HUMANS DO NOT ACT, BUT REACT, SO MUCH FOR FREE WILL

[Gary Childress]

If it is true that we do not have free will, then what? Will we all behave differently than if we all believed we did have free will? And if we behave differently under the belief of not having free will, will the difference be better or worse than the behavior we would have if we all believed we have free will?

[Impenitent]

no moral responsibility

can't blame him, it was predetermined that he was going to kill you

-Imp

[Gary Childress]

no moral responsibility

can't blame him, it was predetermined that he was going to kill you

-Imp

Can't blame people for punishing wrong doers either. If he kills me, then someone else might take heed and lock him up or kill him before he kills more people.

[Impenitent]

with no justification?

you will do this (especially if you haven't) so you must be punished

-Imp

[Gary Childress]

with no justification?

you will do this (especially if you haven't) so you must be punished

-Imp

How do you know I will do it if I haven't done it? And if I did do it once, wouldn't preventing me from doing it again be a reasonable decision by others?

[Impenitent]

with no justification?

you will do this (especially if you haven't) so you must be punished

-Imp

How do you know I will do it if I haven't done it? And if I did do it once, wouldn't preventing me from doing it again be a reasonable decision by others?

I don't know, I don't need to know...

all that must be done is the prevention of your doing anything

I can't stop that which was predestined nor take responsibility for doing it

as if the falling object can artificially alter the rate of descent...

now if you could actually contain the rate of descent, the skunks wouldn't be so malodorous...

-Imp

[Gary Childress]

with no justification?

you will do this (especially if you haven't) so you must be punished

-Imp

How do you know I will do it if I haven't done it? And if I did do it once, wouldn't preventing me from doing it again be a reasonable decision by others?

I don't know, I don't need to know...

all that must be done is the prevention of your doing anything

I can't stop that which was predestined nor take responsibility for doing it

as if the falling object can artificially alter the rate of descent...

now if you could actually contain the rate of descent, the skunks wouldn't be so malodorous...

-Imp

So if you were told that we have no free will, you would kill people (just in case they were intending to kill you first)? Is that correct?

[Impenitent]

How do you know I will do it if I haven't done it? And if I did do it once, wouldn't preventing me from doing it again be a reasonable decision by others?

I don't know, I don't need to know...

all that must be done is the prevention of your doing anything

I can't stop that which was predestined nor take responsibility for doing it

as if the falling object can artificially alter the rate of descent...

now if you could actually contain the rate of descent, the skunks wouldn't be so malodorous...

-Imp

So if you were told that we have no free will, you would kill people (just in case they were intending to kill you first)? Is that correct?

lol

that's not at all what I said...

but it is obvious that you were predetermined not to be able to comprehend autonomy

-Imp

[Gary Childress]

but it is obvious that you were predetermined not to be able to comprehend autonomy

-Imp

It would seem so.

[popeye1945]

We are not only shaped by our evolutionary history; we are also shaped by the various environmental contexts that we inhabit throughout our life's journey. The only rational reason to suppose free will is that humanity just cannot deal with the profound complexity of reality. The concept itself is unrealistic and a great injustice to humanity at large. As I have stated so many times before, there is no such thing as human action; there is only human reaction, and those reactions are causes to humanity's outer world.

[Immanuel Can]

As I have stated so many times before, there is no such thing as human action; there is only human reaction, and those reactions are causes to humanity's outer world.

I'm sorry...this is just too dumb a debate to be had. It's really stupid.

If people cannot choose, then people cannot change their minds, either. So argumentation is pointless: the only reason you could then give for why anybody held any view was "prior material factors made it happen." So there would be no "better" or "worse" views of anything -- the total determinant would be the previous causal forces.

And arguments wouldn't work. For then, there is no mind to hear them, and no possibility of a mind being convinced of them.

So why is this OP about something the OP both requires of us, and yet demands we believe can't happen?

Too dumb for words.

[popeye1945]

As I have stated so many times before, there is no such thing as human action; there is only human reaction, and those reactions are causes to humanity's outer world.

I'm sorry...this is just too dumb a debate to be had. It's really stupid.

If people cannot choose, then people cannot change their minds, either. So argumentation is pointless: the only reason you could then give for why anybody held any view was "prior material factors made it happen." So there would be no "better" or "worse" views of anything -- the total determinant would be the previous causal forces.
And arguments wouldn't work. For then, there is no mind to hear them, and no possibility of a mind being convinced of them.
So why is this OP about something the OP both requires of us, and yet demands we believe can't happen?
Too dumb for words.

So Immanuuel, you have all the answers for us. How wonderful! Perhaps you could start by explaining how something that is motivated is an action and not a reaction. Changing one's mind is the same process as the initial idea; the same causal loop is involved. I believe your type of thinking really arises from a belief that you and the world are separated entities. You believe in free will; you are an agent in the world. I propose to you that mare presents is cause, and the larger reality for us is the presence of the Earth as cause, and reality itself is the result of reciprocal causation. You come into this world as a plastic constitution, ready to be shaped. You have no identity. The environmental contexts that you inhabit in your journey through this life will define you, and those contexts are the world, the primary cause of causes, without considering the cosmos or the creative field of the universe that produced you. I think you should ponder this a little deeper. All organisms are reactive creatures; if this were not so, evolutionary adaptation would be quite impossible, as our primary cause, the Earth, changes, so too must we as a species or die. We are linked to the physical world, not separate entities, but functional nodes of the Earth. It is cause to us, and through our reactions, those reactions are causes to the outside world. This is reciprocal causation. I could go on and on, but I have offered this challenge to people in general; give me an example of a human action which I cannot prove to be a reaction. Consider yourself called out.

[Gary Childress]

As I have stated so many times before, there is no such thing as human action; there is only human reaction, and those reactions are causes to humanity's outer world.

I'm sorry...this is just too dumb a debate to be had. It's really stupid.

If people cannot choose, then people cannot change their minds, either. So argumentation is pointless: the only reason you could then give for why anybody held any view was "prior material factors made it happen." So there would be no "better" or "worse" views of anything -- the total determinant would be the previous causal forces.
And arguments wouldn't work. For then, there is no mind to hear them, and no possibility of a mind being convinced of them.
So why is this OP about something the OP both requires of us, and yet demands we believe can't happen?
Too dumb for words.

So Immanuuel, you have all the answers for us. How wonderful! Perhaps you could start by explaining how something that is motivated is an action and not a reaction. Changing one's mind is the same process as the initial idea; the same causal loop is involved. I believe your type of thinking really arises from a belief that you and the world are separated entities. You believe in free will; you are an agent in the world. I propose to you that mare presents is cause, and the larger reality for us is the presence of the Earth as cause, and reality itself is the result of reciprocal causation. You come into this world as a plastic constitution, ready to be shaped. You have no identity. The environmental contexts that you inhabit in your journey through this life will define you, and those contexts are the world, the primary cause of causes, without considering the cosmos or the creative field of the universe that produced you. I think you should ponder this a little deeper. All organisms are reactive creatures; if this were not so, evolutionary adaptation would be quite impossible, as our primary cause, the Earth, changes, so too must we as a species or die. We are linked to the physical world, not separate entities, but functional nodes of the Earth. It is cause to us, and through our reactions, those reactions are causes to the outside world. This is reciprocal causation. I could go on and on, but I have offered this challenge to people in general; give me an example of a human action which I cannot prove to be a reaction. Consider yourself called out.

If there is no free will then no one is truly responsible for the right or wrong that is done, no one. Not the Republicans, not Hitler, not Saint Francis, not Christ (if he was truly mortal), no one. We're all moral equals, we're all victims or else beneficiaries of deterministic forces. Every single one of us. That includes, you, IC and me. And if there is a God and God is also a sentient being, then does God have any other choice available to him/her/it? Can God do anything else other than what God did, does and will do? And how would God even know if God has free will or not? Does God know what is beyond what God knows? Can God know that there is nothing beyond what God knows?

[Gary Childress]

Or, if there is a God, and God alone has free will, then can God change a person's mind? Because, if there is no free will then that which has no free will cannot change itself from or to anything other than what it is.

[Gary Childress]

Too dumb for words.

That is an ad hominem. (EDIT: Or perhaps a Red Herring, depending on how it was used.)