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Forums - General Discussion - How to disprove free will using basic logic

 

Do you agree with me?

Yes 9 12.00%
 
No. You are wrong but I can't prove it 11 14.67%
 
No. You are wrong and I w... 25 33.33%
 
I'm just confused... 10 13.33%
 
See results 20 26.67%
 
Total:75
Wonktonodi on 16 April 2012
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:
Wonktonodi said:
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:


I obviously cannot correctly answer that but yes, I believe that everything is determined.

 

My point by this thread is though that I see two options:

1. Everything is determined

2. Randomness shapes our and nature's actions 

 

In any case, we do not shape our future (using free will). It's either determined or random.

I asked how you feel. You can only answer a question like that correctly :P there is no wrong its predetermined

Now I disagree that things are that simple. If you can accept such a thing as randomness why can't you accept free will?

You believe in two extremes but no middle ground. you are saying that all thoughts, emotion and creativity are all physics everything preset to do what it will do and some random events shaping the way. you may no know this is what you are arguing, but you are denying everyone their humanity. If we are already doing to do all we shall do, we are nothing more that the laws of the universe acting out.

Something I am aware of though is a belief like that is complete. There is nothing you can't explain. All things will fit into random or predetermined. You may not be able to give the details on the predetermination with how many forces are acting on everything at once. With how many action and interaction are taking place, but you don't need to.

I find it amusing in fact that you believe you were predetermined to come up with that belief. While I believe it is your choice to have that belief.

If I were to think like you I would find everything pointless and probably kill myself. So many thing that happen would just have happened for no reason other than that's how it would be with the randomness involved.  So I believe differently because I choose to and because I choose to I can be a better person. You may dismiss all that as physics and chemicals, but if people lived thinking that nothing mattered I see a world where people life not worrying about consequences only living for enjoying the moment. After all weren't they predetermined to anyway?

 

 

Underlined: So do I :P

Bolded: I do find everything pointless at times, but then just embrace my destiny and enjoy life as it comes.

Everything: Yes, I do see life as something completely materialistic.

Italics: Yup. Learn to live with it.


how do you embrace it though? do you choose to? or do you just wait for it to happen?

how do you learn to live with it? knowing that every emotion thought and creative moment you have had was just inevitable? 

how can you every really feel mad about something when you know it was meant to happen? how can you feel pride in anything you do?



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IIIIITHE1IIIII on 16 April 2012
Wonktonodi said:


how do you embrace it though? do you choose to? or do you just wait for it to happen?

It just happens wheather I like it/keep it in mind or not.


how do you learn to live with it? knowing that every emotion thought and creative moment you have had was just inevitable? 

You get used to it. I used to be a Christian a few years ago so it's actually a great U-turn, lifestyle-wise.

 

how can you every really feel mad about something when you know it was meant to happen? how can you feel pride in anything you do?

That's a very interesting question that I have kept in mind for some time. I am well aware that there really is no reason to be angry at all since things were bound to happen, but the animal inside you makes it happen anyway :P As for the pride, I am just glad to be as fortunate as I am compared to most people.

 





McGran on 16 April 2012
Euphoria14 said:

As much as a am enjoying this conversation I can't help but feel bothered by this topic right now, lol.

I am sitting outside right now (I didn't leave work early, it's just that the day was ending, lol), enjoying a Vodka and Redbull and watching and enjoying my daughter playing with the new bubble gun we bought her yesterday while we were out shopping.

I don't if the creator of this topic has kids, but as someone who has one, it is way too hard to sit here and accept that everything that is going on right now and seeing where my daughter is because of what I teach her (As well as the pre-preschool we put her in daily) has little to nothing to do with anything. I find that to be, whether you believe in your physics or whatever, to be absolutely insane.

As someone who believes that nothing is random, how do you think that everything, including what I am doing, drinking and watching my daughter do this very moment, is all part of a predetermined set of actions?


If I were to live a life thinking that none of the actions I perform are of my own doing, I would ponder all the time and just wonder to myself "What life am I living?", because if you truly believe that you have no influence on how your life plays out, then really, how are you to really enjoy any of it?


Realize that some of this may be written due to me having some drinks, so if any of it offends, please understand that is not my intent. My typos, if you find some, are not determined either, they are just a product of the alcohol.

Ok, I'll dip my toe in these waters and hope that I don't fall in.

Think of a determined universe as a movie where everything and everyone everywhere is a character.  Once a movie has been recorded that's it - no matter how many times you watch it's always going to turn out exactly the same as every other time you watched.  Our emovie (life, the universe and everything) was recorded at the instant of the big bang.  From that point on everything that has and will happen is fixed, ergo no free will.

However, only an omnipotent being will ever be able to watch our movie and the characters have no idea that they are in a movie (and by extension they have no idea that they have no free will) so they make decisions in the belief that they are decisions of free will.  In the only way that will ever make sense to the characters they do have free will.

So to sum up:

Determined universe = no free will, but since it is impossible for us to "watch the movie" we are compelled to act as if we have free will.

 

For day to day living the only question that really matters is, "Do I have a choice?"  On any decision you make the answer to that question must be "Yes".  Everything else falls under the domain of the theoretical, theological, philosphical and mathematical.

Think about it, if anybody could genuinely argue that they didn't have free will nobody would be in jail.



Wonktonodi on 16 April 2012
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:
Wonktonodi said:


how do you embrace it though? do you choose to? or do you just wait for it to happen?

It just happens wheather I like it/keep it in mind or not.


how do you learn to live with it? knowing that every emotion thought and creative moment you have had was just inevitable? 

You get used to it. I used to be a Christian a few years ago so it's actually a great U-turn, lifestyle-wise.

 

how can you every really feel mad about something when you know it was meant to happen? how can you feel pride in anything you do?

That's a very interesting question that I have kept in mind for some time. I am well aware that there really is no reason to be angry at all since things were bound to happen, but the animal inside you makes it happen anyway :P As for the pride, I am just glad to be as fortunate as I am compared to most people.

 



it's things like these though that make me more sure there is free will than not. I do not have control over what happens, but I do have some control over what I can do about it.



Jay520 on 16 April 2012

When the brain makes a decision, it's making an output based off of inputs which you have no control over.

These inputs are determined by what you see, hear, feel, smell, & taste. The brain is of the universe, not independent of the universe. It follows the laws of nature. It can't control the laws of nature, thus it cannot control itself.

It can only learn based off of what it percieves in the universe (coupled with various innate parameters).

The brain is just a bunch of atoms. There is no inner force within each person that can determine it's actions. The two things that makes people have different brains are:

1.) Different brains are born with slightly to majorly different parameters (which you can't control obviously) and...

2.) Different people experience different perspectives and thus they mature differently. You do not control how you experience these perspectives, your brain just receives information, evaluates it, and forms what it 'thinks' is the best decision.

- -

. I remember reading something that said everyone's personality is mostly determined by age 5. I find this to be true for the most part. Think about your peers from first grades. The shy kids are still shy. The disobedient kids probably grew up to still be disobedient.

Ask yourself: How was my personality when I was five? How much have I changed? Who/ what can I blame for my personality at five? What if different people raised me? Would I be the same person today?

Now, you could say "Well once you become an adult, you can change yourself". It's not that simple. At age five, you're going to do what your brain finds best and you're going to KEEP doing those things. The only thing that can deter your path is if you percieve something that teaches your brain that it must change to be better. You can't decide that thing you percieve.

- - -

At least that's my opinion. I could be wrong, but I think it makes sense. Please let me know if you agree or disagree. :)



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Jay520 on 16 April 2012

Checl out these threads also:

- How much control do we have over our personality?
http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=140618

- Do humans have free will?
http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=135831



Netyaroze on 16 April 2012
Sal.Paradise said:

Quantum effects are only significant on a microscopic level. On a macroscopic level their effects are 'averaged out' in the thermodynamic/entropic soup, thus we have common properties for materials etc etc.

Translated: I don't think quantum theories are significant enough in this debate, but that I haven't really read much on that strand of the issue. 


Several hypotheses have the brain working with quantum effects:

 

http://machineslikeus.com/testable-quantum-effects-in-the-brain.html

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_brain_dynamics

But aslong as we dont have a theory for everything in physics and know how the brain works. Its all just guessing. Nobody has the slightest idea if we have a free will or not. There are so many holes in the knowledge about us and the universe that a fundamental question like this cant possibly be answered.

 



Netyaroze on 16 April 2012
Jay520 said:
When the brain makes a decision, it's making an output based off of inputs which you have no control over.

These inputs are determined by what you see, hear, feel, smell, & taste. The brain is of the universe, not independent of the universe. It follows the laws of nature. It can't control the laws of nature, thus it cannot control itself.

It can only learn based off of what it percieves in the universe (coupled with various innate parameters).

The brain is just a bunch of atoms. There is no inner force within each person that can determine it's actions. The two things that makes people have different brains are:

1.) Different brains are born with slightly to majorly different parameters (which you can't control obviously) and...

2.) Different people experience different perspectives and thus they mature differently. You do not control how you experience these perspectives, your brain just receives information, evaluates it, and forms what it 'thinks' is the best decision.

- -

. I remember reading something that said everyone's personality is mostly determined by age 5. I find this to be true for the most part. Think about your peers from first grades. The shy kids are still shy. The disobedient kids probably grew up to still be disobedient.

Ask yourself: How was my personality when I was five? How much have I changed? Who/ what can I blame for my personality at five? What if different people raised me? Would I be the same person today?

Now, you could say "Well once you become an adult, you can change yourself". It's not that simple. At age five, you're going to do what your brain finds best and you're going to KEEP doing those things. The only thing that can deter your path is if you percieve something that teaches your brain that it must change to be better. You can't decide that thing you percieve.

- - -

At least that's my opinion. I could be wrong, but I think it makes sense. Please let me know if you agree or disagree. :)


My personality changed alot since I was 5. And I saw some people change some not.

 

To the rest:

 I thought so too in the past but then I found out the universe isnt as simple as pool billiard. Things happen which cant possibly happen. And our brain works with electricity/electrons small enough to be affected by quantum effects. The Universe doesnt behave like a deterministic system. And aslong as we have no way of merging the big and the small reality we may have a free will or not.

 

It all comes down to what you want to believe



Jay520 on 16 April 2012

I'm not too familar with quantum effects so I won't debate that. It just doesn't seem possible that are brains form in a way other than the two ways I listed.



Sal.Paradise on 16 April 2012
Netyaroze said:
Sal.Paradise said:

Quantum effects are only significant on a microscopic level. On a macroscopic level their effects are 'averaged out' in the thermodynamic/entropic soup, thus we have common properties for materials etc etc.

Translated: I don't think quantum theories are significant enough in this debate, but that I haven't really read much on that strand of the issue. 


Several hypotheses have the brain working with quantum effects:

 

http://machineslikeus.com/testable-quantum-effects-in-the-brain.html

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_brain_dynamics

But aslong as we dont have a theory for everything in physics and know how the brain works. Its all just guessing. Nobody has the slightest idea if we have a free will or not. There are so many holes in the knowledge about us and the universe that a fundamental question like this cant possibly be answered.

 

Hm, those theories seem in their infancy but it's very nice to know about them, thankyou! Quantum really does pop up everywhere. 

And I completely agree with you, the question is unanswerable, and so we need to simply assume that our internal thoughts are our own in order to keep a sense of moral responsibility in society.

The concept of 'Free Will' is an anthropocentric concept anyway, so as long as we all act according to our internal desires we can be considered free.