Summations Only

Hi all, interesting discussion. As I see it, simplistically "free will" would mean being able to chose A or B courses of action (and chose A), while determinism would mean having the illusion of choice (while taking course A).Seeing as - in either case - course A is taken, this makes it difficult to sort (unless you could go back and chose to take B).However, this is also complicated by the fact that there are a lot of previous experiences etc involved, particularly in adults, that come into play in the (apparent?) decisions made. And yet it seems that every time you are confronted with a nun you make the same choice, rather than sometimes yes and sometimes no. To my mind this raises the question of constraints on the choices available.Is this really a "free" choice, or is it one that is it a learned response, a conditioned response, or a (genetically or whatever) predetermined response?A learned response would be based on past personal experiences or the taught experiences of others, where B was tried but A was found to be a better choice for the individual to make. A learned response person would make the same choice under the same circumstances, but it is a considered response that is open to modification with new information or different conditions.A conditioned response would be based on training and positive\negative feedback regarding what is considered acceptable and non-acceptable behavior for the individual. A conditioned response person would always make the same choice under the same circumstances, unless the conditioning was countered.A predetermined response would be one where the circumstances leading to the (illusory) choice event determine which path is taken. If these circumstances are always the same then the same result will occur, but if there are different circumstances then a different path is possible, but it would still be predetermined. The question then is why you don't want to, as that seems to determine your response, yes?To my mind this gets into the area of all your learning, all your experiences, and all your conditioning, all your personal development as you grow from a baby to an adult -- your worldview ...... and your worldview predetermines your (initial) reaction to situations. (iirc there was a study cited here that showed that people make up their minds first, and then look for reasons that support having made that decision -- ie does Dr Adequate actually choose not to rape the nun or does he rationalize\justify his (predetermined?) not raping the nun by saying he didn't want to do it?).We often think of babies as a tabula rasa ... waiting to be filled in with learning, experiences conditioning and development, but no predetermined aspects of personality\persona\behavior, and yet twins behave differently?We also think of children below the "age of majority" as not being capable of making adult\informed decisions (their learning, experiences conditioning and development are not complete), and yet there is wide variation in when (if ever) this ability to make "proper" decisions occurs in individuals. Now one could say that the chain of events that occurred during a persons life (that form their worldview) up to the moment of choice then predetermine the result ...Enjoy.

Hi Dr Adequate, My point with bringing up the issue of worldview and past education, experience etc, is that in essence many things have already been (pre)decided:I've seen many women that I would on some level like to seduce or encourage to participate in a mutual sexual experience, but I have never considered raping anyone: I've already made that decision regardless of who is a theoretical target.Likewise I've also previously decided to consider nuns in a non-sexual context, so I don't see suddenly deciding to consider a nun in a sexual context as a viable decision to consider.Pre-decisions would not necessarily mean predestination nor lack of free will. The problem is personal history muddies when the decision is made in many cases. Consider a simple situation: I am lost downtown, I have some idea how I got to where I am, but I don't really know where that is, or how to get to my destination; I have a "feeling" that I should be going in a generally north-westerly direction, but there is a choice of two roads -- A going west and B going north. I don't really prefer one over the other, but want a little of both. Either stands a chance of getting me closer to my destination, but I don't know which one will be better in terms of the end result.Do I have free will to choose A?
Do I have free will to choose B?(so I am now the "man in the street" ... ) But if I decide to flip a coin to choose between A and B, is that choice (to flip a coin and abide by the result) not made by free will? Certainly it would not be predetermined, yes?If I knew the city, knew where I was and how to get where I wanted to go, then this part of my worldview would determine what choice I would make. It would in effect be pre-decided rather than predetermined.Enjoy.Edited by Zen Deist, : subtitleEdited by Zen Deist, : clrty

Hi xongsmith What about the sunflowers that he painted again and again,or Monet and his lilypads?Several attempts to realize what they want to paint.Enjoy.

Hi xongsmith But if it were "obsessive compulsive determinism" would that not drive them to paint the same picture over and over? Instead what we see are slightly different approaches to painting the same subject, and to me this indicates free will in choosing a different view to paint.Now, I spend a fair bit of time entertaining myself with Sudoku puzzles. Each one has a (supposedly) single correct solution, so in one sense I am predestined to find that solution or fail to solve the puzzle. I have a technique that I use to find the solutions, but how it is implemented is fairly random, as I can chose a different sector, row or column to start with, and this choice proceeds with every step until a point is reached where only the last remaining square needs to be filled in.The simplest puzzles yield fairly quickly to the technique, the moderate ones take a little more time to analyze, and the difficult and very difficult ones often require some guessing -- and again I have many options on where to start, often backing up and taking a different starting point. Occasionally I erase all squares that I filled in and start anew.Now I may be "obsessive compulsive" about continuing until I have found a solution, but there are many paths to finding the solution, and the one taken is chosen by free will.Enjoy.

It seems to me that everybody is trying very hard to over-think this.Perdition raised the issue of the definition of will: This is a definition for Will¹ where the word usage is for an auxiliary verb rather than a noun.Further down is:

quote:

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Will²
noun
1. the faculty of conscious and especially of deliberate action; the power of control the mind has over its own actions: the freedom of the will.

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That seems to me to make the usage very similar to what we are discussing as "free will" ...He also says (and later repeats): Or it could be a tautology, or it could be just a slight refinement of the concept, rather than a wholesale difference - as in a discussion about wine one can talk about

1. wine
2. white wine, and
3. aged white wine

So let's look at the same dictionary to see what they say for the definition of

quote:

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Free Will
noun
1. free and independent choice; voluntary decision: You took on the responsibility of your own free will.

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So it is an independent decision that you voluntarily make on your own, while will (unmodified) can involve others and a social context.I voluntarily open my browser to my Soduko site and independently select one of four games shown in preview (with different levels of difficulty). Then I start the game in a blank square of my choosing ...I have exercised free will. I have also exercised will.Enjoy.

Hi Modulus, But (a) picking the blue shirt would mean having a preference to live as the reason behind the choice, and (b) there is still the option to pick the red shirt as an act of defiance if that was what the person wanted to do.Would not an act of defiance be an act of free will?Enjoy.

In Message 194 I said Such pre-decisions would give the illusion of a predetermined response, only changing when new input challenges the basis of the predecisions.In Message 223 I said The reason I think people are overthinking this issue, is because just free will does not seem to be enough, rather the argument is for ultimate free will. This takes us beyond our personal experiences and understanding of how things work, and dumps us into the world of metaphysics and supernatural determinism.We experience will. We experience making independent decisions, and thus we experience free will. The difference of will and free will is the simply degree of independence of our decisions, rather than in the kind of decisions made. To me this seems to invoke the same kind of indeterminate question as we have on the existence of god/s, and assuming that god/s and deterministic universe exist.Of course god/s could easily BE the source of such ultimate determinism (and I have some difficulty with the concept of determinism without god/s), but they are not necessarily linked: god/s could create without inflicting\causing determinism. God/s that create a universe optimized for chaos and then sit back and observe the results would be an example of a universe created without determinism.We can't know for sure, but we can proceed on the basis of what we believe, knowing that such behavior has served us well so far. We will, of course, proceed to do just that anyway ... Personally I think that if free will is an illusion, that it is an incredibly strong one, reaching down to determine everything that I think, not just what I do, akin to the illusion that everything we see is illusion rather than evidence of reality, so I'll wear the red shirt on this one.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : clrty