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RE: Free will and you.
March 15, 2016 at 11:39 am
(March 15, 2016 at 5:21 am)Aroura Wrote: (March 14, 2016 at 11:11 pm)truth_seeker Wrote: Not true. Humanism, by definition, must include free will (and exclude determinism)
so being humanistic requires your own agency
I'm a humanist, and don't believe in most definitions of free will. Pretty sure you don't have to ascribe to the definitions in Wikipedia to join a group. The humanist group I belong to seems to have people with a mixture of stances on this subject, but most are some level of deterministic and would define agency as actions, not free actions. At most a few call themselves compatabalists, but none of them would describe agency as the ability to act, not the ability to freely chose actions. Even the dictionary only defines it as the ability to act, nothinges about freely closing actions.
I do understand that many people mean not free but just will when using this term. But that seems meaningless to me. You are determined to pick chocolate ice cream, but no one is holding a gun to your head at the time. This definition seems semantics to me as there is still no choice, you are determined to pick chocolate just as if a gun were to your head. You are still constrained by outside and internal forces, they just aren't as obvious or unpleasant, usually anyway, as a gun to your head.
Humanism requires agency.
If you don't believe in free will, then I can plot you and your "actions" till infinite time. That's not humanism.
If I can plot what you will be doing till infinite time, that's not "actions". That's molecular dynamics simulation.
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RE: Free will and you.
March 15, 2016 at 12:50 pm
(This post was last modified: March 15, 2016 at 12:50 pm by robvalue.)
Whether there is free will or not doesn't depend on who believes it.
There can also be just the results of random quantum interactions, rather than pure predictability.
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RE: Free will and you.
March 15, 2016 at 1:01 pm
(This post was last modified: March 15, 2016 at 1:01 pm by robvalue.)
Be careful to avoid the "free will fallacy"!
It comes in the form:
If there is no free will, then we should do X.
Contradiction in terms.
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RE: Free will and you.
March 15, 2016 at 1:03 pm
(This post was last modified: March 15, 2016 at 1:08 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Humanism doesn't actually require agency in the same sense as we're discussing it, that's a subtle equivocation.
Humanism states that the things people decide, their agency, has value (particularly in relation to the things decreed by others such as "god" as in secular humanism), it does not make a proclamation on the nature of decision-making, or free will. More generally, it's a philosophy of goodwill towards other human beings. You can indeed be a humanist and not have -or- believe in free will.
The agency of men has greater value than the agency of a spirit in the matters of men, regardless of whether that agency is free, or not..in either the man or the spirits case.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Free will and you.
March 16, 2016 at 4:11 pm
(March 15, 2016 at 1:01 pm)robvalue Wrote: Be careful to avoid the "free will fallacy"!
It comes in the form:
If there is no free will, then we should do X.
Contradiction in terms.
Do you refer to when people say "If free will doesn't exist then I'll do nothing because it won't be my choice anyway."? etc.
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RE: Free will and you.
March 17, 2016 at 12:19 am
Absolutely!
If it was your destiny to do nothing, than nothing you can do will change that!
What you end up doing is what you end up doing.....he he
Try it, it's extremely hard to do what you weren't meant to do.
I didn't want to post this post, but I . just . couldn't . stop . myself. Arghhh!
No God, No fear.
Know God, Know fear.
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RE: Free will and you.
March 17, 2016 at 6:45 am
(March 17, 2016 at 12:19 am)ignoramus Wrote: Absolutely!
If it was your destiny to do nothing, than nothing you can do will change that!
What you end up doing is what you end up doing.....he he
Try it, it's extremely hard to do what you weren't meant to do.
I didn't want to post this post, but I . just . couldn't . stop . myself. Arghhh!
Judging by your last sentence it seems like you don't even have the illusion of free will 
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RE: Free will and you.
March 17, 2016 at 6:48 am
(This post was last modified: March 17, 2016 at 6:56 am by ignoramus.)
I had it surgically removed! Becc's here does it on the cheap for cash! Not much blood was spilt which was a much better result than I expected.
If I may add:
I had the operation of my own free will, no one forced me.
But now I'm starting to believe that I was going to be free of my free will anyway, since it was always an illusion?
But Becc's still kept the money anyway?
No God, No fear.
Know God, Know fear.
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RE: Free will and you.
March 17, 2016 at 7:56 am
(March 16, 2016 at 4:11 pm)RozKek Wrote: (March 15, 2016 at 1:01 pm)robvalue Wrote: Be careful to avoid the "free will fallacy"!
It comes in the form:
If there is no free will, then we should do X.
Contradiction in terms.
Do you refer to when people say "If free will doesn't exist then I'll do nothing because it won't be my choice anyway."? etc. Not doing anything would still be choosing to do something which is nothing. 
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