The Illusion of Free Will

Hmmm. The tree is just doing nothing but getting old. And if one leaves a tree hanging over there house, they expect a branch to fall and damage the roof. Or they remove the tree or branch to avoid damage. The tree, for the most part is inanimate.

However, a person, with intent, throws a brick through your window does so for the sole purpose of destruction. But if the person was driving by in a car and the tire hit the edge of a brick laying in the road and it kicked the brick up and through the window. One doesn't punish the driver of the vehicle.

OK. Reread what you responded to. It is purposeful intent. Your right, some folks just have no control. Do we punish them or try to figure out why they have no control?

 

With the 12 step program and some greater motive. Family, life, job. Something becomes more important. Even with all that, some can never over come.

 

I am not trying to troll you. You used the word stupid.

 

Well, Ricky, after all the advice on this thread, what is your 'go forward' plan?

Hopefully it's not the same as the definition of 'insanity," continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting change....

 

How bad is the job situation in your area? Sounds like at this point any work would be a good thing for you. I've mostly lived in active suburban and urban areas but I have family who live in the sticks and I've heard about the job market there. Most of them either work for Amtrak, as truck drivers, industrial mechanics, hospital techs and so on. I have no idea what its like to live in a depressed urban area.

Sounds though like the best thing to clear your mind would be to focus on a goal and concentrate all your energy on that. And I know its not easy

 

As long as you remain wedded to a materialistic view of humanity, you won't come within lightyears of an answer that makes any sense.

 

Well, I don't really know. The first thing is to just get financially straight. Being broke just breaks you down the longer it goes on.

Apparently, the economy is booming in my area, it just isn't booming in anything other than jobs at the high end and jobs at the low end. I don't seem to get hired for either, so I'm not really sure what the deal is.

I have seen no evidence of anything else. I have tried to believe in alternative ways of thinking, but there just isn't any evidence that materialism is false.

 

Then you've never felt pangs of conscience. Right?

 

What makes you think conscience isn't a biochemical process? There are neurological differences that one can observe between psychopaths and "normal" individuals. Empathy doesn't prove anything.

 

What is the point of abstract reasoning without free will?

 

Going back to your first post, I don't think it's so much about free will as choices and events.

Life is a combination of choices and events thrust upon you, obviously with choices you exercise your free will and base your decisions or choices on experience, knowledge and support,

the other... when life slaps you around a bit, you can merely attempt to manage.. again with experience, knowledge and support.

The odds of you making bad choices/decisions or not managing all the knocks in life sufficiently, increase when you lack some, all or even just one of the things I mentioned, experience, knowledge and support.

ps. of course life is also not fair and some people get slapped around more than others...

 

I'm not really sure I understand what you are saying. The two are not related.

The fact that there are any constraints at all is an argument against free-will.

 

some.. there are some restraints, so I guess what you're saying with "free will" there should be no restraints? in that scenario it places "free will" in the land of rainbows and unicorns lol

 

What are those choices based upon and what determines how we handle an event?

 

If you read my post again you'll notice I mentioned, experience, knowledge and support...

 

And what determines how we perceive or otherwise interpret " experience, knowledge and support"?

 

listen I typed that sipping on my coffee so feel free to add to it lol

let's see...
your experience obviously your past, (people, events, circumstances etc)
knowledge (what did you learn from ^^^, were you allowed to learn or were everything done/solved for you)
support (parents, family, friends etc etc current in your life)

 

Interesting article:

Only Humans Have Morality, Not Animals

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/reclaiming-childhood/201106/only-humans-have-morality-not-animals

Which would indicate that we are not pure instintively driven as animals, or just biologically as a result of brain chemistry, but have experiences that drive our choices and our conception of 'free will.'

EDIT: And also in most/many religions there is a thing called "the age of accountability" before children are considered responsible for the decisions & resultant acts of their lives

 

There is no evidence to the contrary as you clim or you would have cited it

 

This seems like a lot of surrender to authority and peer (including family and friends) pressure. How is it working towards proof of free will?

We learn from mistakes, and can avoid them, but to some extent this is a kind of programing, and not all the lessons learned from experience are true. Sometimes bad things just happen.

Knowledge combined with understanding can give a person an edge in creating creative solutions to problems, but knowledge based on rote learning is just a way to become a record of someone else's thoughts. Being another persons spokesman is not a great way to espouse free will.

Family and friends can be a support, but they can just as easily be a hindrance. Everyone, friend or enemy, is a bundle of expectations. Trying to live within those expectations is a kind of slavery, and can limit individual growth.

Sorry to come down on you. I suspect you are a person of action. You live wholly in the moment. As such I think its hard for you to evaluate how life is lived, your too busy living it.

Kudos to you for it too. No one is more chained than the person striving for freedom.

 

I will get to the point. I argue that how we interpret or otherwise perceive experience, knowledge and support is based upon chemical reactions and electrical impulses is our heads that inexorably lead us to what we perceive as a choice but the choice was determined absent our will.

Meh, it's all esoteric philosophising but fun to ponder. IMO there is no difference between free will and the illusion of free will as they both objectively appear exactly the same.

 

A combination of all three I would have thought.

 

Gosh thanks.. your approval means everything to me

it doesn't prove anything about free will because you quoted one of my replies to a question, the answer about free will is my first post in this thread

 

Well yes, I see what you mean, the chemical reactions though are epigenetic, so you're epigenetically programmed during pregnancy and then again epigenetically reprogrammed by your environment your entire life, so stressful childhood equals different chemical reactions to easy childhood and so your choices will be made accordingly,

so what we perceive as free will is actually your programming throughout your life.... can't really argue with that as it's more or less what I've said but in a different way.

 

This is like saying only certain animals have echolocation. What does this have to do with free will?

What? Go do some reading on this and chew on for a bit. You can, just by using what you already know and a little logic, conclude that the concept of free will makes little sense. People are not unbounded in their ability to make decisions.