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RE: 'choosing' thoughts.
March 11, 2009 at 5:13 am
(March 10, 2009 at 10:20 pm)athoughtfulman Wrote: I personally don't believe in free will, but I think no one can offer proof for either side of the argument.
Nor do I but even if it's all a sham, it's a helluva ride ain't it?
Kyu
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RE: 'choosing' thoughts.
March 11, 2009 at 11:43 am
That's my attitude too.
And TBH if I believed in free will and found out today somehow that free will definitely doesn't exist. I think it would be stupidly petty and silly to sink into a depression and feel hopeless about it or feel "there is no TRUE morality now" (would that count as an NTS?) - because if I found out in this hypothetical reality that there's definitely no free will - then there NEVER has been! I spent my whole life without it! And I felt fine then so its just retarded to feel bad about something I don't have that no one has in fact ever had if its so.
Life can still be free without free will. Because there are degrees of freedom and lack of it: I mean slavery is less free than NON-slavery isn't it! Even if there's no 'free will.'
Freedom exists anyway. So free will is often a superficial attachment I think. Because if we discover we don't have it 'somehow' then we never have and NO ONE or nothing ever has - so what exactly is the point of whining about it?
EvF
P.S: And just to note. I think what really matter is how free you feel when I'm at my happiest I feel a lot freer than when I'm at my most unhappy. Whether there is free will or not - sometimes I feel a lot more free than other times 
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RE: 'choosing' thoughts.
March 12, 2009 at 9:27 am
Everything is made of free will, but sometime free will can be corrupted. Like brainwashing or a mental sickness.
Otherwise is your thoughts and the things you do made of free will. Thoughts are not chosen by other thoughts, you can't think what you should think. Becuase if you chose your thoughts by other thoughts then that thought would be chosen by another thought, and so on.
The brain is very complex and work in a very fast pase. Toughts was there before language. Often do you not think in words, unless it's thinking about what you should buy in a store or solving a math problem or something. It's hard to explain exactly how a thought is born, it's seem as it just happens. But someone who have researched in that area will probably have some explanation.
Thoughts is not destined to be happen. I don't believe in that crap about destiny, which is more or less a substitut for a god that is controlling everything. Everything can be calculated and everything have diffrent chance to happen. That's why a dice always shows every number an equaly amount of time.
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RE: 'choosing' thoughts.
March 12, 2009 at 10:44 am
Yes my point is that I don't think you can choose thoughts because what would you choose them with? With thoughts?
You wouldn't (I say).
So I think there is no 'free will' in the sense of being seperate from reality and from what you are actually doing....and all your atoms....you are not seperate from your physics or biology...
But I think there IS evitability.
Once again...with determinism 'free will' is impossible....
With INdeterminism its not....but it certainly isn't implied IMO.
EvF
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RE: 'choosing' thoughts.
March 13, 2009 at 9:24 am
You really dont make sence.
What do you base you theory on that we don't have free will and that we don't chose our thoughts? Do you even have evidence to support it, have you asked someone who have done research or know alot about the brain and our thougths?
You can't think that you theory can be right just because you can't really figure out how thoughts are born. It's the same thing when religious people try to explain how life was created.
This is how wikipedia describe the basic prosess of thoughts:
"The basic mechanics of human brain cells reflect a process of pattern matching or rather recognition.[citation needed] In a "moment of reflection", new situations and new experiences are judged against recalled ones and judgements are made.[citation needed] In order to make these judgements, the intellect maintains present experience and sorts relevant past experience. It does this while keeping present and past experience distinct and separate.[citation needed]The intellect can mix, match, merge, sift, and sort concepts, perceptions, and experience.[citation needed] This process is called reasoning. Logic is the science of reasoning. The awareness of this process of reasoning is access consciousness (see philosopher Ned Block). Thinking is not merely a precess occuring in animals and humans. AI (Artificial Intelligence) focuses on machine thinking Igor Aleksander, Pentti Haikonen."
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RE: 'choosing' thoughts.
March 13, 2009 at 9:25 am
(March 13, 2009 at 9:24 am)Giff Wrote: You really dont make sence.
What do you base you theory on that we don't have free will and that we don't chose our thoughts?
On the fact that I don't know of any evidence of free will. Or that we DO indeed choose our thoughts....do you?
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RE: 'choosing' thoughts.
March 13, 2009 at 9:31 am
(This post was last modified: March 13, 2009 at 9:38 am by athoughtfulman.)
(March 11, 2009 at 5:13 am)Kyuuketsuki Wrote: (March 10, 2009 at 10:20 pm)athoughtfulman Wrote: I personally don't believe in free will, but I think no one can offer proof for either side of the argument.
Nor do I but even if it's all a sham, it's a helluva ride ain't it?
Kyu
Oh I love it this way. Couldn't ask for a better option.
(March 12, 2009 at 9:27 am)Giff Wrote: Everything is made of free will, but sometime free will can be corrupted. Like brainwashing or a mental sickness.
Otherwise is your thoughts and the things you do made of free will. Thoughts are not chosen by other thoughts, you can't think what you should think. Becuase if you chose your thoughts by other thoughts then that thought would be chosen by another thought, and so on.
The brain is very complex and work in a very fast pase. Toughts was there before language. Often do you not think in words, unless it's thinking about what you should buy in a store or solving a math problem or something. It's hard to explain exactly how a thought is born, it's seem as it just happens. But someone who have researched in that area will probably have some explanation.
Thoughts is not destined to be happen. I don't believe in that crap about destiny, which is more or less a substitut for a god that is controlling everything. Everything can be calculated and everything have diffrent chance to happen. That's why a dice always shows every number an equaly amount of time.
Corrupted? But how? Free will either exists or it doesn't. Either we choose or we don't. There's no middle ground on a subject like this.
No one said that they are destined. Indeed, if we follow it like some equation, it seems like it. But who's to say that the equation runs back to the beginning of time? What if this long string of happenings which led to thoughts was broken by different occurrences? Of course, it would still be destiny in the truest sense of the word.
Just because it seems like this means a 'god' is controlling everything doesn't mean it isn't true. We believe because of evidence, not because of what something means.
Roll a dice 6 times and it generally wont show every number equal amounts. Each time you roll a dice, it's a once in six chance of landing on one. And the more times you roll, the more even the averages get. But we aren't the ones rolling the dice - we are one of the sides. So as much probability as there is where a dice, we don't have that. Whatever set that dice into motion wasn't us, or at least I believe. We will always feel free; we will always feel like our lives are going where we choose to make them go. But despite that, logic does not make sense to me if I assume free will.
Perhaps free agency within the certain direction the 'dice' has assigned to me. Free, in one sense of the word, but not free to do anything.
(March 13, 2009 at 9:24 am)Giff Wrote: You really dont make sence.
What do you base you theory on that we don't have free will and that we don't chose our thoughts? Do you even have evidence to support it, have you asked someone who have done research or know alot about the brain and our thougths?
No one knows, that's the thing. It's intriguing. Despite Wikipedia making it's best efforts, I'm afraid it doesn't know either. Scientists dont know either.
But think about it Giff, think about your thoughts. Then think about why they happen. Doesn't it make sense that something made you think something? You thought about getting lunch because you were hungry. You were hungry because you didn't eat breakfast. You didn't eat breakfast... so on. It's a logical conclusion to come to. It's not conclusive and I sincerely hope scientists can give me evidence that I am indeed free, but until that I day, I will not believe in free will and I will keep living like I am free 
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RE: 'choosing' thoughts.
March 13, 2009 at 5:24 pm
I agree thoughtful...no one knows...we should all take an agnostic position on the matter of free will I think....
But I no of no evidence of free will so I think it probably doesn't exist....
I know of things that don't have free will (rocks, water...etc???) so what evidence is there that we or other living things have free will rather than just evitability and freedom in general?
Where is the evidence? To truly have free will wouldn't we have to be able to override physics? Whether its determined or indetermined?
Anyway....the default, more parsimonious position I think is no free will....and until I know of any objective evidence of 'free will' (that is not simply freedom in general, i.e evitability) then I will assume there isn't any.
EvF
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RE: 'choosing' thoughts.
March 13, 2009 at 11:06 pm
(March 13, 2009 at 5:24 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Where is the evidence? To truly have free will wouldn't we have to be able to override physics? Whether its determined or indetermined?
I like where you're going with that.
To have free will, wouldn't we have to be able to do absolutely anything? Like fly, turn into a tiger, create a universe? Because right now, no matter how much I want to do something like that, I can't. I simply don't have the freedom to do that.
I think I might have freedom to some extent though. Though I'm more in favour of no free will at all, if we did have a choice, it certainly wouldn't be to do anything.
I don't think there will ever be any evidence of free will, only the theoretical discussion about it. We feel free, but we aren't. And since the discussion is theoretical, then it doesn't really matter what we believe, so long as we keep acting as though we have free will.
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RE: 'choosing' thoughts.
March 13, 2009 at 11:11 pm
I think there are different degrees of freedom and 'evitability' (or avoidability)...but no 'free will' in the sense of having a choice about what to choose!
There may be more give, room and freedom in certain situations. But where is the evidence to say that once a decision is made we had the power to make that decision rather than another?
EvF
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