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iambiguous wrote:What particular truth, in what particular context? And how would we go about determining if this truth [like our individual perceptions of it] reflects our capacity to freely grasp it [and defend it] or is only subsumed [like everything else] in the laws of nature unfolding only as they ever do, can, must?

Exuberant Teleportation wrote:Matter transforms into energy, and we are evanescent, outstanding, beautiful creatures, of marvelous construction and design.

There's something out there called "dark matter-energy". We can feel its presence, but it can't be directly penetrated. Who's to say that there really isn't a God consciousness system floating over our heads that can point and direct us to make miracles happen?

As logical and scientific you get about the forces moving us around, a small act of courage can move mountains.

You know, like when I was dreaming I could fly in Fairytopia.

promethean75 wrote:i think biggs is asking for an example in real life, not a video game.

unless, of course, i'm wrong.

...an amoeba has a body without ‘knowing’ anything, especially not in the self-reflective way you do. I think the answer to the mystery of our selves instead lies in our layering of representations – unlike an amoeba, not merely knowing things, but knowing we know them.

But there’s more to Dennett’s thesis. He says we bootstrap our way to (self-)consciousness by a process of interactions between our brains/bodies and our social environments, with back-and-forth communication about reasons for actions, which develops the mind to think in such terms.

He also cites a Harry Frankfurt essay, ‘Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person’ (1971), which says, “A person can want one thing but want to want something else – and act on that second-order desire” – like your desire to eat that chocolate cake versus your desire to lose weight. Dennett argues that this capacity to reflect on and mediate among one’s desires is the essence of personhood. But this seems at odds with Schopenhauer’s saying that one can’t choose one’s desires.

In the end, Dennett insists that we can and do use deliberation to resolve such internal conflicts, and that there is somebody home – the self – after all, to take responsibility and be morally accountable.

promethean75 wrote:fine. ET, i'll handle this.

jasmine bunny feathers architectural spin vectors transform lugia in dimensional subterfuge. skyrocket rainbows trust in lemon alleyways of melding mind love.

Exuberant Teleportation wrote:God, the Creator, the Infinite Being, manifests Himself in creation. This God, the existence, is the Cosmic God, the God of Albert Einstein. Yahweh is just a piece of this infinite existence. Wisdom is the highest level of consciousness, the level where everything is a simple unity. This would mean good and evil cease to exist, unified as a whole. This unified Cosmic God of Albert Einstein seems to be reached in Buddhism, in a state of nothingness. It is on this level of nothingness that the laws of nature cease to exist, and can therefore be altered. If we can alter the flow of nature, and become the cause rather than being controlled by the effects of nature, in my opinion there may be a free will. To achieve free will, we need to become one with nature, the Cosmic God, on this highest level of Wisdom. Wisdom is like water, infinitely formless, the void of nothingness. From this void of nothingness infinite things can be conceived into creation. It is through Understanding, the level where division exists, that the flow of Wisdom can be focused. To focus the flow of Wisdom by the power of Understanding would be to control nature. If this power to focus the flow of the Cosmos can only be achieved by the Cosmic God, perhaps the Cosmic God, the existence, is the only free will, its puppets being the means by which balance of the Force is achieved. The Buddhist way of emptiness and neutrality may be the only potential escape in my opinion. Although Yahweh is our Savior and our Shepherd, the infinite Cosmic God, the existence, seems to be reached only in Buddhism, in inner peace with nature.
The Existence is not a person or something separate from us. We all are part of this God: The Existential God. And there's no free will because there’s no primordial cause into existence. Every element of the existence is organized, transformed all the time by all the other elements that surround the element in the cause. Even our thoughts (effects) are influenced all the time by exterior causes. These effects (our thoughts) became instantly causes for other effects that we produce all the time. Put a little bit your imagination in this game and you will understand the mechanism of the Existence. There's no free will and you can't get the free will. We are in the middle of a system based on causes that produce effects, effects will transform instantly into causes creating other effects from infinite to infinite. Imagine for example that our Universe is organized the way that it is because of some exterior causes that are produced into an extra-universal system (the Omniverse if you like). If the Universe has these laws of physics these constants and so on is because of some exterior causes that produced these effects (laws of physics) into our Universe. Every element of the existence depends by the other elements that surround it to be what it is. (You are one of these elements, and me, and the atoms that surrounds us, elementary particles, planets, mountains, flowers, dark matter, dark energy, everything that exist and that we can't even imagine). We are so limited in our perceptions. We know nothing about this Universe, not to mention about other Universes, Omniverse, dear God, with all our instruments we can't perceive more than 4% of this Universe. 96% is missing. But from this limited point of view I dare to say that there's no free will and I explained to you through what I call: "The First Existential Law". On that law is based all the Existence, also through this law I demonstrate that this Universe does not appear from nothing, even nothing has a previous cause for its existence. There's a cause who produce the universe and that's probably the Big Bang because this universe is not infinite and I could demonstrate that to you again. There's a long story. The Big Bang has also other causes for its own existence being at its own time an effect, the Big Bang transforms instantly into a cause producing other effects. In this case the Universe is simple. You are also an effect produced by a whole bunch of causes that surround you all the time, you also became instantly a cause to produce other effects around you or even far away from you (with the thought and energies that you generate). The universe is a very complicated system. The only element that is immortal in this case is the Existence itself that is transformed all the time into that law that I send it to you. Is improper to talk about time when we talk about the existential system. The Existence is infinite in space and time, is eternal and immortal. We are all a part of this wonderful System.

Exuberant Teleportation wrote:I was dancing with Bunny atop a Seattle SuperSonics UFO cup tower. She sprayed a bunch of mist and fired a laser through the fog. She liked pushing Darth Vader buttons to chime and resonate through the storm. Voluminous pipes made Vivec travel over the landscape in an angry cloud. The elements of time, distance, gravity, stars, planets, black holes, tropical, nordic, and igloos made Anakin and Padme at the end of Phantom Menace voyage via podracer powered by a golden globe of light through flamingo Bunny palace of worship that made Bunny really infuriated about being Buddha. Buddha focuses the flow of Vivec as a big bearded man in the sky had a bunch of tubes and pipes connected to him that were feeding off of sexual energies. He was the lord of the Field. Buddha came to destroy civilization with no mercy or Love for His fellow man, being completely without desire. All He saw was an enormous Factory for crushing and executing like a Scyther computer. People fell into ruin and discord as He swept the sky with cards and sparkle dazzle sky castles.

In all the discussions about free will, what should be included is freedom. If all you have to eat is rice, guess what you’re going to have for diner. Let’s suppose you have money and traveled to Chicago, New York, or Paris. You go out to eat, but haven’t decided what. You go out the door and start walking around a place you’ve never been to. Where will the journey take you?

No one can predict what you’ll wind up eating. You can’t predict what you’ll wind up eating. You pass 20 restaurants, back up five, and wind up at restaurant number fifteen. There are 100 things on the menu. You narrow it down to two choices, and you can go either way. You wind up with A instead of B, but you could have gone with B instead of A.

Exuberant Teleportation wrote:

promethean75 wrote:fine. ET, i'll handle this.

jasmine bunny feathers architectural spin vectors transform lugia in dimensional subterfuge. skyrocket rainbows trust in lemon alleyways of melding mind love.

But You forgot the Bunny Box!!

As humans, we like to think that our decisions are under our conscious control — that we have free will. Philosophers have debated that concept for centuries, and now Haynes and other experimental neuroscientists are raising a new challenge. They argue that consciousness of a decision may be a mere biochemical afterthought, with no influence whatsoever on a person's actions. According to this logic, they say, free will is an illusion. "We feel we choose, but we don't," says Patrick Haggard, a neuroscientist at University College London.

You may have thought you decided whether to have tea or coffee this morning, for example, but the decision may have been made long before you were aware of it. For Haynes, this is unsettling. "I'll be very honest, I find it very difficult to deal with this," he says. "How can I call a will 'mine' if I don't even know when it occurred and what it has decided to do?"

Let me offer my own thoughts on this issue. When the crewmen battle over the wheel, it’s not a chaotic process where one outcome is as likely as another, like rolling dice. Saying the outcome is deterministically governed by a long string of preceding causes is also far too simplistic. Viewed more holistically, everything about those battles is a reflection of who you are, your personality and character, constructed over years. This is shaped by many factors beyond your control, yes – your genetic endowment, how your parents raised you, and a host of other environmental influences; but also, importantly, by all the choices and decisions you made along the way. Many of those past choices and decisions were influenced by past battles over the wheel by various gangs of crewmen. But in all those, too, personality/character factors came into play.

Here’s a good illustration of the practical reality of free will. Few actions are more deterministically caused than a smoker’s lighting up – a consequence of physical addiction on top of psychological and behavioral conditioning, all creating a powerful craving. Seemingly a textbook case of B.F. Skinner’s deterministic behaviorism. Yet smokers quit! If that’s not free will, I don’t know what could be.

Dennett invokes Dumbo, the elephant who flies by flapping his ears. At first Dumbo is scared of launching himself off the cliff. But his bird friend has a bright idea. He hands Dumbo a feather, saying it’s a magic feather, and as long as Dumbo holds it, he can fly. It works. Of course he doesn’t really need the feather, and in the end he learns that. Dennett says we too don’t need the feather of magical ideas. But we do have minds with vast capabilities. And, like Dumbo, we should recognize those capabilities – including our free will to run our lives.

Sam Harris believes that free will is an illusion, it doesn’t exist...[He] cannot say that science has proven free will doesn’t exist. He wrote a book and gave lectures based on a conclusion from an inconclusive experiment. That is one heck of a blunder!

In matters of randomness, Harris argues that random choices do exist but doesn’t mean free will. Why? He argues that unless you can explain why you picked one option over the other at random, like the two choices in the restaurant scenario, that’s not free will. I would argue that Sam Harris is wrong. You don’t need to explain why, you simply need to make the choice, understand the choice, and accept the consequences.

I found it interesting that Harris injected this “you need to understand why” into the definition of free will. Seems like an attempt to move the goal post. My statement that free will is simply an illusion rests on shaky ground, therefore I’ll attempt to redefine the term rather than admit my logic may have been a bit faulty.

I really found this statement of Harris interesting as I’ve heard the exact opposite. If you understand why you made a decision it was not free will. Why? Because there were obviously pre-existing reasons that determined the choice. So people arguing that there’s no free will seem to be saying that if you know why you made the choice, it’s not free will, and if you don’t know why you made the choice, it’s not free will. How convenient.

Philosophers aren't convinced that brain scans can demolish free will so easily. Some have questioned the neuroscientists' results and interpretations, arguing that the researchers have not quite grasped the concept that they say they are debunking. Many more don't engage with scientists at all. "Neuroscientists and philosophers talk past each other," says Walter Glannon, a philosopher at the University of Calgary in Canada, who has interests in neuroscience, ethics and free will.

You can lead a horse to water, but without the herd it will not drink.
For a social organism, such as man, the very idea of freedom exceeding its comfort level, is terrifying - like being cast out of the group to face nature on their own.
No matter how absurd, the idea that promises the lie of absolute uniformity and belonging, will be preferable to the truth.

When it comes to analyzing a decision and finding out why it was made, here’s the problem. No matter what decision was made, it can be analyzed and reasoning can be made. If out of 1,000 choices someone went with #937, we can examine the reasoning as to why. But if they went with choice #47, we could also examine the reasoning as to why. For a hard determinist, reasoning why a decision was made becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that it must have been made.

A big criticism of hard determinism is that if people aren’t free to choose their options, nobody can be accountable for them. Criminals were going to do bad things, it’s not like they had any control. We should feel sorry for them. Why should we punish people that couldn’t help what they were doing?

So shouldn’t we change our justice system if we have determined free will doesn’t exist? The answer is no. Not that we should never make changes to our system, but not based on determinism.

This is why I do not consider freedom, or anything an absolute, i.e., a complete whole.
"Freedom from" (negative) refers to past/nature.
"Freedom to" (positive) refers to future/ideal.

The struggle occurs in the present, i.e., nurture, choice, action....

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “there’s a new sheriff in town.” Where did this expression come from? When European settlers in the U.S. headed west, remote towns were established. Without organized law enforcement, these towns were lawless. People didn’t feel safe walking the streets.

So some tough son-of-a-gun comes into town, takes the badge, and makes their presence known. I’m the new sheriff in these parts and everyone will obey the law. If they don’t I will hunt them down and string them up. Not wanting any part of that, people who were causing problems are now walking the straight and narrow. Crime goes down significantly and people now feel safe to walk the streets.

What if the sheriff came in and said, “All your actions are determined, and since everyone is going to do what they’re going to do anyway, no one can be blamed for anything.” What would happen? Crime would continue.

The actions of the sheriff establishing law and order immediately became a past action that directly impacted future actions. Even if these actions were determined, they still made a positive and significant impact. Fatalism is the belief that none of our actions mean anything. That doesn’t make any sense at all.

The bottom line is that a society must establish law and order. Good arms and good laws as Machiavelli would say. This means people need to be made accountable for their actions in order to guide others in making constructive decisions. Actions to help determine future actions.

Hard determinists will often throw out extreme examples where people didn’t have free will. A brain tumor or schizophrenia caused someone to be violent. How can you punish people in those instances? But our justice system already has ways to address those uncommon scenarios. Reasons of insanity or temporary insanity, if proven to the court, receive a different sentence than those determined to have control, meaning free will.

What about someone under the influence of drugs or alcohol? They are made accountable for taking the drugs or alcohol. We don’t let off drunk drivers because their judgement was impaired.

Fatalists:

What happens in the future is UNRELATED to what humans do in the present.

Determinists:

What happens in the future is RELATED to what humans do in the present, but also, what humans do in the present is RELATED to what happened in the past.

Magnus Anderson wrote: Either you are a victim of causality or you are a victim of chance. Either way, you're a victim of something. And it is said you're a victim because it is thought that you're in a bad situation. But causality does not imply victimhood. Causality can make you a victor just as much as it can make you a victim. The same applies to chance. You can be a victim or a victor because of what happened in the past, but also, you can be a victim or a victor by chance i.e. for no reason at all.

Magnus Anderson wrote: As to what has been determined, that is largely unknown. Maybe it has been determined that you will never get it, meaning that our attempts are futile, assuming that their purpose is to open your eyes; but also, it might have been determined that you won't get it until someone comes along and explains it to you.