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Free Will: The Ultimate Psychosis

  
  

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—| x |—
21:46 / 17.05.03
Yeah SMatthew, what Coyote said.
 
 
Leap
10:10 / 19.05.03
Am I the only person who actually left feeling sick with fear as far as this subject goes?!!

The only way I can cope with it is to understand everything as the same being acting through different personal "avatars" that each have their own personal motivations......which is kind of scarey as well, though perhaps not as scarey.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
10:25 / 19.05.03
Well, that would depend. What do you find particularly frightening?
 
 
Leap
10:28 / 19.05.03
The idea of powerlessness and a lack of a self that is not simply a vessel for another.
 
 
Leap
10:37 / 19.05.03
The way I am trying to deal with it is the idea of some kind of a spark of a divine XXXXX in everything (a 'deity' that fragmented itself into a mass of sparks of which each 'thing' is a representation (a persona around the spark); including, in the case of us animals, a personality around the spark) - pantheism I guess but not with the unified entity concept behind many such views...............
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
10:43 / 19.05.03
Well, that's asusming that just becasue you lack free will that you are powerless. This is clearly untrue. You may have agency, but not free agency; for example, you have just *acted*, by posting on Barbelith, whether or not that action was a free choice or a matter of deterministically or psychologically/psychochemically compelled action.

Likewise, the self can remain the self without being a self with free agency...

(P.S. The "life spark" idea is a common in Stoicism, if you want to read around)
 
 
Spyder Todd 2008
12:45 / 19.05.03
Yeah, what Haus said. I think, Leap, that what you're talking about might be called Atman, but that's not really a good name for it.
Just because you have no choice in what you do doesn't mean you’re powerless. It just means that the choices you make are being forced upon you by the situation and your cultural upbringing. So, for example, I would say that the reason you felt sick reading this post and then came back to state your point is that your cultural upbringing programmed you to react that way in this situation. Does this make any sense at all, or am I just rambling?
 
 
Quantum
13:53 / 19.05.03
The Atman concept is sometimes expressed as 'Avatar', both denoting a splinter of the Divine in us (this crops us in most cultures and philosophies, notably Gnosticism although that derides the material)

Leap, have you been reading Mage? {Magick stylee} Think of it this way- the Avatar is the Power that allows us to affect Creation/Reality, but that power has no Will- We have the Will to direct that power. Your Avatar can be considered as a patron in a way, they give you the power and you are free to use it, they simply advise you (and occcasionally disapprove) they're not demons possessing us. {/Magick forum stylee}

eZ- if counterfactuals do no work on free will, the other options are an empty set, then *we could not have done otherwise*. So we're determined, non?

Also Leap, your self can't be a vessel for another, it's you.
 
 
Quantum
14:30 / 19.05.03
I clearly have free will. If science can't explain it then it needs amending. (Me)

I think that's a bit hasty, you may clearly think you have free will but that doesn't make you free. Dead Flower

What I mean is, I am more sure that I have free will than I could ever be of a particular scientific hypothesis i.e. that the universe is causally determined. I could never be persuaded by inductive argument that my subjective experience of choice is invalid.

Some related things I want to bring up but have to go on holiday (although I'm free not to )

- Epiphenomenalism, the doctrine that our minds are simply side effects of the material, causally determined world (like the shadow of the tree thinking 'ooh, it's so difficult dragging the whole world arond to keep the tree between me and the sun')

- Chance, Fate and Destiny and if they exist (if the concept of chance is real then predeterminism falters, Fate can be the determining factor rather than God or Scientific causation, can you defy your own destiny, etc)

- Mind Control, both sci-fi/magical and Derren Brown psychological manipulation, and whether that denies freedom. If we're determined then mind control is morally acceptable (beyond the 'no moral responsibility' idea, given that we're responsible but determined, we have no freedom of choice to lose so mind control is not objectionable)

- Donnie Darko (of course) and predicting the future, prophecy and so on.

I'll be back, God willing have fun while I'm gone.
 
 
—| x |—
04:35 / 20.05.03
“Am I the only person who actually left feeling sick with fear as far as this subject goes?!!”

Ah yes, the existential fear regarding the who, what, where, when, and why of being the became and the becoming ‘I’. Your metaphors of sparks, avatars, and pantheism also relates to the metaphor of the diamond which you can find being commented upon by LVX23,Quantum, and myself recently. In the past this metaphor has also been spoken about by Ierne twice, and again some commentary by an earlier incarnation of me.

“if counterfactuals do no work on free will, the other options are an empty set, then *we could not have done otherwise*. So we're determined, non?”

Non. Parce-que j’ai conclu ‘emptiness’ et identique a ‘everything’: souvenons-nous 1c) (I’m pretty sure I butchered the French, but I gave it a shot). Again, counterfactuals do no work for either side of the debate. Like I said before, “I think that the universe goes everywhich way,” in this respect, since counter-factuals represent all possible ways, they must also represent no ways since in all ways each possibility also has its negation. Ya’ dig?

“I am more sure that I have free will than I could ever be of a particular scientific hypothesis…”

I am prone to agree with this; however, as I said before I don’t think there is an argument for or against free will. Free will is a belief that isn’t demonstrably true or false. To me the whole debate is not framed within an appropriate line of questioning or argumentation. Questions I feel are more appropriate regard the phenomena of free will with respect to its role in our human experience: perhaps in line with questions of chance and fate—but more about the function that such a belief plays in the context of particular human lives.
 
 
ReformedRobotMan
12:03 / 20.05.03
How can one talk about Free Will in Pyramid [ caste] structured societies? How can one talk about Free Will let alone research the lot, within societies that are based on Rules and regulations called the Law? which was preceded by the Commands of a God? How can one talk to those living under the rulings of others, How can free will be if one is told as of birth what to do and what not do, starting with Mommie restricting her own, No tommy.. You can Not do that.. No that is not allowed, hush do not say that.. or .. you are not allow to say this or that etc etc how can one even think about a free will when Kindergarden School University Mariage Breeding Working Consuming Following Belonging Trends TV series Movies and upholding their Laws etc are telling us what to do how to do it and especially what to say or not?

Free will can only be discussed if we would be living in free societies, which non of us are, not you guys in England nor we in Holland or where ever we are being governed by Econimics. The best joke on us their peoples, has been installing False sentiments and believes of freedom, just because we are Free to consume whatever we want, including Drugs in whatever form, Parties being allowed where drugs is being used, freedom of arts, the way of dressing etc does Not mean that we are free, travelling or moving from one city to another within a country will show one thing clear, and that is that we are all living in Open Prison camps, numbers codes and papers to fill etc Passports ID cards social security numbers to name but a few. Do one thing that is not within their rules of conducts and one sees how free a person is. Our choices are made within the possibilities given by leaders within a society, so how free is that?

Slaves by Free Will is what we have been for the longest and we still are, how do we enslave ourselves? Lets talk about all these surveillance camera’s of which London was the first in Europe to be wired completely first, even before Holland/Amsterdam.. how was it possible for them to install all these camera’s ? without us protesting at all? At the same time they came with stories about more protection for the people against criminals and telling the people that camera’s would be a darn good idea, they came with the other set up, Reality TV, and by this we Granted them the right to do so, by watching their Reality Shows, by the ratings , the signal was given that we agree with their little games.. thus the instalment of camera’s was started, { 3 years was all they needed to wire the whole of the western worlds} and due to the common men making these shows a success, by watching, they got used looking trough a camera, spying on others and seeing the camera’s all the time.. so then when passing a camera most would not see due to the fact that our brain got programmed to find this normal. We react to the unusual , which is not implanted in our brain and because of the brain not recognizing we then react and notice.. but when we are confronted with something over and over again it becomes familiar, the picture installed within our brain, and when confronted we do not really react, and as such not to many people saw the instalment of these camera’s let alone noticing the growth of all the surveillance camera’s , the smallest ones being as big as a stipple. Only a very small group of people world wide reacted.

Free Will is the absolute False sentiment of our day and age..unless one takes it back, stealing our free will from us started ages ago.. then they came with religion, by putting your believe in the hands of a god, you give away a big part of your free will for you follow the religions rule of conduct. Then telling a flock that they have to belong to a group or they are seen as outcast, is again taking away Free Will which can Only be if one does not have to abide the rules of others/leaders, Free will can only be talked about if All are Equal, if not it simply does not exist and becomes a wish of the brain that feels imprisoned by the rules of others, of which one never made the choice to follow by free will, but had to do so due to being born within a certain group/society/religion or country.
Ask a person what he/she Really wants.. and most will answer … and ending with But I guess that will always stay a dream.. or others saying but you can not for we live in a world telling us..

But the good news is that we have left the Free will zone, as of 911, and look at the world slowly waking up… the days of our brains being captured by those who seem to need the flock { they would not exist without the always agreeing and obeying and fearing flock} are no longer, the resistance of the people world wide is proof, and this is not just because our leaders have become to much etc but due to the planets changing their position almost everyday and the earth shifting, a process which started 3 years ago.

We are at the phase of shedding our chains freeing ourselves from all that needs us to be Brave new world slaves following the rules of a 1984 state and swallowing their Soma’s is all white drugs that make us go to sleep while being awake.. In Old Sanskrit Soma was the name given to Milk.. because of the ability of making you go to ‘Sleep’ and a flock that is asleep can be governed best, Soma means “To Sleep”
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:42 / 20.05.03
...and milk makes you gay. Your model of free will is somewhat Strawsonian, there, RRM, and I'm sure we'll get onto it shortly.

On epiphenomenalism and deteminism, I'm going to be cheeky and quote myself, to give a bit of background and some possible bases for further discussion while Quantum is off sunning his bad self.

Determinism is not a single entity, but rather a description common to a number of different views of the universe. The most common form of determinism is one in which God (for want of a better term) knows everything that has happened, will happen and is happening. A variant of this, known as the watchmaker theory, is that, although God is not currently overseeing his creation, he set it up in a particular way and it is now "running down" - heading mechanistically to a particular set of conclusions. Both of these have implications for free will, int he sense that, as dear old Robert Rankin puts it, if a divine being has known since the beginning of time what you're going to be having for breakfast today, it rather invalidates the notion fo free will. This is a simplification, but more on that later.

This is propostion (a). Proposition (b) turns up in strength in the 16-17th century, when the doctrine of free will is pretty much accepted by the church as a necessary element in the dialogue of salvation, but also when physics was developing a relationship between cause and effect. One way to reconcile this, originated by Descartes and developed by Guelincx, was to presume that the body was bound by the laws of physics, and thus in effect a marionette of the divine (the laws of physics and the universe in general being a construction of the divine), although Descartes subsequently modified his opinion to allow for the mind acting upon the body. Guelincx's "rwo clocks" idea is a handy one here, for its purity; he argues that the mind and body are both running simultaneosuly, but that there is no connection between the wish to raise an arm and the raising of an arm; the two are concurrent through divine plan rather than through volition. More moderate variations on the same theme have the body as physically dictated but the mind free to think independently, and thus make moral judgements and decisions, which are more important than the actions of the body that they dictate to a greater or lesser extent.

Skip a few centuries. The modern conception of preordination is *scientific* preordination. In scientific preordination, every action is the result of certain scientific principles, down to the action of cause and effect in the electrochemistry of the brain, and therefore ever action is in the purest sense predetermined by every cause feeding into it. Thus, if somebody understood precisely all the rules by which the universe works, and all the conditions operating in the universe at any specific time, then they can extrapolate the conditions operating in the universe at any point before or after that time.

Point being, it's impossible to know either the rules by which the universe functions or the condition of the universe in every particular; it would require absolutely infinite understanding, and thus basically divinity. There's a comparative argument that al lhuman reactions and responses are socially and culturally determined, which basically exists to claim that ethics are cultural rather than instinctive and that absolute morality doesn't exist. We don't need to consider this case too closely outside the broader argument of scientific determinism for the moment.

One of the arguments cited both in favour and in opposition of this model of determinism is Chaos; those in favour supplementarily using the argument that both posit a model of the universe that is in effect infinitely complex and bound by infinitely complex rules, and those against arguing that the extra level of complexity introduced by emergent properties makes the idea of the status of the universe at one moment being a map by which the status of the universe at another point can be determined meaningless. You'd have to talk to a mathematician about this for a more detailed look.

The point of this? Well, consider when one is looking at a complex sentence in another language or a complex equation, and the instinctual human capacity to recognise patterns and remembered understanding of the rules provide an apparent revelation, when the conscious mind becomes suddenly aware of the solution, yes? Well, one might see precognition ,in this view of the universe, as a moment when the finite but significant pattern recognition capabilities of the human mind, enhanced perhaps by trance state, mystic power or similar according to one's wishes, might at one moment and without conscious application recognise with some degree of accuracy some emergent possibility the conscious mind would not in itself be able to detect.

Emergence and also the debate over the predictability of subatomic physics are both elements to feed into this...perhaps first by questioning their relevance. Likewise the idea that belief in free will overrides scientific or other conjecture against it.
 
  

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