Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[Pistolero]

1. “You begin with definitions.”
No, I begin with physics. With the observable, testable mechanics of the brain and body. I define free will by what’s actually measurable: inputs, processing, outputs—all driven by cause and effect. You want to start with feelings and insist that because something feels like a choice, it must be. But feelings are not evidence. They’re outputs—results of processes, not proof of freedom.

So no definition of freedom nor will.
You use your pseudo-intellectualism to pretend that science supports you, yet you've not addressed quantum physics.
How does science support your claims that choice is an illusion?
Does science deal with feelings?

Freedom is not a thing, it is a qualifier of will. Will is not a thing, it is an act.
Where does science claim that life has no will, meaning no intent? Has no agency?



---

2. “Will = focus of energies.”
And what determines the focus? What determines what an organism wants, values, fears, or prioritizes? You never answer. You call it “will” as if naming the behavior explains the mechanism. It doesn’t. You just smuggle in freedom through vague poetry, not evidence.

What determines the objectives of primal life is need/desire.
In humans it is ideals.

You define 'freedom' as lacking objectives?
How can intentionality lack intent? Would even god be free, given your allusion of what freedom is, or ought to be.
Define freedom, because you defer and imply, as if you are supported by science.

I'm beginning to "feel" that you have no clue.....you only senses that science proves that life has no agency, which contradicts natural selection.

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3. “You twist the meaning of words to fit your nihilistic worldview.”
No—I use words precisely so they don’t become tools for self-deception. Free will as you describe it—"the ability to do otherwise"—has no causal explanation. You offer a theatrical shrug and shout “agency!” as if that fills the gap. It doesn’t. Agency isn't freedom from cause—it's just complex, cause-bound behavior.

I've give my definitions of 'free' and will' that are entirely physical, not metaphysical.

Freedom is not freedom from causality, that is correct. that wold be absurd.
So what does freedom refer to?

How about power?
Is it the ability to create reality out of nothing?




---

4. “Why did big brains evolve?”
Easy: because brains that better predicted outcomes and adjusted behavior improved survival. That has nothing to do with being metaphysically “free.” It means some systems process inputs better than others. You call that “choice.” I call it adaptive determinism—which is all natural selection ever was.

I never said anything metaphysical.
Advantage.
What advantage does a brain offer if choice is an illusion and life has ABSOLUTELY no freedom to choose as it wills?

---

[

b]5. “What signs do you see, that life is less than it appears to be?”[/b]
I don’t see life as less. I see it as exactly what it is—an unbroken causal chain. You think determinism diminishes life because you’re addicted to fairy tales about free agents unbound by nature. But understanding cause doesn’t cheapen reality—it makes it intelligible. That’s the difference between mysticism and science.

Forget your assessment of my addictions....Sherlock.
If life has no choice, then how is it different form non-life?
How is a stone, different, from a worm?
A worm believes it has a choice, the stone cannot even believe ....so a stone, according to your delusions, has an advantage over life....both are determined by the past, absolutely. Both have no choice. Both have absolutely no free-will.


---

You keep accusing me of metaphysics, when I’m the one trying to get you to focus on evidence. On systems, neural pathways, evolutionary biology, and physics. You’ve got no counter but “but I feel like I choose.”

I know about neurons....
Let's begin with the act....
Do you experience choice?
Do you experience will?
Yet, you claim it is fake....a magical illusion that tricks you, and your ilk.
A disadvantage.
I do not feel will, I will. I will every time I lift a hand, or move....
The neural pathways channel; my energies towards my limbs, my cells.
i do not feel my actions....you feel that your actions are not of your volition....they are illusions.

When I will, choose, to take a bite of a chocolate bar or not to, I am making a choice.
The choice has an intent, an objective.
The fact that I can choose to bite or not to bite, is determined by my powers, my powers determining my freedom.

Does a man have a choice not to drink and drive?
A prisoner is relatively unfree because he has less options.
A slave's options are limited by his master.
Who is your master.
Who is the magician that has tricked you into believing you have a choice?

So once again:
You can call determinism “nihilism” all you like. But it’s not a void. It’s a framework. And it doesn’t remove responsibility—it redefines it: not as blame, but as the drive to understand causes so we can improve outcomes.

So you don't like the terminology....sensitive to words.

Are races determined?
They must be, in your worldview.

You want magic. I want clarity.
You need the illusion. I can live without it.

HA!!!
If this is not projection, don't know what is.
You, who claims choice is an illusion, does not want illusions, and I who claim choice is NOT an illusion, wants illusion?
Oh boy.
I who defined both terms using falsifiable experienced actions, do not want clarity, and you, who alludes to neuropathways, and science, and laws of nature, without ever explaining how these fields prove choice is an illusion, wants clarity.

What else proves your delusions?
What other authority will you defer to?

I have a choice now....
1- not waste my time on a hopeless case
2- waste my time on a hopeless case, to address a topic for the silent observer.

I will consider the costs and benefits, and then decide which option I will choose....because I am a free agent, and these options are within the range of my powers.
I'm not claiming my choice will not be based on the past, or my needs and desires, but that is not what freedom is.....unless you use a metaphysical conception, like your kind does.

[BigMike]

1. “You begin with definitions.”
No, I begin with physics. With the observable, testable mechanics of the brain and body. I define free will by what’s actually measurable: inputs, processing, outputs—all driven by cause and effect. You want to start with feelings and insist that because something feels like a choice, it must be. But feelings are not evidence. They’re outputs—results of processes, not proof of freedom.

So no definition of freedom nor will.
You use your pseudo-intellectualism to pretend that science supports you, yet you've not addressed quantum physics.
How does science support your claims that choice is an illusion?
Does science deal with feelings?

Freedom is not a thing, it is a qualifier of will. Will is not a thing, it is an act.
Where does science claim that life has no will, meaning no intent? Has no agency?



---

2. “Will = focus of energies.”
And what determines the focus? What determines what an organism wants, values, fears, or prioritizes? You never answer. You call it “will” as if naming the behavior explains the mechanism. It doesn’t. You just smuggle in freedom through vague poetry, not evidence.

What determines the objectives of primal life is need/desire.
In humans it is ideals.

You define 'freedom' as lacking objectives?
How can intentionality lack intent? Would even god be free, given your allusion of what freedom is, or ought to be.
Define freedom, because you defer and imply, as if you are supported by science.

I'm beginning to "feel" that you have no clue.....you only senses that science proves that life has no agency, which contradicts natural selection.

---

3. “You twist the meaning of words to fit your nihilistic worldview.”
No—I use words precisely so they don’t become tools for self-deception. Free will as you describe it—"the ability to do otherwise"—has no causal explanation. You offer a theatrical shrug and shout “agency!” as if that fills the gap. It doesn’t. Agency isn't freedom from cause—it's just complex, cause-bound behavior.

I've give my definitions of 'free' and will' that are entirely physical, not metaphysical.

Freedom is not freedom from causality, that is correct. that wold be absurd.
So what does freedom refer to?

How about power?
Is it the ability to create reality out of nothing?




---

4. “Why did big brains evolve?”
Easy: because brains that better predicted outcomes and adjusted behavior improved survival. That has nothing to do with being metaphysically “free.” It means some systems process inputs better than others. You call that “choice.” I call it adaptive determinism—which is all natural selection ever was.

I never said anything metaphysical.
Advantage.
What advantage does a brain offer if choice is an illusion and life has ABSOLUTELY no freedom to choose as it wills?

---

[

b]5. “What signs do you see, that life is less than it appears to be?”[/b]
I don’t see life as less. I see it as exactly what it is—an unbroken causal chain. You think determinism diminishes life because you’re addicted to fairy tales about free agents unbound by nature. But understanding cause doesn’t cheapen reality—it makes it intelligible. That’s the difference between mysticism and science.

Forget your assessment of my addictions....Sherlock.
If life has no choice, then how is it different form non-life?
How is a stone, different, from a worm?
A worm believes it has a choice, the stone cannot even believe ....so a stone, according to your delusions, has an advantage over life....both are determined by the past, absolutely. Both have no choice. Both have absolutely no free-will.


---

You keep accusing me of metaphysics, when I’m the one trying to get you to focus on evidence. On systems, neural pathways, evolutionary biology, and physics. You’ve got no counter but “but I feel like I choose.”

I know about neurons....
Let's begin with the act....
Do you experience choice?
Do you experience will?
Yet, you claim it is fake....a magical illusion that tricks you, and your ilk.
A disadvantage.
I do not feel will, I will. I will every time I lift a hand, or move....
The neural pathways channel; my energies towards my limbs, my cells.
i do not feel my actions....you feel that your actions are not of your volition....they are illusions.

When I will, choose, to take a bite of a chocolate bar or not to, I am making a choice.
The choice has an intent, an objective.
The fact that I can choose to bite or not to bite, is determined by my powers, my powers determining my freedom.

Does a man have a choice not to drink and drive?
A prisoner is relatively unfree because he has less options.
A slave's options are limited by his master.
Who is your master.
Who is the magician that has tricked you into believing you have a choice?

So once again:
You can call determinism “nihilism” all you like. But it’s not a void. It’s a framework. And it doesn’t remove responsibility—it redefines it: not as blame, but as the drive to understand causes so we can improve outcomes.

So you don't like the terminology....sensitive to words.

Are races determined?
They must be, in your worldview.

You want magic. I want clarity.
You need the illusion. I can live without it.

HA!!!
If this is not projection, don't know what is.
You, who claims choice is an illusion, does not want illusions, and I who claim choice is NOT an illusion, wants illusion?
Oh boy.
I who defined both terms using falsifiable experienced actions, do not want clarity, and you, who alludes to neuropathways, and science, and laws of nature, without ever explaining how these fields prove choice is an illusion, wants clarity.

What else proves your delusions?
What other authority will you defer to?

I have a choice now....
1- not waste my time on a hopeless case
2- waste my time on a hopeless case, to address a topic for the silent observer.

I will consider the costs and benefits, and then decide which option I will choose....because I am a free agent, and these options are within the range of my powers.
I'm not claiming my choice will not be based on the past, or my needs and desires, but that is not what freedom is.....unless you use a metaphysical conception, like your kind does.

Pistolero,

You keep pounding the table about how you're not invoking metaphysics, but then turn right around and talk like a man who believes choices spring from some autonomous center of volition—something that stands outside the web of cause and effect. That is metaphysics, whether you say the word or not.

You say will is an action. Fine. I agree. But an action is still caused—by biology, memory, environment, and input. The moment you pretend it’s not, that it somehow rises up from within you untethered to prior causes, you've smuggled in the ghost again. And when I ask where that ghost is—how it works, what it's made of, how it interacts with matter—you give me poetry, not mechanism.

You also keep repeating that “I feel will, I do will, therefore it is real.” But feeling something doesn’t validate its metaphysical status. A schizophrenic might feel the voice in his head is another person. That doesn’t make it true. You feel like you could’ve done otherwise. But could you have, really? What makes you think so? What mechanism would’ve made a different outcome possible, given the same exact prior conditions? You won’t answer that, because you can’t.

You ask what advantage a big brain offers if choice is an illusion. The answer is adaptability. Prediction. Simulation of possible outcomes. That’s not freedom—it's complexity. The organism that can anticipate, delay gratification, and optimize action has an edge. None of that requires magical choice. Just better modeling, better memory, better pattern recognition. You're mistaking richness of behavior for metaphysical agency. They’re not the same.

And no, a worm isn’t the same as a stone. But not because one has “freedom.” The worm is alive, which means it’s responsive, self-organizing, thermodynamically open. But it’s still causal. Still determined. It doesn't need free will to escape being a stone. That’s just your anthropocentric ego insisting the difference must be about “choice.”

You say you're choosing between responding or not. But you’re not choosing anything outside the chain of causes. You’re processing costs, benefits, mood, memory, desire, and the structure of your own nervous system—all of which you didn’t author. Your “choice” is the endpoint of that process. It feels like freedom because your brain isn’t wired to see the machinery.

So no, I'm not "avoiding" quantum physics. I just know it doesn’t rescue free will. Quantum randomness isn’t choice—it’s randomness. Indeterminacy is not autonomy. And whatever noise may exist at the subatomic level, there’s no evidence it scales to decisions, or that it grants any freedom worth defending.

You’re clinging to a romanticized version of what it means to act. And when I show you the wiring under the floorboards, you accuse me of being cold. Maybe it is cold. But it’s true. And in that truth is a way forward—a justice not based on blame, but on understanding; a morality not built on guilt, but on cause; and a world that gets better not through punishment, but through precision.

You think I’m lost because I won’t worship the ghost. But I think you’re afraid of what’s left when the ghost is gone. And that’s the difference between us.

[Pistolero]

As long as you do not define the terms you use, you can act in contradiction to your own beliefs.

A worm wills itself against the forces of nature, whilst a stone surrenders to them.
Why?
What force of nature makes the worm will itself against them, suffering along the way, when choice is an illusion and it has no free-will?

How will emerges is up for speculation - the origins of life. I, unlike you, do not claim omniscience.
You claim absolute knowledge, You know the will is absolutely un-free. I say it is relatively so.
I say the act is not an illusion. Neuroscience is not complete and perfect.

I speculate that iteration is at work.
Chaos is a factor. Random energies determine the emergence of a unity reclaiming the energies it is losing, due to attrition, and those gradually developed into life.

I say life differs from non-life, you imply that it does not.
A stone has about as much choice, free-will, as a worm.....so how did life emerge if it is a disadvantage?
A stone, does not suffer, nor is it tricked into believing it has a choice.
A stone does not fight the forces of nature, it surrenders to them.
Both are determined by the Laws of Nature, which you understand to be absolute and totalitarian.
So life is a disadvantage, and big brains were naturally selected to suffer even more, by being tricked into believing it has a choice.

[Pistolero]

I can, also, speculate why those of your kind deny will absolutely and totally and completely, though you experience it in yourselves constantly, using metaphysical definitions of words to dismiss it.
Primitive man used metaphysical explanations to make the sun less mysterious. They didn't know what the sun was, or how it worked, so they told themselves that it was a god.
Your ilk sees the will in action, you make choices constantly, and dismiss them as illusions, based on a metaphysical definition of both will and freedom.
Why do you fuckers go to all that trouble to explain why existence went to all that trouble to make life possible?
Because of regret and the implications.

You claim natural always determent the individuals fate...but refuse to apply this to groups, like races.
if the laws of nature determined individual actions, did they not do the same to groups?
Determinism seems more supportive of racial theories.
I suspect your determinism is more selective, and fair.
I suspect your determinism is more Marxist...nurture, meaning socially caused.
Poverty is determined by what? Not race, right.....society. Social selection.
It is always society.
But what about the period before there were societies, for you to unload your anxieties?
Who could you accuse and blame then?

A totalitarian, absolutely ordered cosmos?

[BigMike]

As long as you do not define the terms you use, you can act in contradiction to your own beliefs.

A worm wills itself against the forces of nature, whilst a stone surrenders to them.
Why?
What force of nature makes the worm will itself against them, suffering along the way, when choice is an illusion and it has no free-will?

How will emerges is up for speculation - the origins of life. I, unlike you, do not claim omniscience.
You claim absolute knowledge, You know the will is absolutely un-free. I say it is relatively so.
I say the act is not an illusion. Neuroscience is not complete and perfect.

I speculate that iteration is at work.
Chaos is a factor. Random energies determine the emergence of a unity reclaiming the energies it is losing, due to attrition, and those gradually developed into life.

I say life differs from non-life, you imply that it does not.
A stone has about as much choice, free-will, as a worm.....so how did life emerge if it is a disadvantage?
A stone, does not suffer, nor is it tricked into believing it has a choice.
A stone does not fight the forces of nature, it surrenders to them.
Both are determined by the Laws of Nature, which you understand to be absolute and totalitarian.
So life is a disadvantage, and big brains were naturally selected to suffer even more, by being tricked into believing it has a choice.

Pistolero,

You say you don’t claim omniscience, yet here you are delivering confident philosophical proclamations wrapped in just-so stories about worms "willing against nature" and brains being "tricked" into choice. You paint my view as totalitarian, and yours as humble—yet I’m the one insisting we defer to evidence, while you assert inner magic and intentional emergence from chaos as if that resolves anything.

Let’s be clear: choice—as a phenomenon—does exist. Brains do discriminate between options, process inputs, weigh outcomes. But what you're calling "freedom" is something else entirely. You're suggesting that this choice isn’t just a process, but a free-floating agent that stands apart from the causal net. That’s not humility. That’s mythology.

You say a worm “wills itself against nature.” That’s poetic nonsense. The worm doesn’t “struggle” in defiance of physics—it operates within it, just as every cell in its body obeys chemical gradients, electrical potentials, thermodynamic constraints. It squirms not because it’s rebelling against nature, but because it’s part of nature. There is no rebellion. No metaphysical standoff. Just input, processing, output.

As for life being a “disadvantage”—no, that’s your strawman, not mine. Life isn’t less valuable because it’s determined. In fact, it’s precisely because it’s determined that it can evolve, adapt, and flourish. Determinism is the reason any system can stabilize, learn, or even develop those big brains you mention. Prediction, memory, and feedback loops require causality. Without it, you have chaos, not choice.

You keep saying you believe in relative freedom. Fine—so define it. Not in metaphors. Not in sentiment. In terms of mechanism. What causes a choice to happen in your model? And how is that different from any other deterministic or probabilistic system?

You speculate that life emerged through chaos and iteration. Good. Now show me where in that process a causally unbound will appears. You won't, because you can’t. Because the moment will emerges from process, it’s part of the chain. The only alternative is magic—your disavowals of metaphysics notwithstanding.

And no, neuroscience isn’t “complete,” but we know enough to dismantle the myth. Libet’s experiments. Delay between neural action and conscious awareness. Split-brain research. These aren’t edge cases. They are glaring signs that what we call “will” is a high-level summary—not an origin point. Consciousness narrates—it doesn’t initiate.

You want to preserve dignity by clinging to choice. I’m saying dignity doesn’t need that crutch. We are astonishing because of how the causal universe assembled us—not in spite of it.

You call your view human. I call it wishful.

[Pistolero]

Will = focus of organic energies on one, or more, objectives.
There can be competing objectives.
Consciousness is a sophistication of this focus.

Freedom = qualification of Will, similar to the terms 'strong,' as in strong-willed, or 'power,' as in will power.
Nothing metaphysical.

If you ask how did this will emerge...I cannot offer a definite answer, but I can perceive it in action, in the same way primitives could not explain what the sun was, or how it worked, but they could see it in action. They did not consider it an illusion. They didn't claim it was not real.

I also perceive life, in action, without being able to explain how it emerged.
I do not say it is an illusion and all is dead.
I see something different from non-life. I see it behaving. i do not say it is no different than what is not alive.
i say it is different. I see the difference. I experience the difference in myself.
I do not say this difference is a trick....an illusion, because I can use this difference to explain why there are so many different kinds of life, and not only one kind.

[Pistolero]

Pistolero,
You say you don’t claim omniscience, yet here you are delivering confident philosophical proclamations wrapped in just-so stories about worms "willing against nature" and brains being "tricked" into choice. You paint my view as totalitarian, and yours as humble—yet I’m the one insisting we defer to evidence, while you assert inner magic and intentional emergence from chaos as if that resolves anything.

Let’s be clear: choice—as a phenomenon—does exist. Brains do discriminate between options, process inputs, weigh outcomes. But what you're calling "freedom" is something else entirely. You're suggesting that this choice isn’t just a process, but a free-floating agent that stands apart from the causal net. That’s not humility. That’s mythology.

No...there you go again.
Not "free floating" as if freedom would have to be metaphysically defined.
It is part of the process.
It PARTICIPATES, intentionally, willfully, with every choice.
Non-life participates unintentionally.

You say a worm “wills itself against nature.” That’s poetic nonsense. The worm doesn’t “struggle” in defiance of physics—it operates within it, just as every cell in its body obeys chemical gradients, electrical potentials, thermodynamic constraints. It squirms not because it’s rebelling against nature, but because it’s part of nature. There is no rebellion. No metaphysical standoff. Just input, processing, output.

And yet, according to you, it is at a disadvantage, relative to a stone.
Yes, it is part of nature - as I've defined both 'will' and 'freedom.'. It participates in what is being determined, intentionally. A stone, unintentionally.
The worm has an objective, a motive, expressed in every act.
Input, processing, output. During the processing...judging.....the will finds a focus.
It is during the output that life acts willfully.

But a man can resit his impulses. Can he not? He can choose not to act. He can will himself to stop.

Are pedophiles not able to choose not to rape a child?
I know the impulse is great, for them....

As for life being a “disadvantage”—no, that’s your strawman, not mine. Life isn’t less valuable because it’s determined. In fact, it’s precisely because it’s determined that it can evolve, adapt, and flourish. Determinism is the reason any system can stabilize, learn, or even develop those big brains you mention. Prediction, memory, and feedback loops require causality. Without it, you have chaos, not choice.

And yet, you cannot give me an advantage, if it has no freedom to make a choice.
No -choice is not an advantage.
All those things are a product of its will. Like learning.
Why learn if it has ability to apply it in a choice. if it cannot apply its experience to its choices?
Why learn if it has no agency?

If a worm has about as much choice as a stone, what is the advantage to being a worm?
All that's left is the suffering, the struggle.

You keep saying you believe in relative freedom. Fine—so define it. Not in metaphors. Not in sentiment. In terms of mechanism. What causes a choice to happen in your model? And how is that different from any other deterministic or probabilistic system?

A choice is in reference to an objective, and objectives can be multiple. Life has choices...it can choose which objective, even if it chooses to not choose an objective..A non-choice is a choice.

Your metaphysical freedom is unattainable because this suits your objectives.
You made the choice to deny yourself choice.
You chose the definition you refuse to offer, because it will expose you.
Give me the definition you chose for the term 'freedom."

You speculate that life emerged through chaos and iteration. Good. Now show me where in that process a causally unbound will appears. You won't, because you can’t. Because the moment will emerges from process, it’s part of the chain. The only alternative is magic—your disavowals of metaphysics notwithstanding.

How order emerges from chaos is a difficult subject.
And, yes, once it emerges it is part of a continuum.
Will, being a determining factor.

We inherent the consequences of the choices made by our ancestors.
We can choose to copy them or improve them or contradict them.

And no, neuroscience isn’t “complete,” but we know enough to dismantle the myth. Libet’s experiments. Delay between neural action and conscious awareness. Split-brain research. These aren’t edge cases. They are glaring signs that what we call “will” is a high-level summary—not an origin point. Consciousness narrates—it doesn’t initiate.

Because will is not necessarily located in the brain.
A plant has no neural system and it can will itself to move this way or that.

You want to preserve dignity by clinging to choice. I’m saying dignity doesn’t need that crutch. We are astonishing because of how the causal universe assembled us—not in spite of it.

You call your view human. I call it wishful.

Ha!
Projections. The one who uses the absence of agency to protect his ego, accusing me....

When I make a mistake I do not say I could not have chosen differently, because choice is an illusion. I say I chose wrongly, and I will suffer the consequences. I will learn form my mistakes and make better choices.
I do not say...my daddy spanked me and this made me nervous causing me to make a bad choice.

Hypocrite.

So, races are determined. That's good to know.
All this crap about systemic racism and truama, stops at a very convenient spot.
Does not your determinism stretch back to before there was a society?
Hmmmm?

[BigMike]

Pistolero,
You say you don’t claim omniscience, yet here you are delivering confident philosophical proclamations wrapped in just-so stories about worms "willing against nature" and brains being "tricked" into choice. You paint my view as totalitarian, and yours as humble—yet I’m the one insisting we defer to evidence, while you assert inner magic and intentional emergence from chaos as if that resolves anything.

Let’s be clear: choice—as a phenomenon—does exist. Brains do discriminate between options, process inputs, weigh outcomes. But what you're calling "freedom" is something else entirely. You're suggesting that this choice isn’t just a process, but a free-floating agent that stands apart from the causal net. That’s not humility. That’s mythology.

No...there you go again.
Not "free floating" as if freedom would have to be metaphysically defined.
It is part of the process.
It PARTICIPATES, intentionally, willfully, with every choice.
Non-life participates unintentionally.

You say a worm “wills itself against nature.” That’s poetic nonsense. The worm doesn’t “struggle” in defiance of physics—it operates within it, just as every cell in its body obeys chemical gradients, electrical potentials, thermodynamic constraints. It squirms not because it’s rebelling against nature, but because it’s part of nature. There is no rebellion. No metaphysical standoff. Just input, processing, output.

And yet, according to you, it is at a disadvantage, relative to a stone.
Yes, it is part of nature - as I've defined both 'will' and 'freedom.'. It participates in what is being determined, intentionally. A stone, unintentionally.
The worm has an objective, a motive, expressed in every act.
Input, processing, output. During the processing...judging.....the will finds a focus.
It is during the output that life acts willfully.

But a man can resit his impulses. Can he not? He can choose not to act. He can will himself to stop.

Are pedophiles not able to choose not to rape a child?
I know the impulse is great, for them....

As for life being a “disadvantage”—no, that’s your strawman, not mine. Life isn’t less valuable because it’s determined. In fact, it’s precisely because it’s determined that it can evolve, adapt, and flourish. Determinism is the reason any system can stabilize, learn, or even develop those big brains you mention. Prediction, memory, and feedback loops require causality. Without it, you have chaos, not choice.

And yet, you cannot give me an advantage, if it has no freedom to make a choice.
No -choice is not an advantage.
All those things are a product of its will. Like learning.
Why learn if it has ability to apply it in a choice. if it cannot apply its experience to its choices?
Why learn if it has no agency?

If a worm has about as much choice as a stone, what is the advantage to being a worm?
All that's left is the suffering, the struggle.

You keep saying you believe in relative freedom. Fine—so define it. Not in metaphors. Not in sentiment. In terms of mechanism. What causes a choice to happen in your model? And how is that different from any other deterministic or probabilistic system?

A choice is in reference to an objective, and objectives can be multiple. Life has choices...it can choose which objective, even if it chooses to not choose an objective..A non-choice is a choice.

Your metaphysical freedom is unattainable because this suits your objectives.
You made the choice to deny yourself choice.
You chose the definition you refuse to offer, because it will expose you.
Give me the definition you chose for the term 'freedom."

You speculate that life emerged through chaos and iteration. Good. Now show me where in that process a causally unbound will appears. You won't, because you can’t. Because the moment will emerges from process, it’s part of the chain. The only alternative is magic—your disavowals of metaphysics notwithstanding.

How order emerges from chaos is a difficult subject.
And, yes, once it emerges it is part of a continuum.
Will, being a determining factor.

We inherent the consequences of the choices made by our ancestors.
We can choose to copy them or improve them or contradict them.

And no, neuroscience isn’t “complete,” but we know enough to dismantle the myth. Libet’s experiments. Delay between neural action and conscious awareness. Split-brain research. These aren’t edge cases. They are glaring signs that what we call “will” is a high-level summary—not an origin point. Consciousness narrates—it doesn’t initiate.

Because will is not necessarily located in the brain.
A plant has no neural system and it can will itself to move this way or that.

You want to preserve dignity by clinging to choice. I’m saying dignity doesn’t need that crutch. We are astonishing because of how the causal universe assembled us—not in spite of it.

You call your view human. I call it wishful.

Ha!
Projections. The one who uses the absence of agency to protect his ego, accusing me....

When I make a mistake I do not say I could not have chosen differently, because choice is an illusion. I say I chose wrongly, and I will suffer the consequences. I will learn form my mistakes and make better choices.
I do not say...my daddy spanked me and this made me nervous causing me to make a bad choice.

Hypocrite.

So, races are determined. That's good to know.
All this crap about systemic racism and truama, stops at a very convenient spot.
Does not your determinism stretch back to before there was a society?
Hmmmm?

Pistolero,

You keep trying to wedge your notion of will and freedom into a physical framework while sidestepping the one thing that makes your claim fall apart: causality. You don’t need to believe in a “free-floating” agent, you say—but then you claim will “participates” in shaping outcomes “intentionally.” That’s just metaphysics with a fresh coat of paint.

You say a worm chooses. That it has intent. You want that to mean agency. But what you’re really describing is feedback and response, not authorship. The worm doesn’t “choose” to move toward food because it weighed moral alternatives. It reacts to stimuli in accordance with its evolved biology. Its “intent” is a function of what its nervous system has been shaped to do, not a declaration of freedom. Same for humans—only more complex.

You ask if a man can resist his impulses. Of course. And we can trace the causes of that restraint: upbringing, values, neurochemistry, prefrontal cortex activity. You want that resistance to mean freedom, but again—it's explained behavior, not metaphysical authorship. The fact that a person can pause doesn’t mean they’re uncaused—it just means they have the cognitive machinery to process more variables before acting.

Your whole framework depends on smuggling in “intent” as if it somehow steps outside the chain of causation. It doesn’t. You say, “The will finds a focus.” But what determines the focus? You never answer that. You just point to will as if naming it explains it. That’s the move you keep making—wrapping causally entangled behavior in mystical language and calling it clarity.

You say, “A choice is in reference to an objective.” Fine. Where does the objective come from? What determines which objective is pursued? You call non-choices choices. You say “even choosing not to choose is a choice.” But that’s just rhetoric. All you’re doing is labeling outputs with the language of agency while refusing to define what actually makes them “free.”

And plants willing themselves to move? Seriously? Plants don’t will anything. They grow toward light through mechanistic processes like phototropism. That’s not intention. That’s chemistry. If you think a sunflower “chooses” which way to turn, then you’ve redefined “will” so loosely that even a Roomba counts as an agent.

As for dignity—no, I don’t ground it in illusion. I don’t need the fairy tale that we are authors of ourselves. I find awe in understanding what shaped us—not in pretending we shape ourselves from nothing. You say “we can choose to improve on what our ancestors gave us.” And I say—yes, through mechanisms of learning, environment, and cause. Not through spontaneous metaphysical authorship.

You keep talking about “hypocrisy.” But I don’t claim people are self-authored. I don’t blame the man who makes a bad choice—I ask what made that choice happen. That’s not cowardice. That’s just not superstition.

And your final jab—about systemic racism, trauma, or society? Yes, determinism reaches beyond society. Genetics. Environment. Evolutionary history. All of it. That’s the point. If you understood that, you’d stop demanding personal authorship and start asking deeper questions about why things happen.

Because determinism doesn’t stop justice. It makes justice smarter. It makes morality honest. And it makes will explainable—not sacred.

[henry quirk]

You’ve invoked a neurosurgeon’s outdated intuitions, appealed to a metaphysical ghost, and called it science.

No. What I did there was point to a noted neurosurgeon and scientist, his work, and his conclusions (conclusions ignored but, as of right now, not disputed, in-forum or -out).

It's not the first time either. In this thread alone I've noted the work and conclusions of several neurosurgeon and scientists.

Your memory really is for crap, Mike.

-----

it’s like saying: “I hit the radio antenna and didn’t hear jazz—must be ghosts singing.”

Damn sight more than that, I think.

Here you go...

https://ia801509.us.archive.org/33/item ... ind%20.pdf

...read all about it. Oh, and that's not the first time I post the link to Pennfield's book in this thread.

-----

You admit it’s not measurable. Not falsifiable. No predictive power.

No, I did not.

-----

you claim it interacts with matter.

It does.

-----

That’s supernaturalism, plain and simple.

I'm good with that.

-----

If your “organizing principle” affects neurons but can’t be studied or quantified, then it’s magic, not science.

I'm good with that too.

-----

- In a deterministic model, we don’t excuse harm—we explain it.
- We don’t “absolve” people—we understand the causes and change them.
- We replace blame with accountability, and punishment with prevention.
- That’s how you refine morality—not erase it.

Mike, if this...

Here’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

...is true then we can't excuse, explain, absolve, understand, change, blame, replace, refine, or erase. We can't be accountable or demand accountability. We can't prevent or punish.

Your meat machine philosophy is a dead end, explainin' nuthin', and empowerin' no one (quite the opposite: it renders us impotent).

-----

What part of what I said is false?

What's false?

Already told you: event causation/determinism as it pertains to a person.

[phyllo]

Because determinism doesn’t stop justice. It makes justice smarter. It makes morality honest. And it makes will explainable—not sacred.

How can it make "justice smarter" if you're not choosing to make it smarter?

How can it make "morality honest" if you're not choosing to make it honest?

[BigMike]

Because determinism doesn’t stop justice. It makes justice smarter. It makes morality honest. And it makes will explainable—not sacred.

How can it make "justice smarter" if you're not choosing to make it smarter?

How can it make "morality honest" if you're not choosing to make it honest?

Because justice and morality are not miracles, phyllo—they're outputs of a complex, causal process. Just like everything else in nature.

If society reforms its justice system based on evidence about human behavior—say, replacing punishment with rehabilitation—that’s not “free will” making it smarter. It’s cause and effect. Data influences minds, minds influence decisions, decisions influence systems. It’s a chain. It’s always been a chain.

You ask, “How can it be honest if you didn’t choose it?” But that’s like asking, “How can a telescope show the stars honestly if it didn’t choose to do so?” Honesty isn’t a magical moral choice—it’s an alignment with reality. If we structure morality around actual causes instead of fairy tales about metaphysical choice, it becomes more accurate, more just, more effective. That’s what I mean by “honest.”

You’re stuck on the idea that unless someone freely authors their choice, nothing real or meaningful can emerge. But that’s just a ghost story. Meaning doesn’t vanish in a deterministic world—it just gets grounded in facts instead of fantasies.

[phyllo]

Because determinism doesn’t stop justice. It makes justice smarter. It makes morality honest. And it makes will explainable—not sacred.

How can it make "justice smarter" if you're not choosing to make it smarter?

How can it make "morality honest" if you're not choosing to make it honest?

Because justice and morality are not miracles, phyllo—they're outputs of a complex, causal process. Just like everything else in nature.

If society reforms its justice system based on evidence about human behavior—say, replacing punishment with rehabilitation—that’s not “free will” making it smarter. It’s cause and effect. Data influences minds, minds influence decisions, decisions influence systems. It’s a chain. It’s always been a chain.

You ask, “How can it be honest if you didn’t choose it?” But that’s like asking, “How can a telescope show the stars honestly if it didn’t choose to do so?” Honesty isn’t a magical moral choice—it’s an alignment with reality. If we structure morality around actual causes instead of fairy tales about metaphysical choice, it becomes more accurate, more just, more effective. That’s what I mean by “honest.”

You’re stuck on the idea that unless someone freely authors their choice, nothing real or meaningful can emerge. But that’s just a ghost story. Meaning doesn’t vanish in a deterministic world—it just gets grounded in facts instead of fantasies.

You contradict yourself in every post.

If nobody is making a choice then society can't reform. It can't replace punishment.

Action requires choice from a set of options unless it is entirely constrained. Take your pick. You can't have it both ways which is what you are attempting to do.

And stop strawmaning with references to "fantasies", "miracles", "blank slates" and "we shape ourselves from nothing".

[Alexiev]

Because justice and morality are not miracles, phyllo—they're outputs of a complex, causal process. Just like everything else in nature.

If society reforms its justice system based on evidence about human behavior—say, replacing punishment with rehabilitation—that’s not “free will” making it smarter. It’s cause and effect. Data influences minds, minds influence decisions, decisions influence systems. It’s a chain. It’s always been a chain.

Is there any evidence to support this? Suppose we discover that attending church every Sunday is highly correlated with lawful, kind behavior. Should we make Church mandatory?

Of course data influences decisions. The notion that we have the freedom to choose, and that our choices will influence whether we will he imprisoned, whether anyone will be our friend, and whether we will ever get laid is probably important data exerting such an influence. Even if the notion of choice is a convenient and valuable fiction, we abandon it at our peril.

[BigMike]

How can it make "justice smarter" if you're not choosing to make it smarter?

How can it make "morality honest" if you're not choosing to make it honest?

Because justice and morality are not miracles, phyllo—they're outputs of a complex, causal process. Just like everything else in nature.

If society reforms its justice system based on evidence about human behavior—say, replacing punishment with rehabilitation—that’s not “free will” making it smarter. It’s cause and effect. Data influences minds, minds influence decisions, decisions influence systems. It’s a chain. It’s always been a chain.

You ask, “How can it be honest if you didn’t choose it?” But that’s like asking, “How can a telescope show the stars honestly if it didn’t choose to do so?” Honesty isn’t a magical moral choice—it’s an alignment with reality. If we structure morality around actual causes instead of fairy tales about metaphysical choice, it becomes more accurate, more just, more effective. That’s what I mean by “honest.”

You’re stuck on the idea that unless someone freely authors their choice, nothing real or meaningful can emerge. But that’s just a ghost story. Meaning doesn’t vanish in a deterministic world—it just gets grounded in facts instead of fantasies.

You contradict yourself in every post.

If nobody is making a choice then society can't reform. It can't replace punishment.

Action requires choice from a set of options unless it is entirely constrained. Take your pick. You can't have it both ways which is what you are attempting to do.

And stop strawmaning with references to "fantasies", "miracles", "blank slates" and "we shape ourselves from nothing".

You're mistaking "choice" for metaphysical authorship—they're not the same. A deterministic system can still involve agents that discriminate between inputs and select outputs. But that selection is driven by prior causes—not conjured from nothing.

When society reforms—say, shifting from punitive to rehabilitative justice—it’s not because some cosmic “chooser” overrode causality. It’s because new data, social pressure, education, and policy mechanisms aligned in just the right way to cause that outcome. That’s how real change works. Always has.

You say “action requires choice from a set of options.” Sure—but the process of weighing and acting on those options doesn’t require freedom from causality. It just requires a system with memory, feedback, and a model of consequences—which the brain provides. That’s what people mislabel as “free will.” It’s not freedom from the chain—it’s just the chain looping through a sophisticated processor.

So no, I’m not contradicting myself. You’re just stuck trying to preserve a supernatural notion of “choice” while pretending it's just everyday behavior. But once you strip out the metaphysics, what’s left is still meaningful, still functional, still human. Just not magic.

[BigMike]

Because justice and morality are not miracles, phyllo—they're outputs of a complex, causal process. Just like everything else in nature.

If society reforms its justice system based on evidence about human behavior—say, replacing punishment with rehabilitation—that’s not “free will” making it smarter. It’s cause and effect. Data influences minds, minds influence decisions, decisions influence systems. It’s a chain. It’s always been a chain.

Is there any evidence to support this? Suppose we discover that attending church every Sunday is highly correlated with lawful, kind behavior. Should we make Church mandatory?

Of course data influences decisions. The notion that we have the freedom to choose, and that our choices will influence whether we will he imprisoned, whether anyone will be our friend, and whether we will ever get laid is probably important data exerting such an influence. Even if the notion of choice is a convenient and valuable fiction, we abandon it at our peril.

Yes, there’s evidence that policy based on causal understanding—rather than metaphysical assumptions—leads to better outcomes. Programs that treat crime as a product of environment, mental health, addiction, and poverty have measurably reduced recidivism in many places. Norway’s prison model, for instance, emphasizes rehabilitation over punishment and boasts one of the world’s lowest repeat offender rates. That’s cause-and-effect in action—not free will theology.

Now, about your church example: if attending church caused better behavior, and we could isolate that effect from confounders (like community support, routine, or guilt conditioning), then yes, it would be rational to ask whether similar benefits could be replicated—without violating rights—through secular equivalents. That’s not an endorsement of authoritarian control; it’s a call to follow evidence instead of dogma. No one is suggesting we adopt social engineering at gunpoint—but if something works, we study why.

You say we abandon the notion of free will “at our peril.” But here's the danger on the other side: if we keep pretending that people are metaphysically responsible in the ghost-in-the-machine sense, we’ll keep blaming the broken instead of fixing what broke them. That’s the real peril—protecting a useful fiction at the expense of understanding and progress.

You don't need to believe people freely authored themselves to hold them accountable. You just need a system that understands behavior as something to steer, not to moralize. Accountability doesn't die in a deterministic world—it just gets smarter.