Freedom (and Will?)

[Age]

It never ceases to amaze me, the amount of Humans who do not want Free-Will, and would freely 'reject' the gift if it were ever granted to them.

If only it were so benign.

Sure, some folks are lookin' to wear the leash but many who promote philosophical determinism are bad eggs. They know man is a free will but they work damn hard to convince men they're meat machines cuz if you can hoodwink people into believin' they're just meat you can get 'em to deliver all manner of atrocity on to their fellows.

'This one', OBVIOUSLY, has STILL NOT YET RECOGNIZED the Fact that 'it' is JUST AS MUCH A 'slave', AS it HAS 'free will'.

And, this IS BECAUSE it, LAUGHINGLY, BELIEVES, ABSOLUTELY, that 'it' is NOT A 'slave' AT ALL.

'This one' WORKS, DAMN HARD, to 'TRY TO' CONVINCE "itself" that 'it' is NOT A 'slave'. If it can BELIEVE that 'this' IS TRUE, then it thinks, or BELIEVES, that it HAS some sort of POWER OVER others. Which, OBVIOUSLY, it does NOT AT ALL. Except, OF COURSE, ONLY OVER those that it has FOOLED and TRICKED INTO BELIEVING that "henry quirk" HAS POWER OVER them.

[Age]

"Yes, I "could have", but didn't."

Not so, my good man. It is logically possible that you could have picked Cujo because picking Cujo would have involved no contradiction; a world where there are Cujo picking Wiz's is not incoherent or inconceivable. But it was physically impossible because the antecedent conditions leading up to the pick could not have been other than they were... and therefore, Cujo was not in the cards (as Sam put it). Gangs of New York was in the cards instead.

If 'this one', or "sam harris" WANT TO BELIEVE that if one could NOT 'pick' some thing, then this MEANS, IRREFUTABLY, that there is ONLY 'determinism', 'determinism' ONLY, and NO ABILITY TO CHOOSE DIFFERENTLY, then, and OBVIOUSLY, if one of you human beings COULD CHOOSE DIFFERENTLY, then there 'free will' EXISTS.

And, by "promethean75" AND "sam harris" ADMISSION you human beings COULD HAVE CHOSEN DIFFERENTLY.

Therefore, WHAT EXISTS 'should be' MORE OBVIOUS TO MORE, here, now.

[Wizard22]

https://youtu.be/mPjndpp0q2U @ 19:05

Naw actually Sam does that joint better. I forgot how he broke it down like that.

That YT video really takes me back... reminds me of ILoveOpinions.com when you were in the slammer, Faust, Gobbo, Joker, a lot of us moved to ILO for debates since we got banned from ILP. LOL, great times, great times... Lots of great arguments too. I miss that optimism that dissipated around 2012.

[promethean75]

"Humanity has a love-affair with eternal Slavery. The worst 'illusion' of them all, is to delude oneself into a false security, comfort, and peace."

I think that might be it. If I don't have freewill it's because a) I'm a chicken shit and b) who wants freedom anyway? Slavery is much more preferable.

[osgart]

Humans have a nature of heart or spirit that each of us falls into. The nature you become determines your level of freedom of will. So not everyone is the same. Also, depending on your nature, you are free to will what you will according to the freedom your nature allows you. Some are slaves to their desires and others have desires of a healthy nature that breaks no fair laws. So some people are free to will whatsoever they will, and others are bound by what owns them.

There's a lot of free will definitions that we simply don't have those types of free will. Other types of free will healthy people can easily obtain to.

Finally the ability to always do otherwise is a free will that doesn't have any meaningful standing. It's not something that can be proven anyway. Why would anyone healthy choose to break their will of nature, and do something other than what they fully accord with in their own will of nature.

[promethean75]

Believe me, i would like nothing more than to have freewill so i could say "i chose to be the badass that i am!" and be able to take the credit for it.

Same goes for the imbeciles. I wish i could say, "It's your fault you're a moron," but technically, i can't.

[promethean75]

If there is no argument for freewill, why and how do those who believe it still persist?

Simple. They want to take pride in what they are (what they think they chose to become) and be able to hold mastery over others by blaming them, making them feel guilty, giving them a bad conscience.

[Magnus Anderson]

If there is no argument for freewill, why and how do those who believe it still persist?

Simple. They want to take pride in what they are (what they think they chose to become) and be able to hold mastery over others by blaming them, making them feel guilty, giving them a bad conscience.

A bunch of morons hijacked the term and gave it a slightly different meaning, namely, "the ability to make decisions free from ALL influences". That's why you have free will deniers such as yourself and Sam Harris.

[promethean75]

But Andy, you know what comes next. What these 'influences' are. Physical forces in the material world? Strange cartesian immaterial substances touching and moving things in the world about (the body)?

Please, for the love of all that was once Magnuficent, don't tell me they got you to.

[Magnus Anderson]

But Andy, you know what comes next. What these 'influences' are. Physical forces in the material world? Strange cartesian immaterial substances touching and moving things in the world about (the body)?

Please, for the love of all that was once Magnuficent, don't tell me they got you to.

If you ever decide to be serious when being serious is the right thing to do, you might see it yourself.

Unfortunately, you seem to be perpetually stuck in this half-serious mode of yours.

Free will isn't the ability to make decisions free from ALL influences ( as you and your friend Sam Harris believe. )

That would be libertarian free will ( "LFW" ) also known as radical free will ( "RFW". ) It's a corrupt concept of free will. A perverted notion.

Free will is the ability to make decisions free from influences such as other people causing you to do what they want you to do by employing coercion or deception. If noone is trying to coerce you or deceive you into doing something, then your will is free. All other influences are irrelevant.

As for "I could have done otherwise" . . .

There is a degree of freedom even within a fully deterministic universe. A fully deterministic universe is one where there is no element of chance, i.e. for every event A, only one event is allowed to follow. Even within that sort of universe, there's a degree of freedom, the amount depending on how restrictive it is.

A fully deterministic universe can be fully restrictive. A fully restrictive universe would be one where only ONE state of the universe is allowed. That would be а universe of no change. But even this fully restrictive universe isn't completely unfree because, at the very least, it allows something -- it allows the universe to be in one state. In a completely unfree universe, nothing would be allowed, and consequently, nothing would exist. The fully restrictive universe at least allows some freedom even if that freedom is the smallest freedom possible.

A little less restrictive universe than that, but still quite restrictive, is a universe in which different states are allowed, but for any given point in time, only one state is allowed. That kind of universe tolerates change, however, in it, nothing can be any other way than it is. In that sort of universe, you'd be right to say, "I couldn't have acted differently." That's true because, regardless of what happened before you decided to do X, you'd still end up doing X because only X is allowed to happen at that point in time.

The universe we live in, however, even if fully deterministic, isn't really that restrictive, and so, you can't really say, "I couldn't have done otherwise". Of course you could have. Your actions are determined by your beliefs, aren't they? If you had different beliefs, you would have acted differently.

[henry quirk]

Free will isn't the ability to make decisions free from ALL influences ( as you and your friend Sam Harris believe. )

That would be libertarian free will ( "LFW" ) also known as radical free will ( "RFW". ) It's a corrupt concept of free will. A perverted notion.

Beggin' your pardon but: that ain't libertarian free will/agent causation as I see it.

Libertarian free will is the philosophical belief that individuals have the ability to make choices that are not determined by prior events or natural laws, meaning they can choose among different possible actions. This view asserts that free will is incompatible with determinism, as it requires that agents have genuine alternatives available to them.

Agent causation is a philosophical concept where an agent, or a being with will, can cause events, particularly their own actions. This idea contrasts with event causation, where one event causes another, and is often discussed in the context of free will and moral responsibility.

Libertarian agent causation is a theory in philosophy that suggests free actions are caused by agents themselves, rather than by prior events or states. This view supports the idea that individuals have the power to make undetermined choices, which is a key aspect of libertarianism regarding free will.

There's nuthin' in there about bein' immune to influence.

The problem, as I noted in other threads is: there's no single, universally agreed upon, definition. I have no doubt someone has defined libertarian free will as the ability to make decisions free from ALL influences, but there are other definitions -- like those I hold to -- posted just above.

As for "I could have done otherwise" . . .

I could, but -- all thngs bein' equal -- why would I?

[promethean75]

The worst thing about there being no freewill is that it makes it no longer matter whether or not the big philosophical problems are resolved. Doesn't matter whether or not god exists, or what the best state is, or if abortion is wrong, or if global warming is a prob, etc. And that's what philosophers don't like about it. It shuts everything down, and they can't tinker anymore.

So we try to pretend-play like we have freewill so we can stay busy doing philosophy.

[Pistolero]

Don't matter if you're smart or dumb...either.
No freedom is the great equalizer.
We are all equally slaves.....determined.....totally innocent.

No sin...no shame, no guilt....

Perfect.
Why change?
Nobody is wrong.

[Advocate]

There is no sense in which the will is free but we may feel free to the extent we are ignorant of causality and euros like freedom and responsibility can be understood in objective terms in relation to that. If it is undeniable that our choices are not meaningfully within our control. ( in jail, no money ) there is no meaningful sense in which we are free. If we have the actual ability to partake in several acceptable options and no one cares which, we may feel as free as possible.

[Phil8659]

A rock is not free.

You seem to actually believe that you are free to make a judgment, even though you cannot render the definition of that very same thing. So can you explain, how it is, that the only power a mind has is also its correlatives, illiterate and literate, that you imagine that your response was one made freely?
Your argument could be simplified. Inanimate objects have no defined job. Every form of life has a job to maintaining and promoting that life.
So, will is the method of doing one's own work, and freedom means the ability to do it.
Now, if our job is information processing, can any illiterate person claim to be be free? If one cannot process information, are they free? Absolutely not. So, the inability to define one's terms, means one cannot actually process information, from the start because, what may be predicated of any thing is wholly determined by the definition of that thing.
It is not a matter of debate, it is a matter of fact.

Having no job to perform is not different from being unable to do a job. Or as Aristotle said, if you cannot apply assertion and denial, you can think no better than a vegetable.