Free will. Free will?

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by August

No pretending involved, it was your choice.

You miss the point entirely, which was the question of how you know it was your choice to make. Are we really free to make that choice at all. It's one of the great philosophical debates of history. To say you believe one way or another is fine, but to couch it as a definitive answer indicates that you are convinced of something you don't really know.

The reason the debate has gone on for so long is that no one yet has come up with a provable definitive answer. There is nothing here but opinion. Mine happens to agree with yours, but that's still all it is.

As Joseph Joubert put it: "It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it."

[August]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

You miss the point entirely, which was the question of how you know it was your choice to make. Are we really free to make that choice at all. It's one of the great philosophical debates of history. To say you believe one way or another is fine, but to couch it as a definitive answer indicates that you are convinced of something you don't really know.

The reason the debate has gone on for so long is that no one yet has come up with a provable definitive answer. There is nothing here but opinion. Mine happens to agree with yours, but that's still all it is.

As Joseph Joubert put it: "It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it."

Bunch of hogwash if you ask me. Questioning your existence is a road that only leads to insanity.

[Spoon 11th]

Nature rather than nurture is responsible for creating your personality, according to a study of twins which found that character is something you are born with.

Researchers from Edinburgh University studied more than 800 sets of identical and non-identical twins...

...the researchers found that identical twins were twice as likely as non-identical twins to share the same personality traits, suggesting that their DNA was having the greatest impact.

Genetics were most influential on people's sense of self-control and also affected their social and learning abilities and their sense of purpose.

"The biggest factor we found was self control. There was a big genetic difference in [people's ability to] restrain themselves and persist with things when they got difficult and react to challenges in a positive way."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...udy-shows.html



And here's skeptic's interpretation what the bible says about free will:

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.co...free_will.html
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/free.html

[Skybird]

Let's leave bible and stuff like that out of this thread, else it will become ugly fast.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Let's leave bible and stuff like that out of this thread, else it will become ugly fast.

Humanists took the discussion of free will from the Catholic philosophers, like Aquinas. It is simply a substitution of "Inner Urge" from "God". You can't have a discussion without the origins of the discussion. No advocacy of religion is being discussed, only summarry for academic purposes, just as one must appreciate the genius of J. S. Bach's St. Matthew's Passion regardless of their religiosity.

[geetrue]

Originally Posted by Skybird
Let's leave bible and stuff like that out of this thread, else it will become ugly fast.

It's your thread man ...

you want to leave the bible out?

I think it is for the same reasons that you have left it out of your life

if that's what you want then that is what you will get

I think it's not the bible that you are afraid of ...

it's the truth that is available in the bible

Let me leave you with this example of what St James the brother of Jesus
said,

"The body is dead without the spirit"

another example: what if a dog bites you?

did that dog have free will to bite you?

did you step into that dogs yard triggering something in that dog to bite you?

So you stomp the poor thing killing it in the process and now that dog is dead proving that the body is dead without the spirit.

All things are spiritual ... God is a spirit

Now I'll leave the bible out of your thread ... "it's your thread man"

by the way if you have three lighthouses in a row ...

do you get egg roll?

[Takeda Shingen]

Well my agument is now dead, at least as it pertains to SubSim, and this immediate thread. At least I have Bach to keep me company.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by geetrue

It's your...
(...)
... egg roll?

Sigh.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Free will in the context talked about by Harris, and in the context I usually base on, means not more and not less than the assumed freedom of man to chose between two or more alternatives. I would not go any further than this, because going further means, as I see it, to step on slippery ground.

Do we form such choices outside any brain context? Well, take away the brain, and what you are left with is a bunch of meat.

If there is the freedom to make a choice in the above meaning, then the question is: what is it that has this freedom?

If on the other hand the brain forms - by a pattern of complex predetermination, if you want - the decision on what the organism does, chooses, prefers next, and then afterwards the organism starts to interpret this as its "free decision" that was made without and outside of that pattern of complex predetermination: then this obviously has consequences for the way we understand ourselves, think of ourselves, and define ourselves.

Really that difficult...?

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by geetrue

It's your thread man ...

you want to leave the bible out?

This was meant to be a discussion about free will. You would rather use your time to proselyze and judge based on the Bible. That's fine, but do you have any opinion about free will? That is the topic, after all.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by August

Bunch of hogwash if you ask me. Questioning your existence is a road that only leads to insanity.

Or possibly stems from it.

On the other hand it can be argued that not questioning your existence, you motives or your sanity leads to hubris. Or stems from it.

[August]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Or possibly stems from it.

On the other hand it can be argued that not questioning your existence, you motives or your sanity leads to hubris. Or stems from it.

Anything can be argued, that doesn't make it true or likely.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by August

Anything can be argued, that doesn't make it true or likely.

I try to be polite in my phrasing. It's much nicer than just saying "Damn, you're arrogant!"

You don't like actually discussing things much, do you?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Or possibly stems from it.

On the other hand it can be argued that not questioning your existence, you motives or your sanity leads to hubris. Or stems from it.

It's not about whether I exist or not. I think on this issue, therefore I am. Obviously, something does exist there for sure, and obviously it is in any kind of relation to what we consider to be ourselves.

The issue is: what is it that thinks it is free to decide? It is "us". But is our understanding of ourselves rally in congruence with the reality of our nature and essence, or do we think about ourselves in illusive concepts that hold no truth,. no substance? In the end: what is the nature of ourself - or better: of our self? Is it really that independent as we usually think it is? Or are we more predetermined by factors that we usually comfortably tend to not wanting to become too aware of? Free will yes or no - obviously it touches on some of the most profound issues onthology fights with with since the first people started to think.

I began with that essay by Harris. I just made some steps beyond what he reflected about, which was primarily the question on ethical behaviour.

[geetrue]

"Free will"

what triggers the voluntary responce?

soul

[August]

Originally Posted by geetrue

"Free will"

what triggers the voluntary responce?

soul

This is just Skybirds way of saying that when he advocates mass murder it's not his fault.