Life, the Universe, and Everything

[AnotherSpin]

I'm not as free as McEar, a nice doggie that only wants to scratch its ear. It can always do what it wants, while I can't play guitar like Peter Green. I also can want free will, or at least try to want it even though I have no idea how that differs from not wanting it. Perhaps splunge is the answer as, it so often is with these riddles.

You can always play the guitar like a drogulus. In fact, even Peter Green couldn't have played like a drogulus better than you

[Karl Henning]

I may actually be enjoying this bus ride, or perhaps I'm only conditioned to believe that I'm enjoying it. I  may or may not be free not to enjoy it. Oh! Here comes my so-called stop.

[drogulus]

You can always play the guitar like a drogulus. In fact, even Peter Green couldn't have played like a drogulus better than you

    I should point out that not wanting free will is not the same as wanting not free will. I have no wants about either.

[Mandryka]

Nobody acts as if he had no free will, 

What would it be like to act as if you or others have no free will.

(It's stunning how inconsistent people are. E.g. arguing for mild punishments because there is no free will thus the perpetrator couldn't help doing evil... But the judge has free will to punish lightly or harshly?  How can professors be so sophomoric?)

 

 It may be best to punish someone to discourage him or others from acting in that way.

 

If I am determined to think that "A", regardless of the truth of A, I cannot really reason for and justify anything (including the claim that there is no free will). It only seems as if I am reasoning, but in fact I am determined to go through certain steps/states of mind and the result might be false or true, I cannot help it either way.

I'm not sure I understand this. Perceiving the truth of A is a causal factor which determines you to assert A. Reason is a way of generating new truths from old.

So the question for the denier of free will is: Do you believe the thesis because it's true or are you determined to believe it regardless of its truth? How do you distinguish reaching truth by reasoning (open to error) and reaching a predetermined conclusion regardless of its truth?

 

 I believe there is no such thing as freedom of the will because science teaches me that all events are caused or random (quantum -- or so I'm told, I don' want anyone to think that I've actually studied quantum mechanics!)   I am also a physicalist, I have reasoned that that Cartesianism is incoherent.

One can try to "save" this with a kind of prestabilized harmony, i.e. that in certain circumstances we are determined to arrive at the correct conclusions. But why should this be so? And why are we so often wrong despite the harmony of the general determination.

Or one can distinguish theoretical reasoning from acting and restrict the will debate to the latter but I find this unpersuasive. Thinking and reasoning are acts, if I have the rational freedom to follow arguments through and accept the result, I am close to the freedom to act on impulse or not, i.e. the power of theoretical reflection is unlikely to be totally different from practical reflection. Even if there is another step from the latter to the act where e.g "weakness of the will" can happen and I do the evil I don't want to do rather than the good I want to do etc. (St. Paul).

  I think we can imagine all sorts of evolutionary advantages in the case of theoretical and felicific reasoning.  (Felicific is a Bentham term -- utilitarian calculations crudely.)
 

[drogulus]

What would it be like to act as if you or others have no free will.

     I don't see an "as if" either way. Propositions with no consequences should be ignored. You don't disprove them, you dismiss them.

[Elgarian Redux]

I've stopped reading overly complicated books, especially anything by philosophers. At some point, I realised philosophy is just a way of avoiding freedom, hidden behind clever words and too much talk.

When a man suggests I stop worrying about philosophy, and go and eat my dinner, I'm not going to argue with him, even if he is a philosopher.

[Karl Henning]

When a man suggests I stop worrying about philosophy, and go and eat my dinner, I'm not going to argue with him, even if he is a philosopher.

I can choose not to argue with a philosopher, I think. 

[prémont]

conditioned points directly to the mechanical and impersonal nature of thought, formed by past impressions and identifications with form and experience.

I don't think that one can necessarily say that thought has an impersonal character, because conditioning to a large extent is relative. My point is that one's thoughts contain details which one has individually selected from all the experiences one has had in one's life up to that point. Different individuals will choose different details in their thoughts.

[AnotherSpin]

I don't think that one can necessarily say that thought has an impersonal character, because conditioning to a large extent is relative. My point is that one's thoughts contain details which one has individually selected from all the experiences one has had in one's life up to that point. Different individuals will choose different details in their thoughts.

If we're talking about thoughts, I see it more simply. A thought can't really be personal because the idea of a separate self is just an illusion. Thoughts come by themselves, and what we call choice is really just the result of past habits and influences. The differences between people exist only on the surface, not in any deeper truth.

This makes life easier because it takes the weight of personal responsibility off our shoulders for every single thought, feeling, or reaction inside us. If a thought isn't mine but just appears, why judge it, fight it, or try to push it away?

If the true I isn't just a collection of habits, tastes, and fears, but something deeper and calmer, it becomes easier not to cling to or regret the past, not to fear the future, and not to compare yourself to others.

Inner experiences stop feeling like a personal drama. Instead, there's a sense of open space, like you're not a tiny separate character trapped inside your thoughts, but an open sky where everything simply comes and goes.

An endless sky where clouds-thoughts drift by, coming from nowhere and disappearing into nowhere, endlessly changing along the way.

It's not passivity, no, it's freedom.

[prémont]

If we're talking about thoughts, I see it more simply. A thought can't really be personal because the idea of a separate self is just an illusion. Thoughts come by themselves, and what we call choice is really just the result of past habits and influences. The differences between people exist only on the surface, not in any deeper truth.

I downright disagree with this.

OK, some thoughts may come by themselves, when I lie in bed in order to fall asleep and have given my mind a leisure time, or when I suddenly become aware of something I had forgotten e.g. But usually I decide myself what to think of, particularly important in a working situation but also at home when I decide what to listen to (of music) or what to read or what to eat. I can also suppress inappropriate spontaneous thoughts and decide to think about something else.

The fact is that we will probably never find out what ultimately determines our thoughts, but it may very well be a "scientific" fallacy and psycological illusion to consider ourselves as mere thought machines.   

[Elgarian Redux]

A thought can't really be personal because the idea of a separate self is just an illusion. Thoughts come by themselves, and what we call choice is really just the result of past habits and influences. The differences between people exist only on the surface, not in any deeper truth.

The problem here, for me, is that these seem to be mere assertions. I see that you believe them, but I can't see any reason why anyone else should do so, especially when their own experience conflicts with them.

For example, you assert that what we call choice is really just the result of past habits and influences. That, presumably, includes your own choices. So when you choose to make these assertions, you are making choices that are based merely on your own past habits and influences. You haven't 'worked them out' in any rational way: you assert them because of your conditioning.

That seems to me to undermine the credibility of the entire idea, including your assertion that choices are merely the result of past habits and influences. These ideas undermine any possibility of rational discussion of the matter. A statement that no statements are truly rational must include the statement itself - so there's no reason to pay any attention to it.

I realise that you can respond by saying 'these are my choices, and I merely make them'. That's fine, but there's no point in rational discussion of them, is there?

[drogulus]

I've stopped reading overly complicated books, especially anything by philosophers. At some point, I realised philosophy is just a way of avoiding freedom, hidden behind clever words and too much talk.

    I will never give up my Hofstadter!

    I recommend I Am A Strange Loop as an easier lift than Godel, Escher, Bach, a massive tome I only partly understand and the cognitive/computer science/philosophy equivalent of a Pynchon novel on meth.

    Here's an accessible chunk:

    Prelude....Ant Fugue

[AnotherSpin]

I downright disagree with this.

OK, some thoughts may come by themselves, when I lie in bed in order to fall asleep and have given my mind a leisure time, or when I suddenly become aware of something I had forgotten e.g. But usually I decide myself what to think of, particularly important in a working situation but also at home when I decide what to listen to (of music) or what to read or what to eat. I can also suppress inappropriate spontaneous thoughts and decide to think about something else.

The fact is that we will probably never find out what ultimately determines our thoughts, but it may very well be a "scientific" fallacy and psycological illusion to consider ourselves as mere thought machines.   

Oh, that's the easy bit. Try to create your next thought. You'll see for yourself

[AnotherSpin]

I will never give up my Hofstadter!

    I recommend I Am A Strange Loop as an easier lift than Godel, Escher, Bach, a massive tome I only partly understand and the cognitive/computer science/philosophy equivalent of a Pynchon novel on meth.

    Here's an accessible chunk:

    Prelude....Ant Fugue

I don't think I've ever come across Hofstadter, so thanks for the suggestion.

I haven't thrown out all my philosophy books. Plato, Schopenhauer and a few others are still on the shelves at home. I might pick one up now and then to read a paragraph or two, not to learn anything new really, just for the feel of it. But most of the books I once had have found new homes. I don't turn to philosophers for answers anymore. I found what I was looking for elsewhere, mostly in India.

I wouldn't recommend any books myself though. In my experience, it doesn't really work like that. Books don't hold the answer. They're just tranquillisers, something to help you keep sleeping. If someone truly wants liberation, they'll find their own way. If not, even if Buddha were speaking into one ear and Jesus into the other, they still wouldn't hear a thing.

[drogulus]

    I mostly like the jokes. In addition I have a fondness for the study of consciousness, When you combine them you get Mary the Color Scientist and the Zombic Hunch. Other goodies also pop up.

    A favorite is "Does red look the same to you as it does to me?". I respond thusly by saying in a cold nasal whine "Red doesn't look like anything, you only think it does.".

[steve ridgway]

Books don't hold the answer. They're just tranquillisers, something to help you keep sleeping. If someone truly wants liberation, they'll find their own way. If not, even if Buddha were speaking into one ear and Jesus into the other, they still wouldn't hear a thing.

True, the processes of the universe have resulted in my existence as me, not anyone / everyone / everything else. Ultimately I'm on my own, it's my personal puzzle to solve to my own satisfaction.

[AnotherSpin]

True, the processes of the universe have resulted in my existence as me, not anyone / everyone / everything else. Ultimately I'm on my own, it's my personal puzzle to solve to my own satisfaction.

Well, the key question, as I see it, is this: ultimately, who am I? Am I merely a thing that moves through space, or am I the unmoving space itself? Am I inside the universe, or is the universe inside me?

[drogulus]

     We're all one, so can I borrow 50 dollars? I promise we'll pay it back.

[Florestan]

The problem here, for me, is that these seem to be mere assertions. I see that you believe them, but I can't see any reason why anyone else should do so, especially when their own experience conflicts with them.

For example, you assert that what we call choice is really just the result of past habits and influences. That, presumably, includes your own choices. So when you choose to make these assertions, you are making choices that are based merely on your own past habits and influences. You haven't 'worked them out' in any rational way: you assert them because of your conditioning.

That seems to me to undermine the credibility of the entire idea, including your assertion that choices are merely the result of past habits and influences. These ideas undermine any possibility of rational discussion of the matter. A statement that no statements are truly rational must include the statement itself - so there's no reason to pay any attention to it.

I realise that you can respond by saying 'these are my choices, and I merely make them'. That's fine, but there's no point in rational discussion of them, is there?

Roma locuta, causa finita. The thread can be locked without any loss whatsoever.

[Karl Henning]

I mostly like the jokes. In addition I have a fondness for the study of consciousness, When you combine them you get Mary the Color Scientist and the Zombic Hunch. Other goodies also pop up.

    A favorite is "Does red look the same to you as it does to me?". I respond thusly by saying in a cold nasal whine "Red doesn't look like anything, you only think it does.".

Officer, you only thought the light was red.