I believe that we are pre-wired to make every decision that we make. But I believe that we have some control over the wiring. So in that sense, I do believe that we have an ability to make our own decisions, but we have to wire our minds to think and act in accord with those decision before we have to make them.

To illustrate, imagine that your mind as a whole is a train company. Your subconscious is like the board of directors. Your self-aware conscious is not the CEO though, but rather its the train conductor. We think that our conscious is in so much control, but it really isn't. Of course, the more educated you are and the more healthy you are mentally and physically, the more control you have as an engineer. But I would liken that control to just being able to know how to run the train safely and smoothly, not choosing its course. Like how an engineer slows down when going on tight turns. But lets say that the train conductor has years of experience and knows of better routes or smoother and more efficient routes. If we start consciously becoming more and more aware of finding paths of least resistance then it will have a domino effect that will eventually lead to your subconscious "re-routing" your train tracks, or decisions.

So in general, I believe that if we're more and more self-aware of our subconscious thinking, then we're more able to lay out the train tracks with more and more input from our rational conscious, rather than our irrational subconscious. I believe that is the essence of why we humans hold onto so many bad ideas, our subconscious minds have way too much sway over our rational, right her right now, self-aware conscious has. We hold onto bad ideas, because at some point in our evolutionary history, that bad idea had some kind of evolutionary advantage or was an accident that just stuck. We just shoehorn those bad ideas into "logical" and "rational" seeming views. Like voting for Donald Trump

Of course, none of this is taking into account brain damage or other irreversible maladies that could occur in the brain. Like people who voted for Donald Trump

(July 22, 2017 at 1:13 pm)Won2blv Wrote: I believe that we are pre-wired to make every decision that we make. But I believe that we have some control over the wiring. So in that sense, I do believe that we have an ability to make our own decisions, but we have to wire our minds to think and act in accord with those decision before we have to make them.

To illustrate, imagine that your mind as a whole is a train company. Your subconscious is like the board of directors. Your self-aware conscious is not the CEO though, but rather its the train conductor. We think that our conscious is in so much control, but it really isn't. Of course, the more educated you are and the more healthy you are mentally and physically, the more control you have as an engineer. But I would liken that control to just being able to know how to run the train safely and smoothly, not choosing its course. Like how an engineer slows down when going on tight turns. But lets say that the train conductor has years of experience and knows of better routes or smoother and more efficient routes. If we start consciously becoming more and more aware of finding paths of least resistance then it will have a domino effect that will eventually lead to your subconscious "re-routing" your train tracks, or decisions.

So in general, I believe that if we're more and more self-aware of our subconscious thinking, then we're more able to lay out the train tracks with more and more input from our rational conscious, rather than our irrational subconscious. I believe that is the essence of why we humans hold onto so many bad ideas, our subconscious minds have way too much sway over our rational, right her right now, self-aware conscious has. We hold onto bad ideas, because at some point in our evolutionary history, that bad idea had some kind of evolutionary advantage or was an accident that just stuck. We just shoehorn those bad ideas into "logical" and "rational" seeming views. Like voting for Donald Trump

Of course, none of this is taking into account brain damage or other irreversible maladies that could occur in the brain. Like people who voted for Donald Trump

I think everything you wrote above "So in general," was pretty obtuse, but the rest makes perfect sense. I don't think it's quite as complicated and convoluted as you make it out to be but I get the underlying point you're trying to make. We get mentally lazy if we're not conscientious about how we let our subconscious pretty much take the driver's seat and we can't always be conscientious about watching ourselves 100% of the time, but some people don't spend any time dwelling on this at all so they end up on a downhill, degenerative route and become the kind of people chanting "Make America Great/White Again". Evolution apparently has stopped weeding out that sort of thing which would otherwise be catastrophically disadvantageous because they tend to breed more and leave us footing the bill for all their fuck-ups because we're so compassionate. I hate being the good guy sometimes.

(July 22, 2017 at 1:13 pm)Won2blv Wrote: I believe that we are pre-wired to make every decision that we make. But I believe that we have some control over the wiring. So in that sense, I do believe that we have an ability to make our own decisions, but we have to wire our minds to think and act in accord with those decision before we have to make them.

To illustrate, imagine that your mind as a whole is a train company. Your subconscious is like the board of directors. Your self-aware conscious is not the CEO though, but rather its the train conductor. We think that our conscious is in so much control, but it really isn't. Of course, the more educated you are and the more healthy you are mentally and physically, the more control you have as an engineer. But I would liken that control to just being able to know how to run the train safely and smoothly, not choosing its course. Like how an engineer slows down when going on tight turns. But lets say that the train conductor has years of experience and knows of better routes or smoother and more efficient routes. If we start consciously becoming more and more aware of finding paths of least resistance then it will have a domino effect that will eventually lead to your subconscious "re-routing" your train tracks, or decisions.

So in general, I believe that if we're more and more self-aware of our subconscious thinking, then we're more able to lay out the train tracks with more and more input from our rational conscious, rather than our irrational subconscious. I believe that is the essence of why we humans hold onto so many bad ideas, our subconscious minds have way too much sway over our rational, right her right now, self-aware conscious has. We hold onto bad ideas, because at some point in our evolutionary history, that bad idea had some kind of evolutionary advantage or was an accident that just stuck. We just shoehorn those bad ideas into "logical" and "rational" seeming views. Like voting for Donald Trump

Of course, none of this is taking into account brain damage or other irreversible maladies that could occur in the brain. Like people who voted for Donald Trump

Sehr poetisch! 
Translation: Very poetic!

[/quote]

I think everything you wrote above "So in general," was pretty obtuse, but the rest makes perfect sense. I don't think it's quite as complicated and convoluted as you make it out to be but I get the underlying point you're trying to make. We get mentally lazy if we're not conscientious about how we let our subconscious pretty much take the driver's seat and we can't always be conscientious about watching ourselves 100% of the time, but some people don't spend any time dwelling on this at all so they end up on a downhill, degenerative route and become the kind of people chanting "Make America Great/White Again". Evolution apparently has stopped weeding out that sort of thing which would otherwise be catastrophically disadvantageous because they tend to breed more and leave us footing the bill for all their fuck-ups because we're so compassionate. I hate being the good guy sometimes.
[/quote]

I dont think that evolution has weeded out that kind of thinking because it is still a very strong evolutionary quality to be tribalistic. And we're humans, we have more control over evolution. Sadly, we allow bad traits to persist out of humanism

(July 22, 2017 at 1:13 pm)Won2blv Wrote: I believe that we are pre-wired to make every decision that we make. But I believe that we have some control over the wiring. So in that sense, I do believe that we have an ability to make our own decisions, but we have to wire our minds to think and act in accord with those decision before we have to make them.

To illustrate, imagine that your mind as a whole is a train company. Your subconscious is like the board of directors. Your self-aware conscious is not the CEO though, but rather its the train conductor. We think that our conscious is in so much control, but it really isn't. Of course, the more educated you are and the more healthy you are mentally and physically, the more control you have as an engineer. But I would liken that control to just being able to know how to run the train safely and smoothly, not choosing its course. Like how an engineer slows down when going on tight turns. But lets say that the train conductor has years of experience and knows of better routes or smoother and more efficient routes. If we start consciously becoming more and more aware of finding paths of least resistance then it will have a domino effect that will eventually lead to your subconscious "re-routing" your train tracks, or decisions.

So in general, I believe that if we're more and more self-aware of our subconscious thinking, then we're more able to lay out the train tracks with more and more input from our rational conscious, rather than our irrational subconscious. I believe that is the essence of why we humans hold onto so many bad ideas, our subconscious minds have way too much sway over our rational, right her right now, self-aware conscious has. We hold onto bad ideas, because at some point in our evolutionary history, that bad idea had some kind of evolutionary advantage or was an accident that just stuck. We just shoehorn those bad ideas into "logical" and "rational" seeming views. Like voting for Donald Trump

Of course, none of this is taking into account brain damage or other irreversible maladies that could occur in the brain. Like people who voted for Donald Trump

You are using the language of duality.  Unfortunately, this begs the question.  If the conscious mind is different than deterministic brain function, then of course there's the possibility that some or even much of our behavior is not deterministic.  If part of the human experience rests outside our dependence of the human brain, then we may have free will, as well. But this isn't really an explanation.  It's a statement of a world view: i.e. that consciousness somehow transcends the mechanism of the brain.

Put it like this: the question is whether the "conductor" of the train is an agent somehow separate from the rest of the train, or whether it is just part of the train (say, a computer).  If you think the former,  you'll have to say what mechanism is responsible for the conscious agency, where it exists, and so on.

Personally, I think we have free will, but people really have to learn to use it. Indeed, I suspect that the majority of people at any given point haven't figured out how to do it.

(July 23, 2017 at 10:54 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: Personally, I think we have free will, but people really have to learn to use it. Indeed, I suspect that the majority of people at any given point haven't figured out how to do it.

Before we say we have it, we should probably define it.

My definition: Free will is the capacity to express one's nature in decision-making, without undue compulsion or impediment from factors outside the self.


I like this definition, because it works for determinist world views as well as dualistic, spiritual or religious ones.  Definitions like  "The capacity to have done other than one has chosen to do," i.e. that the self is somehow above or outside causality, are BS in my opinion.  You only need the capacity for truly multiple actions if you are truly of a divided nature.

(July 24, 2017 at 7:24 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(July 23, 2017 at 10:54 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: Personally, I think we have free will, but people really have to learn to use it. Indeed, I suspect that the majority of people at any given point haven't figured out how to do it.

Before we say we have it, we should probably define it.

My definition: Free will is the capacity to express one's nature in decision-making, without undue compulsion or impediment from factors outside the self.


I like this definition, because it works for determinist world views as well as dualistic, spiritual or religious ones.  Definitions like  "The capacity to have done other than one has chosen to do," i.e. that the self is somehow above or outside causality, are BS in my opinion.  You only need the capacity for truly multiple actions if you are truly of a divided nature.

I'd personally define it as the ability to act beyond one's own biological programming or social conditioning, like someone raised in an abusive environment choosing to embrace a kinder way of living, or someone with a mental illness taking steps (usually through therapy) to overcome the symptoms of their illness.

Needless to say, my understanding of Free Will is closer to Erickson than Aquinas.

That implies there IS something beyond one's own biological programming or social conditioning. The reason some people "embrace a kinder way" is because it's in one's nature to do so: maybe because of brain structure or hormones, maybe because of learned ideas, maybe because of a moment of inspiration.

Even for the person taking steps to improve, there is already something in their nature to make them disposed toward taking steps. They are expressing that part of their nature, whether it's pride, a fear of being mocked, or whatever.

The interesting things happen when conflicting parts of one's nature come into conflict. If I have a strong desire for sex with new women, and also a strong desire not to hurt my wife by cheating, which action represents the will of the self? I'd say neither-- you already have to be free of self-impediment to say you have a will to do something; therefore impediments to FREE will must be external, and cannot be internal.

Here's my response to this: society has a habit of giving people mixed messages, including several that contradict each other (like, to use on example, virginity is very important for women, and sex is good, guys should be having lots of it). If you've ever watched/read 2001: A Space Odyssey, it appears that the phoenomenon is why HAL ended up trying to kill everyone: he couldn't reconcile two commands from mission control (Don't keep the crew in the dark and don't tell them about the mission to Jupiter until they get there).

Of course, humans have another way of dealing with it: accept one of the messages as the way things are. Here's one example: a kid spends his life in a hardscrabble existence where his family has to struggle to stay alive and there's no real guarantee that the cops won't find some reason to kill someone he knows, and it appears that the only people he knows who can keep a relatively stable existence are the local gangsters and eventually, he joins them. So, it becomes ingrained in his mind that this is how the world works: violence and crime are the way humans operate. But, of course, the society at large doesn't say that, and, perhaps circumstances change and someone kinder and more lawful holds a metaphorical carrot in front of his face and convinces him that it's a good idea to go against what he's known for years. That's what I understand free will to be.

Really, just watch Precious: I see the title character's arc as someone developing a sense of free will. Sure, a lot of her actions may be dictated by Mariah Carey's character, but we can still see enough into her mind to see that she's beginning to see through her own social conditioning. Or, indeed, the real story of Kevin Spacey, how he was raised by an abusive Neo-Nazi father, but ended up as an actor with strong philanthropic tendencies and, by all accounts, an all-around decent guy. Maybe the ability to break through requires some sort of early conditioning, but I'm saying I still consider it free will.