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#41
11-12-2007, 12:56 AM
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Re: Freewill
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] If you dont have free will to control your emotions (and by this I will assume you include things like desires and motivations and preferences) then who really cares if its possible to choose C or !C? Your preferences dictate your choices, and you are at the mercy of your preferences. [/ QUOTE ] If you are raised by a worthless mother, who fed you at McDonalds, Burger King and Dunkin Donuts a good portion of childhood, and you were 60lbs overweight when you left home and learned about proper diet in college, you would now have free will to choose what you will eat. Your mind will crave the junk, your desire to break the cycle, if strong enough, will win the battle. Just like an alcoholic, mentally & physically addicted, can free his mind of the desire to drink over time. [/ QUOTE ] Irrelevant. You are haggling over which of your uncontrollable desires makes your decisions for you, your desire for the alcohol or your desire to overcome your alcoholism. The end result is the same. 
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#42
11-12-2007, 01:00 AM
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Re: Freewill
[ QUOTE ]
In terms of the common definition of free will, as some (usually supernatural) nondeterministic phenomenon, I think the answer "no" stands out as the most rational. There is certainly no evidence to the contrary, and that's about all I need. Of course, it's impossible to completely disprove free will, and given our current level of knowledge we can't even say that free will is necessarily implausible. [/ QUOTE ] Why be so generous with the metaphysicists? I demand evidence that consciousness can be even provisionally modeled as an idealized Will. (That is, a self-contained entity that deliberately chooses among discrete possibilities.) Honestly I think it's more meaningful to debate whether a video game villain powered by a random number generator has free will.
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#43
11-12-2007, 01:03 AM
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Re: Freewill
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] If you dont have free will to control your emotions (and by this I will assume you include things like desires and motivations and preferences) then who really cares if its possible to choose C or !C? Your preferences dictate your choices, and you are at the mercy of your preferences. [/ QUOTE ] If you are raised by a worthless mother, who fed you at McDonalds, Burger King and Dunkin Donuts a good portion of childhood, and you were 60lbs overweight when you left home and learned about proper diet in college, you would now have free will to choose what you will eat. Your mind will crave the junk, your desire to break the cycle, if strong enough, will win the battle. Just like an alcoholic, mentally & physically addicted, can free his mind of the desire to drink over time. [/ QUOTE ] Irrelevant. You are haggling over which of your uncontrollable desires makes your decisions for you, your desire for the alcohol or your desire to overcome your alcoholism. The end result is the same. [/ QUOTE ]Well I think you could do it that way, or you could haggle over whether your desires control you(no free will) or you can control your action regardless of desires(free will). What is it that forbids the ability to be in control of "you". Ok so what do you call the actions that one makes that aren't instinct or reflexes, but purposeful, deliberate actions?
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#44
11-12-2007, 01:03 AM
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Re: Freewill
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] In terms of the common definition of free will, as some (usually supernatural) nondeterministic phenomenon, I think the answer "no" stands out as the most rational. There is certainly no evidence to the contrary, and that's about all I need. Of course, it's impossible to completely disprove free will, and given our current level of knowledge we can't even say that free will is necessarily implausible. [/ QUOTE ] Why be so generous with the metaphysicists? I demand evidence that consciousness can be even provisionally modeled as an idealized Will. (That is, a self-contained entity that deliberately chooses among discrete possibilities.) Honestly I think it's more meaningful to debate whether a video game villain powered by a random number generator has free will. [/ QUOTE ] Good point. His choices are built into the system, but they arent made for him by any game designer. I think you'd have to hypothesize a real random number generator (which is a huge can of worms) but I suppose the free will advocates must do the same.
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#45
11-12-2007, 01:05 AM
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Re: Freewill
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] If you dont have free will to control your emotions (and by this I will assume you include things like desires and motivations and preferences) then who really cares if its possible to choose C or !C? Your preferences dictate your choices, and you are at the mercy of your preferences. [/ QUOTE ] If you are raised by a worthless mother, who fed you at McDonalds, Burger King and Dunkin Donuts a good portion of childhood, and you were 60lbs overweight when you left home and learned about proper diet in college, you would now have free will to choose what you will eat. Your mind will crave the junk, your desire to break the cycle, if strong enough, will win the battle. Just like an alcoholic, mentally & physically addicted, can free his mind of the desire to drink over time. [/ QUOTE ] Irrelevant. You are haggling over which of your uncontrollable desires makes your decisions for you, your desire for the alcohol or your desire to overcome your alcoholism. The end result is the same. [/ QUOTE ]Well I think you could do it that way, or you could haggle over whether your desires control you(no free will) or you can control your desires(free will). What is it that forbids the ability to be in control of "you". [/ QUOTE ] He told me. I'm just trying to argue within his framework here, I personally dont think the free will debate is all that interesting and if pushed I'd say "Nope, no free will, see madnak or subfallen for explanation." But he claimed that you werent free to choose your emotions (and from that I inferred desires and motivations, perhaps wrongly) and so that claim has consequences.
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#46
11-12-2007, 01:07 AM
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Re: Freewill
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] If you dont have free will to control your emotions (and by this I will assume you include things like desires and motivations and preferences) then who really cares if its possible to choose C or !C? Your preferences dictate your choices, and you are at the mercy of your preferences. [/ QUOTE ] If you are raised by a worthless mother, who fed you at McDonalds, Burger King and Dunkin Donuts a good portion of childhood, and you were 60lbs overweight when you left home and learned about proper diet in college, you would now have free will to choose what you will eat. Your mind will crave the junk, your desire to break the cycle, if strong enough, will win the battle. Just like an alcoholic, mentally & physically addicted, can free his mind of the desire to drink over time. [/ QUOTE ] Irrelevant. You are haggling over which of your uncontrollable desires makes your decisions for you, your desire for the alcohol or your desire to overcome your alcoholism. The end result is the same. [/ QUOTE ] I understand now. All this time, I've been thinking that my treating of my fellow man in a way that I would like to be treated, was a decision made on my own, since a good number of people do not do the same. Now it turns out, that my desire is nothing more than genetic.
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#47
11-12-2007, 01:07 AM
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Re: Freewill
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] If you dont have free will to control your emotions (and by this I will assume you include things like desires and motivations and preferences) then who really cares if its possible to choose C or !C? Your preferences dictate your choices, and you are at the mercy of your preferences. [/ QUOTE ] If you are raised by a worthless mother, who fed you at McDonalds, Burger King and Dunkin Donuts a good portion of childhood, and you were 60lbs overweight when you left home and learned about proper diet in college, you would now have free will to choose what you will eat. Your mind will crave the junk, your desire to break the cycle, if strong enough, will win the battle. Just like an alcoholic, mentally & physically addicted, can free his mind of the desire to drink over time. [/ QUOTE ] Irrelevant. You are haggling over which of your uncontrollable desires makes your decisions for you, your desire for the alcohol or your desire to overcome your alcoholism. The end result is the same. [/ QUOTE ]Well I think you could do it that way, or you could haggle over whether your desires control you(no free will) or you can control your desires(free will). What is it that forbids the ability to be in control of "you". [/ QUOTE ] He told me. I'm just trying to argue within his framework here, I personally dont think the free will debate is all that interesting and if pushed I'd say "Nope, no free will, see madnak or subfallen for explanation." But he claimed that you werent free to choose your emotions (and from that I inferred desires and motivations, perhaps wrongly) and so that claim has consequences. [/ QUOTE ]Sorry, I'm still trying to figure out what everyone is arguing about wrt freewill.
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#48
11-12-2007, 01:09 AM
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Re: Freewill
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] If you dont have free will to control your emotions (and by this I will assume you include things like desires and motivations and preferences) then who really cares if its possible to choose C or !C? Your preferences dictate your choices, and you are at the mercy of your preferences. [/ QUOTE ] If you are raised by a worthless mother, who fed you at McDonalds, Burger King and Dunkin Donuts a good portion of childhood, and you were 60lbs overweight when you left home and learned about proper diet in college, you would now have free will to choose what you will eat. Your mind will crave the junk, your desire to break the cycle, if strong enough, will win the battle. Just like an alcoholic, mentally & physically addicted, can free his mind of the desire to drink over time. [/ QUOTE ] Irrelevant. You are haggling over which of your uncontrollable desires makes your decisions for you, your desire for the alcohol or your desire to overcome your alcoholism. The end result is the same. [/ QUOTE ] I understand now. All this time, I've been thinking that my treating of my fellow man in a way that I would like to be treated, was a decision made on my own, since a good number of people do not do the same. Now it turns out, that my desire is nothing more than genetic. [/ QUOTE ]TBH, there is a genetic component to that moral rule. The golden rule seems to be part of our genetic make up.
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#49
11-12-2007, 01:11 AM
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Re: Freewill
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] If you dont have free will to control your emotions (and by this I will assume you include things like desires and motivations and preferences) then who really cares if its possible to choose C or !C? Your preferences dictate your choices, and you are at the mercy of your preferences. [/ QUOTE ] If you are raised by a worthless mother, who fed you at McDonalds, Burger King and Dunkin Donuts a good portion of childhood, and you were 60lbs overweight when you left home and learned about proper diet in college, you would now have free will to choose what you will eat. Your mind will crave the junk, your desire to break the cycle, if strong enough, will win the battle. Just like an alcoholic, mentally & physically addicted, can free his mind of the desire to drink over time. [/ QUOTE ] Irrelevant. You are haggling over which of your uncontrollable desires makes your decisions for you, your desire for the alcohol or your desire to overcome your alcoholism. The end result is the same. [/ QUOTE ] I understand now. All this time, I've been thinking that my treating of my fellow man in a way that I would like to be treated, was a decision made on my own, since a good number of people do not do the same. Now it turns out, that my desire is nothing more than genetic. [/ QUOTE ] While that may very well be true (and probably is) its also irrelevant. I'm working within your framework here. If it isnt THAT desire, its some other desire. And we cant choose our desires right? Can we choose which of our desires is strongest? No, we cant. And how do we choose what we dont want to choose?
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#50
11-12-2007, 01:26 AM
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Re: Freewill
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] If you dont have free will to control your emotions (and by this I will assume you include things like desires and motivations and preferences) then who really cares if its possible to choose C or !C? Your preferences dictate your choices, and you are at the mercy of your preferences. [/ QUOTE ] If you are raised by a worthless mother, who fed you at McDonalds, Burger King and Dunkin Donuts a good portion of childhood, and you were 60lbs overweight when you left home and learned about proper diet in college, you would now have free will to choose what you will eat. Your mind will crave the junk, your desire to break the cycle, if strong enough, will win the battle. Just like an alcoholic, mentally & physically addicted, can free his mind of the desire to drink over time. [/ QUOTE ] Irrelevant. You are haggling over which of your uncontrollable desires makes your decisions for you, your desire for the alcohol or your desire to overcome your alcoholism. The end result is the same. [/ QUOTE ] I understand now. All this time, I've been thinking that my treating of my fellow man in a way that I would like to be treated, was a decision made on my own, since a good number of people do not do the same. Now it turns out, that my desire is nothing more than genetic. [/ QUOTE ] While that may very well be true (and probably is) its also irrelevant. I'm working within your framework here. If it isnt THAT desire, its some other desire. And we cant choose our desires right? Can we choose which of our desires is strongest? No, we cant. And how do we choose what we dont want to choose? [/ QUOTE ] We cannot choose our desires. They are primarily genetic/environment/lifestyle induced. So we can't choose which desire is the strongest. We can identify which one is. An alcoholic, physically and mentally addicted to alcohol, has a much stronger desire to drink than a desire to get sober. Yet they do. Go to an open AA meeting and ask one who has been sober for at least 5 years how he/she did it.
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