Free Will

[Osric]

I don't believe in free will. The brain is like a computer, it has hardware, software, and an operating system. Like a CPU, the brain processes information and input. How we respond to that input depends on the build of the brain and our experiences. Without the physical component, such as the brain, then there is no functionality, which is why I don't believe in a soul. However, there is residual energy left over when we die. Brain activity continues after death for a limited time. I find that interesting, even hair and nails still grow for a duration.

I believe that life can be preserved upon death by providing electrical stimulation to the brain and maintaining blood flow to the brain and body parts, much like a cyborg.

Back to free will though. A person who experiences trauma often responds to input differently than a person without trauma. The trauma is an experience or more. Other experiences can have similar effects, both positive and negative.

[Impenitent]

if the brain controls the body, what controls the brain?

who writes the program that the brain follows?

why isn't every brain programmed the same?

-Imp

[promethean75]

Someone will be here shortly with some chalmer-cartesian quantum-intentional chaos indeterminate penrose-collapsing retro-causal agent probability altering wave function free will theory in a few minutes so hold on.

[henry quirk]

I don't believe in free will.

So, you're just meat.

[seeds]

I don't believe in free will....I don't believe in a soul.

Good for you in exercising your "free will" to hold those beliefs.
_______

[Immanuel Can]

I don't believe in free will.

Then "you" are not there. "You" is not a description of anything that can do anything. It can't "believe" or "disbelieve."

What the "you" that cannot exist "believes," then, is that some prior condition (plausibly of matter) has made it impossible for the "you" that cannot really exist to seem to "disbelieve" in free will. "You" never had a choice, and there's no "you" who did it. Matter lined up in the way it did, and the pseudo-experience of "belief" or "disbelief" magically lept out of that particular arrangement of matter. No more, no less, and no other.

So your statement reads (if there were anybody to read it), "A nobody didn't-believe in a nothing."

[Dubious]

Whether it exists or not depends from what perspective it's considered.

From a philosophic point of view - meaning a more or less fictional one - its existence is forever debatable.

From a scientific point of view, no it can't. There is nothing which allows for it existing; in fact, negates that possiblity completely.

[Dubious]

I don't believe in free will.

So, you're just meat.

Only if you're edible.

[Fairy]

if the brain controls the body, what controls the brain?

who writes the program that the brain follows?

why isn't every brain programmed the same?

-Imp

Who is asking these brain questions?

[Harbal]

I don't believe in free will.

Then "you" are not there. "You" is not a description of anything that can do anything. It can't "believe" or "disbelieve."

What the "you" that cannot exist "believes," then, is that some prior condition (plausibly of matter) has made it impossible for the "you" that cannot really exist to seem to "disbelieve" in free will. "You" never had a choice, and there's no "you" who did it. Matter lined up in the way it did, and the pseudo-experience of "belief" or "disbelief" magically lept out of that particular arrangement of matter. No more, no less, and no other.

So your statement reads (if there were anybody to read it), "A nobody didn't-believe in a nothing."

That is an argument against one possible definition of the term, "free will". What the OP exactly means by it, and what you have assumed he means by it, could be completely different things. Wouldn't it always be wiser to first establish what, exactly, is being stated or claimed before mounting an objection to it? Not just in this instance, but as a general principle.

[henry quirk]

Only if you're edible.

Oh, we all are. Question is: are we just meat or are we meat plus?

[Harbal]

Only if you're edible.

Oh, we all are. Question is: are we just meat or are we meat plus?

We are biological organisms, henry.

[henry quirk]

Only if you're edible.

Oh, we all are. Question is: are we just meat or are we meat plus?

We are biological organisms, henry.

Yeah, sure, but is that all we are?

[Immanuel Can]

I don't believe in free will.

Then "you" are not there. "You" is not a description of anything that can do anything. It can't "believe" or "disbelieve."

What the "you" that cannot exist "believes," then, is that some prior condition (plausibly of matter) has made it impossible for the "you" that cannot really exist to seem to "disbelieve" in free will. "You" never had a choice, and there's no "you" who did it. Matter lined up in the way it did, and the pseudo-experience of "belief" or "disbelief" magically lept out of that particular arrangement of matter. No more, no less, and no other.

So your statement reads (if there were anybody to read it), "A nobody didn't-believe in a nothing."

That is an argument against one possible definition of the term, "free will". What the OP exactly means by it, and what you have assumed he means by it, could be completely different things. Wouldn't it always be wiser to first establish what, exactly, is being stated or claimed before mounting an objection to it? Not just in this instance, but as a general principle.

Well, it seems to me there really is only one "reasonable" definition of free will. We can't possibly think it means, "The ability to do anything one can ever imagine," or something equally absurd, can we? Philosophically, it doesn't even involve the denial that SOME things are caused strictly by physical causes -- how could one ever deny that? Sufficient for any reasonable definition of free will is that under SOME conditions, SOMETIMES people make choices that are not strictly caused by physical preconditions, but rather by something like volition.

But if his definition is actually something absurd or totally unanticipated, then you're right; we should probably check. Though I was assuming he was being at least marginally reasonable.

And if he's reading his own thread, perhaps he will tell us.

[Flannel Jesus]

Sufficient for any reasonable definition of free will is that under SOME conditions, SOMETIMES people make choices that are not strictly caused by physical preconditions, but rather by something like volition.

Most philosophers are compatibilists, I think the majority of them would disagree with your criteria for "reasonable" here.

It's completely within the realm of possibility that they're all wrong, but it seems less likely that they're not just wrong, they're also explicitly unreasonable... Like, are they mostly operating in bad faith, lying, or intellectually incompetent?

I think there are alternative reasonable interpretations of free will, and the bulk of the philosophical establishment supports that.