Freewill

[madnak]

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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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The problem is that some people believe in it, and I can't prove them wrong. I can see no reason to believe in it, but I'm hesistant to write it off on that basis.

Don't get me wrong, I think the whole notion of that kind of "will" is ill-defined and foolish. I think it rarely gets beyond the level of Moseley's posts. But I accept the possibility that someone does have special knowledge of the subject.

To use an analogy from the other thread, if I lived in 1200 I would be justified in concluding that there is no Pluto. However, I would not be justified in saying that the question of Pluto's existence is meaningless, or in saying that nobody is justified in concluding that Pluto exists. (Even though, at the time, it's possible nobody was.)

[vhawk01]

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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.

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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.

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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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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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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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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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Apparently you are wrong about which desire is strongest, since they dont drink. And their perception of their desires is potentially pretty misleading. After all, I feel like I have free will!

[Moseley]

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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.

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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.

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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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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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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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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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Apparently you are wrong about which desire is strongest, since they dont drink. And their perception of their desires is potentially pretty misleading. After all, I feel like I have free will!

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LO FREAKIN L [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Moseley]

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"The problem is that some people believe in it" (free will), "and I can't prove them wrong. I can see no reason to believe in it, but I'm hesistant to write it off on that basis."

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So what was it that made you choose the profession that you are in, since your will to choose freely doesn't exist?

[madnak]

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Is sense of self the same type of illusion that free will is, to determinists.

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I don't like the term "illusion." I like how Sub put it, "I define 'free will' as an experiential label, not a metaphysical property." Free will really does exist, it's a valid phenomenon - it just doesn't exist at the level many people think it does.

This is why I feel dishonest when I say that I don't believe in free will. What we label as "free will" does exist, it just doesn't have any meaning outside a limited context. It certainly doesn't have any metaphysical (much less ontological) meaning.

I take a similar view of the sense of self. Obviously the sense of self exists - but to conflate sense of self and an idea of "actual self" (or to suggest that our sense of self has metaphysical implications of any kind) is silly.

(I guess "yes" would be the short answer.)

[vhawk01]

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"The problem is that some people believe in it" (free will), "and I can't prove them wrong. I can see no reason to believe in it, but I'm hesistant to write it off on that basis."

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So what was it that made you choose the profession that you are in, since your will to choose freely doesn't exist?

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He's a bum, he doesnt have a profession, he is a STUDENT for Christ's sake. He has no free will obv.

[madnak]

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So what was it that made you choose the profession that you are in, since your will to choose freely doesn't exist?

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I majored in physics because it seemed challenging, because I'm deeply interested in how the world works, and because what I knew of physics was beautiful and seemed like a lot of fun. Among other reasons.

But I don't want to get into a complex analysis of human decision-making processes. So I'll take a reductionistic view. I chose because the chemical processes in my brain led to the action of writing "physics" on the "major" line in my application. Most likely my prefrontal cortex and the organization of the neurons there were responsible for the decision-making process itself. But I don't know what role glial cells, different areas of my brain, and environmental inputs (for example) played.

[madnak]

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He's a bum, he doesnt have a profession, he is a STUDENT for Christ's sake. He has no free will obv.

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But I do have free time. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Subfallen]

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"The problem is that some people believe in it" (free will), "and I can't prove them wrong. I can see no reason to believe in it, but I'm hesistant to write it off on that basis."

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So what was it that made you choose the profession that you are in, since your will to choose freely doesn't exist?

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All of Being from Time immemorial has been decisive in ushering in madnak's career choice. One tiniest miscue and he wouldn't even exist.

If you don't feel the interconnection of all prerequisite Reality sufficiently dignifies your choices(?), then...I respect your audacity, good sir, but I can scarcely empathize.

[vhawk01]

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He's a bum, he doesnt have a profession, he is a STUDENT for Christ's sake. He has no free will obv.

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But I do have free time. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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Madnak 1, vhawk 0.