Posts: 20
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2013
Reputation:
2
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 12:40 PM
I think an irony of freewill is that the more we recognize the constraints on it, the more we have it.
When you're aware of your instinctual limitations, subconscious programming, etc., you can address why you do what you do and possibly change it. If you know, for example, that you're attracted to BPD psychos because you're trying to resolve something with your mom, you can see what's happening when it happens and rectify it.
But the people without much freewill are often those who most loudly insist they have it. They're entirely self-unaware and therefore blind to what controls them.
I believe we've got freewill, but it has its limits. The more you recognize those limits, the better you can handle and overcome them.
Posts: 2,467
Threads: 0
Joined: Sep 2012
Reputation:
254
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 01:46 PM
Free will is an illusion created by the human mind as a way of explaining our actions in hindsight. The reality is that all of our important decision making is done subconsciously, and we invent rationalizations for these decisions after the fact. This is why it is essentially impossible to change a person's nature, and why the only reliable way of changing a person's behavior is to enslave them with a rigidly structured habit that overrides their natural inclination.
To understand why free will is an illusion, think about walking down a street with a bunch of restaurants. A person who thinks he has free will would say, "I can choose to eat an any of these restaurants today. I have free will." But when he makes his decision on which food to eat, he cannot control or fully know WHY he made that decision. If you choose to eat pizza instead of a sandwich, it's impossible for you to determine why you chose pizza. You may say that you like the taste of pepperoni, or were simply "in the mood" for pizza. But why is that the case? Did you choose either of those things? Or was this simply a state of being which you happened to find yourself in and which you responded to through your choice?
This is what Schopenhauer was getting at when he talks about the necessity of willing one definite thing at a time and nothing else, and how this process is beyond our control.
[size=8pt]"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”[/size] [size=7pt] - Romans 8:18[/size]
Posts: 2,057
Threads: 0
Joined: Jul 2011
Reputation:
31
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 02:03 PM
Years ago, a friend of mine who got a PhD in philosophy (and then went to law school and was so depressed by being a lawyer he drank himself to death) told me Schopenhauer had one main idea.
Namely, you have free will to exercise your choices, but you have no free will in the choices you have.
Simple as that.
Posts: 4,481
Threads: 0
Joined: Nov 2012
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 02:42 PM
I have being thinking alot about this lately. I shared it with one of the most famous philosophers in the world - who has written an excellent book on Free Will.
And it was new to him...
THE ANDROMEDA PARADOX
Posts: 1,536
Threads: 0
Joined: Nov 2010
Reputation:
21
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 02:49 PM
It's interesting to ponder, but I'm not sure the pondering really helps people in any way. It seems we have "evolved" to accept that we have free will and make decisions (or carry out preordained actions if you prefer) as if we did. I know the whole "act as if" philosophy has been played to death by the self-help industry, but there really is some truth to it. IMHO there is no shame in "acting as if" we have free will, even if you are not really convinced intellectually. Maybe if you're hyper-smart like Schopenhauer you can make some sense of the discussion, but the average person is not intellectually equipped to live with the belief that they do not have free will.
Posts: 6,403
Threads: 0
Joined: Nov 2009
Reputation:
310
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 02:53 PM
Haven't read the whole thread. I will later. Some deep stuff.
I just quickly glanced at a few posts. I disagreed with most of them.
I 100% believe in free will. I believe we can re-program our mind. Create a new pattern of thought.
I will check back into this thread later and I'm curious if you guys will change my mind.
Posts: 20
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2013
Reputation:
2
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 04:09 PM
"IMHO there is no shame in "acting as if" we have free will, even if you are not really convinced intellectually. Maybe if you're hyper-smart like Schopenhauer you can make some sense of the discussion, but the average person is not intellectually equipped to live with the belief that they do not have free will."
Bingo.
The danger to believing you have free will if you don't is minimal--you'll try to change things fail, and be disappointed. The danger to believing you don't have free will if you do is fatalism and a resignation to circumstance.
"I can't help it I'm fat, that's just how I am." "There's no point in me trying to get better with women. I'll just have to wait until something changes me."
There's a whole lot to our minds we'll never understand and there are things we'll never be able to control. Shopenhauer's insight into women is fantastic, and I believe in the concept of philosophy. However, when the mind is used to convince people that they are powerless over their own lives it becomes exceptionally dangerous.
Convince somebody that all he is is dust in the wind and you may well be encouraging him to give up on life. I don't care what proofs you can offer, that's just wrong.
Posts: 219
Threads: 0
Joined: Apr 2013
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 04:39 PM
Quote: (04-16-2013 04:09 PM)Martel Wrote:
"IMHO there is no shame in "acting as if" we have free will, even if you are not really convinced intellectually. Maybe if you're hyper-smart like Schopenhauer you can make some sense of the discussion, but the average person is not intellectually equipped to live with the belief that they do not have free will."
Bingo.
The danger to believing you have free will if you don't is minimal--you'll try to change things fail, and be disappointed. The danger to believing you don't have free will if you do is fatalism and a resignation to circumstance.
"I can't help it I'm fat, that's just how I am." "There's no point in me trying to get better with women. I'll just have to wait until something changes me."
There's a whole lot to our minds we'll never understand and there are things we'll never be able to control. Shopenhauer's insight into women is fantastic, and I believe in the concept of philosophy. However, when the mind is used to convince people that they are powerless over their own lives it becomes exceptionally dangerous.
Convince somebody that all he is is dust in the wind and you may well be encouraging him to give up on life. I don't care what proofs you can offer, that's just wrong.
Agreed. Whether right or wrong, some things are just too depressing to ponder. Its not like these questions can ever be solved anyways, so why bother asking the ones that make you feel bad?
Posts: 219
Threads: 0
Joined: Apr 2013
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 05:03 PM
Quote: (04-16-2013 04:09 PM)Martel Wrote:
"IMHO there is no shame in "acting as if" we have free will, even if you are not really convinced intellectually. Maybe if you're hyper-smart like Schopenhauer you can make some sense of the discussion, but the average person is not intellectually equipped to live with the belief that they do not have free will."
Bingo.
The danger to believing you have free will if you don't is minimal--you'll try to change things fail, and be disappointed. The danger to believing you don't have free will if you do is fatalism and a resignation to circumstance.
"I can't help it I'm fat, that's just how I am." "There's no point in me trying to get better with women. I'll just have to wait until something changes me."
There's a whole lot to our minds we'll never understand and there are things we'll never be able to control. Shopenhauer's insight into women is fantastic, and I believe in the concept of philosophy. However, when the mind is used to convince people that they are powerless over their own lives it becomes exceptionally dangerous.
Convince somebody that all he is is dust in the wind and you may well be encouraging him to give up on life. I don't care what proofs you can offer, that's just wrong.
Agreed. Whether right or wrong, some things are just too depressing to ponder. Its not like these questions can ever be solved anyways, so why bother asking the ones that make you feel bad?
Posts: 2,474
Threads: 0
Joined: Mar 2012
Reputation:
42
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 05:15 PM
I'm surprised at the number of people who answered in the negative considering the type of people that post on here. The lifestyle that we discuss on here is all grounded in the principle that a man can change himself to live the sort of life he wants and that people who don't want to do so whether it be fat chicks that refuse to go on a diet or guys that bitch about how they can't get girls because they are ugly or a certain race are responsible for their own failures. If there is no free will then the natural conclusion is that game is something that you either have or not and that no amount of approaches will change this.
I believe in "you can do what you want but you can't will what you want". The desires that you have are mostly out of your control but the decision on whether to act on them are within your control. And yeah many people do fail when it comes to controlling their desires but at least still have the possibility of doing so unlike animals who are purely driven by instinct.
Posts: 11,058
Threads: 0
Joined: Jul 2011
Reputation:
117
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 05:20 PM
Books to read on free will that actually explain the biological mechanisms behind it:
I am a Strange Loop
Freedom Evolves
Whose Freedom?
Consciousness Explained
These books will give you a sense of what free will actually is, what we can expect, where it comes from, etc.
As fas as how it works, there are different types of freedom:
"Freedom to"
and
"Freedom from"
You can't make choices if you have don't have choices to make.
Posts: 20
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2013
Reputation:
2
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 05:38 PM
“Losing a belief in free will has not made me a fatalist - in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible."
I'm glad it worked for Sam Harris, but that doesn't mean it would for the rest of us. Free Love and denigrating marraige worked well for the rich college kids for a while, too. It didn't work out so well for the rest of us.
It reminds me of the really smart postmodernist who can argue you into believing that the table in front of you doesn't exist. He's got an answer to everything and makes you feel like a dumbass.
But the simple fact is that there's a table and no matter how smart he is, no matter how erudite or capable of twisting your words to serve his ends, he's full of it.
Philosophy should empower us. Believing that you have no control over your life or what you make of us doesn't.
If it works for Sam, let it. It won't work for the rest of us.
Posts: 461
Threads: 0
Joined: Dec 2012
Reputation:
5
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 07:13 PM
I believe that all men have free will. (By men I mean humans, not just males.) We are all presented with choices every single moment of the day, and the choices we make determine the future course of our lives, and often the lives of others, too. Practically speaking, our choices are somewhat dictated by circumstances, but we have the ability to work against those circumstances and try to change them if they do not accord with our will. Free will is one of the essential differences between men and animals. Animals have a purely material existence, and their will strives only to carry our their instinctive imperatives -to eat, to sleep in a safe place, to defend their territory so they can continue to eat and sleep, and to mate. Men, on the other hand, can do gratuitous and unnecessary things, and act selflessly. We always choose that which seems good to us, but we are free to choose it, and we are free to inform our consciences as seems best to us, so that we may be well-informed and make the best decisions possible.
Posts: 1,449
Threads: 0
Joined: Nov 2011
Reputation:
23
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 08:34 PM
Daniel Dennett put this fucker to rest IMO:
"We have all the free will it's worth wanting"
He likens it to magic. Everyone wants to see real magic, not conjuring tricks. But the problem is that "real magic" is impossible to have, by definition..
"Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can
actually be done, is not real magic"
His argument is that we've done something similar with free will. What we want is the ability to choose, from outside and above the pre-destined way things were going to pan out. But we cant actually have that, because by definition, things always pan out how they were going to pan out... and that includes the choices you made.
...that seems to upset people. It feels like if that's true then you have less control. BUT thats the thing, you don't! You're still making the choices! you're still evaluating the situaton, comparing it to your values, and thinking hard and weighing things up and choosing and acting. It's just that, things were always going to pan out the way they were going to pan out (by definition).
So... we have all the free will it's worth wanting. Even if for some weird reason, we often seem to want more than that. But then, we also want to see real magic, even though we've defined real magic as something that can't happen.
Posts: 75
Threads: 0
Joined: Mar 2013
Reputation:
1
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 08:54 PM
I think people's actions are dependent on a marginal benefit system. People put a value on all options available and the option with the highest net benefit is chosen. Thus, our actions are determined by the way we value our options.
This in itself disproves free will.
Posts: 2,474
Threads: 0
Joined: Mar 2012
Reputation:
42
Your opinion on free will?
04-16-2013, 09:43 PM
How do you guys reconcile responsibility with the belief that there is no free will? It seems to me if there is no free will then all the ragging on IRT is not justified since he can't be anything else then what he is - same thing with white knights or beta males.
Posts: 1,019
Threads: 0
Joined: Oct 2011
Reputation:
26
Your opinion on free will?
04-18-2013, 02:07 AM
Quote: (04-16-2013 02:03 PM)tenderman100 Wrote:
Years ago, a friend of mine who got a PhD in philosophy (and then went to law school and was so depressed by being a lawyer he drank himself to death) told me Schopenhauer had one main idea.
Namely, you have free will to exercise your choices, but you have no free will in the choices you have.
Simple as that.
Literally ..
"All My Bitches love me....I love all my bitches,
but its like soon as I cum... I come to my senses."
Posts: 2,474
Threads: 0
Joined: Mar 2012
Reputation:
42
Your opinion on free will?
05-29-2013, 02:10 PM
Before I respond let me see if I can get a better understanding of what you are saying: so are you saying that we make our decisions purely based on whether we feel pain or pleasure and therefore it undermines our free will?
Also, remember the context of my post. I was responding to your question on what it means how we should act if there was no free will and this was my response. To sum it up, we should never hold anyone responsible for anything and there we can never make any sort of judgement about any sort of action. Now, we can still make judgement about whether the action good or not (when I refer to good and bad I was also referring to acts beyond whether something is pleasurable or not. For example I'm sure we would agree a math genius coming up with a cool theorem will be seen as a "good" action regardless of any pleasure associate with it) but it should be a cold, emotionless decision. I suppose our attitude towards it should be the kind of attitude we have towards a day with good weather. You would be pleased about it but you wouldn't be jumping for joy the same way a kid who just got an A on his test would.