Freewill exists

I don’t think anyone can understand all facets of everything they experience. We have a very narrow awareness of all the things our we are experiencing, there are filters on all senses and even our own coginitive states and their contents are happening rapidly and some outside of consciousness.

I don’t know what the bolded section means. If you could reword and give an example.

So they are free, but to a lesser degree. Before it seemed like you were saying they were not free and we are.

But you do desire things. So I don’t need to deal with this hypothetical.

Dogs or animals that are still subconscious can’t learn from a priori, they learn through a posteriori, experience.

We can learn through a priori because we are conscious and only becoming more conscious.

Who says anything about it being hypothetical?
Just because I /choose/ to value staying alive and not committing suicide doesn’t mean I fear dying, it doesn’t mean I don’t place the same value on dying, it doesn’t mean I /have/ to care to live. It simply means I made a /decision/ to care and it isn’t even for my own satisfaction, it’s for humanities evolution really. Determinism is based on instinct and being trapped by instincts, is it not? I am not trapped. Most fear death and so they value life based off of a trap. I value life because I have chosen to.

Dogs aren’t fully conscious. They’re subconscious, they’re more functioning on instincts rather than conscious choice. If dogs were conscious they would be inventing and have time kept track of at the very least. Some humans are subconscious and not very conscious either. Doesn’t mean we’re better than dogs, means we’re merely ahead in evolution, of which some people aren’t really.

Awareness/consciousness is as narrow as one makes it or chooses for it to be. I can understand any experience that happens to me, if I choose to put the time and effort into understanding such.

So what have you learned lately from a priori?

I didn’t say anything about you fearing dying.

You seem to be conflating desire with selfishness. You have a desire to help humanity’s evolution.

Determinists would generally consider instincts one cause amongst many and that nothing is uncaused and everything is inevitable.

A desire that may not get fulfilled and in knowing this, how can it still be a desire, why would it be? Desire and satisfaction only lead to more pain or fear, desire is illusory, satisfaction is illusory, they do not last, what’s the point of a desire if not satisfaction? How is connecting desire and satisfaction conflating desire with selfishness? Is a desire not something that makes one feel good? No? Then what is the point of it being desired then?

I am not bound by desires. I would say existing has objective value. Something is better than nothing. Well things do have causes but the subconscious and unconscious has no discretion of time, we have control over cause and effect as well. That’s choice. which understanding opens up a will to those choices and possibilities, a priori and one can estimate outcomes from those possibilities and choices.

The contrast shows, most people in the world, on average I’d say, don’t do philosophy and don’t seek to understand or be conscious due to fear and being trapped in desire. Getting out of a trap and being humble is a choice.

Understanding is a struggle, not something seen as satisfactory, the being ignorant and the fear, it being demanding of you as well. This shows in reality, sociology. There is no un knowing either.

Fear is the other motivator of a possible deterministic argument. Which what’s courage then, what’s wisdom? We have choices, and a free will.

What have I learned from a priori? Too many things to count, is philosophy not a priori? Is that not the point of discussion? Are you stating I haven’t learned anything from a priori/deductive logic? I don’t need anyone to tell me not to eat a tide pod or that it would be bad to do such, do you? I do not need to observe or experience such to know I shouldn’t.

Nah! you missed my point. Read again,

I did not refer to absolving people, rather believers absolving God from guilt, i.e. God has nothing to do with the evil committed by people. Rather they believe it is people who exercise their absolute free will which has nothing to do with God, therefore God can punish them.

What you missed out is this;

There are two aspects of thinking and ‘will’ that run from different paths;

  1. Subconscious and instinctual impulses that trigger thoughts which leads to one thinking about the impulses, e.g. hunger. Example, when your stomach is empty, your system will trigger the hunger system which trigger you in thinking you are hungry. In this case, you cannot think freely because the thought of hunger has already arisen in your conscious thinking mind.
    Of course you can think about these thoughts [thinking] subsequently, that is conscious thinking.

2. Conscious thinking.
the action of using one’s mind to produce thoughts
merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thinking

This is where you think of eating. Example when you see someone eating something which trigger you to think consciously of eating and that you also want to eat.
In this case, you can think freely, i.e. in future you can choose not to think of hunger and eating when you see others are eating. This is where impulse control within a person who is fast is doing.

So there are two types of thinking based on the sources of thoughts. You are mixing up this two concepts all the time, thus the confusion.

So what have you learned lately from a priori?

I didn’t say anything about you fearing dying.

You seem to be conflating desire with selfishness. You have a desire to help humanity’s evolution.

Determinists would generally consider instincts one cause amongst many and that nothing is uncaused and everything is inevitable.
[/quote]

The phrase ‘a desire that may not get fulfilled’ makes perfect sense and people complain about not getting what they desire and their lack of hope around certain desires all the time.

Desires are not illusory. Perhaps that it will all be as satisifying as one hopes is illusory. Emotions exist, desires exist. You seem to be confusing a discussion of whether desires are good or come with correct beliefs with a discussion of whether they exist. I am not advocating for desires, though I could, but rather I am saying they exist and you have them as motivators.

[/quote]
There are lots of thing animals will not eat due to instincts. There are lots of things we get the idea to avoid because of non-verbal communication and patterns in parenting and other people’s behavior. I haven’t asserted you haven’t learned anything via a priori - which I actually think is an odd way of phrasing it - but I am curious as to what you base your significantly different conscoiusness from dogs with. We are much more free, according to you, or can be. Fine. YOu say this is because we can learn via a priori. Actually I would say the larger difference is we can learn from experience much more than dogs can. But, here I am just asking you what significant things you learned, like last week, via a priori? If it makes us quite different, then it must happen quite a bit. So I wanted to see examples.

Yes, I had said we have instincts already, I understand we do.

But we do not have to play into them. That is the point of being conscious.

Consciousness frees itself by understanding the aspects of the subconscious mind.

That’s generally how instincts work yeah, we have a stomach, we didn’t eat, it growls to let us know, we can choose to listen or we can choose to ignore it. It’s a simple warning with simple answers in response. This doesn’t mean the will is not free.

What does the stomach growling have to do with having a mind that’s free? The body is instinctual, the mind doesn’t have to be, the contrast shows in reality of who is controlled by instincts and who isn’t. What’s the point of wisdom or psychology if not to control your own instincts?

Determinism exists, didn’t state it didn’t but it doesn’t negate a free will or free thought. Just because my stomach growls does not mean I automatically have to think of hunger, it’s a good warning though, I could be thinking of a million different things however and I can make a conscious decision on what I wish to do, which has effects I can estimate and predict the outcome. So then how can one be trapped in instinct or by cause/effect if you already know the end game?

It’s like a man seeing a bear trap, his curious instinctual nature taunts him into wanting to understand it, he can choose to step in it or not, he steps in it and then says he has no free will because of the effects and his nature being curiosity, even when he had the option to not.
We are only as bound so far as we let ourselves become bound. The subconscious mind is undeniable, I argue for the subconscious, not against it, I however do argue for multiple levels of consciousness and not solely relying on the subconscious to blame.

What I have noticed is that most seem to confuse the body and choice with the freedom of will, the two are not to be conflated. It is obvious the body communicates, the will does not have to listen. Hence, Evolutions trial and error.

We used to be purely instinctual and not conscious but here we are now, conscious. There are levels. It is due to the subconscious of which we experienced a string of infinity that granted us consciousness, complex development of sensory organs due to trial and error and preservation. The will is free now because we worked for it in the past and some choose to throw their will away, it’s laughable. Those who chain themselves, might as well return back to the dirt.

Karpal,

If the satisfaction is temporary, stemming from a want or desire, then why attach to desires? Is that still logical to want something you may never have or to attach self to something of which is temporary? When ones life is already temporary? No, it isn’t logical, it’s the creation of unnecessary pain and resistance. So when a desire is not fulfilled, is that typically painful to bare? Yes. So then why attach to it from the beginning? If you do not attach yourself to desire, you are free of its pain, you are not controlled by it. It depends on if you attach to the desire or not for it to be a motivator, just because I /want/ a guitar doesn’t mean I am motivated to go get one, that’s the killing of attachment to desires satisfaction, which the satisfaction is illusory due to leading back to pain/fear anyways.

Which is the point I am trying to make.

There is a reason for what we need often being more painful than what we desire. Because a lesson and pain, isn’t based off of illusory satisfaction that disappears as soon as you get it. Attachment to desires do such. One can desire without attachment, this is free will executed. A chosen desire with acceptance of what it is.

I advocate balance by choice, however.

I say we may learn via a priori now, I didn’t state why. The reason why is due to the subconscious and unconscious string of experiencing of an infinite amount, a string of change that we are attached to (but did not directly experience outside of our own individual life)of all that was and all there is to come, yes a dog would avoid it because of instincts, a priori isn’t based off of avoiding something due to an instinct resulting from direct experience, it’s based off of conscious logical deducing, so that’s the first issue with your argument about dogs.

Dogs aren’t as evolved as humans. The dogs and subconscious animals are also attached to this string we are attached to of which leads up to this point now, they are just much farther behind. Tide pods weren’t around when I was a child and I certainly never had anyone tell me not to eat laundry detergent and never would need to, I can logically deduce on my own, not to eat it, it isn’t for eating. Nothing instinctual about it, don’t need observation or experience to understand not to. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to make fun of those who /do/ eat tide pods.

A lot of what I type here, I learned from a priori, of which branches back into a posteriori that I do not have to directly experience, the past experience, which is embedded into our being and genetics, it is merely memory. What do you think instincts are? A warning of a past a posteriori experience, the separation between us and them is that we may logically deduce, which isn’t instinct or based off of such, without being controlled by instincts fully. So to access this past a posteriori memory, through a priori now, are you implying we have to do so through an instinct? Like dogs? Then what’s the point of logic?

I didn’t observe experiments or experience the beginning of the universe personally or directly, to which I may logically/reasonably conclude a change occurred of which started a string of instinctive reactions that grew more complex and still continues, leading up to now. Yet at the same time, I am attached to the string of which was the development and experience of such, which I can consciously think of using a priori and am attached to. We are embedded with an infinity and so now we may understand it through logic. That’s what consciousness is, that is the freedom of will. Dogs are on their way but significantly behind us for now.

We also can learn from a posteriori to a higher extent than dogs, like you stated as well

Again, right now I am arguing that they exist and are included in your motivations, even ones you consider logical or selfless. It’s a different discussion about whether one should or should not attach. On that tangent, desires are part of me and who I am. I don’t like cutting off parts of myself, as, for example, the Buddhists suggest while using other words.

And if you kill yourself the pain is over and you don’t have to meditate for lifetimes.

I don’t eat detergent because of all sort of cues I have gotten from adults about what is food and what is not coupled with the fact that it does not attract any desire to eat it. Experience plus instinct.

What did you learn in the last couple of days from a priori?

And I am arguing that one is more so and mainly bound by the boundaries one creates for themself.

A desire is not something apart of you, a need is. There’s a difference.
Why do you think the truth is bitter, why do you think that most people choose their desires over the truth?

A desire is illusory due to the fact that satisfaction may not be met, a need is not based off of satisfaction but instead what one may need to survive. There is no attribution of value, it’s objective. A desire is subjective value attribution. My wanting to live is my choice of value attribution, it doesn’t mean I have to choose or desire it. That’s not a hypothetical, that’s reality. Desires also change based off of information which is also another proof of them being temporary and illusions of ego.
I never argued that illusions or traps didn’t exist. That’s your own misconception of what I have stated. The fact is, desires are from choice, of a will that is free and only becomes more free through pursuit of understanding, which is painful and opposite of what most desire, which is satisfaction.

We recycle, who knows into what or where to. There may not be pain, that isn’t up to a single identity/ego. If in the state of nothing, no pain exists, no time and no change. I enjoy meditating, I enjoy life because I have chosen to value it for what it is truly. That’s my choice.

You don’t eat detergent because you have logically deduced that it is bad and shouldn’t be eaten, not that you rely on empirical evidence or a direct consequence of experiencing it.

I have already given an example of what I have learned from a priori.

A posteriori happened first, yes, I do not deny such, what I deny is being directly involved with a lot of that a posteriori/experiences,as my identity of which I appear as right now, in the beginning of the universe, yet we have deduced conclusions of such beginning. How else do we invent things and have ideas if not logical deduction while using a posteriori to solidify such? You can understand something through logical deduction before you project it into reality, inventions are a proof of that.

An example of a priori or logical/reasonable deduction - all bachelors remain unmarried.

I don’t need to choose between my desires and the truth. Amongst other things, I desire the truth or truths. Not always, but often.

It is a valuing life. A desire to experince, have, connect, see others, live. I don’t know if it’s better to be a live, but I desire it.

I desire both. My desires to know things, to be whole, to accept myself, all require facing painful things.

I was told early on about not eating a variety of things. There is also deduction involved, yes. It’s a combination of experience and deduction.

And a proof of one of the many positive effects of desire. And inventions often require desire, experience and sure deduction. And failed deduction often until one deduces right or gets lucky.

I am not sure that’s a good deduction, it’s a floppy sentence. But it’s also nothing that gives me pride over dogs. You can’t invent something just with a priori knowledge.

There may very well be something else that is also occurring besides absolute Determinism: randomness.

Consider, for example, the weather.
Weather exemplifies a fundamental tenet to Chaos Theory: a sensitivity to initial conditions. The more accurately that you can ascertain the initial conditions of a weather system, the more precisely you can predict it, but the slightest error can throw off such a prediction exponentially, and especially so the further into the future that you try to predict. At some point, precision reaches the level where quantum effects come into play, and it may be the case that these effects end up dictating the weather in the same way as Schrodinger ridiculed with his cat example. It may be the case that Determinism breaks down at scales where the effects come into play, or it may not. If Quantum Indeterminacy turns out to hold, then randomness may become a factor in certain ways to certain degrees alongside the Determinism that very clearly emerges in spite of it outside of the quantum realm (think the “red spot” of Jupiter, or the Lorenz attractor as examples of order emerging from chaos).

This argument could be clearer.

  1. Are you saying that calculating reasons requires “an internal”, absolute Determinism has all reasons as external, therefore it contradicts the requirement of “an internal” and Determinism cannot be absolute.
  2. And from this you’re concluding that with less than absolute Determinism, a non-zero degree of non-deterministic reasoning is being made, which must be Free Will?

I have challenged “2” in opening this post, I think the dichotomy of either Determinism or Free Will is a false one, if there’s anything other than Determinism then it’s just Indeterminacy, which is no reason and nobody’s will - nevermind a free one.
“1” needs expanding and explaining. What is “an internal”? Where exactly does it border the external and why? What is the connection between the internal and external such that they can interact? Is this calling upon Dualism and the mind-body problem? The subject/object split?
Deterministic causation operates throughout reality, including “the self” - a nebulous concept if there ever was one. Therefore I don’t think any distinction between any “internal” and “external” is necessary at all. So even though your logic sounds shaky due to the lack of clarity, I don’t think the premises get off the ground in the first place anyway.

Hard Determinism doesn’t absolve guilt, it ties everyone to their actions by definition: they literally determine their actions to happen. But they were also determined to determine them to happen, and so guilt is revealed to not be solely that of the determiner of said actions. And it’s not therefore all the fault of what determined them to determine their actions and not theirs at all - that is far too black and white. Guilt is not removed just because it’s spread out - to claim so that would be to commit the formal fallacy of “affirming a disjunct”.

Further, Determinism forces a much needed humility on people who aren’t solely responsible for any good that they determine to occur. Just like with guilt, merit is spread to what determined you to determine any good too. It is a much needed cure for the “fundamental attribution error”.

Basically Determinism does everything that Free Will does, but moreso and better. It provides context rather than focusing on the individual. If anything it emphasises consequences, making everyone more aware of what their decisions might result in, encouraging moral behaviour even more than Free Will does.

I’ll leave the first part alone and only state that you’re contradicting yourself from previous systems made… that what you’re defining at the end as determinism, you’ve otherwise defined as “soft determinism” or compatibalism in another post.

Can you clarify that?

In saying all that, even as a counter argument, you are the only person so far on these boards that discussed this line of thought intelligently. You can certainly expect a reply. I’m too busy for that right now.

You said that you have a very high iq, so, you can probably infer this, compatibalism is not a freewill argument, it is an argument which states that for every choice there are restrictions.

So, you’re “determinism better than freewill” argument, is a straw man to this regard.

You do need to choose what you do desire consciously though, to avoid traps. If one wants truth, then that is not a pursuit of satisfaction but instead a pursuit of struggle and learning from struggles.

Desires if not observed for what they are or can be, become traps of temporary satisfaction.

Yes and it is a choice one may make from a free will, a level of consciousness of which is determined by the individual themself.
.

And you are free in this choice because you can also choose the opposite and most do, which can lead to becoming stuck in traps, a narrowed view of the big picture.

Agree, it is a combination of both things, but we don’t have to experience things directly always to form a logical conclusion, I feel dogs at their current level of consciousness are more instinctive and shaped by a posteriori than the ability to use and function off of forming conclusions from logic or the mind alone, which is the first or middle step in inventing something.

Trial and error, desire if attributed in a balanced method is not a trap, it is when one becomes attached to desire that they may become entrapped and the will is less free I feel, one can be trapped by their desire to invent as well, have to severe attachment.

No you can’t, you’re right, but it is a crucial step into inventing of which I do not think or know that dogs possess such capability, yet. I think we can induce consciousness upon other animals however. It’s just a matter of time and confined experimentation of which is a question of morals.

The deduction I provided was the example given with the definition of a priori, it’s easy to conclude such, it doesn’t seem like a priori or a good example due to how simple of an example it is, I’d think.

that’s another confused idea usually used in support of the freewill argument. we expect that because we may not perceive a pattern, repetition, ordered sequence… or are not able to predict with certainty some future event, that therefore there is no causation at work. and some credibility is lended to this assumption because causation is an inference - not knowledge we gain a posteriori - and so isn’t empirical or inductive. we can never experience causation, so it’s easy for us to fall into the irrational reasoning that it doesn’t exist. but despite this, the burden of proof is actually reversed here; it is up to us to prove that because we perceive no pattern, repetition or ordered sequence, we are not merely faced only with a problem of observation, but something more. the first impression should be that this really is only a problem of observation, and that causation is still working. then, after a little deductive reasoning, we would logically conclude that causation must exist.

consider this; a thing cannot be compelled to change or move without something external acting upon it. not knowing in advance how it might change/move in no way proves that there is nothing causing it to do so. all this proves is that these circumstances cannot be predicted in advance.

now if we say that a thing can compel itself to change/move, and all things consist of composite parts, we have to ask which part of the thing initiated the change. if we have a particle that begins to decay, do we say that each individual electron in the field of radiation that results, simultaneously compelled itself to move? what made the particle that was just moments ago not yet in decay, coordinate all of it’s parts to act as they did? the answer is, there was no singular ‘thing’ to compel itself to change/move… but just a collection or divisable parts that have formed a temporary unity. the unity - the ‘thing’ - does not cause itself to remain as a unity, nor does it cause itself to cease being that unity. it remains as it is until something external to it in space/time affects it through an exchange of forces. and if this holds true for all unities, then no ‘thing’ can be a cause for change/motion in anything else. causation is a mystery force that can’t be observed (e.g., we don’t actually see gravity or electromagnetic force, etc.), so we must infer that it exists because there is no other theoretical alternative to explain the characteristic movement and activity of material substances.

what most here are failing to understand is that when describing freewill, something is assumed; that there is a ‘self’, and that this self is, itself, one of these mysterious forces that acts on things… makes things change/move. but this can’t be true because like anything else, the ‘self’ is just a temporary unity of composite parts, each of which have no causal affect on anything. the body, just like everything else, is subject to the same causation.

so if i say ‘I’ decided to stand up, what actually happened? where is this ‘I’, and what kind of force is it? does the ‘I’ suddenly come into existence after the neuron fires, or does it exist before? does my abstract concept ‘me’ cause the neuron to fire, or does the firing neuron result in me having the abstract concept ‘me’?

there are basically two options here. cartesian dualism or substance monism. everyone here (the freewillists) is operating under the precepts of cartesian dualism, whether they know it or not. all this talk about randomness and unpredictability and chaos is neither here nor there. the question is not how things change/move, or if they change/move, but why they change/move. what things do, and how they do it - their forming patterns, sequences, ordered repetitions, etc., - is not the reason for their doing so. you guys are asking the wrong questions… way the fuck out in left-field somewhere.

Or maybe you’re way the fuck in right field.

Sure there is and there has been for a long time, it’s called consciousness. Everything is instinctive due to change. Even the unconscious aspects, are still instinctive, appearing sessile or not. A participle only stops what it is doing because it is both nothing and everything. It is literally like rewinding time which time is change all the way back to it’s beginning and then asking “why are we at nothing, what is it? Why isn’t the particle moving or doing anything?” I don’t know, why don’t you try pushing pause on a film and tell me why there isn’t any moving in your observing it. The beginning has to be nothing so something can be anything/everything. It isn’t a unity in the way of which you may be implying it is, it’s a string of unconscious and subconscious or instinctive changes/experiences of which evolved into complex overlapping states of being. Usually when something comes from nothing, it can be turned back into nothing or consciously paused and does not act as something but appears as nothing.

Unconscious > subconscious > conscious

Don’t say there has been no alternatives to explain the movement and what not when there has been answers sitting around forever.

You think that there is no self? Do you not have any ideas that come to your own mind? Creativity?
The self is a layer of the subconscious/unconscious mind and it is immortal, it has no discretion and has no attachment to ego/identity or individuality other than when existing in dualistic/trinity form with such. The self isn’t temporary, the ego is. The self is the string of which the ego is attached to and the body the receiver of such. Do you deny being attached to a string of instinctive change that is an infinity, that became complex and conscious of itself?

So are you saying we are not more complex than a single neuron being fired in comparison? Are you saying mankind understands the full mind and the full extent of consciousness? I am more than a neuron and so are you, so are trees. Cells exist sure, observable sure, does it mean we, a collection of multiple functions and trillions of cells changing, is explained by how a single neuron functions? No, I don’t think so, I think we are more complex than the single observable or collection of neurons and how they react, is a neuron conscious of itself and it’s instinctual nature?

You attribute value to standing up for why you would or wouldn’t do such, which requires conscious decision, the consciousness couldn’t exist without the subconscious/unconscious evolving each other, which the immortal self is buried in and one has to be choosing to be conscious of.
.

Then how did we get here? Even the unconscious aspects have instincts and are technically “alive”. Everything moves already because everything vibrates, does it not?

Obviously not, because something came from nothing which nothing is in itself, something solo, so what was external to it then? So then tell me, what compelled nothing? Something, which is instinctual and also not external to nothing, which is why your physics particles display as nothing and doing nothing when consciously observed, because we are still attached to what we may observe and can revert back to, which is nothing.

What compelled itself, which was nothing, to move? Unconscious instinct and objective value. Which evolved and became more complex in a series of ever changing and overlapping contrasts.

I would choose to avoid traps based on desire. I would choose what I do desire based on what I like. But the fact is I find myself with certain proclivities. I can accept many of these, or I can judge myself and needed to be cleaned out.

Perhaps the biggest trap is thinking that satisfaction should be permanent.

I can’t see how denying one’s desires makes one more free.

That’s fine. I just wonder about what recent specific examples of apriori conclusions you’ve reached show a greatness in comparison with dogs.

The World as Will and Representation is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World … esentation

I believe your idea of ‘will’ is moving toward that of Schopenhauer, who believe there is ‘will’ that is independent and work through the conscious human being.

Many argued this idea of ‘will’ is associated with God.

My argument is there is no absolute will that is absolutely free.
Every aspect of will that is associated with humans are subjected to the human conditions.

It is very hard not to become entrapped by desire given that it is what you want and therefore appears entirely natural
Avoiding it completely is not really possible but controlling or reducing it through self denial or willpower is achievable