"Free will was given to man by god."

[henry quirk]

"Choose to make the attempt."

Why?

#

All this...Incompatibilists might accept the "freedom to act" as a necessary criterion for free will, but doubt that it is sufficient. Basically, they demand more of "free will". The incompatibilists believe free will refers to genuine (e.g., absolute, ultimate) alternate possibilities for beliefs, desires, or actions, rather than merely counterfactual ones....has nuthin' to do with Agent Causality (an incompatibilist position, to be sure, but not the only one, and certainly not one bound up in your lil paragraph).

Instead of focusing on Agent Causation (free will), you wanna argue about categories and where I do or don't fit (and you can't even get that right*).

Go read Reid or O'Conner or Machan, then mebbe we'll have sumthin' to talk or argue about (sumthin' of substance instead of your nitpickery).

'nuff said, to you, on this subject, till you straighten up & fly right.









*https://informationphilosopher.com/free ... ilism.html

or, if you prefer: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incompatibilism

[henry quirk]

Henry

The problem: allowin' the entirety of ourselves to become mechanized or automated or habitualized. For example: the driver who takes the same route everyday, at the same time, could find his attention to the road becomin' habitual too, which is to say he's not really payin' attention but just goin' through the motions of attending.

Our attention, gettin' away from us, leads to our intentions witherin': road hypnosis.

We become robotic.

Very true!! IMO most are ignorant of the distinction between free will and reaction to desire. I could go on for hours on this idea. The cause of our potential for conscious attention necessary to be more than robotic creatures of reaction is essential psychology often ignored. Dr. Phil doesn't talk about it

The world situation is such that many believe in Absurdism which is the belief that human beings exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe. This is considered normal. It must appear normal since we have been conditioned to believe that absurdity is the norm without realizing that nothing else is possible when people as a collective are content to be creatures of conditioned reaction sacrificing their the potential for free will. If Man can collectively evolve to realize that it isn't the world that is purposeless and chaotic it is humanity, more may consider what is necessary to become consciously normal

except for the highlighted lines and underlined word.

Man, literally a man, one man, realizes this. It's a singular, idiosyncratic threshold. Groups can't cross that threshold, cuz, literally groups are the friggin' problem.

And: Humanity is a teaming mass with only base purpose. A man, on the other hand, is a solitary bird.

[Belinda]

RCSaunders wrote:

Nothing makes a human being think or do anything.

There is seldom only one thing that causes a man to think or do anything or decide to refrain from doing anything. Nearly always there is an infinite number of causes, causes of causes to infinity ,that enmesh a man.

If a human being does not choose to think or act he will do nothing and die.

Unless others keep him alive artificially. again, there is an infinite number of causes of advanced clinical care, many of the causes are historical.And the causes of legislation , and of individual clinical staff members' actions and beliefs are both historical and contemporary.

The only reason for Free Will belief is the influence of the religious, or superstitious, myth that such a thing as Free Will exists as a biological entity.
It seems to all of us, determinists and Free Will believers alike,a great pity a great loss not to praise the actions of brave individuals who defy evil causes to maintain the good. However there is no need for determinists to abandon praise and honour for individuals whose courage and compassion deserves it. The good remains good and the evil remains evil , and we are fortunate some individuals are gifted with the moral strength and reason to defy evil. The determinist claims only that the good man is good because of what he does not because of what he is.

[RCSaunders]

There is seldom only one thing that causes a man to think or do anything or decide to refrain from doing anything.

Nothing makes or causes a human being to think or do anything. You can stamp your foot and deny that you consciously choose to think what you think and do what you do, but you cannot escape the fact that the moment you cease to make conscious choices you cease to do anything.

I have no idea why people are terrified of their own nature. Perhaps it is fear of responsibility and the knowledge that one's every failure and short-coming is their own fault. If one were not required to consciously choose what they do, if something else, their heredity or environment, economic circumstances, culture, or any other absurd excuse people make for their own behavior determined what one did, it would relieve them of responsibility for their own life and actions. But there is no such excuse and whatever you are and whatever you do you have chosen it and cannot blame anything else. The devil did not make you do it.

Here is the simple truth. If one is not happy with life it is their own fault and the consequence of their own conscious choices.

[Lacewing]

Nothing makes or causes a human being to think or do anything. You can stamp your foot and deny that you consciously choose to think what you think and do what you do, but you cannot escape the fact that the moment you cease to make conscious choices you cease to do anything.

I have no idea why people are terrified of their own nature. Perhaps it is fear of responsibility and the knowledge that one's every failure and short-coming is their own fault. If one were not required to consciously choose what they do, if something else, their heredity or environment, economic circumstances, culture, or any other absurd excuse people make for their own behavior determined what one did, it would relieve them of responsibility for their own life and actions. But there is no such excuse and whatever you are and whatever you do you have chosen it and cannot blame anything else. The devil did not make you do it.

Here is the simple truth. If one is not happy with life it is their own fault and the consequence of their own conscious choices.

I agree. People choose how to feel in every situation and every moment...whether it's love or hate or joy or rage, etc. Situations do not hold power over a person's ability to choose how they feel. Blaming situations (and others) is essentially an admission that a person doesn't have self-mastery, and that they can be jerked around by external influences. Which means they can be more easily led and controlled by them too.

The way people FEEL creates more of the same kind of energy. So why not choose more consciously, not only for one's own experience, but for the greater good as well?

[Nick_A]

Henry

Man, literally a man, one man, realizes this. It's a singular, idiosyncratic threshold. Groups can't cross that threshold, cuz, literally groups are the friggin' problem.

And: Humanity is a teaming mass with only base purpose. A man, on the other hand, is a solitary bird.

You seem to one of the few willing to observe and admit it. Only an individual can be capable of acquiring choice. The grand collective or society itself is a creature of reaction reacting to natural and cosmic influences in the same way that life in the jungle does. Free will is an attribute of consciousness and the reacting grand collective is not a conscious creature. Yet the individual can acquire sufficient consciousness the collective is incapable of to acquire free will and the awareness of human meaning and purpose.

[henry quirk]

Henry

Man, literally a man, one man, realizes this. It's a singular, idiosyncratic threshold. Groups can't cross that threshold, cuz, literally groups are the friggin' problem.

And: Humanity is a teaming mass with only base purpose. A man, on the other hand, is a solitary bird.

You seem to one of the few willing to observe and admit it. Only an individual can be capable of acquiring choice. The grand collective or society itself is a creature of reaction reacting to natural and cosmic influences in the same way that life in the jungle does. Free will is an attribute of consciousness and the reacting grand collective is not a conscious creature. Yet the individual can acquire sufficient consciousness the collective is incapable of to acquire free will and the awareness of human meaning and purpose.

The benefit of bein' an atavist.

[RCSaunders]

Nothing makes or causes a human being to think or do anything. You can stamp your foot and deny that you consciously choose to think what you think and do what you do, but you cannot escape the fact that the moment you cease to make conscious choices you cease to do anything.

I have no idea why people are terrified of their own nature. Perhaps it is fear of responsibility and the knowledge that one's every failure and short-coming is their own fault. If one were not required to consciously choose what they do, if something else, their heredity or environment, economic circumstances, culture, or any other absurd excuse people make for their own behavior determined what one did, it would relieve them of responsibility for their own life and actions. But there is no such excuse and whatever you are and whatever you do you have chosen it and cannot blame anything else. The devil did not make you do it.

Here is the simple truth. If one is not happy with life it is their own fault and the consequence of their own conscious choices.

I agree. People choose how to feel in every situation and every moment...whether it's love or hate or joy or rage, etc. Situations do not hold power over a person's ability to choose how they feel. Blaming situations (and others) is essentially an admission that a person doesn't have self-mastery, and that they can be jerked around by external influences. Which means they can be more easily led and controlled by them too.

The way people FEEL creates more of the same kind of energy. So why not choose more consciously, not only for one's own experience, but for the greater good as well?

I'm sorry I cannot really agree with you here, Lacewing. You are right about individual's not being, "jerked around," by external influences with regard to their thinking and actions, but feelings are not under our direct conscious control.

The emotions are our physiological reaction to what we think, believe, and value and we have no direct control over them. We can influence our feeling by choosing what we thing and do, but we have no choice about how our bodies react to what we think, perceive and do.

If you would like to know more about this, please see my 2017 article, "Feelings And Emotions."

[Nick_A]

Henry

Man, literally a man, one man, realizes this. It's a singular, idiosyncratic threshold. Groups can't cross that threshold, cuz, literally groups are the friggin' problem.

And: Humanity is a teaming mass with only base purpose. A man, on the other hand, is a solitary bird.

You seem to one of the few willing to observe and admit it. Only an individual can be capable of acquiring choice. The grand collective or society itself is a creature of reaction reacting to natural and cosmic influences in the same way that life in the jungle does. Free will is an attribute of consciousness and the reacting grand collective is not a conscious creature. Yet the individual can acquire sufficient consciousness the collective is incapable of to acquire free will and the awareness of human meaning and purpose.

The benefit of bein' an atavist.

In biology, an atavism is a modification of a biological structure whereby an ancestral trait reappears after having been lost through evolutionary change in previous generations. Wikipedia

You've raised another interesting question Can atavism be a part of the cycle of war and peace described in Ecclesiastes 3?

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

What the experts call evolution I see as cyclical adaptation. Animal man has evolved as much as it can and now just follows cycles of life which includes Man appearing to devolve into a lower part of the cycle of adaptation. Free will is only possible for conscious evolution which transcends the cycles of lawful adaptation

[Lacewing]

feelings are not under our direct conscious control.

So you don't think it's possible to encounter a situation and ask oneself, do I want to feel "this way" or "this way" about/within this situation?

I can see how thinking and feeling are tied together -- but it appears to me that I have a choice about how I want to feel. It's like energy. If something unpleasant happens, I may initially feel bad or sad...but I don't want to stay in that, so I shift out of it. I still deal with the situation (so I'm not denying it), and I don't have to like it, but I might choose to feel calm and balanced instead. Or sometimes, in bad situations, I'll choose to laugh instead of cry. It's choosing one kind of energy over another. And it's my understanding that our bodies respond to what we feel more than what we think.

[henry quirk]

Henry



You seem to one of the few willing to observe and admit it. Only an individual can be capable of acquiring choice. The grand collective or society itself is a creature of reaction reacting to natural and cosmic influences in the same way that life in the jungle does. Free will is an attribute of consciousness and the reacting grand collective is not a conscious creature. Yet the individual can acquire sufficient consciousness the collective is incapable of to acquire free will and the awareness of human meaning and purpose.

The benefit of bein' an atavist.

In biology, an atavism is a modification of a biological structure whereby an ancestral trait reappears after having been lost through evolutionary change in previous generations. Wikipedia

You've raised another interesting question Can atavism be a part of the cycle of war and peace described in Ecclesiastes 3?

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

What the experts call evolution I see as cyclical adaptation. Animal man has evolved as much as it can and now just follows cycles of life which includes Man appearing to devolve into a lower part of the cycle of adaptation. Free will is only possible for conscious evolution which transcends the cycles of lawful adaptation

When it comes to culture and society, you're right. Thank goodness I'm stuck in one place. Today, I'm atavistic; tomorrow, I'll be neoteric.

[Belinda]

Lacewing wrote:

Situations do not hold power over a person's ability to choose how they feel.

Bipolar disorder? Torture? Bereavement? Inebriation? Parturition? Winning the lottery? Going to school for the first time when you are five years old? Having a vision of the Virgin Mary? Acute appendicitis?

[Belinda]

RCSaunders wrote:

Here is the simple truth. If one is not happy with life it is their own fault and the consequence of their own conscious choices

A justification when you want to keep slaves.

[Immanuel Can]

RCSaunders wrote:

Here is the simple truth. If one is not happy with life it is their own fault and the consequence of their own conscious choices

A justification when you want to keep slaves.

Low, blow, B. It's nothing of the kind.

If a person wants to keep slaves, then the best strategy is to get those slaves to do what Feminists call, "internalizing their oppression." That is, to make the slaves think that things OTHER than themselves are so powerful that slavery is their fate, their inescapable lot in life, and all their personal options are limited to playing out the role of slaves. Now, those are chains more powerful than any social organization, because the slave doesn't even dream of escaping them anymore. Then the master truly wins, because he "owns" the slave both inside and out.

In point of fact, a slave who has a strong sense of self, and of his own will, possibility and power in the world is not going to remain long on the plantation. He's going to believe he can get himself off it, and then he's going to do it.

So while there are plenty of genuinely outside oppressive forces in this world -- for all of us, not just for minorities, women, slaves, the poor, etc. -- it's the light of individual choice that keeps us from capitulating to them, of turning them into Fate or Deterministic inevitability. it keeps us from the very kind of thinking that's essential to slavery.

[Lacewing]

Lacewing wrote:

Situations do not hold power over a person's ability to choose how they feel.

Bipolar disorder? Torture? Bereavement? Inebriation? Parturition? Winning the lottery? Going to school for the first time when you are five years old? Having a vision of the Virgin Mary? Acute appendicitis?

Good examples, Belinda. They're not exactly something that people experience on a regular basis. Would you be more agreeable if I were to add the word "Generally"? Or do you think that the statement is false -- and (for example) that situations, in general, are stronger than people's consciousness and self-mastery of their feelings?