OK, we know who won (or: Does God exist?)

[erik]

'Will' for me is the ability to think logically and clearly about something and come to a decision; if I am truly acting lucidly I should also be consistent. If I am consistent to the point of predetermination then I am not 'free'; however if I act unpredictably I find no freedom there either.

All you are doing is defining the words in the way you want so that it leads to a contradition. "I define "free" to mean tasty and "will" to mean inedible. See, it's a contradiction!" The concept of will means you do what you want. Logical thought has nothing to do with it.

[Leaf]

No, it's like asking someone who doesn't speak english what time it is, when you have a watch on. They know what time it is, but they can't communicate it to you, and you probably wouldn't believe them anyway. Much better to point out that you're wearing a watch, look for yourself.

No, it'd be like saying do you know what time it is? And the person responds you have a watch, check, however the whole reason the person asked was to confirm the time they had!!

The language barrier isn't relevant here. What is relevant is that the guy asked "Do YOU believe"...to which you stated that kind of drivel that avoids the question. The concept that expressing your opinion may be wrong is as valid as stating that not expressing it is wrong. I personally get annoyed at "spiritual" people who can't be bothered to respond to a question like that. "Do you believe in a soul" is pretty straightforward, and in fact, telling someone what they should be asking without answering the question is not only condesending, but also arrogant. most people would just like the question answered, as it helps them in their personal journey. If they feel it's time to ask that , they are right in their context, and some dude saying "oh, you really should be asking this, or doing this" doesn't help.
Having a watch on doesn't mean shit if the battery is worn out, or you happen to be in a new time zone man. Sometimes you gotta ask, and people should respect that rather than twisting things around so that they don't have to answer the question.


Here's my answer: I don't know if there is a soul, I 'm content to lead as positive and good a lifestyle that I can just cause it feels right, and I'll find out when I die.

[Adam!]

'Will' for me is the ability to think logically and clearly about something and come to a decision; if I am truly acting lucidly I should also be consistent. If I am consistent to the point of predetermination then I am not 'free'; however if I act unpredictably I find no freedom there either.

All you are doing is defining the words in the way you want so that it leads to a contradiction. "I define "free" to mean tasty and "will" to mean inedible. See, it's a contradiction!" The concept of will means you do what you want. Logical thought has nothing to do with it.

Mind if I use that 'tasty' and 'inedible' example in future? Let's get my own personal view on will out of the way: To me will is NOT impulse. To get an idea of why imagine yourself in a powerful rage, in which you are acting on impulses and free from logic. People who were in this situation report that they felt like they were watching themselves act instead of controlling their actions. In this case your amygdala takes over your actions, and you are truly "doing what you want". You are conscious of this, but your consciousness is not in control of it. If you do not agree with this than yes, we have different definitions of 'will'. I'm no lawyer so I've probably screwed it up somewhere, but I have tried to base my definition on the legal definition, which I think is more reasonable than defining 'will' as 'tasty' or 'inedible' or 'a single teabag'.

I believe the classical definition of free will is contradictory and I've tried my best to show this. I think defining 'free' as "not predetermined and not friggin' random" is reasonable. Define 'will' however you like and I am ready to argue that it won't jive with this definition of freedom. Now if there is some better or more common definition of 'freedom' that I am ignoring then, by all means, lay it on me.

[erik]

What is the legal definition of "will" and why would that definition be of more import than any other?

[Future Boy]

RE: the Buddist monk refusing to answer the question about a soul.

If one goes to a Zen Monastery and asks a monk there if they believe in a soul, then one has gone to the Monastery for the entirely wrong reason and is not worthy of a straight answer.

I.E. One is missing the point entirely.

RE: The freewill argument.

Puce, I think you are making the entire thing way too complicated. I am standing in front of a door. I can open it and close it. I can choose to open it and close it twice in a row, three times. I can choose to walk through said doorway. I can begin eating my sandwich from one of four sides. I can choose to cut my sandwich in half before eating it. I can decide which avacado looks the most ripe at the grocery store. What is not free or willful about these simple actions? Once one attaches moral values to a decision it begins to make the decision seem less willful and free because one must consider all of the things that predispose a person to act morally or amorally, depending on the values of their culture, and suddenly one is caught in the quagmire of the man deciding whether or not to skip the bill. We cannot be entirely free because we are not blank slates. Our thoughts and actions are shaped by our environment and each of us have certain predispositions. When making a choice, one cannot freely choose from the infinite possibilities at hand because many of those possibilities are immediately discarded as unviable choices, given our predispositions, and one must choose from a much smaller set. However, to claim that this situation implies that we do not actually have freewill does a disservice to the generally accepted notion of freewill, namely that one is in control of one's thoughts and actions, and is not an incredibly productive argument to make. If you are going to fight for the redefinition of a word, why not make it something a little more socially important, like 'marriage' for example.

[Adam!]

Legally people who have clouded or variable perception or who are acting under the control of impulses are frequently found not (or less) responsible for their actions.

I'm not sure what the legal definition of will is (other than a thing my father wrote that doesn't mention my name), but I base mine on the idea that people who are incapable of reasoning are not capable of free will, and are therefore not accountable (or less accountable) for their actions. I don't agree with this in practice because there are cases where this has been abused to distort the idea of accountability.

Why use this definition? Well, it is a definition. It's better than "will, (n): 1. a single teabag.". It represents how most people I've spoken with feel about 'will'. Lastly, it's how I think about 'will'.

There is a neurotransmitter antagonist that you can administer that temporarily shuts down the reasoning functions of the brain. People who take it cannot control their actions because they are acting on impulse without logic (they also can't understand words. Supposedly this feels very strange). Though they certainly do what they want (the drug shuts down all inhibitions), no observer would call it free because they have no control. To me (and to most people, I think) being willful is having the ability to choose, which includes choosing NOT to follow your impulses.

EDIT: Future Boy, I’m a science fan, so I believe in determinism. To me the distinctions between choice, will, and freewill are important. The only reason I'm not arguing about marriage right now is because people generally don't like my views on that either, and I'm trying not to piss off more than a dozen or so people . Hey, this is the politics forum; why don't we have a gay marriage debate thread?

[the Jazz]

Erm... I was trying my hardest to remove time as a factor. In case A and case B all the factors (the physical world, your mental state, the state of your 'soul' (this depends on your theology), and the time) are all the same. In this case parallel ('adjacent' is a better word) realities are a good way to look at this.

In that case I would say that free will exists, in that you and I exist in one particular reality, and not in any of the others. Because there are infinite possibilities and therefore infinite realites, many if not all of them occupied by spirits/souls or what have you, the fact that I myself am in this reality could be seen either as a function of necessity, or of free will. There's no way of telling which is correct, or if there's even a difference. So pick the one you like better.

[c hack]

The language barrier isn't relevant here. What is relevant is that the guy asked "Do YOU believe"...to which you stated that kind of drivel that avoids the question. The concept that expressing your opinion may be wrong is as valid as stating that not expressing it is wrong. I personally get annoyed at "spiritual" people who can't be bothered to respond to a question like that. "Do you believe in a soul" is pretty straightforward, and in fact, telling someone what they should be asking without answering the question is not only condesending, but also arrogant.

Don't forget your hearing it second-hand, and my paraphrasing is a little off. And maybe my analogy was a bad one. But let's say you ask me if I believe in Neil Young. I would say "Belief doesn't come into it -- I've seen him personally." That's basically what the monk said.

[Sober]

I don't believe in Neil Young.

[Adam!]

There's no way of telling which is correct, or if there's even a difference. So pick the one you like better.

And this is the most important thing. Whether we have freewill or not, there's absolutely no test we can do to discern which way it is. So the big question is "Does it matter?". The answer is (almost) no. Some people will derive downright evil moral implications from fatalism; others think having freewill somehow distinguishes us from animals or gives us a manifest destiny. All I know is I believe in determinism because I think it's simple, but I could be wrong, and I'm not losing any sleep over it (well, except for late night posts to this thread 8) ).

Sober: Let's form a religion. The Neil Young Nihilists.

[Future Boy]

So what would you say the distinctions between choice, will, and freewill are?

[Adam!]

So what would you say the distinctions between choice, will, and freewill are?

Choice: The process of choosing between options. Neurologists believe it happens in the cerebral cortex; many theists believe it takes place in the mind, which could be non-physical.

Will: Conscious desire. Clarified (with the help of 15-16) as "wanting to do something."

Freedom: Acting without cause, or acting partially without cause.

Free Will: Having a will that is not caused by outside factors. For instance, a non-physical mind is often given the attribute of free-will. The mind (or soul) exists outside and unaffected by the physical universe, so it is therefore free. It can have a causative effect on the physical universe (Descartes postulated that the mind contains the will, which controls the brain via the pineal gland. In the end it turned out that the only thing the pineal gland controls is melatonin).

[c hack]

Freedom: Acting without cause, or acting partially without cause.

Huh? I would define freedom as "the state of having choices."

[roymond]

Freedom: Acting without cause, or acting partially without cause.

Huh? I would define freedom as "the state of having choices."

One choice could be acting without cause.

[Leaf]

The language barrier isn't relevant here. What is relevant is that the guy asked "Do YOU believe"...to which you stated that kind of drivel that avoids the question. The concept that expressing your opinion may be wrong is as valid as stating that not expressing it is wrong. I personally get annoyed at "spiritual" people who can't be bothered to respond to a question like that. "Do you believe in a soul" is pretty straightforward, and in fact, telling someone what they should be asking without answering the question is not only condesending, but also arrogant.

Don't forget your hearing it second-hand, and my paraphrasing is a little off. And maybe my analogy was a bad one. But let's say you ask me if I believe in Neil Young. I would say "Belief doesn't come into it -- I've seen him personally." That's basically what the monk said.

That makes more sense to me and sounds more "monk like". And Future Boy, I think the monk missed the point of the question!

... ok... enough about monks from me.

[Adam!]

Freedom: Acting without cause, or acting partially without cause.

Huh? I would define freedom as "the state of having choices."

I'm pretty sure this is the accepted philosophical definition. I googled it, but my internet is half-broken right now (my senile router times out 90% of pages) so I didn't have the patience to continue looking. Basically, things whose actions are entirely controlled by causative factors (pool balls, electrons) are not free; things that have a partially (or entirely) unaccounted for cause (randomness, non physical forces) are considered free. This is actually pretty similar to your definition: it seems a pool ball has no choice where it moves, but you do. If this is true a pool ball is not free, but (in most cases) a person is.

[Mogosagatai]

No action is without cause--none. Cause and effect is, like, everything. (Semantic elegance is my forte.)

I see freedom pretty much how c hack sees it: as the state of having choices. There are obviously different degrees of it, and no one on earth is either 100% or 0% free. That's sort of irrelevant, so moving on...

I don't see why the concepts of freewill and predestination can't be conjoined. Imagine two separate existences:

(1) Every sentient being is able to perform any action within its own physical limits.

(2) Every sentient being is able to perform any action within its own physical limits. There's a big super-intelligent Being that knows exactly which actions each lifeform will choose to perform at every moment.

What's the difference between these two universes?

It's a contradiction to suggest that an all-knowing God would tell me about future events, thereby presenting us with a paradox (either my lack of freewill or God's misperception). An all-knowing God would know exactly how His words would affect me, so when He told me, He'd either be lying, aware that His words were altering my course (like the Oracle to Neo), or be telling the truth, aware that His words wouldn't change my mind. Either way, there's still never a point where I don't have a choice.

I think freewill is a large part of what having a soul is all about. No free will, no soul.

[c hack]

Freedom: Acting without cause, or acting partially without cause.

So the war in Iraq really is about freedom!

(yuk yuk yuk)

[the Jazz]

grooooooooooooooan.

[Adam!]

user: Ack! You have adopted the compatibilist’s definitions of freedom and choice, which always sounds to me like "If it seems like you have a choice, you are acting freely". Incompatiblism asserts that this feeling is illusory. Many people who have been hypnotized often claim they don't think they were hypnotized; instead they claim that they had full control, but just chose to go along with what the hypnotist was suggesting. What actually happens is the patients become very suggestible, and when they have to make a decision they do feel like they have several options to choose from, but because of the hypnotic suggestions they will choose to follow the hypnotist’s commands. Just because someone feels they have choices doesn't make their will free.

c hack:

[Future Boy]

And now, courtesy of DEVO:

A victim of collision on the open sea
Nobody ever said that life was free
Sank, swam, go down with the ship
But use your freedom of choice

I’ll say it again in the land of the free
Use your freedom of choice
Your freedom of choice

In ancient rome there was a poem
About a dog who found two bones
He picked at one
He licked the other
He went in circles
He dropped dead

Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom of choice!

Then if you got it you don’t want it
Seems to be the rule of thumb
Don’t be tricked by what you see
You got two ways to go

I’ll say it again in the land of the free
Use your freedom of choice
Freedom of choice

Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom of choice!

In ancient rome
There was a poem
About a dog
Who found two bones
He picked at one
He licked the other
He went in circles
He dropped dead

Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom from choice
Is what you want
(repeat)

[j$]

"Freedom from choice
Is what you want"

Oe of the saddest truths ever captured in song form. And a rollocking good toe-tapper at the same time.

Also strangley pertinent to a discussion of levels of awareness, "The earth it moves too slow / But the earth is all we know"

j$