Philosopher's Guild: Everyone is Welcome to Gather and Discuss

[Type Username Here]

Good points. I think that, sometimes, proponents of free will are too focused on humanity and their own consciousness rather than truly looking at the universality of it.

Absolutely but it is such a natural reaction! We operate mainly in our frame of reference. I'm a proponent of determinism who still fools myself into thinking I have control .

Can see the arguments both ways, however, I dont think universal free will makes sense. Itd have to be limited to certain levels of conscious thought vs inanimate objects.

I think it's honestly the most interesting debate there is. It has implications on so many other areas.

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

if you're asking do I think both concepts are compatible, yes.



point taken.

let me rephrase.

free will is our absolute reality.

Theres a specific school of thought called compatibilism regarding determinism vs free will. I suppose thats a straight forward name but wasnt sure if you had read about it or just devised it on your own. There are different versions of it as well (as with almost all philosophical theories).

You sure its not "some peoples absolute perception" instead?

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

Absolutely but it is such a natural reaction! We operate mainly in our frame of reference. I'm a proponent of determinism who still fools myself into thinking I have control .



I think it's honestly the most interesting debate there is. It has implications on so many other areas.

I agree. If I talk philosophy with someone I generally start with that.

 

[Type Username Here]

I agree. If I talk philosophy with someone I generally start with that.

The reason I side with determinism is due to mainly Einstein. According to his theories, everything that will happen has already happened in space time. Its all relative to the frame of reference. Therefore, time dilation can present a scenario where your past has not happened yet and my future is in your past. This implies heavily on a deterministic existence. Haven't read a lot of philosophers mention this but I'm sure there are arguments for and against using special relativity

An article that mentions a scenario:

www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/08/26/343483711/has-next-tuesday-already-happened

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

The reason I side with determinism is due to mainly Einstein. According to his theories, everything that will happen has already happened in space time. Its all relative to the frame of reference. Therefore, time dilation can present a scenario where your past has not happened yet and my future is in your past. This implies heavily on a deterministic existence. Haven't read a lot of philosophers mention this.

www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/08/26/343483711/has-next-tuesday-already-happened

Well thats just a part of why I dont believe in free will. That goes hand in hand, to me, with energy/information cannot be created or destroyed. It's all already there.

Lemme put a free will question out there, strictly from a humanistic perspective (lets leave the universe etc alone for a second)..

How can one gather that they truly had an "original" and organic thought that lead to an action they took?

If you believe in free will as an absolute reality..then, in my opinion, you have to rule out any pre-dispositions, conditioning, sub-conscious motivations, environmental factors etc. Otherwise, it is impossible...There will always be at least one cause, and in most cases many more, that lead you or made you think what you thought or do what you did.

Even if you decided to ultimately do completely random shyt with no coherent pattern to it other than inherent randomness..it could be considered to be true that something inspired and made you do that...whether its a sort of personal rebellion to how your life is/was, society or conventional establishment rationalism...or even a trickle down of things you were predisposed to and did which then caused imbalances to make you act erratically (for lack of a better word).

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

instead of viewing it as "wrong," view more along the lines of "undecided" or "neutral," because we are not 100% sure that that is NOT the case, although at this current point we may not be able to prove it scientifically.

this is important mentally because the mind weighs all incoming information in the context of prior beliefs. so if you have a belief that the mind cannot exist without the physical body, then you will be influenced to interpret the incoming information in that paradigm. so basically thats why its so easy for humans to only truly investigate and interact with information that supports their viewpoints.

i myself too am guilty of this, of looking at information only in a way that can support my prior beliefs, and not weighing all sides equally. and then even worse is not doing my due diligence in the follow-up investigation of the true facts.

this whole shyt is an illusion that my brain creates. made out of atoms that combine to create a pattern that creates an object thats here for a brief moment and then gone.

our physical vessel, brain included, can only "interact" with about 3% of the energy around us. and energy at its most fundamental level contains information, sort of like cosmic dna. but with our human senses and with our human body we can only handle that small percentage of the incoming energy/information. so the physical reality projection we are creating with our brain/senses is a shytty representation of what really exists.

Seems like we've looped back around to 9/9/12 a bit eh? Do you no longer subscribe to this? If so, how does it coincide with free will?

@LeyeT @Type Username Here you gonna drop that philosophy paper you were talking about back then on materialism vs dualism

to the ridiculous shyt we were all droppin back then. them classics


http://www.thecoli.com/threads/lets-talk-about-the-mind-mindblown.39019/

 

[Dr. Sebi Jr.]

This thread was stolen from Kemet.

 

[OsO]

Theres a specific school of thought called compatibilism regarding determinism vs free will. I suppose thats a straight forward name but wasnt sure if you had read about it or just devised it on your own. There are different versions of it as well (as with almost all philosophical theories).

no i googled it when i saw it in your post.

You sure its not "some peoples absolute perception" instead?

im saying imo our thoughts, and the choices we make, determine our experiences.

thats what i mean when i say free will is our absolute reality because we couldnt escape the burden of choice if we tried. because even "not choosing" is a choice in itself.

If you believe in free will as an absolute reality..then, in my opinion, you have to rule out any pre-dispositions, conditioning, sub-conscious motivations, environmental factors etc. Otherwise, it is impossible...There will always be at least one cause, and in most cases many more, that lead you or made you think what you thought or do what you did.

dont we always have the power to override our impulses and make a different decision tho? we are influenced by many factors no doubt, but our ultimate course of action is up to us, no?

no matter how many causes influence us to eat oatmeal for breakfast we always have the choice to eat cereal instead, or eat nothing at all. THAT to me is free will.

and i know you'll respond by saying that's simply one cause having more influence over you than another cause, so then the question i have is how is placing responsibility for your actions on an imaginary unknown force any different from organized religion?

Seems like we've looped back around to 9/9/12 a bit eh? Do you no longer subscribe to this? If so, how does it coincide with free will?

@LeyeT

we still live in an illusion in the sense that the world we perceive with our senses is just an interpretation by our brain of the environment. so how things appear to us is not how they really are, hence, the illusion.

but we still exercise our free will within the illusion.

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

@LeyeT nice response. Imma sleep on it and address it after i lose money at the casino tomorrow

 

[Dragonfly Jones]

sub

 

[badhat]

Moral realist/Kantian/Rawlsian, compatibilist.

Re: the NPR link, special relativity will have time dilation to cause an observer to have a different measurement than the proper time, but it's also important to remember that for them to communicate and be able to individually compare events, they either have to boost to the other's relativistic velocity, or communicate via the speed of light, which is agnostic to their frames.

So, while we have different time lines, we still can't defeat causality. But we also can't go back in time, even relativistically, so we can't use this as a silver bullet against free will, either.

 

[badhat]

no i googled it when i saw it in your post.



im saying imo our thoughts, and the choices we make, determine our experiences.

thats what i mean when i say free will is our absolute reality because we couldnt escape the burden of choice if we tried. because even "not choosing" is a choice in itself.

You should check out Kierkegaard.

 

[Type Username Here]

Moral realist/Kantian/Rawlsian, compatibilist.

Re: the NPR link, special relativity will have time dilation to cause an observer to have a different measurement than the proper time, but it's also important to remember that for them to communicate and be able to individually compare events, they either have to boost to the other's relativistic velocity, or communicate via the speed of light, which is agnostic to their frames.

So, while we have different time lines, we still can't defeat causality. But we also can't go back in time, even relativistically, so we can't use this as a silver bullet against free will, either.

It isn't a silver bullet but it is significant evidence in favor of determinism in my opinion.

 

[klutch2381]

Do you believe morality is objective?

Subjective.

 

[klutch2381]

What do you guys make of "moral luck"? Posited by Nagel and others? And I'm including resultant, circumstantial, constitutive, and causal luck in moral luck.