What's your argument for free will?

[Z06]

Some people on this board believe in free will, that you have the ability to freely make conscious decisions.

On the other hand, determinism means that your decisions are affected by internal and external factors. I believe some factors to be chemical levels in the brain and past history. Wikipedia has a better definition than the one I just gave: "Determinism is roughly defined as the view that all current and future events are causally necessitated by past events combined with the laws of nature".

I personally believe in determinism. For those of you who believe in free will, how do you explain it or defend it? Is there a part of your brain that has the ability to freely pick between two different choices?

Honestly, I haven't seen much debate about free will on these boards, and whenever I brought it up to Bahai.Lifter he 100% ignored me.

[Queequeg]

Honestly, I haven't seen much debate about free will on these boards.

lol you sure?

I save everyone the bother and end the debate

The first choice must be based on something that preceeds the first choice in order not to be random and that precedence can not be chosen because it must preceed the first choice, hence the first choice has to be determind or random

So even in an indeterminate universe free will is metaphysically impossible.

[Z06]

lol you sure?

I save everyone the bother and end the debate



So even in an indeterminate universe free will is metaphysically impossible.

I really haven't, it seems like theists tend to avoid this debate.

Thanks for your explanation, I am in agreement, but I would love to hear what theists have to say about it. Won't be much of a thread if it's a bunch of atheists agreeing with each other.

[Tamandua]

I believe some factors to be chemical levels in the brain and past history.

How do you guys know that the chemical reactions in the brain are the cause of thought and not the other way around?

[Z06]

How do you guys know that the chemical reactions in the brain are the cause of thought and not the other way around?

If that was the case, where does thought come from? Where is it generated from?

[Tamandua]

If that was the case, where does thought come from? Where is it generated from?

The soul/spirit/intelligent principle... but y'all gonna say that there is no evidence of such thing so... yeah...

[Z06]

The soul/spirit/intelligent principle... but y'all gonna say that there is no evidence of such thing so... yeah...

So the soul, something that I assume isn't physical, can cause physical changes on the brain? That doesn't make any sense. Why do you think telekinesis doesn't exist? Because unless there is some sort of physical contact, my thoughts have no control over a physical object.

also lulz, theres no evidence for those

[gjohnson5]

Some people on this board believe in free will, that you have the ability to freely make conscious decisions.

On the other hand, determinism means that your decisions are affected by internal and external factors. I believe some factors to be chemical levels in the brain and past history. Wikipedia has a better definition than the one I just gave: "Determinism is roughly defined as the view that all current and future events are causally necessitated by past events combined with the laws of nature".

I personally believe in determinism. For those of you who believe in free will, how do you explain it or defend it? Is there a part of your brain that has the ability to freely pick between two different choices?

Honestly, I haven't seen much debate about free will on these boards, and whenever I brought it up to Bahai.Lifter he 100% ignored me.

Your title says it all.
You're free to get into the kitchen and eat. Maybe your stomach sent a hormone to your brain telling you to stop????
I would say that is an internal factor , wouldn't you?

LOL

[Tamandua]

Wait hold on, how do you know the chemistry changes in any chemical reaction are the cause of the effects and not the other way around? Usually because of chronological order, why does the brain need to be different?

The brain wouldn't be different, have you ever seen those things about crystals in water being created when you think about something? It would work like that too, I guess... meh, but idk...

[liftthat]

You're free to get into the kitchen and eat. Maybe your stomach sent a hormone to your brain telling you to stop????
LOL

The hormone may tell you to stop but this is where free will comes into play even though the hormone made you not hungry anymore you can still eat.

[Tamandua]

So the soul, something that I assume isn't physical, can cause physical changes on the brain? That doesn't make any sense. Why do you think telekinesis doesn't exist? Because unless there is some sort of physical contact, my thoughts have no control over a physical object.

also lulz, theres no evidence for those

telekinesis as people moving things with thoughts, I find that hard to happen, but take a look at Daniel Home

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dunglas_Home

If those were just tricks then he was a hell of a magician.

[neonhypoxia]

The soul/spirit/intelligent principle... but y'all gonna say that there is no evidence of such thing so... yeah...

And you would be correct. However even if a soul were to exist that does not at all get you off the free will hook. Rather it raises even more issues on the subject.

How do you guys know that the chemical reactions in the brain are the cause of thought and not the other way around?

I'll tell you what, me and you can smoke some salvia together sometime. I mean its just changing your brain chemistry. And you don't think that it controls thoughts but rather that your thoughts control it. So I'm sure you won't have any problems at all during it and your thoughts will remain exactly the same.

The brain wouldn't be different, have you ever seen those things about crystals in water being created when you think about something? It would work like that too, I guess... meh, but idk...

Um... ?

telekinesis as people moving things with thoughts, I find that hard to happen, but take a look at Daniel Home

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dunglas_Home

If those were just tricks then he was a hell of a magician.

You already know that you don't want me to touch that.

I really haven't, it seems like theists tend to avoid this debate.

There have been several discussion on the topic, with theists involved in them. Usually those taking up the case of free will either present a really poor understand of physics, or go all "god can do anything" on us. Its sort of disappointing. I'de like an argument with some teeth to it sometime.

[gjohnson5]

The hormone may tell you to stop but this is where free will comes into play even though the hormone made you not hungry anymore you can still eat.

I think it's pretty safe to say the vast majority people don't force feed. In a literal world, yes you are correct. However from a practical and pragmatic perspective people eat when an internal factor (hunger) tells them to eat. People stop eating when another factor (satiety) tells them to stop eating.

[ONtop888]

You already know that you don't want me to touch that.

Lulz!

[illriginalized]

Some people on this board believe in free will, that you have the ability to freely make conscious decisions.

On the other hand, determinism means that your decisions are affected by internal and external factors. I believe some factors to be chemical levels in the brain and past history. Wikipedia has a better definition than the one I just gave: "Determinism is roughly defined as the view that all current and future events are causally necessitated by past events combined with the laws of nature".

I personally believe in determinism. For those of you who believe in free will, how do you explain it or defend it? Is there a part of your brain that has the ability to freely pick between two different choices?

Honestly, I haven't seen much debate about free will on these boards, and whenever I brought it up to Bahai.Lifter he 100% ignored me.

If you're on an island by yourself, how does determinism effect you?

[liftthat]

I think it's pretty safe to say the vast majority people don't force feed. In a literal world, yes you are correct. However from a practical and pragmatic perspective people eat when an internal factor (hunger) tells them to eat. People stop eating when another factor (satiety) tells them to stop eating.

I can agree with this.

[Tamandua]

And you would be correct. However even if a soul were to exist that does not at all get you off the free will hook. Rather it raises even more issues on the subject.

Yep, I agree.

I'll tell you what, me and you can smoke some salvia together sometime. I mean its just changing your brain chemistry. And you don't think that it controls thoughts but rather that your thoughts control it. So I'm sure you won't have any problems at all during it and your thoughts will remain exactly the same.

Oh, damn guess I got it wrong. Yes, our thoughts would be under the influence of matter(brain) but the brain itself would not be the origin of thought. Nice of you to point that out, I almost forgot even though this is always mentioned in my books, nomsayin'?

Um... ?

This book has the potential to profoundly transform your world view. Using high-speed photography, Dr. Masaru Emoto discovered that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concentrated thoughts are directed toward them. He found that water from clear springs and water that has been exposed to loving words shows brilliant, complex, and colorful snowflake patterns. In contrast, polluted water, or water exposed to negative thoughts, forms incomplete, asymmetrical patterns with dull colors. The implications of this research create a new awareness of how we can positively impact the earth and our personal health.

Srs business. Come at me, bro.

You already know that you don't want me to touch that.

Yes, I know...

There have been several discussion on the topic, with theists involved in them. Usually those taking up the case of free will either present a really poor understand of physics, or go all "god can do anything" on us. Its sort of disappointing. I'de like an argument with some teeth to it sometime.

It's hard because my religion can't answer me a lot of stuff, so it's hard explaining to others when we don't have the answer ourselves.

Not sure if I went full retard in this post but fk it.

edit: missed a very important "not".

[YuMadThough]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_indeterminacy

[ONtop888]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_indeterminacy

In b4 Neonhypoxia, Ph.D.

[Queequeg]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_indeterminacy

Quantum indeterminacy doesn't prove anything. True a determinate universe does not permit any form of free will but indeterminacy only makes it possible not certain. You can equally have no free will and the universe be random. Also quantum indeterminacy maybe an artifact of measurement.

Also it doesn't resolve the metaphysical issue I raise earlier regarding free will not being a priori.

[SlapBassist]

I'm confused of what conclusion exactly your trying to come to? Free will is what it is, and I think if you want to deduce it down, you can get to the "well, perhaps its not really freewill after all because you made this decision based on 30% of the situation of itself and 60% on what you remember of past situations and how they turned out and 10% other", but it is still free will in the end. Are there exterior things motivating you to do said thing?

I think simply put it goes down to the thought level of what every thought is, as well as the perception of the thought (say you get a thought, "lets eat cake!", then soon after you get another thought thats "well, maybe i shouldnt because it has too many calories, its chocolate i like red velvet, and it has cream cheese icing, wtf is that"), but once more your mother-in-law just baked the cake and is wanting you to eat it because she wants your opinion on her cooking (dont mind yourself with her self consciousness towards her cooking and if you don't like it, she'll stop forever, jus saying what if) - so what do you do?

Eat the cake? Don't eat the cake? Why for both reasons?


Just because you can analyze freewill, and understand that the different exterior impulses that sometimes help influence decision which makes it seem less of a choice, doesn't mean that its not free will. It just makes it more complex and throws in some things to learn on for future reference.

[user5145]

I think it's pretty safe to say the vast majority people don't force feed. In a literal world, yes you are correct. However from a practical and pragmatic perspective people eat when an internal factor (hunger) tells them to eat. People stop eating when another factor (satiety) tells them to stop eating.

Que?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity..._United_States

[neonhypoxia]

I knew some was going to deepak us on the physics.

Quantum indeterminacy doesn't prove anything. True a determinate universe does not permit any form of free will but indeterminacy only makes it possible not certain. You can equally have no free will and the universe be random. Also quantum indeterminacy maybe an artifact of measurement.

Also it doesn't resolve the metaphysical issue I raise earlier regarding free will not being a priori.

Not only that, but lets pretend for a moment that it really was random. So what? Random can't be controlled either. You still simply get whatever output the system gives with no ability to control it either. So completely random is just as bad as completely ordered. Plus its not even completely random either; there are strictly defined probabilities to each outcome.

Srs business. Come at me, bro.

Could not be replicated. No need to come at you, there's nothing to come at.

[caseys5]

I knew some was going to deepak us on the physics.



Not only that, but lets pretend for a moment that it really was random. So what? Random can't be controlled either. You still simply get whatever output the system gives with no ability to control it either. So completely random is just as bad as completely ordered. Plus its not even completely random either; there are strictly defined probabilities to each outcome.

/thread.

its actually kind of unbelievable that so many people assume they have free will.

[Z06]

telekinesis as people moving things with thoughts, I find that hard to happen, but take a look at Daniel Home

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dunglas_Home

If those were just tricks then he was a hell of a magician.

I looked at it and this was in the introduction:

"There were speculations and one eyewitness account by Mr. F. Merrifield in the Journal of Psychical Research describing the conjuring methods and fraud that Home employed."

Nice, really credible argument you have there.

[Tamandua]

I looked at it and this was in the introduction:

"There were speculations and one eyewitness account by Mr. F. Merrifield in the Journal of Psychical Research describing the conjuring methods and fraud that Home employed."

Nice, really credible argument you have there.

lulz, yes, I should stop mentioning mediums here.

[neonhypoxia]

lulz, yes, I should stop mentioning mediums here.

Or atleast look into them better before you do.

On the subject lets assume for a minute that telekinesis was possible. How would that prove that free will exists? Are you saying it would be impossible for telekinesis to exist without free will and if so why is that? On a similar note if we assume that there was an afterlife again how would this prove free will exists? Couldn't an afterlife exist without free will being required?

[gjohnson5]

Que?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity..._United_States

You gotta be kidding me....
Are you ACTUALLY saying that people are obese because of FORCE FEEDING and they are ignoring the chemicals in their bodies that tell them to stop eating????

LOL

I have a better idea for you. How about these people are eating junk that is high in fat and carbs hence they are not reaching satiety.
If these people were to eat high protein and high fiber like the satiety index says , then they would get full and stop....

[Tamandua]

Or atleast look into them better before you do.

On the subject lets assume for a minute that telekinesis was possible. How would that prove that free will exists? Are you saying it would be impossible for telekinesis to exist without free will and if so why is that? On a similar note if we assume that there was an afterlife again how would this prove free will exists? Couldn't an afterlife exist without free will being required?

Telekinesis would not prove free will, and it would not be impossible without free will.

The creation is the thing that even the pure spirit can't tell us much about(considering that they exist and what they tell us truth), so your soul(intelligent principle) would be completely immaterial, so no quantic randomness or chemical reactions would be able to affect it, in it's pure decarnated state. However the spirit is able to act on matter and receive influence of matter through the perispirit and the ectoplasm(which I don't understand much about, and the term ectoplasm is confusing).

So spirits are able to make things levitate and produce sound, that's telekinesis right? Since spiritism says that miracles don't exist, the stories about Jesus walking on water and such would fall under a mediunic phenomena, maybe altering his perispirit or using some sort of ectoplasm to cancel his weight and then float, can you understand this?

edit: A medium is a person which comes in contact with a spirit to create certain phenomena, they call Jesus a 'medium to God' because he would not need spirits to do what he done(if he did...), he was the most pure spirit ever to incarnate on earth.

And the afterlife could exist without free will, maybe that "CT nut guy" from the thread I made doesn't believe in free will since he is an atheist and all, but it is made pretty clear in the Spirits' book that we have free will(but it's faith...). Also it would bring down most of the points of the doctrine if we were not responsible for our acts.

843. Has man freedom of action?

"Since he has freedom of thought, he has freedom of action. Without free-will man would be a machine."

844. Does man posses freewill from his birth?

"He possesses free-will from the moment when lie possesses the will to act. In the earliest portion of a lifetime free-will is almost null; it is developed and changes its object with the development of the faculties. The child, having thoughts in harmony with the wants of his age, applies his free-will to the things which belong to that age."

845. Are not the instinctive predispositions that a man brings with him at birth an obstacle to the exercise of his free-will?

"A man's instinctive predispositions are those which belonged to his spirit before his incarnation. If he is but little advanced, they may incite him to wrongdoing, in which he will be seconded by spirits who sympathise with that wrong-doing; but no incitement is irresistible when there is a determination to resist. remember that to will is to be able." (361.)

846. Has not our organism an influence on the acts of our life, and if so, does not this influence constitute an infringement of our free-will?

"Spirits are certainly influenced by matter, which may hamper them in their manifestations. This is why, in worlds in which the body is less gross than upon the earth, the faculties act more freely; but the instrument does not give the faculty. In considering this question, you must also distinguish between moral faculties and intellectual faculties. If a man has the instinct of murder, it is assuredly his spirit that possesses this instinct, and not his organs. He who annihilates his thought, in order to occupy himself only with matter, becomes like the brute, and still worse, for he no longer endeavours to preserve himself from evil, and it is this which constitutes his culpability, because he does so of his own free-will." (See No.367 et seq., Influence of Organism.)

847. Does aberration of the mental faculties deprive man of free-will?

“He whose intelligence is deranged by any cause whatever is no longer master of his thoughts, and thenceforth is no longer free. Mental aberration is often a punishment for the spirit who, in another existence, has been vain or haughty, or has made a bad use of his faculties. He may be re-born in the body of an idiot, as the despot may be re-born in the body of a slave, and the hard-hearted possessor of riches, in that of a beggar; but the spirit suffers from this constraint, of which he is fully conscious; and it is in this constraint that you see the action of matter." (371 et seq.)

After chatting with mindfree I noticed that I need to go back to the rational ways of atheism, because most of the things about spiritism and other beliefs I have been discovering lately are not experimental things and I can't see them for myself, so there is no way I can be 100% sure that it's not mass trolling.
I really wish we could get a bunch of mediums and say "materialize Jesus, Moses and Muhammad while we film. Make them explain this entire bull****", but that ain't happening...
Sorry for the huge post, if there is anything I didn't explain clearly please tell me.

[GoJu]

James Rhandi has a one million dollar challenge to anyone who can prove the existence of the supernatural why don't you go collect your winnings Tamandua?