midnight rain

That seems to be a whole other ballgame, and I haven't entertained it enough to say what I think about it, but I think the environment is not an illusion in that we see the effects of it on animals as well as humans, and that the processes of it can be accounted for. But I'm sure you have something more to say about it so don't leave me blowing in the wind. Or is wind an illusion?

I agree. Our judgements of things are what they are, regardless of their origins and how responsible people are for the things we judge.

That's why I specifically singled out pride, cause it's an emotion that exists as a feeling of self-satisfaction over what someone is taking credit for that they had no hand in. Dictionary.com actually refers to the kind of pride I'm talking about as 'civic pride' and it's defined as:

Big Ears

I do not know if pride is logical or not, but I always cringe when I hear the word 'pride'. I am not overtly religious, but Proverbs says, "Pride goeth before destruction."

blastingas10

So free will Doesnt exist? I have to disagree with that, Even if our choices are just a product of neurons in our Brain. That only explains how our "free will" works. And even if our options of choice are finite, it's such a great number that it would be impossible to predict every choice one was to make, especially when you consider that choices are completely relevant to the decisions that one may face; which would be even more impossible to predict.

midnight rain

I don't mean to be elitist or anything but we'd be regressing in the discussion if I responded to this. Most of this was discussed near the beginning of the thread.

blastingas10

Well, sorry, I saw that one comment and wanted to give me two cents.

midnight rain

No worries man, if you still think that way after reading through the rest of it feel free and repost it or whatever of our posts you disagree with.

Guybrush

Sorry if I'm repeating points already made, but I got two quick cents too which I would like to make without having to read through 6 pages of discussion, if only to show where I stand on the matter of free will.

Whether or not we have free will depends on what you mean by free will. If free will means being able to make your own decisions, then sure, we generally have free will. If free will means having a will free of the boundaries of context like the evolutionary history that shaped it and our biology (whether well adapted or not), we don't.

An example of an extreme action that could be free will is self-immolation as a protest, most commonly known from the Tibetans protest against China. A Tibetan setting fire to him or herself can be said to demonstrate free will because they choose to do something which is so damaging to themselves. It seems the will is free of the interests of the body. However, if you did a DNA study of these people, you might find that they have genetic factors associated with being suicidal, extreme risk takers or even insane. We are our genes (and some other things like epigenetic factors) and they have a history which determines us. Environment (experience) is added on top of that, but it doesn't "free" us from ourselves, our biology.

I don't know if you guys have been using the same definition of "free will" in your discussion so far, but generally speaking, making sure you do so is important.

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midnight rain

That's actually the basis for most of the 6 pages of discussion lol.

I've been arguing free will does not exist on the premise that every action we make is based on a combination of environment and genetics, and our path is predetermined such that if you got a supercomputer intelligent to account for DNA and all external factors that impact an individual in their life, it could chart every reaction of theirs precisely.

I believe duga disagrees, but I'm not 100% sure. This whole subject can get kind of confusing as to who believes what, and whether there's even a difference.

Guybrush

I too think we are beings that react in a predictable ways and that one could model an individuals behaviour if the model was good enough.

Whether there's even a difference is also interesting. I think if a computer models my behaviour perfectly just because it knows everything about me and how I am affected by my environment, I could still be doing what I want to do and exercising what I perceive as my will. At least I don't think being fundamentally unpredictable is a requirement for feeling like you have free will.

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duga

Ah nice... We got tore in on the discussion.

Even though tore was reiterating what we've been talking about, he still highlights exactly where the disagreement here is. I don't think we all have the same definition of free will. I think if we all got on the same page with that, we would all pretty much be in agreement. You all have logically sound arguments.

Just so we stop beating a dead horse, I'll try to highlight something I think about a lot. We perceive time as linear when in actuality it's probably more like a big amorphous blob (look up some string theory if you want more about that). In this context, yes... Everything is predictable because everything has "happened" already. You pop into existence with your entire impact on the universe already in place. Using Tuna's definition of free will... No, we don't have any. My definition of free will is more "outside of time", so to speak. We made our own decisions, now we are playing them out. Throw parallel worlds where we could have potentially made different decisions into the mix, and you end up with a real mind ****.

In case you guys don't want to go into some actual Plato (or Quantum theory), just watch the Matrix trilogy. As nerdy as it is, the Wachowski brothers did a great job of packing in a lot of philosophy into a sci fi format. When Neo talks to the Oracle in Relaoaded, she says we've already made all of our choices, now we are here to understand them. Pure Plato right there.

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Confusion will be my epitaph...