"Free will?" WTF?

[Inchante]

From what I have seen so far, this all seems to be very much the theory Baudrillard puts forward in Simulacra and Simulation, but I was never very impressed with him. Such a pessimist.

Here is a PDF of Baudrillard's essay if anyone cares to read it.

http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvin...lation.pdf

[ZackT]

In an unrelated note, one of my great friends from World of Warcraft used the character name Baudrillard and he took it from the author. I miss him

[nullnaught]

You know, I've thought about that before too. The idea that we aren't completely in control of our lives like we may think we are, but we're actually just reacting to everyone else and everything else. But then I continue on that line of thinking and say that everyone is reacting to everyone else's reactions. Which makes you question, who or what is really in control of anyone or anything?

And in that line of thinking, I believe the answer would be no one and nothing. Nature and people just react to each other and we think we're so awesome because we can put some thought in to our reactions, but really we're just doing random stuff.

I dunno. There's a lot of stuff in life we have no control over that we are forced to just react to. And I agree that plenty of stuff can be traced down to our genetics. I have a predisposition for addiction, apparently inherited from my dad. So maybe that's why I ended up being so addicted to playing games (specifically World of Warcraft). After all, it's REALLY REALLY HARD for me to ignore the impulse to play, even when I know I have more pressing matters to tend to.

I AM capable of doing other things even when I want to just play my game, but unless it's terribly important, I try to put it off until the very last minute or perhaps not do it at all. I suppose it's an example of me not having a free will, but rather just doing what I feel compelled to do.

But I still maintain that because I am capable of going against my "natural" disposition, that is where we find our free will. The world's so big, everything is a reaction to something whether we know it or not. But we have the choice on how we react, even when we limit ourselves to certain choices.

Yes, but if you do "choose" to go against your natural disposition, wasn't that choice caused by a combination of your genetics and your experience. Put another way, what else is there that is not itself also caused?

[nullnaught]

Free Will :confused:

its maybe the father of this movie orca ? :biggrin:


Free Will is the possibility to choose the lesser of two evils

O.K. please do define "evil" clearly.

[nullnaught]

So what you are basically saying( correct me if I am wrong) is that your personality , your internal map of the universe that is comprised of all your experiences , perception, superstitions, likes and dislikes ,reactions to certain situations and learn t behavior will at some point be transformed to programmable data, that can be uploaded or downloaded and stored , perhaps on a hard drive like in the television series Dollhouse.?

Your theory is plausible to a certain degree, I can not argue with that, however if you will allow me the privilege of playing the proverbial fly in the ointment.

Let us say that I was born with complete Achromatopsia and Astigmatism ,how would my perception work in a body that has perfectly working non colorblind eyes.

Surely the perception would be slightly if not completely different?
What happens when the program has a major syntax error as it can not compute the data without fault?

I don't see how your engineering problems change the question. I am not asking if I would still be me. I am asking if the device which had replaced me would have "feewill."
Bearing that in mind, what do you think about that part?

[nullnaught]

Freewill and causation and predestination and all of these things have been a matter of some minor debate for, oh at least 10 thousand years.... A short time

There is no easy answer, thus philosophical students still debate this in class, Clergy stand on pulpits and 'debate' it to the the laity.

On one hand we have to accept that no man is an island - this means that no one is outside of everything else. We react as much as we act. If I hit your shin with my cane (accidentally I swear ) your reaction will be to grab the tender spot, say ow. This is predicable behavior given an outside stimulus.

We humans are also blinded to possibilities, we can not see all possible outcomes of any given situation, thus we act on a thing is more of reaction, reaction based on what we do know and what previous experience has programmed us to do.

This sort of reactive behavior is linked to cause and effect.

To a point we are animals capable of reasoning. Thus when I smacked your shin with my cane you could react by not reacting, ignoring the pain, or you could react by taking my cane from me and beating my shin in kind. Here is where the 'free will' thing comes into play. You can break your own programing, choose to react or not react or react in a way that is unexpected such as beating an old crippled elf with his own cane

Free will is not an absolute, nor is predestination. We have wiggle room, working within a cause and effect frame work with the ability to use our own will to change the outcome based on our behaviors.

We have the ability to become more than our basic programing.

As applied to humanity, we are the first species (perhaps the only ones ever on earth) that have the ability to change our course down the path of history by exercising our ability to choose.

As to the first line; yes there is an easy answer: We are biological robots. Clergy and pholosphers wont accept that answer because the have a vested interest in not accepting that answer. But they have no response to the answer either. The clergy resort to ghostes, and philosophers ignore it or at their best they sometime invoke the uncertainty principle as if injecting randomness creates free will.
in the shin hitting episode I don't see how free will comes into play. The "choice" you make is dictated by subconscious impulses you are not even aware of. You react either way, but you have just one reaction, and you couldn't have chosen an other action, because your subconscious won't allow an other choice. And your subconscious is caused as well by your genes and experiences. You can't escape cause and effect.
Where does this wiggle room come from?:confused: Demonstrate its existence either in a thought experiment or some other way I can understand. The wiggle room is precisely what I deny exists. Show it.
We have the ability to become more than our programing? aren't you just restateing your premise? It isn't true just because you insist it is true, is it?:confused:

[Rainbowmum]

I don't see how your engineering problems change the question. I am not asking if I would still be me. I am asking if the device which had replaced me would have "feewill."
Bearing that in mind, what do you think about that part?

No it would not .

It would only have the illusion of making decisions .

[nullnaught]

No it would not .

It would only have the illusion of making decisions .

Well then why? When did I loose my will?

[Bowyn Aerrow]

As to the first line; yes there is an easy answer: We are biological robots. Clergy and pholosphers wont accept that answer because the have a vested interest in not accepting that answer. But they have no response to the answer either. The clergy resort to ghostes, and philosophers ignore it or at their best they sometime invoke the uncertainty principle as if injecting randomness creates free will.
in the shin hitting episode I don't see how free will comes into play. The "choice" you make is dictated by subconscious impulses you are not even aware of. You react either way, but you have just one reaction, and you couldn't have chosen an other action, because your subconscious won't allow an other choice. And your subconscious is caused as well by your genes and experiences. You can't escape cause and effect.
Where does this wiggle room come from?:confused: Demonstrate its existence either in a thought experiment or some other way I can understand. The wiggle room is precisely what I deny exists. Show it.
We have the ability to become more than our programing? aren't you just restateing your premise? It isn't true just because you insist it is true, is it?:confused:

Slamming the Clergy does not win points with me

In reality in seminary 20 years ago the debate waged warming about A.I. some day being sentient and having free will and - OMG - a soul. Philosophers and Clergy actually do consider this and take it far more seriously than scientists. It has implications, spiritual implications.

Clergy actually think seriously upon such matters, we do not rely solely on Ghosts and God to answer questions, this is why you will find many Clergy members with multiple degrees, degrees in science.

You would be surprised how many clergy would agree that we are 'meat machines' and are a product of genetics, and environment. But we are machines that are able to learn and consider consequences to our actions and reactions and are, therefore, able to make choices - free will.

Back to the cane. I hit your shin (accidentally of course) you can choose to react with grabbing my cane and beating me to an inch of my life, or you can laugh it off. You are not predestined to either one, you can control your actions. You can choose to react in one way or the other.

Or are you destined to beat a person who hits your shin with a cane and no amount of 'will' you exert will stop you from that? If so I will make certain to leave my cane at home when I visit you.

[nullnaught]

Slamming the Clergy does not win points with me

In reality in seminary 20 years ago the debate waged warming about A.I. some day being sentient and having free will and - OMG - a soul. Philosophers and Clergy actually do consider this and take it far more seriously than scientists. It has implications, spiritual implications.

Clergy actually think seriously upon such matters, we do not rely solely on Ghosts and God to answer questions, this is why you will find many Clergy members with multiple degrees, degrees in science.

You would be surprised how many clergy would agree that we are 'meat machines' and are a product of genetics, and environment. But we are machines that are able to learn and consider consequences to our actions and reactions and are, therefore, able to make choices - free will.

Back to the cane. I hit your shin (accidentally of course) you can choose to react with grabbing my cane and beating me to an inch of my life, or you can laugh it off. You are not predestined to either one, you can control your actions. You can choose to react in one way or the other.

Or are you destined to beat a person who hits your shin with a cane and no amount of 'will' you exert will stop you from that? If so I will make certain to leave my cane at home when I visit you.

Yes, but if we are meat machines, what we "choose" to do once we learn and consider cosequences to our actions, isn't that learning and consieration what then is causing our decisions? Without invoking ghostes [sic] how do you escape causation. The fact your deliberations are caused and the final decision is really up to your subconscious which you have no access to and can't influence? All your conditioning and learning and considering is still programing. how do you escape programing when your deliberations are themselves more programing? Causation is inescapable.