Free Will

[durangodawood]

Reasons don't choose for us
They aren't intelligent beings.
That's like saying that we should have some kind of reverence for the which I hear all the time. Nonsensical because the universe isn't intelligent, divine or worthy of devotion.
Reasons don't cause anything that happens.
We do, with our soul, Spirit, body and mind.

If you have no reasons for choosing, then the choice is purely arbitrary or random.

 

[renniks]

If you have no reasons for choosing, then the choice is purely arbitrary or random.

I didn't say there were no reasons. I said reasons don't choose for us.
It's not either no reasons or arbitrary.
False dichotomy.

 

[durangodawood]

I didn't say there were no reasons. I said reasons don't choose for us.
It's not either no reasons or arbitrary.
False dichotomy.

Theres no other ingredient.

Your mind/soul processes the reasons to make the output. But it adds nothing - except for what it has reasons to add.

If your mind adds decision making criteria for which it has no reasons, thats by definition arbitrary.

 

[Chriliman]

I didn't say there were no reasons. I said reasons don't choose for us.
It's not either no reasons or arbitrary.
False dichotomy.

You could clarify this by saying “You are the reason for your choices”

 

[renniks]

Your mind/soul processes the reasons to make the output. But it adds nothing - except for what it has reasons to add.

You still aren't getting it. Sure you process things. But you don't always choose the logical option. The reasons don't take precedence over your choice. They don't cause you to pick a certain path. You are the cause. Therefore you have the freedom to choose different options at different times even if everything were equal.

 

[durangodawood]

You still aren't getting it. Sure you process things. But you don't always choose the logical option. The reasons don't take precedence over your choice. They don't cause you to pick a certain path. You are the cause. Therefore you have the freedom to choose different options at different times even if everything were equal.

Why would you choose different if all your reasons for choosing were the same? It makes no sense at all.

 

[Bradskii]

That's an extremely depressing view of reality.

And since God exists, a false view.

If God exists or not, my life wouldn't have changed in the slightest. I would still have had the friends and experiences I have. I would still (and do still) enjoy life. It would be (and is) enriched by a family that I love and who love me in return. I would still have got immense pleasure in watching my children grow into responsible adults, now with children of their own.

My life is full and meaningful to me and to those close to me. But is there any ultimate meaning to it all? No. And has that affected my life in any way? No. Well...in fact, to a certain extent, knowing that I have won the galactic lottery and have been given a tiny lifetime to experience existence, I have treated it as something special to be enjoyed in the here and now.

Depressing? You must be kidding me.

 

[stevil]

in fact, to a certain extent, knowing that I have won the galactic lottery and have been given a tiny lifetime to experience existence, I have treated it as something special to be enjoyed in the here and now.

Depressing? You must be kidding me.

"After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?"

Dawkins spoken word starts at 1:18

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of those stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?"

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

 

[Bradskii]

You still aren't getting it. Sure you process things. But you don't always choose the logical option. The reasons don't take precedence over your choice. They don't cause you to pick a certain path. You are the cause. Therefore you have the freedom to choose different options at different times even if everything were equal.

I think you're confusing what reasons are. They are post hoc explanations of why you did something.

B: 'Why did you choose X?'
R: 'Well, I chose it because of A, B and C'

So A, B and C are the reasons you made a certain decision. If I asked you did you make the choice because of A, B and C then the answer would be yes. They were the reasons you made it.

Nobody is talking about you being forced into a decision. A, B and C don't force you to make it. But they are the reasons you did, whether it was the logical option or not (which makes not the slightest difference).

If the situation was rerun and all conditions were exactly the same, and that includes you - it includes your mood, your preferences, your very nature, then what on earth is there that would cause a different decision?

You say that 'you are the cause'. But when I say everything is exactly the same, again that includes you. You aren't separate from the process. You are part of it.

 

[Bradskii]

"After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?"

Dawkins spoken word starts at 1:18

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of those stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?"

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

Well, there you go. Dawkins said it much better than I ever could.

 

[renniks]

Why would you choose different if all your reasons for choosing were the same? It makes no sense at all.

Because logic isn't everything. We aren't computers.

 

[renniks]

If the situation was rerun and all conditions were exactly the same, and that includes you - it includes your mood, your preferences, your very nature, then what on earth is there that would cause a different decision?

That only works if you don't believe in the supernatural.
We are more than our preferences and we have more than one nature.
I believe we can make different decisions with the exact same information and the exact same situation, because we aren't computers or robots. It's not all about input and output. We create our reality by our decisions.

 

[durangodawood]

Because logic isn't everything. We aren't computers.

Reasons don't have to be logical. They can be emotional. Or pure desire. They're still reasons though.

 

[Bradskii]

That only works if you don't believe in the supernatural.

Exactly right.

 

[renniks]

Reasons don't have to be logical. They can be emotional. Or pure desire. They're still reasons though.

Do you figure the supernatural in to the equation?
How can a reason be illogical? Think about it.
If it's illogical, it's not actually a reason. But the fact that we can be illogical tells me I probably wouldn't make the same choice twice with the same reasons involved.
I don't think anyone can prove this one way or another. But at every junction in our life we have real choices, and everyone treats free will as if it's real even if they claim it isn't.
So what merit does believing everything is determined have?

 

[durangodawood]

...If it's illogical, it's not actually a reason.

I rammed the back of his car because he flipped me off. Logical? Illogical?

But the fact that we can be illogical tells me I probably wouldn't make the same choice twice with the same reasons involved.

For an emotionally triggered response, why would you do a different action if all the triggered emotions and every other condition was exactly the same? I dont buy it.

I don't think anyone can prove this one way or another. But at every junction in our life we have real choices, and everyone treats free will as if it's real even if they claim it isn't.
So what merit does believing everything is determined have?

I agree, for now, that we have free will. I just reject various arguments for it that dont hold water. For me its more that we're somewhat a "black box" currently, where we lack complete insight into our mental functioning. There could be something truly "supernatural" happening. But that doesnt seem necessary.

 

[Bradskii]

Do you figure the supernatural in to the equation?
How can a reason be illogical? Think about it.
If it's illogical, it's not actually a reason.

In this context, a reason is simply 'why you did something'. It can be the most nonsensical thing you have ever done for the worst of reasons. For the most illogical of reasons. But if I ask you 'why did you do that?', then the answer you give will be the reason why you did it.

 

[Chriliman]

In this context, a reason is simply 'why you did something'. It can be the most nonsensical thing you have ever done for the worst of reasons. For the most illogical of reasons. But if I ask you 'why did you do that?', then the answer you give will be the reason why you did it.

If the answer is “because I wanted to” would you say I wasn’t free to act on my desire because I don’t control my desires?

If so, I’d disagree because we can control our desires through self discipline to an extent that’s arguably enough to consider it “free to do so” or at least “able to do so of our own accord”.

 

[SelfSim]

.. But if I ask you 'why did you do that?', then the answer you give will be the reason why you did it.

Sorry, this explanation just keeps getting more and more empty. Its the person who demands a response to the 'Why?' question that is inferring the response to be 'a reason', whereas the responder simply considers it as being 'an answer'.

An answer is an answer and doesn't have to be a reason from the responder's viewpoint. Reasons and answers have distinct meanings, y'know(?) Reasons already assume that universal causality exists and that logic is the only (universal) set of rules for determining what exists .. which are both philsophical and undistinguished 'going-in', biased, and not yet universally tested assumptions, made purely by the questioner.
The human mind also tests. Logic and testing are both very useful to humans, but one in the absence of the other, leads to meaninglessness.

Overall, the argument is akin to the child's game of continually asking: 'Why?' whenever an answer is provided to a question. What ensues is a completely empty and meaningless pile of word-salad.

 

[SelfSim]

Y'know .. science tests for the existence of the cause .. it doesn't just assume the cause.

Causality in science is defined by its test results and not just assumed to exist.

This whole argument, that free will doesn't exist, is just one big believed-in, (supposedly), 'true' assumption, which relies solely on meaningless word-salad, (ie: without case-by-case, contextually evident test data).