[Laureate]

Originally Posted by AlphaNeo36

1. Hahaha, you don't know what my stance is yet it is wrong? I've only had one stance this entire thread. If you can't understand it, the problem exists between keyboard and chair.
2. You can't prove what decides your decisions. I can't prove what decides my decisions. Your argument is based on what you think somebody does in their mind while you actually have no idea and can only speculate. There is no proof one way or the other. In order for your stance to be provable, you would have to be able to predict what my choice would be from a set of choices. Your argument isn't even applicable to the scientific method for ****s sake.



I go by dictionaries.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/free+will

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/free%20will

The ability to choose without influence.




I'll try to simplify...

Here are a list of my wants right now. (hypothetically)

1. Listen to some music
2. Watch a TV show
3. Play a computer game
4. Sex with girlfriend
5. Play basketball

Now, I am homo sapien so I have the ability to perceive things that ordinary life would be unable to. I can reflect on my wants.

1. Soothing, haven't listened to my iPod for a while
2. South Park is funny and makes me laugh
3. I feel like killing some damn terrorists
4. Sex with girlfriend
5. Fun to play, socialize with friends

Okay, I have been able to determine where these wants come from and why I have them. What choice am I going to make? It would appear from your position I would choose the one that I have the greatest want for, right? Because I am human I can categorically determine what my greatest need is. In this case, sexy time. Now, I have been able to determine what my greatest want is, therefore, I (but it is not I, it is my unconscious wants as you might say) should choose to sex my girlfriend. Now that I have realized this, I can choose to do something I have the slightly less want for, play basketball, instead. Is this free will or just another want? Now what if I choose to clean my room? I have no want to do such a thing but I could easily get out of my chair and do it at this instance. There is nothing holding me back from doing it.

You can only induce free will if you are able to consciously determine what you are and what you want. Until that point, you are a pawn of naturalistic tendencies.

On that note, as seeing you will probably be reluctant to respond with any sort of rebuttal and resort to additional ad hominems, this is likely my last post.

EVEN THOUGH THIS THREAD IS PRETTY MUCH OVER, WHY DON'T WE ALL APPRECIATE HOW MUCH TIME ALPHA NEO SPENT TRYING TO COMPREHEND MY ARGUMENT. maybe next time champ

[RamboPreacher]

Originally Posted by Flying_Dutchman

Yeah because you didn't want to you ****ing idiot.

Sorry, if your post was intended as a joke.

you can not kow my wants. i said what I wanted (I did not say that I NEED to). it was not a joke.

[cuttlefish32]

Originally Posted by RamboPreacher

you can not kow my wants. i said what I wanted (I did not say that I NEED to). it was not a joke.

Oh good god, he was serious. You believe that makes you have free will? Look, take it this way:
There are two sandwiches, I don't know which one you want to eat. You "choose" which one you want to eat. Why? Because you like the taste of one of them more. Why do you like it more, because you have certain taste buds. Can you control which taste buds you get? NO. THEREFORE, you have chosen which sandwich to eat because of conditions you cannot control. We have mentioned that free will doesn't exist because you cannot control what you want. So saying that other people don't know what you want is obvious.

[Fubarius]

Originally Posted by cuttlefish32

There are two sandwiches, I don't know which one you want to eat. You "choose" which one you want to eat. Why? Because you like the taste of one of them more. Why do you like it more, because you have certain taste buds. Can you control which taste buds you get? NO. THEREFORE, you have chosen which sandwich to eat because of conditions you cannot control.

Though if that were true, given the same two options an individual would then likely choose the same sandwich every time it's offered. There would be "peanut butter" people, and "bologna" people. Yet people will change their preference. Some choose one 100% of the time, while others choose a 50/50 split, with the majority falling between those.

Both options cause a desire, but the magnitude of those desires change.

[Laureate]

Originally Posted by cuttlefish32

Oh good god, he was serious.

I definitely LOL'd here

[hsilman]

Originally Posted by Fubarius

Though if that were true, given the same two options an individual would then likely choose the same sandwich every time it's offered. There would be "peanut butter" people, and "bologna" people. Yet people will change their preference. Some choose one 100% of the time, while others choose a 50/50 split, with the majority falling between those.

Both options cause a desire, but the magnitude of those desires change.

the desire to try something different overrides the desire to taste something knowingly more tasteful to you. It isn't a choice, it's a greater want. Though personally I feel the ability to arbitrarily choose between wants is good enough to constitute free will, but whatever.

what if the choice is between one pb&j that is identical to the other?

[Laureate]

Originally Posted by hsilman

1 Though personally I feel the ability to arbitrarily choose between wants is good enough to constitute free will, but whatever.

2 what if the choice is between one pb&j that is identical to the other?

1. then on what basis do you choose?
2. cereal or not ceral?

[Fubarius]

Originally Posted by hsilman

the desire to try something different overrides the desire to taste something knowingly more tasteful to you. It isn't a choice, it's a greater want. Though personally I feel the ability to arbitrarily choose between wants is good enough to constitute free will, but whatever.

Pretty much what I feel. Reasons for wants tend to stack up, over and over towards infinity. At some point something has just kick in and sort the whole mess out. Otherwise we'd never make up our mind. It would also be impossible to "change our mind", so to speak. One could also argue that reasons for wants only increase the probability of a choice. Different internal and external influences shift the probabilities back and forth at essentially a quantum level. Free will can then be described as the internal observation of the choice causing the wave form to collapse.

what if the choice is between one pb&j that is identical to the other?

Good old randomness. Ever look up what a computer has to do to actually create a random number? It's actually impossible for a computer to create a "true" random number. Best they can do is one statistically random enough.

Yes we appear to do it easily. Though if there really isn't any free will our random choices would actually be predictable.

I wonder if anyone has ever done a study of how statistically random a human is actually capable of being? Compared to a true random number generator, like dice or a roulette wheel?

[RamboPreacher]

Originally Posted by cuttlefish32

Oh good god, he was serious. You believe that makes you have free will? Look, take it this way:
....

no. let's look at it what I said.
I wanted to read al the posts in this thread. but I chose not to.
I didn't have a need to read the posts, I wanted to.
you, nor anyone else can tell me what I want is not real or anything more or less than a want. you may try to extrapolate from y lifestyle, if you knew that much, but otherwise you wouldn't be able to know for sure, becuase you aren't me.

My point isn't to prove there is free will, but rather the logic of the original premis/post doesn't work to prove it doesn't.

[Laureate]

Originally Posted by RamboPreacher

no. let's look at it what I said.
I wanted to read al the posts in this thread. but I chose not to.
I didn't have a need to read the posts, I wanted to.
you, nor anyone else can tell me what I want is not real or anything more or less than a want. you may try to extrapolate from y lifestyle, if you knew that much, but otherwise you wouldn't be able to know for sure, becuase you aren't me.

My point isn't to prove there is free will, but rather the logic of the original premis/post doesn't work to prove it doesn't.

Lol. This is really bad lol.

[hsilman]

Originally Posted by Laureate

1. then on what basis do you choose?
2. cereal or not ceral?

definitely cereal. and why must one have a basis for choice? where is that stated?

[Laureate]

Originally Posted by hsilman

definitely cereal. and why must one have a basis for choice? where is that stated?

1. so you're telling me that you have no reason for making any of the choices you make during the day?

2. i already went over this. even though i believe this is not a free choice, it really will become a pointless debate. you come across this decision maybe 1 out of 10,000 decisions. So I will say that you have free will in this one decision, but for the other 9,999 you don't. So for all practical purposes, you don't have free will.

[hsilman]

Originally Posted by Laureate

1. so you're telling me that you have no reason for making any of the choices you make during the day?

2. i already went over this. even though i believe this is not a free choice, it really will become a pointless debate. you come across this decision maybe 1 out of 10,000 decisions. So I will say that you have free will in this one decision, but for the other 9,999 you don't. So for all practical purposes, you don't have free will.

if you have free will 1 in 10k, you can't come to the conclusion you don't have free will.

Also, if you have no reason even once a day, it is again a hole in your argument. I'm not saying I can extrapolate a way to apply that in a more generic sense as to make a true argument against you, but it certainly shows a flaw in the logic you are using which might be able to figure out why your argument seems so wrong intuitively.

[Laureate]

Originally Posted by hsilman

1. if you have free will 1 in 10k, you can't come to the conclusion you don't have free will.

Also, if you have no reason even once a day, it is again a hole in your argument. I'm not saying I can extrapolate a way to apply that in a more generic sense as to make a true argument against you, but it certainly shows a flaw in the logic you are using which might be able to figure out why your argument seems so wrong intuitively.

1. Well you most definitely can not come to the conclusion that you do have free will. I mean, that example is so meaningless.

2. So I guess my only way out here is if I show that it isn't a random decision. See this is where things get messy, unnecessarily messy.

Given the pbj sandwhich whatever situation:
1. Okay so, I said that all decisions are results of wants
2. You give example of pbj sandhwhich. how exactly does this go against my argument? Can you elaborate on it a bit so i don't ramble about the wrong thing?

[hsilman]

Originally Posted by Laureate

1. Well you most definitely can not come to the conclusion that you do have free will. I mean, that example is so meaningless.

2. So I guess my only way out here is if I show that it isn't a random decision. See this is where things get messy, unnecessarily messy.

Given the pbj sandwhich whatever situation:
1. Okay so, I said that all decisions are results of wants
2. You give example of pbj sandhwhich. how exactly does this go against my argument? Can you elaborate on it a bit so i don't ramble about the wrong thing?

if there is no distinction between the choice, then there are completely equal "wants", therefore there is no competing want for which to be greater, so if the want preempts the decision(which is your argument) how can you determine the outcome? The decision supposedly was based on a greater want, but in this case there are no greater wants.

Your argument is essentially that wants are predetermined by physical reactions, with no input from the person. I;m giving at least one example where the decision is either (a) not based on wants, or (b) not able to be shown to be unwillingly predetermined.

[markcheb]

Other than standing there all day in indecision and being left handed and having in the past been most satisfied by reaching across your body....

With the two sandwiches I don't see what the difference is other than location, they would in essence be two identical ideas that would satisfy an identical desire. So wouldn't that in essence make it choosing a pbj or choosing a pbj?

[hsilman]

so, you want a pbj, but which pbj you want is up to you?

[markcheb]

define "you".


Honestly I dunno. I have hard enough time around here coming from a "Reformed theology" angle.

[Laureate]

Originally Posted by markcheb

Other than standing there all day in indecision and being left handed and having in the past been most satisfied by reaching across your body....

With the two sandwiches I don't see what the difference is other than location, they would in essence be two identical ideas that would satisfy an identical desire. So wouldn't that in essence make it choosing a pbj or choosing a pbj?

Lol. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. You aren't really making a choice. But I don't want to take that route just because it will get messy and it intuitively seems wrong.

And markcheb is right, there will be a difference in location. So one will be easier to grab...

[hsilman]

Originally Posted by Laureate

Lol. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. You aren't really making a choice. But I don't want to take that route just because it will get messy and it intuitively seems wrong.

And markcheb is right, there will be a difference in location. So one will be easier to grab...

assume you're ambidextrous and they are equidistant from you.

if any choice is not the result of a want, then you can't say all choices are the result of a want. It goes to the heart of your argument.

[Laureate]

Originally Posted by hsilman

assume you're ambidextrous and they are equidistant from you.

if any choice is not the result of a want, then you can't say all choices are the result of a want. It goes to the heart of your argument.

I am going to say you develop a want. You come up with some bull**** on why picking one is better than the other. I am saying without a want it would be impossible to make a choice. In this situation, you won't pick either one until you come up with a reason (followed by a want) why you should pick one or the other.

I have been in this exact same situation where two are identical and it doesn't matter which I pick. And as dumb as it sounds, every time I try to come up with a reason why I should choose on or another. Regardless, I still know that feeling. It's like you freeze.