasoning. Like, can that really be calculated wholly by Newtonian physics? Although i think it might have more to do with genetics. Like, could we really predict a person's actions if we knew all of the mental/genetic/physical factors involved in the formulation of a decision? Or is reasoning separate from Laplace's idea of fate?

Shit, that's scary. Just thinking about that creeps me the fuck out. Like, if humans advanc so much to the point that we could interpret things through an 'omniscient mind', then we could literally see the natural future, and from there, what's stopping us from calculating thoughts and mental processes into that 'mind'?

We'd be able to read peoples minds...

[stinkingfish]

^ Woah. That's really sick. But is that really disproving Laplace, or interfering with it?

Like, the belief of Laplace is obviously what we were talking about in that every physical (perhaps even mental) action is the direct result of some sort of Newtonian natural law of consequence, and that if every sizable force around an event was know, then the outcome could be calculated with quantum precision, right?

So in stating that randomness is a valid concept, i don't think that's wholly disproving Laplace's theory, but maybe it's disrupting it. Like, everything can be calculated by an omniscient mind (even though that's relatively impossible), everything except for the location of the arrival of the particle in the double slit experiment.

My idea is that the particle from the double slit experiment's would create a butterfly effect that is dependent on the result of the randomness of the double slit. The omniscient can't calculate what is not known becuase the result is undefined.



That's sorta what i was thinking about with living organisms' reasoning. Like, can that really be calculated wholly by Newtonian physics? Although i think it might have more to do with genetics. Like, could we really predict a person's actions if we knew all of the mental/genetic/physical factors involved in the formulation of a decision? Or is reasoning separate from Laplace's idea of fate?

Shit, that's scary. Just thinking about that creeps me the fuck out. Like, if humans advanc so much to the point that we could interpret things through an 'omniscient mind', then we could literally see the natural future, and from there, what's stopping us from calculating thoughts and mental processes into that 'mind'?

We'd be able to read peoples minds...

I believe we could, because when it all comes down to its all math.
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/purity.png

Also we already discussed the idea of transhumanist fate in humanity where the consciousness is electronicaly stored and saved. If a computer program simulating reality aka The Matrix, was interacting with our minds, a powerful program can then predict what choice the person will make aka the Oracle. By figuring out our inner psychology the matrix can prearrange what choice we will make aka the Architect. All in all the matrix was a good movie.

but I guess that would be a whole new thread of the brain in the vat theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat

[salvemaster]

^ Hmm, i never thought of the Matrix as that type of 'omniscient mind' before. That's interesting though. But then again i think we're quite a ways away from creating a device that could store and apply enoguh data to calculate psychology as a factor of biology/physics/mathematics alone.

That still goes against the idea that maybe thought is separate from predictable mathematics, and consequentially leads back to the idea that even human consciousness is just the outcome of natural processes.

So then what exactly is awareness?

[stinkingfish]

^ Hmm, i never thought of the Matrix as that type of 'omniscient mind' before. That's interesting though. But then again i think we're quite a ways away from creating a device that could store and apply enoguh data to calculate psychology as a factor of biology/physics/mathematics alone.

That still goes against the idea that maybe thought is separate from predictable mathematics, and consequentially leads back to the idea that even human consciousness is just the outcome of natural processes.

So then what exactly is awareness?

I guess you can call the oracle the Laplace's deamon

/unfunny pun