Free will?

[Silver Incubus]

Come on man, however diverse our respective definitions of choice are, you can't possibly believe that parents "choose" the genes of their offspring.
Indirectly they choose each other and therfore the possiblities of the genes are limited to the genes of your parents. When did I say parents choose each and every gene that their child will have. If your dad was different, you would look different, or is that environmental, or genetic? (See how easy it is to read what I post, instead of interpreting what I post.)

You're reaching for obscure specifics to prove what you're presenting as a general rule.

No, I am saying that your choice of where you go and what you do and how you act will change who you may have contact with.(Because you cannot predict where people will be, means they have free choice)
Even if you control where you go, you don't control where other people go, and you don't know where every person is going to be at every point in time either, thus you aren't in control of who you cross paths with.
Doesn't this mean they have free choice as to where they are going.

This is irrelevant anyway though, the only reason you go anywhere is because you're pursuing some end, and what ends you pursue depends on how you've been shaped by a combination of genetics and environmental experience.

Are you saying that the thoughts and hallucinations in your head are created solely by an outside stimulus? Like some sort of a in your head holographic projection that is invisible?



I

t's not just that they affect choice, it's that they're the sole cause of your choices, and thus there's nothing free about them because actually, your choices are outside your control. The illusion that you're in control of your decisions is, well, an illusion.

So what is creating all these illusions?

You're missing the point. You keep making arguments about how things are only made impossible because people convince others to be closed-minded. In reality, many things are impossible regardless of what people tell them, like being a goat when you're not a goat.

What the fuck are you talking about goats for? Did you fall down and crack your head or something. I never once said that it is possible to transmute in to a goat. Why do you keep persuing such a retarded thing?

Spell out your point for me, then, as I clearly haven't understood it.

Yes, and Jimmy Joe the village idiot will never be a philosopher either. It's called reality. What were you trying to argue, if not that anything's possible if somebody believes it enough? I'm not even sure how this is related to the topic, actually.

I certainly do not subscribe to you shitty version of reality.

I can achieve being a 19 foot robot living on planet Flobble with Gina G then -

Only in your mind.

Except it's not wrong. The decision to smile at somebody was purely and simply a product of how you've been shaped by genetics and environmental experience, you had no control over the choice, only an illusion of control, which is just about the opposite of "free will" as it's commonly defined.

I did too have control over whether I smiled or not. Your seriously should try acting different and see how people respond to you. Oh sorry I forgot that the environment your in won't let you, or is it your genes?

Here I will Illustrate basically what the fuck I am talking about.

Stimulous = response
Stimulous(outter)-> sense organ -> signal to brain -> interpretation of stimulous-> response.

So I take my interpretation of stimulous, like moving a patch chord from one amp to another, and make it and deal with it as I deem the most beneficial.

If it is good, I want to keep it, If it does me no good, then I can selectively forget it.

This gives me the ability to consciously (and unconsciously) react to stimulus differently then I had previously would have reacted, thenin giving me a choice between a good or a bad experience.

 

[no country for old wainds]

Dude that was the most diabolical butchering of the quote function I've ever seen.

Are you saying that the thoughts and hallucinations in your head are created solely by an outside stimulus?

"Outside stimulus" is a bit of a confusing term here, as "outside" doesn't really apply to genes. Outside of your control, yes.

What the fuck are you talking about goats for? Did you fall down and crack your head or something. I never once said that it is possible to transmute in to a goat. Why do you keep persuing such a retarded thing?

I certainly do not subscribe to you shitty version of reality.

I'm simply demonstrating to you how mind-numbingly retarded it is to believe that there are no limits to what a person can achieve.

the rest

I'm not making this clear enough, and I doubt I ever will. Nevertheless...

Once the laws of the universe were initially set, the whole thing plays out inevitably. That's the fundamental argument. One thing leads to another, right from the big bang. Our thoughts, our desires, our feelings, none of them originate in ourselves, they are inevitable effects of causes. We have no control over our lives, because we have no control over who we are, because who we are is simply an effect of causes outside our control. It seems like you made yourself a sandwich because you chose to, but actually, you were always going to make that sandwich, because it was an inevitable effect of various causes, which in turn were inevitable effects of previous causes, etcetc indefinitely.

 

[Justin S.]

Wheres Speed "the lockman", when you need him?

 

[Silver Incubus]

Once the laws of the universe were initially set, the whole thing plays out inevitably. That's the fundamental argument. One thing leads to another, right from the big bang. Our thoughts, our desires, our feelings, none of them originate in ourselves, they are inevitable effects of causes. We have no control over our lives, because we have no control over who we are, because who we are is simply an effect of causes outside our control. It seems like you made yourself a sandwich because you chose to, but actually, you were always going to make that sandwich, because it was an inevitable effect of various causes, which in turn were inevitable effects of previous causes, etcetc indefinitely.

Don't talk to me about fairy tales. Show me some proof of your knowledge and maybe I'd consider it, but so far, you do not.

Besides, if I wanted to, I could completely agree with you, but I choose otherwise at the moment. I use to be a hard determinist myself, and in a way I still am. But I do beleive we have the power to shape ourself dispite the environmental conditioning simply becaue I have done it, and seen it done enough to have changed my point of view.

I don't know if you know who Richard Bandler is, or what Neruo Linguistic Programming is, but I would suggest you check it out. Think of it as applied psychology, through Hypnosis

 

[Opethian666]

Great, I make one thread here and it turns into a bitchfight

 

[Opethian666]

But I do beleive we have the power to shape ourself dispite the environmental conditioning simply becaue I have done it, and seen it done enough to have changed my point of view.

You don't understand. Environmental conditioning != environmental information input (continuous flow of incoming information through the senses). The way your body reacts to the input it is getting from your environment is set, if the structure of your body is set (which it obviously is).

INPUT => PROCESSING => OUTPUT

For a certain input and a certain processor, the output is determined.

 

[Horus]

And that processing of information is called.... FREE WILL!!!

 

[Demilich]

I don't see how any of the nonsense in this thread is supposed to convince anyone that we cannot choose our course of action in our lives. This entails free will to me, and I've yet to be convinced that it doesn't exist.

 

[Silver Incubus]

You don't understand. Environmental conditioning != environmental information input (continuous flow of incoming information through the senses). The way your body reacts to the input it is getting from your environment is set, if the structure of your body is set (which it obviously is).

INPUT => PROCESSING => OUTPUT

For a certain input and a certain processor, the output is determined.

If what you say is true, then how and why would some people develop phobias and other do not? Especially in cases where those people experience the same thing.

It is in the processing that it gets rooted to the fear part of your brain, while others it isn't rooted to that part. Its called stimulus response, and you can keep the stimulus and change the response, indicating that people have free will over how they will respond.
Have you ever seen what a hypnotist can do? Or the people that can stick needles into their arms during a deep trance and not bleed after pulling them out, dispite all logical expectations of them bleeding? They are choosing if they bleed, and that is choice you cannot explain due to genetic or environmental issues.

 

[Europa Ascendent]

Phobias are processing errors, you fool. Some people get phobias and others don't because some people have neurochemical processing errors that make phobia-formation possible, just like some people eat well and exercise and still die of heart attacks and others eat a Mickey D's a day and still keep the doctor away.

 

[Silver Incubus]

Phobias are processing errors, you fool. Some people get phobias and others don't because some people have neurochemical processing errors that make phobia-formation possible, just like some people eat well and exercise and still die of heart attacks and others eat a Mickey D's a day and still keep the doctor away.

You can't make up things and expect me to beleive them. We are the ones creating the chemicals to induce the fear. It is when we start to think about the feared event or thing that creates the response. People don't even need to see the stimulous to feel the same fear. They only have to relive it through memory(past) or create it in thought(future, imagined). So they choose to think of the things and create that response in themselves which creates the fear.

SO again what I am saying is, we have the ability to change associations to specific things, such as phobias, to other more pleasent emotions from other memories, and rewire your synapse so that you no longer feel the fear when you think or encouner the stimulous.
One example
of how you have the free will to choose how you respond to outside stimulous

I can't beleive the people who are saying we have no free will, no choice. they keep choosing to post or not post in this thread.

If you could also think of it like a computer with software. Some already comes on it(aka genes), others are learned from books, teachers, friends,events, etc(environment) and then some are made(choice, self programming)

The problem is that sometimes the environmental programming gets in the way of self programming. Sometimes inhibiting. Others it is just bad self programming, which may be due to environmental programs that teach that self programming is not possible, or at least not possible to change the programming.

I could illustrate it if you are a picture type of person...
I don't know how else to tell you.

 

[Europa Ascendent]

We are the ones creating the chemicals to induce the fear.

Yeah, and it's an involuntary function you fucking dolt! I mean, unless you think THOSE are conscious actions, in which case you should probably not follow this thread so closely. In your zeal, you might forget to remind your heart to keep beating.

 

[Silver Incubus]

Yeah, and it's an involuntary function you fucking dolt! I mean, unless you think THOSE are conscious actions, in which case you should probably not follow this thread so closely. In your zeal, you might forget to remind your heart to keep beating.

Ok so now you are telling me that I cannot control my breathing and essentially my heart rate because it normally is an unconscious fucntion? Who are you trying to fool here?

Actually, you didn't even read my post did you?

Where i describe that it is possible to change those involuntary responses

 

[Europa Ascendent]

You can impact them within a very limited range, but you cannot stop either.

 

[Silver Incubus]

You can impact them within a very limited range, but you cannot stop either.

Well I am glad that you finally agree that I am corret in free will. Thanks.

edit: oh yeah and to stop them both, would be called suicide(aka asphyxiation). Cheers!

 

[sahlinja]

i don't think that people who believe in certain religions like christianity can say there is free will because the Bible says that God knows the future. Therefore, there is no free will because the future is predetermined.

as for people of no faith or people who believe in a religion in which their god doesn't know the future, I think there is a certain degree of free will. Sure humans are just mammals...we are techinically just animals made up of cells just like every other living organism, but we have the ability to make decisions due to our intellectual depth that comes with our brain. We may be inclined to do certain things because of our environment and genetics, but that does not entirely dictate what we choose to do. We can do things that are entirely against our nature and environmental conditioning, but that doesn't usually happen.

 

[no country for old wainds]

I can't beleive the people who are saying we have no free will, no choice. they keep choosing to post or not post in this thread.

I can't believe the people who are saying we have free will, choice. They keep posting or not posting as an inevitable reaction to causes outside their control.

 

[Cythraul]

I can't beleive the people who are saying we have no free will, no choice. they keep choosing to post or not post in this thread.

question begging.

 

[Opethian666]

Have you ever seen what a hypnotist can do? Or the people that can stick needles into their arms during a deep trance and not bleed after pulling them out, dispite all logical expectations of them bleeding? They are choosing if they bleed, and that is choice you cannot explain due to genetic or environmental issues.

Give me one reason why this couldn't be explained? A trance is a different state of the body, in which it could for example heighten the production of blood clotting enzymes (That's just a possible explanation I made up, but I'm sure you're capable to find the actual explanation on the internet or watch it on NGC). They are "choosing" to bleed in the same way a drop of water "chooses" how it falls down a slope. You have some serious issues with logic tbh. You fail to grasp a concept most of us have already gotten a long time ago.

 

[Opethian666]

I can't beleive the people who are saying we have no free will, no choice. they keep choosing to post or not post in this thread.

That choice is only dependant from the structure of our bodies and the inflow of information from the environment, including your and other people's posts which we perceive through our eyes. Are you really this dumb or are you trolling?