(August 3, 2018 at 8:51 am)Little Rik Wrote: Personally I do worry because I do believe in karma so I think twice before I do something that eventually will affect my life.

What exactly is it that you think you do differently that an ordinary person, concerned with morality and virtue, would not do?

(August 3, 2018 at 9:57 am)Khemikal Wrote: Gotta wonder why you'd ask what the complications of free will are if you aren't really interested, and, in fact, have committed to remaining intentionally ignorant of the subject out of deference for your silly religious beliefs?

It's a thorn in the side of alot of things (particularly contentions that surround the issue while maintaining some sort of fate), and it's nigh impossible to demonstrate...but it's no problem at all for atheism or atheists one way or another.  It doesn't matter, to me.. whether or not we have a free will.

Most people, believer or not..are some sort of compatibalist.  There are issues with that way of conceptualizing free will, but meh.  You..otoh, are a loon..a person who thinks his free will...whatever that's supposed to be to you..might cause an earthquake..if you aren't careful around puppies.

What, what, what?  

1) When I ever said that I am not interested in FW?
2) I simply believe in karma that is why I use my FW carefully.
As I would use a knife only to cut some food or any useful task and not to hurt somebody I also use my FW for my own progress and not for my own regress.
Nothing really complicate as you put it Khem.  

I already dismiss my own agency (philosophically speaking) as an internal metaphor; the idea that not just the laws of reality but also some magical "revenge force" direct me is quite funny.

You'd think I'd at least notice when I go and push someone over for no apparent reason, while under the effect of this karma thing. I'd also notice other people suddenly changing their behaviour like this. It's a very poor model for behaviour as we actually observe it.

(August 3, 2018 at 10:46 am)Little Rik Wrote:

(August 3, 2018 at 9:57 am)Khemikal Wrote: Gotta wonder why you'd ask what the complications of free will are if you aren't really interested, and, in fact, have committed to remaining intentionally ignorant of the subject out of deference for your silly religious beliefs?

It's a thorn in the side of alot of things (particularly contentions that surround the issue while maintaining some sort of fate), and it's nigh impossible to demonstrate...but it's no problem at all for atheism or atheists one way or another.  It doesn't matter, to me.. whether or not we have a free will.

Most people, believer or not..are some sort of compatibalist.  There are issues with that way of conceptualizing free will, but meh.  You..otoh, are a loon..a person who thinks his free will...whatever that's supposed to be to you..might cause an earthquake..if you aren't careful around puppies.

What, what, what?  

1) When I ever said that I am not interested in FW?
2) I simply believe in karma that is why I use my FW carefully.
As I would use a knife only to cut some food or any useful task and not to hurt somebody I also use my FW for my own progress and not for my own regress.
Nothing really complicate as you put it Khem.  

It's just too bad that those two things you believe in are at odds with each other, I guess.  Oh well..best to reach for the simpletons answer as quickly as possible and deride any explanation of this conflict..which you explicitly asked for. lol.

I appreciate that you've freely willed yourself up to human status from your prior state as a cabbage, and wish you well at becoming a schnauser or whatever the fuck it is you think comes after being a particularly dense human being.

(August 3, 2018 at 10:14 am)Jörmungandr Wrote:

(August 3, 2018 at 8:51 am)Little Rik Wrote: Personally I do worry because I do believe in karma so I think twice before I do something that eventually will affect my life.

What exactly is it that you think you do differently that an ordinary person, concerned with morality and virtue, would not do?

You can be as moral and virtuous as you like but there is something that even the most moral and virtuous people never think about and that is the fact that in order to reach the high of human emancipation a person must feel for the highest of the high which lie within in each of us.

People in general look outside when in fact the real gem lie inside so when I take decisions I always try to think to act in a way that my outer consciousness get closer and closer to my inner consciousness.
If you want to reach the moon you got to reduce the distance that separate you from the moon that is why I use my FW as an instrument to help to reduce the distance that separate me from the goal of life.

Most moral and virtuous people have different goals instead.
They lack a real attraction for the inner gem.  

I know what's really going on, of course. Karma is simply an explanation after the fact; a tautology. Whatever happened must have been in line with karma, somehow. It's much the same with "God's plan" in other religions.

I guess it's all a way of coping with the unpleasant and unfair nature of reality.

@Rik
Nope, lol.

I think the crucial question is this: would "life forms" be any more unpredictable than "non life", to something that had a perfect understanding of both?

Of course, I can't pretend to be able to answer that, but my guess is that the answer would be no. I don't see any kind of case to state otherwise.

I suppose there's always the hope that with enough interactions in a complex system like ourselves....some proton bumps off at an unexpected point and changes the outcome of the entire system....though, that's more the addition of chaotic and random happenstance than will..free or otherwise.  

Personally...understanding that the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing and theres no central command center when it comes to the brain..I think there's enough wiggle room to declare at least some portion of the outcome of human thought and volition fundamentally unpredictable despite the fact that a wide range of general predicitions about human behavior and action can be made (and are so routinely made that a whole segment of the economy is predicate on them)...but this does undercut the contention of a free volitional ability or organ...and if we don;t have anything that can -do- that..it would be surprising to find that we do..do that.  

(he said do-do!)

(August 3, 2018 at 11:07 am)robvalue Wrote: I already dismiss my own agency (philosophically speaking) as an internal metaphor; the idea that not just the laws of reality but also some magical "revenge force" direct me is quite funny.

You'd think I'd at least notice when I go and push someone over for no apparent reason, while under the effect of this karma thing. I'd also notice other people suddenly changing their behaviour like this. It's a very poor model for behaviour as we actually observe it.

There is no such a thing as a revenge force.
There is however a force that will always try to balance positive and negative in order to maintain the equilibrium in the universe.  

Without such an equilibrium the universe would have gone already.