It has everything to do with regret.
Do you get tired of being wrong, or is it like a marathon for you to stomp down and trip over every hurdle on the track??
Seeing that you have options/choices is not necessarily about regret. It’s usually good to see/have options…to freely choose from…optimally. Regret happens when we know we did not choose optimally, when we could have chosen otherwise. It doesn’t necessarily mean we made the wrong choice. Sometimes all the choices just suck, but not choosing is not a thing, so we’ll have regrets (dissonance) no matter what we choose. All we can do is select the greatest choice with the least foreseeable regrets.
Of course that’s what free will means. It absolutely means that at the moment we made a choice, we could have chosen another alternative than the one we chose. That’s exactly how the justice system is able to justify punishment, for without the ability to choose otherwise, how can we blame someone for doing what he had no choice not to do?
Of course we choose in the present. We can’t choose in the past.
My premise is not wrong. We choose what gives us greater satisfaction the moment we choose it. We may even say to ourselves that we might regret our choice later, but at the moment we choose it because it gives us more satisfaction than the alternative. For example, people who are addicted know they may regret their choice later on, but their strong desire at that moment to get high overrides their choice to stay clean. To repeat: We might regret our choice looking back. This gives us another chance to fix what we regret the next time a similar position presents itself.
Exactly. =D>
It is wrong; because you admitted that you base free-will on “what could have been”, which is a backward mentality based on regret. You have a desire to absolve yourself of past mistakes.
Since this is how you define “free-will”, its basis and premise, then it’s obvious why you deny free-will. You can’t imagine living a life without regret, or, making correct/superior choices that would result in a person being Confident in him/herself. This lack of confidence, is what you indicate about yourself.
“Gives us greater satisfication”, who is this “Us”, you and I? Satisfaction is not shared. Satisfaction is selfish emotional gratification. You base your decisions on what pleases you. This is also flawed. Many decisions in life are based on what is painful to you, but pleasing to another. People are put ahead of others. There is no “greater satisfaction” quotient.
Since you base your decisions, your choice, your “free-will” on emotional gratification, it’s no wonder that you deny its existence entirely (because your gratification is never ‘complete’ or ‘final’ or ‘solved’).
But just because your life is miserable, doesn’t mean that others’ are too. An emotional decision-making mind is childish, or womanly, easily panicked, scared, and anxious. This is why a rationale based on emotion, is very faulty. It’s why you deny free-will, because your emotions “change with the wind”. One moment you’re sad, another you’re angry, another you’re happy. Your “free-will” is similarly chaotic. Your choices are not rational; they are irrational.
The world affects you; you do not affect the world.
This is why you believe in “Determinism” so strongly. You don’t have control of yourself, or the world around you.
[quote=“Urwrongx1000”]
Since you base your decisions, your choice, your “free-will” on emotional gratification, it’s no wonder that you deny its existence entirely (because your gratification is never ‘complete’ or ‘final’ or ‘solved’).
Unwrong: But just because your life is miserable, doesn’t mean that others’ are too. An emotional decision-making mind is childish, or womanly, easily panicked, scared, and anxious. This is why a rationale based on emotion, is very faulty. It’s why you deny free-will, because your emotions “change with the wind”. One moment you’re sad, another you’re angry, another you’re happy. Your “free-will” is similarly chaotic. Your choices are not rational; they are irrational.
Peacegirl: I’m shocked by your logic. It’s an emotional reaction that does not have anything to do with proof.
Unwrong: The world affects you; you do not affect the world.
Peacegirl: If no free will is true, it does not just affect me. It affects the world.
Unwrong: This is why you believe in “Determinism” so strongly. You don’t have control of yourself, or the world around you.
Peacegirl: No Unwrong. I understand your concern, but please trust me that there is nothing to fear. There is only good to come out of the truth. 
So why do you keep saying we don’t have free will?
If the part about overriding choice were always true, no one would ever get clean… and if there is no free will… there is nothing to “override”… so free will is not completely removed by addiction… it is just challenged. It is an opportunity to strengthen will. To overcome. Addiction adds weights we were not prepared to lift—it does not remove the ability to prepare/lift.
I’m not saying we should therefore be merciless to addicts. I’m saying we should not write them off as lost causes.
Of course we blame people for the wrong-doings that they do because they could have chosen the better moral option/s, ergo… let the punishment fit the crime.
A burglar decides to burgle granny, then he decides to rape her before he leaves… a double crime -he didn’t have to rape the old dear, because he got what he went there for… but unlike what you have stated, of course he could have chosen not to, and his punishment does not need to be justified… not in the UK, anyway.
The poor still get sentenced for stealing food to feed themselves and their family, for not being able to pay their TV License etc. etc. etc., so where’s the justification in that?
You do seem to have the meaning of what free-will actually is, wrong.
Yeah s/he almost seems to be claiming every choice is OCD on the level of qualifying for an insanity defense.
Have you not read a thing I wrote? Regret has nothing to do with it? What are you talking about Unwrong?
You are going off on tangents that are getting you entangled. Why are you doing this? This is not going to save free will.
I never said it was.
Where is it selfish if I want to save you from drowning [in the direction of greater satisfaction] even at the risk of losing my own life? Tell me.
You are confused. Greater satisfaction does not mean greater pleasure. This is hard for me because you’re not listening.
…in a ‘don’t blame the criminal, blame the victim’ kinda way… because the victim made them do it.
Yea… granny was female and had a vgna, she made the burglar do it… it wasn’t his fault, he had no choice.
Do you see how people jump the gun making all kinds of assumptions. This has nothing to do with blame (have you not read anything?), so how can you conclude this means "don’t blame the criminal because the victim made him do it (which is then blaming the victim for what is the criminal’s sole responsibility) when I clearly stated that nothing can make someone (in this case the criminal) do what he doesn’t want to do? 
This does not condone the behavior of the criminal; it prevents it, which you have yet to understand.
So drugs pushers don’t influence an addict to use them?
I mean. If we’re removing reinforcers, there’s a place to start.
But also remove the economic conditions that reward drug pushing.
But we all know how prohibition worked out.
And communist revolutions.
So what does Lessans suggest?
Treating self as other even if they don’t reciprocate until it catches & spreads?
That’s my poison right thar, matey!
How does it prevent crime?
The golden rule doesn’t work if someone gets satisfaction out of hurting others to get what he wants. The goal therefore is to find a way to prevent the desire to hurt others because it gives less satisfaction, not more. That is what this discovery accomplishes.
Drug dealers don’t deal drugs because they get satisfaction out of hurting people, they deal drugs to make lots of money.
With that money they can buy cars, houses, and live large.
If you think drug dealers sell drugs to hurt people you are out of touch with reality!
Drug dealers don’t deal drugs because they get satisfaction out of hurting people, they deal drugs to make lots of money.
Peacegirl: I did not say hurting people was everybody’s motivation. Sometimes it ends up being the collateral damage.
Unwrong: With that money they can buy cars, houses, and live large.
If you think drug dealers sell drugs to hurt people you are out of touch with reality!
Peacegirl: Why not try to refrain from telling me what I think.
…the part where you said: “…for without the ability to choose otherwise, how can we blame someone for doing what he had no choice not to do?”
What you are -in-fact- defining, is not determinism, but some exerting their will over others… some getting away with exerting their will over others are called bullies and criminals, so how is confirming determinism going to help resolve/reverse bad/negative/immoral actions?