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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2018 0:07:07 GMT -5
What does it say about a person who believes in Free Will and a person who does not believe in Free Will? I use the word "believe" because we know that is no definite proof for one or the other.
So is a No Free Will person someone who is somewhat cynical about life and people? And somewhat of a pessimist?
So is a Free Will person somewhat of a pollyanna and believes that anything in life is is possible? And maybe feel that No Free Will means any accomplishment really doesn't mean much individually? Is this person an optimist?
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Post by faskew on Jul 28, 2018 7:37:38 GMT -5
How about those of us who believe in a mix? We are culturally indoctrinated and our choices are limited by the laws and mores of our "herd", but we can also make relatively free choices about certain things. So I'm both pessimistic AND optimistic. 8->
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2018 8:40:36 GMT -5
Like Fred said, you'll rarely find someone who is "all free will" or "no free will whatsoever". Most people will tend to mix and match. In many ways, free will vs. no free will is a story we tell ourselves in order to justify our behavior and our circumstances. So when faced with our own problems, we tend to believe that those problems were caused by circumstances outside our control. When faced with other people's problems, we tend to believe that those problems were the result of their free choices. When we are being successful, we tend to believe that their success was the result of our own free choices. When others are being successful, we tend to believe that their success was caused by circumstances outside their control. It's a bit of a cynical take, but I do feel cynical today, so whatever.
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Post by rmarks1 on Jul 28, 2018 11:26:18 GMT -5
Like Fred said, you'll rarely find someone who is "all free will" or "no free will whatsoever". Most people will tend to mix and match. In many ways, free will vs. no free will is a story we tell ourselves in order to justify our behavior and our circumstances. So when faced with our own problems, we tend to believe that those problems were caused by circumstances outside our control. When faced with other people's problems, we tend to believe that those problems were the result of their free choices. When we are being successful, we tend to believe that their success was the result of our own free choices. When others are being successful, we tend to believe that their success was caused by circumstances outside their control. It's a bit of a cynical take, but I do feel cynical today, so whatever.
I agree. This is a good psychological analysis of what many people do when thinking about Free Will.
Of course, psychological analysis does not solve the problem of the existence of Free Will.
Bob
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Post by rmarks1 on Jul 28, 2018 18:59:16 GMT -5
Of course, psychological analysis does not solve the problem of the existence of Free Will. Maybe, but that wasn't what Lily was asking. I wasn't responding to Lily. I was responding to you. Enlightening? Perhaps. But psychological analysis usually ends in an Ad Hominem or a Genetic Fallacy. Bob
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2018 12:09:41 GMT -5
I can see the problem here with arguing for or against free will, or even believing in both, is because we really have not defined what it is we are arguing for or against. So, here is the free will definition I am using for the sake of the argument.
So regardless of the circumstances of one's life, there is always a choice one can make. So therefore, the answer has to be that free will is the correct choice. If you find that life is made up of both free will and no free will, that is also a choice you have made.
That's how I look at it.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2018 16:28:42 GMT -5
The problem with that definition, as with any philosophical definitions, is that it smuggles a lot of assumptions in there that may not look obvious at first glance but actually have huge implications: - Humans are rational agents, i.e. our actions are primarily or predominantly directed by reason and logic - We actually have "various alternatives" to freely choose from at any point - We can and will freely choose between these alternatives
A lot of ink has been spilled hammering out even such simple-sounding problems as these three basic premises.
For example, just at a first glance, the premise of rational agency is in conflict with the premise of free choice: A rational agent will always choose the one course of action that is the most logical in any given situation, but that would violate the actual freedom to choose whatever I goddamn want regardless of rationality.
Another point: The existence of alternatives is often subjective and heavily informed by subjective perception (and self perception), self image, and other mental factors such as stress, trauma, depression... For example, many domestic abuse victims would be "free" to leave their abusive spouses, but rarely choose to do so. Does that mean they actually want to stay in abusive relationships? Actually, a victim often does not even recognize leaving their abuser as a viable and rational choice. So our personal situation, our state of mind in the literal sense, preselects what choices we actually see as viable - there is freedom of choice objectively, but no alternatives to choose from subjectively!
So assuming the existence of "various alternatives" and free choice between them is not a given because even if they do exist objectively they may not exist subjectively (or vice versa, in some cases).
And that's before we get into the problems in how we view the structure of choice to begin with. For example, what little empirical data we have about these problems actually suggests that our rational minds play a much larger role in justifying actions we already decided upon, than in actually deciding on a course of action.
Even the Stanford Encyclopedia article you cited comes to a rather troubling conclusion:
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2018 17:08:57 GMT -5
Today I have numerous choices to make. I can go out or stay home. I can read or watch television. I can lay around or mop the floor. Are you saying that whatever choice I make, I was pre-programmed to make that choice? And where exactly would that pre-programming have started? Was it when time began with the Big Bang and each cause upon cause led to what I end up doing every second of my life? Even with the limitations of my life circumstances or my IQ or any disability I might have, there are still choices there for me to make. Why do I choose one alternative over another?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2018 20:07:09 GMT -5
That's a false dichotomy, Lily. Your behavior doesn't have to be pre-programmed just because our understanding of choice and action is self-contradictory or inconsistent. I'm just pointing out that even the simplest elements of this question get hideously complicated if you take a closer look.
If this was a simple issue with a simple solution, we would have figured this out in the 2500-odd years that human philosophy has been argueing about it.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2018 21:14:55 GMT -5
But you didn't answer the question. Just because philosophy is confused doesn't mean I am.
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Post by faskew on Jul 31, 2018 7:40:16 GMT -5
Lily - choices don't have to be pre-programmed to not be "free will." For example, let's say that you decide today to become an astronaut. That's not actually up to you, it's up to NASA. Or you decide to buy all the hotels in Hawaii. But I suspect that you don't have enough money to do that. We have many social and cultural limitations on our actions. It's like choosing from a menu. We only have "free will" over certain items. Some things are impossible, some we can't afford and some things aren't even on the menu at all.
But, yes, some things are pre-programmed by our cultural. Most Americans could not eat dog or tarantulas or rats for lunch. Because our culture has trained us to be disgusted by these things as food. But all three are regularly eaten in other parts of the world. In the abstract, we have the free will option to eat a rat. But our programming prevents it.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2018 11:47:12 GMT -5
No, Fred, what you're talking about is not about free will. My DECISION to go buy hotels IS my free will. The fact that I don't have the money to buy them is circumstances. The point about free will is the ability CHOOSE among a myriad of alternatives. Doesn't matter if they're ridiculous or not.
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Post by rmarks1 on Jul 31, 2018 13:10:56 GMT -5
The point about free will is the ability CHOOSE among a myriad of alternatives. Doesn't matter if they're ridiculous or not.
Yes Lily. I agree. That's exactly the point. Do we have the ability to choose alternatives, or have those choices already been determined by something other than our own consciousness? Free Will says we have the choice.
Bob
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Post by faskew on Jul 31, 2018 15:25:15 GMT -5
So you're saying that it's the choice that matters, even if I know it's impossible? Seems like choices ought to have some basis in reality to be valid. But that's just me. 8->
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2018 15:53:12 GMT -5
But you didn't answer the question. Just because philosophy is confused doesn't mean I am. Why ask for my input when you've got it all figured out already?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2018 17:59:13 GMT -5
So the answer is nobody knows. I know that. I just wanted personal opinions and explanations for those opinions. I didn't realize I was asking something so terrible.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2018 18:22:06 GMT -5
So you're saying that it's the choice that matters, even if I know it's impossible? Seems like choices ought to have some basis in reality to be valid. But that's just me. 8-> No, I'm not saying it's the choice that matters. It's being able to make a choice among several alternatives, doable or not. What I'm not getting the answer to is if we do not have free will, then why not? As I asked, was it because of cause after cause dating back to the Big Bang? If we have partial free will what is determining what is part free will and what is not? Okay, I give up.
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Post by rmarks1 on Jul 31, 2018 20:24:55 GMT -5
So you're saying that it's the choice that matters, even if I know it's impossible? Seems like choices ought to have some basis in reality to be valid. But that's just me. 8-> No, I'm not saying it's the choice that matters. It's being able to make a choice among several alternatives, doable or not. What I'm not getting the answer to is if we do not have free will, then why not? As I asked, was it because of cause after cause dating back to the Big Bang? If we have partial free will what is determining what is part free will and what is not? Okay, I give up.
The main question about Free Will is: Does it exist or not? Determinism has to be 100%. If Determinism is only 99.9%, then there must be Free Will the other one tenth of a percent of the time. And that means Free Will exists.
Bob
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Post by faskew on Aug 1, 2018 8:08:52 GMT -5
Me, I think that Free Will and Determinism are topics that developed in religion and then mutated over into philosophy. Determinism requires magic or a supernatural force. If God is omniscient, he already know everything that is going to happen in the future. And if he knows what will happen, then the future is pre-determined. If he doesn't know everything about the future, then he's not omniscient. So then the debate shifted to the idea that even though everything is pre-determined, you still get to make choices, otherwise sending you off to Hell for eternity would be unfair. And so on.
So back to reality. We get to choose some things and we don't get to choose some things. Our families, societies, cultures, etc. program us for certain behaviors and we normally don't think about why we do or don't do things. So life is a mix of weak forms of Free Will and Determinism, not the all-or-nothing versions from religion. And our choices and beliefs may change over time.
So a guy jumps out of an alley and demands your money. He had a gun. You have a choice, give him your money or be shot. If you give him your money, that was a Free Will choice. So if he's on trial for robbery, he can legitimately claim that you gave him your money of your own Free Will. You made that choice. Why punish him for the choice that you made?
We play with words, but I don't think that the concepts of Free Will and Determinism actually matter in our world. Neither is real or pure. Life is a mix of rational choices, emotional choices, choices made by not choosing, choices forced on us, and so on. Yes, you can choose what clothes to wear when you go out today, but if you choose to wear no clothes at all, you will be arrested. If you have a choice and there are negative consequences for at least one of the options, do you really have a Free Will choice? Back to religion again, if you have a moral choice to make and potential consequence of that choice is that God will send you to Hell for all eternity, is that any different than the guy with the gun demanding your money? Your choices are only Free if no one will punish you for any of the options. 8->
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2018 13:30:02 GMT -5
Fred, determinists believe that everything that happens is connected to the first event which was the Big Bang. You say that we have partly no free will because we had and have no control about the circumstances of our life but you say within the circumstances of our life we still have choices that we make. To me that is free will. I know you don't agree and that's fine. We're just looking at it differently. And as you said, believing one way or the other doesn't really make much difference in how people live their lives. So, it really does come down to how one decides to look at life and the philosophical question of Free Will or No Free Will. To me, that is a choice that we make, to determinists we had to choose that way, which ever way we do.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2018 15:16:04 GMT -5
One thing I've noticed in general, is that skeptics/"critical thinkers" somehow cannot handle people having personal opinions about things that no one has proof one way or the other about if they're different from their own. I've noticed this especially about the Free Will, No Free Will argument.
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Post by rmarks1 on Aug 3, 2018 23:07:34 GMT -5
Fred, determinists believe that everything that happens is connected to the first event which was the Big Bang. You say that we have partly no free will because we had and have no control about the circumstances of our life but you say within the circumstances of our life we still have choices that we make. To me that is free will. I know you don't agree and that's fine. We're just looking at it differently. And as you said, believing one way or the other doesn't really make much difference in how people live their lives. So, it really does come down to how one decides to look at life and the philosophical question of Free Will or No Free Will. To me, that is a choice that we make, to determinists we had to choose that way, which ever way we do.
One argument against the Determinists is that without Free Will, they have no way of telling if something is true or not. They can't really evaluate it. Whatever the Determinists believe, they have to believe it regardless of its truth.
Another argument is this. Suppose you go to a restaurant and the waiter asks for your order. Does anyone ever tell a waiter, "I have to sit here and wait for for the impersonal deterministic forces of the Universe make this decision for me."?
Bob
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2018 23:50:52 GMT -5
Fred, determinists believe that everything that happens is connected to the first event which was the Big Bang. You say that we have partly no free will because we had and have no control about the circumstances of our life but you say within the circumstances of our life we still have choices that we make. To me that is free will. I know you don't agree and that's fine. We're just looking at it differently. And as you said, believing one way or the other doesn't really make much difference in how people live their lives. So, it really does come down to how one decides to look at life and the philosophical question of Free Will or No Free Will. To me, that is a choice that we make, to determinists we had to choose that way, which ever way we do.
One argument against the Determinists is that without Free Will, they have no way of telling if something is true or not. They can't really evaluate it. Whatever the Determinists believe, they have to believe it regardless of its truth.
Another argument is this. Suppose you go to a restaurant and the waiter asks for your order. Does anyone ever tell a waiter, "I have to sit here and wait for for the impersonal deterministic forces of the Universe make this decision for me."?
Bob
The problem with that, Bob, is that Determinists would say that you were predetermined to have those thoughts about Determinism and Free Will and all those questions about the restaurant, etc.
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Post by faskew on Aug 4, 2018 7:26:02 GMT -5
Lily - I'm a skeptic who doesn't mind people having different opinions. Your favorite flavor of ice cream may not be the same as mine, but that's OK. My complaint comes when people try to promote opinion or belief to the same status as fact.
Yes, there is a great deal about the universe that we don't know. But there is also a great deal that we do know, and that collection of facts grows literally almost every day. Is it possible that our choices are pre-determined from events of the Big Bang? No, that simply does not match what we know about the universe. Is it possible that our choices are influenced by family and culture? Yes, that's easy to demonstrate.
Like I said, this whole Free Will thing came about because Christian theologians were looking for a way to blame people for Hell, and take the blame off God. Yes, God could make people do what he wanted. Or he could appear in the sky and issue orders. But the nature of the game is that God plays coy, hides out, and expects people to follow his rules based on faith, not knowledge. If people have Free Will, then it's not God's fault that they end up in Hell for all eternity. (Even though God could prevent such, if he so chose.)
In other words, Free Will is an attempt to make God appear less cruel and psychotic than he does in the Old Testament. Yes, the majority of people on earth are not Christians and will burn in Hell, but don't blame God for that. They have Free Will. It's their own fault. Blame the victim, not the cause. LOL
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Post by rmarks1 on Aug 4, 2018 12:16:23 GMT -5
One argument against the Determinists is that without Free Will, they have no way of telling if something is true or not. They can't really evaluate it. Whatever the Determinists believe, they have to believe it regardless of its truth.
Another argument is this. Suppose you go to a restaurant and the waiter asks for your order. Does anyone ever tell a waiter, "I have to sit here and wait for for the impersonal deterministic forces of the Universe make this decision for me."?
Bob
The problem with that, Bob, is that Determinists would say that you were predetermined to have those thoughts about Determinism and Free Will and all those questions about the restaurant, etc.
Not really. Remember that the person in the restaurant agrees with the Determinists. That's why they are just sitting there waiting for the Deterministic Laws of the Universe to tell them what kind of meal to order. The thing is, nobody ever goes into a restaurant and does that. Why not? The Determinists don't have an answer.
And yes, Determinists would say that we are predetermined to have those thoughts. But that wasn't the point. The point is that if Determinism is true, you wouldn't be able to know it. You would just have whatever thoughts you were determined to have anyway.
Bob
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Post by rmarks1 on Aug 4, 2018 12:20:49 GMT -5
Lily - I'm a skeptic who doesn't mind people having different opinions. Your favorite flavor of ice cream may not be the same as mine, but that's OK. My complaint comes when people try to promote opinion or belief to the same status as fact. Yes, there is a great deal about the universe that we don't know. But there is also a great deal that we do know, and that collection of facts grows literally almost every day. Is it possible that our choices are pre-determined from events of the Big Bang? No, that simply does not match what we know about the universe. Is it possible that our choices are influenced by family and culture? Yes, that's easy to demonstrate. Like I said, this whole Free Will thing came about because Christian theologians were looking for a way to blame people for Hell, and take the blame off God. Yes, God could make people do what he wanted. Or he could appear in the sky and issue orders. But the nature of the game is that God plays coy, hides out, and expects people to follow his rules based on faith, not knowledge. If people have Free Will, then it's not God's fault that they end up in Hell for all eternity. (Even though God could prevent such, if he so chose.) In other words, Free Will is an attempt to make God appear less cruel and psychotic than he does in the Old Testament. Yes, the majority of people on earth are not Christians and will burn in Hell, but don't blame God for that. They have Free Will. It's their own fault. Blame the victim, not the cause. LOL
The problem with that scenario is that the Free Will debate started hundreds of years before Jesus was born.
"Free will in antiquity was not discussed in the same terms as used in the modern free will debates, but historians of the problem have speculated who exactly was first to take positions as determinist, libertarian, and compatibilist in antiquity.[1] There is wide agreement that these views were essentially fully formed over 2000 years ago. Candidates for the first thinkers to form these views, as well as the idea of a non-physical "agent-causal" libertarianism, include Democritus (460–370), Aristotle (384–322), Epicurus (341–270), Chrysippus (280–207), and Carneades (214–129)."
Bob
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2018 23:43:57 GMT -5
I still don't understand, even though I believe in Free Will, your explanation for it. If Determinism is true, there is no way you would in anyway be conscious of it and your belief in Free Will would be as deterministic in what you believe as in anything else. In other words, you explanation for Free Will leaves me flat, even though I do believe in Free Will.
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Post by rmarks1 on Aug 5, 2018 0:21:48 GMT -5
I still don't understand, even though I believe in Free Will, your explanation for it. If Determinism is true, there is no way you would in anyway be conscious of it and your belief in Free Will would be as deterministic in what you believe as in anything else. In other words, you explanation for Free Will leaves me flat, even though I do believe in Free Will.
If no one could be conscious of determinism, then how come we know what it is? Determinists are certainly conscious of Determinism (even though it is a false consciousness).
Now how can a Determinist claim that anything is true? According to Determinists, we have no choice about the words coming out of our mouths. We have to say them. It's already been "determined" by forces outside of our control. But that includes the claim that Determinism is true.
Now since Determinists have been "determined" to say that, how can they possibly know what they just said is true? They can't check it. Everything has already been determined.
Therefore the claim that we have no Free Will, that everything is determined contradicts itself. Determinism is false.
Bob
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Post by faskew on Aug 6, 2018 7:55:54 GMT -5
Bob - Yes, Free Will debates are older than Christianity, but pagan religions didn't have the concept of eternal punishment after death for making the wrong decisions.
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Post by rmarks1 on Aug 7, 2018 14:05:08 GMT -5
Bob - Yes, Free Will debates are older than Christianity, but pagan religions didn't have the concept of eternal punishment after death for making the wrong decisions.
That's true Fred. Pagan religions did not have the concept of eternal punishment for making the wrong decisions regarding Free Will.
Two points:
1) The introduction of eternal punishment for making the wrong decision is simply and Argument from Force. Even thought that can be effective, it is an error in logic.
2) The belief in Free Will actually turned out to be a boon for Christian Europe. It turns out that people who believe in Free Will tend to be better off.
"There's a whole new angle on this free will debate that I personally find really freeing (pun intended). Instead of wondering if free will is 'real' or not, a range of new research is pulling apart the question of whether a belief in free will is, well, helpful. If believing in free will has intrinsic value. The answer appears to be 'quite likely'. Beaumeister's study showed that a belief in free will correlated with increased work performance, both by self-rated measures (based on expectation of career success) as well as by objectives measures of performance by a manager. He proposes in the study that a belief in free will, 'facilitates exerting control over one's actions'.
This is where it gets interesting. Self-regulation, the ability to inhibit yourself from doing the wrong thing, appears to be deeply important for human performance. The famous marshmallow study by Walter Mischel in the 1960's showed that a four year old who could hold out longer for a second marshmallow went on to be dramatically more successful overall in their life. A new paper, published in the NeuroLeadership Journal, called 'The brain's braking system' by Matthew Lieberman, shows that we use largely the same neural circuitry to inhibit physical, mental and emotional behaviors. In summary, if you believe in free will, you are more likely to inhibit the wrong impulses, like throttling a customer who just wasted an hour of your time, which isn't so good for one's career.
Other studies are supporting the notion that a belief in free will is not just helpful to one's career but perhaps important for the health of a wider society. One study found that believing in determinism, the opposite of free will, increases cheating. Another study found that a disbelief in free will increased aggressive behavior and reduced helpfulness in subjects. There is a larger summary of both studies on Jonah Lehrer's blog
In her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck lays out how people with 'fixed mindsets' believe that their achievements are based on innate abilities. As a result, they are reluctant to take on challenges. People with what Dweck calls 'growth mindsets' believe that they can learn, change, and develop needed skills. They are better equipped to handle inevitable setbacks, and know that hard work can help them accomplish their goals. A growth mindset sounds like a person feels they have some free will. As an employer, hiring several people each month, I start to wonder if I might test for people's belief in free will somehow."
Bob
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