A thing about religious (and other) people and the illusion of free will

[ShinyCrystals]

Since this talks about more than just religious people, I will have to say that I did not know where to properly put this, so if this can and needs to be moved, feel free to move it.

Anyway, we all should know that free will is an illusion, and not a real thing. It is actually the subconscious that does the work that leads to deciding thing for us rather than the conscious mind. Let me post this.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/illusion-...ns-krishna

Neuroscience suggests that much of our mental processing occurs below the surface of conscious awareness. Our brains constantly gather information, process it, and make predictions based on patterns and experiences. These subconscious predictions can influence our behavior, shaping our choices long before we consciously deliberate.

You probably get the idea of what I am talking about, but what does this have to do with religious people, you may ask?

Thing is, I think religious people, as well as politicians and fans of not real and real life things such as real life people, are perfect examples of this. That said, such people will blindly support entities such as God, a politician, or even a celebrity such as an actor/actress despite any bad thing they have done. With that, I think they do not really have free will, mainly because they are dependent, or blindly support people or God even if they do wrong, all based on the predictions based on patterns and experiences that influence behavior and shaping choices before the conscious mind kicks in, just like in the article. I do think that if such people were actually displaying free will, the patterns and experiences, as well as the subconscious, would not affect the process of choosing and they would choose regardless of those things. But, as the subconsciousness, patterns and experiences of people might show, these people end up choosing to worship God or other people, no matter how bad or flawed they actually are. Again, I think that goes to show that such people who support and even defend such people or a deity show well that free will does not exist.

Aside from religion, I must say that religion is another word for belief, and not just worshiping a deity and all things related to deities that definitely do not exist. So while I could be wrong, I think the religion part does and can apply to people who worship, support and defend real life people.

Anyway, speaking of real life people, there is this voice actress who said something along the lines of people being Muslims and maybe from the Middle East are bad people, and that same person said something along the lines of such people wanting to take over the world, which stated controversy about her. This is in relation to the current Israel and Hamas war. She appears to be Jewish, but if racism was not enough, she supported NFTs, was an anti-COVID vaxxer whose suggestion of using alternate medicine lead to the death of a child who may have had COVID, and other things. Yet, some people still defended her and still called her a legend. (The voice actress' name is Tara Strong, by the way)

Also, in regards to religion about God, people blindly go by the rules and everything about God or other deities. They support and defend such things even though all those things religion were made by a man instead of an actual god.

In both the case of the voice actress and God, I think that goes to show that they have no free will because they are not acting free and are dependent on others. Not that free will existed to begin with as neuroscience shows, but to me, they are just not only showing that they have no free will, but free will does not exist overall as neuroscience says.

Well, what do you all think? Feel free to comment or say something about this.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Making up your own vocabulary? Have fun. Been done. Didn't work.

[ShinyCrystals]

Making up your own vocabulary? Have fun. Been done. Didn't work.

What vocabulary? I don't understand.

[brewer]

Making up your own vocabulary? Have fun. Been done. Didn't work.

What vocabulary? I don't understand.

^^^ A response to something you've never seen/read before and don't understand. Definitely no free will there.

[ShinyCrystals]

What vocabulary? I don't understand.

^^^ A response to something you've never seen/read before and don't understand. Definitely no free will there.

I think I see what you mean, but aside from that, I thought he meant I made up a word such as vaxxer, which is probably an internet term about people who are willing to go with vaccines, particularly the COVID-19 one.

If that is not the case, I do apologize for the confusion.

[FrustratedFool]

I think it unlikely freewill exists.

[ShinyCrystals]

I think it unlikely freewill exists.

Yeah, and I was saying, the religious people, as well are fans of people, for reasons I stated, are more so showing that.

[Mister Agenda]

Freewill may not exist, but a nearly sixty-year old experiment isn't the proof of it. The man who conducted the experiment, Kornhuber, didn't think it disproved free will and much later findings supported his interpretation over the popular one. His work was confirmed by Libet, with people reporting their decision being made about 150 milliseconds before making it; while the brain activity indicating the tap was about to happen occurred about 500 milliseconds before the tap.

However:

'In a new study under review for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Schurger and two Princeton researchers repeated a version of Libet’s experiment. To avoid unintentionally cherry-picking brain noise, they included a control condition in which people didn’t move at all. An artificial-intelligence classifier allowed them to find at what point brain activity in the two conditions diverged. If Libet was right, that should have happened at 500 milliseconds before the movement. But the algorithm couldn’t tell any difference until about only 150 milliseconds before the movement, the time people reported making decisions in Libet’s original experiment.

In other words, people’s subjective experience of a decision—what Libet’s study seemed to suggest was just an illusion—appeared to match the actual moment their brains showed them making a decision.'

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...al/597736/

[Foxaèr]

Theological free will is a fantasy.

[ShinyCrystals]

Freewill may not exist, but a nearly sixty-year old experiment isn't the proof of it. The man who conducted the experiment, Kornhuber, didn't think it disproved free will and much later findings supported his interpretation over the popular one. His work was confirmed by Libet, with people reporting their decision being made about 150 milliseconds before making it; while the brain activity indicating the tap was about to happen occurred about 500 milliseconds before the tap.

However:

'In a new study under review for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Schurger and two Princeton researchers repeated a version of Libet’s experiment. To avoid unintentionally cherry-picking brain noise, they included a control condition in which people didn’t move at all. An artificial-intelligence classifier allowed them to find at what point brain activity in the two conditions diverged. If Libet was right, that should have happened at 500 milliseconds before the movement. But the algorithm couldn’t tell any difference until about only 150 milliseconds before the movement, the time people reported making decisions in Libet’s original experiment.

In other words, people’s subjective experience of a decision—what Libet’s study seemed to suggest was just an illusion—appeared to match the actual moment their brains showed them making a decision.'

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...al/597736/

That is interesting, though I was not trying to say that the article proved free will itself. I was only using some things from it.

But that aside, my point is that people who practice religion and fans of people do not seem to display free will well. That said, they may do whatever God or go by what a person says, even if it is wrong, without question. Let me bring up this quote I found on another site.

"Celebrity cuts you off from the real world - to be fair it's partly necessity. People do stalk celebrities and obsess over them.

Unfortunately it means the longer a person is isolated in that world, the less perspective they have."

The same can be applied to religion and God, as people who worship and support such people do not seem to go by their own perspective rather than those they support. It is like those people don't have a will of their own, and they are not free mentally because they rely on others rather than developing their own thoughts. It is hard to have free will when you are dependent too much on someone else and your thoughts are not your own.

You do see what I mean here, do you?