If free will was not real

[Excited Penguin]

How can there be a but here? What warrants a but?

If you're a determinist, why cater to compatibilists? I don't get you.

I assumed you were a compatibilist because you specifically said you didn't believe absolute free will didn't exist, which pretty much sums up compatibilist's views.

You can't "respect" someone's views if you don't agree with them. Or, are you talking about the sort of respect where you don't go screaming in the streets, cut people's heads off and terrorize the populace because of a difference of opinion?

How, exactly, do you "respect" someone's views, I wonder, while totally disagreeing with those views at the same time. You can respect the person, but there's no respecting the views, especially not if you don't agree with them.

The existence of free will is a mystery; of course, this is referred to as being the the "hard problem".  Whether it can be solved or not, I cannot say, but my guess is that it will be solved.  Perhaps scientists someday will be able to arrange neurons in such a way as to prove that consciousness is simply biological with no supernatural element required.  Or, the hard problem may simply be intractable, which is hardly proof of a soul and/or some other non-materialistic dualism.

There are a lot of good atheistic folk who are compatibilists, and so, I think that everyone, on this question (free will), can fit into the tent.

The existence of free will is not a mystery, because there is no free will.

The hard problem referres to consciousness, not to free will.

Perhaps scientists someday will be able to arrange neurons in such a way as to prove that consciousness is simply biological with no supernatural element required.

You say that like it's plausible that it is anything but biological. Also, the word supernatural doesn't describe anything real, it's an example of linguistic malfunction(I could get into this and explain it less ambiguously, but that's a whole other subject). They don't have to prove this, anymore than they have to prove there isn't an invisible pony in your backyard. It just doesn't serve any purpose.

There are a lot of good atheistic folk who are compatibilists, and so, I think that everyone, on this question (free will), can fit into the tent.

What?!


I think consciousness isn't a mystery at all and is already explained, at some level, by what we already know about the brain. It's simply a set of functions of the brain, I believe, something evolution built into us to be better able to survive. That we make much ado about nothing, is simply a side-effect.

[Cato]

Free will debates are so frustrating. The fucking philosophers rarely degree on definition and the boundaries of application. My opinion is that if determinists are correct, something I doubt can ever be proven or definitively disproved, our species is still reconciled to navigating our existence as if we had free will. So in the end it really doesn't make a fuck.

[Excited Penguin]

Free will debates are so frustrating. The fucking philosophers rarely degree on definition and the boundaries of application. My opinion is that if determinists are correct, something I doubt can ever be proven or definitively disproved, our species is still reconciled to navigating our existence as if we had free will. So in the end it really doesn't make a fuck.

It does make a fuck and the simple fact that philosophers debate it doesn't mean it isn't an already won debate. Free will is an incomprehensible idea that simply isn't compatible with reality, like a round triangle, if you will.

It makes a fuck for a lot of reasons. A person who thinks they are "free" to do everything is a very different one from one that aknowledges that they are 100% a product of their environment and genes, and that there's no place in-between for something essentially independent of the two. It's a matter of how you see certain things because of this change of perspective, as well as happening to be the difference between a false view and a correct one.

Your comment on the matter is so utterly simplistic, I'm sorry to say it tells me a lot about you as a person. Your attitude becomes sort of pathetic in light of the utterly mediocre stupidity displayed here.

Have a fine day and no hard feelings, mkay.

[bennyboy]

Free will debates are so frustrating. The fucking philosophers rarely degree on definition and the boundaries of application. My opinion is that if determinists are correct, something I doubt can ever be proven or definitively disproved, our species is still reconciled to navigating our existence as if we had free will. So in the end it really doesn't make a fuck.

The problem is that philosophical arguments never really get resolved, but we move on to the next level of argument anyway.  As far as I'm concerned, I don't yet have a definitive answer as to whether there's actually an objective world.  I don't know that other minds exist.  I don't know for sure if the things I remember ever really happened.

But what we do is say things like, "Man. . . I touch stuff, and it feels real, so I'm fine just saying it's real.  If other minds didn't exist, then why am I surprised at what a bitch my nextdoor neighbor can be?  Hey. . . if the past doesn't exist, at least my memories, as stored in my brain, are useful for me. . . that's probably good enough."

The problem comes later, when nobody can see that almost every "new" argument begs the questions about those old and discarded arguments.

People "know" and consider it "proven," that there's nothing but the physical universe as viewed by science, for example.  And here I am, poor me, still trying to figure out if there's a universe at all.

[Foxaèr]

Oh, look, I had the free will to once again post here.

Yes, that's free will, because it means I could have kept not responding or respond once again.

Free will is essentially choice, the ability to choose between two options.

[Cato]

Free will debates are so frustrating. The fucking philosophers rarely degree on definition and the boundaries of application. My opinion is that if determinists are correct, something I doubt can ever be proven or definitively disproved, our species is still reconciled to navigating our existence as if we had free will. So in the end it really doesn't make a fuck.

It does make a fuck and the simple fact that philosophers debate it doesn't mean it isn't an already won debate. Free will is an incomprehensible idea that simply isn't compatible with reality, like a round triangle, if you will.

It makes a fuck for a lot of reasons. A person who thinks they are "free" to do everything is a very different one from one that aknowledges that they are 100% a product of their environment and genes, and that there's no place in-between for something essentially independent of the two. It's a matter of how you see certain things because of this change of perspective, as well as happening to be the difference between a false view and a correct one.

Your comment on the matter is so utterly simplistic, I'm sorry to say it tells me a lot about you as a person. Your attitude becomes sort of pathetic in light of the utterly mediocre stupidity displayed here.

Have a fine day and no hard feelings, mkay.

Your ad hominems and unsupported bromides did nothing to refute my concluding observation. Anyone that seriously scratches the surface of this debate would would never fence post the conversation with 'do anything' and '100% genes and environment'. And you have the audacity to describe my understanding as simplistic. You're not even wrong here. 

Again, since you glossed over it in order to have a go with me, even if determinism were proven it would have no practical effect since we would all still be compelled to engage existence as if we were 'actually' making choices between possible courses of action. That was my plainly spoken point which you never addressed.

[GrandizerII]

Free will debates are so frustrating. The fucking philosophers rarely degree on definition and the boundaries of application. My opinion is that if determinists are correct, something I doubt can ever be proven or definitively disproved, our species is still reconciled to navigating our existence as if we had free will. So in the end it really doesn't make a fuck.

It does make a fuck and the simple fact that philosophers debate it doesn't mean it isn't an already won debate. Free will is an incomprehensible idea that simply isn't compatible with reality, like a round triangle, if you will.

According to a fairly recent systematic poll, around 60% of academic philosophers were compatibilists. And only around 12% said there was no free will.

http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog...s-believe/

[paulpablo]

Oh, look, I had the free will to once again post here.

Yes, that's free will, because it means I could have kept not responding or respond once again.

Free will is essentially choice, the ability to choose between two options.

Someone who was arguing against your position here probably would just say you didn't have a choice.

The sensation of feeling like you had a choice was just an illusion.

What actually could have happened is that your brain chemicals and electric signals were already in position to go ahead and make you post here, the sensation you felt that was the choice was just the feeling of those chemicals and electrical signals moving into place.

[RozKek]

I might join the debate but beforehand I just got to say. 

Bennyboy, stop playing fucking word games. When I refer to you with you it's just a way of communicating, there's no deeper meaning to it. There isn't a single piece of you, when I say you I just refer to what makes you what you are.

Maelstrom, your arguments are insanely weak and it seems as if you're avoiding the questions, also, with word games.

Mh.brewer, your free will can't be on a sliding scale because it doesn't exist. You can't say it's on a sliding scale (implying that it's affected and limited by other factors) before demonstrating the existence of free will.

My free will is the free will where it's ultimately our decision to move our arm. Not that I have several capabilities/options, that's irrelevant and as pointless as it can be.

[bennyboy]

Bennyboy, stop playing fucking word games. When I refer to you with you it's just a way of communicating, there's no deeper meaning to it. There isn't a single piece of you, when I say you I just refer to what makes you what you are.

This thread is exactly ABOUT what a person is, and when you talk about "you" in the context of free will, you'd better know what you're talking about.  "It's. . . ya know. . . like just. .  . you. . . ya know?"  isn't gonna cut it.  So with all due respect. . . if you think defining terms, or pointing out conflations or equivocations, is a waste of time, then stop using words and go fuck yourself.

That's right.  I'm talking to you.