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The Intellectual Cowardice of FactMachine
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In fairness Amarel asked you several questions I note he asked .......What is free will? How does free will conflict with a causal universe?.... You never answered this , why ? It is a debate site questions should be anticipated and points conceded if no valid answers can be given . 1
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Okay then I'll just start a debate called "Free will does exist you flea brained simpleton" and the burden of proof will go to the other side. The way I see it you could say that both sides have the burden of proof, because they are both making a claim, but just because I start a debate doesn't mean I am obligated to suffer every imbecile that responds when all they can do is make the assertion that I'm wrong and beg me to explain what the concept of free will means. 1
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To be totally honest with you it's one of those questions I find myself being pulled to one side and then the other as I've heard brilliantly persuasive arguments on both sides , I'm still undecided I'm afraid . I've listened and read Galen Strawsons arguments regarding free -will being illusory and he makes a very good argument ; Sam Harris also has very strong opinions on the whole question and in this piece he makes some very good points ......... Here is Stawsons basic argument..... In the free will debate, Strawson holds that there is a fundamental sense in which free will is impossible, whether determinism is true or not. He argues for this position with what he calls his "basic argument", which aims to show that no-one is ever ultimately morally responsible for their actions, and hence that no one has free will in the sense that usually concerns us. In its simplest form, the Basic Argument runs thus: You do what you do, in any given situation, because of the way you are. To be ultimately responsible for what you do, you have to be ultimately responsible for the way you are — at least in certain crucial mental respects. But you cannot be ultimately responsible for the way you are in any respect at all. So you cannot be ultimately responsible for what you do.[3] This argument resembles Arthur Schopenhauer's position in On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, summarised by E. F. J. Payne as the "law of motivation, which states that a definite course of action inevitably ensues on a given character and motive".[4] Here is Sam Harris on free will ..... Sam Harris on free will I briefly discussed the illusion of free will in both The End of Faith and The Moral Landscape. I have since received hundreds of questions and comments from readers and learned just where the sticking points were in my original arguments. I am happy to now offer my final thoughts on the subject in the form of a short book, Free Will, that can be read in a single sitting. The question of free will touches nearly everything we care about. Morality, law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, feelings of guilt and personal accomplishment—most of what is distinctly human about our lives seems to depend upon our viewing one another as autonomous persons, capable of free choice. If the scientific community were to declare free will an illusion, it would precipitate a culture war far more belligerent than the one that has been waged on the subject of evolution. Without free will, sinners and criminals would be nothing more than poorly calibrated clockwork, and any conception of justice that emphasized punishing them (rather than deterring, rehabilitating, or merely containing them) would appear utterly incongruous. And those of us who work hard and follow the rules would not “deserve” our success in any deep sense. It is not an accident that most people find these conclusions abhorrent. The stakes are high. In the early morning of July 23, 2007, Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, two career criminals, arrived at the home of Dr. William and Jennifer Petit in Cheshire, a quiet town in central Connecticut. They found Dr. Petit asleep on a sofa in the sunroom. According to his taped confession, Komisarjevsky stood over the sleeping man for some minutes, hesitating, before striking him in the head with a baseball bat. He claimed that his victim’s screams then triggered something within him, and he bludgeoned Petit with all his strength until he fell silent. The two then bound Petit’s hands and feet and went upstairs to search the rest of the house. They discovered Jennifer Petit and her daughters—Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11—still asleep. They woke all three and immediately tied them to their beds. At 7:00 a.m., Hayes went to a gas station and bought four gallons of gasoline. At 9:30, he drove Jennifer Petit to her bank to withdraw $15,000 in cash. The conversation between Jennifer and the bank teller suggests that she was unaware of her husband’s injuries and believed that her captors would release her family unharmed. While Hayes and the girls’ mother were away, Komisarjevsky amused himself by taking naked photos of Michaela with his cell phone and masturbating on her. When Hayes returned with Jennifer, the two men divided up the money and briefly considered what they should do. They decided that Hayes should take Jennifer into the living room and rape her—which he did. He then strangled her, to the apparent surprise of his partner. At this point, the two men noticed that William Petit had slipped his bonds and escaped. They began to panic. They quickly doused the house with gasoline and set it on fire. When asked by the police why he hadn’t untied the two girls from their beds before lighting the blaze, Komisarjevsky said, “It just didn’t cross my mind.” The girls died of smoke inhalation. William Petit was the only survivor of the attack. Upon hearing about crimes of this kind, most of us naturally feel that men like Hayes and Komisarjevsky should be held morally responsible for their actions. Had we been close to the Petit family, many of us would feel entirely justified in killing these monsters with our own hands. Do we care that Hayes has since shown signs of remorse and has attempted suicide? Not really. What about the fact that Komisarjevsky was repeatedly raped as a child? According to his journals, for as long as he can remember, he has known that he was “different” from other people, psychologically damaged, and capable of great coldness. He also claims to have been stunned by his own behavior in the Petit home: He was a career burglar, not a murderer, and he had not consciously intended to kill anyone. Such details might begin to give us pause. Whether criminals like Hayes and Komisarjevsky can be trusted to honestly report their feelings and intentions is not the point: Whatever their conscious motives, these men cannot know why they are as they are. Nor can we account for why we are not like them. As sickening as I find their behavior, I have to admit that if I were to trade places with one of these men, atom for atom, I would be him: There is no extra part of me that could decide to see the world differently or to resist the impulse to victimize other people. Even if you believe that every human being harbors an immortal soul, the problem of responsibility remains: I cannot take credit for the fact that I do not have the soul of a psychopath. If I had truly been in Komisarjevsky’s shoes on July 23, 2007—that is, if I had his genes and life experience and an identical brain (or soul) in an identical state—I would have acted exactly as he did. There is simply no intellectually respectable position from which to deny this. The role of luck, therefore, appears decisive. Of course, if we learned that both these men had been suffering from brain tumors that explained their violent behavior, our moral intuitions would shift dramatically. But a neurological disorder appears to be just a special case of physical events giving rise to thoughts and actions. Understanding the neurophysiology of the brain, therefore, would seem to be as exculpatory as finding a tumor in it. How can we make sense of our lives, and hold people accountable for their choices, given the unconscious origins of our conscious minds? 1
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The idea that losing a sense of free will would lead to a decay in social values is utterly erroneous, because it entirely depends on what that belief is being replaced by. If it's replaced with nihilisticly inclined existential dread and confusion than losing a sense of free will could be detrimental, but if it is replaced with logic and reason and a better understanding of how the mind works it could lead to a better understanding of the influences which shape thought and behaviour and actually make you more free than you where when you thought you where free. It's important for humanity to accept the mechanistic nature of the brain because a belief in free will impedes your ability to recognize and alter conditions which are detrimental to the development and maintenance of a healthy psychological mindset. And also to recognize and implement that which is conducive to one. The main factors which cause socially destructive behaviour are scarcity, traumatic experience, and neurological deficiency, this is why it's not practical to have a "blame and punish" response but rather a "detain and recondition" response to the criminally insane. And this should not include brainwashing or forced medication, but rather it should be an attempt to give them the faculties of reason and neurological wiring that will allow them to behave in an intelligent and productive manor, it should never be about controlling the individual or punishing them but upgrading and augmenting their thought process so that they can function properly while in the meantime stopping them from harming themselves and others. This will be much easier in the future, right now there are a lot of obvious challenges involved with that approach, but it is the optimal approach, and if society as a whole where to be re-engineered to gradually phase out the very existence of things such as malnutrition, childhood trauma etc. then criminally insane people along with mentally ill people in general would be virtually non existent, especially when you consider the future of gene editing, gene therapy, biotechnology, neural interface, and so on, we would be able to directly edit the brain and the genes to cut out mental illness. Here is a video about free will by Jacque Fresco, an engineer/architect/futurist/sociologist/ I do not understand why you're disputing , I told you I'm undecided on the issue but I found the arguments I cited persuasive; I've no wish to go into the minute detail of each argument as I've played both sides in this one in the past and I'm not doing so again . I'm not sure about Fresco and his assertions I think he makes several errors which I shall address shortly . I've read some interesting stuff about Fresco and I got this from Rational Wiki regarding his assertions ........ Who makes the decisions in a resource based economy? No one does. The process of arriving at decisions in this economy would not be based upon the opinions of politicians, corporate, or national interests but rather all decisions would be arrived at based upon the introduction of newer technologies and Earth's carrying capacity. Computers could provide this information with electronic sensors throughout the entire industrial, physical complex to arrive at more appropriate decisions.[1] Unfortunately, as anyone with even a basic knowledge of computers could tell you, someone has to program them. And unless we somehow develop a hard AI, the people who program the computers will have to make decisions. Given that we have scarce resources, the central planning computer needs to have a way to prioritize between millions of competing desires. How important are cars relative to fridges? How big should these fridges be? How often do they need to be replaced? Should we make more fridges or more fridge factories so we can make even more in the future? The Venus Project doesn't have an answer to any of these questions. Or even designs for robots to accomplish every mundane task, which seem essential to the scheme. But they can tell you what the "architectural design center" will look like![2] Also, there will be hovercars![3] 1
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It's a common misconception that computers make the decisions in an RBE or that humans have to make decisions about the decisions that the computers make but as the excerpt already stated the computers are their to provide information and guide automated systems, they aren't actually there to make decisions except task specific ones and the compartmentalization of AI programs is necessary to avoid aberrant generalized AIs taking over and enslaving the human race, that is an extreme example but their are other malfunctions as well which might hypothetically spread like a virus or cause a large scale systems failure which is why compartmentalization is important when dealing with artificial intelligence. You never make an AI that has it's own personality or sense of self, and you never give one AI control over multiple systems. The central computer is basically the "internet of things" which is used to provide information and communication rather than make decisions. As for questions like How important are cars relative to fridges? How big should these fridges be? How often do they need to be replaced? Should we make more fridges or more fridge factories so we can make even more in the future? This all depends on what the current situation is at the time the decision is made and can only be determined within the context of a given set of circumstances so any answer would be hypothetical. And yes, there are plenty of things the venus project hasn't designed that will need to be designed, and I'm sure the venus project wont produce most of the designs and a new type of venus project might be created elsewhere, because now that Jacque is dead the venus project is going to taken over by hippies and communists just like the zeitgeist movement. When he actually attempts to convince me that free will exists I will answer his questions My very first post in your debate was an explanation of my position. That free will relies on a causal universe, thus it is not precluded by causation, as you claim. I also argued that this debate hinges on a false premise excepted by both sides of the issue. You misunderstood and then avoided my position, only to now claim I must present a position before you will answer the questions that will help present my already stated position. Your actions justify the harsh language of the debate title. You could choose to change that at any time by answering the questions. 1
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free will relies on a causal universe, thus it is not precluded by causation, as you claim. It's statements like that which causally determined my reluctance to debate you, what you have just said is utterly meaningless, I don't even know how to try and reason with someone who makes statements like that. Just look at what you said, how can you not see the problem? Did you honestly proofread that and think "yeah this is a great argument" or are you just trying to be so stupid that I don't even know how to respond so you can try to frame it as if I'm refusing to debate you out of cowardice? If free will relies on a causal universe, then how does that prove that it is not precluded by causation? That is utterly fucking idiotic. If we live in a causal universe it would be much more logical to say "A brain exists in a causal universe and therefor it is an effect of a cause which can cause effects but cannot effect what it causes because its effects are the effect of a cause which it doesn't cause or effect" If free will relies on a causal universe, then how does that prove that it is not precluded by causation? The same way that anything that relies on the existence of something else, for its own existence, cannot be precluded from existence by that same thing upon which it relies. It would be a contradiction. Incredulity is not an argument. I don't even know how to respond Sure you do, you just have to answer the question; How does free will conflict with a causal universe? But to do that you first have to answer; What is free will? 1
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Your questions are designed to manipulate the parameters and flow of the debate by setting up the false pretense that free will is dependent on a causal universe, which is just a baseless assertion and fundamentally absurd, because free will would require you to bypass the process of cause and effect and effect the way effects are caused in the brain and determine the cause of the effect thus an effect would become a cause because the cause is an effect of the very effects that it causes. So to a certain effect, you could say free will would break the chain of causality because the very effect of the cause is the cause of the effect, or in other words the cause and the effect are the same entity, which makes it inherently not dependent on or even part of a process of cause and effect. Asking me to define free will is like asking me to define god, I don't believe in god in the first place and their are multiple interpretations of god, none of which I take seriously, so I don't know if you want me to describe, yaweh, allah, brahman or zues, and I'm not willing to accept any assertion you make about them because I don't believe in them in the first place. But if I where to define free will in the way which appears the most accurate and concise to me, I would say it is the ability to consciously determine your own thoughts and behaviours absent of external and internal influence which interfere with the direct conscious control of your thoughts and actions, which is impossible unless you are God, and God doesn't exist. Though you waited until the end to say anything important, I’ll post it first as it’s the only part truly relevant. If you get too angry at my response to the rest and you forget to reply to the important part, I’ll remind you. And remind you... But if I where to define free will in the way which appears the most accurate and concise to me, I would say it is the ability to consciously determine your own thoughts and behaviours absent of external and internal influence Praise reason hallelujah! A simple answer for a simple question and only figurative teeth pulled. Now let’s proceed. A person determining their thoughts and behaviors absent external or internal influence would be thinking and behaving in accordance with randomness in its truest form. A person whose thoughts and behaviors are subject to randomness, is not in control. If this person took action, and you asked them why they did it, they would have no idea. In fact, that person did not choose anything, their action just randomly happened. This is the commonly accepted false premise to which I alluded at the start. This is the reason it’s essential to define your terms in debate. In this issue, people refer to a condition of being a slave to randomness as “free will”. The randomness of free will, that directly follows from acting and thinking absent influence, is the false premise. The rest of this post is as irrelevant as that to which I was responding. Your questions are designed to manipulate the parameters Asking you to define free will does not manipulate parameters, it clarifies them. Your position that causality precludes free will warrants the question of “how”. It again clarifies your position, it doesn’t manipulate parameters. Thus an effect would become a cause because the cause is an effect of the very effects that it causes While all causes are the effects of some other cause, there is nothing about free will that creates a circular causal situation. So to a certain effect, you could say free will would break the chain of causality because the very effect of the cause is the cause of the effect, or in other words the cause and the effect are the same entity, which makes it inherently not dependent on or even part of a process of cause and effect The closest you’ve come so far on answering my second question is to explain a time travel paradox wherein Marty Mcfly is his own father (for example). If you’ve been thinking that free will is a time travel paradox, then you shouldn’t call it free will, you should call it a time travel paradox. Effects do become causes, that’s causality. And causes are effects of previous causes. And they occasionally act in cyclical ways, though presumably not in time paradox cycles, as you suggest here. But much of this is relevant to the subject at hand As there is no circular causation with free will. There is simply people making their decisions. The fact that they make them for reasons does not negate the fact that they make them. Asking me to define free will is like asking me to define god I’m glad you brought that up. Atheists regular explain what they mean by “god” and why they don’t believe one exists. I don't believe in god in the first place and their are multiple interpretations There aren’t many interpretations of free will. But then the subject of god and the subject of free will aren’t similar. Do you believe in unicorns? Me neither. Can you tell me what a unicorn is? Me too. In fact it’s essential to explaining why one should not believe in them. 1
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In that case, I could just as easily ask why a causal universe necessitates the existence of free will or negates it's absence. Just because free will cannot be random doesn't mean it can exist in the human brain, or that it would not require a process that actually causes itself. While all causes are the effects of some other cause, there is nothing about free will that creates a circular causal situation. Every effect is caused and every cause is an effect but not every cause and effect is the effect of it's own cause. It has nothing to do with a time travel paradox, everything is effected by the fact that it was caused so it cannot effect itself in such a way that causes it to not be subject to what effects it, and that does not imply randomness, just the ability to say "fuck you" to causality at will. Free will is the ability to effect your own actions and thoughts in such a way that causes their outcome, but you do not initiate your own thoughts, they are a natural process occurring in the brain, and are based around the input you have received, you do not cause the fact that you are thinking and you do not effect the input you receive and you cannot effect the conditions of your cause which determines how things effect you. for example if you are born as a crack baby with down syndrome, or as a mathematical savant, or as a chimpanzee, or as a angry sodomite prone to alcoholism and superstitious delusions like nowasaint, or even just an average human. In that case, I could just as easily ask why a causal universe necessitates the existence of free will or negates it's absence A causal universe necessitates everything that is. Free will is as much the product of a causal universe as is life. Just because free will cannot be random doesn't mean it can exist in the human brain No, but the misunderstanding that free will is randomness and thus does not exist, is inaccurate. You say that it’s just the ability to say "fuck you" to causality at will, but that would be to give up reasons for actions and embrace reasonless action, which is to act randomly. This is impossible as you assert, but if it were possible, the product would be a being who is not in control. Causality gives us control, which is free will. Free will is the ability to effect your own actions and thoughts in such a way that causes their outcome, but you do not initiate your own thoughts, they are a natural process occurring in the brain Everyone effects their own actions and thoughts so as to cause outcomes. If they didn’t, then every cause would have the exact same effect on every individual, but it doesn’t. Your thoughts and actions are not simply a matter of input to the brain. It’s how the brain receives that input, measures it against other variables both internal and external, and then chooses an alternative based on incalculable factors. The alternative chosen depends predominantly on the kind of brain doing the choosing, which is to say the alternative chosen depends on the person choosing, and that’s all that is meant by free will. A person doesn’t choose to what kind of person they are, but this does not negate that the kind of person who likes chocolate chooses chocolate because he chose it. You can say his brain chooses it, but that simply replaces a word for itself. The fact that the process is natural doesn’t negate free will. My point: Free will cannot be a matter of choosing to say “fuck you” to causality because that is the same as acting from randomness. When we take actions we do it for reasons. This is excepted by both sides of the free will debate. To act from randomness is to act without reason, which is not free will. The fact that your thoughts and actions depend on the kind of person you are is free will. When someone says “the choice is yours, or that’s up to you or that depends on what you want” they acknowledge free will. They acknowledge free will by acknowledging to aspect of causality that creates dynamic outcomes, which is causation processed through the individual. Causation processed through the individual is free will. 2
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In that case, I could just as easily ask why a causal universe necessitates the existence of free will or negates it's absence A causal universe necessitates everything that is. Free will is as much the product of a causal universe as is life. But you haven't evidenced that free will "is" in the first place, you blathering pseudo-intellectual nincompoop. You just completely sidestepped his question. Well, it's obvious that a causal universe necessitates every given thing that is, and precludes whatever is not. But he has the order of his statement reversed so as to make it irrelevant. Rather than ask why the universe necessitates free will, he should have asked if free will relies on the nature of the universe. The latter is what is actually relevant to our discussion. To say that there is free will is obviously not sufficient. One must say what free will is. Only then can you discuss whether or not it exists. If it exists, then it necessarily follows from a causal universe. The reason why it follows is because it exists. So the question is irrelevant. The relevant question is "what is free will?". The answer to which will let us know if the nature of causality precludes it's existence or not. The question of why the existence of the universe necessitates the existence of anything that may or may not exist in the universe is always irrelevant, because the answer is always a tautology. So I provided the tautology and moved on. Free will implies that one would (In theory) be able to synthesize an output without an input, if he or she so chooses. However this never has and never will be the case in the entirety of existence. Every action, choice, emotion, and thought is a carefully tailored response by the wonderful computational machine that is the human brain. And by the very same virtue, every action and cognitive rendition is the product of a wide variety of inputs you are receiving at that time, as well as the imprint from prior experiences and memories. The brain operates in almost an identical manner that a computer works (As in the function, not the actual raw hardware), processing inputs, reflecting on past collected data for reference, and determining an output. Free will implies that one would (In theory) be able to synthesize an output without an input No it doesn't. That's the false premise at the root of this topic. Free will implies that you make choices. It has never been a theory. It has always simply been a reference to human cognition. It is simply what people refer to when they say "it's up to you". And of course, your choices are up to you. The distinction that man has free will and other animals don't comes from a time where people thought animals were literally automatons with no conscious experience (or soul). If you imagine a person synthesizing output without any input, then you imagine a person acting at random. Acting without reason. That person could not be said to be in control of anything whatsoever. If you ask them why they did something, they would have no idea. Free will is not precluded by causality, it depends on it. Free will is not the ability to act without cause, which is synonymous with the inability to know why one acts. Free will is the manifestation of causality in the individual. My choices are made on the basis of an evaluation of inputs from my environment, my mental imprint of experiences and past decisions, and the recognition of potential outcomes. Nothing more, nothing less. As beautiful of a concept as free will is, at its heart it fails to recognize that human cognition is simply the processing or computing that is derived from environmental inputs in order to determine a perceived optimal output. Our illusion of free will is rooted in the fact that we see our choices as coming from more than a hardwired chemical and unconscious sub routine that determines our every thought and emotion. And this pair translates into action. 1
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My choices are made on the basis of an evaluation of inputs from my environment, my mental imprint of experiences and past decisions, and the recognition of potential outcomes. Nothing more, nothing less. You are still capable of making a bad decision knowing that it is a bad decision. You are capable of evaluating a problem, finding the worst answer, and picking that answer. This precludes the theory that a decision can always be quantified by the variables you gave. Which is why I designated that exact output as a 'perceived optimal output'. My mental profile and current situation (environmental inputs) lead me to determine what I perceive as an optimal decision that grants me physical, emotional, or material satisfaction. However, if that decision leads to a negative feedback loop, those inputs can lead me to the conclusion that my prior decision was a bad one. Almost all actions have pros and cons to being conducted, the trick is how the brain weighs them (Hence the 'computational' process). I have never in my life made a poor decision without arriving at the conclusion that I would satiate some immediate desire at the expense of suffering to come, or vice versa. My choices are made on the basis of an evaluation of inputs from my environment, my mental imprint of experiences and past decisions, and the recognition of potential outcomes. Nothing more, nothing less. What do you think you are but a culmination of mental experiences and values? Your choices are not "made", you make them. You make them based on your evaluation of the inputs from your environment measured against your internal inputs and selected based on what your values inform as the desired outcome. This is much as you said, except that decisions aren't just made, you make them, which is what is meant by free will. As beautiful of a concept as free will is, at its heart it fails to recognize that human cognition is simply the processing or computing that is derived from environmental inputs in order to determine a perceived optimal output. Free will is the exact acknowledgment that human cognition determines cognitive and behavioral output. When I ask my wife what she wants for dinner, I expect an answer related both to the question and to her personal desires and values. That's free will. If I asked what she want's for dinner and she replied "telephone" then the appearance of her answer being devoid of causal input would not indicate that she is expressing free will. The randomness of her response would suggest rather that she is NOT in control. Free will depends on causality. It is not defined by being free from causality. Again, yours is the same false premise repeated. Free will is the concept that decisions are also the product of something more than pure computational power. A will of the spirit, or something beyond the admirable machines we are. I am trying to express that all human action is derived from past experience and inputs at that moment in time, in which our brain computes what is perceived as an optimal outcome. Our decisions our not our own, rather a carefully tailored response crafted by our subconscious routines, or the part of us that is machine, which to be fair is ALL of us. I was simply trying to clarify upon a premise that is not false, just hard to explain, as is customary of everything to do with this topic. Free will is the concept that decisions are also the product of something more than pure computational power. People have always analogized the workings of the brain with whatever is the current fantastic technology. Today the brain is like a computer but yesterday the brain was like a machine. The brain is not like either, but that's somewhat beside the point. People who claim Free will do not assert that ones decisions are made from somewhere beyond them (their brain), they simply assert that people make decisions, which of course they do. I am trying to express that all human action is derived from past experience and inputs at that moment in time, in which our brain computes what is perceived as an optimal outcome. Our decisions our not our own, rather a carefully tailored response crafted by our subconscious routines, or the part of us that is machine, which to be fair is ALL of us. You don't see your own contradiction. You first state, more or less, that decisions are made by the brain only to follow it by saying our decisions are not our own. You ARE your brain. You and I agree that your brain weighs environmental inputs against internal values to derive a perceived optimal alternative. The other way to say that is you have reasons for the choices you make. That IS free will, and that IS causality. I was simply trying to clarify upon a premise that is not false, just hard to explain, as is customary of everything to do with this topic. The false premise isn't hard to explain. We live in a causal universe wherein we make choices. The false premise is that the making of choices is somehow extra-causal. The false premise is that free will means making choices without reasons, without causes. But a person acting in that manner would have an absolute LACK of control. Thus, the false premise in this debate paints a picture of a person who has no control over their actions, as their actions are completely random, and then says that this is a picture of free will. You see the problem with this premise don't you? You make choices depending on YOU. You can say it depends on your brain, but that doesn't change the fact that it is YOU making choices (you are your brain). It is YOU processing inputs, desiring outcomes, and seeking the optimal choice. When your brain does all these things, that means YOU do all these things. That's free will. The human brain operates exactly like a machine, or at least an organic one. I am an electrical current flitting about along the chemical and biological pathways that my brain provides, or the manifestation of the machine. But that does not mean I am actually in control. We are just puppets of the primal instincts and machinations that have been bred and ingrained into us through our time living on this Earth. I 'make' choices because of simple feedback loops, not some willpower that I posses to go out of my way and make something happen. A computer makes choices for a specific set of reasons, but does it posses free will? No, of course not. And the manifestation of that hardware is the software, or the OS, which is simply the means by which a system processes its inputs and outputs, or communicates with external systems. This was the analogy I was trying to make. This essence that you keep referring to, this 'me' is something that manifests itself out of necessity for the machine that is my being to operate. The universe pulls the strings for both my surroundings and my responses. I 'make' choices because of simple feedback loops, not some willpower that I posses to go out of my way and make something happen Part of your neural construct is your value system. Values are those things or concepts for which you take action to acquire or to maintain. That IS willpower. It is in your brain. It is part of you. Which is why you do, in fact, go make things happen, as we all do. Your values are often your reason/cause. But that does not mean I am actually in control This is the crux of the matter. What do you think it would look like for a person to be "actually in control"? For a person to actually be in control, it means they would need to be freed of the constant decisions and actions that the reality we exist in forces upon them. None of us are in control, we are along for the ride, and that ride is the universe. We would need to be freed of existential chains. For a person to actually be in control, it means they would need to be freed of the constant decisions and actions that the reality we exist in forces upon them It does not follow that being in control means not making decisions or taking action. Let me simplify what appears to be the disagreement and you tell me if it’s accurate. I say that free will means making choices for reasons. You say that because choices are made for reasons, there is no free will. Put another way. I say that you make choices because of reasons and that is free will. You say that your brain chooses for you because of causes and that’s not free will. 1
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Everyone who reads this should be able to see now why I didn't want to deal with you, it wasn't intellectual cowardice, I can tell when someone is a moron. Nomenclature And Imperium already pointed out most of your lunacy so I think I'm done here. if you think saying A causal universe necessitates everything that is. Free will is as much the product of a causal universe as is life. is a good answer to demonstrate why a causal universe necessitates the existence of free will or negates it's absence then you are clearly insane and I could go into the rest but I don't feel like wasting my time just so you can make me smell your brain farts. if you think saying A causal universe necessitates everything that is. Free will is as much the product of a causal universe as is life. That part of the post wasn't even relevant to the topic. It was relevant to your irrelevant comment. The part that IS relevant is the part your refuse to address due to you being an intellectual coward. It's the part of my post that follows "My Point", I will post it again to make very clear to you exactly what you are running away from. Address my position or don't. But when you walk away, you will feel that needling nagging sensation of knowing you are not up to the task of even defending your own assertions. If these assertions were your own, you could defend them better. As it is you are left with repeating assertions of your intellectual betters with no recourse when challenged other than to walk away as clueless as when you first parroted a notion. That's why this debate is about your intellectual cowardice, and you have well made my point. You may again flee from the following: Free will cannot be a matter of choosing to say “fuck you” to causality because that is the same as acting from randomness. When we take actions we do it for reasons. This is excepted by both sides of the free will debate. To act from randomness is to act without reason, which is not free will. The fact that your thoughts and actions depend on the kind of person you are is free will. When someone says “the choice is yours, or that’s up to you or that depends on what you want” they acknowledge free will. They acknowledge free will by acknowledging to aspect of causality that creates dynamic outcomes, which is causation processed through the individual. Causation processed through the individual is free will. 1
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That part of the post wasn't even relevant to the topic. It was relevant to your irrelevant comment. Actually if you're going to claim that free will exists you're going to need to substantiate that claim, if you can't do that then you are now the one avoiding my questions out of intellectual cowardice, or just the inability to recognize that you have no basis for your belief because you're mentally handicapped. The part that IS relevant is the part your refuse to address due to you being an intellectual coward. I'm about to address it right now, let's see if you can address anything that I say. Address my position or don't. But when you walk away, you will feel that needling nagging sensation of knowing you are not up to the task of even defending your own assertions. No I won't, because you are clearly the one making indefensible assertions, why else would you need to say that proving that free will actually exists is irrelevant? that should be the most important part but you gave me the laziest answer possible. If these assertions were your own, you could defend them better. As it is you are left with repeating assertions of your intellectual betters with no recourse when challenged other than to walk away as clueless as when you first parroted a notion. You are parroting the notion that free will exists just as much as I'm parroting the notion that it doesn't, I refused to reply at first because I could sense you where an idiot, and now that I'm wasting my precious time debating you, you're the one avoiding my questions and trying to set up strawmen. That's why this debate is about your intellectual cowardice, and you have well made my point. This debate is about free will, if you cannot either prove that free will exists or accept that it doesn't by the time I get bored with you and stop replying then you will be the intellectual coward. You may again flee from the following Fuck you. Free will cannot be a matter of choosing to say “fuck you” to causality because that is the same as acting from randomness. Remember when I said God is the only one who could truly have free will? that's because god would be the cause of every effect and be capable of effecting every cause, it doesn't require randomness just omnipotence. Because if you're not omnipotent, then you will always be under the influence of an environment you are forced to adapt to and limited to the finite number of connections that could possibly exist in your brain which are observably decided by the chemistry of the brain and the influence of the environment, that is why you cannot help being a condescending douche nozzle and I can't help being smarter than you. When we take actions we do it for reasons. This is excepted by both sides of the free will debate. That doesn't prove anything, especially once you consider that most of the reasons that drive humans are just basic instincts like survival and reproduction and the rest still don't need free will to exist to be formulated in the human brain. To act from randomness is to act without reason, which is not free will. Sure, but that doesn't prove free will exists, and people do random things and act without reason all the time. The fact that your thoughts and actions depend on the kind of person you are is free will. No, that's part of the reason why free will doesn't exist, your personality is just a chemical balance in the brain. For example if I injected estrogen into your testicles and it gave you testicular cancer, the testosterone levels would go down, the estrogen would go up, and well...your personality probably wouldn't change much now that I think about it because you're already a total fruitstick. When someone says “the choice is yours, or that’s up to you or that depends on what you want” they acknowledge free will. Wow I never thought about it that way. They acknowledge free will by acknowledging to aspect of causality that creates dynamic outcomes, which is causation processed through the individual. Causation processed through the individual is free will. Or free will is just a subjective contrivance and the human brain is a neural network which is shaped by genes and environment. You typed a lot for not really saying anything. You keep referring to a question that I haven’t answered. The only question I have found that you might be referring to wasn’t actually a question (just a statement that you could ask a question), and I answered it anyway. Additionally, I answered my own questions that I had asked of you. Following is my answer to your question as explained to Nomenclature: "Well, it's obvious that a causal universe necessitates every given thing that is, and precludes whatever is not. But he has the order of his statement reversed so as to make it irrelevant. Rather than ask why the universe necessitates free will, he should have asked if free will relies on the nature of the universe. The latter is what is actually relevant to our discussion. To say that there is free will is obviously not sufficient. One must say what free will is. Only then can you discuss whether or not it exists. If it exists, then it necessarily follows from a causal universe. The reason why it follows is because it exists. So the question is irrelevant. The relevant question is "what is free will?". The answer to which will let us know if the nature of causality precludes it's existence or not. The question of why the existence of the universe necessitates the existence of anything that may or may not exist in the universe is always irrelevant, because the answer is always a tautology. So I provided the tautology and moved on.” I also provided answers to my own two questions with my reasoning behind my answers. This is what you fail to challenge, even in this post. What is free will? It’s a person making a choice, which is causation processed through the individual. Why does causality preclude free will? Or to apply it to my position, Why doesn’t causality preclude free will? Because in order to make a choice, you MUST have reasons, otherwise you are not making a choice, but rather suffering the spontaneity of randomness, which is beyond your control. No, that's part of the reason why free will doesn't exist, your personality is just a chemical balance in the brain There are many things a person cannot choose. This does not preclude the existence of choice (free will), but rather limits it. The fact that you cannot choose the kind of person you are does not preclude free will anymore than the fact that you cannot fly. The kind of person you are determines the kinds of choices you make. Because YOU are choosing, THAT’S free will. Remember when I said God is the only one who could truly have free will? that's because god would be the cause of every effect and be capable of effecting every cause, it doesn't require randomness just omnipotence Here you’ve changed what you mean by free will, since your initial statement couldn't stand the light of reason. If by free will you mean the ability to cause every effect and effect every cause, then we agree that humans cannot do that. But that is a definition unique to you and created for rhetorical purposes. If you mean what everyone else means (and what you initially meant) by free will, that it is the ability to make choices, then of course we have free will, as I have thoroughly illustrated, and you have thoroughly avoided. And of course, even your omnipotent God doesn’t have free will either, due to the false premise you tried to pretend you haven’t been operating from. For a thing to cause itself, it must precede itself, which is absurd. The effect of a thing causing itself would, in reality, be that it appears randomly, out of nothingness. That cannot be called free will as a thing that does not exist cannot choose to exist without first existing to make the choice. If an omnipotent God causes things for reasons, then he is still subject to the causal nature of the universe, which you have claimed precludes free will. You stated that the “feeling that you are actually in control of your pathetic robot like daily procedure of mundane repetitive loser bullshit” is an illusion because “Humans are subject to many factors which shape their behavior”. This is the same argument that everyone makes. And it is the argument you make. Not because you’re clever, but because someone smarter than you said it. Once you heard me say something on the matter that you hadn’t heard, that free will actually relies on causality, you clammed up and wouldn’t discuss it for a day or two. You were lost and clamoring for a solution to causality co-existing with free will. Then you hoped that saying “causes effects effects causes effects effects causes” repeatedly would somehow seem like an intelligent argument. You only fooled yourself. Now you hope to claim that your initial rant in your OP was referring to a free will that entails effecting all causes and causing all effects. It’s pathetic. Your initial little rant held that a person can’t be said to make the choices they make because of causality. You are now saying that free will is the ability to make all choices in the entire universe. This is what an intellectual bitch acts like. This is why you’ve been intellectually slapped. Free will is simply the ability to make choices, it relies on causality, and everyone does it. Not being able to choose all things all the time does not preclude being able to choose anything at any time. I'm sorry you're an intellectual coward. It's apparently the kind of person you are. That won't change until you find a sufficient reason to change it. That's free will. 1
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It's true that this isn't going anywhere. When you said Free Will "is the ability to consciously determine your own thoughts and behaviours absent of external and internal influence" I addressed it and showed why that cannot be free will. When changed your mind and said free will is the ability “ be the cause of every effect and be capable of effecting every cause”, I addressed that bit of nonsense too. When I said what free will is and why it exists and you failed to address it, I pointed that out. Now that you are saying I have avoided doing all the things I have obviously done consistently, I guess we are at an impasse. 1
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I am shocked that Eloy wants to suck Amarel's balls and let him paint whatever picture he wants in his mind. It's sad that you can read Amarel's idiotic posts and mistake them for superiority. I banned him because I was sick of seeing him insulting me when he isn't even worth responding to. sigh I honestly have a hard time figuring out all the multiple accounts. I questioned Chinaman being Outlaw for a bit when others said he was, then he debated me and it was the exact same "debating" style Outlaw had. I don't know about Q and FM being the same though, FM seems to be able to debate pretty well, where as Q can be a bit hyper-aggressive. Time will tell I suppose. 1
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Listen up bitch boy, you basically posted a paragraph explaining how you didn't want to make an actual argument then declared "that was easy" as if you actually did something. then you repeatedly insulted my intelligence and demanded that I justify my position all the while you had no argument of your own. I didn't even take anything you said seriously, I couldn't be bothered to reply to your imbecile donkey shite. You are another one of those ass holes who thinks free will just HAS to exist because how else can you blame people for shit? Just because it's convenient for society doesn't mean it's true, that's not how reality works. Man, I'm sick of you acting like I owe you an explanation when you can't even make a decent argument for me to respond to. Amarel posted the paragraph: "Of course free will exist as I have explained countless times to countless other people. I am so tired of repeating myself that I will not bother to explain to you why you are wrong on this debate site. You will simply have to trust that my previous explanations were correct by virtue of my claim of a high degree of repetition. That was easy." He was imitating you, from when you posted: " I have debated about free will so much in my life that I can't even be bothered to reply just to sit here and explain my position which I have done 23734567346749856 times in my life just to hear the same crap from different mouths. I will reply to arguments, where people attempt to explain why free will does exist and I refute them point by point but I don't feel like writing another essay about all the influences and neurological mechanisms which shape thought and behaviour." It was satire. (I'm not saying one of you is in the right or wrong, just clarifying Amarels purpose. Correct me, Amarel, if I misunderstand your paragraph) 1
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demanded that I justify my position all the while you had no argument of your own Your failure to acknowledge my position is not my failure to have one. I have repeatedly explained that I believe free will relies on causality and that the free will debate hinges on a false premise about what free will is. Your answers to the two included questions will assist in demonstrating my position, which i suspect is why you won’t answer them. It is also why I deemed this avoidance to be intellectual cowardice. Now, we can pick up that debate where we left off, or you can continue to avoid it. Your choice depends on what kind of person you are. |