maddog Posted April 18, 2005 Report Share Posted April 18, 2005 I feel so ignored...DM, FshT appears to only respond to statements he "thinks" he can address his side effectively, I guess.... Maddog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishteacher73 Posted April 19, 2005 Report Share Posted April 19, 2005 What you seem to not comprehend (or Ignore) is that Newtonian Mechanics was the basisfor the STUPID THEORY YOU ARE NOW ESPOUSING TO ME AS FACT!!!! FACTS ARE NOT THEORIESwhich the pholosphy of Determinism is. It is fine with me for you to believe it. There are a lot ofpeople here believe in God too (of some sort or another). Just don't try and foist the CRAP on meas a bonifide Theory of Existance with enough experimental evidence as QM! It doesn't wash.How it propogates above Quantum Realm, see above. Unlike you, I don't claimFree Will is in existence as FACT since IMO, Free Will lies in the domain of the MIND which I suspectdoes actually not Exist "Physically". This is what I WAS SAYING ALL ALONG. You are so dense, youmust have missed that point. Go back and read my posts. The answers are there. :) :) :) Maddog So let me get this straight, A) I am dense because I argue your POV, which you have yet to support, the ability for an individual to exercise free-will. :) Name calling is sooo cool... C) You claim that there is no physicality of free-will. It just exists because you want it to. Maybe like a god or something. D) At no point did I claim any of my opinions as fact. I have interpreted information and relayed it to how it fits into what I feel is the best model of our universe. E) I have yet to see an example of the aplication of free-will. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biochemist Posted April 19, 2005 Report Share Posted April 19, 2005 FshT appears to only respond to statements he "thinks" he can address his side effectively, I guess....MD- I don't have a dog in this fight, but I would appreciate it if you tone down your attacks a notch. I think FsT has made some coherent arguments, and I believe I understand his positions (although I don't happen to agree with some of them). In contrast, I have a hard time following your arguments, so I rarely respond to yours. I have to admit, I lose my enthusiasm to respond when I see the name calling. I may agree with some of your positions, but I am not sure because they often seem like non-linear rants. FsT is asking an often-asked question that has been discussed on this site in many threads. The issue is that if the universe is deterministic, free will cannot (by definition) exist. If you believe free will does exist, you have to identify a source for it other than the determinism of nature. Most folks that believe in free will identify a theistic source. As I read your posts, I really can't tell whether you are saying that free will "just happened" or that it was a divine creation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaos Posted June 17, 2005 Report Share Posted June 17, 2005 Sure. Unless I was in the mood for pastrami. :shrug:you never consciously decide to be in the mood for any type of food; your subconscious does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartock Posted June 17, 2005 Report Share Posted June 17, 2005 Well, some are probably sick of the free will discussions for a while, but I'm still curious! I thought I would get this in a seperate thread just to attempt to keep the discussions on topic :rant: I was looking at various responses from both sides on the free will vs. determinism debates lately, and noticed everybody uses the presupposition of free will in their argument. For example: "I've weighed the evidence...." "I see no reason why...." "Rationally, I think...." etc etc. I think it's been pretty well concluded that reasoning and deciding are free-will requiring activities. So how come we presuppose we have free will when making arguments about pretty much anything? So my question is: Is it possible to make a statement about a personal belief in determinism (i.e. this is why i think the universe is deterministic....) without presupposing the idea of free will?well we know pretty much how the nature will keep working(i.e. the sun will always be seting in the weat and all that) so that is determinisim. and how we chose to use the free solar energy to solve the energy crysis of the world :rant:that is free will Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartock Posted June 17, 2005 Report Share Posted June 17, 2005 Great thread, B- I suggest that some notions that typically require free will to have meaning include: 1) Objectivity2) Analysis3) Preference4) Creativity5) Affection (as opposed to "instinct")6) Altruism8) Democracy9) Bias10) Valuewe do have the atribute of free will(FW) and use FW effectively we need to use all of the above1. preference , affection , altrusm ,democracy , bias and value all r in the catagory of world view , objectivity means truth2.our analysis is based on our world view and the feed back about the subject. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paultrr Posted June 17, 2005 Report Share Posted June 17, 2005 FsT is asking an often-asked question that has been discussed on this site in many threads. The issue is that if the universe is deterministic, free will cannot (by definition) exist. If you believe free will does exist, you have to identify a source for it other than the determinism of nature. Most folks that believe in free will identify a theistic source. I think something is being messed here a bit. Even with the random aspects out of QM one still has cause an effect in place. If one's ability to choose or determine what one will do can be seen as independent within the laws of nature from purely beyond our control inputs then such a free will simply implies that there are aspects to how consciousness has evolved in us that we do not fully understand at this time. I too, and sorry about this MD, rather at least on the surface take exception to the consciousness and physicality issue. I think I know what you where trying to get across there. I have myself had simular speculative discussion before with a few others. The religious would term such an idea as the soul or spirit. From a scientific perspective its generally the stance that our consciousness is connected with our physical bodies. Here the two do not agree at all and from a pure explored evidence perspective there would be no direct evidence that our consciousness can exist external to the body. But here again its one area I have seen things in my own lifetime that tend to tell me that is not the whole picture. But having said that weither our consciousness can exist external to the body or not either way what we normally think of as living includes the physical body so that in a normal discussion the two cannot be seperated. The problem I see across the board is everyone has a different definition of what free will is and how it can work. For my own part I do not see any valid aspect of free wil as violating any law of nature. As such even if we do not understand it all there is an explination out there of how determinism and free will manage to co-exist. By free will, at least by everything ever properly demonstrated one cannot wish oneself through a solid wall. But one can certainly make the choice on what to eat, so to speak. Put even more simplier while we cannot directly violate gravity, we can and do have the freedom to decide anything else that does not itself violate a law of nature and we have the ability to design mechanisms by which we can overcome gravity. I might also add that MD is totally correct that at the present we really have no proper way to fully settle this whole argument which leaves us with no real winner on the subject unless one takes the majority path as such. The problem with that is while the majority tends to think free will exists they cannot agree exactly on what free will is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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