awareness of reality doesn't imply consciousness. rationalizing a bad situation to make it for the better or worse is how you think about future consequences. preponderance on events makes us all wizards, should you be able to figure out the outcome(s) in advance.
I get your point, that's subjective reality. My argument is about objective reality, what makes you believe you have a soul?
the point is this. Saying things like "this emotion is simply a result of this chemical interaction" kinda takes away the magic. It doesn't change the fact that the emotion is real, but is often used to justify that it isn't real. Strict empericists like to say things like "there is no such thing as love, its just chemicals" That's obviously bullshit. You literally just described love, then decided that knowing how it works makes it not exist. Its silly -Yuri
that is the million dollar question isn't it? At what point do we define will/sentience Pondering this often makes me.want to go vegan. -Yuri you can believe that if you want because you have free will, but you will never be able to prove it. -Yuri
its scientifically proven we can choose to control said processes. Have you ever hears of a mindgasm? -Yuri
Psychology, philosophy, neurobiology and logic have all ready proven to us that free will is illusory; and not only that, but that it's also nonsensical.
I see what you're saying but remember without empiricism we wouldn't have science, just philosophy. Saying "there is no such thing as love, its just chemicals" is just like saying "everything is made of atoms", neither are true/false statements - they're just incomplete - like a priori vs a posteriori, however, I maintain that consciousness is the product of physical brain activity, and nothing more Awareness has magic sure, it's lovely, living is beautiful, love the fact that i'm alive and seeing in 2015, but is there anything more to it? My body can function perfectly well albeit limited in ability without me being conscious
"Saying things like "this emotion is simply a result of this chemical interaction" kinda takes away the magic." Without magicians, there would be no magic. And if nobody knows how the magic works, there would be no magicians "Strict empericists like to say things like "there is no such thing as love, its just chemicals"That's obviously bullshit. You literally just described love, then decided that knowing how it works makes it not exist. Its silly" I think one important question to keep in mind here is that software/hardware gap. If I open up calculator and do 6 + 3, is it really just a bunch of electrons moving around or did my computer just do addition? I think the only answer that could ever make sense is both. Electrons moved and behaved as they do in certain metals, etc, and overall they performed addition. Now, let us say that somebody comes in now and starts claiming that there is a computer spirit that travels around and helps make all of the computers perform addition correctly. The behavior we witness is too complicated for electrons alone to be responsible! Then, all of the computer and electrical engineers jump in to say hey, it is indeed purely electrons and a lot of metals set up in a complicated way that make that computer work. There is no need for a computer spirit to explain the addition being performed. Then people say NUH UH computer engineers! There is no way that computer could work with only electrons. That is why people will say "its just chemicals" and whatnot. This is to remind people that we live in the real world where things operate by certain laws... It is not to say that there is absolutely no such thing as a complicated configuration that is performing addition here... just that it doesn't take more than its pieces to explain its behavior. Good old 14th century Occam's Razor, anyone? Also, I do agree that "its just chemicals" sounds not only disillusioning, but also quite distasteful and is technically a vast oversimplification of the physical complexity underlying our brain's function. Afterall, as far as we can tell, there is no reason to exclude the effect that our senses, like hearing and sight, could have on the chemical/electrical composition of our brain. In fact, I would argue that research suggests this is the case. Our brain is essentially a feedback loop on steroids haha. There is a tremendous amount of data constantly going in and out of it. The amount of potential complexity with that type of setup is astounding. As far as the free will aspect of it goes, just because we may not be able to predict someone's action does not necessarily mean that person was in control of that action. Ultimately, the decisions we end up making may not actually be out of our own free will, but that doesn't mean that our lives cannot be a logical string of events, something that is decipherable into something like an identity or a purpose, which is composed in a major way of our memory of those events.
You should have made the choice to read the whole thread.. then you'd have seen that I've determined free will is a real thing.
By definition, logical processes cannot have irrational outputs. A predictable output would be inherently rational because some combination of variables can be evaluated in an equation with known relationships (i.e. ratios). A computer cannot choose to prove you wrong. It must answer "4" when you ask it "2+2". A human can simply say "17" just to prove that they can choose to be wrong. There is no guaranteed relationship (i.e. ratio) between input and output. Which really is the subject that OP was referring to. We are not computers, and while psychology can give us insight to how we think, we can always use that insight to think differently.
Sure, we are not computers but the physical world operates according to rigid and predictable laws, since humans are physical in nature should our choices not thus be constrained by these laws? ie If you knew all the forces that animated nature and knew the exact position of everything that existsed, and had unlimited calculating ability, would you not be able to accurately predict the events that would occur in future? When someone's acts irrationally – ie quits his job for no apparent reason – I can find some pattern if I look hard enough. I can assume that he did it for reasons that makes sense, ie conflicts with his boss, increased work load, or bad health. By anticipating reasons like this, I am assuming that he's behavior can be fully accounted for and, if I knew his complete history I might have predicted that he would quit his job.
From what I remember.. it seems most everyone, who has posted more than a single line to feel special about saying just something, are atheists. I can't say the OP was talking specifically about free will, but rather having a soul. Thing is, the religious kind of assimilated free will into their collective.. making it all but synonymous with a soul. So now, some non religious see the soul and free will as one in the same.. and being that they don't believe in a soul, find a reason to not believe in free will. I get it.. energy cannot be created nor destroyed.. for every action, there is an equal and opposing action.. and based off of just that.. one could say that all our thoughts and actions are predetermined by past events. Thing is.. when it comes to the chains of cause and effect, chains come to an end.. chains break other chains.. and there is even a possibility (anywhere from 0.0000000000001% to 100%) that a new chain of cause and effect will spontaneously form. Now I know that sounds like it contradicts what I just said about "for every action", but it doesn't. On the quantum level.. there is literally an infinite amount of factors one would have to take into account in order to predict with 100% accuracy.. meaning it can't be done. The most one can predict the outcome of an event is 99.99999999999%.. leaving a minute chance open for the unpredictable, spontaneous formation of a new chain of cause and effect. It is like subatomic particles that randomly come into existence.. even if you were to know every detail of the universe on a quantum level, there is no way you'd be able to predict the formation of subatomic particles 100%. What does that have to do with this? Well.. because not everything can be predetermined. When you operate under the assumption that EVERYTHING is predetermined, you're obviously going to disregard free will. I'm saying don't assume everything is predetermined.. because to me, as an atheist, that is weird. I don't believe there is a higher power in control of my life or even the entirety of the universe.. so why take control from that assumption and give that control to another assumption? To me, free will is a characteristic that evolved just like everything else. It might be irrational.. but welcome to the brain. We got parts that are emotional, parts that are logical, parts that are abstract.. why can't we have parts that are irrational?
I dunno, perhaps for at least some actions a person has the ability to have done otherwise but part of the decision-making process involves a rigid chain of cause-effect connections so i dunno. Our brain activity is programmed with genetic predispositions, memories from life-experiences, and these all combine together to supply us with a wide range of motivations. One motive drives me towards chocolate ice cream while another towards vanilla, and yet another to a health-conscious choice. As my various motives compete with each other I'll be forced to act upon which ever motive is the strongest at that time. If my motive to select chocolate ice cream is more overpowering is that the one i'll take? No matter how many times the hands of time are reversed, will I always select chocolate since the desire for chocolate is the strongest motive each time that action replays? Or rather am i able to thoughtfully pick through my competing motives and freely select one over the other? Do I have the ability to break the rigid chain of motives in my mind and act freely? Do "i" have a special ability within my conscious mind to redirect the purely mechanical forces of my motives? Or is it all an illusion, like a deep learning algorithim, which give the illusion that the Artificial neural network is a free agent exercising free will
This is exactly my point. Human consciousness may not be physical in nature. Consider your super computer from your post; if your super-computer told you that you were going to choose Wendy's for lunch, you could immediately decide to choose Chik-fil-a. Science and the laws of physics simply cannot account for human consciousness. I'm hungry
you literally just said "I don't know therefore God" No those things have not disproven free will Free will cannot be tested and therefore cannot be proven or disproven -Yuri