and what is it to doubt something is false?: trusting its affirmative.
exactly.
I believe I agree with you for the most part. At this point in evolution, perhaps, humans are the only animals with the ability to commit suicide. That is due to our evolved intelligence and ability to rationalize and reason. Yet, suicide suggests a flaw of the mind. No proper existence would sanely choose suicide. Those who have traveled down that path have reached a point of extreme distress and no longer think clearly.
Freewill enters when a choice is made.
(Pardon my input of lyrics by Neil Peart)
There are those who think that life has nothing left to chance take,
A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance.
A planet of playthings,
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
“The stars aren’t aligned,
Or the gods are malign…”
Blame is better to give than receive.
There are those who think that they were dealt a losing hand,
The cards were stacked against them; they weren’t born in Lotusland.
All preordained
A prisoner in chains
A victim of venomous fate.
Kicked in the face,
You can’t pray for a place
In heaven’s unearthly estate.
Each of us
A cell of awareness
Imperfect and incomplete.
Genetic blends
With uncertain ends
On a fortune hunt that’s far too fleet.
You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;
I will choose a path that’s clear
I will choose freewill.
The concept of free will relies on the dualist presumption of a mind independent of the physical world.
We rationalize our choices after the facts.
The advocate of free will relies on the arbitrariness of our decision making as evidence that we have the freedom to do one thing or another, but i think this arbitrariness is precisely evidence of the opposite - that, fundamentally, we aren’t aware of what guides our choices.
Free will however is a socially necessarry concept, if we are to hold people accountible for their actions, which we are compelled to do. We will that people be responsible for their behaviors - but, if you think about it, we don’t really know why, other than to say that it’s important that we do so for this reason, etc, etc - rationalization after the facts, in other words.
Freedom is a social ideal, it is not a material truth - everything that happens is preceded by events which make what happens inevitable - this is as true of our choices and decisions as it is of a log rolling down a hill.
Should i have the salmon or the steak? - Arbitrariness does not equal freedom, it equals lack of understanding of the cause . . .
That’s allot like “God-did-it.”.
It is an answer to why everything exists now, or happens.
But it’s not necissarily a truth, or an explanation, or an understanding.
It just comforts the mind into slumber.
Our ignorance to what we truly are, makes free choice impossible. Instead there are but ignorant impulses which mean nothing and happen regardless of the facts. Answers help to fortify myths, because most answers are free from the obligation of providing a true and complete understanding of what’s going on.
Existence of an appearant universe? God did it.
Human actions and human events? Free will did it.
hmm, why do i feel scolded?
That’s just a flippant dismissal, that, if anything, does the same
more of the same - another answer
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answers are necessarry - why be afraid of speculation where we can’t be sure? is it so terrible to be wrong?
Someone else is scolding u other than me.
See, here’s what I don’t get - why must it be either God or man? Is such a disjunction necessary?
Sure, religious authorities like to impose ideas like ‘free will’ on the masses to justify things like punishment, redemption, right, wrong, good, evil - all the while pretending that it is wholly up to man to choose, that man is wholly self-willed and self-regulating, that the past has nothing to do with the present. Society itself likes the idea, even apart from religion, and so adopts it within the legal system, among other places.
On the other hand, we have pagans and heretics who deny such a thing - and rightly, to a degree - but then they, too, take it too far, because we constantly feel to urge to create absolute dichotomies, when truth dances between dichotomy.
We obviously have some degree of freedom of choice, but this freedom entails an understanding of one’s limits, which boils down to an understanding of oneself.
Truth itself boils down to one’s understanding of oneself, I think - every truth must be related back to its source. One cannot exercise freedom with something one does not understand.
yes, perhaps - guilty conscience or something
life and death can not be dependent on knowledge because it is knowledge
if you know something- it means its knowledge- therefore if you know life and death its because its knowledge if not, you would not be able to know it
edit: free will means living and still knowing or believing that you dont have to live
My point was that life and death are cosmological forces which exist outside of any epistemological frame of reference, they occur regardless of conscious activity. Scientific evidence shows that mind is not required for existence. Ontologically speaking, life and death are felt and experienced rather than rationally known. Certainly, the only difference between the monkey and the human is that the human possesses more knowledge of different methods of self-destruction than the monkey, and may be inclined to destroy himself with what appears to be less reason.
“Man hardly ever makes use of the freedom he has, such as the freedom of thought; in compensation he demands freedom of speech instead.”
“That God could create beings who were free in relation to him is the cross philosophy couldn’t bear but on which it has been left hanging.”
“Life is like music; the perfect pitch hovers between true and false and that’s where beauty lies; for the musician perfect pitch in a more restricted sense, just like logic, ontology, or abstract morality–here the mathematical–would be false.”
“Paradox is the intellectual life’s authentic pathos, and just as only great souls are prone to passions, so only great thinkers are prone to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing but great thoughts wanting completion.”
“My good mood, my tranquility, soars into the sky like a dove pursued by Saul’s evil spirit, by a bird of prey, and it can only save itself by climbing higher and higher, by getting further and further away from me.”
-Thus Spoke Soren Kierkegaard <3
it doesnt matter- all that matters is that it is an option- just as long as humans can choose whether or not they want to live means that we are freely living- we are not forced to live unlike the monkey which does not have this choice- now just as long as you accept the fact that we have this choice and that no other known entities have this choice, we can say that our living is not forced, it is free- living means will- therefore we have free will.
now please dont tell me how we make the choice and that it is caused or pre-determined because that is not what free will is based on- free will will is an action, but i think you guys might be able to understand better if you view it as an option instead…
FREE WILL IS SELF EXPLANATORY
our will (humans)…is free because its optional
our life (humans)…is free because its optional
monkey life… not free because its not optional
its that simple-!!!
Yes… 
I’m interested to know how you are so sure primates do not have free will? Certain experiments have been done which clearly show primates making choices, even based upon advanced concepts like social justice. If they are presented with options and they choose between them then surely they must be exercising free will?
It seems as though you are uncomfortable with this issue and must impose a black or white categorization on it.
Also, I don’t know what you mean by “our living is not forced”. Nothing is forced to live, which sounds as though life is some hellish form of torture caused by some third party.
are you serious??? you’ve gotta be kidding me—are you seriously telling me that an animal can knowingly kill itself ???
it is black and white- unless you can tell me that an animal can knowingly kill itself
seriously…am i talking for nothing lol- i just told you that it has nothing to do with making choices- it has to do with having an option- the option to live or to not live- animals dont have that option- humans are the only ones that have that option- therefore our will is free- are you playing ignorant- or are you really having this much of a hard time?
once again…
just show me what your having a problem understanding- this way if you disagree you can actually make a disproving statement instead of asking me irrelevant questions that show that you do not understand…
please do tell me- what is it that you can not understand about humans having an option that other entities do not have?
this way i can make sense of it for you or if im wrong id gladly admit it- trust me sitting here debating all day with ideas that are very simple to me would be so much more worth it if i was actually wrong just once and learned something- only problem is that i usually dont say something unless im sure im right anyway so it’ll probably never happen lol
The basis of free will is what you focus on. If you see others first, you will do for them. If you see yourself first, you will do for self.
Let me change the first statement, if you do for others first, you will perfect human compassion. If you do for self first, you will perfect the dogs feeding off the dogs. It’s entirely up to perspective what you choose.
But you see, people don’t love working out till they learn the routine, and then they learn to the benifits of the routine.
In this, people today see the impulse zone as a healthy pleace to live, and thus neglect their passive perspective.
but the choise is up to you. Anger and depression are two sides of the same coin. you can get angery at others, or you can blame youself for not being good enough. But it is all not being able to handle the wall of frustraition that is getting in the way of truth and happiness. But you have to have human compassion to know people don’t purposly hurt you. So then you learnt to talk things out by making the choise not to blame others.
first you make a conclusion, then you work it out?
You are making a lot of assertions. What can you back them up with?
I asked you: how you are so sure primates do not have free will? Try responding with some evidence or at the least logical thinking rather than incredulous hysterics. If experiments show them making choices and judgments then they are certainly demonstrating free will and can, therefore, choose to kill themselves.
It’s certainly very interesting that you appear confused over the reasons why an organism would kill itself, attributing it to something as mundane as simply ‘knowing’.