Do you believe free will exists?
Justify your answer.
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Do you believe free will exists?
Justify your answer.
Idk what im talking about
How is that post at all relevant to the topic of free will?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rape
No. That would probably make this world pretty dangerous.
i failed once againQuote:
Originally Posted by artificial
Do you know what free will is? Let me provide a very simple analogy.
You wake up for school and your mother offers you a choice of cereal or eggs for breakfast. You consider the alternatives and you make the decision based on what you feel like.
Now, did you just exercise free will, or did you simply take a pre-destined path?
i thought you were talking about the other freewill....Quote:
Originally Posted by Artificial
Free Will.Quote:
Originally Posted by Artificial
10chars
Yes,
God gave us free will so we can do things right
But people abuse too much of their free will
So look what free will did to our planet.
Did it get better or for the worse?
Maybe I should rephrase it. Do you believe free will is true or not?
Poster above me said 'no' then when on to post as if he thought it correct.
Hmm...Quote:
Originally Posted by Artificial
Another fail for me
No, everything that happens/happened we're already chosen to happen.
In other words you believe in fate?Quote:
Originally Posted by Taylor123123
There is no way to know if everything that happens, was already chosen by some higher being.
But it's nice to think that I am not on a set path, with no way of ever changing it.
I don't believe in free will. I haven't for some time now. I had to prove it as my final for Philosophy, and I did.
I think the most evidence against free will can be shown by epiphenomenalism. Your brain knows what you'll choose before you do. Based on what's logical (mind-body problem) and psychologically evident, there is no free will.
I found my Philosophy dialogue:
Quote:
Charles:
As an epiphenomenalist, I believe that mental states, such as happiness, sadness, choosing to move, et cetera, are a result of physical states. As shown by Benjamin Libet, your brain releases chemicals or electric pulses to perform a task milliseconds before you "choose" to perform it. In light of this study, I believe there is no free will.
Ian:
Epiphenomenalism in no way negates free will. Prove me wrong.
Charles:
Epiphenomenalism shows that thoughts come after physical reactions in the brain. Free will is a product of choice, choice is a product of thought, and thought is a byproduct of physical reactions. Therefore free will is a physical reaction and not subject to be changed by any non-physical thing; therefore putting an end to the mind-body problem as well.
This is not all forms of epiphenomenalism, however. Some say that only some mental states follow physical states. I say that's just wishful thinking. Physicalism makes the most sense.
Ian:
But you must remember this very important facet of existence: is this an objective reality we live in? It clearly is not, since we cannot prove anything other than our own mind, as shown by Descarte. The idea that any physical stimulus creates thought is a paradox in itself. How can something not provably real stimulate the only provable process in existence?
Charles:
Sure, if you want to be an idealist and don't believe that physical things exist, but that begs the question of who or what controls your ideals that you do not, such as what we perceive to be reality itself.
Ian:
According to Carl Jung's theory of the Collective Unconscious, it's not "who or what" that controls how we perceive reality. Instead, it's all of us that have ever lived. Because we operate under a collective unconscious, it's all the experiences that everyone has ever had that shapes perception.
Charles:
Yes, but even a collective unconscious cannot, while maintaining that there is free will, explain how your choices can be determined through the physical figment of your imagination before you even choose them. This means some outside force - be it a collective unconscious or a god - knows your choices before you do in order to create that figment. If it isn't feeding those choices to you, it knows what is, and it certainly isn't you.
Ian:
It cannot just be physical occurrences that shape perception. Take, for example, that the majority of people consider hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD to be the most important and life changing experience of their life, and it's just a hallucination; it's all in the head.
Charles:
LSD and other hallucinogens are physical things. They cause physical reactions in the brain, which produce the mental side effects. Hallucinogens do produce a major argument that a reality can "exist" without really existing. However, I see this as more evidence towards physicalism in that the brain is capable of experiencing any reality, but through evolution, only the brains capable of experiencing reality closest to what it actually is survived. People who saw fire as candy or tasted the sweet taste of cyanide didn't make it to spread their genes to what is left of us today.
Ian:
The fact that we are not conscious of it is essentially making for the segue to free will. If there's no way to be conscious of the fact that free will is only technically an illusion thanks to pragmatism, then what's the difference? Yes, everything can be broken down do an action-reaction level, but where's the fun in that?
Charles:
Just because the truth's not fun doesn't mean it's not the truth. One could argue that their false religion is "more fun" in knowing that there is a god who will give them eternal life, but for the sake of advancement of knowledge, we must deny such comfort zones. I don't deny idealism, and believe it holds equal water - especially in the area of solipsism, where your mind is the only thing that exists - but I feel physicalism offers the most sensible explanation based on what we believe we know thus far. It's Occam's razor at work.
i feel that life isnt predetermined. everything you do can impact the set course that you are on, so in a sense free will alters destiny. so i believe in destiny but i believe in our power to control it through free will.
Nope free will is not real its a lie like everything else
no.
Everything we do is from a psychological standpoint from what makes us feel comfortable, or uncomfortable. Such as sitting right next to someone in a waiting room with other open seats. Or at a movie theater.
So all of our actions and reactions are just typical responses.
Trust me, if I had free will, I'd be bus surfing right now.
I think that freewill does not exist, but instead there is numerous paraell univereses that are created when a choice is presented.
in your example of choosing breakfast for example, if You wake up for school and your mother offers you a choice of cereal or eggs for breakfast, you choose eggs say, at the same time another baby universe is created in which you chose instead cereal.
I saw that theory on the History Channel once.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ash
Ontopic: I believe, that no, there is not free will. Every choice you make is based off past psychological experiences and you subconsciously base the rest of your decisions off events of similar likeness.
It's not so often you see so many people who realize the fallacies of 'free will.' How refreshing. :)
When you think about it every choice you make is free will...since your freely willing to do it withought getting charged...Get it
Aren't you hilarious? :rolleyes:
Your proof is based on a specific outlook that has no more credence than any other out look. Its no better than say "God is real because in the Christian view point there is a god."Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
I believe in free will. To be brief "Cogito, ergo sum". I am my body, my brain, and my soul acting in conjunction. Soul controls brain, brain controls body to some rough extent though that parts are not necessary for the existence or function of each other for the soul can function alone. I am self aware, which mean I would be able to tell if I was being controlled. If things were predestined then there would be no such thing as a moral conflict or a choice, you would make your decisions without pause and all answers would be clear.
Also don't challenge my soul part your argument is based in duelism.
"Cogito ergo sum" has nothing to do with a soul. It simply states that you exist, not that your soul exists, or that you have any control over your own existence. Epiphenomenalism proves that your soul does not control your brain. But before we get into that, maybe you should define soul? And explain how your brain knows what your 'soul' is going to decide before your 'soul' even knows what it is going to decide (this is epiphenomenalism)? My argument is the exact opposite of duelism. I'm saying that the soul doesn't exist, that the mind doesn't exist. Physicalism is the exact opposite of duelism, so you must not have understood anything that I said. I explain it thoroughly in the quote I posted.Quote:
Originally Posted by C0FFINCASE
Well I contend you are wrong sir, the idea of "Cogito ergo sum" is intertwined with the idea of the soul. It is The every foundation of the duelist view point. For several key reasons: To establish your existence by think is to establish that one is not being controlled but has the free will to think in the first place. By establishing the self you establish the mind, soul, or whatever you wish to call it. In this you establish accountability which establishes morality.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
These things said: My argument is going to be based in the "cogito" argument. By establishing I exist and that I reason, then something else can't be in control of me so I must be.
Here are some definitions:
Body: "By the body I understand all that which can be defined by a certain figure: something which can be confined in a certain place, and which can fill a given space in such a way that every other body will be excluded from it; which can be perceived either by touch, or by sight, or by hearing, or by taste, or by smell: which can be moved in many ways." ~Descartes
Free Will: "Our having the power of choosing to do a thing or choosing not to do it. It consists alone in the fact that in order to affirm or deny, pursue or shun those things placed before us by the understanding, we act so that we are unconscious that any outside force constrains us in doing so. Making us masters of our actions and thereby merit praise or blame." ~Descartes
Argument:
"To reject everything as absolutely false as to which I could imagine the least ground of doubt, in order to see if afterward there remained anything in my belief that was entirely certain...But immediately afterward I noticed that whilst I thus wished to think all things false, it was absolutely essential that the "I" who thought this should be somewhat and remarking that this truth "I think, therefore I am" was so certain and so assured that all the most extravaincapable of shaking it, I came to the conclusion that I could receive it without scruple as the first principle of the Philosophy for which I was seeking." "What am I?" "I am not more than a thing which thinks, that is to say a mind, or a soul, or an understanding, or a reason…. I am, however, a real thing and really exist; but what thing? I have answered: A thing which thinks." ~Descartes
Therefor I am a think that thinks and by thinking I establish my free will to think and reason. Meaning I make decisions and choices, constantly.
How does the mind commune with the body? You strike at the one thing the duelist can't answer. We accept the fact that the body and mind are harnessed as the body reacts to the mind's will which we establish as our will. They can be separated at death, we know the body is mortal and we are unable to prove that the soul is immortal though you can give evidence that the soul lives after death from accounts of people that have come back from "death" and claimed to have seen "the light". The best answer I can provide is that the mind/soul is out of phase with this plane of existence, that it is not entirely on our level of existence or on its own, that it manifest its self in the human form because that is the form with which is is most in tune. I then have to thoughts on why the mind/soul is released from the body in death and what happens to it there after. In death the body give off enough energy that it helps the mind/soul return to phase with its own plane of existence or the body in life gives of some energy/field that locks the mind/soul to it and in death the energy/field is no longer produced and the mind/soul is free. After death either the mind/soul travels to another plane or there is for lack of a better word spirit quality to this plane that our physical senses can't perceive and the mind/soul can, thus free of a physical body is stay on this plane and just interacts with the spirit qualities of this plane.
God made a plan for all of us.
Free will?
No.
Prove me wrong. :3
I just might be able.Quote:
Originally Posted by Coak
God's plan and free will are not mutually exclusive. You have to consider omniscience and predestination as different. Just because God knows what you will choose does not mean he made you choose it. Rather in because he is God and see till the very end of time and beyond as well as into the past he knows all thing because he's already seen all things. You have in your life time made all your choices yourself and for yourself God has merely observed them. God's Plan is merely that God has all ready seen and know all things and in knowing them has communicated them to humanity through his acts, Son, and Word. (if you're Christian and not part of Calvinism any way, you're Jewish drop the Son part and we're good. If you're Lutheran based Christian then you're like a Scientologist and think the special people are picked out to go to heaven and everyone else isn't and you can't change it but you can do whatever you want in this life. Islam can't decide and Hindus get to choose for themselves. )
Firstly, you're confusing mental states with souls. Secondly, having a mental state does not mean you have the ability to control that mental state. You're making those assumptions completely out of thin air. Thirdly, "cogito ergo sum" does not mean you have a mental state or physical state. It simply means you exist. Whether you exist as a physical state or you exist as a mental state or you exist as both is debatable (and, honestly, duelism is the theory with the least amount of support).Quote:
Originally Posted by C0FFINCASE
Or has thoughts put into ones head. As provable, one can hook a machine up to your head and know your decisions before you know them. Again, I'm certain you either didn't read the dialogue I posted or you didn't understand them. I covered this topic in-depth. There is no way that you are coming up with your own thoughts if someone [or something] else can know them before you do.Quote:
For several key reasons: To establish your existence by think is to establish that one is not being controlled but has the free will to think in the first place.
How does having a mind give you "accountability" or "morality"? Why do people with minds not have morals? Why is morality subjective?Quote:
In this you establish accountability which establishes morality.
Are you starting your first semester of philosophy this year? You're leaving a lot of details, logic, and reasoning out of your statements.
The "cogito" argument does not state that you reason.Quote:
These things said: My argument is going to be based in the "cogito" argument. By establishing I exist and that I reason, then something else can't be in control of me so I must be.
Most cutely, he states that all he can deduce is that he is a thing which thinks. You're going out on a huge, unexplained limb as to how thinking is something outside of physical. My computer can react to input. Does it "think"? Does it thus have a soul? Can you prove that, by thinking, you are doing anything different than said computer? Can you prove that thinking is anything outside of a physical reaction? What part of the cogito argument states that thinking is not a physical reaction? It merely says that you exist because you think - not that thinking is a mental task. Descartes may have believed it to be one personally, but that doesn't make it what is true. The very quote you gave shows that he himself could go no further than to say that he exist and that he thinks. Just because it's longer does not make it any more duelist.Quote:
Body: "By the body I understand all that which can be defined by a certain figure: something which can be confined in a certain place, and which can fill a given space in such a way that every other body will be excluded from it; which can be perceived either by touch, or by sight, or by hearing, or by taste, or by smell: which can be moved in many ways." ~Descartes
Free Will: "Our having the power of choosing to do a thing or choosing not to do it. It consists alone in the fact that in order to affirm or deny, pursue or shun those things placed before us by the understanding, we act so that we are unconscious that any outside force constrains us in doing so. Making us masters of our actions and thereby merit praise or blame." ~Descartes
Argument:
"To reject everything as absolutely false as to which I could imagine the least ground of doubt, in order to see if afterward there remained anything in my belief that was entirely certain...But immediately afterward I noticed that whilst I thus wished to think all things false, it was absolutely essential that the "I" who thought this should be somewhat and remarking that this truth "I think, therefore I am" was so certain and so assured that all the most extravaincapable of shaking it, I came to the conclusion that I could receive it without scruple as the first principle of the Philosophy for which I was seeking." "What am I?" "I am not more than a thing which thinks, that is to say a mind, or a soul, or an understanding, or a reason…. I am, however, a real thing and really exist; but what thing? I have answered: A thing which thinks." ~Descartes
Descartes never said that thinking established free will or reason. Maybe you should re-read your quote a little more in-depth. He states that he knows nothing more about himself than that he is "a thing which thinks." He gives a mind, a soul, a reason, and an understanding as examples of things which theoretically think - but not what he believes or has proven to be the case. At the same time, a physical thing can theoretically think without the need of a metaphysical entity. You have yet to prove that that isn't the case or that your logic is any less farfetched.Quote:
Therefor I am a think that thinks and by thinking I establish my free will to think and reason. Meaning I make decisions and choices, constantly.
I wonder why. :rolleyes:Quote:
How does the mind commune with the body? You strike at the one thing the duelist can't answer.
Firstly, the body separating from the mind at death changes per belief. Not all duelists believe that. Secondly, living briefly after death does not prove immortality. Thirdly, seeing "the light" is not evidence of a metaphysical entity.Quote:
They can be separated at death, we know the body is mortal and we are unable to prove that the soul is immortal though you can give evidence that the soul lives after death from accounts of people that have come back from "death" and claimed to have seen "the light".
Alas, epiphenomenalism. Again. Disprove that a machine can't know your decisions before you do (because it's been proven that they can), or how a machine knowing your decisions before you make them somehow still allows an opening for free will. And how said explanation makes more sense, taking into account the mind-body problem. And not forgetting hurdles you'd have to jump to prove that an outside source that can use physical things to determine a decision prior to the decision-maker still leaves room for metaphysical entities.
I do not think there is a such thing as free will. And I do not think there is a pre-designed path.
I think everyone has a set of possible options and answers based on their life and the current situation.
Sure there are plenty of arguements about it but if you studied a person and their reactions to certain sets of obsticales for enough time I am sure you could have a lay out of everything that occurs.
Example;
Put in a puppy in a box.
If every time you shake the box the puppy does a backflip, then you know the puppy will constantly do a backflip, and the only thing that causes it's "option" to change is better self gratification.
All people are selfish, all people will do whatever it takes for them to get whatever they truly want.
With that aspect there is no free will, only a manner of actions.
This. But now I've read it. Reassessed my argument, thought things out, reviewed somethings. Its not my first semester in philosophy, no rather is been a year and a half sense I've dealt with it on an academic level.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
I made no unacceptable claims or left off detail I just assumed you'd read Descartes in detail. I argued from all the assumptions he makes in "Dignity and Freedom" as accepted fact, thus I felt no need to restate them and highlighted the bits I felt made my argument. Still let me start over and this will be my response to your view.
All of that aside I will argue that the mind, which I like Descartes hold to be a word interchangeable with soul and the I is set apart from the body refute some of your claims and then end by sticking a sword in this Epiphenomenalist view.
A key part you've missed was that Descartes call the "thinking thing" the mind, soul, reason, ect.(making these terms interchangeable). Which is my whole point that the establishment of the self as this thing establishes for Descartes and me the soul. You say what if something is feeding me these thoughts, I say to what point. If I have no free will why is the controlling force going to waste time giving me that illusion. Why let me even ponder this or be capable of such thought? It wouldn't. It would be a waste of time, energy, and effort. What sense does it make? Surely if its feeding me logic then it its self must be logical.
Your claims of lack of free will are that the chemical and electric signals that go off in the brain that are meant to trigger action in the body have a lag time. I fail to see how the fact it takes time for signals that have to change state several times and be interpreted, recoded, and resent countless times over a network that is still beyond our complete understanding justifies your belief. I see your point on how if something know ahead of time what you will think it could be feeding you that information, but how? I mean is it even reasonable to assume it would or that it can? I can know if you stick your hand in fire you'll get burned but I can transmit that to you without language. So we are merely observing our lives like a movie and/or there is so never ending dialogue going on that is transmitting commands to us that we are there by powerless to not obey.
I disagree completely.
Further more physical and the self have to be separate because:
(1) I can feign that my body does not exist.
(2) I cannot feign that I do not exist.
Therefore:
(3) I am not my body.
(1) My body is divisible.
(2) I am indivisible.
Therefore:
(3) I am not my body.
(1) My body has a spatial location.
(2) My mind does not have a spatial location.
Therefore:
(3) My mind is not my body.
I submit that the physical reactions you are saying result in thoughts are the results of thoughts. Your counter will be the speed of thought, that if I burn myself there is a delay in my feeling it. I say the delay is due to these flawed sense with which I am observing the physical world.
My base for this is that each of us has an immaterial mind or soul that exists in a non-physical realm. The physical world is in principle equally observable to all of us, but the mental is not.
Information that reaches us through our senses is notoriously fallible; though the world may appear to us to be a certain way, it may well be other than it appears to be. Our senses can lead us to make mistakes in describing the world.
Our knowledge of our own minds, however, is not like that; instead it is infallible. If I introspect and judge myself to be happy, or frightened, or to disbelieve a certain proposition, then my judgment will always be correct. This is because we have privileged access to our own minds.
Finally that the mental is irreducible and that it cannot be fully explained in non-mental terms. Brain-states or behavior are attempts to explain the mental with non-mental. There is more to mentality than physicality, and so any attempt at a reductive definition of mind is doomed to failure.
An since I expect you'll challenge me with the "flaws" and "lack of support" of dualism. I'll point out you manage to avoid but one of those flaws at the cost of gaining several.
The fundamental difference between the mental and the physical, the root cause of the problem of mind-body interaction, is no less problematic for epiphenomenalism. However difficult the difference between minds and bodies makes it to understand how mental events can cause physical events, the idea that physical events can cause mental events is equally bewildering.
Epiphenomenalism, then, is just as problematic. What is worse, though, is that it lacks the intuitive appeal of dualism, and so offers no benefits to off-set the difficulties. Though it seems to us that such mental events as beliefs, desires, and decisions have an effect on what we do, epiphenomenalism holds that this does not happen. Epiphenomenalism thus reduces us to mere spectators of our lives, watching what happens but unable to affect it. If we are going to accept a theory as problematic as epiphenomenalism, then we might as well go for a full-blown interactionism.
*I have borrowed some of the statements above from sites that I used to review some points on both sides.
Except that's an incorrect definition. Not only did Descartes not say these things were interchangeable (he listed them as separate examples for what may cause thinking, not different words for thinking), but he erroneously excluded physical objects being able to cause thinking. I do not believe in free will, but I believe in thinking. Physicalism does not say thinking does not exist, it says metaphysical things do not exist. Being able to think does not prove the existence of metaphysical things. Descartes gives metaphysical things as examples of what can think - not what he has proven to be responsible. In fact, he doesn't even list them as the only possible examples. They were merely examples and nothing more.Quote:
Originally Posted by C0FFINCASE
That's the point of philosophy. I personally don't believe there is a controlling force. But it can be proven that your thoughts are determined before you think them. There must only be a controlling force if you're not a physicalist. Occam's razor, for that reason as well as the one stated in my dialogue, points to physicalism.Quote:
You say what if something is feeding me these thoughts, I say to what point. If I have no free will why is the controlling force going to waste time giving me that illusion.
But if you want to speculate, it shouldn't be hard. For the same reason a child plays with his toys [that don't have free will]. Boredom. To see how long and how well it can trick you into thinking you have free will. A strange sense of humor. Because it's an everlasting, omnipotent being that plans on doing every possible thing in his power which includes manipulating your mind in the exact way it is doing right now, and you're just one of infinity experiments. Because, for some omniscient reason that humans can't understand (that's a common theist argument, right?), it's the best way to run the universe.
That's quite a statement to make. How do you know it wouldn't? Because it defeats your argument? Because that's not how philosophy works. That's how Occam's razor works. And if you're going to play that card (which is a valid philosophical move), then your argument lost before you ever reached duelism. Now if you're going to ignore Occam's razor and move into the duelist territory, you're not going to be able to just blow off something because you don't understand it (why a being would fuck with your mind).Quote:
Why let me even ponder this or be capable of such thought? It wouldn't.
Either prove how you know a being wouldn't, or drop your nonsense.
A waste of infinite time, infinite energy, and infinite effort. This being is human now? And these resources are limited?Quote:
It would be a waste of time, energy, and effort. What sense does it make? Surely if its feeding me logic then it its self must be logical.
The being may be logical (not that logic implies metaphysicalism). In fact, the being may be metaphysical. Which is the summary of my dialogue, if I remember correctly. What it comes down to is, either there are no metaphysical things and we don't have free will, or life is duelist (yet the mind-body problem is unsolved) and there is no free will. Occam's razor solves that in a heartbeat.
It's a pretty unhidden statement. The lag time addressed is not the time between your thoughts and your actions, which I take it you are misunderstanding it to be. The lag time is the time between your brain telling you to think it and you thinking it. That is to say, before you eat an apple, you *think* (or decide) to eat the apple; but before you *think* (or decide) to eat the apple, your brain has already told you that you were going to eat it. This is not free will. Your brain is deciding without your input.Quote:
Your claims of lack of free will are that the chemical and electric signals that go off in the brain that are meant to trigger action in the body have a lag time. I fail to see how the fact it takes time for signals that have to change state several times and be interpreted, recoded, and resent countless times over a network that is still beyond our complete understanding justifies your belief.
Brain: Eat the apple.
You: I'm going to eat the apple.
Free will is merely an illusion in this. Your decision was not metaphysical, nor was it even a decision that you were capable of changing (since your input didn't even come till after it was already decided).
No. Hence my repeated use of Occam's razor; hence physicalism and there being no metaphysical realm or duelism. However, since your 'free will' can be proven to come after physical stimuli, it is even less reasonable to assume that you are in control of something that can be proven to be controlling you.Quote:
I see your point on how if something know ahead of time what you will think it could be feeding you that information, but how? I mean is it even reasonable to assume it would or that it can?
Good for you?Quote:
I can know if you stick your hand in fire you'll get burned but I can transmit that to you without language. So we are merely observing our lives like a movie and/or there is so never ending dialogue going on that is transmitting commands to us that we are there by powerless to not obey.
I disagree completely.
1. I already stated that a completely metaphysical reality (lack of physical) is possible. I merely ruled it out as less likely. But don't get confused - I still proved that duelism is impossible.Quote:
Further more physical and the self have to be separate because:
(1) I can feign that my body does not exist.
(2) I cannot feign that I do not exist.
Therefore:
(3) I am not my body.
3. Way to make a huge fallacy. Your previous statements are about what you can prove, not what is proven. What you should have said is, "I can neither prove nor disprove that I am my body," which takes us back to square one.
2. Again, your ability to think.Quote:
(1) My body is divisible.
(2) I am indivisible.
Therefore:
(3) I am not my body.
1/3. No one ever stated that your ability to think stemmed from your hand, shoulder, face, or leg. If you were to "divide" that part of your brain which decides, "you" (or your ability to think) would go away/die/however you want to call it. This is only more evidence for my argument - that "you" and your ability to think are merely a function of your brain. There is plenty of documented evidence that brain damage will cause "you" to disappear or kill both you and your body entirely.
3. You are your body.
No, that's your theory. That you're supposed to prove. Your mind has a spatial location in your brain. That's the physicalist argument. The duelist argument is that your mind doesn't have a spatial location. You're only making it harder by having to explain how the two can interact - and you've already admitted you can't.Quote:
(1) My body has a spatial location.
(2) My mind does not have a spatial location.
Therefore:
(3) My mind is not my body.
Hopefully I explained this well enough in my example above. You surely misunderstood epiphenomenalism, because these delays are two separate things.Quote:
I submit that the physical reactions you are saying result in thoughts are the results of thoughts. Your counter will be the speed of thought, that if I burn myself there is a delay in my feeling it. I say the delay is due to these flawed sense with which I am observing the physical world.
Prove it?Quote:
My base for this is that each of us has an immaterial mind or soul that exists in a non-physical realm. The physical world is in principle equally observable to all of us, but the mental is not.
Don't forget to disprove epiphenomenalism and physicalism beforehand, though.
At first, I agreed with you. Then you said that part about minds that was totally incorrect. Don't forget about mental illnesses. Everyone's mind is different. Hell, on many different planes as well. Morality, logic, intelligence, mental strength, perception (of oneself; not of physical things). These all change from person to person, with some being undeniably fallacious.Quote:
Information that reaches us through our senses is notoriously fallible; though the world may appear to us to be a certain way, it may well be other than it appears to be. Our senses can lead us to make mistakes in describing the world.
Our knowledge of our own minds, however, is not like that; instead it is infallible.
Except it hasn't failed and been explained perfectly. So I'm not sure what you're getting at?Quote:
Finally that the mental is irreducible and that it cannot be fully explained in non-mental terms. Brain-states or behavior are attempts to explain the mental with non-mental. There is more to mentality than physicality, and so any attempt at a reductive definition of mind is doomed to failure.
No, it's really not. These "mental events" are not metaphysical. Which shows a complete misunderstanding of epiphenomenalism if you thought it had anything to do with duelism - there is no mind-body problem in physicalism. Your mind is just the CPU and RAM of a powerful computer. Your thoughts are not metaphysical, but just a combination of all the information both your environment and, more importantly, your brain are giving you. It's an illusion, if you will - a side effect of calculations. This is further proven by the fact that I can easily probe around your brain and manipulate your thoughts. I can make you happy, sad, angry, hear voices, orgasm, forget basic math and logic, or even make you think you're Napoleon Bonaparte. The brain has long been proven to control thoughts. Hence psychology and hence how medication can alter someone's thoughts - from making their thoughts stop telling them to kill themselves to making the 'voice of god' go away to making them think slower to making them think faster to making them not think at all.Quote:
An since I expect you'll challenge me with the "flaws" and "lack of support" of dualism. I'll point out you manage to avoid but one of those flaws at the cost of gaining several.
The fundamental difference between the mental and the physical, the root cause of the problem of mind-body interaction, is no less problematic for epiphenomenalism.
However difficult the difference between minds and bodies makes it to understand how mental events can cause physical events, the idea that physical events can cause mental events is equally bewildering.
I lol'd. Benefits and appeal do not make something true. Yes, it lacks sounding awesome and fun, only to be replaced by logical and sound. How silly a belief.Quote:
Epiphenomenalism, then, is just as problematic. What is worse, though, is that it lacks the intuitive appeal of dualism, and so offers no benefits to off-set the difficulties.
Truth hurts? I know plenty of people who don't believe in free will yet have no hardship coping with this fact. I think you're thinking about it all wrong - nothing will change. If you stop believing in free will, you're going to be the same person you always were. You're not going to magically stop thinking and start watching a movie.Quote:
Though it seems to us that such mental events as beliefs, desires, and decisions have an effect on what we do, epiphenomenalism holds that this does not happen. Epiphenomenalism thus reduces us to mere spectators of our lives, watching what happens but unable to affect it.
k? Except a little beyond that, as interactions with anything can affect you.Quote:
If we are going to accept a theory as problematic as epiphenomenalism, then we might as well go for a full-blown interactionism.
According to your view point they are different. What is a mind, a reason, an intuition, a soul? In the end for your view point its some non-existent metaphysical garbage. In terms of their function, it is the same regardless of what you call it. You're arguing semantics.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
Occam's razor does not function in the sense of "its less complicated to have some metaphysical thing that is me controlling my body so there must not be one". Occam's razor functions that if A=C, B=C, then A=C and there is no need for the statement involving B.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
You reason for the illusion of free will will be challenged shortly.
Because there is no reason for it to, that's not Occam's razor that's common sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
As to your reason for the illusion of free will and these statements would be that a being of infinite power and knowledge beyond human comprehension is bored? If you're going to say that its not human so has no reason to tire and energy is thus no issue, then how could this being know boredom? Surely in its greatness it is beyond such a thing. I've already adressed this Occam's razor garbage.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
I can't believe you don't see the problem with that logic. If my brain is what deprives me of free will and thus I am my body I ought to be able to function without it.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
No. You're use of Occam's razor seems misguided. We know that thought cause things and that physical things cause thought, its and endless feedback loop. You know that when you want to move your hand it moves, and the thought is the cause of it, then at the same time some electronic discharge cause the thought, and some metaphysical things caused the discharge, ect.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
That my friend is Descartes argument in chapter one boiled down to the bones. There is no fallacy there. You misunderstand the reasoning. My body may or may not exist, but I exist no matter what thus my body and I can not be the same thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
No, you have no proof I am gone. You have no proof my body is me. This only means the machine is broken and that the controlling force can't access it. Regardless of if it is me or something else you can't just say I'm gone because a body that you think is me doesn't function any more. If you want to look at brain damage as evidence then there are plenty of case where people have suffered brain trauma and stayed alive and themselves. People live with knives and poles sticking out of their head.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
That's is an argument. My body has a physical location. My mind does not. Simply because I can't explain the interaction of a mental/metaphysical thing in terms of the physical doesn't make my theory less credible. On top of that you have the same issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
I don't think I misunderstand.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
I already have in the prior three arguments.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
You can't access the mind of another. You can only perceive the body which may not function properly or may be not be perceived correctly by your flawed senses. Mental illnesses may stem from either or a combination of these. The fact Morality, logic, intelligence, mental strength, perception (which does differ from person to person physical or otherwise) are due to the extent at which each person exercises logic. There are truths, Descartes called the "lights". 1+1=2 was his example that is true regardless of who you are. Decartes argues the same is true of these other things as well and that if you uses logic you can uncover more "lights" which give you the ability to find more "light" as each new "light" strengthens your collective "light".Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
Except it hasn't. What cause this physical reaction? What causes that? ect. You done nothing to explain any thing only changed what is to be questioned. We both know if your argument had been of any real consequence you'd be a renowned philosopher and asked to publish a book.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
You seem to misunderstand epiphenomenalism. Its classified as a derivative of dualism. The system says that the physical cause the mental nothing more.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
The lack of intuitive appeal means it makes no sense. The mind rejects the idea naturally. There is no logical reason for the mind which is aware of itself to believe its being controlled when it decided the world around it is real even if perceived incorrectly at times and in certain ways.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
Actually you're not thinking about it right. If you accept this view then you don't actually exist in the grand scheme of things you're a fleeting dream with in a dream. Life means nothing. Reason and logic aren't really as they are arbitrary systems constructed in some illusion by illusions. If we want to say Occam's razor applies in then method you want to use it then there should be no mental events. They would have no more effect "than a shadow's reaction to the steps of the traveler whom it accompanies". A major problem with this whole drastic view point of yours is that if mental events have no causal relationships they can't be objects of memory or awareness. You are aware your view point is seen a really crazy way to try and solve the mind body problem from the dualist view point and has more arguments against it than dualism.Quote:
Originally Posted by GAMEchief
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Many argue that data such as the Bereitschaftspotential undermine, rather than support, epiphenomenalism. Such experiments rely on the subject reporting the point in time when conscious experience apparently occurs, which relies on the subject being able to consciously perform an action, and on conscious experience being effective enough to prompt a response. Such a premise contradicts epiphenomenalism, which claims that conscious experience has no effects and therefore cannot be measured. Hence, so the argument goes, any experiment that detects whether or when conscious experience occurs argues strongly against, not for, epiphenomenalism.[3] Alternatively, a property dualist in acceptance of physical mental states might respond to this by arguing that the subjective conscious experience or qualia believed to be mapped to the measured or objective conscious experience does not prompt a response and has no effects.
Another criticism of epiphenomenalism is that the presence of the theory of epiphenomenalism seems to contradict the very idea. Most would agree that thinking is a mental process, but, if epiphenomenalism is true, how could someone ever express the idea of epiphenomenalism? It would be impossible, because this "expressing" would require the banned connection between mind and behavior. If epiphenomenalism is true and thinking is a mental process, then its truth is ineffable. So in the example above, Pierre cannot convey his pleasure. Alternatively, a property dualist in acceptance of physical mental states might respond to this by arguing that mental processes such as thinking are both physical (objective) and non physical (in this case subjective).
Additionally, manyargue that the history of epiphenomenalism is revealing. It was concocted as a potential solution to a problem facing dualism: By what mechanism does the mental realm affect the physical? Epiphenomenalism provides an out: The mental realm simply doesn't affect the physical, so the issue is moot. Because it arose out of an attempt to save another conjecture rather than by its own merits,epiphenomenalism can be seen as suspiciously motivated. Alternatively, a property dualist in acceptance of physical mental states might respond to this by arguing that separation of reality into two ontological categories is not necessarily an attempt to save another conjecture based upon an assumption of physical determinism, or the product of an inherited belief system, but forms the basis of the distinction between scientific and non scientific philosophy.
Green (2003) has argued that epiphenomenalism does not even provide a satisfactory ‘out’ from the problem of interaction posed by substance dualism. According to Green, epiphenomenalism implies a one-way form of interactionism that is just as hard to conceive of as the two-way form embodied in substance dualism. If it is a problem how mental events can influence physical events, how is it any less of a problem how physical events can influence mental ones? Green suggests that the assumption that it is less of a problem may arise from the unexamined belief that physical events have some sort of primacy over mental ones. Alternatively, a property dualist in acceptance of physical mental states might respond to this by arguing that the initial problem of how non physical events can influence physical ones was a product of an inference of physical determinism, and not a problem of metaphysical conception.
Free will does not exist. Going back to Artificials post, you are not excersizing free will. You are choosing from 2 choices. Free will would be saying, "I want pizza." and getting it. Although there may be alot of choices you can make, there are only a certain amount of choices which you can make.
Free will would be "I'll become a flying monkey who eats cheese whenever I want it."
~Fluxo
ever think that maybe, even it is all predestined choices, its because god or said higher being already knows what choices we would choose in the first place. even if you don't believe in god, to not believe in free will...fyl
That's idiotic. There are set choices for one. I can ask you to stand or sit and you can choose to pull out a gun and shoot me. Two you have free will with in the bounds of the laws of reality. Materializing pizza is not free will its having god-like powers and being able to create shit by thinking.Quote:
Originally Posted by fluxo
Yes i do believe in free will.
Everyone has the right to do whatever they want whenever they want, but when they abuse this right, it can be taken away. Thats why we have jails.
Free will is what makes us stronger and smarter. If we make a bad choice then we know not to make the same mistakes again.
I do believe in free will because people have the right to say and choose what they want to do until they reach their own demise.
Yes, in my viewpoint. I'm not the one saying they exist. In your viewpoint, which is the context in which you are using them, they are not the same thing, therefore you cannot use them interchangeably. Nor is that even the point. They are examples and not the limit of choices. You must prove that physical things are incapable of creating the illusion of metaphysical things before you can assert that physicalism is not possible or that duelism is true, or prove that duelism is somehow more likely (which, given the mind-body problem, is impossible).Quote:
Originally Posted by C0FFINCASE
Or, as I'm using it, "the simplest explanation or strategy tends to be the best one," and it can and has been used in such a way philosophically for a long time.Quote:
Occam's razor does not function in the sense of "its less complicated to have some metaphysical thing that is me controlling my body so there must not be one". Occam's razor functions that if A=C, B=C, then A=C and there is no need for the statement involving B.
You reason for the illusion of free will will be challenged shortly.
No, I don't believe in a higher power. I'm saying there are plenty of reasons which you cannot disprove therefore cannot rule out.Quote:
As to your reason for the illusion of free will and these statements would be that a being of infinite power and knowledge beyond human comprehension is bored?
Prove it. You cannot attribute human qualities to an inhuman entity. It's reasoning, be it boredom to an emotion or logic that we do not comprehend, can be anything in an infinite pool of things we are not aware. You cannot disprove that this isn't the case so making a claim beyond this point is unfounded and simply wishful thinking. You found the end result before you started looking.Quote:
If you're going to say that its not human so has no reason to tire and energy is thus no issue, then how could this being know boredom? Surely in its greatness it is beyond such a thing.
Without what? You brain doesn't deprive you of free will that you never had in the first place.Quote:
I can't believe you don't see the problem with that logic. If my brain is what deprives me of free will and thus I am my body I ought to be able to function without it.
Correction: thoughts do not cause things. That's the duelist point of view. Physical things cause both thought and other physical things. Thought causes nothing. You've shown blatant misunderstanding of what epiphenomenalism is all about and proves.Quote:
We know that thought cause things and that physical things cause thought, its and endless feedback loop.
No, I know that a physical thing told my hand to move, followed by me wanting to move my hand, followed by my hand moving (not because I wanted it to, but because a physical thing told it to). No metaphysical thing ever caused the discharge.Quote:
You know that when you want to move your hand it moves, and the thought is the cause of it, then at the same time some electronic discharge cause the thought, and some metaphysical things caused the discharge, ect.
Yes, Descartes argument boiled down to the bones is "I can neither prove nor disprove that I am my body." You are and have been asserting that is something it is not. Descartes never proved duelism. Ever. Ever. He proved that nothing can be proven but his own thoughts. What he tried to prove, but didn't, is what causes his thoughts. He did not deduce what his thoughts were, nor what his thoughts weren't. Leaving them to possibly be his body. He does not say that he exists no matter what. He says that he exists. He does not assert that he would exist if his body did not exist. He asserts that he exists and that his body may or may not, in its current state.Quote:
That my friend is Descartes argument in chapter one boiled down to the bones. There is no fallacy there. You misunderstand the reasoning. My body may or may not exist, but I exist no matter what thus my body and I can not be the same thing.
And you cannot prove that you're not. Thus your assertion is fallacious. You cannot say that your body can be divided while you cannot, without backing it up. You statement, exactly, is "I am not my body because I cannot be divided," [because if my body is divided nobody knows what happens to me].Quote:
No, you have no proof I am gone.
Epiphenomenalist proves that your body is you. But I digress. I did not make the assertion. You were trying to prove that your body is not you, and you had an error in your argument. Not knowing if the your mind and body are the same is not the same as knowing that they're not. You said your mind cannot be divided, which you do not know (in fact, schizophreniacs, sufferers of D.I.D., and seizure patients who have their corpus callosum cut have multiple thoughts stemming from outside their control within their one mind; to be exact, the latter has multiple thoughts within their one body, but only one in their mind); you do not know if you die when your body dies, therefore you do not know that your mind is not your body.Quote:
You have no proof my body is me.
Yes, depending on which part of the brain is damaged, which only further proves my point. Nobody has ever lived through damage to the important areas of the brain.Quote:
This only means the machine is broken and that the controlling force can't access it. Regardless of if it is me or something else you can't just say I'm gone because a body that you think is me doesn't function any more. If you want to look at brain damage as evidence then there are plenty of case where people have suffered brain trauma and stayed alive and themselves. People live with knives and poles sticking out of their head.
Yes, yes it does.Quote:
Simply because I can't explain the interaction of a mental/metaphysical thing in terms of the physical doesn't make my theory less credible.
And what is that? Epiphenomenalism explains thought perfectly and how it is not metaphysical. If you'd stop showing such lack of understanding about what epiphenomenalism says and is, you'd get that.Quote:
On top of that you have the same issue.
It's blatantly obvious that you did. You're asserting that it says things that it most certainly does not.Quote:
I don't think I misunderstand.
Other physical reactions caused by other physical reactions. The same reason an ocean has waves without a thinker pushing them. The same reason rain erodes a mountain without a thought making it crack. Take a chemistry class - that's what causes it. This isn't "my" argument. It's an argument used by a plethora of philosophers for as long as time - authors who have published books. You seriously think that every famous philosopher was a duelist? Asinine.Quote:
Except it hasn't. What cause this physical reaction? What causes that? ect. You done nothing to explain any thing only changed what is to be questioned. We both know if your argument had been of any real consequence you'd be a renowned philosopher and asked to publish a book.
I lol'd. I honestly don't know why I'm bothering to discuss this with you now. To analogize it, you just stated that atheism is classified as a subgenre of Christianity because they believe in Satan. You completely misunderstand epiphenomenalism. It is not duelist in nature (although some may spin it off to be; I know there are some beliefs like that; but I made it clear that I'm arguing for physicalism).Quote:
You seem to misunderstand epiphenomenalism. Its classified as a derivative of dualism. The system says that the physical cause the mental nothing more.
And given my sickness and headache, I'm going to have to quit here. I'd contemplated it before when you showed lack of understanding for the core belief I'm trying to argue, but I tried. Now that you bluntly state that you don't even know the most basic principles of the belief, I don't know why I'm trying.
In hopes that you'll get it, physicalist epiphenomenalism (the most abundantly used and cited form of epiphenomenalism) states that physical things cause physical things and that all metaphysical things are actually physical things that merely appear to be metaphysical. The mind exists. That is fact. Whether it is metaphysical or physical is the debate. Whether it is metaphysical or physical, it is still the mind. Perhaps you're just so used to thinking of it as metaphysical that when it is referenced at all, you take it in a metaphysical manner. I've seen others misinterpret epiphenomenalism similarly. However, whenever an epiphenomenalist (or epiphenomenalist article) references a commonly-believed-to-be-metaphysical element, it means so in a physical manner. Your mind, as a physical byproduct of physical reactions.
Hopefully if you ever figure out where you misinterpreted the belief, you can go back and reread about it, and find the answers to your questions. Either in this topic or on Wikipedia or some other philosophical database.
Until then, I'm not going to explain how atheism isn't a subgenre of Christianity to someone who thinks atheists believe in Satan. You know?
EDIT:
And don't get me started on the other people in this topic who think that free will has anything to do with human rights. I facepalmed hard. Sadly, I had to do it more than once.
we somewhat have free will
someone more powerful is always controlling us whether it be your boss, your parents, your wife, etc etc
you get your free will but its limited and always is or there is rules