Did you not pick up on the fact that those were just WAG’s? I don’t know what motivates me to type this message to you. But I can guess that it’s because I enjoy intellectual discourse. However, I may very well be wrong. Maybe I just want to THINK I’m an intellectual, and actually I get my kicks not from discourse itself, but from arguing. The act of arguing could be stimulating releases of dopamine in my brain. From my vantage point, it is impossible for me to know this. But sure, I can make up a “just so” story. Every five-year-old can do this, though.
And did you not read what I said afterwards? I said one is held to higher burden of proof if they profess we have free will. The more parsimonious explanation is that we don’t have free will and it just seems as if we do, since there are so many different lines of evidence demonstrating how little control we have over our actions. The “free will exists” folks seem to only be able point to what appears to be evident. But this is ludricrous since the whole debate is that what appears to be evident is a goddamned illusion.
Just because I don’t know what I would say or do if I had free will doesn’t mean anything. I don’t know what I would say or do if I were a Martian. This doesn’t mean I’m a Martian, though. This is kind of a crazy argument to make, no?
you either get to choose or you don’t. i wish you could make up your mind. but, i guess you’re not able to do tat, are you, because of genetics and environment… i might as well be talking to a robot. right?
doing things because you enjoy the results sounds like free will. it would not be free will if and only if there were only one thing you could do that brought you enjoyment.
Most of us are introduced to the concept of free will in Sunday school class, when we first learn about Adam and Eve. The story goes that Eve was tempted by the serpent to bite into the forbidden fruit. Then she got Adam to do the same thing. We are told that these two were bad because they chose to go against God’s instructions. They were willful and disobedient, and thus undeserving of the Garden of Eden.
But I’ve always wondered. If Adam and Eve had known upfront what punishment was waiting for them, would they have eaten that apple? My guess is no, they wouldn’t have. My guess is that God had never punished or shown anger towards them before that fateful day. So they didn’t feel fear when they bit into that apple. Not because they were “willful” (or “hateful”, as my mother liked to say whenever I went against her). But because their brains hadn’t learned to connect “disobedience” with “bad consequences”. In this way, they were no different than a couple of babies obliviously crawling towards a hot stove.
I might yell at a baby for doing something I feel is inappropriate. But I would only do so to deter them from doing it again, not to punish it. Because I would recognize that it takes time for a person to learn right from wrong. I wouldn’t expect a baby to understand why touching the stove is so bad, because if you’ve never been burned, you don’t know to be afraid of it. Likewise, I wouldn’t have expected Adam and Eve to be afraid of disobeying God. Without the fear to inhibit them, of course the delicious apple (and the serpeant’s sales pitch) would be too tempting to ignore. Too bad God didn’t have the same patience for them that we show our own children.
I don’t think you understand what “free will” means.
Let me ask you this as simply as I can. Have you ever done something, anything, that could not be traced back to a specific intention? Think of the last thing you ever did that you absolutely hated. Got it? Now ask yourself, *why *did you do it? Was it because you were afraid of what would happen if you didn’t do it?
Now think about this motivation for a second. Did you do something intentionally to generate this compulsion? Or is it just one of those things that seem to exist, independent of your own actions?
If you can’t spend a few seconds to think about these questions in a thoughtful manner, I’m going to conclude you’re not interested in debating anyone.
I think if you REALLY believed that everything you did was nothing but the result of genetics and environment, i think you would call this predetermisim. i think you would curl up in a ball in bed and not even bother to move except to eat and use the bathroom. i think a large cloud of hopelessness and despair would descend over you.
i discount what you said about babies and adam and eve because one is a made up story and the other, you have more intelligence than a baby.
I’d appreciate if you refrained from telling me what I think or feel.
Just so you know, I’m not really engaging you as much as I’m trying to engage the curious lurker who may be reading this thread. As I said earlier, reading threads like this inspired me to do more research. I’d like to encourage others to do the same. Frankly, I don’t have much hope in convincing you of anything.
according to you you are completely programmed in what you think and feel by genetics and determinism. no need to get irritated with me for pointing that out. because i am doing nothing but responding to my genetics and environment. right? i mean seriously, how can you even say:
I’d appreciate if you refrained from telling me what I think or feel.
What makes you think that determinism somehow invalidates emotion, or complaining about things?
On the contrary, if we weren’t basically deterministic creatures then it wouldn’t make sense to say things like “I’d appreciate if you refrained from telling me what I think or feel”, because it would have no effect - a complaint affecting someone’s behavior is an example of cause and effect.
I can say that it annoys me when people deign to tell me what I think or feel. Because I am self-aware enough to be able to report what the hell I’m thinking or feeling at any given point in time.
Therefore, I can say what I would appreciate as well. I would appreciate if you kept your arguments (however poorly constructed they may be) away from my cognitive and affective state.
I’m currently eating some delicious guacomole. I don’t know why this stuff is so delicious. I’m almost certain dopamine is involved somehow, but I dunno. One thing I’m certain of is that I didn’t consciously choose to find this so pleasurable. You can infer from this that I’m “deterministic” all you want. Meanwhile, I’m going to be sitting over here, enjoying my food and the sun shining on my face. Like the evil atheist robot that I am.
What confuses you? I’m simply pointing out that contrary to what you are saying, there’s no reason to respond to determinism by “curling up in a ball in bed and not even bothering to move except to eat and use the bathroom”, to paraphrase you.
And, I’m pointing out that human interactions in general are predicated on the fact that people are creatures of cause and effect, not some impossible free will; that we respond to external stimuli and to our own past state, not some magic “free will”. Human society is built with the unspoken assumption that there is no “free will”, that humans are controlled by cause and effect - by determinism. Free will would mean that the past doesn’t determine the present and that people don’t respond to external stimuli, something that would undermine society completely.
Wrong. What makes you think that a cognitive state isn’t a response to past stimuli? What else could it be?
Um, no. Of course I have a cognitive state. I am aware of my own thoughts. I just not under the illusion that I’m creating them consciously.
Every so often, I experience racing, repetitive, obsessive unhinged thoughts. When I go to the doctor, I describe this experience to him and he gives me some medication, which often slows those thoughts down so that I don’t feel so crazy. If I wasn’t aware of my cognitive state, it would impossible for me to describe my experience and get the appropriate treatment. And if it wasn’t aware of the my affective state, the racing thoughts wouldn’t bother me enough to seek out help in the first place. So I know that I am self-aware about some things.
Seems to me you’re setting up this a horrible strawman: If a person doesn’t believe in free will, then it must follow that they don’t have any convictions about anything. Instead, what it means is that we don’t presume human behavior can be distilled to morality. A person who decides to shoot up a roomful of people isn’t just a “bad guy”, so let’s just hate on him because it makes us feel better about ourselves. The truth is so much more complicated than that. If free will is the final say in everything, then there’s no need for psychology, sociology, psychiatry, neuroscience, or any other field that attempts to explain the human condition.
No. I am sceptical about the concept of Free Will but do not deny it totally.
I believe that my behaviour is caused by my body with its genetic and experiential heritage and that I am a person defined by that body and its processes. I believe that other persons are similarly constructed.
I am aware of no coherent explanation not involving mysterions such as gods or unknown forces to explain the concept of Free Will. I have asked for such above but no-one has responded.
if it is all genetics, environment, and forces over which we have no choice but to react one and only one way, then OF COURSE there is nothing wrong with a guy shooting up a room full of people. how could there not be???