No Free Will?

[TruthSeeker]

49 minutes ago, Makis said:

Who should have a free will? 

I see your point...

Im supposed to say "Me, you...we all have free will"

Then you say "Ahh but you see, no one exists"

Well based on that...I can easily say something like "theres no such thing as jumping"

then someone will say:

"What do you mean dude, I just jumped... look see I just jumped..."

and you can say to them:

"But dude...who jumped? you? but you don't exist"

 

 

Meaning what Im trying to say is that, if you say we don't exist, and THATS your explanation for why theres no free will, then that should also be your reasoning why anything else doesnt exist...like jumping or apples etc etc

 

 

 

 

 

[TruthSeeker]

Dude Im totally fine with that...I get that this paradox exists that even though there is no me...perception nevertheless continues...and it cannot be understood period...fine I get that.

My question is...why cant we also say that another paradox exists...that even though we don't exist but nevertheless freewill continues... and it cant be understood period.

You know what I mean?...why is one paradox more easily accepted by you than the one I'm proposing?

 

Edited February 15, 2016 by TruthSeeker

[Ella90]

1 minute ago, kalter000 said:

Everything was doing well without you, you are not invited to this party

hahah somehow you made me kindda see some light in the end of the tunnel with that sentence  

[TruthSeeker]

15 minutes ago, Pinocchio said:

What... you thought this was a rhetorical question? You want the answers but you don't want to do the work?

 

 

Sorry I missed your comment on the previous page 

 

 

I feel that I don't need to provide a basis for there being free will...its just so obvious. For example a guy comes home and finds his wife cheating on him with another man. He's so hurt and in pain and starts to get very angry and grabs a gun and starts chasing the guy to kill him...he's running after him for 5 minutes, each minute getting more filled with anger. The cheater finally trips on his shoelace and falls on the ground. and the husband is standing over him with his gun pointed on the cheaters head and starts to have a struggle in his head "should I really kill him" "I really want to" "I probably shouldn't" "No one will ever find out" etc etc...whether he decides to kill him or not is a freewill choice.

Also a more normal everyday things is "Should I eat that extra cookie" "I know its not good for me" "It goes against my diet" "oh but its soooo good" "just one isn't a problem"...whether he decides to eat that cookie or not is a freewill decision. 

Now like I pointed out in one of my first posts on this thread. If he has already decided to eat the cookie, then to decide whether to eat a chocolate chip cookie or an Oreo is NOT a free-will decision. Its a decision but not a free willed decision.  

Meaning thats how Im defining a freewill decision. When you believe you have a pull or attraction to do something you believe you shouldn't do, then at that moment you have a freewill decision to do that thing or rise above and not do that thing. 

Thats my basis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TruthSeeker]

well if you read further!!!!!! I said I don't need to provide a basis because I'm defining it (freewill) as something we're all familiar with...if you don't want to read the rest thats fine...have a great day!

[TruthSeeker]

Ok...please...kick away...

well I've stated my premise and my definition of what I think is true. (yes by defining freewill in a way that makes sense to me)

Leo said that theres no such thing as free will. I started this post to ask what his basis is and how he got there...I have no idea. 

If someone knows how my definition is faulty or wrong or understands what it means that there no free will Ill be happy to listen.

Thank you!

 

I'll quote my previous post:

Quote

For example a guy comes home and finds his wife cheating on him with another man. He's so hurt and in pain and starts to get very angry and grabs a gun and starts chasing the guy to kill him...he's running after him for 5 minutes, each minute getting more filled with anger. The cheater finally trips on his shoelace and falls on the ground. and the husband is standing over him with his gun pointed on the cheaters head and starts to have a struggle in his head "should I really kill him" "I really want to" "I probably shouldn't" "No one will ever find out" etc etc...whether he decides to kill him or not is a freewill choice.

Also a more normal everyday things is "Should I eat that extra cookie" "I know its not good for me" "It goes against my diet" "oh but its soooo good" "just one isn't a problem"...whether he decides to eat that cookie or not is a freewill decision. 

Now like I pointed out in one of my first posts on this thread. If he has already decided to eat the cookie, then to decide whether to eat a chocolate chip cookie or an Oreo is NOT a free-will decision. Its a decision but not a free willed decision.  

Meaning thats how Im defining a freewill decision.

When you believe you have a pull or attraction to do something you believe you shouldn't do,

then, at that moment, you have a freewill decision to do that thing

or rise above and not do that thing. 

Thats my basis.

 

Edited February 15, 2016 by TruthSeeker

[Pallero]

Wow, major ego clash.

[Guest]

@Leo Gura Perhaps It would help some people to put this a slightly different way:

i.e.  The separate individual "you" amongst a multiplicity of other "you"s does not exist.

joy

 

[TruthSeeker]

10 minutes ago, Pinocchio said:

Contemplate this: If you don't know of where your apparent choice originates, or how it comes about, is it really your choice?

 

Do you decide to decide? Do you decide to decide to decide?

 

 

Sorry I don't understand what your saying or what your trying to say or what you mean or what you mean to say. Care to explain more or say it different words? If not I'm still waiting for someone to to explain to me!

Thank you!

 

 

[str4]

It's easy to think that we have free will, because we are doing small everyday decisions all the time. However, we have no knowledge of the different outcomes our decision making leads us, because we cannot step back in time, and choose to act differently in any given situation.

This makes us believe that the decisions we make are thoroughly thought of and we think that we are in control of those decisions. 

However, we have no data to compare - no evidence that we would have acted differently. When we act, the decision time is already over.

I think that our ego is kind of this shitpile we have gathered, so to speak. We have gathered enormous amounts of different garbage and glued it into ourselves, forming the ego. This ego makes us act in different ways to various situations, but the decision is not an expression of free will, it's just our shitpile - the ego - reacting to stuff in various ways.

However when we get rid of the ego, become enlightened that is, do we have free will after that?

Well, I wouldn't know, because I'm not enlightened. All I know is that if there is no I, then the "I", I think I am, is not separable from say, a tree. If consciousness is all there is - all the other things I am seeing must not be true. I am not in any way more true than a tree, which has no free will.

I don't know if this made any sense, just babbling here

[TruthSeeker]

Well...I know there are thoughts in my mind.

One thought says "ooooh thats sum good lookin cookie"

and then another thought says "No...it has so many calories don't do it"

Then another thought says "just one!!! its no big deal" etc...

and then lets say I take the box of cookies and I throw them in the lake!!!!

I decided with my free will to throw that box of cookies in the lake. 

 

Im not sure if that answered your question "Do i know where the experience comes from"...it could be I don't know what you mean by that question.

 

 

 

[Ayla]

Just passing by to throw a bucket of water on ya'll ... this topic is HOT! 

There is no free will. And that's that! LOL  

[Ayla]

29 minutes ago, TruthSeeker said:

Well...I know there are thoughts in my mind.

One thought says "ooooh thats sum good lookin cookie"

and then another thought says "No...it has so many calories don't do it"

Then another thought says "just one!!! its no big deal" etc...

and then lets say I take the box of cookies and I throw them in the lake!!!!

I decided with my free will to throw that box of cookies in the lake. 

 

Im not sure if that answered your question "Do i know where the experience comes from"...it could be I don't know what you mean by that question.

 

 

 

The thought that says - good cookie is in fact a result of previous experiences and substances in your brain that you have/had no control over.. That clashes with the thought that it has too many calories which you believe to be true from the bs you've gathered from medical and magazines area (no control over that either)... 

You are trying to "understand" a concept (no free will) with the exact tool which would be annihilated if that was to be true  

Eat the cookie  

[TruthSeeker]

9 minutes ago, Makis said:

This is going round in circles. As long as you are absolutely convinced, that you exist, there is no end to that. 

Well I've already said that we don't exist...we are now trying to figure out the basis that theres no free will. Meaning that will just be a paradox! Just like someone mentioned before that  even though we don't exist theres still the paradox that theres"perception" (according to the enlightenment theory)

I just don't see the necessity to say theres no free will just because we don't exist!!!! 

[Ayla]

1 minute ago, TruthSeeker said:

I just don't see the necessity to say there's no free will just because we don't exist!!!! 

"I" here must be questioned deeeeeeeply until it sees no longer. Until only "play" is left.  

[abrakamowse]

Maybe a scientific explanation is better for you...

 

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5975778/scientific-evidence-that-you-probably-dont-have-free-will

Or here:

http://www.livescience.com/19213-free-fate.html

"Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, defined free will as the possibility that, after making a decision, you could have chosen otherwise. But a "decision," Coyne argues, is merely a series of electrical and chemical impulses between molecules in the brain — molecules whose configuration is predetermined by genes and environment. Though each decision is the outcome of an immensely complicated series of chemical reactions, those reactions are governed by the laws of physics and could not possibly turn out differently. "Like the output of a programmed computer, only one choice is ever physically possible: the one you made," Coyne wrote."

Edited February 15, 2016 by abrakamowse
add more info

[jjer94]

Quote

I just don't see the necessity to say theres no free will just because we don't exist!!!! 

Think about its requirements. What does free will require?

It requires some entity in which to have free will. 

Look in your experience. Do you see anything other than thinking, seeing, feeling, touching, tasting? Where's the entity that has free will? 

Try to predict your next thought. You say you have free will, so tell me what your next thought is going to be.

You must have control over your thoughts if you have free will, right? Try to stop thinking for thirty seconds. 

If you're not convinced, just think about the concept of free will itself and how little sense it makes. If I have the freedom to choose one thing over another, where did my choice to choose come from? And where did my choice to choose to choose come from? The environment must have played some role in my freedom of choice, otherwise my choices would be completely random. If the environment played a role, my free will is no longer free. But on the flip-side, if my choices have been random this whole time...is that really free will? 

Do you remember choosing anything as a baby? Do you choose to fall asleep? Do you choose to stand up after sitting down for too long? 

Now, set your monkey mind aside for a second and just examine your experience. 

"The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier."
Mark Twain

[TruthSeeker]

20 minutes ago, abrakamowse said:

 

Or here:

http://www.livescience.com/19213-free-fate.html

"Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, defined free will as the possibility that, after making a decision, you could have chosen otherwise. But a "decision," Coyne argues, is merely a series of electrical and chemical impulses between molecules in the brain — molecules whose configuration is predetermined by genes and environment. Though each decision is the outcome of an immensely complicated series of chemical reactions, those reactions are governed by the laws of physics and could not possibly turn out differently. "Like the output of a programmed computer, only one choice is ever physically possible: the one you made," Coyne wrote."

 

This is crazy...I don't agree with this Coyne guy or his definition..

According to that why would anyone be responsible for their actions in a court of law...according to that "he had no other choice" 

Meaning, every time there has been a murder or a rape or robbery...it could not have possibly turned out differently...they couldn't have decided not to do those things...thats CRAZY....anyone who believes that is a very big idiot...I'm sorry and don't mean to offend anyone...but if you believe that you are a moron!!!!!! 

No offense.

What I'm starting to think is that the people who claim there is no free will are just trying to no be responsible for their lives. They don't want to be responsible for the decisions that they made. They want excuses to do the wrong thing etc.

 

33 minutes ago, abrakamowse said:

Maybe a scientific explanation is better for you...

 

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5975778/scientific-evidence-that-you-probably-dont-have-free-will

 

 

I read the article...its not a contradiction to what Im saying....if you look back at a previous post of mine....I said that most decisions we make are not free willed decisions. There is a small rage of decisions that are free willed. Meaning for example, for the majority of men in the world, they did not have to overcome an internal struggle to rape someone...because such a thing is just so cray and far out to them they would never even consider it. So to not rape someone (for these people) is not a free willed choice...or for example: in that article the whole proof that we dont have free will was from a test about moving your finger...well I'm in agreement in that case....What I'm claiming is that we do have free will in a very narrow range of cases and those cases are defined by:

Quote

 

When you believe you have a pull or attraction to do something you believe you shouldn't do,

then, at that moment, you have a freewill decision to do that thing

or rise above and not do that thing. 

 

So in the case where they asked the guy to move his finger so he did not believe he shouldn't do it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[abrakamowse]

@TruthSeeker  I was in a mental hospital for some time due to some panic attacks and other some psychotic episode. I meet people there that made me change my opinion about a guy who murder, rape or did some other bad thing, I really now think that they are not guilty really. hehehe... 

Same thing about people who commit suicide.

One of the guys I met, he told me, he had problems with violence. When something happened inside of him, he got so angry he couldn't stop and he could kill someone when that happened.

That's not his will to do it, there's something on the environment, on the way they were educated, etc that makes them act that way. You say something about that.

I used to think like you before, that everything that they say (I heard it mostly from psychologists and psychiatric doctors) that a rapist or murdered is not really guilty and I though "bullshit", he must go to jail.

 

Believe me that this is not about wanting not to take responsibility and wanting to do bad things so we are not guilty. Nothing farther from the truth. But think about this, when someones commits a murder, he goes to jail and if he makes crazy things they send him to solitary confinement. 
It is proved that people in isolation go crazier, we as human beings need interaction with other to be sane mentally.

Now I think that people need to be treated, in jail they get worse. 

I'm not trying to convince you about free will, just my point of view. I am always open to any new idea so, maybe I can be wrong.

 

 

[TruthSeeker]

My responses are in bold

Think about its requirements. What does free will require?

It requires some entity in which to have free will. 

Look in your experience. Do you see anything other than thinking, seeing, feeling, touching, tasting? Where's the entity that has free will? 

My mind makes the free willed choice and is followed by some sort of action with my legs arms etc

Try to predict your next thought. You say you have free will, so tell me what your next thought is going to be.

You must have control over your thoughts if you have free will, right? Try to stop thinking for thirty seconds. 

Its true that thoughts pop into our minds and theres not free will as to which thoughts pop into our minds. BUT (with a capital "B") once the thought comes into my mind I do have the choice of dwell on those thoughts...for example if something pops into my mind I can choose to go for a run or do a sudoku puzzle or something else to get my mind off of that thing...even though during those activities (running sudoku) if the thought again pops into my mind I have no control over it but I am doing my part to get my mind off of it...Meaning like I keep repeating a bunch of times that our free will lies in a very narrow range of cases. Meaning, I'm admitting we have free will but to a certain extent. I call it the Free-will point. Our free will lies at that point and that point only. Anything above that point it out of our freewill and anything below that point is out of our freewill. So to an extent I do have control of what thoughts pop in my head and to an extent I dont have control of which thoughts pop in my head. 

 

If you're not convinced, just think about the concept of free will itself and how little sense it makes. If I have the freedom to choose one thing over another, where did my choice to choose come from? And where did my choice to choose to choose come from? The environment must have played some role in my freedom of choice, otherwise my choices would be completely random. If the environment played a role, my free will is no longer free. But on the flip-side, if my choices have been random this whole time...is that really free will? 

OK, I agree that environment and biological and physiological factors play a role in someones decision. But that doesnt mean they dont have free will...it just means they have a MUCH harder decision to make....Example: a kid who grows up in a getto neighborhood where all his neighbors smoke drugs and rob people and carry guns...so that kid when he grows up has a much harder choice to not smoke drugs or carry a gun or shoot people etc etc...BUT at the end of the day he does have a choice to do or not do those things...albeit a much harder choice to not do those things than it is for me...but he DOES have a choice.

 

 

Do you remember choosing anything as a baby? Do you choose to fall asleep? Do you choose to stand up after sitting down for too long? 

Babies dont have freewill...

Now, set your monkey mind aside for a second and just examine your experience. 

My monkey mind?

"The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier."
Mark Twain

Dont understand the relevance of your quote sorry