Do you believe that we have free will?

[TheAvatarState]

7 minutes ago, RichardY said:

The smartest man in the USA says people can have freewill, Christopher Langan

Yeah, what a tragic story, if you actually look up his life. Not really sure why you'd consider the highest-scoring IQ man an "authority" on anything, but of course you're welcome to. 

[RichardY]

12 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

Smartest by what metric?

Skull size, and IQ test.

[Dovahkiin]

Depends on which ‘we’ you’re talking about!

[RichardY]

@Dovahkiin The Dragonborn approaches.

Pretty sure the Dragonborn is the equivalent of Satan in Skyrim.

[lmfao]

@IVONNE I'll make an intellectual argument for no free will. Think of the universe as just a single system consisting of matter, energy and various particles which are constantly changing form through space and time in accordance to "the laws of physics". You as a biological organism are simply an expression of the universe. These laws may partially be deterministic and partially indeterministic, but the exact degree to which the laws are deterministic/indeterministic doesn't really change whether we have free will or not. In a deterministic universe, the same initial conditions always lead to same result. To give you an example, if I have perfect knowledge about the forces that will act upon a coin during a coin flip I can with 100% certainty predict what the result of the coin flip will be. But for indeterministic events (which may be present in our universe), the same initial conditions don't yield the same results all the time. There is then an element of pure randomness in the universe.

Consider the atoms and chemicals in a human brain making decisions. In a deterministic point of view of the universe, every feature of your personality and every feature of your life was inevitable and could be fully predicted from the knowledge of the exact state of the universe billions of years ago. Your whole life is following a script. Event A necessitates that Event B happens, which necessitates Event C , which also necessitates that Event D happens, and so on. Linear cause and effect, albeit the universe having trillions upon trillions of variables our human minds cant ever hope fully fathom. Let's suppose the atoms in your brain are following indeterministic laws of physics. In what sense do random dice rolls imply free will? Whether the universe is random or is following a script, or a mixture of both, neither imply the existence of free will and moral culpability. Inherent to the idea of "free will" that most people have is that free will makes a person good or bad. 

When I drop a tennis ball in the air, it falls down due to the laws of physics. There is no moral culpability you can assign to the tennis ball, the tennis ball could not have "chosen" to do something else. If I make a decision to commit a crime, that decision is a result of the atoms in my brain following the laws of physics in the exact same way as a tennis ball falling through air. I am no more morally culpable than a tennis ball. 

But don't let this train of thought make you think that you're some poor puppet who's been destined to be unwillingly strung along into suffering. What this is instead pointing to is that you are the entire universe and are one with it. 

 

@RichardY Having a high IQ can perhaps be likened to having a sharp knife. It's a useful tool that is used to fulfil the agenda you give it, the knife in of in itself is neither "good" or "bad". 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2019 by lmfao

[Joseph Maynor]

47 minutes ago, Dovahkiin said:

Depends on which ‘we’ you’re talking about!

If I same after you with a sword you would figure that out really fast.  That little philosophical qualm would go bye bye.  Now, why is that?

Edited February 19, 2019 by Joseph Maynor

[Anton Rogachevski]

Dear mods, please pin a Mega Thread about free will, so that we stop getting a post asking the same question every couple of days.

Thank you in advance,

Cheers.

 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2019 by Anton Rogachevski

[lmfao]

@Anton Rogachevski

Just now, Anton Rogachevski said:

Dear mods, please pin a Mega Thread about free will, so that we stop getting a post asking the same question every couple of days.

Thank you in advance,

Cheers.

LOL 

I must have found 10 ways to type the exact same shit on the internet on this topic, I swear to christ. 

[Aaron p]

It's hard to answer that...in short, nah we don't. But also, you don't exist. And also somehow I don't exist.

[Consilience]

13 hours ago, Shadowraix said:

Yes and no. 

Stop seeing the duality of free will vs predetermined and you'll see it collapses into the same thing. It is simultaneously both at once. They represent different perspectives of the same thing. 

^^^^

[IVONNE]

@lmfao well.....then I guess this is something questioned from time to time globally