I can see and respect that side as well. A bit of a trick question to me, perhaps restricted will is a better term for my opinion on it.

PEACE MV

I think that to make a choice either way is a collapse into existentialism..it implies that some things come before other something, but what does that even mean?..dont really know how to say it exactly..not that existentialsm is bad..it just doesn't make any sense ...to say that form preceeds essence?...thats basicall what this free will question touches on..but it's irrelivent..linear thinking. To humans, form sets up the essence of the next form, and so on..but that is becasue of our perception of time..

In a deterministic universe, everything is already mapped out, one thing leading into the next..but isn't that then just another illusion of the linear mind?..if it's all mapped out to begin with than isnt it all there anyway..so what creates what?? No human could answer that question..yet here we are, and shit still needs to get finished, there are things to do..yet they will be done..the equation will play itself out..it's a big paradox..and I like paradox's..because they bring us closer to the mystery.

Maybe we just need to re-define the term..free will..what does it really mean? Things happen, and thats damn amazing enough in it's own right..blows my mind! I am beginning to see free will as simply "will", and it begins as a spark in the "beginning",is just as bright in the "end", sending off little fracal shimmers of itself the whole way through, each and every thing owns a piece..that's the linear version though

Maybe I missed it, but I don't think anyone touched on the biological side of the debate. Materialists believe there is only one purpose to life and that is to procreate; everything else is irrelevant aside from furthering the goal of procreation, and thus survival. This argument holds that we are merely powerless/mindless slaves to our primary primal components: our Freudian sex drive and aggression drive. The idea that free will is actually a disguised drive or will to fuck ourselves into oblivion, and that we are slaves of our biological machinery is a pretty commonsensical concept. Only one problem...many people do not want kids, and many people intentionally never have kids, so it seems certain to me that people who actually use their brain instead of obeying every whim of their own goddamn cock or cunt every second of the day can actually overrule the supposed purpose of life, and exercise free will to a certain extent. BTW I'm not badmouthing sex or having kids, I'm only fitting these practices into the bigger picture of discussion.

Yea I do have to give you that one. We don't know shit about consciousness and the brain relative to the whole. Also, to what you say in the end of your post, I think I've heard the idea before that consciousness is like another-dimensional matter that effects the 3-D physical world we know. Probably not something for me, but I'm sure you're not the only one to ever dream of such a thing.


Wouldn't people have said the exact same thing about magnetism, or reproduction, or psychoactive drugs, or disease hundreds of years ago? Just because we don't know something now surely doesn't mean we will (or can) never know it. I think history bears this out. Plus I'd suggest we do know SOMETHING about these topics, even if it's not everything, so I'd have to disagree with you there as well.




I just really like your post, fractal. So when you say existentialism I take it from your words you mean seeing each moment as ACTUALLY happening in order? Like the "present" really is the present, and the future and the past do not exist at that time? Because I've always liked a view different than that as well. Seeing all of existence as a singularity, and the passage of time as an illusion.

I also really liked your idea about redefining "free will." I often get into a similar argument talking about religion. People will say, "without religion life is so empty," to which I would respond, "look around you! You're surrounded by the most beautiful, amazing, enchanting things you could ever imagine, you don't NEED to add anything to that!" In the same way I think you're suggesting dropping the "free" from free will. And I too think that "will" should be enough. Like you said, just experiencing this reality is enough to amaze me, I don't necessarily need to have a personal (as in non-universal) hand in every little thing that happens.

StudentofSalvia... I think you missed my point, maybe you didnt get a chance to read it... but evolution, yes is almost certainly a fact, and that sifting process probably takes place throughout the universe, and that part is deterministic... but like I said in my post, our very sentiance throws that into question, because as conscious entities (which again, even evolution doesnt explain, at all, which is a shame, but maybe it explains how such a thing would come to be, we have to figure out consciousness before we can figure out it's evolutionary basis)... honestly I suspect being conscious is what gives you the power to alter the direction of the determinism... also ponder the tesseract theory, because it is entirely possible that we just experience a fraction of the physical world, completely unaware that there is a higher level of determinism above us....

It'll drive you mad this subject... I've kinda given up on it until we have new science data to work with... it may be a while. Daniel Dennett is very good at explaining this sort of things, has great ideas, in fact he's just about the only living philosopher I can stand. Look him up on youtube for insight...

music to my ears! I tell people this all the time.. what more do you want! what is it with humans that they always want more? I think Buddhism as way of living got this point very well... like you cant have suffering without desire, you cant have good without evil, I like it.

Excellent points, lbeing789. I agree that we experience only a fraction of the physical world. The well known philosopher Emmanuel Kant put it nicely when he said we are only capable of perceiving phenomena (things as we experience them) and that we will never with our sober 5 senses break through to what he coined as, Neumena (things as they are in and of themselves).

By this he means that we have no logical reason to believe that what we experience as an apple for example is anywhere close to what an apple actually is pertaining to its physical qualities (size, taste, texture, color etc) because we have no logical reason to assume that our sober five senses detect the fullness of reality. His argument is validated by the fact that the vast majority of all scientific advancement in the last century if not all was and is achieved through instruments/technology that detect what we cannot detect directly with our five senses; a fact pointed out by Buckminster Fuller.

The Tesseract theory reads as brilliant. I'll have to look into that, and Daniel Denett.
This is by far the best discussion I've ever read on the subject of free will. Everyone brings very valuable ideas to the table!

Spot on.

watch this one, it's pretty funny as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjbWr3ODbAo

Those mind teasers are pretty entertaining, but he didn't threaten my theory of consciousness.

well I wouldnt expect it to, I think more the point of that video is that what we think we know can be grossly influenced.... watch the rest of his stuff, that one is really just dipping your toe in.... I think at the moment, there isn't that much real insight, but I do believe that it will come.

My reading of Daniel Dennett's book "Consciousness Explained" in high school was probably the first, and most important, thing that got me into naturalistic-type philosophy in the first place! I thought it was strange, that while I was reading his book pretty much everything made sense to me (especially his war against the mind/body split, or "Cartesian Dualism" in his words), but when I went on to read some other modern philosophers, I found him to be almost universally disagreed with! I'll admit that's the only thing of his I've read, but I'm not sure I understand the venom he receives.

I keep hearing people say he's from the school of thought that "consciousness (LITERALLY) does not exist." Like it's nothing, just an illusion created by our brains. Maybe this is clue that he's right, but the fact that I feel, and I exist, is one of the very few things I have absolute FAITH in. I can't prove it to anyone else, but I know pain HURTS! And I'd like to see anyone try to convince me otherwise. I'm not sure how recently you've read his stuff but I'm wondering if you interpretted it the same way.

Peace
And one more great thanks to everyone who's contributed to this thread!

Thats awesome mate, I feel I'm totally in sync with what you're saying... absolutely, I agree with most of Dan's stuff, I think he has really given it some honest thought, and I was very pleased at your part about him being received with venom... to me, and I'm in a minority for some reason, most philosophy is suspiciously difficult to understand.. just like most theologies... and most people don't realise that even really complicated things boil down to really simple things in the end... and for some reason, maybe it doesn't sit well with people because they cant see through the disappointment, once you accept the ways things are, the world is so much more amazing, you feel so much less stress induced by society because you can understand it better and feel less guilty at the same time.... but anyway...

yes, Dan's work deals with the next stage of understanding, but not the ultimate stage of understanding, it's progressive... I've written before on this board about how I find it more difficult to read science related philosophy now because my understanding of how little we know was shown to me.... if I didn't know better I'd swear my first breakthrough was like a message from [something] saying : "you're so sure there is nothing else, then how do you explain this????>>>>wham ..." unbelievable experience, not sure how useful it was for a super hard headed scientist like myself... well to be honest, I guess I'm not that hard headed any more... but I just got this horrible feeling like we're all heading in the wrong direction....

The scientists/good philosophers, who I think should just be called scientists, should explore the substance more themselves, I would absolutely love to hear Dan's take on the whole subject after doing it himself. He of all people could probably explain it in a rational way... that's not to make it any less magical, humans need to realise that what we're experiencing is an amazing thing, whatever it is... maybe it's in our genes to always want more, conspiracy theorists have this problem too, they always jump to the highest possible conspiracy and keep on going... proper science taught me to appreciate things for how they are and not how I want them to be... and science is the only thing that allows you to really get outside human bias and look at things from a rational standpoint, some would argue it's completely impossible... but there been individuals who were very good at it, the best example is probably Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawkins also was very good at it...

It's a better way to live your life, and it's similar to the Buddhist teachings, they use different terminology, but the key is to understand things in perspective, understand which parts of you are left over from a distant time, understand what depression is for, understand what anger is really for, understand what love really is... then you'll have a much more rewarding, awe inspiring life... I just wish the rest of the world got it, I hate the anti-science stuff that I keep on reading everywhere.... negative, or ill conceived science is possible, get over it, ya know?

also, the fact that consciousness is created by minds does not mean we dont exist... that's probably the greatest thing I learned from the experience, was that I do exist in some higher dimensional form, and this reality somehow is less real than the real world, it totally made me believe in some idea of "heaven", nothing like the heaven described in any theolgy... maybe the universe is some kind of thing that just is, but the greatest thing of all may be that we may in fact be part of it all... sometimes I think the entities are just advanced civilasations that have figured it all out and have transcened their evolved forms into these hyperdimensional things... but I'm just wildly imagining now, DMT definitely increased my imagination for even more possibilities... it made me think more "out of the box", to use such a lame saying

Man, Ibeing, I still haven't broken through and now you're really making me wish I had, lol... I guess I'm somewhat of a hypocrite to say, "That FEELING of free will you have is just an illusion," when I myself say, "Sorry Dan, I KNOW I exist, I know I feel things," when really it's a similar thing. I've realized that even with all my supposed scientific rigor, (at least) two examples of pure FAITH still exist with me: 1)That I exist, and 2)That others exist and feel pain/pleasure like I do. But it's still faith when you come down to it. And all that isn't to mention the fact that my all-perfect view of the world doesn't seem to have helped me much, I've still had problems with depression/anxiety/addiction/etc. so there isn't much proof there. But then again, the bottom line in my world-view is that it appears to me to be the TRUTH. I may be just trying to polish a turd (ie. in reality, life is painful and pointless, and I'm wanting to find any silver lining possible to recover my sanity), but at least its a REAL turd, not some wish-fulling fantasy.

I think you're free to do what ever. You just have to deal with the resulting effects. What goes around comes around.

Well that's interesting to read, I've had the same issues really, but I guess I've learned that you can have faith in things, but you should never act on faith alone... you exist whether you exist or not, even if everything I'm typing right now isnt real, and you're just some figment of my imagination.... SO WHAT? I always got depression and anxiety, and still do, but they are caused by desire, fear of others and some kind of anger that there is no cosmic justice... something I've only just learned, that really impresses me because it's another one of those things learned whilst high.... is that life IS unfair, but I had never got the other part of the sentence before : life is unfair, but get over it. Amazingly this simple truth has totally quashed feelings of resentment, and gave me real perspective..

I believe the path of pursuing the truth is the path to having a great life, the scientific method is my life's philosophy... but you've got to remember that it's a process, Scientists are working on the ultimate truth, but they dont know it yet, so one day they'll probably prove you exist, they may even prove some kind of heaven exists, shit maybe they'll even prove that this life really is just a test for the next life, but the key here is proof... you should act on whatever truth you have at hand, leave faith for the possibilities of what is out there and damn eloheim, you havent broken through??? to be fair, I've only truly "broken through" once... but you gotta get on that shit man .

once is enough... I got the message loud and clear.