The argument that free will is an illusion is metaphysical. I define free will as the ability to make decisions which create measurable, quantifiable, and empirical changes in one's life conditions.

To argue that these decisions/choices are an illusion is the same as arguing that reality itself is an illusion. Again, this is metaphysical which means it's beyond our understanding or could possibly be reduced to semantical and definitional interpretations.

For all intents and purposes, free will is as real a part of the human experience as being alive is. If you interpret free will as an illusion, that means you interpret a fundamental aspect of conscious reality as an illusion.

Bump

Please help the blind to see, Lord.

As long as you have not predetermined them not to ever see, Lord.

nah dude i watched a sam harris video and now i have the entire universe figured out


isn't it funny how the main guys pushing the idea that free will doesn't exist like harris are always the libtards that see nothing wrong with abortion etc?

that tells you everything right there. They hate the fact they have blood on their hands.

We’re not gonna figure this out here bro.

Sam Harris is an intellectual retard for believing that about free will and convincing his followers of it.

Harris made a tweet about regretting voting for Biden. He must've voted Biden because he had no choice - it was predetermined. I guess his regret was predetermined too lmao

Free will is an illusion. your definition doesnt prove that free will isnt an illusion. The sum of our genes and our environment have 100% influence over our thought process and our decision making. We always choose the decision we think is the best idea and what we consider the best idea is directly tied to our genetic makeup and what our genes/person was exposed to during our lifetime. Since the moment you were born, a cascading effect of dominoes led you to making this thread. Why? because you thought it was a good idea to? why did you think it was? because your genetic makeup+its interaction with its surroundings led to the thought that this would be what i should do with my time

Should I neg you on r/c or not? What do you think the culmination of my genetics + environment have determined already as far as negging you? I would like to know your answer to the latter question.

I am also giving you a choice on the former question. Yes or no, should I neg you?

srs

Do whatever you want, just know that what you decide to do wasnt free choice, but actually the sum of your genes and your environment

Can we atleast agree, that maybe some people have free will? Its definitely obvious not everyone has free will, but that doesnt mean theres not a few of us out there that do.

My genes and my environment would have me rep you saying "I disagree" as a dumb, nice troll. I could go in the extreme opposite direction of my nature and actually neg you for disagreeing with my beliefs. Instead I chose to explain this to you.

I agree humans are programmed/conditioned. However, humans can also reprogram ourselves to overcome our conditioning. Was I programmed by the conditions of my life to be more open to this idea, yes. But still I have a choice to embody the idea or not and reprogram myself into whatever I want to be, within the confines of my capabilities (i.e. the extent of my predetermined physical/mental capabilities)

Everyone has free will, but few are capable of seeing it. At least that's how things appear to me based on talking to people who don't believe in it. They've been conditioned their entire lives to believe they're victims of circumstance.

I dont know if everyone has free will, but they may have access to it if they want it, but the thing is they want other things, believe it or not people enjoy being submissive, and freak out when they have control, their greatest fear is that they are powerful beyond measure.

Good point. The idea that you're completely responsible for everything you do is absolutely fuking terrifying for anyone, as it should be. I went into a huge state of anxiety when I first realized it srs

It's the ultimate red pill

npc checking in

Great summary. You are 100% correct.

Robert Sapolsky is way better than Sam Harris though.

The reason why they say “Free Will is a myth, but it’s probably better that you live your life thinking you do have it.” Because accepting the concept of no free will, it can cause people to engage in poor behavior because they’ll just think “I had no choice anyway so I can do X, Y, and Z bad behavior.” Now this is where it gets tricky because people will respond to that with “A hah! See! That’s evidence of free will!” No it isn’t. It still follows the same laws of causal determinism.



Your brain will ALWAYS follow the same law of making the “choice” of “what is most desirable for me?” Now, someone would argue that anorexia isn’t desirable so doesn’t that negate the argument?” Nope. Because that person thought that starving themself was the most desirable action.

And if you try another method to skirt around free will by saying “Fine then, I’ll just pick my choice randomly by picking choices out of a hat.” Nope. Still follows the same rule. The most desirable action was for you to make the choice random.

Every single thing you do follows that same rule and you can never deviate from it as hard as you try.

You do not choose your desires. You just notice they’re there. The reason you like blondes with a certain hip to waist ratio and big tits has nothing to do with your unique and special individuality. You didn’t choose it. You discovered it. And you don’t choose your personality. You just discover that too.

If you really think that you’re anything more than a biological puppet, you’re in denial. Your sensory experience does not constitute a unique individual with purpose and meaning. Truth wills out and everybody sees that once the strings are cut, all fall down.

Free will is an illusion, but you don't have the ability to believe otherwise because you have no free will. Let that sink in.

[QUOTE=andrew28 post_id=1647128303]Great summary. You are 100% correct.

Robert Sapolsky is way better than Sam Harris though.

The reason why they say “Free Will is a myth, but it’s probably better that you live your life thinking you do have it.” Because accepting the concept of no free will, it can cause people to engage in poor behavior because they’ll just think “I had no choice anyway so I can do X, Y, and Z bad behavior.” Now this is where it gets tricky because people will respond to that with “A hah! See! That’s evidence of free will!” No it isn’t. It still follows the same laws of causal determinism.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/embed/UX7bs4uvPyc[/youtube]

[youtube][/QUOTE]You don't realize what you're capable of achieving boyo. That's what your philosophy re: free will tells me.

This is a solid counterargument. I won't refute this, because I refuse to believe that free will is an illusion lol.
That's actually the most convincing argument I've seen for it.

It's all about paradigm, in my opinion. I refuse to believe that I don't have a choice in life.

Maybe because I've been given choices in life before, and told that whatever I do is my choice.

It’s actually the other way around. It’s frightening to know that you are just a small part of an infinite chain of events that started billions of years ago.

It’s better to cope and think you have control of your life. Successful people will say it’s all about hard work and dedication, without realizing that if they had born on the house next door they may have been born to an abusive father and became criminals or sex offender, and homeless at 22.


It’s also easier to get on our high horse and blame the criminals and evil people for everything wrong in the world, thinking we are good and they are bad. In reality we are just the result of a chain of events, some people are weak links and some other are strong links, but we have no control over what we are.

This belief made me a more empathic person. I don’t look down to anyone ever, even if I’m stronger, taller, smarter, better looking, have more money, etc. I realized at a very young age that the only difference between the kid on the street with no shoes on and myself was that I was born with a pair of aces on my hand and that kid was born with a 2-7.

We are just sacks of meat following instincts and desires. That’s actually a much scarier thought than “muh life my rules!!!”.

One thing I am sure of is many people are born irreconcilably stupid.

Are we affected by our environments, absolutely. I was programmed to believe I have a choice, you were programmed to believe you don't. Maybe both sets of beliefs are total illusions, which neither are categorically true. I will always believe I have choices, you will always believe you don't. Maybe it's just two ways of interpreting the world, stemmed from two different sets of life experiences.

You’ve made up your mind to the point where nothing anyone posts will convince you otherwise. This is a religious mindset you have. And religious mindsets (doesn’t have to be an actual religion) are dangerous because they are a language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain and dulls critical thinking. True Detective taught me that one but it’s just a fact. Linguistic anthropologists figured out that one.

Because my life has shown me that I do have choices.

Belief is a dangerous thing because it can lead to cognitive dissonance since you dare not challenge something you hold so sacred. Accepting cold hard facts is the way to go. You can go ahead and be a great person, get shredded, start a business, drive towards a happy/successful life, etc. And that’s all well and good. But just realize that it’s because you were fortunate enough to have the ideal genetics + environment that lead you down what you perceive to be a good life.

It’s not about believing you have a choice or not. That’s an inappropriate argument. It’s about what is true from a biologically deterministic standpoint.

Whether we have free will is yet to be answered, but the standard arguments against it are poor.

There's firstly the assumption of deterministic causality which is trapped in the metaphysics of the 19th century. That just isn't up to date with everything we've learned from complexity theory, chaos theory, non-linear dynamics, self-organization theory, ergodicity etc. It's a useful expedient for discussing causality in the simpler sciences like physics or chemistry perhaps, but not adequate for life.


Secondly, there is the bad conceptual blunder of identifying the brain as the locus of cognition and action and consciousness. The Libet experiments, which are the only discussions most people seem to know on the topic, make the conceptual error that a neural event is identical to ones will. There's a good book on this which talks in detail about how this is the metonymical fallacy where one conflates a part and whole.

Once you reach a certain level of spiritual development the use of free will becomes easier, because you live from the heart/soul rather than the ego.

Modern science hasn’t done anything to disprove determinism. The only thing that it has taught us is that so far, we really don’t understand how **** works.


So at the end, this is just about opinions, and unless your name is Einstein or Stephen Hawkins, it’s gonna be incredibly hard to change anyone’s mind on the subject that is well read on it

But...Is it adaptive though? Recently saw something discussing being trusting vs. being skeptical and how our evolution selects for people that are more trusting. Being trusting and open increases your chances of being deceived and used so you might assume that skepticism would be protective/the most fit. It just isn't.

Completely different type of interview [maybe a year ago] the man being interviewed said that what we perceive of our reality as humans is probably NOT actual reality, but instead is the input that best helps us to survive and procreate.