Freewill exists

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

Instant gratification is ultimately self defeating as it requires more effort over time to achieve the same results
Contentment is therefore a more practical goal as it requires less effort and sustains itself over longer time too

If there was such a thing as absolute will we would be in total control of our existence where it didnt impact upon the will of others
This is of course not possible and is why religion exists whereby we create the illusion of absolute from within our own limited minds

Yes because you already went through pain and understand certain things, from a point of no understanding though, one usually fears to tread the path of pain and learning and this is what we see in society in the mass populace, because truth is not disguised as satisfactory, responsibility from power takes work and may not always be pleasurable. So it depends upon your values really. Desires exist but may lead to traps and the desire is not guaranteed so may be temporary itself as well. I too, desire to understand for the sake of wisdom but as you surely know, everything comes at a price. Attachment to desire is what creates the unnecessary traps.

It isn’t so much as denying desires because to deny all desires is an extreme of having no bias as we discussed on ecc’s other thread, the Buddha made that mistake but he also was teaching a long time ago with less of a technological or modern world, less people too. It is being conscious of your desires fully, severing attachment of the expected satisfaction, that’s where the extra pain comes from. Just don’t expect anything really. Our needs also shouldn’t be confused with our desires as well, I think this could help us with politics drastically as well if we view it this way. I would argue that our necessities/needs change based on the times/era and the context of which we live in society, based on what we are taught in schools or the skill sets given to us. One man’s internet may not be a necessity to the man who survives in the wild but it is a necessity to the tech savvy individual because his life has given him that specific skill set to survive in a technologically contextual society.

Well some recent a priori thoughts based off of reasonable deduction, could be my thread “impossibility of a possibility, why”, the conclusion that we are attached to a string as well, something coming from nothing, etc… that’s all based off of a lack of direct experience. It wasn’t solely a priori in my understanding or thinking this all but I didn’t directly, consciously experience the entire string even if it is embedded into me, yet I have concluded that there is one because it is reasonable and logical to conclude. Or the methods/reason in which why something may seem impossible to the mind as well. However, we can learn this a-priori only because it does exist through a posteriori, a-priori is just deducing logically without directly experiencing or observing something though, one can know or think it exists without experiencing it or seeing it directly.

Religion doesn’t teach absolute really, if it did it is an exaggeration, at least the holy bible. It is basically the ancient man’s guide to human psyche and philosophical/psychological morality. Switch the terminology from then to now and it makes sense, there may be some exaggerations still based from a point of lesser understanding but the ancient man and religion should still be praised for how much they truly did understand about their own minds.

Yeah the trap is the attachment to satisfaction or pleasure, which one must be fully aware of what a desire entails or may lead to in order to severe such attachment.

Agree, desires are fine and do exist, if one observes them for what they are and what they may lead to, we just need not give our desires so much power over us, this is what creates a less of a will that is free, it is our choices and consciousness of such, that define how free our will is or how limited it may be as we.

Agree, desires are fine and do exist, if one observes them for what they are and what they may lead to, we just need not give our desires so much power over us, this is what creates a less of a will that is free, it is our choices and consciousness of such, that define how free our will is or how limited it may be as well.

Consciousness is subject to human conditions no doubt, it evolved from the subconscious and unconscious aspects of the mind and reality. A will could be considered as subconscious, one can possess knowledge without being conscious but merely subconscious, animals know things and we did as well when we were in that state of instinctive behavior only.

I would say this is pretty accurate but I try to provide more form to Kant’s/Scho’s argument. You are right Pris and I’m not denying you that, I just am stating that we misinterpreted what the god is, it’s not a being of worship, that was our own misunderstanding and then trying to project such in its form, which we are still today, suffering from such misunderstanding of the texts and contexts of ancient religions/philosophies. I would say the will existed in the form of instinct but it evolved to be more complex and in this becoming complex it inverted and now is in a fight for its own freedom, if that makes sense. Which that is our consciousness coming from subconscious/unconscious evolution, instinctive change on different levels of complexity.

At this present moment in time I would say yeah, it isn’t completely free, but it is a matter of our path that determines how free it may be, I won’t deny or reject the idea of a completely free will that is possible in the future however. It’s a matter of which path we choose, evolution or de-evolution.

i can’t make much sense out of your posts, artimas, because all i see are persistent category mistakes based around certain ways in which you falsely predicate attributes to dispositions as if they are ‘things’ in themselves. read over ryle’s problem (the wiki article is good too) and maybe this’ll make sense. you use the words ‘self’ and ‘mind’ and ‘consciousness’ as if they are additional, superimposed entities onto the dispositions and behaviors we exhibit when we are said to be ‘mindful’ and ‘conscious’.

here’s an example of what ryle is talking about: when we observe artimas laughing and dancing and joking, we observe a series of behaviors which indicate that he is conscious and mindful of what he’s doing. but the consciousness and mindfulness is not to be described with the same predication as those actions which we describe as such. instead, the dancing and laughing and joking is the disposition we describe as ‘conscious’… not that consciousness is doing or being such and such. this is the erroneous cartesian metaphor frequently used in philosophical language. there is no ‘entity’ called ‘mind’ or ‘self’ or ‘consciousness’. these are merely words we use to describe dispositions and behaviors. to talk of them as if they possess qualities and properties like ‘things’ is simply nonsense. unless you are very careful, you’ll do this without even recognizing it. it’s been going on for centuries in philosophy.

I will read it but I am not sure if you are understanding me correctly, I know these things aren’t entities or separate to our being but they also appear in other forms (different entities external to us).

There are entities that are subconscious, there are things that are unconscious (we may not regard them as alive but still instinctual) and there are things conscious, in a result of the unconscious and subconscious experiencing.

we are all three because evolution happened this way, from a point of less complexity to a point of a confinement of vast complexity both past and future.

Unconscious > subconscious > consciousness

Consciousness is doing whatever I personally choose for it, what you observe is Artimas ego or identity in the form of a body, not his conscious mind, the conscious mind is more vast than that one simple action captured in a moment, in that moment I could be thinking of millions of other things for all you know, consciousness is my awareness and not limited to merely an action or expression observable to you, wouldn’t you say the same? It is important to understand this, since you cannot see my conscious mind due to my not being able to portray it in a single moment philosophically, like what art is considered, dancing, expression, etc. the only possible way to understand it is to understand your own conscious mind, you have different values but ultimately, we function similarly if not the same at the root. Make any sense?

Yes, those are conscious things, but they are also based upon valuing. Not merely being conscious. Consciousness is awareness, awareness is expanded through an understanding, is it not? Consciousness evolved out of subconsciousness(lesser capability in understanding) did it not? We are the conscious entities, our nature is timeless awareness.

Self isn’t an entity but it is a collection of ideology or characteristics that an entity is most comfortable with and manifests the ego or body as through understanding it, self is what one may use to create oneself instead of being created by external input, like information and traumas needing to be dissected from ones past due to external input, ancestry and all. The entity is an entity due to a combination of these sections and or past experiences of the mind and what lead up to the mind as a collection, the reason it may sound as if I talk about them as entities is due to the fact that in nature, we can observe it in full effect, animals, reactions, etc. other states of consciousness I mean, the levels or layers of which I try to explain. Unconscious and subconscious, while we may only do such and understand such by being freely aware(conscious).

Chill out, man. I am no “freewillist”, nor do I ever want to type that “word” again :stuck_out_tongue: I’ve been using “Free Will advocate” by the way, seeing as Free Will isn’t a singular term - it’s two terms.
Nor am I a Dualist.

In fact, I’ve made that pretty clear on other threads, though I can’t expect you to have read everything I’ve written. I get that you’re frustrated by people trying to get away with the errors that you’ve pointed out, but everything you said is something I’ve already argued somewhere or other - in fact, I wrote only the other day that Free Will requires Dualism. Are you copying my own points to use against me consciously, unconsciously, or did you come up with that independently? Either way, relax that trigger finger, I’m not your guy.

All I said was that there may be something besides Determinism (alongside it), which is only a nod to models of the quantum realm being so incomplete, but I fully respect the maxim “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”, and I am certainly against the “God of the gaps” nonsense of ascribing “Free Will” to our gaps in knowledge. The only reason I hedge here is because of the existence of things like Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems, which may only apply to mathematical axioms, but in the interests of not acting like I completely understand Quantum Mechanics, I’m leaving open the possibility that such logic may apply in physics as well - and even then I only do so extremely tentatively.
My default position until proven otherwise is with Determinism, but I’m not even sure it’s possible to prove otherwise since a requirement of knowledge and proof is logical and/or causal sense, which is Determinism by definition. Epistemologically, this is a much more fundamental objection to “Free Will”. However, with regards to the burden of proof, that is on the proponent of the existence of something. Free Will is more like a lack of something, and causation is a something, putting the burden on the Determinist. However-however, I also agree that “we can never experience causation, therefore it doesn’t exist” is nonsense in the same way that verbs like “to go” don’t “not exist” simply because you can’t experience a “go”. Going, like causing, is a description of ways in which things that exist (nouns) behave, and their existence is in the degree to which the verb matches the behaviour, which causation seemingly does immaculately. However-however-however, if the Free Will advocate is presenting Free Will as a something, or implying of something such as the mind separate from the body/Dualism, and a concrete and precise notion of identity, then I am on your side that the burden of proof is on them in this regard, and they’re running into a dead end.

Does that clear things up?

Easily. Any possibility of indeterminacy in the quantum realm, whose consequences may or may not spill over beyond that realm isn’t “soft Determinism” or “Compatibilism” because there is still no room for Free Will in anything I said in the first part. Indeterminacy might imply “free” but not “will” - if there’s any lack of Determinism between inputs and outputs of decision making, randomness removes from “will”, if anything. It most certainly does not constitute the exact opposite: proof of your will being enhanced or freed.

Soft Determinism/Compatibilism is a position on Free Will and its incorporation with Determinism. This is not what I am doing, therefore no contradiction.

As above, you don’t need an IQ as high as mine to simply read a definition of a term. Compatibilism is a Free Will argument.

I can understand if all you wanted to say was that “for every choice there are restrictions”, but that’s not Compatibilism. If that’s all you wanted to point out then I’d just say yes, obviously, and it’s all completely consistent with hard Determinism.

However, I can’t help but notice the title of your thread “Freewill exists”. So forgive me for thinking “Determinism is better than Free Will” was an appropriate argument…
So to clarify, I apply “Determinism is better than Free Will” to your talk of Free Will, and to “for every choice there are restrictions” I am glad that you agree with me. No straw men here, yes?

I am glad you noticed.

It is a problem in general when one comes up with an argument, and people proceed simply to say what they think instead in response - without even addressing your argument. I would rather set the example of actually engaging with what people set out to discuss.

It seems to be a common instinct in conversation, which irritates me considerably, for people to simply wait for their turn to say what they wanted to say rather than respond to what you just said.

You keep saying that you have all these proofs, but I’m having a lot of trouble finding them, and if I do find something I tend to find it ambiguous. So I look forward to your reply on one hand but on the other hand I hope it’s clear and not more of the same. You also say you have a high IQ, so my expectations are high.

Sillouette:

So here’s the deal.

I’ve shown through a limit proof that absolute determinism is impossible.

I’ve also shown through proof that absolute freewill is impossible.

I’m arguing your point about chaos, which I’m now going to argue fails because of my disproof of absolute creationism, or absolute freewill, that when a person is in an absolute creationism mode (omnipotent), that they are in a random or chaotic system. I’m distinguishing here between chaos and complexity (fractal would be an example of complexity).

So my argument here is that an absolute creative being or cosmos would solve at the limit of as the same as both absolute chaos as well… or just does what it wants without restriction.

I’m basically arguing that because the limits are impossible, that there must be compatabilism.

I used the compatibalism of freewill, and you used the compatibalism of chaos.

This contradicts you saying that compatibalism is a direct contradiction …

Interested in your thoughts.

I defined will as an epiphenomenon of less than 100% determinism … you define that precept as chaos.

The reason I don’t think that argument works is because the aspect of “I exist” (as continuity of consciousness over time) is conceptually inconsistent with the second ingredient being chaos. This argues for a stable will that is less than absolute determinism and greater than chaos.

Is ones present awareness or thinking in and of the present moment not free?

What is not free is more awareness but it does grant more will at ones disposal.

So then in my present moment of not yet choosing, I can choose to pursue a lesser will or a higher will, that choice is not free to me?

An expansion or shrinking of the will is the only truly free choice we get if that makes sense. Due to the free will not being yet confined to a choice. But if we choose a higher will then is that not the freeing of the will itself through choice? Due to expansion of possibilities and choice through a choosing to understand?

Yes and I asked for clarity, and I provided some questions to guide you in the general direction of what I’m asking for. I’m still waiting, if you want to oblige, which you don’t have to.

Was that in the same opening post of this thread? If so, it’s what I’m asking for clarity on. If not, then I’ve missed it - my apologies - perhaps you can link it, or type it out again here as clearly as you can.

Again, can you link to or reiterate this disproof of absolute creationism/absolute Free Will? This is exactly what I’m talking about when you say you have all these proofs and I never see them, or at least if I do they aren’t clear. I seem to remember English isn’t your first language, but your lack of clarity sounds more like imprecise thinking than an issue with the language. “An absolute creative being or cosmos would solve at the limit of as the same as both absolute chaos as well”? What does this mean?? An omnipotent creator doing what it wants without restriction is absolute chaos?

Right, so you’re referring to Compatibilism as a general position, between any thesis and antithesis? All this time I’ve been assuming you were using it according to its normal use in philosophical discussion i.e. as an attempted synthesesis between Free Will and Determinism - especially since that’s what your thread title suggests you want to discuss. The term Compatibilism according with its accepted use in philosophy has nothing to do with chaos, since chaos counters both Free Will and Determinism. So in that sense, I am not talking about Compatibilism when I speak of chaos. But if you want to use the term more generally, please specify - again you’re lacking clarity if this is the case, then sure the notion of “order emerging from chaos” is a kind of “compatibilism” with a lower case “c”. But there is no contradiction between speaking of a relationship between Determinism and Indeterminacy, and speaking against Free Will or Compatibilism with a capital “C”.

Speaking of epiphenonena, Epiphenomenalism is one way in which a sentient being can be intelligent and still 100% subject to Determinism. To be clear, again I am using the term according to its accepted use in Philosophy. Even if there is a non-zero percentage of indeterminacy, that is not will - it is the opposite of will, if anything as I explained in my last post. Also, I wouldn’t be so quick to define the will as a stable concept.

Ok silluoutte,

Here we go, with the proof again.

Determinism as an operational definition is : it could not have happened any other way.

Freewill is operationally defined as: it could happen any other way.

Absent absolute freewill. The argument here for a modicum of freewill is that once we decide, determinism takes over.

So the question then, is “do we decide”?

I gave this proof:

If something happened because of absolute determinism (it couldn’t have gone any other way)

Then the limit for this deterministic argument is that we know every reason why we know what we know, and all of those reasons are EXTERNAL - thus no internal to define or abstract a will (internal)

However, if all of those reasons are internal (absolute freewill) , then there’d be nothing outside to distinguish itself from.

The argument being that at the thought experiment absolute limits allow neither absolute determinism or an absolute creator …

So, then we are stuck with compatibalism.

You then argue that absolute chaos counters both freewill and determinism.

Absolute chaos is a system where refererents are impossible to abstract (not to be confused with complexity)

Since you understand content, and you have given chaos as the defining characteristic of life and the world.

If you want to debate this further…

Define absolute chaos as different than absolute complexity!

They are very different, and you’re confounding the two when debating.

Sure.

The critical word here being “we”, as in a locus of identity.

I will refer you to what promethean wrote on an earlier post in this thread about this:

Identity is an extremely problematic concept. Everyone gains an intuitive understanding of “generally” what it is, but upon examination it’s infamously impossible to pinpoint with any precision.

With the dissolution of identity upon examination, as above re: promethean, neither of these arguments are really a problem.

The “internal” and “external” no longer hold up. Well, I’m assuming they’re relating to identity at least in some sense - I keep asking you to explain these terms, but you still haven’t.

Who is talking about absolute chaos?

I’m not conflating chaos and complexity… where did you get that idea? In fact I wrote just the other day of Determinism that its problem is its complexity, which is harder to apply to simple everyday life, which puts simple-minded people off the idea, and I write of chaos that it’s indeterminate. Chaos: indeterminacy, Complexity: Determinism. I don’t understand how you think I’m doing anything other than the opposite of conflation…

I’ve also said I’m extremely tentative about leaving open room for indeterminacy at all, and even if there is any it’s likely only relevant to the quantum world, and if sensitivity to initial conditions brings these effects above the quantum realm to everyday life, such effects are evidently minor next to the profound success of Determinism pretty much everywhere. That is to say, given indeterminacy, its effects are only going to be extremely marginal - this is the opposite of me speaking of absolute chaos!

The best that chaos can do is to emerge as order in the vast majority of cases, despite originating from chaos. This would still mean that in effect, Determinism reigns in spite of chaos. Still no absolute chaos.

I’m calling straw man.

It’s not as problematic as one would make it seem, the identity, self, the mind in general to be honest.

Do people get an intuitive understanding? Is that why people are lost in society and don’t know themselves and live as complete byproducts of environmentally indoctrinated ideologies that they themselves do not support due to being blinded by satisfaction? Is that why most people don’t educate themselves or seek wisdom? I don’t think most people get an intuitive understanding. I think that may be a projection.

I feel I have given some pretty good points and solutions on how to pin point it, by seeking to understand the self. The hermit is always the “crazy” one though right? He who lives less distracted by isolation and has a great vision from the outside but also inside himself as well.

I did address that post by promethean as well…

Now you are not sure. The problem is you are too arrogant and not acknowledging your limitations.

The more credible proposition is there is no absolute completely free will.

Point is you don’t have a solid grounding in philosophical theories, that is why you are shooting all over. In a way, I think this is good for you if you keep asking questions and hopefully someday you will shoot near the bull eyes rather than everywhere.

Why you are not giving up the idea of a completely free will is due to your internal psychological insecurities. You insist you are well inform of psychology, but you are not, suggest you do more research to ‘Know Thyself.’

Sillouette,

It means squat that identity cannot be found upon closer examination.

That’s true of everything.

If you take a microscope to a tree, it will look nothing like a tree. If you walk 40 miles away, you’ll no longer see a tree.

Our self, like everything that exists is self evidently there as a median of perceptual acuity.

It does not negate the tree when you take a microscope to it, just like it doesn’t negate us of you examine closer or further away.

We exist in a sweet spot, regardless