Do you control what you believe?

[Aroura]

And if we are indeed part of a giant Rube Goldberg machine, without any real choice, that doesn't mean you give up and stop doing things. That isn't human nature.

Interesting that you permit notions as vague as whatever 'human nature' might be but balk at 'common sense' or 'free will'. Oh wait. You don't really have a choice, do you? You think what you must, what the momentum of the universe compels you to think. Not much point in chatting about it then, is there? You confess you aren't in charge of your own thinking and you must believe I am no more capable of influencing what I must belief. Is all discussion therefore moot?

Of course not. What we do now affect the future. Things still happen, whether we will them to or not. We must still function, even if we know we are part of the machine. There are many determinists in the world, none of them just sit down and give up.

Anyway, I'm not dead set on it, it is just what science currently indicates to be true.

Repeating myself now:
I just wanted to say that I don't find determinism or free-will to be all that important to me. I don't really want to get into an argument about it. I was just sharing thoughts, not looking to argue about it. I have no intention of trying to change anyones mind, just sharing my own.

[Whateverist]

Interesting that you permit notions as vague as whatever 'human nature' might be but balk at 'common sense' or 'free will'. Oh wait. You don't really have a choice, do you? You think what you must, what the momentum of the universe compels you to think. Not much point in chatting about it then, is there? You confess you aren't in charge of your own thinking and you must believe I am no more capable of influencing what I must belief. Is all discussion therefore moot?

Of course not. What we do now affect the future. Things still happen, whether we will them to or not. We must still function, even if we know we are part of the machine. There are many determinists in the world, none of them just sit down and give up.

Anyway, I'm not dead set on it, it is just what science currently indicates to be true.

Repeating myself now:
I just wanted to say that I don't find determinism or free-will to be all that important to me. I don't really want to get into an argument about it. I was just sharing thoughts, not looking to argue about it. I have no intention of trying to change anyones mind, just sharing my own.

No problem. Me too. I think there are some parts of the debate that are just incoherent, on both sides. I don't think we really understand "will", free or not.

[Edwardo Piet]

Here's the way I see it:

You almost always believe something when you believe that there's sufficient evidence for it, but if your brain genuinely wants to ignore the evidence and be delusional it will. If you really really really wanted to believe that you're a snowman and you believed that your life depended on that belief and your will to live was extremely strong, your brain would force yourself to believe that delusion against the evidence in front of you. Reason is the slave of the passions.

So ultimately it's a matter of desire (usually in the form of fear, meaning you really want something to not happen), and the reason why it seems that it isn't is because it's normal to desire to believe what you think is true. And it's a big and important built-in habit to believe that the truth is important.

However despite it being a choice that doesn't mean it's a free choice. Despite it being willed it doesn't mean the will is free. It doesn't mean that there's free will.

[Ryantology]

I do not believe I control what I believe. But maybe I make myself not believe it.

[Whateverist]

Here's the way I see it:

You almost always believe something when you believe that there's sufficient evidence for it, but if your brain genuinely wants to ignore the evidence and be delusional it will. If you really really really wanted to believe that you're a snowman and you believed that your life depended on that belief and your will to live was extremely strong, your brain would force yourself to believe that delusion against the evidence in front of you. Reason is the slave of the passions.

So ultimately it's a matter of desire (usually in the form of fear, meaning you really want something to not happen), and the reason why it seems that it isn't is because it's normal to desire to believe what you think is true. And it's a big and important built-in habit to believe that the truth is important.

However despite it being a choice that doesn't mean it's a free choice. Despite it being willed it doesn't mean the will is free. It doesn't mean that there's free will.

This is where coherence begins to break down. Is our will not free because it is hampered by external factors or do we say it is not free because of our own fears and desires? So long as they are our fears and desires which inform our choices, how is that not free? Are our fears and desires external to our wills? If our wills must function completely independently of fears and desires in order to be deemed "free", it is hard to imagine for what purpose we would ever 'will' anything. It comes back again to what exactly the 'will' is and is not, a very murky area.

[jonb]

My instinctive answer, would be I do no believe in anything, but if I was asked if I had presumptions, I would say so many, and I could not identify all the presumptions I had made. I think it would actually be impossible to operate without making presumptions, and I am locked in a process of refining the presumptions I have made.

[Whateverist]

My instinctive answer, would be I do no believe in anything, but if I was asked if I had presumptions, I would say so many, and I could not identify all the presumptions I had made. I think it would actually be impossible to operate without making presumptions, and I am locked in a process of refining the presumptions I have made.

And worse, we need not at all be aware of all the presumptions which we have made. If we did make them we may not remember having done so. We may not even have made them consciously. If they are only the presumptions which my organism is making independently of my conscious mind, are they still mine? Is my conscious mind a subset of my organism or is my organism supposed to be under the dominion of my conscious mind? Which aspect -conscious mind or total organism- should rightfully get to declare what is or is not mine?

[Darkstar]

I think the conscious mind, which is a part of the organism (i.e. brain), controls the rest of it.

[Whateverist]

Everything? Could it? Should it? Does it? I'm not so sure.

[Darkstar]

Everything? Could it? Should it? Does it? I'm not so sure.

Okay, the conscious mind controls much of the rest. The brain controls almost everything, it is just that the brain is also responsible for involuntary things like triggering hormonal releases and reflexes, etc. So there are some things the conscious mind doesn't control.