I’ll ask again. What “shitty choices” were made by the free will spirits in my examples?
All you should stop thinking up excuses and just do what the OP says.
I mean, isn’t that the message? Perhaps I’m overthinking it.
Completely absorb the input and then entirely ignore it? Doesn’t that leave you with a random action?
Input: Car travelling on the road I wish to cross
Discard input
Output: Random action not related to input.
Sounds like a 50-50 chance of getting hit by the car.
Are new faces anything like beautiful dolls?
You’re taking the easy way out. Underthinking it would be much more of a challenge.
I’m confused. Are you arguing against the doctrine of determinism because it’s factually wrong? Or are you arguing against belief in determinism because it leads to bad action?
In my opinion, either free will exists in fact, or it’s an exceptionally convincing illusion. To that extent, I might agree with you.
Let’s hope not.
To equate determinism with no (social) responsibility shows a shallow understanding of the argument for determinism. Social pressure is a major determining force. In this way, determinism can be seen as more responsive and responsible to society than an independent and uninfluencable free will. To turn your phrase: So if you kill someone, you’re a rotten egg with a shitty free will and a streak of bad luck? You see, to argue that we have a free will, is to argue that we each have within us a god-like uncaused cause, immune to all outside forces and changeable in ways that can only be described as random. We think we are making decisions, but we do things for a reason, or we do them randomly.
No, I don’t. I don’t control my genes, I had no control over my early environment, and I am surrounded by a world far larger and more powerful than I am. Our consciousness is only a thin veneer over our minds, and our minds are tiny specks in a vast universe.
I have responsibility for what I can control, which isn’t much.
And you know this how ? You know little or nothing about me.
Same thing; I am part of the universe, after all.
Fiscal.
No, it’s from a defective brain or upbringing or both. And there’s no such thing as a “spiritual tool”, or a spiritual anything.
That’s free will, which is why I don’t believe in it. That kind of “free will” would amount a form of insanity, since it would result in a mind whose behavior had no connection to the outside world. I believe we make choices, but it’s much as a computer makes choices, with some quantum randomness and deterministic chaos thrown in.
I call it a useful delusion. As the line goes, “We all believe in free will - we have no choice.” It’s hard talking at all about human behavior without using the language of free will, which in by opinion is precisely why we do so - most of us are trying to live our lives, not spend large amounts of time carefully crafting our sentences to exclude the concept of free will.
I believe that it’s a useful delusion because it serves as a cover for the immensely complex processes in our minds that lead to our decisions. If we were aware of those processes consciously, we’d be overwhelmed by the details, and unable to function. It would be like trying to walk while being aware of and controlling every last muscle and nerve, instead of just deciding to “get up and go over there”.
As usual, Bryan’s succinct wit makes the point more elegantly than I could in my paragraph above.
I choose you, Pikachu!!
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Grail Guardian : “He chose . . . poorly.”
Isn’t the Grail Guardian just the Crusader Knight evolved using the Philosopher’s Stone?
No, I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Gus_R, your OP, while it had a few germs of a discussion, was conveyed in a fairly hostile manner, which pretty much guaranteed a rather hostile reception. Using the second person, throughout, was rather silly since you could not know beforehand whether you would garner more responses from posters who oppose your view or posters who might support it. Compounding that false step was the fact that you apparently forgot to proofread before submitting, leading to such odd expressions as referring to persons who “prescribe” to a religion (hint: subscribe), and making vague assertions that leave your audience trying to figure out what you intended, so that (especially in this crowd) you opened yourself up to a fair amount of mocking.
Your subsequent “Fuck you” in Post #19 (in fact the entire paraph in which it appears), while probably staying just inside our rule of attacking the argument, not the person, is unnecessarily hostile and will do nothing to earn you debating points. (If continued, it will also probably garner you a Warning to behave yourself.)
Calm down. Put some thought into what you are trying to say, and express yourself with a bit more discrestion and you might get an actual discussion–or even a debate–rather than the fairly mocking dismissals that you have so far earned.
Crotalus, your post is much more an attack on the poster than the post. Knock it off.
[ /Moderating ]
This raises an interesting point for free will beleivers. Do people with mental illnesses have free will? can a person with OCD just decide not to wash his/her hands today? If so, why would they do so to their detriment so often? Is the mental illness screwing with the input, but eah decision to wash his hands is made by that person, or doesn’t mental illness somehow break free will?
There is no such disorder or medical diagnosis known as “split personality.” Choose to be informed.
Further, people with mood disorders such as manic depression (bi-polarity) cannot be said to have no control over their reactions to their environments. Much depends on the individuals and the situations, but they do obviously exercise some control as long as they continue to live.
I think that we choose more of our own destinies than most of us seem to be aware of, but it isn’t all a matter of will for everyone. What happens when two people will contradictory events?
Or three or ten or a thousand . . .
That’s why I keep harping on the fact that I am only small being in a large world - even if I have this miraculous ability to reshape the world and my life by sheer will, so does everyone else.
I know it’s probably quite a poor illustration in many ways, but you might think of the person with OCD constantly washing hands as similar to an ordinary human being using the restroom. Sure, I can ordinarily most certainly pick and choose when to do it. Most people don’t urinate when asleep, so it seems like it’s an activity that is voluntary, the vast majority of the time. I have free will in this regard, let’s posit.
But then again, I’m not completely free to use the restroom when I choose. Let’s say I were to attempt to go 12 hours without it. Although it might take a slight rearrangement in a daily schedule, I could probably do it easily. 8 hours of sleep plus 2 hours on either end, and watching my fluid intake would do the trick. If I were to attempt 24 hours, I would probably be quite uncomfortable, and although I have my doubts, I might be able to gut it out.
To go a week, however, my chances are slim to none. I’d be absurdly uncomfortable. To make the week bearable, I’d probably be dehydrated by the end of the week. I’d probably have medical problems. And through all this, I still wouldn’t make it.
Maybe the person who compulsively washes hands acts the same way, except in slightly different ways. They generally have the ability to wash hands when they want, they just can’t go too long without it. (Just as I have the ability to use the restroom when I want, I just can’t go days on end without it.) Also, instead of the physical discomforts of not using the restroom, they have the mental discomforts of not washing hands. “Am I sure my hands are clean enough?” “My hands keep getting dirty and there’s nothing I can do about it, so I’d better keep washing them.” “When my hands aren’t freshly washed, they just don’t feel right.” And so on. (My apologies if I’m not adequately describing the effects of OCD. I’m not a physician or a psychologist.)
I’m sure that if anyone here went a very long time without handwashing, that person would feel unsanitary on some level.
Yay! Welcome back SentientMeat*!
Anyway, what the OP seems to neglect is the fact that sometimes, the universe shafts you up the ass and there’s nothing you can do about it. Nothing. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to do something, it just means that failure isn’t always an indicator that you didn’t try hard enough. Death is not the only thing you cannot conquer.
What the OP seems to be talking about is The Master Key System. It’s an old philosophy of sorts that you’ve probably all seen labelled as the “power of positive thinking.” The operative word being “positive.”
The philosophy also exists in Buddhism, Gnosticism, and yoga among many others I’m sure. It appears to be backed by quantum physics. It’s a mindfuck but if anyone’s interested, here’s where to go, what to read, what to see:
The Secret
What the Bleep
The God Theory: Universes, Zero-point Fields, And What’s Behind It All
Can you give us a brief rundown on **how **it appears to be backed by quantum physics?