Free Will vs Determinism

[SS10]

@How to be wise So a drug addict is doomed for life, a rapist cant be rehabilitated?

[How to be wise]

@SS10 Through investigation, you will find out whether or not a person has the ability to feel necessary emotions (like self restraint). If they can’t, appropriate action must be taken to make sure they don’t harm anyone. 

[Moksha]

9 minutes ago, SS10 said:

@Moksha Do you control your urge to have sex? You dont have 100% autonomy of the arising of the urge, but you have some control over the action. The urge to have sex is just an evolutionary necessity, which in a sense is natures bribe for you to have sex. You choose to act upon that bribe in a sense, despite the urge being strong. Its not like you get horny in public and just start jerking of lol - you have control. 

I was raised in a society where uncontrolled sex is looked down upon. My mind was conditioned, and I had no choice in the conditioning.

If free will is possible, where does it come from? Someone could claim God gave them free will, but if that is the case why would God give some people the kind of free will that chooses right and leads to salvation, but give other people the kind of free will that chooses evil and leads to damnation?

Note: Feel free (heh) to replace God with the Universe, Consciousness, or anything else that could be said to create us.

[SS10]

8 minutes ago, Shin said:

I could argue that it's your need to feel in control that is at play, which comes from an emotion.

We can go on all day with this  

Let me ask you this, how would you be able to live and survive as a self if you had to will every single thought, every single micro-biological process, the rejuvenation of your cells, the growing of your hair? You would go insane. When we were hunter-gatherers, how would it help our survival if every time we saw a lion or snake and the emotion of fear came up, we questioned where that came from? The process of emotion has to be automatic, and unconscious or you wouldn't be able to function in the natural world as a creature. We act upon emotions, not dictated by them. Even though they are a powerful force.

[Someone here]

@SS10 this whole "we" bullshit tho..

[SS10]

@Moksha Thats my point, "where does free will come from?" is the problem. All your emotions and drives are supposed to keep you alive. When you touch a hot stove and instantly remove your hand because its hot, what good would it do to be able to understand where the feeling of hot came from? The process of the emotion/sensation arising has to be insantinous. Consciousness is infinitely intelligent, it knows you dont have to know where it came from - it just has to send the signal in which you act upon from.

Take traffic lights for instance, you respond to the green light, signalling to go and you respond to the red light signalling to stop. To make an argument for determinism is to confuse the green light for causing the stopping/starting of your car. You control the car, the traffic lights are just signals. Even though from a birds eyes perspective it looks like that green/red lights are causing cars to stop/start. Why is this so hard to see? Am I missing something? 

From the red lights perceptive it looks like they are causing cars to stop, but no, the driver of the car is causing the car to stop. If the traffic light was conscious, in the same way we are, it would delude itself into thinking that it was causing the stopping. 

If your are going to respond to me please directly respond to what i have just said.

[The Lucid Dreamer]

1 minute ago, SS10 said:

@Moksha You control the car, the traffic lights are just signals.

There is no “you”.

[The0Self]

@SS10 Free will doesn’t come from anywhere. It’s just not there. It only seems to be. Choices appear to happen. They are what they are. Nothing does it. There’s nothing of substance in, behind, or beyond them.

[Byun Sean]

@SS10

Where do you think all of your motivations come from. You think you are generating and choosing your own desires?

I don't think so.

If you honestly look inside your mind,  you don't know where your thoughts come, what is controlling your thoughts or what your next thought will be.

 

[Shin]

5 minutes ago, The Lucid Dreamer said:

There is no “you”.

Sure does feel like it from here

[SS10]

All.

Nobody is addressing what I have said, if you are going to dissect my argument - please actually reference something I said. And stop trying to be clever by saying there is no "You" or "We". Within the context of my argument you know what is being referred to.

[SS10]

@The Lucid Dreamer @Byun Sean As ive said, there is no evolutionary purpose to knowing where it arises from - you just act upon it. Please read my traffic light reference. Still haven't heard a reputable rebuttal to my thesis. Asking "where a thought comes from" would be like a driver asking what causes the light to go red or go green, then they start reading about traffic light mechanics whilst driving and all that. Do you not see how deluded that is? the driver doesn't care what is causing the light to change, they just need to see and act upon the signal - in humans case, desire and emotions being the traffic light.

And as for there being no "You", you live and act as if there is a "You". I am going to go on what you live by not what you say.

 

Edited October 29, 2020 by SS10

[Moksha]

3 minutes ago, SS10 said:

@Moksha Thats my point, "where does free will come from?" is the problem. All your emotions and drives are supposed to keep you alive. When you touch a hot stove and instantly remove your hand because its hot, what good would it do to be able to understand where the feeling of hot came from? The process of the emotion/sensation arising has to be insantinous. Consciousness is infinitely intelligent, it knows you dont have to know where it came from - it just has to send the signal in which you act upon from.

Take traffic lights for instance, you respond to the green light, signalling to go and you respond to the red light signalling to stop. To make an argument for determinism is to confuse the green light for causing the stopping/starting of your car. You control the car, the traffic lights are just signals. Even though from a birds eyes perspective it looks like that green/red lights are causing cars to stop/start. Why is this so hard to see? Am I missing something? 

From the red lights perceptive it looks like they are causing cars to stop, but no, the driver of the car is causing the car to stop. If the traffic light was conscious, in the same way we are, it would delude itself into thinking that it was causing the stopping. 

If your are going to respond to me please directly respond to what i have just said.

Where does free will come from? Do you have an answer? How is it even possible for people to be free, outside of their biology and conditioning? If you strip the human form away, all that is left is Consciousness itself. There is no "you" or "me" making decisions; there is only Consciousness manifesting through us. And "we" have no choice how it manifests because "we" don't exist.

When I touch a hot stove, the sensory receptors in my skin trigger an action potential, which moves along the sensory fiber from my skin to my spinal cord and activates a motor neuron that projects to my biceps, causing it to contract. It has to work that quickly because making a conscious "choice" would take too long. I'm not sure what that has to do with Consciousness being infinitely intelligent?

I press the brake when I see a red light because my mind has been conditioned to respond in that way. No different from a dog salivating when it sees food, or in Pavlov's experiments, when it hears a bell while seeing food. Who is the "me" doing the controlling? If I had never been taught to associate a red light with stopping, do you think I would still stop? 

[The0Self]

@SS10 Well, you seem to be assuming there are 2 options: free will and determinism. Neither needs to be true. Nothing needs to be true. There just is truth, and it can’t be described, because it‘s absolute. Determinism would imply everything has to be the way it appears — it doesn’t; it can’t, actually.

And if a choice is apparently made, there might seem to be someone that takes credit for the choice after the fact. It’s very convincing. Actually not really even possible to hack, because who could choose to do that?

Edited October 29, 2020 by The0Self

[Byun Sean]

3 minutes ago, SS10 said:

@The Lucid Dreamer @Byun Sean As ive said, there is no evolutionary purpose to knowing where it arises from - you just act upon it. Please read my traffic light reference. Still haven't heard a reputable rebuttal to my thesis. Asking "where a thought comes from" would be like a driver asking what causes the light to go red or go green, then they start reading about traffic light mechanics whilst driving and all that. Do you not see how deluded that is? the driver doesn't care what is causing the light to change, they just need to see and act upon the signal - in humans case, desire and emotions being the traffic light.

And as for there being no "You", you live and act as if there is a "You". I am going to go on what you live by not what you say.

 

This isn't about believing anything anyone says. 

Look inside your own damn mind and look to see where thoughts come from. 

Are you controlling them? Do you know what your next thought will be?

Who knows I could be wrong. You could be wrong. 

We won't get anywhere if we are lost in philosophies.

Look for yourself.

 

[SS10]

@The0Self If you read my initial point that was my reasoning. I said free will vs determinism is a duality. Nor free will or determinism being absolutes. I agree we are not 100% free nor 100% slave - their is a symbiosis between the two

[The Lucid Dreamer]

10 minutes ago, SS10 said:

 

And as for there being no "You", you live and act as if there is a "You". I am going to go on what you live by not what you say.

 

I’m going on what’s actually true.  There is no control let alone a controller. This is a concept created by the ego. 
 

There is only consciousness.  Everything else is imagined.

[SS10]

@Byun Sean My point, is that "You" dont need to know were the thought arises from - it doesn't benefit your survival whatsoever. You just have to be conscious to receive the signal and act upon it. Not knowing where thoughts come from isn't evidence that you arent controlling the thoughts. 

[SS10]

@The Lucid Dreamer Sounds like your just parroting Leo, as I said - you live as a "you". Despite "reality" being no different from a dream, whilst "you" are in such a dream - you behave as a "you". Even when you are awakened, "you" are still in the "dream/reality" therefore, you have survival needs. Out of that need to survive you become a "you". You will only stop being "you" once you are "dead" in the conventional sense.

[Byun Sean]

Just now, SS10 said:

@Byun Sean My point, is that "You" dont need to know were the thought arises from - it doesn't benefit your survival whatsoever. You just have to be conscious to receive the signal and act upon it. Not knowing where thoughts come from isn't evidence that you arent controlling the thoughts. 

My bold claim is that through investigating where your thoughts come from, you can become directly conscious of the answer to the free will vs determinism dilemma.

After all if your thoughts control your actions and you don't even know where your thoughts come from. Wouldn't it be interesting to find out?

My claim to you is that the answer is more profound and life changing than you could ever imagine. But I cannot speak it to you in words. Only you can become conscious of the truth for yourself to experience insight.