Dan, I won't attempt to define who the "We/I" is
To me, this is the heart of the discussion.
It is impossible to define the "we" without postulating along metaphysical lines. That is why I lean towards determinism. Chemicals can't have a will.
Do you believe in free will?
by sleepy 33 Replies latest jw friends
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DanTheMan
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Lady Lee
It seems to me that humans are more that a body, chemical reactions and a set of instructions on how to respond to various stimulii. We are not simply chemical reactions to things. We are not like computers that work on a flowchart system if "If A then B"
My programming and my chemical responses to live should have dictated that I remain just as dysfunctional as my parents and they parents. And to be honest for many years I did follow that programming.
But my ability to seek out and access new information, to search for something different and better allowed me to change the chemical reactions and responses into something different.
My parents taught me about relationships and people, about parenting, about being a woman, an adult. All of it was extremely destructive to myself and others. But I determined to want something better. I didn't know what it was so I don't think you could say there was some kind of response there. I didn't even know what I was hoping for. I had no frame of reference other than what I grew up with.
Now you could say that with my new information I was programmin myself. But I had to choose what information to accept and what to ignore. To me that seems like something greater than the supplied chemical reactions and environment.
I choose now. Not what my environment supplied. Not what my chemical reactions responded to. But something different and new.
And there were times when I had no new information . I just new I wanted something different. And went to find out what it was.
Yup I most definitely believe in free will. Otherwise I would not be here. Not alive right now. And not sitting here at this computer typing this post
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Phantom Stranger
Wow, Dan, you've gone more philosophically materialist than me at my most extreme after I left.
So we are talking about a philosophical question - what is consciousness? Dan posits that this question dictates the answer to the free will question, and he may be right.
Dan seems to think (please check me, Dan) that life is a mechanistic process that can be likened to a physics problem, like balls on a pool table, and if you know the initial states and you know the properties of the balls and you control the vector (momentum + direction) of a new ball on the table, you can predict where all the balls end up. In this model, consciousness and "self" are side effects - noise in the neurons.
A field that might affect your outlook here, Dan, is chaos theory. It still keeps the conversation very clinical and, in my mind, "two-dimensional", but it will go into detail on unpredictable scientific events. I would also suggest Ken Wilber's A Brief History of Everything (or, if you're a big reader, the full-length version: Sex, Ecology, Spirituality.
So, Dan, without addressing your question directly, I'm curious - do you live your life as if you have no free will?
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DanTheMan
Dan seems to think (please check me, Dan) that life is a mechanistic process that can be likened to a physics problem, like balls on a pool table, and if you know the initial states and you know the properties of the balls and you control the vector (momentum + direction) of a new ball on the table, you can predict where all the balls end up. In this model, consciousness and "self" are side effects - noise in the neurons.
Yes, this is the position I'm taking (sort of, for argument's sake). Of course the physics of human behavior being exponentially more complicated than the physics of billiard balls.
I have heard of chaos theory, and have read a little on quantum physics, but wow that stuff is hard to grasp, especially for a high-school educated Ohio dumbass like me! I have taken note of the books you mention. The material world we inhabit is so...well....bizarre when you really try to get down to just what exactly it is! I mean, what is a proton? Collapsed space-time weirdness? Like Neils Bohr said, if you think you understand quantum theory, you don't.
So, Dan, without addressing your question directly, I'm curious - do you live your life as if you have no free will?
No, like I said in my first post to this thread, you have to go on what it feels like. It feels like we have choices. But that may be an illusion.
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Special K
I certainly enjoyed "Free Willy"..
but yes I do believe in "Free will"
special k
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sleepy
Most in the free will camp mention the "I" that thinks and chooses, as proof of free will.
But the "I" is what is in question .The origins of a thought process.
There is often a fundermental missunderstanding that believes that gentic programming and environment would just result in basic behaviour patterns and that being able to change your mind or way of life is the result of free will.But it is way more complex than this.
The motivating forces that make you change your mind are what is in question.Is there a self that can select or are these things selected for the "I" or "you" and made to feel like a self ?
These motivating forces can be the result of a complex mix of genetic makeup and environment, you would not be able to tell that your mind was selecting for you.
For example,You could be brought up a witness and all your family and friends could be witnesses.You then accidently read some information that puts a doubt in your mind.This doubt producess chemical reaction that motivates you to examine further.The knowledge you recive now modifies you bodies response to the societies publications and meetings, and it is no longer receptive.Your brain now motivates you to leave the organistaion because the rewards are greater than the losses or you are genetically programmed is such a way as you cannot lead a life you believe is a lie even if the result are in a worse quality of life.
You may feel you changed your mind , but all these actions can be explained in such a deterministic way, with now mysterious "self" needed.
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Hamas
No, I think that our lives have been planned out by jokers and sadists long before time.
Its all about fate, man.
Unlucky with the football. (Azzuri)
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maxwell
This thread does make me think.
Phantom Stranger,
I do agree that a lot of reactions, responses were learned early on. I would think that a lot of that is harmless mannerisms or a particular way of walking. Then there part that determines how one would react to new situations which are thrown at the person. I probably spend less time "in the moment" that I would like to think, but it is still my choice to react immediately or to think. I'm all for expanding the "in the moment" time as well.
sleepy,
Sounds like you are talking about something outside the concious which is manifest in the concious as self-determination. That could be true. Some think that what really exists is some realm of the forms that is manifest in what we can hear, see, feel, etc. I have no way of verifying that. The realm of the forms sounds to me like some sort of spirit world and in that view fate would control what is manifest. In my view, I only talk about what is manifest. I face some choices more than once. I make one choice and I have set of consequences, if I make the other choice, I get another set of consequences. I suppose if scientist were eventually able to measure and/or identify these chemicals and use that to accurately predict a person's response to every situation that person encountered, then perhaps lack of self or self-determination could be demonstrated. But can one manifestation objectively study another manifestation, or is the conclusion already determined?
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Panda
This is something to ponder, eh?
Our free will is relative because our genes are telling us to survive and reproduce ( read The Selfish Gene). So thats at an evolutionary level. Our genes help us to learn from our environment how best to survive, so in this sense we decide whether or not to heed the genetic voice.
Morality, shoot what is that anyway? A muslim thinks morality is women subservient to men. Or any religious person may believe that god's decisions to destroy people, or TAKE children to heaven are moral. So I guess morals have to due with some measured ethical behavior.. Society sets those measures to judge? or decide what is good or evil.
Psychiatrists call humans the moral animal, so in some way we are making the choice to attune our minds to the accepted morality. But I think morals is more than simply following social mores. I think that they are a measure of what decisions may weigh against. So it is more than fear of punisment that would have you consider the morality of a decision.
When we see those ancient Egyptian wall paintings of Annubis weighing the dead persons soul, I'm guessing Anubis wants to check how thye mummy's soul measures against Anubis (and Egyptian) philosophical morals. I mention philosophical because a pharoahs soul won't be on the same scale as a potters soul. Because what the Pharoah has been taught is good is not the same as the potters good. A potter must serve a Pharoah, but since the Pharoah is divine his morality is to kill enemies and preserve his kingdom. A potter would never pass the Pharoah test of being weighed against a feather. So we may say that morals teach us good from bad, but of course it's nothing like that, nothing like WTS taught us. And because it is not right/wrong there are many decisions to make. One of them may be whether or not we want to be weighed against Anubis feather.
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