Is free will real?

[bennyboy]

Regardless of whatever misapprehensions or nebulous experiences "we" may be toiling under-up to an including the "we", finding dinner is a good skill for a living thing to have. It doesn't matter whether a mirage or veritable tracks in the sand lead you to dinner, from a systems standpoint. Again, you and I have very different ideas about self.

If you're capable of ever feeling offended, then that is true only in the context of forum threads. If you've ever thought "Who does this guy think he is?" or "How dare you?!" then that is true only in the context of forum threads.

I'm pretty sure nobody here is living in a near-perfect zen-like condition, watching detachedly as his body goes through a deterministic, hormone-driven existence, and always maintaining a cool, rational vision of a purely mechanical universal truth. Frankly, I think the ideas you guys are willing to own up to and the ideas you guys actually live by and act on are highly unlikely to be the same. Also, you're ugly, your caretakers dress you funny, and your breath smells like the private parts of unwashed donkeys!