(August 1, 2016 at 11:26 am)RozKek Wrote:(July 31, 2016 at 10:33 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Let me ask you something. How does your view of the illusion of freedom actually affect your experience of life? Have you stopped eating snacks, because you are offended at your real lack of freedom in choosing what snack you want? Are you depressed because your wife didn't really freely choose you, but was predetermined beyond any control of hers to choose you? If someone killed your Dad or raped your mom, would you say, "Que sera sera, that was predestined, can't blame that guy." If you answer "yes" to any of these questions, then I'd have to say I suspect you'd be lying just to support your arguments in this thread. But if you say "no," then you have very little real belief in the idea you are selling here-- it is a belief on paper, not one about the reality in and around us.
The problem with the philosophical claim of the illusion of freedom is obvious-- it's useless in the actual living and experience of a human life. In my actual experience, I go out and choose my favorite flavor of ice cream, and I do so freely. I don't sit there in a philosophical bind, cursing the Universe for railroading me into 7-11 on a hot Sunday afternoon. And a philosophical idea that we can't actually apply to the living of life is about as useful as a bag of monkey farts.
No, I stopped eating snacks but not because of my lack of freedom (ultimately it was because I lack freedom). It is entirely correct that if I had an SO ultimately it wouldn't be our decision to love each other, if that is the case, that is the case. When you're with your wife and play with your kids the emotions you experience aren't under your control. They're simply chemicals firing off in the brain making you experience love. If you say it is your choice then you can even argue that you can cure depression caused by a chemical imbalance with your will. If someone did one of those sick things (please use less harsh examples next time) then I would be angry because it is a natural human reaction. It wouldn't be under my control if my neural net interacted in a way to make me experience anger. However, no matter how much I dislike this idea, I wouldn't agree with giving a very harsh sentence to the criminal e.g lifetime prison or the electric chair because the incident would ultimately be beyond our control. I'd instead agree with keeping him away from society and during that time reconditioning the criminal's brain to make him a good person and make him contribute to society in a positive way. I think this is important.
It doesn't matter if or how much I dislike this idea, I'm not going to deny it because I dislike it. Nor am I going to try and argue a free will into existence by playing word games. All definitions of free will are constricted and lack the free one way or another. Every single part and ounce of your free will is constricted by causality and all of the arguments for it lead to accepting the illusion of free will without acknowledging it but they don't deal with the physically free part itself, instead they avoid it.
It doesn't matter if it's useless or not, if it is the case, it is the case. And, no, it isn't trivial. And I don't sit there in a philosphical bind either, all depressed and crying over why I took vanilla over chocolate. In your experience, you're doing so freely. You're demonstrating the illusion yourself. It feels free, it does to me too, but it isn't free.
Take no offense, but the way you're expressing yourself makes me think you're trying to define and argue free will into existence either consciously or subconsciously because you dislike the idea of not having a free will. Cognitive dissonance comes into mind here.
No matter what you feel freedom should be defined as, just remember it's just your perspective. For a more objective answer, then a consensus among rational people should be made as to what is sufficient for a will to have freedom.
Interestingly enough, when we think free in the usual sense, it's almost never defined in the way it is often defined in the context of debates on free will. It's like you've already assumed that libertarian free will is the official definition of free will. But when you look at what the majority of philosophers believe about free will, it's a different definition. And honestly, I'm not sure most laypeople view free will in the libertarian sense either. Has there ever been a systemic poll surveying what laypeople defined free will to be?
